<DIV><BR>Five times in the last 40 years, the working class has posed a radical alternative to the status quo.<BR><BR>France 1968: A general strike and factory occupations by millions of workers shake the country.<BR><BR>Chile 1972: Workers defending the Popular Unity government set up workers’ councils?the cordones?and demand control over production.<BR><BR>Portugal 1974: Army officers overthrow the dictator Caetano and release an upsurge of "popular power" whichs last 18 months.<BR><BR>Iran 1979: The viciously repressive Shah is toppled and workers set up independent councils, the shoras.<BR><BR>Poland 1980: Demanding radical change, workers build the independent trade union Solidarity to fight for their own interests, exposing the false socialism of the Eastern Bloc.<BR><BR>In each of these cases, the actions of workers themselves were the driving force of struggles with revolutionary potential. They demonstrate that workers can and will fight back on a mass scale.<BR><BR>Each episode offers an inspiring glimpse of the way in which workers rise to the challenge of fighting for a better world?and pose their own alternative to the system.<BR><BR>Although none of these struggles ultimately achieved their goals, they were "revolutionary rehearsals" that hold important lessons about the struggle for socialism under modern conditions.<BR></DIV>