Saturday, April 16, 2016

Left Forum 2016: Interesting panels about Imperialism, Greece and the Refugee Crisis (May 20-22)


Two very interesting panels of discussion will be hosted at the Left Forum which will take place on May 20-22 in New York. The panels are sponsored by the website Marxism-Leninism Today and will include speakers from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

1. One panel is: "Imperialists Collide: War and Refugees in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East". 

The Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are the focal point of imperialist aggression and the consequent enormous, tragic refugee crisis. The panel will discuss the causes of the conflicts, the social and national forces engaged in the wars, and the prospects for peace and justice in the region from the perspective of the Greek Communist Party (KKE).

The panel will discuss developments in the region spurred by the drive to control markets, natural resources, transportation routes, and to increase monopoly profits. Also, the panelists will address the role of NATO, the US, the EU, in the  competition with Russia and China in the region. The role of Israel, the role of the SYRIZA-ANEL government, the prospects for a general war, and the projection of a class-based, internationalist, and socialist solution will also be on the panel's agenda.

Friday, April 15, 2016

KKE Secretary Koutsoumbas: Tsipras government's negotiations are a badly-directed soap opera

Speaking today at the Parliament, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas unleashed a fierce attack against the government. In a parliamentary discussion about the formation of an investigation committee regarding bank loans granted to political parties, Secretary Koutsoumbas accussed the government of trying to disorientate the people from the real problems.

The rottenness of the system cannot be cured with committees and half-measures.

Among other things, KKE Secretary mentioned in his speech:

The Communist Party of Ukraine expresses its strong protest against desecration of Soviet monuments

Communist Party of Ukraine, War Against Monuments.
Source: Solidnet.

The Communist Party of Ukraine notes that in a number of settlements of our country radical criminal nationalists, encouraged by the ruling Nationalistic-oligarchic regime that came to power after the unconstitutional coup in February 2014, started a war against monuments to a Soviet Soldiers, Partisans and Underground Fighters killed during World War II. 

This is contrary to the UN resolutions that condemn desecration of monuments to the fighters against fascism, contrary to the Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe, signed by most European countries, it is ignoring the dominant public opinion, attitudes of our citizens.

Workers return victorious to their work after 165 days of hard class struggle

Workers return victorious to their work after 165 days of hard class struggle.
The workers of the Recycling Factory in Heraklion Crete are preparing to return to their work victorious, after 165 days of hard struggle. For more than five months, the workers fought for their right to work, having on their side dozens of trade unions and the people of the region of Crete, but also all over Greece. The contractor company “Waste Solution”, which took over the factory last November, dismissed workers who worked in the “Recycling Factory” from 5 to 10 years, in order to replace them with “cheaper” ones, without rights.
The decisive position of workers who struggled as a fist with their trade union and the solidarity of the people of the city, led the company to cancel the layoffs. Specifically, the employer accepted the return of the dismissed workers with the same wages they had in October.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The Real Story of the Katyn Massacre- Exposing an anticommunist fabrication

PREFACE

One of anti-communists' favorite fairy-tales is the so-called 'Katyn Massacre'. According to Neo-Nazis, fascists, liberals, trotskyites, opportunist leftists, anarchists and other anti-communists, the Soviet NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), under Stalin's orders, carried out mass executions of Polish nationals in April and May 1940. Even Wikipedia (the very popular but completely unreliable source) says it! Despite the fact that there is strong, undisputed evidence that the crime was carried out by the Nazis, this anti-communist myth continues to exist. The post-1991 bourgeois-capitalist establishment of Russia, under Yeltsin but also under current President Putin, has done everything in order to blame the Soviet Union. They even fabricated letters- supposedly sent from Lavrentiy Beria- in order to defame Stalin and the then Soviet leadership. In this post, we collect and present some interesting information, including historical documents, which prove that the 'Katyn Massacre” was a crime committed by the Nazis and not by the Soviets. The pity propaganda against Socialism, against the Soviet Union must be exposed in every possible way.

In Defense of Communism ©.

READ:
1. Ella Rule: The Katyn Massacre.
2. Interview with Prof. Grover Furr.
3. “Beria’s letter” was written on two different typewriters.
4. Katyn Graves Story declared Grim Fraud.

Communist Party of India (Marxist): No Bases for US Armed Forces

Source: Solidnet.
The Modi government has taken the dangerous step of deepening military collaboration with the United States by agreeing to allow US armed forces to use base facilities in Indian naval and air force bases. 
The US Defence Secretary and the Indian Defence Minister have announced an in principle agreement has been reached for a Logistics Exchange  Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA). This is just another name for the Logistic Support Agreement (LSA) that the United States enters into with military allies like Philippines, South Korea and Japan. Unlike what the Defence Minister says, refueling, maintenance and repair facilities for American ships and airplanes will require the  stationing of US armed forces personnel on Indian soil on a regular basis. 

Greek electronic appliances company declares bankruptcy- 450 workers and staff are thrown into unemployment!

ATHENS- Greek electronic appliances chain 'Elektroniki Athinon' has declared bankruptcy following a court decision on Wednesday. In a statement released on Wednesday, the company cited the state of the local economy, the weakening of Greek consumers' purchasing power, the imposition of capital controls last year and a suspension of a restructuring plan among the reasons behind its insolvency. The company’s 45 outlets in all over the country were expected to be closed on Thursday. The closure of 'Elektroniki Athinon' means that 450 employees- workers and staff- are thrown into unemployment.

Dynamic response from the workers.

The struggle committee of 'Elektroniki's employees issued an announcement regarding the rapid developments in the company, where it states among other things:

Yuri Gagarin: 10 facts about the legendary Soviet cosmonaut

April 12, 1961, will always be remembered in history as the day when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who was only 27 years old at the time, became the first man in space. Sputnik remembers Gagarin and his historic flight by sharing 10 commonly unknown facts about the world’s first cosmonaut.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first man in outer space when the Vostok-1 spacecraft with the Soviet cosmonaut on board was launched from the Baikonur space center on April 12, 1961, at 6:07 AM local time, marking a new era in human history.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

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".

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

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".

Monday, April 11, 2016

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 3rd, 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. 

Sunday, April 10, 2016

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.
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. 

Saturday, April 9, 2016

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):