This article was reprinted from the January 6, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.
The many turning points of this past year stand out as a theme or common thread. In many ways, 1995 was the year of the turning point.
Perhaps the most important is the "quiet" revolution taking place in the U.S. trade union movement. The working class and its trade unions have made militant, class struggle decisions and revolutionary changes.
Just to mention one -- the AFL-CIO national convention was a turning point convention. The rank and file sent their most militant as delegates. They did away with a 100-year policy of class collaboration, corporate partnership, concessions and mainly defensive battles.
The trade union movement voted to pursue policies of class struggle and put into place a leadership that will be more activist, class struggle oriented.
Prediction for 1996: the trade union movement will take advanced, leading and militant positions in the '96 elections, on the picketlines, in the struggles against racism and for equality, for women's and youth rights, to protect our endangered environment, to save the entitlement programs that are on the chopping block.
The recent elections were turnarounds for voters who swept out of office every right-wing, Contract on America Republican, wherever they could.
We predict that as more millions become fed up with the two old parties, more independent, working class, trade union candidates will run and win in '96.
The victories of Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Chicago and Willie Brown in San Francisco is evidence that it can be done.
The slogan, "There's no independence without independence from the Contract," will be the measure for all candidates. And that means Communists will run to win. We predict that in 1996 the movement for an independent, labor-based, third party will take root among millions.
There is a turning point on the political scene. The Republican's phony, reactionary "revolution," is now turning into a sputtering "counter-revolution."
The American people now see the Republican "Contract" as a vicious ruling class assault on working people, but especially the elderly, the poor, the ill, the disabled and the children.
There is a turnaround for Gingrich, the ring leader, and his gang of 73 arrogant freshmen. The Republican Congress matches Gingrich's rating, a tiny 29 percent. Not so hot for a speaker leading a majority.
We are predicting there will be many one-term Congress members come November. And the Speaker of the House won't be for long. In the coming elections the millionaire Republicans will lose their majority status -- and with it goes the Speaker of the House.
The polls also show that whenever President Clinton takes a stand in the interests of the people, for example on Medicare and Medicaid, his rating goes up. When he caves in to the ultraright his standing takes a nosedive.
Things have reached such a turning point that almost anyone can defeat a Gingrich-Republican candidate in '96.
That may also hold for the anti-communists around the world, especially in ex-socialist countries.
In Poland, Communists and ex-communists have won the parliamentary majority. And an ex-communist defeated the counterrevolutionary Lech Walesa. Evidently the Polish voters thought it was better to elect an ex-communist than the anti-communist Walesa.
Voters in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Vietnam, Korea, China, Cuba, South Africa, Laos, Mongolia and Nepal also think there is something good in the Communist experience. In these countries, the people elected and reelected a Communist government, or elected both Communists and ex- communists to positions of power.
Socialist Cuba, just 90 miles from our shores, is showing its courage and the strength of its socialist system in resisting and overcoming the ravages of the vicious U.S.- inspired and -led blockade.
One country after another, following the profit trail, is now trading with Cuba. The U.S. might soon find that it is conducting a blockade of one.
In France, workers are on the picketlines, on the frontlines of the class struggle fighting back against the French version of a "Contract on France."
In Bosnia, world imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, has once again moved in to help "keep the peace." And to gain a foothold in the region.
A backward turning point is the 20-year decline in the standard of living of the great majority of our people.
The great class divide between those who produce the wealth and those who steal it is bigger now than at any point in recent history.
Unemployment is in the millions. African-American youth unemployment is 60 percent in large cities. Forty million Americans have no health or medical coverage at all.
Despite the fact that the productivity of U.S. workers has been rising steadily over the past year, U.S. workers lost 19 percent of their wages. 80 percent saw their incomes decline.The top 1 percent of the filthy rich now control 48 percent of all the wealth.
On the other side, there are 40 million in poverty, 13 million homeless and many more on the edge.
The 95 mega-mergers have resulted in total corporate control of everything in our country.
A handful of banks -- like Citicorp and the merger of Chemical and Chase -- now control the financial world.
Mass media has been bought out, lock-stock-and-barrel, by Corporate America. Westinghouse now decides what CBS can and can't broadcast. Time-Warner edits CNN. General Electric and Microsoft rule NBC. And Walt Disney is ABC's new censor. Even bigger businesses have control of Congress, the two old parties and most state governments. And, of course, they control most of the big enterprises, industries, plants, supermarkets, agribusiness farms and shopping malls.
Unforunately, we have to predict that the corporate mega- mergers will continue at full throttle in '96. The merger- caused layoffs will continue.
The downsizing and privatizing will continue. All the social and economic signs are that capitalism will continue on the road to decay and decline.
In many of the socialist countries the main question is whether to bring back socialism or continue on the capitalist road to ruin.
That is the main issue in the elections taking place in Russia right now as I speak. The voters are deciding today that socialism, with its weaknesses and human errors, is far better than going backwards to capitalism.
So my prediction is that Communists and socialism will win big in Russia today. And can you guess what our prediction for dictator Yeltsin is? Like our Gingrich, he is definitely on his way out in '96.
Then, there are the scientific turning points. After six years in orbit, the space craft Galileo racing through the universe at speeds up to 30,000 miles per hour is indeed a magnificent scientific-technological achievement.
But, such achievements raise some rather big and troublesome questions. If the United States can travel to a planet three million miles away, how is it possible that this richest of all nations cannot guarantee some basic human needs and rights to all its 280 million people in this land of "milk and honey."
Why can't this big, rich country guarantee that
Why? The answer is simple -- corporate profits, corporate greed.
The American Dream has become a living nightmare for so many millions: for the 30 million African Americans who have seen their human and civil rights, their jobs vanish and affirmative action come under fire; for the immigrants who are being hounded, harassed and deported. The vicious, brutal plan is not only to cut off so-called "illegal" immigrants, but to cut off all immigrants, with or without papers, from all federal life-saving programs.
What we need is a nationwide all-people's movement to win a massive federal jobs project, like the Martinez Bill, to put millions back to work rebuilding our crumbling cities.
We need a Congress that will tax the rich and the corporations to balance the budget.
Balancing the federal budget is a cover to give huge tax breaks to the very rich and tax subsidies for the corporations.
The so-called "balancing the budget" cuts are a cover to transfer programs for the public welfare to corporate "welfare."
We are coming to that turning point in our capitalist society when it is necessary to change our social system because it does not work for the great majority. It has never really worked for the 60 million racially and nationally oppressed people in our our country.
Racist violence and anti-Semitism are once again on the rise. We need a special fact-finding committee authorized to investigate and find out what it is about our armed forces military leadership that gives rise to ultra-right, fascist, racist hate groups in the ranks of our armed forces, to Oklahoma bombers and to the cold-blooded, racist murderers in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The civil rights movement must arouse and activate the anti-racist majority in this country.
There is a turning point approaching in our capitalist economy. It looks more and more like we are headed for an economic crisis in 1996.
The Marxist economic forecast is that the stock market, only one indicator of economic health, will take a nosedive in the near future.
Add the downsizing and privatizing, the layoffs and part- time work force, the trillion dollar federal and consumer debt and it doesn't take a crystal ball to foresee a financial and economic disaster in the making. Socialism is the answer to all the problems and crises capitalism cannot solve.
Why? Because the world revolutionary process moves society inevitably from slavery to feudalism to capitalism. So this same historic process will move society and all humanity towards socialism. This is an inevitable, historic process.
Finally, my last long-range prediction is that Bill of Rights socialism, USA is coming. To bring this prediction to fruition in the future means developing a socialist- conscious working class. And that means growing a mass, revolutionary party of the working class, USA. To help this happen, our party will, once again, double its membership in 1996.
Why are we so optimistic? Because thousands decided to become Communists in 1995. We are not only bigger, but we have gone high tech in the process. We celebrated our 75th anniversary on the electronic superhighway. We have a Web page on the Internet. And people are joining our Party and Young Communist League from all over the country by e-mail.
And our great national newspaper, the People's Weekly World, has become the most important voice of the trade union movement and labor's struggles. In 1996, the PWW will double its readership and increase its credibility as the voice of all strikes and struggles in the USA.
To accomplish all that, my last wish is that we all have a healthy, active and productive New Year.
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