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Vol. 71/No. 44      November 26, 2007

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
November 26, 1982
In new fighting that began November 1, Iranian forces have succeeded in regaining more than 200 square miles of territory occupied by Iraqi units since Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980.

The original aim of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, when he launched the invasion of Iran, was to topple the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and weaken the Iranian revolution. Hussein feared the impact the anti-imperialist upsurge of the Iranian people could have on the toilers of Iraq and other Arab countries.

But the Iranian people have rallied to defend their revolution. The Iraqi occupiers have now been driven from virtually all the Iranian territory that they had captured in the early weeks of the war. Hussein’s own regime is growing more shaky.  
 
November 25, 1957
Events in Little Rock show that the government intends to do the least it can get away with to enforce Negro civil rights. It is attempting to retreat from the scene as hastily as possible, to the delight of the racist mobsters. No confidence can be placed in the capitalist government to defend Negro school children in Little Rock or anywhere else. The only reliable and effective defense of civil rights can be the mass organization and mobilization of labor and the Negro people.

The labor bureaucracy’s inaction on Little Rock in reality reflects high policy. The AFL-CIO is politically in coalition with the Democratic Party. What makes the default of the union bureaucrats so criminal is that the fate of the labor movement and the Negro people depends on labor’s actions in combating Jim Crow.  
 
November 26, 1932
Another pillar—albeit a very diminutive one—of the rotting structure of the Stalinist system has just fallen. In Des Moines a good half of the membership—11 to 12—are in revolt against lies and bureaucracy. They refuse to be bullied or terrorized, insist upon their rights, are studying the cause of the Left Opposition calmly and objectively. A few others are in the process of becoming convinced but all vigorously protest bureaucracy and demand our reinstatement into the party. Already we two, Barach and Gottlieb, have been expelled.

The unit meeting of Sept. 19 admitted us. The following evening a special unit meeting was called by the City Central, out of which we were violently ejected. Ten other members, protesting this use of violence and bureaucracy, walked out.  
 
 
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