Pablo Neruda- Ode to Lenin

I

Lenin, to sing to you

I must say farewell to words:

I must write with trees, with wheels,

with plows, with cereals.

You’re concrete

as facts and earth.

There never was

a more earthly man

than V. Ulyanov.

The international economic crisis and the position of Greece - The theses of KKE

The international economic crisis  the position of Greece. 

The theses of KKE / By Eleni Bellou.

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 1, July 2014.

The international capitalist economy is going through a profound crisis characterized mainly by its extensive synchronization. It initially manifested itself in 2007 in the USA, in the construction sector, with the depreciation of capital in financial companies, due to the extensive circulation of investment derivatives in securitized precarious housing loans.

The danger of collapse of US financial giants -that hold powerful positions in the international market of money capital- caused a gradual and generalized large decrease of prices in the most important stock markets in the world. It was the “tip of the iceberg” in the manifestation of a generalized crisis of overproduction, overaccumulation of capital.

An optimistic version of the current data and assessments of the international economic organisations pinpoint 2010 as the year of the lowest point of recession. An increase of the number of unemployed by 25 million has already been registered and it is estimated that another 40 millions will be added by the end of the year. In 2009, the Gross World Product is expected to shrink by 1,7% according to the World Bank and by 2,75% according to the OECD. The latter estimates that the international trade will shrink by 13,2% in 2009.

The International Monetary Fund estimates the depreciation of money capital to 4,1 trillion dollars since the manifestation of the crisis.

Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

April 4, 1968- American-African Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tenneessee. Honoring Dr.King, we present below a video from his famous- "I Have a Dream"- speech.

       

Statistics of NATO's "peacekeeping operations"

Statistics of NATO's "peacekeeping operations".

Source: anti-nato.com.

Yugoslavia

• Dead – 5,700 people, including 400 children
• Wounded – nearly 7,000 civilians, 30% of them children
• Missing – 821 people
• Excess mortality as a result of deterioration of conditions of existence not estimated 

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200-01.htm

Patras municipality: Mass participation in the beginning of the 220km anti-unemployment marathon

The banner of the 220km march against
unemployment.

Latest news reports from the city of Patras refer to "mass participation" in the municipality's iniative to organise a 220km march to Athens having as a slogan "Jobs for everybody-Labour with rights". The march began at 9 am on Sunday at Georgiou square in the city-center. In the forefront of the march was the communist mayor of Patras, Kostas Peletidis, while hundreds of labour unions, women and youth associations, student organisations were following. 

The- marathon like- march will end in Athens' Syntagma Square on April 10 when a large demonstration will take place during the evening with the participation of hundreds labour unions and various associations from Attica.

The SYRIZA-ANEL government ratified the wretched bargain of the EU with Turkey's ruling class

         

(VIDEO from PAME's rally in support of the refugees in Athens)

Republished from inter.kke.gr.

On the 1^st of April 2016, the draft law related to the ratification of the European Union’s agreement with Turkey on the issue of refugees and immigrants was discussed and passed in the Greek parliament. All the reactionary EU decisions from September 2015 to its most recent Summit that have been co-signed to by the SYRIZA-ANEL government were integrated into Greek legislation in this way.

The European bourgeois states adjust- in a more reactionary direction- their legislation on asylum and regarding those who are entitled to international protection in line with these decisions. This is in complete contradiction to International Law regarding refugees, despite the hypocritical references to and invocations of the Geneva Convention.

RIZOSPASTIS Headlines (3/4/2016)

Sunday edition of "Rizospastis".

Organ of the CC of KKE.

3/4/2016.

- Escalation of people's activity in front of unpopular developments.

- Coalition government-Quartet: Anti-people escalation in the background of memorandums' update.

- D.Koutsoumbas: The working-peoples' movement to demand immediate measures for the refugees, against the EU decisions.

- Patras Municipality- March against unemployment: Today at 9 am the beginning from Patras.

Anti-communist hysteria reloaded: Polish authorities to take down 500 Soviet-Era monuments

Do the Polish authorities follow the pathway of the neo-fascist regime of Ukraine? Do they really think they can erase history just by taking down soviet monuments? Is it simply another episode of anti-communist hysteria?

This Red Army Memorial, in Skaryszewski Park in Warsaw, was removed by Polish officials in July. (Photo: masti/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0).

The above questions came into mind when we read the following in atlasobscura: 

For months, Poland has embarked on a campaign to remove hundreds of Soviet-era monuments, much to the chagrin of Russia, who can do little more than sit on the sidelines and watch. 

Greek parliament discussion on draft law for the refugees- ΚΚΕ: "You ask from the murderer to solve the problem"

KKE's parliamentary rep., MP Thanasis Pafilis.

The fact that the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government brings with fast-track procedure the draft law for the refugees- and on the same time adds more than 100 technical legislative issues- is unacceptable and serves other purposes said Thanasis Pafilis, the parliamentary representative of the Communist Party of Greece.

Refering to the causes of the refugee issue- taking into account that during their speeches the MPs of SYRIZA and New Democracy refered to various causes- Pafilis said that all of them voted and supported NATO's decision for a 'New Middle East' that was taken at the 2004 NATO summit in Istanbul. "When you signed the plan or when you supported it when it was submitted to the European Parliament, didn't you know what the outcome would be?" asked Pafilis. The KKE MP also added that only the Communist Party had then opposed these plans thus receiving-then- the accusations from the New Democracy, PASOK as well as from SYRIZA.

The 1956 counter-revolution in Hungary and the present-day anti-Communist Propaganda

The 1956 counter-revolution in Hungary and the present-day anti-Communist Propaganda

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 2, 2014.

In the years of 1989-90 a bourgeois counter-revolution took place in Hungary. Opportunist and revisionist forces inside the leadership of the former Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP) made a bargain with capitalist circles of the USA and Germany and handed over the power to internal bourgeois counter-revolitionary forces. The Marxist wing inside the HSWP proved unable to defend the achievements of socialism. Later those who surrendered the socialism reorganised themselves into the Hungarian Socialist Party and joined the political system of capitalist Hungary. Neither can we neglect the role of the opportunist policy of the former leadership of the Soviet Union, that betrayed socialism.

The bourgeois forces which gained power in 1990 consider the 1956 their historical ideal. On this ideal is based the whole political and ideological system of capitalist Hungary. It also constitutes the main means of the present-day anti-communist propaganda.

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.

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".

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.

"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.

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.

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!

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 24^th 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 20^th 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 23^rd, 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.

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.