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In this definitive volume on the Mexican labor movement, journalist Dan La Botz concentrates on labor politics, the relationship of the unions to the state, and their relevance to other struggles for union independence. Prefaced by Mexican Congressman Ricardo Pascoe, The Crisis of Mexican Labor outlines the country's economic and political crises. The book also gives a complete overview of the labor movement from 1920 to 1987. La Botz chronicles workers' strikes and their results. He also demonstrates how Mexican union confederations, and their ruling bureaucracies, have clearly depended upon the material, the political, and even the military support of the state. This, the author contends, is the central problem of Mexican workers. They must develop an internationalist, socialist ideology and reorganize independently of the state. To do so will entail restructuring the entire system.
This volume is a valuable re-assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution by a Marxist historian of Latin American political history. It shows that the FSLN (‘the Sandinistas’), with politics principally shaped by Soviet and Cuban Communism, never had a commitment to genuine democracy either within the revolutionary movement or within society at large; that the FSLN’s lack of commitment to democracy was a key factor in the way that revolution was betrayed from the 1970s to the 1990s; and that the FSLN’s lack of rank-and-file democracy left all decision-making to the National Directorate and ultimately placed that power in the hands of Daniel Ortega. Pursuing his narrative into the present, La Botz shows that, once their would-be bureaucratic ruling class project was defeated, Ortega and the FSLN leadership turned to an alliance with the capitalist class.
In this counter-historical novel, Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, survived the assassination attempt of August 1940. To prevent another such attempt, his protector, Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas, had him moved to the small, isolated border town of Tijuana. There Trotsky, continues to write political analyses and books and attempts to lead his worldwide revolutionary organization, the Fourth International, though he is frustrated by his isolation from the center of developments in Europe. Watching over Trotsky, among others, are his bodyguard Ralph Bucek, a young leftist and baseball fan from Chicago, and the French-educated Mexican Army officer Colonel de la Fuente. Through th...
A dynamic new labor movement emerged in Indonesia in the 1990s, helping to bring down the brutal Suharto dictatorship in 1998. Through rare personal interviews with the activists who are leading the rebirth of struggle for democratic rights in the world's fourth-largest country, La Botz draws valuable lessons for workers in the United States seeking to build international labor solidarity.
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Since the Cold War, most historians have set up an opposition between the “American” and “international” aspects of early American Communism. This book examines the development of the Communist Party in its first decade, from 1919 to 1929. Using the archives of the Communist International, this book, in contrast to previous studies, argues that the International played an important role in the early part of this decade in forcing the party to “Americanise”. Special attention is given to the attempts by the Comintern to orient American Communists on the role of black oppression, and to see the struggle for black liberation and the fight for socialism as inextricably linked. The later sections of the book provide the most detailed account now available of how the Comintern, reflecting the Stalinisation of the Soviet Union, intervened in the American party to ensure the Stalinisation of American Communism.
If there had been a Life Styles of the Rich and Famous in the 1920s, the notorious oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny would surely have been featured. For at the peak of his powers, between 1904 and 1927, this L.A. hometown boy was one of the most important men of his times and, in fact, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. As the first to discover oil in Los Angeles--which sparked an oil boom there--this multi-faceted entrepreneur profoundly influenced the growth of both Los Angeles and the state of California. Then, as one of its earliest developers, Doheny helped put Beverly Hills on the map. On an international scale, he established vast oil fields in Mexico and virtually cont...
Placing this book in the context of NAFTA and Mexican movements for social change, journalist and historian Dan La Botz unveils the forces behind Marcos and the Zapatista Rebellion of January 1994 and re-examines the circumstances surrounding the assasination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Contains a detailed analysis of how Ernesto Zedillo and the PRI won the August 21, 1994 elections and includes an examination of widespread electoral fraud. La Botz provides a first-hand account of the founding of National Democratic Converntion (CND), the new force for democracy and social justice in Mexico led by Rosario Ibarra. Ibarra is Mexico's leading human rights activist and first woman presidential candidate.