July is a very contradictory month in the history of socialism and of revolutionary and peoples movements.  July 4 marks the  U.S  Declaration of Independence, a turning point in the American Revolution and  one of the transforming revolutionary documents in modern history.

July 14 marks the Fall of the Bastille, the prison which symbolized the horrors of the French absolutist monarchy and the upsurge that would become the French Revolution.  Four years later part ofthe month of July, Themidor on the Revolution's calendar(the revolution sought to literally change everything) which lasted into mid-August, marked the great reaction by the wealthy merchants and landlords, who supported a revolution against the aristocracy but acted to destroy the Jacobin regime which appealing to the  impoverished masses moved in an ever more radical direction. 

And  July 26 is the day that commemorates that storming of the Moncada barracks by Fidel Castro and his revolutionary comrades against the brutal U.S. supported Battista dictatorship in Cuba, an uprsing that was crushed but  one from which Fidel and his comrades learned, developing the strategy and tactics that would triumph six years later and surviving all the internal and external attacks which would follow that  defeat, as  we believe the peoples movements in the U.S have in the past and will in the present and future

  1  In hia initial draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was influenced by

a. Polls showing that a majority of the people supported independence

b. The need to win over the conservative elements of the Continental Congress who had offered Britain the "Olive Branch Petition" overing to forego independence in exchange for some concessions from the Empire

c. The desire to build a coalition with the Whigs(liberals) in the British Parliament, who favored negotiations with the Continental Congress to defeat the government led by ultra right Tories(conservatives) who called for the use of military force to smash  all forms of independence

d. The complete repudiation  of the empire and monarchy in Tom Paine's pamphel, Common Sense, which had already won great support among farmers and artisan workers in a rapidly developing revolutionary movement

2.  Out of the experience and struggles of the French Revolution would come individuals who  would later be seen by Karl Marx and many others as pioneers in what came to  be called the socialist and communist movements by the 1840s.  Which of the following was not among these individuals

a  Count Henri  Saint Simon

b.Charles Fourier

c. Thomas Picketty

d.  Francois-Noel Babeuf

3.  The Cuban rvolution was not clearly committed to a Socialist path when it triumphed in 1959.  It moved in a socialist direction because

a. The great poverty of the people and foreign ownership of the productive sectors of the economy could not be reversed by replacing the Batista dictatorship with a liberal capitalist regime

b The U.S. National Security Council and CIA responded to the revolution's early attempts to redistribute wealth to the masses and institute its indepence with an economic blockade, the creation of a counter-revolutionary exile army, and preparatons for a CIA directed invasion of Cuba

c Soviet economic and technical assistance to the revolution which enabled it to survive the  blockade and move to develop its own  Cuban version of socialist development

d. All of the above

4  In the Russian Revolution, the "July Days" refer to

a.The abdication of Czar Nicholas II

b The Bolsheviks call for all out support for the Provisional Government to fight the counter-revolution

c. The Bolsheviks premature and failed attempt to overthrow the Provisional Government

d.  Lenin's call for World Revolution

5. July 2, today, commemorates  both the fifty-first anniversary of the signing of  Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also the birth of Thurgood Marshall, who served as the NAACP's chief counsel in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision  and was also later to be the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.  The 1964 Civil Rights Act, whose provisions are still under attack,

a. barred discrimination in all public accomodations, hotels, restaurants,theaters, ballparks, public restrooms, etc

b.  barred discrimination based on race, gender, national origins and religion in employment  and  established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC) to enforce these bans in court

c. banned the use of federal funds for any program receiving federal funds which practiced discrimination based on race, gender, national origins and religion

d. all of the above

Correct Answers to Last Months IQ

1.c

2.c

3.b

4.b

5.c