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   Vol. 70/No. 27           July 24, 2006  
 
 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
July 24, 1981
Youth rebellions have swept through more than thirty cities and towns in Britain.

Staggering levels of unemployment, widespread poverty, rotten housing, police brutality, and racial discrimination is what these young people face, day in and day out.

The first rebellion flared in the Southall area of London on July 4. Pakistani, Indian and other Asian youth poured out to protest an organized assault on their community the night before by several hundred fascist youth. As police stood by, the fascists proceeded to assault people and attack Asian shops and shopkeepers.

The rebellion quickly spread to other areas of Britain.

An indication of the enormous pressure on [Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher was the July 12 announcement that her government would propose a special youth employment plan among other measures in response to the rebellions.  
 
July 23, 1956
JULY 18—Reports continue to come out of Eastern Europe describing a smoldering discontent among the industrial workers such as preceded the Poznan general strike, June 28. The efforts of the Kremlin-backed governments to head off recurrences of the Poznan uprising continue to combine two methods: (1) Concessions, admissions and promises; (2) repressions, frame-up and threats.

In Warsaw yesterday it was announced that 323 of the many hundreds more arrested in the June 28 events and its aftermath are still under investigation. Prosecutor General Marian Rybicki asserted that of these 64 persons are included who used the disturbances for “robbery” and “looting.” He added that a distinction was being made between “workers influenced by dissatisfaction caused by nonfulfillment of their rather justified demands,” and “reckless criminal and provocateur elements inspired by sources alien to Poland.”  
 
July 25, 1931
Behind the thick smoke of pacifist assurances and “disarmament” conferences, the imperialist world today presents a picture of a more thoroughly armed camp than the days preceding the world war of 1914.

The United States piously demands the reduction of armaments in Europe, fortified by the certainty that under any conditions its industrial and financial superiority will give it the edge in a military conflict. France has just announced that it has “reduced” its armaments as far as it intends to.

With the world crisis gaining in fury, capitalism is driven to the wall hunted down by its own inherent contradictions. The big powers are straining forward for a re-division of the world market and of world political power. They know that this re-division can be accomplished only through war. They are preparing it, assisted—as in 1914—by their “socialist” footmen.  
 
 
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