Thursday, March 31, 2016

Thousands rallied in Athens against the monstrous draft-law on social security

ATHENS"The law-guillotine for social security must not pass in the Parliament". That was the message that thousands workers, unemployed, retired and self-employed people who participated in a mass rally organised by PAME (All-Workers Militant Front) sent on Thursday afternoon. The rally took place in Athens' Omonia square and the major speaker was the member of the executive secretariat of PAME Giorgos Perros. 

It's not just Trump; It's Imperialism, stupid!

Special to the In Defense of Communism.

The enemies of Donald Trump have used numerous words in order to describe the multi-millionaire republican presidential candidate: "Bully", "arrogant", "racist", "misogynist", "intolerant", "narcissist" etc. Maybe Trump is, indeed, all the above. But the major issue isn't Trump's character or the way he presents himself in the media. The primary issue- the one that the working class in the US should be aware of- is the following: How the 'Trump phenomenon' was born and what feeds it? 

On that point it would be useful to clarify that the so-called 'Donald Trump phenomenon', independently of the result in November's presidential election, is not an unprecedented or incomprehensible phenomenon in the world's major imperialist power. The rise of Trump reflects the interests of a significant part of US capital which, especially in times of inter-imperialist contradictions, choose to promote specific personalities for the political leadership.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

KKE: Political event in honor of Nikos Beloyannis

ATHENS- In a political event organised by it's Central Committee the Communist Party of Greece honoured Nikos Beloyannis and other members of the CC who were executed, murdered or fell in the battles. During the event, which took place at the KKE's headquarters in Perisos, a memorial sculpture, made by Memos Makris and dedicated to Beloyannis, was unveiled. 

Upon the sculpture, which was based for years in Budapest, the following words have been engraved in hungarian language: "In memory of the great Greek fighter and patriot who gave his life for the freedom and happiness of his people. On March 30, 1952, under the orders of american imperialism the military tribunal of Greece's reactionary regime, on the base of fabricated accusations, executed him. In his face the working people of Budapest honours the hero and martyr, the great fighter of the whole humanity"

The event was attended by the General Secretary of KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas, while the major speaker was the member of the party's Political Bureau Dimitris Gontikas. (Information from 902.gr)

"The man with the carnation": 64 years since the execution of communist hero Nikos Beloyannis

Written by Nikos Mottas / In Defense of Communism.

Nikos Beloyannis, the man with the carnation, the Communist, the hero. It was in the dawn of Sunday 30th March 1952 when his heart stopped beating. The bullets of the firing squad gave an end to the lifes of Beloyannis and three of his comrades- Dimitris Batsis, Elias Argyriadis and Nikos Kaloumenos. 

The post-civil war bourgeois, centrist government of Plastiras, under the orders of his imperialist patrons, had done it's job. Beloyannis, a member of the Central Committee of the- then illegal- Greek Communist Party, was dead. However, his legacy and ideals were already immortal. 

"Beloyannis instructs us one more time,how to live and how to die. 
With just one carnation he unlocked all of immortality.With just one smile he brightened the world so darkness can never fall. Good morning comrades 
Good morning sun 
Good morning Beloyannis".  
- Yannis Ritsos, Poem "Man with the Carnation".


Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Fidel Castro on Obama's visit to Cuba: "We don’t need the empire to give us anything"

Fidel Castro: Brother Obama.
March 28, 2016.
Source: Granma.

The kings of Spain brought us the conquistadores and masters, whose footprints remained in the circular land grants assigned to those searching for gold in the sands of rivers, an abusive and shameful form of exploitation, traces of which can be noted from the air in many places around the country.
Tourism today, in large part, consists of viewing the delights of our landscapes and tasting exquisite delicacies from our seas, and is always shared with the private capital of large foreign corporations, whose earnings, if they don’t reach billions of dollars, are not worthy of any attention whatsoever.

Interview of the General Secretary of KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas in the "Newspaper of Editors"

Abstracts from the interview of Dimitris Koutsoumbas, Secretary-General of the CC of KKE, in the weekend edition of the "Newspaper of Editors" (Efimerida ton Syntakton), Sunday 27 March 2016. You can read the whole interview here.


Translation: In Defense of Communism.

Q: The economic crisis and the refugee issue seem to be grist to the mill for the Far-Right. Almost everywhere in Europe, xenophobic and intolerant parties are strengthening. Why does it happen? Where is the Left? Why does it fail to affect the situation? Why it doesn't convince the working people?

Koutsoumbas: Today it is important to be widely realized that the so-called far-right, xenophobic but also the openly fascist parties are "brood" of the capitalist system's rotteness itself. They are created, used and connected with strong business interests and other centers of the capitalist establishment, having as an aim to divide the people in order to offer immunity to the same corrupt system- that creates poverty, crises, wars and refugees- as well as to enpower the authority of the big capital and the monopoly companies.

Stop Lecturing Cuba and Lift the Blockade

Stop Lecturing Cuba and Lift the Blockade
By Marjorie Cohn.
Republished from mrzine.monthlyreview.org.

Surrounding President Barack Obama's historic visit to Cuba on March 20, there is speculation about whether he can pressure Cuba to improve its human rights.  But a comparison of Cuba's human rights record with that of the United States shows that the US should be taking lessons from Cuba.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains two different categories of human rights: civil and political rights on the one hand; and economic, social and cultural rights on the other.

Monday, March 28, 2016

"Jobs for everybody- Labour with rights": Patras' communist mayor campaigns against unemployment

Patras' mayor Kostas Peletidis.
Having as a major slogan "Jobs for everybody-Labour with rights", the City of Patras, in Greece, organises a 220 km marathon march to Athens. The march is scheduled to begin at 8:00 am on Sunday, April 3, and to end up seven days later, on April 10th, in Athens' Syntagma Square. 

The campaign is an initiative of mayor Kostas Peletidis- the Communist Party (KKE) candidate who won the 2014 local elections- as an outcry of solidarity against the increasing unemployment (25% according to official sources) in the country. The Municipality has invited a large number of workers unions, youth and women associations and organisations, local unions of merchants and farmers, as well as various cultural and sports-related associations to participate. 

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) has already expressed its solidarity.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

RIZOSPASTIS headlines (26/3/2016)

Sunday edition of "Rizospastis".
Organ of the CC of KKE (Communist Party of Greece)
26/3/2016.

- Antipeople and dangerous developments: Popular mobilization and action (is) the only solution.
- Everybody at PAME's rallies: Tuesday 29/3 in Thessaloniki, 31/3 in Athens and Piraeus.
- The KKE Central Committee honours Yannis Markopoulos (composer): A great concert on Monday 28th of March.
- Municipality of Patras: The large mobilization against unemployment begins on Saturday 2nd of April.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Communist Youth of Greece (KNE): Capitalism generates crises, wars, refugees! We struggle to overthrow it!

Announcement of KNE on the refugees' issue.
Source: int.kne.gr

In recent months we witness the drama of thousands of refugees and migrants, who, expelled from their lands, are seeking a better life.
EU-NATO and governments that support them over time:
- Uproot peoples from their homelands by war
- Now with their decisions, they entrap them in our country although they want to go to other countries
War, repression, profits for the few:
These were always the values ​​of the EU!

Thursday, March 24, 2016

The New Worker- Thieves falling out


Republished from "New Worker", the weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain.

PRIME Minister David Cameron has had a hard week, first the President of the United States has launched a bitter attack on him over Libya and then his own mother joined the Liberal Democrats.

President Obama came to power nearly eight years ago on a pledge that he would not embark on any more foreign wars, and he blames Cameron and former French President Nicholas Sarkozy for dragging him reluctantly into the attack on Libya. It smacks of naughty boys caught out stealing sweets — when it all goes wrong and they get caught blaming each other: “It’s not my fault — he made me do it”.

Nikos Mottas- NATO's rape of Yugoslavia

NATO's rape of Yugoslavia.
By Nikos Mottas.
Translated from the original Greek.

It was March 24th 1999- 17 years ago- when the NATO armed forces were starting a barbaric pounding against the people of Yugoslavia. A few kilometres north of the Greek borders, the North Atlantic wolf-pack alliance was putting it's bloodstained stamp on the 20th century's last big slaughter. It was then, when the balkan peninsula became, once more, the action field of imperialists and the federal republic of Yugoslavia (or what had remained from that) was crashing between the millstones of euro-atlantic interests.

It was the first time in NATO's history when a wide scale military operation was taking place without the- at least conventional- approval of the UN Security Council. Of course, the participating in the crime governments of the alliance's member-states (predominantly the US, UK, Germany, France) had already found the suitable pretext: It was the termination of the supposed “aggressiveness” of Slobodan Milosevic's government in the region of Kosovo. In order to justify the upcoming military intervention, the leaders of NATO's gang (Clinton, Blair, Schroeder, etc.) had been involved in an unprecedented public political staginess, pretending to be “worried” about the future of the albanian minority of Kosovo.

We act to stand united with our allies for peace Bill Clinton was stating in his- equal to an Oscar-level interpretation- nationwide statement just a few hours before the beginning of the bombings. Also, he was adding: “By acting now, we are upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause of peace.”.

In the next lines we will see what “values”, what “interests” and what “causes” the NATO massacre was protecting...

On March 23rd, the then CG of NATO Xavier Solana gives the order to US General Wesley Clark for the beginning of the first airstrikes on serbian territory. Within 78 days, governmental buildings, hospitals, schools, public transport, bridges, whole blocks of residential buildings were literally destroyed- all that despite NATO's assurances that the bombs were exclusively targeting military infrastructure. Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, Pristina, Prahovo, smaller serbian cities and villages lived for more than two months the terror of NATO's crude barbarity.

On that point- examining the events from a historic distance of 17 years- it is significant to make some specific indications about the NATO involvement in Yugoslavia.

1. What were the real reasons that led to this NATO crime? Obviously, it wasn't the excuse(pretext) of the protection of the Kosovo minority. John Norris, a former communications director of the US deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, writes in his book “Collision Course: NATO, Russia and Kosovo):

The gravitational pull of the community of Western democracies highlights why Milosevic's Yugoslavia had become such an anachronism. As nations throughout the region strove to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the opposite direction. It is small wonder that NATO and Yugoslavia ended up on a collision course […] It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform – not the plight of Kosovo Albanians – that best explains NATO's war”.

In fewer words, Milosevic's Yugoslavia became the “guinea-pig” of Imperialism in an effort to terrorize people. On the heads of serbian civilians they (the imperialists) tested the imperialist doctrine of “those who do not comply with the new international order will face barbarity”. What followed is known: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Syria, etc.


In order to have a clearer picture of the reasons that led to the 1999 NATO massacre, we must examine who were finally benefited from the destruction of Yugoslavia.

The desertification caused by the atrocity of NATO forces was followed by a “loot” of sell-out and privatizations of the country's state-owned infrastructure. European and US monopolies were benefited from that. It is estimated that in the post-Milosevic era, from 2000 to 2009, more than 1,800 privatizations of state-owned companies took place; the majority of the serbian metal industry was purchased by a US company, while the national automotive industry “Zastava” was bought by the italian monopoly “Fiat”.

Both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank participated in the “game” of the country's “economic reconstruction”. According to economist and director of the Center for Research of Globalization, Michel Chossudovsky, the IMF and the World Bank had already, even before NATO's involvement in Yugoslavia, elaborated a relative plan of economic reconstruction (Michel Chossudovsky, Linking NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank).

This “reconstruction” was fully in line with a series of strategic choices and reforms (privatizations, sell-outs of public services, opening new markets, total destruction of working and social vested rights etc.) that would open the way towards the future affiliation of the new serbian republic with the EU.

Three-year old Milica Rakic was killed by one
of NATO's "clever bombs".
2. NATO- to which, according to Mr.Tsipras, Greece “undoubtely belongs”- is also responsible:

a) For more than 2,500 civilian deaths (apparently the belong to the so-called “collateral damage”), among them a large number of women and children.

b) For more than 12,500 injured civilians who literally felt upon their skin how Imperalism interprets “Democracy” and “Peace”..

c)For the approximately 15 tones of depleted uranium which the NATO forces scattered in serbian territory. The use of depleted uranium (Q-Metal) is responsible for the rapid increase- after 1999- in the number of illnesses related to cancer, leukemia and genetic deformity in newborns.

The crime in Yugoslavia has specific culprits with full name: the then US President Bill Clinton, the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the US army General Wesley Clark, the NATO Secratary-General Xavier Solana. However, the abovementioned slaughterers had important accomplices; they were the heads of european social-democratic and center-of-left governments and political powers: the british PM Tony Blair, the German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the leader of the “Greens” in Germany Joschka Fisher. On them, we should include the then Greek government of PASOK which- despite it's hypocritical stance about “non-participation” in the crime- had transformed Greece into NATO's base.

We remind the debarkation of NATO forces in northern Greece and the port of Thessaloniki; we remind the military convoy that was passing through the central macedonia region towards Kosovo. We also remind that, according to official data given by the Hellenic National Defense Staff- the then government of Mr.Simitis had provided permission to: 60,000 NATO soldiers, more than 40,000 army vehicles, 420 NATO warships, 1000 war-planes and more than 500 trains containing military equipment to pass through Greek territory. In simple words, the then Greek government – which supposedly “didn't participate in the war”- was an accomplice of NATO in Yugoslavia's massacre.

Greek communists demonstrate against NATO's war in 1999.
NATO's atrocity in Yugoslavia was the last big slaughter of the 20th century. On the same time it marked something new: the beginning of a new “international law”, completely “tailored” for the imperialist interests – for the interests of monopoly capital. On the dismembered body of Yugoslavia, the imperialists tested the 21st century's law; the same “law” that was later appied in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Seventeen years later, the imperialists continue to re-divide whole regions and engrave borders with people's blood.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Turkish communists defy Erdoğan: 'We call the thief "a thief", the murderer "a murderer"'

Republished from International Communist Press.

Members of the Communist Party, Turkey released a public statement to inform on themselves for challenging Erdoğan's numerous libel lawsuits.

ICP, 23rd March 2016.

50 members of the Communist Party, Turkey (KP) released a statement saying "The facts are stronger than Erdoğan" as an opposition to President Erdoğan's numerous lawsuits on libel against many people all over Turkey. 

Join Statement of Communist and Workers Parties

We, the communist and workers parties, that sign this text:
 We denounce the imperialist aggressiveness, the interventions and wars, the USA, NATO and the EU and their "allies", like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The criminal activity of these powers has caused millions of people to become refugees and immigrants.
All the bourgeois governments which have been participating all these years with armies, providing every kind of assistance and reproducing all the pretexts used to justify the unleashing of these imperialist interventions also bear serious responsibilities.
 We denounce the EU and the bourgeois governments that follow a line of police-military repression of the refugees, who are trying to escape war, destitution and the human trafficking networks.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Dimitris Koutsoumbas on Brussels attacks: The murderous acts increase the dangers of new interventions and repressive measures

In his statement on the murderous attacks in Brussels, the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, stressed that:

"We condemn these murderous acts in Brussels and of course we express once again our full solidarity with the Belgian people and the families of the victims. These murderous acts in essence serve, further develop and increase the dangers of new interventions, new wars, the development of terrorist activity, as well as repressive measures against the peoples, the growth of xenophobia and racism, phenomena that must be avoided not just in Belgium, but in Europe and the world as a whole. From this standpoint, there needs to be vigilance and readiness on the part of all the people's movements."

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

The positions of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) on the refugee-immigrant question

A Syrian refugee in Idomeni, Greece.
REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis.
Source: inter.kke.gr

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, during the meeting of the political leaders called by the President of the Republic on the refugee question last Friday (4/3/2016) submitted a paper with the full and elaborated positions of the party on the specific issue.

“1.The KKE, from the very first moment of the sharpening of the refugee-immigration issue, attempted to explain its causes to the Greek people, which are the wars and interventions unleashed by the USA, NATO and the EU in the wider region of the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, in the framework of their competition with other forces, like Russia.

2. Needless to say the people who are victims of wars, interventions and reactionary regimes have the right to seek a safer life in other countries, despite the fact that a permanent solution to the problem can be found if the people of each country organize and struggle to overthrow the system that creates wars, poverty and refugees.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The sharpening of the imperialist competition and the position of the KKE regarding the possibility of Greece’s involvement in an imperialist war

The sharpening of the imperialist competition in the region of the Southeastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. The position of the KKE regarding the possibility of Greece’s involvement in an imperialist war.

By Elisseos Vagenas (Communist Party of Greece).
Republished from the International Communist Review, 5th Issue, Nov.2014.

War is no chance happening, no “sin” as is thought by Christian priests (who are no whit behind the opportunists in preaching patriotism, humanity and peace), but an inevitable stage of capitalism, just as legitimate a form of the   capitalist way of life as peace is. Present-day war is a people’s war. What follows from this truth is not that we must swim with the “popular” current of chauvinism, but that the class contradictions dividing the nations continue to exist in wartime and manifest themselves in conditions of war” V.I.Leninó
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) also deals with issue of war through the prism of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, which it remains faithful to. The possibility of war and the involvement of Greece particularly concerned the recent 19th Congress of the KKE (11-14 April 2013). Important guidelines are provided in the Political Resolution regarding the preparation of the party in the case of such a possibility, as the developments completely vindicate Lenin, who underlined that war constitutes “an inevitable phase of capitalism, a form of capitalist life equally natural as peace”. The imperialist “peace” prepares the new imperialist wars. The KKE does not merely repeat the Leninist truths, but uses them as a basis, analyzing the specific socio-economic, political developments of our wider region, which are explosive and are creating a very dangerous situation for the lives of the workers. The specific article will refer to this approach of the KKE.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

List of Communist and Workers Parties in Europe

Party of Labour of Austria

Partei der Arbeit (PdA),

Communist Party of the Workers of Belarus

E-mail: s-kps@tut.by
Web-page: s-kps.by  
Tel: (+37517) 334-05-52

New Communist Party of Britain

Tel:(+44)207 2234052

Union of Communists in Bulgaria

Tel: 00359/888 745 091

Party of Bulgarian Communists

E-Mail:  bcp.gd@mail.bg
Web-page:
Tel: (+359)8961133, 898 322 455

Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia

Web-page: http://www.srp.hr
Tel: (+ 385) 1 4835340 / 91 2219036

Communist Party in Denmark

Tel: (+45) 38882833

Pole of Communist Revival in France

Union of Revolutionary Communists of France

Web-page:
Tel:

Communist Party of Macedonia

Web-page:
Tel: (+389) 23177248

Unified Communist Party of Georgia

Web-page:
Tel: (+995) 93 761363 / 32 546587

Communist Party of Greece

Web-page: ​inter.kke.gr
Tel:(+30) 210 2592111

Hungarian Workers' Party

Tel: (+361) 780-83-06

The Workers' Party of Ireland

Tel: (+3531) 8733 916

Communists People’s Left-Communist Party of Italy

Socialist Party of Latvia

Tel: (+371) 67555535

Socialist People’s Front of Lithuania

Tel: (+370) 52431070

Communist Party of Malta

E-Mail: communistpartymalta@gmail.comcommunistpartymalta@yahoo.com
Tel: (+356) 797305.

People’s Resistance Moldova

Tel: (+373) 022514195

Communist Party of Norway

E-Mail: nkp@nkp.no
Web-page: http://www.nkp.no
Tel: (+4722) 716044

Communist Party of Poland

E-Mail: int@kompol.org
Tel: (+48) 228334288

Communist Workers' Party of Russia

Tel: (+7812) 2742772 / 2748073

Communist Party of Soviet Union

Web-page: http://www.cpsu.by
Tel: (+7495) 6844175

New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

Tel: (+38111) 2425689 / (+38111) 2400628

Communist Party of Slovakia

E-Mail: sekr@kss.sk
Web-page: http://www.kss.sk
Tel: (+4212) 44644101

Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain

Web-page: http://www.pcpe.es
Tel: (+34) 915329187

Communist Party of Sweden

E-Mail: skp@skp.se
Web-page: http://www.skp.se
Tel: (+468) 7358640

Communist Party, Turkey

Web-page:  http://kp.org.tr
Tel:  +90 549 4305011 

Union of Communists of Ukraine

Tel: (+38044)2906225