Some material that has been on my to read list for a few weeks.
Shawn Hattingh: Venezuela and the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’: Beacon of hope or smoke and mirrors? (anarkismo.net)
“There are some hopeful signs. Sections of the Venezuelan working class have been willing to protest and go out on strike when they have felt that they have been attacked, or their interests undermined, by the state, capitalists, the PSUV and the ‘Bolivarian’ elite. It is here that the hope for the future of working class struggles in the country lies. If a genuine social revolution is to come about such struggles are going to have to be built on and transformed into a counter-power that can challenge the pro-US faction of the ruling class, imperialism and the ‘Bolivarian’ ruling class faction. This can be done by winning reforms today from the state, local capitalists and corporations from imperialist powers, and building on them so that momentum is gained in a revolutionary direction. By definition this also means such struggles will have to break with the state and organise outside and against it. The working class, therefore, needs to organise against the state and capitalists to force concessions from them; and not go down the path of embracing sections of the elite in the name of ‘Bolivarianism’. It is, for that reason, vital that the working class identify the ‘Bolivarian’ elite and the state as class enemies, and recognise the state for what it is: a central pillar and instrument of the ruling class, which can and does also generate an elite from its ranks.” [via]
Solidarité Ouvrière: Quelques notes sur la résistance ouvrière au nazisme
“On a tendance à voir dans l’Allemagne de 1933 à 1945 un pays entièrement nazifié, oubliant que le national-socialisme était une réponse de la bourgeoisie à la fois à la crise du capitalisme et à la combativité de la classe ouvrière. C’est d’abord contre le mouvement ouvrier allemand que s’est dirigée la violence terroriste de l’Etat nazi. Ainsi, de 1933 à 1939, 225.000 personnes sont condamnées pour motifs politiques à des peines de prison plus ou moins longues et un million d’Allemands et d’Allemandes sont envoyés en camp de concentration pour raisons politiques. De 1933 à 1945, 32.500 anti-fascistes allemands sont condamnées à mort et exécutées pour motifs politiques et on estime à 1.359 le nombre de personnes sont assassinées par des agents du régime nazi entre le 30 ja2nvier 1933 et le printemps 1936.” [via]
David Childs: Fritz Theilen: Member of the Edelweiss Pirates, the children who resisted Hitler
“Fritz Theilen was a working class lad, who as a leading member of the anti-Nazi Edelweiss Pirates narrowly escaped public execution. He was born in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne, an industrial, working-class area, in 1927. Like most other school boys he was enrolled in the Hitler Youth. He was expelled in 1940 for insubordination but on leaving school at 14 he was taken on as an apprentice toolmaker by Ford motors, which had opened in Cologne in 1931. There he saw the exploitation of slave labourers.” [via]
