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Vol. 79/No. 27      August 3, 2015

 
25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

August 3, 1990

Nelson Mandela’s eight city tour of the United States registered a step forward in the international struggle against apartheid. From the ticker tape parade of hundreds of thousands in New York June 20 to a rally in Oakland, California, June 30 the response to the political message of the deputy president of the African National Congress demonstrated the extent to which apartheid is seen as a crime against humanity.

Like other mass revolutionary leaders of our time — Malcolm X, Ernesto Che Guevara, Thomas Sankara, Fidel Castro, and Maurice Bishop — Mandela is leading a mass struggle and acts and speaks as a fighter in the world. He is an example of those entering the struggle of the caliber of leader that can emerge from the struggle of the oppressed and exploited today.

August 9, 1965

PARIS — In the month or so after the coup d’état that deposed Ben Bella [in Algeria], the new regime, in one form or another, was granted recognition by the various powers, the big ones like the United States, the USSR and China, and the medium and small ones. The act of violence has thus been ratified on an international scale.

Within the country, the demonstrations that broke out immediately after Boumedienne seized power have come to an end. He does not have the capital of sympathy, of personal authority enjoyed by Ben Bella. In proceeding to a coup d’état, he created a new situation in which the first conclusion is that the Algerian revolution is weaker than before. The masses have been disoriented, and the partisans of the coup d’état encouraged.

August 3, 1940

ST. PAUL, Minn. July 27 — Seven teamsters union leaders from Sioux City, Des Moines and Omaha must enter a federal penitentiary and serve prison terms of two years each, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals here decided last week, when it denied the union leaders an appeal from a conviction in the lower federal courts.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “G-men” engineered the conviction. The sensational growth of the drivers’ union movement during 1937 in the mid-West when the 10-state North Central Area Committee of drivers unions was formed with Farrell Dobbs of Minneapolis as secretary, centered all eyes there — including the FBI. The seven will probably be confined to the Sandstone (Minnesota) federal prison.  
 
 
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