The city of Oaxaca in Mexico has been brought to a standstill over the past five months. The state governor is in hiding and the state congress can only meet secretly in a hotel.

Instead working class people, tired of the poverty and corruption they have faced, have partially taken over the running of the city. Beginning as a militant strike of teachers, it has now developed into a mass uprising demanding the resignation of the state governor Ulises Ruis, a member of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico’s Ruling Party).

The movement in Oaxaca started with a strike of over 70,000 teachers for better wages in May this year. The state governor refused to negotiate or meet with them. Instead, in June, the police were sent in to "clean" the main square where thousands of protesters had built a tent city. After three hours of violence and with many wounded, the police were forced to withdraw. 

The response from the people was immediate. Hundreds and then thousands joined the teachers. Out of the battle, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) was built. The APPO has brought together social movements, trade unions, indigenous and political organisations from all over the state including some of the poorest sectors of society. It has now virtually taken over the running of the city, including policing and providing protection for the people from the death squads which are targeting the protesters and providing medical care. At the same time private radio stations have been taken over by the APPO to broadcast the people’s demands and to help co-ordinate the movement.

While paramilitary forces backed by the state have shot and killed activists including Indymedia journalist Brad Will, so far the government has held back from brutally repressing the movement for fear of provoking an even greater crisis. However, at some point they could attempt to do this in order to intimidate the people in other areas of the country against taking the same actions. The government and the business and landowning class they support need to prevent the unrest spreading to other parts of the country and linking up with the millions-strong movement against the fraudulent election victory of the conservative right-winger Felipe Calderon of PAN (Partido Accion Nacional). Ever since the election results were announced, Mexico City centre has been blocked by an encampment of thousands of supporters of radical populist Manuel López Obrador, the presidential candidate of the PRD (Partido Revoluccionario Democratico). They have elected him as the head of a parallel government, which is committed to a mass campaign of civil protest aimed at preventing Calderón from being sworn in as President on 1 December and fighting attempts by his government to implement its neo-liberal agenda.

Obrador, however, has kept his distance from the movement in Oaxaca and has urged that the national struggle limits itself to "peaceful civil protest". While denouncing corruption, poverty and inefficiency, his programme is limited to working within capitalism with the objective of "cleaning it up" and constructing a more "humane" form of capitalism. Yet capitalism cannot meet the needs of the people who have come out onto the streets and who are now taking part in the running of Oaxaca city.

While the main demands of the movement have centred on the resignation of the state governor, it is urgent that the movement in Oaxaca is spread and takes steps to win the support of the masses nationally including national protests and strikes in solidarity with the peoples of Oaxaca . At the same time, a campaign to build for a 24 - hour national general strike as a first step to stop Calderón from being sworn in needs to be launched.

Democratically elected committees of struggle need to be established in all work places and districts by the poor peasants and others opposed to the existing system. Such committees can become a democratic expression of the movement and the basis to take the struggles forward in a co-ordinated way.

Mexico is now a powder keg in the process of exploding socially. The coming together of the different movements, strikes and rebellions in Mexico makes it all the more urgent for the working class to establish its own party that will fight for its interests. A revolutionary party could play a decisive role in unifying the different struggles in Mexico and allow the working class to play a leading role in the fight against capitalism and landlordism and for socialism. This in turn could link with the movements in Venezuela and Bolivia.  As the only "neo-colonial" country with land borders to a major imperialist power, these upheavals are set to have massive repercussions not only in Mexico and Latin America but also in the USA with its strong Hispanic/Mexican population.