latin america
Bolivia's vice-president on the course of revolution
By Álvaro García Linera, vice-president of Bolivia
Translation, notes and introduction by Richard Fidler
Nicaragua: Anti-FSLN opposition seeks unity to topple Ortega government
By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer
Che Guevara's final verdict on the Soviet economy
By John Riddell
Bolivia: When minorities deny the rights of the majorities
By Miguel Lora Fuentes, Bolpress (translation by David Montoute)
How true it is that nothing lasts forever. Bolivia’s exploited classes, of mainly indigenous origin, are now confronting more than five centuries of exclusion. This territory’s original inhabitants were subjugated by the cross and the sword during the colonial period, they were harassed and had their lands taken from them under the Republic, and their culture was ignored during the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1952. Now, as they finally take state power by democratic means at the beginning of the 21st century, the dominant minority accuses them of wanting to install the ``first racist, fascist state in Latin America’’.
The current historical juncture is characterised by a profound crisis of the market economy, of liberal democracy and of the very foundations of the old republican colonial state, a monocultural, centralist and exclusionary state that has remained intact since the foundation of the Republic.
NEW! Links Dossier #1: PSUV: Birth of a mass revolutionary party
The first in a series of occasional Links Dossiers, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is making available a selection of its key articles on the exciting development of Venezuela's United Socialist Party
Nicaragua: What alternative do President Daniel Ortega's opponents propose?
By Domingo Quilez, introduction and translation by Felipe Stuart Cournoyer
June 6, 2008 -- In February, the rift between the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS)[1] and the Movement for the Recovery of Sandinismo (MpRS or the Rescate Group)[2] began to widen and become more public. Although still in an electoral alliance, the Rescate Group (whose main leaders are Comandantes Henry Ruiz and Mónica Baltodano) has made clear its disagreement with the MRS policy of trying the embrace the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance Party (ALN) and Eduardo Montealegre in some kind of electoral alliance or ``movement against the dictatorship'' (meaning the presidency of the FSLN's Daniel Ortega). Montealegre's decision to run as Managua mayoralty candidate for Arnoldo Alemán's Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) has put the skids under any electoral MRS alliance with him and the ALN that he formerly led. The ALN is now tangoing with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
The MpRS is endorsing the MRS candidates in the November municipal elections, but it is apparent that differences continue to surface between these allies.
Some more comments on Peter Taaffe's Cuba book
[This article first appeared in the Democratic Socialist Party's internal discussion bulletin The Activist - Volume 10, Number 9, October 2000.]
The following article was written at the request of Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, as an initia
Stuart Munckton
April 29, 2007 -- Este informe pretende reafirmar la línea general y las posiciones sobre la fase actual de la revolución bolivariana recogidas en el informe del 12 de febrero adoptado por el Ejecutivo Nacional del DSP. Los acontecimientos posteriores han mostrado que el análisis general, que indicaba la apertura de una nueva fase en la lucha de clases desde las elecciones presidenciales del 3 de diciembre, era correcto. Aquel texto contenía más información sobre algunos de los análisis y formulaciones recogidas en este informe, a los que deberán remitirse los camaradas para complementarlo y desarrollarlo.