9th of May: Honoring People's Antifascist Victory!

Спасибо! (Thank you) - Veterans of the Red Army.

By Nikos Mottas.

9^th May 1945: The day when the Red flag with sickle and hammer was raised thriumphantly over the Reichstag in Berlin. The day when Nazi Germany surrended unconditionally to the Red Army, marking a great victory of humanity over fascism. The 9^th May is, without doubt, one of the brightest dates in human history, a glorious day for the first Socialist state, for the Soviet Union and it's people.

On this day, we pay tribute to all those heroes, men and women, who gave their own lives on the battlefields. We remember all those heroes who fought against the monster of Fascism. From the bottom of our heart we express our gratitude to the fighters of the Soviet Army, to the communist and anti-fascist partisans in Europe who led the liberation struggles against the Nazis. We remember and honor all those men and women, of every age, who maintained a heroic stance against the firing squads of the fascists. 

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.

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.

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.

V.I.Lenin- Socialism and Religion / The attitude of the Worker's Party to Religion

Socialism and Religion.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Novaya Zhizn, No. 28, December 3, 1905.

Source: Marxists Internet Archives.

Present-day society is wholly based on the exploitation of the vast masses of the working class by a tiny minority of the population, the class of the landowners and that of the capitalists. It is a slave society, since the “free” workers, who all their life work for the capitalists, are “entitled” only to such means of subsistence as are essential for the maintenance of slaves who produce profit, for the safeguarding and perpetuation of capitalist slavery.

The economic oppression of the workers inevitably calls forth and engenders every kind of political oppression and social humiliation, the coarsening and darkening of the spiritual and moral life of the masses. The workers may secure a greater or lesser degree of political liberty to fight for their economic emancipation, but no amount of liberty will rid them of poverty, unemployment, and oppression until the power of capital is overthrown. Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze,   in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Mario Sousa- Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union

From Hitler to Hearst, from Conquest to Solzhenitsyn.

The history of the millions of people who were allegedly incarcerated and died in the labour camps of the Soviet Union and as a result of starvation during Stalin’s time.

In this world we live in, who can avoid hearing the terrible stories of suspected death and murders in the gulag labour camps of the Soviet Union?  Who can avoid the stories of the millions who starved to death and the millions of oppositionists executed in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time?  In the capitalist world these stories are repeated over and over again in books, newspapers, on the radio and television, and in films, and the mythical numbers of millions of victims of socialism have increased by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years.

But where in fact do these stories, and these figures, come from?  Who is behind all this?