Militant demonstrations of PAME against government's anti-people pension reforms in Greece

Information from 902.gr

With mass militant rallies in Athens, Thessaloniki and other major cities, workers, labour unions, students, pensioners responded to the government's new law proposal on social security. The demonstrations were organised by PAME (All-Workers Militant Front) being a preparatory step towards the 48-hour general strike which will take place on the day of the law's submission in the Parliament. In Athens thousands of working people demonstrated in Syntagma Square, in front of the Hellenic Parliament having as a major slogan "Take back the law-guillotine".

Greece: The Marathon Peace Rally will take place on May 15th

Photo: Last year's Peace Rally.

The Greek Committee for International Détente and Peace (EEDYE) announced that the 36th Marathon Peace Rally will take place on Sunday May 15th. EEDYE calls for mass participation in the Peace Marathon, pointing out the following: 

"The participation in the Marathon Peace Rally consists a condemnation step against the antipeople policy and the Greek interference in the imperialist plans and wars which create mortal dangers for our people and the people of the broader region.

We march and fight for:

NATO out of the Aegean Sea - Solidarity to the refugees

No participation in the imperialist wars".

Polish government's fascist practices against communists / Appeal of KPP for International Solidarity

Communist Party of Poland (KPP) - Appeal for International Solidarity.

Four activists of the CPP were condemned on 31st of March 2016 by the Regional Court in Dąbrowa Górnicza for propagating communist ideology in the „Brzask” newspaper and on the party's website. They have been sentenced to 9 months of limited freedom with compulsory gratuitous social work and fines. 

This provocative verdict was taken during the summary procedure without presence of all the sides, that is usually used in offences, when guilt of the accused is certain. The court did not even undertake standard judgement procedure and based its verdict only on a charge. The accused even had no possibility to defend themselves. The condemned had already made objections to a judgement demanding normal court proceedings.

Solidarność: The CIA-backed 'Trojan Horse' of Poland's Counterrevolution

The Polish government's persistent anti-communist hysteria and the decision to demolish Soviet monuments throughout the country brought to our mind the relatively recent history of Poland's Counterrevolution. And when we talk about Counterrevolution in Eastern Europe and especially in Poland we can't ignore two major names: Solidarność (Solidarity) and Lech Walesa. 

The course of events since 1980 prove that Solidarność was the 'Trojan Horse' of Counterrevolution in Poland. Solidarność's leadership- a bunch of anticommunist charlatans like Walesa- deceived the polish working class. Solidarity had succesfully presented itself as a "pro-working class" union but its actual positions were pro-capitalist. 

Solidarność was against central planning. The Trade Union's programme was stating among other things: 

The New Worker- Britain should leave the EU to save the NHS

Leave the EU to save the NHS.

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

DR DAVID Owen, once a Labour Foreign Secretary who led a right-wing split in the party in the early 1980s to form the short-lived Social Democrat Party, was once a staunch supporter of Britain being part of the Common Market. But last week he called on people to vote to leave the European Union in order to rescue the NHS.

'Course to Freedom' or SYRIZA No.3

Special to In Defense of Communism.

Mrs. Zoe Konstantopoulou is a well-known person in Greek political affairs. The daughter of Nikos Konstantopoulos, former President of the opportunist 'Synaspismos' (the political ancestor of SYRIZA), has served as an MP for SYRIZA (elected in 2012) as well as Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament (2015). In the elections of September 2015 she was a candidate with Panayiotis Lafazanis' "Popular Unity" (aka SYRIZA No.2). Both Lafazanis and Konstantopoulou are former leading cadres of Synaspismos-later SYRIZA- having served in Tsipras' first government.

Now, Mrs.Konstantopoulou decided to become a party-leader herself. Last Tuesday, she announced her own opportunistic initiative- a party called "Course to Freedom" (Plefsi Eleftherias). As it was expected, the media ran to cover the news about Konstantopoulou's party, proving once again that she is one of Greek media's most favorite political figures.

Стачка / Strike (1924) by Sergei M.Eisenstein (Full Film)

      

Strike was Sergei Eisenstein's first film (1924). It depicts life at a factory complex in Tsarist Russia and the conditions the workforce experienced. The plot is about the workers organising a strike which due to repression escalates into a full blown occupation.

New Democracy's Mitsotakis: The same old reactionary, neoliberal and anticommunist rhetoric

Some of the most reactionary theories of the bourgeoisie were used by New Democracy's leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis during his speech on the party's 10th congress. The congress of New Democracy (Nea Dimokratia) started on Friday in the midst of a controversy created by its president's decision to dismantle and re-organise the conservative party's youth-wing. 

Information taken from 902.gr.

In his speech Mitsotakis, son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis, once again promoted the idea of "private initiative" in economy saying among other things: "For us, development means private initiative, means investments, means to support the honest and conscionable businessmen, means the exculpation of profit and entrepreneurship". Of course, the New Democracy leader didn't say that the notion of private profit is the base of a policy that destroys peoples' rights for the sake of large corporations and monopolies.

Greek Working-Class Unions vs SYRIZA-ANEL government: Preparations for a massive 48-hours General Strike

A dynamic, militant response to the plans of the SYRIZA-ANEL government is organised by working-class unions. PAME (All-Workers Militant Front) has called for mass demonstrations in Greece's major cities on Tuesday, April 26. The upcoming demonstrations will be a major preparation for a nationwide 48-hour General Strike. 

In a recent announcement, PAME stresses the following:

No worker should be fooled by the maneuvers, the manipulation and the tactics of the government (that aim to weaken the militant response against the new attack on the social-security system)

We have to respond to the provocative lies of the government!

'The Economist' magazine uses misattributed quote in order to vilify Lenin

Seems that the- supposedly serious- 'The Economist' magazine is not that well-informed about Lenin. The bourgeois magazine, famous for its neoliberal views and its support of the Afghanistan and Iraq imperialist massacres, decided to express its blatant anticommunism with a tweet about Vladimir Lenin. On the occasion of Lenin's 146th birth anniversary, the british magazine published the following tweet:

The New Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC)

Full list of the 17 Political Bureau members elected by the Party Central Committee during the 7th Congress. Raúl reported that four are women; five Black or mixed race; five Council of State vice presidents; three Council of Ministers vice presidents; four ministers; two deputy ministers; four generals - including the First Secretary - and five new members.

MEMBERS OF THE PARTY POLITICAL BUREAU

"The Red Army liberated Rzeszow, that is a fact"- Polish city refuses to demolish Soviet-era monument

Citizens of Rzeszow greeting soldiers of the Red Army, 1940s.

Even in today's Poland- an EU and NATO member- there are signs of resistance to the anti-communist hysteria. The distortion of History and the intentional effort for the equation of Communism with Nazism must not- and will not- pass (IDC).

Source: Russia Today.

The city of Rzeszow, close to Poland’s border with Ukraine, has ignored calls to remove a Soviet-era monument celebrating the liberation of the city from the Nazis. Last month, Poland’s historical legacy institute urged the immediate removal of 500 such memorials across the country.

The monument was erected in 1950, and expresses “gratitude” to the Red Army for its actions.

Fidel Castro: Absolved by History!

Two days ago, compañero Fidel Castro made a rare appearance at the closing of the VII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. A great revolutionary, an incredible human being, Fidel, deserves the full respect of every communist, of everyone who believes in the ideals of Marxism-Leninism. 

Fidel Castro: Absolved by History!*

By Nikos Mottas.

"Socialism is and will continue being the hope, the only hope, the only way for the People, the oppressed ones, the exploited ones, the looted ones. Socialism is the only choice!" - Fidel Castro Ruz.

It was 26^th of July 1953 when a group of around 160 rebels, under the leadership of 26 years-old lawyer Fidel Castro, tried an armed attack on the Moncada barracks, at Santiago de Cuba. The aim was to give a first message of resistance against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The attack was not successful. Sixty-one rebels were killed while the rest -- including Castro -- were captured and imprisoned by the regime's authorities. However, the 26^th of July 1953 remained in Cuban history as the day when the trigger of the following revolution was pulled. The revolutionary 'Movement of the 26^thof July' (Movimiento 26 de Julio) took it's name from that day and a few years later led the army of Fidel, Che, Raul and Camilo to the thriumph against the corrupted, pro-imperialist regime of Batista.

Greece's 'Black Anniversary': Announcement of KKE for the Military Coup of 21 April 1967

21 April 1967: Tanks parade in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens.

The 21st of April is a black anniversary for Greece. It was April 21, 1967 when a group of far-right army officers led by Brigadier General Pattakos and Colonels Papadopoulos and Makarezos seized power after a coup d'etat. In the early morning of that day, tanks were already marching in central streets of Athens while small mobile units of the army were arresting politicians, government officials and prominent figures who were regarded as left-wing sympathies. The military dictatorship (Junta) lasted seven years, from 1967 to 1974. 

KKE: Announcement for the military coup of April 21st.

Source: 902.gr / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

Today, 49 years after the military coup of April 21st 1967 we get taught, we honor the fighters, the victims of Junta. We honor the members and staff of KKE and KNE, all those who stood unbending in detention centers, in the EAT-ESA torture rooms, in prison and exile.

The military dictatorshop was supported by parts of the plutocracy, by centers of our country's bourgeoisie, by the USA, which is a proof that the bourgeoisie and its state can even support military and political coups in order to serve their interests, (to serve) the needs of the exploitative system.

On Imperialist military intervention in Latin America, Limits and contradictions

By Diego Torres* / Source: International Communist Review, Issue 5, Nov.2014.

"War is the continuation of politics by other means". This is Clausewitz’s thesis,which Lenin retakes to characterize the imperialist world war, and from that departing pointavoid  getting lost in petty-bourgeois pacifism or social chauvinism , stating clearly, with the rest of the Zimmerwald Left , the slogan of turning the imperialist war into a world civil war against the bourgeoisie. This thesis is still perfectly valid and allows us to start evaluating military interventions of the imperialist centers in Latin America.

Brazilian Communists: The People will defeat villainy and the coup (English / Português)

Source: Solidnet.

Infamy and villainy were the main characters this Sunday (April 17th), in the House of Representatives. A session to fill with opprobrium those responsible for this hateful plot weaved by the Vice President of the Republic, Michel Temer, whose memory will bring shame to Brazilians for many generations.

By Socorro Gomes*.

He, who wants to usurp the mandate given to President Dilma through the vote of 54 million Brazilians, will have a place in history as a man who used his post as Vice President to plot and conspire and, going through the odious path of treason against the Constitution he swore to uphold, reach power without votes, trashing democracy and the people's will.

Driven by an uncontrollable ambition, Michel Temer has chosen those promoting the coup to offer his service as a hunting hound in a criminal gear. The master of ceremony in this fraudulent act masked as a trial for an inexistent crime against the fiscal order, the so-called “pedaladas”, was the House's President, Eduardo Cunha, who is a criminal defendant facing a process of destitution run by the House's Ethical Council, in trial for corruption in the Supreme Court. Just like buffoons are Representatives Jovair Arantes and Rogério Rosso. The alleged fiscal maneuvers (so-called “pedaladas”, a derogatory term) were not even mentioned by the Representatives while they declared their votes, in a clear demonstration of how unimportant for those “judging” is the subject of the report being voted.

Russia: The majority of people regret Soviet Union's collapse, dream of its restoration

Source: Russia Today.

More than half of all Russian citizens believe the collapse of the Soviet Union was a bad thing that could have been avoided, while even more people say they would welcome the restoration of the socialist system and the Soviet state.

According to the latest poll conducted by the independent research agency Levada Center, the proportion of those who confessed to negative feelings over the collapse of the USSR is currently 56 percent, with 28 percent claiming their sentiments are entirely positive and 16 percent deeming the question too complex to give an unambiguous answer.

Fifty-one percent of respondents told researchers that in their opinion the collapse of the USSR could have been avoided, while 33 percent said they considered it inevitable. Some 17 percent said they couldn’t answer.

Fidel Castro's emotional speech at the closing of VII Congress - "The Cuban People will Win"

         

VIDEO: Parts of Fidel Castro's speech at the VII Congress of PCC 

(in Spanish)

Source: Cuban News Agency.

We should tell our brothers in Latin America and the world that the Cuban people will win, asserted the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, in a special address at the closing ceremony of the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, in session for four days at Havana’s Convention Center.

Mikis Theodorakis: The Pope, the predators and the hunted

Legendary composer Mikis Theodorakis, 91.

The Pope, the predators and the hunted.

By Mikis Theodorakis.

Translation from Greek: In Defense of Communism.

I am watching in live broadcast the visit of the Pope, the Religious Leader of the majority of Europe's people in Lesvos, where tens of thousands victims from Syria and other Middle East countries- who defying death and leaving behind dozens of drowned, especially children- arrived from Turkey.

Who is responsible for that big tragedy that millions of innocent fellow humans are living today?

It is the Black Death that the US and Europe's states, which have war industries, are exporting. How many thousands houses, schools, hospitals and other infrastructures were demolished, how many million people were killed or injured and how many of them were uprooted from their countries and forced to search a foreign refuge because of the weapons made by the hands of Europeans and Americans...

Here it is the splendor, the big crime of our era with the modern victimizers-predators from the one side and their victims-quarries from the other. The big crime which transforms our era into a Jungle and the uncountable hypocrisy of the supposedly civilized European People who seal their countries with wire, like the Nazis were doing with the numerous Auschwitz, Dachau and Mauthausen. With the difference (being) that, this time, the victimizers are inside and the victims are out.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP): "Karanlığa Meydan Okuyoruz" (We dare the darkness)

KP First Secretary Kemal Okuyan.

The Communist Party, Turkey (KP) held a mass meeting denouncing the darkness of Erdoğan's fundamentalism and calling for struggle.

Source: ICP, 19th April 2016.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP) held a mass meeting against the reactionism and fundamentalism in İstanbul last Sunday. At the meeting titled "We dare the darkness!", thousands gathered to challenge the reactionary and fundamentalist politics of President Erdoğan and the AKP regime.

The Top 10 biggest lies of Alexis Tsipras

Opportunism is based on lies and deception. The case of SYRIZA, an opportunistic party of the radical left which during the past five years rapidly turned into a social-democratic party (replacing PASOK), is a characteristic example. SYRIZA's leader and current Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, has been the embodiment of political opportunism. Below, you can read 10 of his biggest blatant lies, in his own words:

1. "The first thing Syriza will do in power is tear up the controversial "memorandum of understanding" Greece signed up to with creditors" - Interview with the "Guardian" (18/5/2012).

2. "The only realistic and saving alternative proposal is the abolition, with one law and in one article, of all the austerity measures" - Tsipras on Twitter (11/11/2012).

Russian Communist Workers Party- "Mertens vs Martens" (On the role of the Workers Party of Belgium- PTB)

Ludo Martens (left) and Belgium's Workers
Party current leader Peter Martens.

Mertens vs Martens.

By the Analytical Group of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Workers Party (RKRP).

In recent years, Communists of various countries have been anxiously witnessing the developments within the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB). Our close attention and interest in this party were caused by PTB’s being was one of the parties that actively contributed to the revival of the revolutionary trend of the international Communist movement after the counterrevolutionary coups of 1988-1991 in the USSR and Eastern Europe, when many of the Communist parties of Western Europe ceased to exist or moved to openly reformist positions.

Under these conditions, when bourgeois propaganda was talking about the death of Communism, the Belgian Workers Party, led by its then leader Ludo Martens, an outstanding Marxist theoretician, publicist and revolutionary organizer, initiated the International Communist Seminar in Brussels. These seminars, held since 1992, played an important role in the consolidation of Communists of various countries, in the theoretical understanding of the causes of current events as well as in developing  the strategy and tactics of Communist activity based on Marxist-Leninist theory in the new environment.

Revolution or Reform? Bernie Sanders and American Socialism

Bernie Sanders- like Jeremy Corbyn in Britain- does not consist a threat to the capitalist system. Despite using "socialist" slogans and a radical rhetoric, he is a proponent of class concilication. As a candidate of the bourgeois Democratic Party, Sanders' case is used by the bourgeoisie in order to funnel working class' radicalism back to the capitalist system. Below, we publish an interesting article depicting the historic link between American Socialism and Sanders' contemporary progressive populism (IDC).

Revolution or Reform? Bernie Sanders and American Socialism.

By Graeme A. Pente.

Source: Erstwhile.

Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic Party nomination has produced an incredible amount of publicdiscussion. As his polling numbers have risen and after his surprising successes in the early primaries, one of the biggest concerns among Democrats is his electability in a general election, should he secure the nomination. Sanders’s self-identification as a “democratic socialist” has resulted in quite a lot of hand-wringing in the party, especially among its elite and its older supporters. They dismiss Sanders’s popularity among younger voters as the naivety of an electoral bloc too young to respect the fact that “socialism” is a bad word. Despite some convenient forgetting inspired by the exigencies and excesses of the Cold War, socialism in fact has a long pedigree in the United States. Its history in this country breaks roughly into two phases: communitarian and electoral.

Raul Castro- Presentation of the Central Report to the VII Congress (English/Español)

Keeping a close eye at the VII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), we republish the General Report submitted by President Raul Castro at the opening session of the Congress. Below you can read the major parts of the Report in english and the full speech in spanish.

Raul Castro Ruz- General Report / Source: Granma.

PCC First Secretary Raúl Castro Ruz, presented the Central Report to the 7th Congress, after evoking the 55th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution, on April 16, 1961, on the eve of the mercenary invasion at Playa Girón, which was defeated in less than 72 hours, with Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz on the front lines.

He noted that participating in the event were 1,000 delegates and some 280 invitees, representing the Party’s 600,000 members, organized in 54,000 grassroots units.

The first Secretary noted that the Congress would include the presentation of four principal draft documents, work on several of which began after the previous Congress: the conceptualization of Cuba’s socio-economic model; the development plan through 2030; a report on the implementation of the guidelines over the last five years and their updating for the period 2016-2020; and an analysis of Party objectives approved at the First National Party Conference.