Cuba: 1,000 delegates to participate in Communist Party's 7th Congress on April 16-19

Source: Granma.

The 7th Congress of PCC will be held on April 16-19 with about 1,000 delegates and will focus on the continuity of the economic reforms to update Cuba's socialist model approved at the 6th Congress in 2011.

Guaranteeing greater representation of all Communist Party members around the country and ensuring that participants increasingly reflect the areas from which they come, were key considerations during the election of delegates to the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, to be held April 16-19. 

According to an announcement made at the Party Central Committee Department of Cadre Organization and Policy, 1,000 delegates – similar to the number of participants in the 6th Congress - representing all territories will attend the organization’s most important event.

KKE: Condemnation of the recent anti-communist persecution in Poland

KKE MEPs K.Papadakis and S.Zarianopoulos.

Source: inter.kke.gr

The KKE delegation in the European Parliament tabled the following question in relation to the recent anti-communist persecution in Poland:

"recently members and cadres of the CP of Poland were convicted by the regional court of Dąbrowa Górnicza to prison sentences of up to 9 months, many months of "limited freedom" and compulsory social work and also fines, because the dissemination of their ideas through the newspaper "Brzask" and the website www.kompol.org is considered to be an "offense" and a "crime".The court in order to convict them, following the anticommunist positions of the Polish authorities, utilized rotten and groundless accusations regarding "the public promotion of a totalitarian system". This is part of their attempt to cancel and slander the gains of the workers under socialism, the right to work, labour and social rights. The Polish authorities have for some years provocatively banned the communist symbols and now convict the communists, invoking "democratic values".

Bernie Sanders is America's "Tsipras"

Special to In Defense of Communism.

Let's get directly to the point: Many progressive americans support Bernie Sanders because they can't stand the Republicans or Hillary Clinton. The possibility of a Trump presidency is a nightmare, while Mrs.Clinton is nothing but the continuity of Barack Obama's administration. Senator Sanders has been presented in various ways: socialist, social-democrat, democratic socialist etc. Even Sanders himself has called himself a "socialist". But, does he really know the meaning of "socialism"? Is he confused with the political terminology or he does that by purpose?

Senator Sanders has as much relation to Socialism as Alexis Tsipras does. Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA and current Prime Minister of Greece, was elected based on radical slogans, socialist rhetoric and illusions about "humanizing Capitalism". What Tsipras' government did is well known: he signed a new bailout agreement with the creditors and applied the same- and in some cases even harder- austerity measures. In fact, he did what his conservative predecessors did. 

The simple truth about Yanis Varoufakis and his DiEM25 party

By Nikos Mottas/ In Defense of Communism.

On February 8th, in Berlin, the former Finance Minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis presented the 'manifesto' of his new pan-european party called "Democracy in Europe Movement 2015" (DiEM25). Having as a major slogan "transparency in Europe", the DiEM25 manifesto was stating among other things: 

"The European Union was an exceptional achievement, bringing together in peace European peoples speaking different languages, submersed in different cultures, proving that it was possible to create a shared framework of human rights across a continent that was, not long ago, home to murderous chauvinism, racism and barbarity. [...] Alas, today, a common bureaucracy and a common currency divide European peoples that were beginning to unite despite our different languages and cultures. A confederacy of myopic politicians, economically naïve officials and financially incompetent ‘experts’ submit slavishly to the edicts of financial and industrial conglomerates, alienating Europeans and stirring up a dangerous anti-European backlash. Proud peoples are being turned against each other. Nationalism, extremism and racism are being re-awakened. [...] At the heart of our disintegrating EU there lies a guilty deceit: A highly political, top-down, opaque decision-making process is presented as ‘apolitical’, ‘technical’, ‘procedural’ and ‘neutral’. Its purpose is to prevent Europeans from exercising democratic control over their money, finance, working conditions and environment. The price of this deceit is not merely the end of democracy but also poor economic policies".

Solidarity Declaration with the Venezuelan People - Declaración de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Venezolano

Communist Party of Venezuela / Source: Solidnet.

The Communist, Revolutionary and Workers Parties of the world, express our strong support and firm solidarity to the VENEZUELAN PEOPLE, the Government of the Constitutional President Nicolas Maduro Moros, the Communist Party of Venezuela, and the Committee of International Solidarity (COSI), member of the Executive Committee of the World Peace Council (WPC), victims of an abominable and new interventionist escalation by the US imperialism which means the prelude to a declaration of war.

The "Executive Order" was renewed on March 3^rd, 2016 by the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, which extends and expands the possible actions of the major State aggressor on sovereignty and self-determination of peoples, against the political and social process in Venezuela, in which a "national emergency" against an alleged "unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the US" is declared.

"Iron Lady" Remembered

       

Video: In Defense of Communism.

How many people did Joseph Stalin really kill?

Source: anti-imperialism.com.

When discussing the merits and achievements of the Soviet Union, detractors of various stripes, from anti-communist to anti-Leninist, often point to a 2013 International Business Times article named “How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?” by Palash Ghosh. The article, which depicts Soviet leader J. V. Stalin as an inhuman cold-blooded mass murderer, claims that up to 60 million people, nearly one-third of the USSR’s 1941 population, were killed on the part of the government and the leadership of the country.[1][2] But do these figures actually hold up? Through a careful read of the article, one can find glaring problems with the logic and the conclusion and deduce that the article is not much more than crude propaganda.

The article, having been published on the 60th anniversary of Stalin’s death, introduces Stalin as “one of history’s most prolific killers”, proceeding to list various events as atrocities. Included in the list are “imprisonment in labor camps”, “manufactured famines” and “forced displacements”, all of which are implied to be inherently atrocious like the other items listed. While these are indeed atrocious events, this should raise the question of hypocrisy, as a neo-liberal news publication lists these events with the intention of portraying a socialist leader as a “prolific killer” when historically they have happened on a number of occasions in the imperialist states and their semi-feudal colonies à la the American internment of Japanese and Germans in World War II, the systematic depopulation of indigenous lands by the US government, and the number of famines in British India in the 19th and 20th centuries. One might in response concede that the USSR was by no means alone if it is responsible for such atrocities, but,nevertheless, the actions of other nations does not absolve the Soviet Union. This is true. Therefore, we move on to see Ghosh’s backing for the assertion of Stalin as a mass murderer.

KKE: Comment on the situation of the refugees in Idomeni

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

In a comment regarding the ongoing developments in Idomeni, the Press Bureau of the CC of KKE stresses the following:

"The complete lack, for months now, of any kind of state responsibility in Idomeni - as a result of the refugees' entrapment agreement signed between the SYRIZA-ANEL government and the EU - is the basic factor which leads thousands of refugees to despair and desperation, thus leaving space for the unaccountable activity of various suspicious NGOs which, under the mantle of "solidarity", are playing games of domestic and foreign powers on the shoulders of refugees. On the same time, that (situation) becomes an allibi for violence and repression from the side of FYROM's government which is alligned with the aspirations of imperialist states and organisations like NATO and the EU.

March Against Unemployment, from Patras to Athens: The beginning of new peoples' struggles

Photo source: 902.gr.

With a massive demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament, in Syntagma Square, labour unions, working class associations, youth and women organisations welcomed the participants in the Great March Against Unemployment. After 7 days and covering a distance of 220 km, the march which began from the city of Patras arrived in Athens on Sunday afternoon. The KKE-backed mayor of Patras, Kostas Peletidis, whose initiative was the March against unemployment, was the major speaker in the rally. 

VIDEO: Golden Dawn's Neo-Nazi thugs attack TV crew in Piraeus

       

A Neo-Nazi wearing a Golden Dawn t-shirt attacks the crew of E TV channel during clashes in Piraeus. The attack occured during Golden Dawn members' clash with anti-fascist demonstrators- the Nazi Party had staged an anti-refugee gathering a few minutes earlier. 

KKE: Solidarity with the people of Turkey against Erdoğan's authoritarianism

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) released a text calling for solidarity against the authoritarianism of Erdoğan and Turkey's intervention in Syria.

International Communist Press, 10th April 2016.

The text which was calling for solidarity by signature, condemned Turkey's interventions in Syria and stated solidarity with the ones who are subject to prosecutions by the AKP government and President Erdoğan himself.

The full text and the initial signatories are as follows:

"AGAINST THE ANTIDEMOCRATIC POLICY OF LAW SUITS AND PROSECUTIONS IMPLEMENTED BY THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT AND PRESIDENT T. ERDOGAN.

Pablo Picasso — Why I became a Communist

By Pablo Picasso

My JOINING the Communist Party is a logical step in my life, my work and gives them their meaning. Through design and color, I have tried to penetrate deeper into a knowledge of the world and of men so that this knowledge might free us. In my own way I have always said what I considered most true, most just and best and, therefore, most beautiful. But during the oppression and the insurrection I felt that that was not enough, that I had to fight not only with painting but with my whole being. Previously, out of a sort of "innocence," I had not understood this. I have become a Communist because our party strives more than any other to know and to build the world, to make men clearer thinkers, more free and more happy. 

I have become a Communist because the Communists are the bravest in France, in the Soviet Union, as they are in my own country, Spain. I have never felt more free, more complete than since I joined. While I wait for the time when Spain can take me back again, the French Communist Party is a fatherland for me. In it I find again all my friends - the great scientists Paul Langevin and Frederick Joliot-Curie, the great writers Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard, and so many of the beautiful faces of the insurgents of Paris. I am again among my brothers.

October 1944.

A chronology of the 2011-2012 Greek Steelworkers strike (VIDEO)

         

Video by PAME.

A subtitled video about the 9 months-long strike of the Greek Steelworkers at Helliniki Halivourgia. November 2011, Greece is in the midst of a severe economic crisis. Many strikes in different sectors take place regularly. One of them will last nine months, attracting a wave of domestic and international solidarity. 

Denunciation of Golden Dawn's fascist anti-refugee gathering in Piraeus

Source: 902.gr

Translation: In Defense of Communism.

The local organisation of KKE in Piraeus condemns the fiesta staged by Golden Dawn and calls the working class and the people of the area to reject the fascists's new preaching of hate.

Golden Dawn members gathered outside the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus shouting "against the islamization" of the country, while an anti-fascist rally had been scheduled to take place just on the opposite Korais square. There were clashes between the Neo-Nazis and anarchists and a man from Golden Dawn's block- holding an iron bar- attacked a tv crew. Despite the intervention of police he avoided arrest.

The KKE organisation of Piraeus issued an announcement in which, among others, it states (we underline the most interesting points):

The New Worker- Leave the EU to save our steel

Leave the EU to save our steel.

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

SAJID Javid, the Business Secretary, has been running round like mad going to India to plead with the giant company Tata to go slowly with its process of selling off the last remaining working steel plants in Britain. He has been talking about a “responsible sales process”.

And the big steel unions have also been pleading to Tata not to go for a fire sale to asset strippers, who will cherry pick the lucrative bits and ditch the rest, leading quickly to the complete demise of the whole industry.

Che Guevara: “I came to communism because of Stalin”

By Nikos Mottas.

Originally published in atexnos.gr.

Translated from Greek.

Ernesto Che Guevara is undoubtedly a historical figure of the 20^th century's communist movement who attracts the interest of people from a vast range of political ideologies. The years followed his cowardly assassination in Bolivia, Che became a revolutionary symbol for a variety of marxist-oriented, leftist and progressive parties and organisations- from Trotskyists to militant leninists and from Social Democrats to anarcho-libertarians. A significant number of those who admire the argentine revolutionary identify themselves as “anti-stalinists”, hate and curse Stalin while they often refer to the so-called “crimes” of Stalin's era. What is a contradiction and an irony of history is the following: Che Guevara himself was an admirer of Joseph Stalin.

For Capital's sake: SYRIZA government sold Piraeus port to chinese shipping giant COSCO

Sources: Reuters & 902.gr.

The Greek government sealed on Friday the sale of its biggest port to chinese shipping giant COSCO Shipping Corporation, the second major privatization for the bailed out country since late last year.

China COSCO's chairman Xu Lirong, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the head of Greece's privatization agency signed the 368.5 million euro ($419.43 million) contract in Athens. Under the deal, China Cosco will acquire 51 percent of Piraeus Port (OLP) for 280.5 million euros and the remaining 16 percent for 88 million, after five years once it concludes mandatory investments, which will amount to 350 million euros over the next decade.

Prime Minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said that the privatization of Piraeus port is the starting point for upcoming investments in the country. Mr.Tsipras defiantly argued that his government's major concern is the protection of the labour rights of the dockworkers- on the same time the chinese shipping giant already applies "galley-slave" conditions in Piraeus.  

Mikis Theodorakis- East Berlin 1987

          

Mikis Theodorakis, East Berlin 1987.

Open-air concert at Rosa Luxemburgplat.

Theodorakis sings himself three of his songs. The first one is from the collection 'Songs of Andreas' and the other two from the epic 'Romiosini' cycle of poems written by Yannis Ritsos. 

Communist Party of Ireland: Political Statement

Political statement.

National Executive Committee, Communist Party of Ireland.

6 April 2016.

At its regular meeting in early April the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland evaluated the present political situation and the tasks facing both the communist and the wider working-class movement and progressive forces.

The CPI welcomes the massive turn-out of working people around the country to celebrate the 1916 Rising. Tens of thousands attended both the official government commemoration and the hundreds of locally organised community-sponsored events.

This was a very positive development, considering the decades of sustained criticism and attempts by the political establishment, the establishment media and a large section of academia to undermine and discredit the 1916 Rising as well as the long democratic struggle of the Irish people to achieve independence. Their campaign has failed, and the centenary celebrations have awakened renewed interest in the Rising, those who led it, their motivation, the goal that inspired them, and the legacy of the 1916 Proclamation’s vision of an independent Irish republic.

"Ludlow, Greek Americans in the Colorado coal war" - A documentary by Leonidas Vardaros

         

The trailer of the film.

It's title is "Ludlow, Greek Americans in the Colorado coal war". The documentary by Leonidas Vardaros made it's premiere on April 6, at Alkionis Theater in Athens. The documentary, which received an award at the 18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, narrates the history of the 1913-14 clash between the United Mine Workers of America and the Coal companies under the leadership of John D.Rockefeller. The workers' descendants remind their fathers and grandfathers' struggle and the injustice they faced.

The class-struggle of 1913-14 led to the Ludlow massacre, on April 20, 1914 the cold-blooded murder of women and children and the assassination of three unionists, among them the leader of the Greek strikers Louis Tikas. 

"Take back the law-guillotine": Mass demonstrations as Greek public sector workers strike over social security disaster

With mass, militant demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloniki and all the major cities, public sector's workers sent their message to the co-coalition government. Thursday's 24-hour walkout called by public sector union ADEDY coincides with a review by lenders of Greece's compliance with terms of an international bailout agreed last year. 

Organised by the All-Militant Workers Front (PAME), the demonstration in central Athens took place in Omonia Square where thousands of workers expressed their condemnation for the government's draft law on social security- an anti-people law that destroys the social security system and any rights derive from it. 

KKE: Condemnation of anti-democratic actions by the authorities in Kazakhstan and Latvia

Source: inter.kke.gr.

Regarding the imprisonment of Vadim Kuramshin:

Vadim Kuramshin.

The Delegation of the KKE in the European Parliament, tabled a question to the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is relation to the persecution in Kazakhstan. The question noted that:

Vadim Kuramshin has been in prison in Kazakhstan for the last 4 years since 2012, when he was condemned to 12 years imprisonment on false and fabricated charges. In reality, he was imprisoned for his activity against the violation of democratic rights and gains by the Kazakhstan regime. It was no accident that his arrest and imprisonment happened immediately after his participation in a OSCE event in Warsaw, where he talked about instances of torture in the prisons of Kazakhstan.

He himself has made accusations that he has been the victim of inhuman treatment in Kazakhstan's prisons.

The current bourgeois regime that emerged in Kazakhstan after the overthrow of socialism and the dissolution of the USSR is constantly showing its anti-democratic and anti-people character, violently and murderously suppressing labour struggles, banning the activity of the CP of Kazakhstan, imposing new anti-democratic laws to control and more strictly manipulate the trade unions and to reduce labour rights and gains, imprisoning defenders of democratic rights.

Robert Conquest's lies about Socialism, Stalin and the USSR - A presentation by Mario Sousa (VIDEO)

         

Source: ProletarianTV.

This presentation by Mario Sousa - less than an hour in duration - will change your view of history. "Most sane and educated people accept that there were serious human rights abuses in the Soviet Union, during the Stalin period." he says. The evidence is 'everywhere' - everyone says so, and there's no smoke without fire, after all. But what is the evidence? And where does it come from?

Golden Dawn Neo-Nazis' admiration for Donald Trump

Special to In Defense of Communism.

The republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has gained some new fans on the other side of the Atlantic. His offensive, openly racist rhetoric seems to charm the Neo-Nazi thugs of 'Golden Dawn'. That explains why the websites of the Greek criminal-fascist organisation include articles praising Trump ("a patriot and a nice guy" as they call him) and his anti-immigration, anti-muslim language. 

Commenting on Trump, Golden Dawn MP Panagiotaros said during a party's web discussion: "The latest thing he (Trump) said is "it is better to live one day as a lion than a hundred days as a sheep". And when they told him that these were the words of Mussolini, he replied "I don't care"... The guy doesn't mince his words". The same admiration for Trump can be found in articles published in the official site of Golden Dawn's Nazis. For example, we read the following: "The candidate for the republican nomination, Donald Trump, hasn't stop telling truths which exceedingly annoy the american-zionist establishment". On the same article, the author... congratulates Trump for "his courage".