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Book reviews for "Waters,_Mary-Alice" sorted by average review score:

From the Escambray to the Congo : In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (2002)
Authors: Mary-Alice Waters and Victor Dreke
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First-hand testimony of the end of the Batista dictatorship
Written by a soldier who fought in the Cuban revolution, Victor Dreke's From The Escambray To The Congo is a personal memoir and first-hand testimony of the end of the Batista dictatorship and the attempts to create a better government in its place. An insert of black-and-white photographs adds a visual touch to the gripping experiences both on and off the battlefield described in this memorable, gut-wrenching, up close and personal account of the modern history of a nation. From The Escambray To The Congo is a welcome and much appreciated addition to the growing library of personal memoirs and eye-witness accounts of the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath.

A lesson on how to bring down racism
In New Zealand, politicians, government agencies, and many businesses like to crow about how much they oppose discrimination of any kind. However, most working people who come up against racist practices know there is big gap between what these institutions say and do when it comes to dealing with instances of racism.

"From the Escambray to the Congo" is a powerfully account of how after the 1959 victory of Fidel Castro's 26 July movement over the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, the new revolutionary government set out close to gap between the word and the deed.

How the Cuban government went about eradicating Jim Crow type racism, is told through the words of Victor Dreke, a leading participant of Cuba's revolutionary movement for half a century. The capitalist foundations that propped up racism in Cuba collapsed under the weight of the hundreds of thousand workers, peasants and young people - both black and white - coming to the realisation that racism was incompatible with the new society they were fighting to transform.

As a young teenager Dreke was advised by his father to "Study and get an education and don't mess with strikes or any of that; it won't get you anywhere. Besides, that stuff's not for blacks." Fortunately Dreke did not follow his fathers advice and threw himself into revolutionary activity. Beginning as a high school activist, then Rebel Army fighter. He was a commander in the fight to root out the counterrevolutionary bands operating in central Cuba and has been an internationalist combatant and representative of the Cuban revolution in Africa.

What comes across strongly for me is how the Cuba's determination to end racism in it's own country was inextricably linked to the liberation of the Africa continent from imperialist exploitation

For the millions of young Victor Dreke's - male or female - in the mines, factories and on the high school and university campuses around the world - this book is for you.

A Living Revolution
Read this small book for a series of snapshots of what it was like to be a participant in the Cuban revolution that triumphed in January 1959. From a high school activist under the Batista dictatorship, Victor Dreke joined the Rebel Army and fought in many campaigns. The Escambray mountains in central Cuba were the scene of a bloody five-year-long attempt by Washington-organized groups to undermine the new regime. Like the Contras in Nicaragua 20 years later, these 'Bandidos' murdered literacy volunteers, health workers, and peasants who backed the revolutionary government. Dreke was a leader in the military and militia campaigns that wiped them out. His description of the Cuban mid-1960s contingent to aid revolutionary fighters in the Congo complements Che Guevara's own recently published account of this. Dreke notes how the Congo campaign, though not a success at the time, paved the way for critically important Cuban efforts to aid African liberation struggles, such as the decisive victory at Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, against South African forces in 1988. As with all Pathfinder titles, the well-thought-out maps, footnotes and glossary in this book help the reader with unfamiliar names and events. Numerous photos bring Dreke's story even more to life.


Imperialism's March Toward Fascism and War (New International)
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (1995)
Authors: Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters
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What Capitalism has in store for us and how to prevent it
This set of articles, written in the early 1990s, is even more relevant today than when they were first written. In contrast to the George Bush the elder's boast that the US was leading us all into a "New World Order" of peace and prosperity, the perspective here is a sober and realistic one: the US is leading the world toward economic depression, a renewal of fascist movements, and if the working class does not take power, World War III. This assessment was based on a series of events, including the gigantic stock market crash of 1987. Preventing World War III, and all that would accompany it, is the challenge facing working people around the world and we need to organize NOW to make sure this is not our future. In light of this, this issue of New International includes an extremely informative article on Cuba, which shows that despite the "Special Period" they were living through, without aid from the Soviet Union, the Cubans were still fighting for a socialist society and because they refused to bow down to capitalist America, they continued to be a thorn in the side of the US. All of this is even more true today, as the stock market bubble of the 1990s has now decisively burst. And what is most striking today is how the jockeying for position heading into the war with Iraq is showing just what this article said: that competition between "allies" within NATO would sharpen. Just look at all the anti-French and German propaganda going around right now and you'll see just how accurate this set of articles was and still is today.

Capitalism Has Nothing To Offer But Fascism And War
This book explains the meaning of the 1987 New York stock market crash and its repercussions; the "Special Period" (term used in Cuba for the economic crisis caused by the collapse in trade with the former USSR and Eastern Bloc, the tightening of the U.S. trade embargo, and the revolution's own admitted errors); the struggle against Stalinism and the "pockets of capitalism" in Cuba, led by the Cuban Communist Party and the revolutionary government; and why the Cuban revolution is still an inspiration for working people all over the world. The march led by Yanqui-U.S. imperialism, in the first place, toward fascism and world war, against its allies/imperialist rivals, against the post-capitalist economic foundations which survive in the workers states ( ex-USSR, Eastern Europe, China, etc.) and against the workers and farmers the world over, including those in the imperialist countries, is explained as well. Finally, this book points out that there is only one road forward for the resistance to this barbarous future: to follow the example of the Bolshevik revolution and the example of the Cuban revolution, applied to the specific conditions of each country, which is both possible and necessary even in the imperialist countries, the U.S. included. Above all, this book is a message of hope and scientific confidence in the workers and farmers of the whole world, based on the experience of the militants who are building the beginnings of a revolutionary workers party in the belly of the Imperial Beast.

what drives economics and politics today
This 1994 volume takes up the long-term economic crisis of capitalism and how it drives the U.S. rulers toward more severe conflicts with their international rivals, and toward a showdown with workers and farmers at home. It explains the rise of fascist perspectives, such as those of Patrick Buchanan and Jean-Marie Le Pen, as the inevitable product of the social crisis that is unfolding. And it describes the increasing use of military force to defend the interests of U.S. capitalism as the result of the needs of a declining empire, not just as the choice of certain politicians.


Che Guevara Talks to Young People
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (2000)
Authors: Mary-Alice Waters and Ernesto Che Guevara
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rebel's handbook
Ché Guevara Speaks to Youth
The titles of these speeches are enough to tell why this should be every rebel's handbook.

As a physician, he explained that being good people is not enough to become a revolutionary doctor - one must make a revolution. Once that revolution had won through, he explained the tasks communist youth face. This advice may be taken well to heart, because there are too many people who try to be good persons, and leave it at that.

Read el Ché in his own voice, so you can make up your own mind. This is what Pathfinder Press stands out for: offering space for revolutionaries to speak for themselves. And well earned is this addition to the "...Speaks" "series."

Historically, this individual's intellectual development may be traced in this volume. The reader can see how the ideas gelled into what was to become the first experiment in the socialism of solidarity, which was retaken in 1985, just in time before the USSR began to quaver.

Rebel Youth Of 21st Century:Che Speaks To You !
...as an equal.Too many books are out there "interpreting" Che Guevara ; most often by academics who fear and hate revolution.Here Che speaks for himself : how the Cuban revolution discovered the "road of Marx" by breaking out of the Yanqui Empire fror good; how "lone wolf" individualists do NOT make social revolutions; how to be a revolutionary MD or anything else "first a revolution must be made"; the need for a disciplined revolutionary youth organization;how to learn from fighting workers and peasants while fighting alongside them;internationalism as a necessity and a duty; the fight against postrevolution bureaucracy.These ideas as guide to action are how revolutionary Cuba has survived and will survive.Young and not-so-young fighters REQUIRE THIS BOOK as "globalized capitalism" tears our lives apart.To fight back "intelligently, as Malcolm X would say.Read "Cuba And The Coming American Revolution" by Jack Barnes side by side with this gem of a book.

Ideas needed as much now as when Che Spoke
Even if you are not so young person like myself, you can find your youth and your belief in the future,through Che's vision in these speeches. Whether speaking to a group of medical students in Havana, or a Latin American Youth Congress, or to anti-imperialist youth from around the world gathered in Algeria, Che's message to young people was not watered down. These speeches are a serious charge to young people to take the present and the future in their hands, and follow his vision of struggle for socialism, for the needs of working people, the oppressed, around the world. The ideas in this book are just as, or perhaps, even more valid than when Che lived.


Cuba and the Coming American Revolution
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (NY) (2001)
Authors: Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters
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A look at where two nations mights well be headed
Cuba And The Coming American Revolution by author and political activist Jack Barnes, is a provocative and forcefully worded examination of the history and the future of American and Cuban politics. Ranging from the utter disaster that was the Bay of Pigs to predicting a socialist revolution in American policy and a counterrevolution in Cuba, this is an informed and informative account of class struggle. Barnes especially underscores the ways in which the American working class has been steamrolled and the consequent incentives that call for change. Cuba And The Coming American Revolution is a thought-provoking look at where two nations mights well be headed and a very welcome contribution to Cuban History and Socialist Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Cuba Shows Us We Can Win
Jack Barnes, the author of this boook, points out: "The greatest obstacle to the line of march of the toilers is the tendency, perpetuated by the exploiting classes, for working people to underestimate ourselves, to underestimate what we can accomplish, to doubt our own worth." This book proves that like the Cubans the working class in the United States has the capacity to win political power. Barnes explains how after a visit to Cuba in 1960 he and other student activists defended Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion. They stood up to both campus administrators and right-wing thugs and won the the right not only to speak out but to become the makers of history, like the Cubans. Barnes explains how the Cubans as a people demonstrated remarkable courage and determination in standing up to an imperialist terror campaign, arms in hand, while continueing their revolutionary work, which included a literacy campaign the likes of which has not been seen before or since. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A BOLD SOCIAL VISION, I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOU!

For Those Serious About Changing The World
If you think, or rather I should say believe, that the "market" is the best of all possible systems, this the best of all possible countries, in the best of all possible worlds, then this is not the book for you.But if you are serious about doing something effective about meaningful social change in the "new millenium", then you owe it to yourself to buy this book.The author begins with the efforts of a small band of young people at a small Midwestern college to oppose the Yankee empire's efforts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and during the "Missile Crisis" in 1962. He shows you how and why the Cuban people then, and still today, were willing to fight and die to defend their nation and revolution, and how those everyday ordinary working people changed themselves into better humans in the process.He then explains that the only way to rid the earth of war, racism, discrimination against women, enviromental catastrophe,etc., is to do what the Cubans did, here in the "belly of the beast" --make a revolution. The alternative, he affirms, is fascism and a new world war. Finally he points to a concrete program to unify working people here and now,at home and abroad, necessary to fight back against the economic catastrophe looming before us to anyone with eyes to see.

If you are serious about making a human world, buy this book ! And pass it on to others.


De LA Sierra Del Escambray Al Congo: En LA Voragine De LA Revolucion Cubana
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (2002)
Authors: Mary-Alice Waters and Victor Dreke
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Washington is Afraid of People Like this
submitted for my friend Katy L. . . .
Forthright...gripping...delightful. Reading this book-length interview with Victor Dreke is like sitting down for a chat with a favourite uncle and being totally mesmerized by the story of his life -- which is part of yours, too. Completely uncomplicatedly, he tells of young rebels going on missions with guns that jammed at the crucial moment never-to-be-forgotten lesson on the discipline of weapons-cleaning!); being in Africa with Che Guevara (the beginning of a chain of events that eventually led to Namibian independence and the release of Nelson Mandela); and being an Afro-Cuban at the very beginning of the revolution (he was sent to a town where the rope separating Blacks from whites at Saturday night dances had only been taken down days before -- by a white Rebel Army officer). He describes the thrill in 1953 of hearing that Fidel Castro had stormed the Moncada Barracks. The action went down to military defeat -- but it was a sign that there were people who would never waver, and Dreke responded. Gives you total confidence that human beings can learn how to fight and win. Also paints a convincing picture of why Cuba is part of Africa.

dirigente de revoluciones en dos continentes
A través de la vida del compañero Dreke vemos y comprendemos los avances del la revolución cubana.

Aunque aquí en el mundo regido por el capital nos alimentan con cuentos del corte "de mendigo a príncipe", hay más provecho en una historia verdadero de una persona verdadera que nació negro -segregado y negado lo mas básico de la civilización- que ha llegado a ser dirigente de revoluciones en dos continentes.

Trazando su vida en este volumen vemos muchos capítulos de la revolución pocos conocidos fuera de Cuba. De Dreke aprendemos la resistencia a las violentas contrarrevoluciones en Cuba mismo y en muchos países de África central.

Los conocedores de la editorial Pathfinder a veces le llamamos "la editorial de los mártires" porque tantos de sus libros más populares dan voz a generaciones pasadas. Sin embargo, los casos como Dreke y Fidel Castro Ruiz nos presta el honor de contar con ejemplares vivos bajo esta imprenta.

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

Cuba:En Contra Terrorismo Yaqui;Solidaridad Con Africa
Aqui` es la historia de la campan~a de la revolucio`n cubana en contra las bandas terroristas contrarrevoulcionarias en las montan~as del Escambray, suministrado del gobierno yanqui, y la missio`n internacionalista dirigida del Che en el Congo.Victor Dreke fue comandante en ambos dos campan~nas , tambie`n peleo` en contra la dictadura Batista apoyado del gobierno E.U. Fue gente ordinario - trabajadores, campesinos, tenderos, vendedores de calle, estudiantes - que derrocarron el dictador Batista, y hicieron la primera revolucio`n socialista en las Ame`ricas.Mientras hicieron la revolucio`n, ellos se cambiaron a ellos mismos.Victor Dreke fue uno de ellos , despue`s el fue uno de los muchos dirigentes del proceso.El cuenta su historia : la historia del heroismo poco comu`n de la gente ' ordinario'. Nosotros los trabajadores ,campesinos, agricoltores pequen~os, estudiantes y jovenes luchadores por un mejor mundo vamos necestiar estudiar esta historia conjuntos preparar y participar en las luchas que el capitalismo esta` fuerzando a nosotros.


Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (2001)
Authors: Rodolfo Saldana, Mary-Alice Waters, and Rodolfo Saldaana
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Why Che's Guerrillas Lost
Did the capture and execution of Che Guevarra prove that the military actions he led in Bolivia in 1966-67 were doomed to failure?

This interview with Bolivian participant Rodolfo Saldaña reveals the opposite. His captivating description of how fertile the ground was in Bolivia and throughout South America for revolution includes the mass support and financial aid given to the guerrillas by tin miners, peasants, and students. He explains how the U.S. backed the military junta, and the real reasons for the defeat.

The Truth About Che's Last Struggle
In this firsthand account, Bolivian tin miner and revolutionary militant Rodolfo Saldan~a explains how the
guerilla lead by Che Guevara - which Saldan~a helped lead the support network for --was rooted in the
revolutionary upsurge of workers' , students' and farmers' struggles in the mid-late '60s in Bolivia and the
mass movements against dictatorship and Yanqui Imperial domination in the neighboring countries of Peru
and Argentina . As he explains from first-hand experience, Che's efforts were not isolated, driven by
desire for martyrdom, or sabotaged by Fidel Castro, as so many of Che's ' biographers' have claimed.
Excellent preface and introduction by Cuban General Harry Villegas and Pathfinder Press' Mary-Alice
Waters place the lessons of Che's final efforts in the context of the struggles of workers, farmers and youth
of today against capitalism and the Yanqui Empire.

Che Guerrilla & the struggles of Bolivian Workers & Peasants
Saldana's fits Che Guevara guerrilla struggle in Bolivia oin 1966 and 1967 into the context of workers struggles that had been shaking that country since the 1940s. He shows how Bolivian revolutionists, workers, students, and peasants welcomed Che's struggle and how the class struggle in that country advanced by Che's struggle. At the country's biggest tin mines, entire unions pledged one day's salary to support Che. Saldana, a founder and leader of the Bolivian Communist Party until he broke with them to work with Che's guerrilla, shows how the Bolivian CP sabotaged Che's struggle. With economic and social conditions in Bolivia and other parts of Latin America much worse than they were in the 1960s, this book should be read as a manual for future upsurges of struggle by workers and peasants in Bolivia and throughout the Americas.


Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (1991)
Authors: Mary-Alice Waters and Jack Barnes
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Relevant Today
Are the lives of your countrymen and women more valuable than the lives of Afghans, Iraquis, Palestinians, or those of the people of Northern Ireland? Should you support imperialist war against them? Should you restrain your struggle to improve your working conditions during today's "war on terrorism" or acquiesce to the restrictions on democratic rights for the "war effort"?

The authors of "Washington's Assault on Iraq: Opening Guns of World War II" say no, not if working people are going to advance and build a world free of inequality and war. This book is as relevant today as it was at the start of the Gulf War.

The Truth About Bush Sr-Clinton-Bush Jr's Wars
The US government never goes to war for 'democracy', 'freedom' , against 'ethnic cleansing' ,or against
'terrorism'. The US government goes to war for domination, markets, and profits, profits,
profits.Profits for families that have hundreds of millions and billions of dollars.It is their government,
not ours.In the Gulf in 1991 ( and in the region tomorrow ) war was,and is ,and will be, in the first place on behalf of Big
Oil. The superrich send working-class youth to kill and die for their interests. Not our own.In this now classic work
Jack Barnes explains the Gulf War and the increased rivalries between the market giant ( imperialist )
countries leading toward Depression, fascism, and a new world war. And what working class fighters
have done and will do -- here and all over the world --to resist and win.

the past shows the present and the future
This book shows how the Gulf war of 1990-1991 war not only a product of the continued conflict US Imperialism has with the Iraqis and other peoples of the Middle East. It illustrates how the growing tension between the US ruling circles and the imperialist governments of Europe and Japan played a decisive role in the Gulf War. Those conflicts continue to deepen to this day. As such this book is not an abstract tool about dead history, nor is this book an abstract analysis for academic or journalistic voyeurs. It is a handbook on the realities of world politics for working people, youth, and oppressed people who want to struggle against wars, imperialism, and oppression.


Playa Giron: Bahia De Cochinos: Primer Derrota Militar De Washington En America
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (2001)
Authors: Fidel Castro, Jose Ramon Fernandez, and Mary-Alice Waters
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en defensa de la reforma agraria
En menos de 72 horas en abril de 1961, Cuba repulsó una invasión de 1,500 mercenarios organizados por el imperio estadounidense. El pueblo cubano hicieron el ejemplo para los trabajadores, campesinos y jóvenes de todo el mundo por su consciencia política, solidaridad de clase, valor y liderazgo revolucionario en defensa de la reforma agraia y la alfabetización. Nos demostraron que sí se puede enfrentar el gigante y vencerle.

A timely book!
This is a timely book published just before the 40th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. It's a great way to learn about what really
happened from the first-hand accounts of the Cuban revolutionaries who defeated the US-backed invasion. If you've never read a speech by Fidel Castro, there are a couple of very good ones in this book. You'll not only learn about what happened at the Bay of Pigs, but you'll also learn why the Cuban people smashed this invasion so swiftly and decisively. Another great part of the book is the testimony of Jose Ramon Fernandez who commanded troops in the thick of the fighting. There are maps, charts, all the details
of the battle. But it's not a dry or boring account. He tells what happened from a very human and personal point of view, revealing his own mistakes and weaknesses, and recounting some humorous episodes as well. Finally, the foreword of the book tells a fascinating story of how a group of young people at Carleton College organized support for
the Cuban revolution and against the US invasion and what they learned about politics. I think you'll be surprised as you read the
book about how relevant this forty-year-old event is today.

couldnt put this book down, not even at the beach
first read this book the first day of beach season. Instead of
spending time in the water, I just sat there and read this book until it was too dark to read. This account is an activist account ofthe fight from Cuban and US fighters who see and saw the US invasion and resistance in Cuba and the United States not as history to be deciphered but part of an ongoing struggle against imperialism, against war, and for the power of working people. I never stopped caring; I never stopped seeing what was hidden from me in 1961, I never stopped seeing lessons for the future. A good read. -


The Rise and Fall of the Nicaraguan Revolution (New International, No 9)
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (1994)
Authors: Mary-Alice Waters and Jack Barnes
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Victory And Defeat:Lessons For The Future Of World's Workers
The fall of the Nicaraguan revolution was neither inevitable, nor caused by the lack of political consciousness of the workers and farmers who had made that revolution, neither was it caused by those same workers "voting with their stomachs" in 1989. No, it was the leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front ( FSLN ) and its policy of " concertación", of catering to the domestic capitalists of the city and the countryside that demoralized the working people, without gaining a single concession from Yanqui ( U.S. ) imperialism as the FSLN leadership had promised ! The working people I met in Nicaragua in 1986 during the war against the U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary terrorists were ready to make whatever sacrifice necessary ( and they were doing so ) in defense of THEIR workers and farmers government that then was in power, under the leadership of the Sandinista Front, that was still a revolutionary leadership then. The Nicaraguan people were betrayed by their leaders, who had and have to this day more faith in capitalism then confidence in the workers. The lessons of the degeneration of the FSLN and the defeat of the workers and farmers government that is treated in this book are based on the experience of of a revolutionary workers party in the U.S. defending that revolution here and opposing the U.S. dirty war, and on the socialist journalism of its permanent bureau in Managua during the ten years of the revolution. These lessons are just as important as the lessons of the victorious Cuban revolution , also covered in thumbnail sketches here .We workers and farmers here in the U.S. can still learn much from the FSLN during its revolutionary period, as we can learn from the works of comandante Carlos Fonseca, founder of the FSLN, on the road to power, referred to throughout this valuable book.

a crucial and fascinating story
The 1979 rise of Nicaraguan workers and peasants inspired freedom-loving people around the world. The FSLN led a massive mobilization that uprooted the long-standing Somoza system of repression and subservience to U.S. capitalism. The armed people began a road of social justice and genuine sovereignty. Led by the Sandinistas, they defeated the invasion of counterrevolutionary contras -- armed and commanded by Washington. Yet the FSLN, at the moment of its greatest victories, turned away from the road of leading the workers and peasants forward to the overturn of capitalism. Instead, they reversed course and abandoned land reform, workers rights, and sought to become an inoffensive bourgeois political party. Even that modest ambition was thwarted, and they lost power in 1990.

Analysis of Nicaragua for fighters for change
This book is the most complete political analysis of the Nicaragua's Sandinista Revolution, not for academics, but for working revolutionists, for workers, peasant and youth who want to change the world. It contains resolutions on Nicaragua adopted by the Socialist Workers Party starting in 1979, the historic Program of the Sandinistas by the FSLN's historic founder Carlos Fonseca, and several important articles and speeches by SWP leaders. Most unique are the fifty-page introduction by SWP leader Steve Clark and the articles by Larry Seigle, a leader of The Militant's bureau in Managua during the revolution. They document that the revolution failed, not because it was anticapitalist, but because it failed to go on to end capitalism.


Su Trotsky Y El Nuestro
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (2002)
Authors: Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters, and Steve Clark
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La revolución mundial que viene
Este libro se relata el impacto de la experiencia de un partido obrero revolucionario en las entrañas de la bestia imperial yanqui, practicando su política en el ambiente de los sindicatos fabriles cuando empezaron a retomar su base en los sindicatos después de una extendida ausencia desde los sesenta hasta los ochenta.

En aquel momento las revoluciones victoriosas en Nicaragua y Grenada estaban tomando un rumbo anticapitalista y el ejemplo de la revolución cubana dominaba el escenario mundial. En este contexto el Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores de los EE.UU. reexaminó su continuidad directa con la revolución bolchevique a través de la colaboración directa que tuvieron con Leon Trotski -co-líder con Lenín de la revolución rusa- durante su exilo en México. Trotski encabezó la batalla contra la burocracia estalinista que cortó la línea de acción internacionalista, así traicionando al flor de los luchadores proletarios y campesinos en los treinta y cuarenta. Esa burocracia, no el socialismo, cayó en 1990-1.

Los militantes del PST, con sus primeros pasos en los sindicatos industriales después de dichos años de ausencia (explicada en este volumen), se pusieron a aprender en la misma escuela de lucha y combate que los revolucionarios centroamericanos y caribeños, incluyendo las lecciones teoréticas que sirvieron como guía de acción para los cubanos. Intentaron aplicar las experiencias a la lucha de clases en los EE.UU.

Hoy en día, cuando el capitalismo está en crisis mundial y el imperio yanqui y el sistema imperialista entero está marchando a su única solución -el fascismo y la guerra mundial-, el proceso de los revolucionarios de los varios continentes y diferentes tradiciones aprenden teoría y acción uno del otro mientras participan en el combate de clases. Es más relevante que nunca plantear el curso hacia la revolución y establecer gobiernos obrero y campesino y así unir con la lucha por un mundo humano, es decir un mundo socialista.La introducción de este libro, escribido en 2002, elabora en esas temas.

mantener la perspectiva
Los fundadores del Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (SWP) de los Estados Unidos colaboraron íntimamente con Trotski desde la traición de Estalin en los años veinte. A finales de los setenta, sintieron que había la posibilidad de reestablecerse en los sindicatos, hicieron campaña para retomar la forma -además del contenido- de un partido que merece llamarse "comunista".

Pronto se hizo patente que muchos partidos filiales del Partido Mundial de Revolución Socialista no fueron más que sectas que rindieron homenaje a la personalidad de Trotski, sin contar con mayor interés en intervenir en el trabajo sindical cotidiano y arduo. El SWP revisó su raíces y fundaciones, retomó las lemas "para un gobierno de los trabajadores y campesinos" y "lo valioso del Trotski es era el continuador de Lenín."

El porqué se explica en el libro. Ya, a un año del veintavo aniversario de este discurso, todo se mantiene vigente.

Un aporte importante al movimiento revolucionario obrero
El desarrollo y el avance del movimiento revolucionario de los trabajadores dependen de los esfuerzos de muchos individuos y de dirigentes destacados. Este libro impresionante analiza el trabajo y los aportes de León Trotsky, junto con V.I. Lenin un dirigente central de la revolución bolchevique en Rusia. Después de la muerte de Lenin, Trotsky era el único que continuaba luchando por el camino revolucionario y en contra la corriente contrarrevolucionaria encabezada por José Stalin.

El autor, Jack Barnes, es dirigente del Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores en los Estados Unidos y presentó el discurso publicado aquí como parte de la discusión política de perspectivas revolucionarias al comienzo de los años 1980. Analiza el impacto importante de la revolución sandinista en Nicaragua y la revolución granadina de 1979. También el papel destacado de dirigentes cubanos en los esfuerzos para forjar una nueva vanguardia revolucionaria.

Toca cuestiones claves incluyendo las experiencias de la revolución bolchevique, la perspectiva de un gobierno de obreros y campesinos en el proceso de lucha anticapitalista, la relación entre la clase trabajadora y el campesinado, la fracasada revolución china de 1925-27, los avances y retrocesos en la construcción de una vanguardia marxista a lo largo del siglo XX.

Este libro a mi me animó mucho a estudiar más estas temas. Le invita a hacer lo mismo, y a seguir con otros títulos relacionados por el mismo autor: El desorden mundial del capitalismo, El rostro cambiante de la política en EEUU, y el número 5 de la revista Nueva Internacional: El imperialismo norteamericano ha perdido la guerra fría.


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