Doctor guilty of 'infanticide'

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Dr. Joseph Melnick, an obstetrician in Philadelphia, faces several years in prison. Last month, he was found guilty of infanticide in an abortion he performed. Although Dr. Melnick insisted the eight-month-old fetus was stillborn, some witnesses testified that they detected movement and a heartbeat. This is the first prosecution under Pennsylvania's Abortion Control Act, which requires a doctor to try to keep a fetus alive.

Planning a trip overseas this summer? The London Times reports that American aircraft have at least 30 fewer safety requirements than European ones. Bon voyage!

Nuclear-powered satellites are "small Chernobyls waiting to happen," say scientists. One accident could produce two-and-a-half times more than all the plutonium released in the atmosphere to date. There are about 60 U.S. and Soviet nuclear satellites in orbit, and the United States plans to add 100 more for its Star Wars system.

Bovine Growth Hormone is a new drug that, when injected into cows, can increase milk production.

But most dairy farmers say they don't need it. A Wisconsin farmer told reporters, "Someone else will make the profit, not the farmers."

Indeed, the drug manufacturers stand to pocket up to $500 million every year-if they can just convince farmers to use the stuff.

There is a new furor over furs. Protests by animal-rights activists caused furriers to cancel their annual convention in New York a month ago. But the fur industry is gearing up for a new autumn offensive. Women will be asked to buy furs as a symbol of their "success.' "Off with their heads!" That could be the answer to drug-dealers, suggests William Bennett, federal drug policy coordinator. "Morally, I don't have any problem [with beheadings] at all," Bennett said on a call-in television show. He added, "I used to teach ethics, trust me."

to the increased profits of capitalist exploiters.

These measures would signal the creation of a new state form in Nicaragua, a workers' state, which would defend the interests of the oppressed above all others.

The Sandinistas' search for a political alliance with the Latin American and European bourgeoisies against U.S. imperialism has proved fruitless-and often even harmful. This is especially true when the price of the alliance included FSLN political support to capitalist parties like the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in Mexico or the Democratic Party in the United States. A strategy of proletarian internationalism—that is, a strategy aimed at solidarizing Nicaragua with every struggle of the workers and peasants in Latin America and the rest of the world-would bring Nicaragua its most fervent allies. This would place Nicaragua unambiguously on the side of the victims of capitalist injustice.

Based on Permanent Revolution These ideas constitute the essence of the theory of permanent revolution, first advanced in 1906 and further developed in the 1920s and '30s by the Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky. This theory holds that the capitalist class in the nations dominated by imperialism is incapable of accomplishing the tasks of the democratic revolution; that is, it is incapable of leading a struggle for economic independence from foreign domination.

Only a workers' government, in alliance with the poor peasants, can accomplish this task in a revolutionary process that organically connects the democratic revolution with the beginning of the socialist revolution.

This strategic conception of permanent revolution was adopted by the founding conference of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution inspired by Desperate for new recruits, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is resorting to television commercials to attract young men. Opening with a display of a Mercedes-Benz, a Rolex watch, and diamond bracelet, the ad switches to the oustretched arms of a priest and the slogan "A world that doesn't deny itself anything could use a few men who do."

It remains to be seen whether Madison Avenue tactics will halt the decline in recruits to the priesthood. There are only five new priests in the archdiocese's graduating class this year. This compares with the average class of 50 in the early 1960s.

Attacks on on gays and lesbians have increased and are "alarmingly widespread," says Kevin Berrill of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Anti-gay episodes-which include threats, taunts, vandalism, bombings, assaults, and murder-increased from 2042 in 1985 to 7248 in 1988.

... AND THE PARTY IS READY TO SHARE POWER RIGHT AWAY against the country's debt..

unemployment.

Leon Trotsky in 1938. It was summed up in its basic program—the "Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution."

While the 1917 Russian example of democratic, soviet government, prior to Stalin, remains the best living model for revolution everywhere, there are many sincere revolutionary fighters who are not yet convinced that the oppressed majority can rule in their own name.

The Sandinistas of Nicaragua constitute an authentic example of the revolutionists of action who raise the hopes for the socialist future. The revolution continually generates such rebels. Revolutionary workers' parties cannot be built without these forces. Revolutionists of action arise in every sphere of the class struggle.

In the United States, for example, such revolutionists emerged during the birth of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s. The upsurge of the Black masses in the United States in the 1950s and '60s also gave birth to thousands of such revolutionaries. They were best exemplified by Malcolm X and the forces around him, as well as by thousands of other fighters in the historic struggle for civil rights.

But to an effective HOW'D YOU LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THE NEXT FOOD PRICE HIKE? of humanity, one needs to have a clear view of the past and of the forces at work in the present. Lenin noted that there cannot be consistent revolutionary action without revolutionary theory. This truth has a vital urgency today-particularly in Nicaragua, where the revolution is at a critical crossroads.

The political program expressed in this book is not only of interest to students of revolutionary politics in the United States. It is a vital necessity for the defense and deepening of the Nicaraguan Revolution itself and for the struggle for socialism everywhere.

It is for this reason that "Nicaragua: Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution" is being translated into Spanish. The programmatic positions advocated by the author, based on the historic program of the Fourth International, are essential guides to action for all revolutionists in Nicaragua seeking an alternative to the mistaken policies of the Sandinista leadership.

For these ideas to find support among the Nicaraguan people, however, it is essential that a political party based on the program of the Fourth International be constructed in Nicaragua. It is also with the hope of aiding this process that this book has been written.