Trump’s effort to end US foreign aid throws out a lot of babies with the bathwater. During the Cold War, the US waged a war of ideas with the Soviet Union to capture the hearts and minds of the world. Foreign aid also boosted US businesses.
In 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the prime minister of newly independent Congo. His close ally Andrée Blouin describes how Belgium and the US conspired to oust Lumumba and impose Mobutu’s kleptocratic dictatorship on the Congolese people.
This is a poignant tale of remembering parents in trouble, careers dashed and of steady FBI harassment. The end is not happy, except that the boy survives and makes his own life as an admired cultural commentator on radio.
A newly released classified document shows that the National Security Agency knew Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy—and that the government executed her anyway.
Cold War anti-communism directly contributed to US labor’s decline in the latter half of the 20th century. That is a betrayal, at home and abroad, of the interests of the working class they were elected to represent.
An interview with the author of ‘Blue-Collar Empire,’ a forthcoming book that uncovers the AFL-CIO’s Cold War-era involvement in undermining left-wing and anti-imperialist labor movements abroad.
From France, Iran, Ireland, UK and Venezuela
Today marks a decade since the death of Japanese communist Toshiko Karasawa. Her courageous life is a testament to the revolutionary potential of anti-imperialism, but also the difficult choices faced by the Left in US client states.
Michael Yates reviews Ballad of an American, a newly released graphic biography of Black actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson. The book gives an uncompromising look at a complicated, passionate man, wholly dedicated to the cause of liberation.
In the throes of the Cold War, a tiny Caribbean island dared to wage a revolutionary experiment. As the Revo imploded, the United States invaded.
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