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Post by michele cryer on Jul 25, 2004 0:08:20 GMT
Socialist Workers Party, Manchester branch is holding a marxist forum on 2nd August 2004 entitled :
Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution...Speaker will be Mike Gondalez.
Members from Pendle branch will be attending.
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Post by michele cryer on Aug 2, 2004 22:30:34 GMT
I've just returned from attending this forum, about the book written by Mike Gonzalez...sorry for originally misspelling his name!!
The meeting was very well attended, somewhere in the region of 100/200 people who nearly all ordered pizza at the same time, causing some little chaos in the kitchen...lol.
The chair of the meeting was Respect candidate for Bolton, Neil Mac....he spoke very well about the result of the Respect candidates in the recent elections...gaining 12% of the vote in Bolton.
Mike Gonzalez is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow...his book outlines the involvement of Che Guevara in the struggle to free the Cuban people from the Batista dictatorship in the late 50's...together with Fidel Castro Che set up a military 'guerilla' force who battled with the militia and although many of their force were slaughtered, achieved the downfall of the government 2 years later. Fidel Castro became the new government leader of the country and Che Guevara held a position in the economics of the country. However, he was at odds with Castro over the issue of rescuing the country from the embargoes which the US placed upon their resources. He looked originally to Russia for help/encouragement, but found that their 'Socialist' government wasn't the same as the kind of Socialism that he wanted for his country. Eventually, after 5 years in the Cuban government Che went to Bolivia to try to aid the people there in the overthrowing of their USA aided government. Unfortunately it was there that Che met his untimely death..murdered in 1968.
Mike explained that capitalists have tried to use the image of Che Guevara in order to sell high priced t-shirts, and the like, because his was a very popular name to be seen wearing in 1968 when he was 'deiyfied' by the Cuban people and by revolutionaries all over the world. Likewise the current Cuban government tries to use his image to settle the people into conforming to the sacrifices which they demand of them...It was pointed out that governments of places like Cuba and the USSR are not truly socialists at all...they have 'jumped on the bandwagon' of the revolutions that occurred there, and now, in the name of that revolution try to keep the working classes down...it is not that kind of Socialism that we are striving for, but the true type where the wealth is equally distributed amongst the people, to everybody's benefit...not only for us in the UK but for countries everywhere which have been ill used by Capitalist governments..
Michele
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