Blog

The revolutionary history of International Women’s day ?

The revolutionary history of International Women’s day ?

International Women's Day (IWD) has its roots in the early 20th century, marked by various events and movements that aimed to advocate for women's rights and address gender inequality. Here's a brief overview of its revolutionary history: Early 20th Century Labor Movements: The first National Woman's Day was observed in the United States on February 28, 1909, organized by the Socialist Party of America in remembrance of the 1908 strike of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, where women protested against poor working conditions. Clara Zetkin's Proposal: In 1910, during the Second International Conference of Working Women held in Copenhagen,…
Read More
The Chilean Road to socialism: 50 YEARS AFTER ALLENDE’S DEFEAT

The Chilean Road to socialism: 50 YEARS AFTER ALLENDE’S DEFEAT

by René Rojas Sep 29, 2023 Amandla 89, International FIFTY YEARS AGO, CHILE’S ROAD TO socialism suffered a devastating defeat. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military, spurred by elites, condoned by middle-class sectors and backed by Washington, toppled Salvador Allende’s Unidad Popular (Popular Unity, UP). This was a vibrant coalition government helmed by the Communist Party (CP) and Socialist Party (SP). The coup, which progressives are commemorating the world over, smashed workers’ organisations, popular movements, and democratic institutions. It murdered thousands and sent far more to torture centres, concentration camps, and exile. It ushered in a seventeen-year dictatorship and…
Read More
The West no longer World leaders in 84% of critical technologies

The West no longer World leaders in 84% of critical technologies

By Prabir Purkayastha (Posted Mar 18, 2023) Originally published: Peoples Democracy on March 12, 2023 (more by Peoples Democracy)  | I MET Prof Thomas Kailath seven years back in Delhi, where he talked about how India was on par if not leading, with countries like China in science and technology in the 90s but falling rapidly behind China today with its much bigger investments. Kailath, originally from Kerala but settled in the U.S., is one of the foremost names in the world in communications, control and signal processing. I remembered his words while reading the recent startling headlines that China…
Read More
SRI LANKA: If Tocqueville was to read our proposed Anti-Terrorism Act

SRI LANKA: If Tocqueville was to read our proposed Anti-Terrorism Act

FOR PUBLICATION AHRC-ART-013-2023October 06, 2023 An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: If Tocqueville was to read our proposed Anti-Terrorism Act By Basil Fernando Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville is the famous author of the book Democracy in America. It is one of the world's best known writings which have been appreciated by many philosophers, writers, thinkers and also people in many countries. It has also been translated into many languages.  Tocqueville was a French magistrate, a young man of 30, who, with another friend, visited the United States in 1831. His whole idea was…
Read More
GOING BEYOND FAILED LAND AND AGRARIAN REFORM

GOING BEYOND FAILED LAND AND AGRARIAN REFORM

by Mazibuko Jara Oct 2, 2023 Amandla 89, COLONIALISM, APARTHEID AND neoliberalism remain foundational in shaping the inherited dualistic, unequal and racially divided land and agrarian structure. And we still have that same structure some 29 years into South Africa’s democratic dispensation. At the heart of this structure is the domination of the food system by a few large capitalist farms and other large players in the entire agricultural value chain. The core features of this inherited land and agrarian structure are a combination of land dispossession, cheap black labour, massive state subsidisation and support of white-controlled, commercialised, and capital-intensive…
Read More

Intellectual Property, Knowledge Monopoly, and the Rent Economy

By Prabir Purkayastha (Posted Sep 16, 2023) Originally published: NewsClick.in on September 9, 2023 (more by NewsClick.in) The twentieth century saw the emergence of public funded universities and technical institutions, while technology development was concentrated in the R&D laboratories of large corporations. The age of the lone inventor—Edison, Siemens, Westinghouse, Graham Bell—had ended with the nineteenth century.1 The twentieth century was more about industry-based R&D laboratories, where corporations gathered together leading scientists and technologists to create the technologies of the future. In this phase, capital was still expanding production. Even though finance capital was already dominant over productive capital, the…
Read More
‘Political Education in Soviet Russia’ by Nikolai Lenin from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 4 No. 18. April 30, 1921.

‘Political Education in Soviet Russia’ by Nikolai Lenin from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 4 No. 18. April 30, 1921.

The speech by Lenin at the All-Russian Conference for Organizations for Political Education delivered on November 5, 1920. ‘Political Education in Soviet Russia’ by Nikolai Lenin from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 4 No. 18. April 30, 1921. Comrades! Permit me to impart a few thoughts to you that occurred to me in the Central Committee and in the Council of People’s Commissars in our discussion of the question of an organization of a central body for political education. Personally I take the liberty to remark that I have been opposed to an alteration of the name of your institution.…
Read More
Sri Lanka – YOUNG LAWYERS ASSOCIATION DEMAND AN IMPARTIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE  RESIGNATION OF THE MAGISTRATE OF MULLAITEEVU !

Sri Lanka – YOUNG LAWYERS ASSOCIATION DEMAND AN IMPARTIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE  RESIGNATION OF THE MAGISTRATE OF MULLAITEEVU !

The jurisdiction of the Mullaiteevu Magistrate has become a place of contentious judicial,  legal and political battle ground due to the Kurunthur Malai incident and the excavation of a  mass grave consisting of what appears to be the remains of LTTE carders. The Mullaiteevu  Magistrate’s Office has come under direct threat from Member of Parliament Sarath  Weerasekara who identified the Magistrate as a ‘Tamil’ Judge who is making orders inside a  ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ State. Despite condemning statements by the BASL and Lawyers’ Collective  and protests by Bars across the North and the East the pressure seemed to have continued  on…
Read More
Ceylon’s ‘Great Hartal’ of 1953: The Masses Enter History

Ceylon’s ‘Great Hartal’ of 1953: The Masses Enter History

Essay by B. Skanthakumar “It was the class struggle in free flow and it constituted the highest point that the class struggle had yet reached in Ceylon”[i] 70 years ago this month, on 12 August 1953, “a demonstration of the tremendous power of the masses in action”[ii] influenced by Left parties and trade unions, shook the recently independent island of Ceylon. It was not to be repeated until last year’s people’s uprising[iii], to which it is sometimes compared. Direct mass intervention, “the basic factor in the revolutionary process”, emerged as the new political dynamic. The uprising or ‘Great Hartal’ as…
Read More
The Coup Against the Third World: Chile, 1973

The Coup Against the Third World: Chile, 1973

Republished From: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-68-the-coup-against-the-third-world-chile-1973/ In anticipation of the fiftieth anniversary of the 11 September coup against Chile’s Popular Unity government, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the Instituto de Ciencias Alejandro Lipschutz Centro de Pensamiento e Investigación Social y Política release a new dossier analysing the coup and its effects on the Third World and non-aligned countries. On 11 September 1973, reactionary sections of the Chilean army, led by General Augusto Pinochet, left the barracks and overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity coalition. The military and other security forces began an assault on the…
Read More