TOP 100 NEWS SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Police and protesters clash in Belgrade Riot police in the Serbian capital Belgrade have fought running battles with hundreds of far-right supporters who tried to disrupt a Gay Pride march in the city. bbc.co.uk |
Japan steps into China Nobel row Japan's prime minister says China should release the detained Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo amid rising criticism of China. bbc.co.uk |
Wilebaldo Solano obituary Revolutionary socialist activist and writerWilebaldo Solano, who has died aged 94, was a tireless defender of the legacy of the POUM (Partido Obrero de UnificaciГіn Marxista, or Workers' Party for Marxist Unification), the main revolutionary party in the Spanish civil war (1936-39). This was a legacy marked by a bitter double defeat – the crushing of the revolution in the 1937 May Days fighting and the overall defeat of the republican side in the civil war, won by the fascists under General Francisco Franco.Solano's vigorous defence of the POUM was vindicated by two late victories. Ken Loach's 1995 film Land and Freedom brought the Spanish revolution of 1936 to life for younger generations. Second, the Andreu Nin Foundation, of which Solano was a founder in 1987 and the president, destroyed the Stalinist calumnies that vilified his mentor and friend Nin (the POUM's general secretary) as a fascist and established clearly that Nin was murdered in June 1937 under torture by Stalin's agents. "We have won, Nin has won," Solano said of Loach's film.Solano's father was a democratic army officer disciplined for opposing Spain's colonial war in Morocco: Solano often insisted that not all professional soldiers were rightwing. He was born in Burgos, and in 1929 the family was posted to Barcelona where, in 1932, while still at school, Solano joined the BOC (Bloque Obrero y Campesino, or Workers and Peasants' Block), one of the two revolutionary organisations that in 1935 fused to form the POUM. He would be a revolutionary socialist activist for the next 78 years. He started writing for the BOC's Adelante (Forward) in 1934, while also studying medicine, but the outbreak of the civil war in July 1936 meant he never completed his course.Solano became general secretary of the POUM's Communist Youth in September 1936. After the party's suppression in June 1937, he was one of the leaders who escaped arrest and formed a new underground executive committee. Against the odds, they printed and distributed several issues of the POUM paper La Batalla (The Battle), denouncing the Stalinist witch-hunt of the party and arguing that the Communist parties' Popular Front line could not win the war. His 1999 book El POUM en la Historia describes this period. As well as analysing in detail the counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism, it is a fascinating account of an activist's day-to-day life amid revolution, civil war and persecution.After imprisonment in Barcelona in April 1938, Solano escaped to France at the end of the civil war, where he assisted in reorganising the POUM. Arrested again at Montauban, in the Midi-PyrГ©nГ©es region in southern France, in February 1941, he was sentenced by the Vichy French to 20 years of hard labour. His medical studies came in handy as he avoided deportation to a concentration camp by assisting in the infirmary of Eysses prison, near Toulouse. Freed in July 1944 by a French Resistance assault on Eysses, Solano joined the resistance group that took the prison. Later, he helped form with anarchists and POUMists an anti-stalinist Spanish maquis unit called the Freedom Battalion.After the second world war he made more than one underground visit to Spain and was elected POUM general secretary in 1947. From then on, Solano was the best-known spokesperson for the small party, based mainly in exile. He opposed several splits by members moving towards reformism under pressure of isolation and the cold war. Solano was no nostalgic: his insistence on the legacy of revolutionary Marxism transmitted through the POUM looked to the future. "The radical critique of the Stalinist experience," he wrote, "and the new trends in capitalism demand a powerful rebirth of the genuine values of socialism." His indomitable revolutionary optimism inspired many young Spanish radicals finding their way in Paris in the 60s.Solano worked for Agence France-Presse from 1953 to 1981, leading its Latin American service for many years. Amiable and talkative, "Wile" was short in stature, with a full head of hair even when old and his mouth turned down at the sides in grim determination. In the 40s he married Maria Teresa Carbonell who, as a child, had brought him food in prison in Barcelona on behalf of her parents. She and their son survive him; their daughter died in 1977. • Wilebaldo Solano Alonso, political activist and journalist, born 7 July 1916; died 7 September 2010SpainMichael Eaudeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
History or propaganda? Documents from a 17th century Irish uprising go online bbc.co.uk |
S. Korea: Tough Talk from Lee Amid Tense Border Situation Even as Beijing proposes emergency consultations, Seoul says "it no longer makes sense" to think Pyongyang will disarm on its own feedproxy.google.com |