70 years ago, July 22 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, better known as the Bretton Woods [1] Conference, that had lasted for three weeks, reached a conclusion.}} It was attended by representatives from 44 countries [2].
In order to prevent a recurrence of economic crises like the crash of 1929, but also to ensure world leadership in the post-war era, the United States government began to plan for the creation of international financial institutions as early as 1941. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund saw the light of day at the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Initially, the Roosevelt administration was in favour of creating strong institutions capable of imposing rules on the private financial sector, including Wall Street. But noticing the hostility of the banking world Roosevelt backed down. Indeed, the distribution of votes within the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund clearly illustrates the will of certain major powers to exert domination over the rest of the world.
Freedom Summer, 1964: An Overview
9 July 2014, byJust two weeks after the August 28, 1963 March on Washington, four girls aged 11-14 — Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair — died in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
The roots and grassroots of the Syrian revolution
26 April 2014, byIn a series commemorating the uprising’s third anniversary, Syrian revolutionary activist Joseph Daher answers key questions still circulating in the western digital commons. In this first part he offers us a short history of the socio-economic causes behind the protests that sprang up across Syria in March 2011.
"We Shall Overcome": Honoring Pete Seeger
29 January 2014, byTributes are pouring in to honor the memory and legacy of Pete Seeger. Among so many other contributions to the movements for social justice, he was a supporter of the struggle for rank and file union power. Ken Paff, national organizer of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, recalls his support of TDU with a Detroit benefit concert in April, 1985. [Republished from Solidarity January 29, 2014.]
Luxemburg and Trotsky on Russian Revolution
20 January 2014, byThe so-called “Leninist” orthodoxy is history, and the campaign that Stalin and his ideologists launched for decades against “Luxemburgism”, which they identified since 1931 with their most hated nightmare, “Trotskyism”, has fallen into oblivion. So we are free to examine the Marxist theories on the structure of the Russian society and the prospects of a revolutionary uprising against the rule of the Czar – written a century ago –, in order to explore the capacity of these theories to present an explanation of the state of affairs – one hundred years ago – and a prognosis of its future development (in and after 1917).
The transitional program and the tools to overthrow capitalism
4 November 2013, byThis article is a slightly adapted version of a presentation in an educational session that took place in the context of the 30rth revolutionary youth camp of the Fourth International. Throughout the text, where the Transitional Program is written with capital letters, the term refers to the original text of 1938.
General Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013): Military hero, revolutionary intellectual, environmentalist
3 November 2013, byFew people from the 20th century can really claim to have changed history. One of them without a doubt was General Vo Nguyen Giap, who led the Vietnamese people to defeat the French and US empires.
Norman Geras: “An adult life divided into two distinct chapters”
1 November 2013, byThe only time I briefly met Norman Geras was at the Marxism 2000 conference, held in Amherst, Massachusetts. Geras was one of three keynote speakers. Angela Davis spoke on the prison-industrial complex, with typical charisma; Gayatri Spivak packed the hall and gave a paper that was interminable and incomprehensible (though to be fair, her work really only suits the printed page).
Idalberto Ferrera Acosta (1918-2013), Cuban Trotskyist
19 September 2013, byLast July 2, 2013, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta, age 95, died in Havana. Idalberto devoted his entire life to the Revolution. In 1933-1934 he joined the Bolshevik-Leninist Party, the Cuban Trotskyist organization. He was a militant in the union and political movements in Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba. The actions of Cuban Trotskyists were very important in the 1930s because they had significant influence in the unions in several regions in Cuba, particularly in the East (Guantanamo, site of the U.S. Navy base, and Santiago de Cuba) and in Havana [3]. Idalberto Ferrera made active contributions.
Banks versus the People: Parts 6-9
9 September 2013, byIMF declarations that do not please European leaders
In October 2012, the IMF provided a key explanation of why the crisis was getting worse in Europe. Its Research Department wrote that every euro cut from public spending would result in a .90 to 1.70 euro decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Wolfgang Münchau, who is editorialist at the Financial Times, concludes that in this time of crisis a 3% fiscal adjustment (that is a 3% decrease in public spending) would produce a 4.5% decrease in GDP. Therefore, the current policies being pursued by European governments have been leading to a drop in economic activity making it impossible to decrease the amount of public debt.
Footnotes
[1] Bretton Woods is located in the mountains of New Hampshire.
[2] This text has been first edited in French by Eric Toussaint, Banque Mondiale: Le Coup d’État permanent, CADTM-Syllepse-Cetim, Liège-Paris-Genève, 2006, chapter one. The book has been edited in English, The World Bank : A critical Primer. Pluto Press, 2007.
[3] Per inquadrare la vicenda nel contesto della storia si veda: Trotskistas cubanos - Eric Toussaint.
