Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Archives

Atlanta event promotes book by Chinese-Cuban generals

by Maggie Trowe and Gregg Schmidt

Seventy-five people attended an evening meeting at Spelman College here March 25 to discuss reading, selling, and using Pathfinder's newest book, Our History is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution.

Based on interviews with Cuban generals Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Mois‚s S¡o Wong, the book covers a wide range of subjects.

These include the revolutionary struggle that culminated on Jan. 1, 1959, when workers and peasants overthrew a U.S.-backed dictatorship and went on to establish their own government, overthrow capitalism, and begin building a socialist society; Chinese immigration to Cuba; the historic role of Cuban volunteer forces in Angola from 1975 to 1991 in defeating invasions of that country by the racist apartheid regime of South Africa; and Cuban internationalist missions today in Venezuela and other countries.

Participants hailed from Birmingham, Alabama; Houston; Miami and Tampa, Florida; and North and South Carolina. Many came from the Atlanta area.

It was the first of four such regional meetings Speakers included Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the book and a member of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party; Jos‚ Mart¡nez, secretary of the Bolivarian Circle in Miami, who was a combatant in the Cuban Revolution and a member of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces; and Jacob Perasso, representative of the Young Socialists and a leader of the SWP's trade union work.

The event was co-chaired by Ellie Garc¡a, chairperson of the Atlanta SWP, and Omari Musa, SWP candidate for mayor of Miami in 2005. Garc¡a talked about some of the activities socialist workers and young socialists in the region had been involved in recent days, including an action demanding immigrant rights the previous day. She noted that 20,000 people had turned out for a similar march in her hometown, Phoenix, March 24.

She pointed to the impact that demonstration had had on her 77-year-old father, who had long insisted he was a Chicano not a Mexican. "Yesterday he was proud to be mexicano," Garc¡a told the audience.

Musa welcomed Sobukwe Shukura, co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, and James Gillam, professor of Chinese history at Spelman, and introduced them to the gathering. "Working people in this country are radicalizing slowly but surely in a situation where the organized labor movement continues to weaken just as class-struggle unions are needed more than ever," said Perasso, who recently visited Utah where he met with coal miners who have been fighting to unionize for the last two years.

Perasso said pro-union miners need to read a book like Our History Is Still Being Written, which describes how in practice revolutionary struggles can be fought and won.

"The single biggest question for the working class is the leadership question," Perasso said. "We need to prove our self-worth to ourselves in the class struggle." Because the new book gives a concrete example of such leadership development, he said, it "is indispensable for young people trying to understand revolutionary politics today." Perasso urged those present to build and attend the May 20 "Hands Off Venezuela and Cuba!" demonstration in Washington.

Courtesy THE MILITANT

| News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security |
| Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries | Junior Observer |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.