50 years since the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprising against the Greek Junta

This Friday, 17th November 2023, marks the 50th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising which subsequently led to the fall of the military dictatorial regime in Greece. 

The events at the Athens Polytechnic in 1973 consist one of the most significant moment of class struggle in Greece during the second half of the 20th century. But what was the historical background and the socio-political developments that led to the uprising of the Greek youth?

 

Grover Furr — Paul Robeson's Meeting with Itzik Fefer, June 1949

By Grover Furr

In 1981 Paul Robeson’s son, Paul Robeson Jr, claimed that his father had told him privately that in June 1949 he, Paul Sr, learned about the persecution of some prominent Jews in the Soviet Union, but had never publicly revealed this fact and had asked his son to promise not to reveal it during his, Paul Sr’s, lifetime. In later years Paul Jr repeatedly confirmed this story. In the present article I check this story against the evidence that is now available. I conclude that Paul Jr’s story is untrue. 

50 years since the death of legendary Greek communist leader Nikos Zachariadis

Today, August 1, 2023, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Nikos Zachariadis, General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) from 1931 to 1956, one of the most significant figures of the European and international communist movement in the 20th century. 

He was born to ethnic Greek parents in Ottoman Empire's Edirne (Andrianoupolis) in 1903. At the age of 16, Nikos moved to Istanbul where he worked in various jobs, including as a dockworker and sailor. It was there when he started having his first organised relationship with the working-class movement. 

 

Crimes of Francoism, a history of bloody impunity

By Álvaro Luque.

We have all heard stories of Francoism that continue to shrink our hearts. You left the house, they arrested you and little by little, humiliation by humiliation, they stripped you of all human dignity where you became a simple punching bag. You became a rag doll where the Brigada Político-Social in the 70s, and the Civil Guard and the Army in the post-war period, were practicing all kinds of humiliations and tortures to extract any confession. 

Estonia's "Institute of Historical Memory" shamefully falsifies WW2 history, promotes anti-communism

In an effort to re-write history, the so-called “Estonian Institute of Historical Memory” (Eesti Mälu Instituut/ EIHM), an anti-communist institution, in collaboration with the German Embassy in Tallinn, has launched since 2018 a “Summer School” focusing on “the history of crimes against humanity and human rights violations during and after the Second World War.

Promoting anti-communism and the distortion of history, EIHM tries to equate the Soviet Union – the major liberation force in WW2 – with Nazi Germany!!! More specifically, in the website of EIHM's “Summer School” someone can read the following:

 

Remembering the Khatyn Massacre in Belarus

80 years passed since the massacre at the Byelorussian village of Khatyn, perpetrated by the Nazis and their Ukrainian fascist collaborators. 149 people, including 75 children, were brutally murdered. 

 

The heinous crime was committed by the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118, composed primarily of Ukrainian fascists, assisted by the Dirlewanger Waffen-SS special battalion. 

On the 70th death anniversary of Joseph Stalin

By Nikos Mottas.

Seven decades later they tremble at his name. For the bourgeoisie,  capitalists and exploiters, he is the personification of evil. For fascists and neo-Nazis, his image is enough to cause nightmares. Social Democrats, opportunists and other enemies of the working class movement have been trying for many decades to slander him with tones of lies and propaganda.

On March 5, 1953, 70 years ago, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzughasvilli, the man whose leadership influenced the course of the 20th century like very few others, left his last breath at his dacha in Kunchevo. The next day, in a joint statement published in “Pravda”, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet were announcing the death of Stalin: 

70th anniversary of Stalin's death: The announcement of his death on PRAVDA, 6 March 1953

PRAVDA, 6 March 1953:

"Dear Comrades and Friends: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet announce with profound sorrow to the Party and all working people of the Soviet Union that at 9:50 p.m. 5 March, Iosif Vissarionovich STALIN, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, died after a grave illness.

The heart of Lenin’s comrade-in-arms and the inspired continuer of Lenin’s cause, the wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people, Joseph Vissarionovich STALIN, has stopped beating.

Grover Furr: Message for Nikos Mottas' book on Stalin and Anti-communism

Message sent by Professor Grover Furr on the occasion of the presentation of Nikos Mottas' book titled "Yes, but Stalin..." in Athens:

"I am glad to hear that Nikos Mottas’ book exposing and opposing the attacks on the Soviet Union, especially on the period of Soviet history when Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Communist Party and, for some period, of the government of the Soviet Union.

Czech historians indicted for challenging the official narrative on the Katyn massacre!

Josef Skála

On 31 October 2022, Tomáš Hübner, single judge of the Prague 7 District Court, sentenced Josef Skála, a well-known Marxist intellectual and former vice-president of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), together with Vladimír Kapal, and Juraj Václavík, all three indicted, to eight months’ imprisonment, under Article 405 of the Criminal Code of the Czech Republic, for having challenged the version attributing the Katyn massacre (the killing of thousands of Polish prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR, occupied by the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1941) to the Soviet leadership.

Communist Party of Greece: Valuable experience of the USSR in the struggle for socialism

On 14 January 2023, the Revolutionary Communist Party of France organized an event in Paris on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union. Below, you can find the contribution made at the event by Eliseos Vagenas, member of the CC of the KKE and Head of the International Relations Section.

“If someone said that the Soviet Union would disintegrate, for us it would be like the sun would not rise the next day” the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, had said in an interview. This phrase captures the feelings of millions of communists and other progressive people who understood that the overthrow of socialism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union would mean a major social setback for the working people all over the world.

The terrible legacy of Constantine Glücksburg

Constantine (center) with the military Junta leaders, 1967.

Constantine Glücksburg, son of Paul and Federicka, who died on Tuesday 10 January aged 82, was the last representative of the institution of monarchy in Greece, reigning between 1964 and 1973.

The monarchy in Greece didn't arise as in other states, as a remnant of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, but was introduced after the 1821 Revolution as a result of the direct intervention of the “Great Powers” of the time (Great Britain, France, Russia), in collaboration with part of the rising Greek bourgeoisie. As an institution, it didn't evolve into a “decorative ornament”, as it happened in other capitalist states, but retained its role as a center of power, always embedded in the framework of the bourgeois state with direct links to international capitalist centers. 

100th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union: Socialism proved its superiority over capitalism

By Nikos Mottas.

December 30th marked the 100th anniversary since the founding of the world's first workers' state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

The creation of the USSR was the practical result of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution, the single most important event in modern history that became the first conscious step for the transition from capitalism to socialism and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. 

Germany to officially adopt anti-communist conspiracy theory on Ukrainian famine

Here we go again! The filthy, old anti-communist falsehoods about the Ukrainian Famine, known as Holodomor, are back in the news. 

 

This time, its the government of Germany that plans to recognize the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as a "genocide" perpetrated by Joseph Stalin's leadership.

"German lawmakers have put forth a resolution to raise awareness of the 1932-1933 famine that led to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians as a result of Soviet leader Josef Stalin's policies", reads a recent article on "Deutsche Welle". 

Poland's shameful attempt to erase historical memory - Four Red Army memorials demolished

It's been a long time since the authorities of Poland began their attempt to erase historical memory, by slandering socialism-communism and destroying Soviet-era monuments. In this effort, the bourgeois authorities don't hesitate to demolish memorials dedicated to the heroic Red Army soldiers who fought against the monster of Nazism in the Second World War. 

On Thursday, within the framework of Russo-phobia and in an attempt to equate capitalist Russia with the Soviet Union, four more monuments in different locations across Poland were destroyed. 

Latvian workers refuse to demolish Soviet memorial

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org/Александр Тимофеев

A few days ago we wrote about the despicable decision of the Latvian authorities to dismantle Soviet monuments, including the memorial complex dedicated to the country's liberation by the Red Army in Riga. 

News source from the Baltic country reported that workers refused to dismantle Soviet-era monuments in the eastern Balvi region. 

Like many other memorials of Soviet heritage, the monument that is dedicated to the partisans of the Red Army in the Balvi region is planned to be dismantled and transferred to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. According to a statement by the chairman of the regional Duma, Sergei Maksimov, local workers refuse to do this.

KKE: "Hands off the anti-fascist monuments of Europe”

“The Red Army's antifascist Victory cannot be erased! Hands off the anti-fascist monuments of Europe” points out a statement of the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) concerning the dismantling of the Soviet monument in Riga, Latvia on 23 August. More specifically, the statement (here in Greek) reads: 

“The decision of the authorities of Latvia and the city of Riga to destroy the entire complex of the anti-fascist monument, which was located in a central part of the Latvian capital and related to the liberation of Riga from the fascist invaders, is another step towards the rewriting of history. It took place in a country where anti-communist persecutions are practiced and which has already proceeded to the justification of the Nazi collaborators, the Nazi “legions” which officially parade ever year. 

Stalin never allied with Hitler: The Truth about the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

 By Nikos Mottas.

"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible...”

- Harry Truman, 1941.

Since the end of the Second World War, the bourgeois historiography has tried to distort various incidents in order to vilify Socialism and the USSR. One of these incidents- which has been a "banner" of imperialism's apologists and other anticommunists- is the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” which was signed in 1939. In it's unscientific, unhistorical effort to equate Communism with Nazism, the bourgeois propaganda presents the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a medium of expansive policy by the USSR and Hitler's Germany. The distortion of historical events, the amalgamation of lies and the half-truths by the Imperialists and their collaborators aim in defaming the huge role of the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist struggle of WW2.

Palmiro Togliatti: The International Significance of the October Revolution

For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!" Vol. 2, no. 21; November 1, 1948 via marxists.org.

 

By Palmiro Togliatti,

Nearly a third of a century has passed since Soviet Power was established. Since November 1917, 31 years have gone by in the course of which mankind and the peoples of capitalist Europe in particular, have passed through a period of acute economic and political crises, through bitter battles between the forces of democracy and peace and the forces of reaction and war.

The 1968 Prague Spring — Counterrevolution as the “Trojan Horse” of Imperialism

By Nikos Mottas.

 

It was August 1968, in the capital of the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, Prague, where the internationalist solidarity of the Warsaw Pact countries crushed one of the most significant counterrevolutionary efforts of the Cold War era. The events in Prague consist a milestone in the struggle of the socialist world against imperialism. At the same time, the then events continue serving as a source of anticommunist propaganda by various bourgeois and opportunist forces.

For many decades, the bourgeois historiography- supported by opportunists and counterrevolutionaries (trotskyites, eurocommunists, social democrats, etc.) refers to the “soviet tanks” which, as they argue, “drowned Prague in blood” thus ending prematurely the effort for a “socialism with a human face”.