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This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In the years following the revolution, its leaders initiated the formation of the Communist (Third) International (Comintern), an international grouping of communist parties. In Venezuela, the leadership of the country’s unfolding socialist revolution have issued a call for a new international of Latin American left parties. This article, by John Riddell, is part of an ongoing series on the history of the Comintern.

In New South Wales
bridges tell the tale
of life’s travail
for the not so beautiful elite @poetry = The homeless out of work
share a space of dirt
beneath your bridges
under the souls of your feet @poetry = There’s no dreaming here
romance is out of date
beauty is the sadness
of a quintessential fate @poetry = Mums ’n kids share
8 x 2 tin cans with lids
and wait for that day of the meek
but it won’t be this week @poetry = There communards
sleep by streets
on a park bench
where the soup kitchen meets @poetry = Real jobs have gone
old industries fled
and the rest of youse
have left us for dead @poetry = In New South Wales
histories tell the tale
of a social elite
with mud at their feet @poetry = and egos that never skip a beat

@poetry = Someone is crying in the dark,
She lost her son (a monk who stood up for people)
Someone had woken up in the middle of the night,
She longs for her rights as a human being. @poetry = Someone had been beaten to death on the road,
For he was holding a signboard. @poetry = Someone is praying in Insein jail,
He was arrested and tortured all day. @poetry = They have sacrificed for their country,
But their country has not been freed. @poetry = We have to hand over their works,
If you dare to fight for their rights! @poetry = We have to follow their way,
Which they’ve walked with hope, love and prayers. @poetry = We will fight to reach our goal, @poetry = Don’t wait until tommorrow!

With the defeat of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s proposed constitutional reforms, aimed at “opening the path to socialism” in the referendum on December 2, by a tiny margin of 50.7% to 49.3% with 90% of the vote counted, many Venezuelans and supporters of the Bolivarian revolution internationally are asking “what happened?”.

“Now what?” must be the most commonly asked question among the left these days. Now what for the struggle for Indigenous rights? For the struggle against global warming? For the anti-war movement? For the fight against the Tamar Valley pulp mill? For the Your Rights at Work committees? Local Socialist Alliance branches have already begun a series of forums on this theme.