It’s a historic anniversary that the US ruling class and its allies around the world wish we would forget. Fifty years ago, on 30 April 1975, US imperialism suffered the worst military defeat in its history.
Because of militant miners, the 1970s and 1980s in Britain are remembered not only as decades when the capitalist state attacked trade unions and working-class people. They are also memorialised as an era of defiant, tenacious and bitter class struggle, full of lessons.
What we have come to call the “neoliberal” era began under US President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, rather than his Republican successor Ronald Reagan.
If a socialist left is to be built with some hope of liberating the workers of the Middle East and winning freedom for the Palestinian people, then it is vital to come to terms with the legacy of Stalinist class-collaborationist politics and rebuild on a genuinely revolutionary basis.
Australia boasts of belonging to the “Pacific family” and is motivated only by a desire to help its neighbours. It’s hard to reconcile this rosy self-image with Australia’s history of bullying, espionage and greed in East Timor.
