Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Thank You Compañero Fidel Castro!

THANK YOU COMPAÑERO FIDEL CASTRO!
By Nikos Mottas*.

"Rights are to be taken, 
not requested; seized, 
not begged for"
- Jose Marti.

After 25th November 2016 humanity is poorer. The international working class, the people who fiught for a better world, those who believe in a society without exploitation of man by man, are poorer. Along with the proud people of Cuba, the international communist movement mourns the biological death of one of the greatest, the most emblematic revolutionaries of contemporary History. The heart of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Comandante Fidel Castro stopped beating, marking the biological end of a life of 90 years full of struggles and sacrifices for the ideals of Socialism-Communism, for a Cuba where the people will be the masters of their destiny.

The death of Fidel, as well as the biological deaths of other extraordinary revolutionaries and communists like Lenin, Stalin, Che, Ho Chi Minch, consists a motive for the evaluation of their revolutionary work and legacy. A work and a legacy which are key factors in the formation of the class conciousness of the working class.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

The Berlin Wall and the bourgeois lies

By Nikos Mottas*.

The 9th of November consists a milestone for those who have turned anticommunist propaganda into profession. It is the day when, in 1989, the destruction of the so-called “Berlin Wall” began. 

Since then, every year, we observe smaller or larger fiestas about the "fall of the Wall" and the restoration of Capitalism in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In these fiestas, the winners of the Cold War employ their anticommunist imagination in order to celebrate the “big event”- for example, in 2014, during the 25th anniversary, among the official guests in Berlin was the miserable puppet of international imperialism called Mikhail Gorbachev.

For more than 26 years, within the framework of slanders against the actual existed Socialism, the bourgeois historiography, the bourgeois media as well as various opportunists engage in a war of distortions regarding the history of the Berlin Wall. They deliberately vilify the German Democratic Republic and the achievements of the socialist construction while they attempt to manipulate the European and international public opinion with the known, anti-scientific and anti-historical equation between Communism and Fascism.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Joseph V. Stalin- The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists (1924)

The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists.
By Joseph V. Stalin.
Source:Problems of Leninism, by J.V. Stalin, 
Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1976, p. 117.
Republished from Marxists Internet Archives.

Three circumstances of an external nature determined the comparative ease with which the proletarian revolution in Russia succeeded in breaking the chains of imperialism and thus overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie.

Firstly, the circumstance that the October Revolution began in a period of desperate struggle between the two principal imperialist groups, the Anglo-French and the Austro-German; at a time when, engaged in mortal struggle between themselves, these two groups had neither the time nor the means to devote serious attention to the struggle against the October Revolution. This circumstance was of tremendous importance for the October Revolution; for it enabled it to take advantage of the fierce conflicts within the imperialist world to strengthen and organize its own forces.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Ernesto Che Guevara- What a young Communist should be

What a young Communist should be.
Source: Guevaristas.org.

Below are excerpts of a speech given by Ernesto Che Guevara, one of the central leaders of the Cuban revolution, at a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the formation of the youth organization. It was first published in Obra Revolutionaria, Oct. 23, 1962. 

The Union of Young Communists, with different names and organizational forms, is almost as old as the revolution. At the beginning it emerged out of the Rebel Army – perhaps that’s where it also got its initial name [Association of Young Rebels]. But it was an organization linked to the army in order to introduce Cuba’s youth to the massive tasks of national defense, the most urgent problem at the time and the one requiring the most rapid solution….

Later, as the revolution was consolidated and we could finally talk about the new tasks ahead, Compañero Fidel proposed changing the name of the organization, a change of name that fully expresses a principle. The Union of Young Communists [Applause] has its face to the future. It is organized with the bright future of socialist society in mind….

Monday, September 26, 2016

Portuguese Communist Party (PCP): Centennial of the October Revolution – Socialism, necessary today and for the future

PORTUGUESE COMMUNIST PARTY (PCP) CENTRAL COMMITTEE RESOLUTION. 

September 18, 2016.
The year 2017 marks the centennial of the October 1917 Socialist Revolution.
The October Revolution is the major event in the historical process of emancipation of the exploited, the oppressed, the workers and the peoples, a process which has been marked by important revolutionary events from the days of primitive society, through slavery, feudalism and capitalism.
After thousands of years of societies in which the socio-economic systems have been based on the exploitation of man by man, the October Revolution began a new epoch in the History of Humankind, the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism. It was the first revolution that, through far-reaching democratic transformations in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres, and by ensuring social progress and justice, and corresponding to the yearnings of the workers and the peoples, undertook the edification of a society without exploiters, nor exploited people.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Remembering the 1973 Chile coup: A useful lesson about the “peaceful transition” to Socialism

EDITORIAL

Santiago de Chile, 11 September 1973. With the active support of the US, a military coup under the leadership of General Augusto Pinochet overthrows the Salvador Allende's “Popular Unity” government. President Allende dies heroicly while defending the presidential palace. In the following years, more than 40,000 people are tortured and imprisoned. More than 3,000 people are officially dead, either executed or “vanished”. Thousands of citizens arrested. In October 1973, the popular songwriter Víctor Jara, and 70 other political killings were perpetrated by the death squad, Caravana de la Muerte. The Pinochet regime was ruthless and brutal.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Why Socialism is superior to Capitalism- The achievements of Socialist construction in the Soviet Union

Why Socialism is far superior than Capitalism: The achievements of Socialist construction in the Soviet Union 


During the last 25 years, after the victory of the counterrevolutionary forces in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the public political discussion has been dominated by the concept of the “end of history, end of ideologies”. This is certainly a very convenient concept for the dominant class, the bourgeoisie, in her effort to convince the world that: 1) Socialism has irreversibly failed, 2) Capitalism is the final winner in the succession of History's socio-economic transformations, 3) Every argument for a non-capitalist society, where the means of productions will be socialized in a centrally-planned economy, is “unrealistic” and a “utopian fantasy”.

Anticommunism, of course, consists a core part of the above bourgeois principle. For more than two decades, the bourgeois forces and their mechanisms (historiography, media, etc.) in all over the world have unleashed an anticommunist crusade, mainly through demonizing and slundering the Soviet Union and the socialist construction of the 20th century in general.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Ceausescu Reloaded: Romania's capitalist hell makes people to reminisce the era of Socialism

OUR COMMENT.

Almost 27 years have passed since the counterrevolutionary events in Romania and the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena. On December 25, 1989, after a hasty, parody trial before a Kangaroo court, the Ceausescu couple were executed in Targoviste, north of Bucharest. According to the head of the firing squad, Nicolae Ceaușescu sang "The Internationale" while being led up against the wall. The execution of Ceausescu marked the end of the counter-revolutionary overthrow of Socialism in Romania and the beginning of a “new order” in the country.

Ceausescu is an exemplary case of how western media manipulate the image of a politician. When, for example, Romania did not participate in the intervention of the Warsaw Pact armies in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the West praised Ceausescu as a “good pal” within the eastern bloc. When Romania accepted to participate in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad (which was boycotted by the other Socialist countries), western media again praised Nicolae Ceausescu for his “disobedience towards Moscow”. However, this changed when the Romanian leader distanced himself from Gorbachev's counter-revolutionary line of “compromise” with Imperialism. Then, the directed western media propaganda started to present Ceausescu as the “Dracula”, demonizing his leadership. The “good guy” of the eastern bloc rapidly transformed into a “brutal dictator” in the eyes of the so-called international community.

Friday, August 19, 2016

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part IV "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
First Published: February 1848.
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

IV. POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES.

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America. 

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the Social-Democrats# against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution. 

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Nostalgia for the USSR- People in former Soviet republics say life was better in Socialism

A new survey, conducted by Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), M-Vector, Ipsos, Expert Fikri and Qafqaz in 11 countries of the former Soviet Union, at the request of Sputnik news agency and radio, shows that the residents of 9 out of 11 surveyed former Soviet countries aged over 35 believe that life in the USSR was better than it has been since the breakup of the Soviet Union. 


MOSCOW (sputniknews.com- Some 64% of respondents in Russia who lived in Soviet times believe that the quality of life in the Soviet Union was better. About 60% of respondents in Ukraine agreed with this statement. The survey showed that the highest rates of agreement with this statement are found among respondents in Armenia (71%) and Azerbaijan (69%). Those respondents who do not remember living in the USSR, those aged 18-24, believe that life has improved since the collapse. Some 63% of young people in Russia think so.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Declaration of the CC of the KKE: On the 70th anniversary of the Democratic Army of Greece 1946-1949

Athens, February 2016

We are inspired and learn from the 100-year history of the KKE, from the 3-year epic of the DSE.

The CC of the KKE, the entire party and KNE, honours the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the democratic Army of Greece (DSE).

1946 was a year of important developments directly connected to the creation of the DSE, such as:

The 2nd Plenum of the CC of the KKE (12-15 February 1946), which began exactly a year after of the signing of the Varkiza Agreement (12th of February 1945).The 2nd Plenum, even if in a contradictory way, was the one that decided to conduct the armed struggle.

The attack of a group of partisans on the gendarmerie station of Litohoro, on the night of the 30th and early in the morning of the 31st of March 1946, took place on the eve of the parliamentary elections.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

The remorse of a dissident: Alexander Zinoviev on Stalin and the dissolution of the USSR

SPECIAL TO IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM.

Alexander Zinoviev (1922-2006) was a Russian philosopher, sociologist, mathematician and writer. He is an extraordinary case of a dissident in the Soviet Union who later apologized for his anti-sovietism and anti-stalinism. In his youth, in 1939, he was arrested for allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate Joseph Stalin. As a head and professor of the Logic Department at Moscow State University, Zinoviev acquired a dissident reputation. In 1978 he left the Soviet Union - he lived in Western Europe until 1999. 

Having the opportunity to live both the socialist system in the USSR and Western Europe's capitalism, Zinoviev made a u-turn in his thoughts after the counterrevolutionary events in the Soviet Union (1989-1991). He profoundly regreted for his previous anti-soviet stance and even asked from the Russian people to forgive him for that. 

He wrote in one of his books: 

Friday, August 12, 2016

"Life was better under Communism" says the majority of Russians, Romanians and Eastern Germans

SPECIAL TO IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM.

First of all, let us say that the proper phrase is "under Socialism". During the 20th century, the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe were in the process of socialist construction. According to the Marxist-Leninist theory, "Socialism" consist the first stage (phase) of Communism. 

Having said the above, let's go to the core issue. The people who have lived both under Socialism and Capitalism give their answer to the various bourgeois and petty bourgeois unhistorical slanders. Various polls in former Socialist countries prove that the majority of people, in Russia and Eastern Europe, think that life was better before the counter-revolutions and the restoration of Capitalism. Under Socialism their major problems had been solved: Free education, free healthcare for all, social security, jobs, free vacation and holidays for everyone, etc. The restoration of Capitalism brought an unprecedented barbarity in almost every sector of public life: Social inequalities, unemployment, privatization of major public sectors from healthcare to education, etc. 

On March 2016, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) showed that: 

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part III "Socialist and Communist Literature"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
First Published: February 1848.
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

III. SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE.

1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM.
A. Feudal Socialism.

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period had become impossible.*

Monday, July 18, 2016

Communist Party, Turkey (KP): Statement of the Central Committee regarding the latest developments in the country

Source: kp.org.tr.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party has gathered on 17th of July and assessed the latest developments in the country deeply and also discussed the Party's situation and  missions. 
The Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Turkey on July 2016
1.  July 15th coup attempt has not brought ideologically conflicting centers subject to each other, but involved at least two and even more state cliques, which have identical class identities and ideologies. It is not possible that these cliques would be totally unaware of each other's plans and actions just like it is being impossible to dissociated them. However the attempt on 15th of July is not a bloody scenario totally planned by Erdoğan as some claimed so, but is a real coup attempt.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Ernesto Che Guevara- Transcript of CBS 'Face the Nation' Interview (1964)

The text below is the trascript of an interesting interview that Ernesto Che Guevara, then Minister of Industry, gave to CBS Television Network in New York. 

Source: Guevaristas.org.

FACE THE NATION" as broadcast over the CBS Television Network and the Sunday, CBS Radio Network December 13, 1964 – – 12:30 – 1:00 PM EST.
GUEST: MAJOR ERNESTO GUEVARA, Minister of Industry of Cuba.
NEWS CORRESPONDENTS: Paul Niven, CBS News, Tad Szulc, New York Times, Richard C. Hottelet, CBS News. PRODUCERS: Prentiss Childs, Ellen Wadley. DIRECTOR: Robert Vitarelli.

MR. NlVEN: Major Guevara, in your speech to the General Assembly the day before yesterday, you accused the United States of helping Cuba’s neighbors prepare new aggression against her. We, in turn, have often accused your government of abetting subversion in other Latin American countries. Do you see any way out of this situation, any way to improve relations?
MAJOR GUEVARA: I think with regards to solutions, there are solutions, and I think there is only one. we have said repeatedly to the government of the United States that we do not want anything but to forget us, that they do not consider us even for good or evil.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Aleka Papariga- The importance of the critical assessment of the socialist construction in the 20th century

The importance of the critical assessment of the socialist construction in the 20th century for the strengthening of the labor movement and for an effective counter-attack.
By Aleka Papariga*.
Source: International Communist Review, Issue 2, July 2014.
When we made public the subject of our 18th Congress, which, besides the mandatory overview of our work, included as a special subject our conclusions from socialist construction, several friends of the Party wondered whether it was advisable, under the current conditions and while the signs of the economic capitalist crisis had already become visible in the international scene, to focus on such an important issue which, in their opinion, might not have been at the top of the agenda.
It is not necessary, of course, to remind the reaction raised in the bourgeois press, the ironic and bitter comments of well-known journalists, who were annoyed by our decision to deal with this issue as they knew beforehand why we took such a decision. Their reaction is quite understandable from their point of view; they have a sharp instinct, they catch everything that can give strength and dynamic to the revolutionary movement.
From the very first moment that we realized that the infamous course of perestroika was nothing else but the beginning of the counterrevolution and the temporary defeat of the socialist system, we understood that we had to bear the brunt of giving answers to all progressive people –and to ourselves as well- who were reasonably wondering what happened. Even more so, since it was proved that we were not at all prepared for such a tragic development; we had not anticipated it and, unfortunately, we did not have the appropriate reflexes in order to react, even just before the lowering of the red flag from the Kremlin.

V.I.Lenin- Imperialism and the Split in Socialism (1916)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- 
Imperialism and the Split in Socialism.
Published in Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata No. 2, December 1916. Signed: N. Lenin. Published according to the Sbornik text. 

Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 105-120 / Web source: https://www.marxists.org.

Is there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has gained over the labour movement in Europe?

This is the fundamental question of modern socialism. And having in our Party literature fully established, first, the imperialist character of our era and of the present war [1] , and, second, the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic similarity of their political ideology, we can and must proceed to analyse this fundamental question.

We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command   the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Friedrich Engels- The Principles of Communism


FRIEDRICH ENGELS: THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNISM


October-November 1847.
Selected Works, Volume One, p. 81-97, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969. Web Source: Marx2Mao.

* * *

Question 1 :  What is Communism? 

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.

Question 2 :  What is the proletariat? 

The proletariat is that class in society which draws its means of livelihood wholly and solely from the sale of its labour and not from the profit from any kind of capital;[2] whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose whole existence depends on the demand for labour, hence, on the alternations of good times and bad in business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the nineteenth century.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

What kind of 'Left' does Jeremy Corbyn represent?

COMMENTARY:

Let's get directly to the subject: Why so much noise about the UK's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn? First of all, Labour Party is a bourgeois party which poses no threat to the capitalist establishment. We don't speak about a revolutionary party of Marxist-Leninist principles, but about one of the two pillars (the other is, of course, the Conservative Party) of the British bourgeois political system. There is nothing revolutionary in a purely social-democratic party like the UK Labour Party. Having said that, let's go now to it's leader, Jeremy Corbyn. 

What is the kind of "Left" that Corbyn represents? Like his party, is he, or not, fully committed to the capitalist system? The answer is absolutely clear: Corbyn is a bourgeois politician, a social-democrat with some so-called "progressive" ideas. The fact that he is "more progressive" than Tony Blair or David Cameron doesn't make him a choice for the country's working class. In the history of the UK Labour Party we have seen numerous ‘left-wing’, ‘progressive’ members, scores of leaders and senior MPs who have had what they referred to as ‘socialist’ politics- even more radical than Jeremy Corbyn. However, that doesn't change the political nature of the party as a vehicle of Social Democracy.