Our lead article, Lessons From Cincinnati: Rebellion Against Police Terror, draws lessons from the uprising of Black youth in Cincinnati this past spring. Our detailed report provides the service of examining events that the capitalist media buried. The rebellion involved a string of actions, including the taking of City Hall, that constitute the most serious Black revolt since the Los Angeles uprising in 1992. It was not only a revolt against the white establishment but against Black community and religious misleaders who attempted to derail any militant struggle. This hard-hitting article not only exposes the white establishment and Black misleaders, but the non-revolutionary left. Above all it demonstrates how the rebellion itself proved the importance and potential for revolutionary-minded black youth and workers to join and build the revolutionary vanguard.
New Bureaucracy Threatens Workers' Militancy: Overturn in New York Transit Union examines the rise of Roger Toussaint and the New Directions caucus in Transport Workers Union Local 100. ND had a reputation for militancy despite its role in helping to torpedo the movement for a strike during the 1999 contract struggle. Since taking office, Toussaint has accepted many of the attacks on workers, promoted Democrats and suppressed militants. The article points to the roadblock of so-called "rank and file" union politics and the need to fight the Toussaint regime, if the mobilization of transit workers is to go forward. The politics within this powerhouse union will be a key determinant of class struggle in New York City.
In an accompanying article, Revolutionary vs. Reformist Methods in the Unions, we discuss the relationship between building a revolutionary leadership and the tactic of critical support, which we utilized in the transit elections.
Huge Quebec Protest Confronts Trade Summit examines the protest at the imperialist Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Quebec City, Canada. LRPers participated in this event which involved a mass and angry outpouring of workers and many angry youth. Portions of the protests did succeed in embaressing and disrupting the conference to an extent. On the other hand, the protests were divided by labor bureaucrats, who shamefully steered the bulk of the labor contingent away from the points of confrontation with the cops. Protectionist demands and bureaucratic misleadership must be fought, but the bulk of the left, including the "direct actionists" have not been doing it.
Our companion piece, Protest and Repression in Genoa, discusses the subsequent protest in Italy, the murder of Carlo Giuliani and the events since, drawing out further the lessons of the struggle for revolutionary-minded workers. The mass anger reflected in these protests has again pointed to the possibility and need for an internationalist revolutionary movement and leadership. This need is becoming every day greater as U.S. imperialism is intensifying its drive to repress and defeat mass struggles around the world.
Proletarian Revolution No. 63 also includes the following important articles and editorials:
Other back issues are also available.