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By Fred Weston
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Wednesday, 07 May 2008 |
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Last week, (May 1-4) the Marxist Tendency in Italy, gathered
around the journal FalceMartello, held its national conference. More
than 175 comrades took part in the four-day event. One could feel that the
comrades are on the verge of another leap forward in their development.
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By Fernando D’Alessandro
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Tuesday, 15 April 2008 |
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Berlusconi has won. We can already hear the wailing voices
about "black reaction" and a "turn to the right". A closer look at the
situation reveals a different picture. It reveals a polarisation between the
classes of an unprecedented nature.
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By Mauro Vanetti
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Friday, 01 February 2008 |
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The centre-left government led by Romano Prodi was put out
of its misery on the night of January 24th, when a vote of
confidence was lost by five votes in the Italian Senate. As we predicted, the Left has
wasted years in supporting class-collaborationist policies in a coalition
government with the bourgeoisie that just paved the way for the return of
Berlusconi to power.
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 01 February 2008 |
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This
interview with Claudio Bellotti, Editor of FalceMartello
and Partito della Rifondazione Comunista National Executive Committee member,
was released two weeks ago, before the fall of Prodi's government. It gives a
general outlook of why the coalition failed and the general significance of
these developments.
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By FalceMartello
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Thursday, 25 October 2007 |
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A huge demonstration took place on Saturday in Rome, the biggest for some
years. Here you can see a photo gallery of the demo, including
the section organised by the Marxist tendency, FalceMartello.
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By Roberto Sarti – FalceMartello Editorial board
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Thursday, 25 October 2007 |
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Last Saturday, October
20th, hundreds of thousands workers and youth marched through the streets of Rome, called out by the main left papers to put pressure on the Prodi government to change its policies in favour of working people.
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By Alessandro Giardiello
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Thursday, 25 October 2007 |
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In what to many may seem an amazing transformation, the bulk
of the old Italian Communist Party, the biggest Communist Party in the West,
has fused with a bourgeois party known as the Margherita, to form the
Democratic Party. Here we provide the background to how this came about.
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By FalceMartello - www.marxismo.net
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Tuesday, 02 October 2007 |
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On Saturday, September 29, around 2000 workers and youth took part in an
anti-racist demonstration in Pavia, south of Milan (Italy), the biggest rally
in the small town for many years. In the recent period Rom families, from
Romania, have been the victims of an almost pogrom-like atmosphere whipped up
by right-wing reactionaries. The local Young Communists and the supporters of
FalceMartello were in the forefront of the mobilisation. Here we provide the
photos.
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By FalceMartello - www.marxismo.net
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Monday, 09 July 2007 |
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The Marxist Tendency in Italy gathered around the journal FalceMartello
organised its first ever open air festival in Bologna between June 21st and 24th.
It attracted several thousand people and was a success in every sense of
the word, financially and politically. Here we provide a brief report of the
four days and also some short
videos (in Italian).
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
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The comrades of FalceMartello organised their first ever
national festival, "Festa
Rossa", in Bologna on June 21-24. About 4000 people passed through the
festival over the four days, where they could take part in debates, eat
traditional local food at the restaurant, browse through a big selection of
books, listen to free concerts, etc. Next week we will provide a more detailed
report, but for now we invite you to watch short videos of the four-day event.
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 30 March 2007 |
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At the last congress of Rifondazione Comunista (2005) the Italian Marxists of FalceMartello presented their own national document. A comrade sent a letter questioning the kind of transitional demands presented. Here we publish the letter with a reply from the Italian Marxists, an interesting debate on what kind of demands should be raised at each turn of events.
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By the Editorial Board of Falcemartello – www.marxismo.net
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Friday, 23 February 2007 |
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On Wednesday the Prodi government was forced to resign
after losing a crucial vote in the Senate. This reveals the extreme instability
of the political situation in the country, but it also poses sharply the
contradictions in which the PRC has placed itself.
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By Roberto Sarti
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Tuesday, 20 February 2007 |
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In spite of having
promised no more NATO or US
bases in Italy, the Prodi
government has gone ahead and agreed to a big expansion of the Vicenza base. This has
provoked anger among the left electorate which was clearly seen on last
Saturday’s massive demonstration of at least 150,000.
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By Socialist Appeal USA - www.socialistappeal.org
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Tuesday, 06 February 2007 |
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An interview with Roberto Sarti of Falce Martello on growing opposition to plans for the expansion of a U.S. air base in Northeast Italy.
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 20 October 2006 |
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Last Saturday another successful meeting was
held with Alan Woods speaking near Caserta in Southern Italy, the area where
Spartacus started his slaves’ revolt centuries earlier.
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By Claudio Bellotti
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Friday, 20 October 2006 |
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Last night Alan Woods concluded his speaking tour of Italy
with a lively meeting in the CGIL headquarters in Milan. The local Milan PRC
collaborated in organising the meeting and the party’s parliamentary group
leader, Gennaro Migliore, also spoke. Over 150 people turned out to discuss the
Venezuelan revolution.
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By Alan Woods
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Monday, 16 October 2006 |
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From 11th
to 13th October in the FAO building in Rome the Fourth Gathering of Intellectuals
and Artists in Defence of Humanity took place. Present were intellectuals from
many countries, representing many different points of view, but united in their
concern for the crisis that is affecting the whole world and threatens the
future of civilization, culture, the environment and possibly the very survival
of the human race.
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By Roberto Sarti, HOV-Italy, national coordinator
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Wednesday, 11 October 2006 |
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Alan Woods is
presently on a speaking tour of Italy
organised by Hands Off Venezuela-Italy and the Marxist tendency FalceMartello.
There is keen interest in hearing a Marxist analysis of the events taking place
in Venezuela
as the successful meetings so far held clearly demonstrate. See also the picture gallery.
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Wednesday, 27 September 2006 |
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Alan Woods sarà in Italia dal 5 al 20 ottobre per una serie di assemblee sul
Venezuela e la rivoluzione in America Latina. Alan è il promotore della
campagna internazionale "Giù le mani dal Venezuela", direttore del sito
web In defence of Marxism ed uno fra i principali dirigenti della Tendenza
Marxista Internazionale, a cui FalceMartello aderisce.
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By the Comitato Casa San Pietro (Sassuolo, Moden, Italy)
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Tuesday, 11 July 2006 |
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Over 100 Arabs took part calling for the
withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
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By Ted Grant
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Monday, 26 June 2006 |
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When Mussolini was removed by a palace coup in July 1943 the masses came out onto the streets, rejoicing at the fall of the hated dictator. Ted Grant wrote an article shortly after those events stressing that this was the beginning of the revolution in Italy and beyond. |
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By Ted Grant
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Monday, 26 June 2006 |
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Following on from his previous article, Ted Grant writing in August 1943 explained the meaning of the palace coup that had removed Mussolini from power and underlined the growing mobilisation of the Italian masses that were clearly moving towards socialist revolution. |
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By Ted Grant
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Monday, 26 June 2006 |
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Ted Grant in 1943 analyses the origins of Italian fascism, how it came to power and then how it lost its base of support within society, leading finally to the fall of Mussolini and stresses the need to support the revolutionary struggle of the Italian workers. |
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By Ted Grant
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Monday, 26 June 2006 |
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Badoglio, having overthrown Mussolini in July 1943, then proceeded to impose military rule over the Italian masses. His role was to hold back the masses with the help of the Allied forces. Scandalously Stalin recognised the Badoglio government. Here we reproduce an article by Ted Grant on this turn of events written in 1944. |
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By Roberto Sarti and Fernando D’Alessandro - www.marxismo.net
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Wednesday, 12 April 2006 |
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How do we explain the fact that Berlusconi made such a surprising
comeback in the recent Italian elections? He waged a rabidly
reactionary election campaign, attacking “Communists” everywhere,
defending the better-off layers of society. Prodi’s coalition offered
the workers only more “sacrifices”, dampening enthusiam for the
Centre-Left coalition. Now a new period of instability opens up in
crisis ridden Italy.
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By Roberto Sarti
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Thursday, 01 December 2005 |
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Last Friday Italy was shaken by yet another general strike. Tomorrow the engineering workers march on Rome. On Saturday there is a protest against detention centres for illegal immigrants. Last October 25th, 70,000 students protested in Rome. The right wing Berlusconi government is under constant pressure from the workers and youth. It could be brought down today if it were not for the trade union leaders and leaders of the left parties. |
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By Simona Bolelli
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Friday, 07 October 2005 |
In June 58 working class
families, most of them North African immigrants, were forcibly evicted from their
homes in Sassuolo (northern Italy) to make room for speculative development.
They either owned or were legally renting their homes. With the help of the
Italian Marxists they are fighting back on a grand scale.
See the original article in Italian
See the Arabic translation |
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By our Italian correspondent
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Wednesday, 01 June 2005 |
On the weekend of 28-29 May, the picturesque town of Cortona in Tuscany
was the scene of a very successful national meeting of the supporters
of the Fifth Motion, the platform organised by the Italian Marxist
tendency, Falce Martello. The rally was attended by over 140 comrades
from about forty different federations of the Italian Communist Party.
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By Fernando DAlessandro
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Friday, 08 April 2005 |
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The right wing in Italy suffered a devastating defeat in last weekend’s
regional elections. Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia suffered the most,
losing 1.8 million votes compared to the regional elections in 2000 and
4.5 million compared to the 2001 general elections. This marks the
beginning of the end for Berlusconi. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Tuesday, 05 April 2005 |
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Yesterday we republished the article Wojtyla and Teresa, or a Case of Saintly Overproduction
to mark the death of John Paul II. The Italian Marxists also published
a translation of the same article, together with their own brief
comment which we are making available here for our English language
readers. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 11 March 2005 |
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This is the intervention of Claudio Bellotti at the national congress of the PRC last week, available as a transcript and as a video.
When viewing the video you have to be a little patient as there are
about 15 minutes of organisational proceedings before the comrade
starts to speak. |
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By Claudio Bellotti and Alessandro Giardiello
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
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Tomorrow the 6th national congress of Rifondazione Comunista opens in
Venice. The party is being called on to join a future Centre-Left
governmenet headed by Prodi, as it looks very likely that Berlusconi
will lose the next general election. The Marxists of FalceMartello
have intervened up and down the country in over 1000 local party
congresses warning the ranks of the party that to go down this road
would be a disastrous policy. We provide here a brief introduction by
Fernando D'Alessandro and Part One of the document the Marxists are
defending in the congress. |
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By Claudio Bellotti and Alessandro Giardiello,
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
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In Part Two of the document of the Italian Marxists, presented at the
national congress of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC)
which opens today in Venice, the comrades draw a balance sheet of the
previous congress and deal with the questions of the war in Iraq, the
crisis of capitalism in Italy and Europe and draw up a programme of
transitional demands that the party should adopt. |
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By Claudio Bellotti and Alessandro Giardiello
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
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In the final part of their document the Marxists in Rifondazone
Comunista (FalceMartello) outline the crisis of Social Democracy and
the Trade Unions. In answer to both the leadership who are preparing to
join forces even with bourgeois parties and also the sectarian fringe
who believe these mass organisations can simply be wished away, the
comrades develop a strategy based on the best traditions of the
Communist International in the days when Lenin's ideas dominated. |
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By Claudio Bellotti
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Monday, 28 February 2005 |
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The political and social position in Italy is developing at a fast pace. After several years of social truce under
the centre-left coalition government, a sharp conflict is developing. Although we are still at the beginning of the
process, we can say that its consequences will be far-ranging, and that the struggle that is now opening will affect
all layers in the society and will provoke an earthquake in the Italian workers' movement, in the unions and in the
left in general. |
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By our Italian correspondent
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Monday, 06 December 2004 |
 On
the weekend of 4-5 December, the national meeting of the comrades of
the Fifth Document took place. The meeting was held in the premises of
the PRC branch of via Confalonieri, Milan, with 140 comrades present
from all over the country. |
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By Claudio Bellotti, Member of the National Executive of the PRC
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Wednesday, 01 December 2004 |
 In
March the PRC is holding its 6th congress. Bertinotti, the party
secretary, has made a very sharp turn to the right. For instance, he is
no longer calling for the immediate withdrawal of Italian troops from
Iraq. All this is part of a deal which would allow the party to be part
of a grand coalition if the Centre-Left, “Olive Tree” alliance wins the
next elections in 2006. At this congress the Marxists of Falcemartello
have succeeded in getting their opposition congress document accepted
as an official document, which is an enormous step forward for them.
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By Paolo Grassi
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Friday, 11 June 2004 |
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We are publishing two articles from the Italian Marxist journal Falcemartello
which give a clear indication of the level of militancy that is developing
among the workers in Italy. Both the FIAT Melfi and the Alitalia disputes
highlight the growing contradiction between the will to struggle on the part of
the workers and the constant striving to hold down the movement on the part of
the union leaders. This cannot last for ever.
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By Fred Weston
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Wednesday, 09 June 2004 |
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This article should be read in conjunction with Trotsky's Problems
of the Italian Revolution. It draws the lessons from Trotsky's work and
how they can be applied today. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 14 May 2004 |
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A letter written to the Italian Trotskyists in 1930 in which Trotsky deals
with the question of the Constituent Assembly and the perspectives for Italy at
that time. He severely criticises those who attempted to mix the slogan of the
Constituent Assembly with that of workers' soviets, and also showed incredible
insight into how the process would unfold once the Mussolini regime collapsed. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Tuesday, 11 May 2004 |
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As part of his speaking tour of Italy for the Hands Off Venezuela campaign,
Jorge Martin spoke to the provincial congress of the Caserta FIOM (metalworkers'
union). As a result the delegates unanimosuly voted a resolution supporting the
UNT, the new union set up by the Venezuelan workers after the old CTV had passed
over completely to the counter-revolution. (May 11, 2004) See also Italian
version: Unità di
classe fra i lavoratori italiani e venezuelani! |
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By Paolo Grassi
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Monday, 03 May 2004 |
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A very important dispute has been going on for nearly three weeks now at the
FIAT plant in the southern Italian town of Melfi. Once used as an example of a
"difficult factory to organise" it is now in the vanguard of the
struggle of the Italian workers, with a display of militancy and determination
to win. The strike has provoked hundreds of spontaneous solidarity strikes up
and down the country. |
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By Roberto Sarti, FalceMartello Editorial Board.
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Tuesday, 23 March 2004 |
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On Saturday, March 20, more than one million workers and youth marched
through the streets of Rome, in one of the biggest demos against the occupation
of Iraq anywhere in the world. This massive turnout reflects more than just
opposition to war, but also a growing militancy among Italian workers and youth. |
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By Dario Salvetti
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Monday, 01 March 2004 |
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Violent conflict is on the increase all over the world, both in terms of
wars between nations and violent clashes between the classes. While war is waged
in the Middle East we also see a growing tendency to use more brutal measures
against the workers in struggle, with many being killed around the world. What
should the position of Marxists be on this question? This has been the subject
of debate within the PRC | |
