Vladimir Podgorbunsky: The bandit who became a Hero of the Soviet Union

The trials and tribulations that befall people during the war can change their lives forever. War brings tragedy and tears, but it can also be a turning point that inspires courage and heroism. A striking example of such a transformation is the amazing story of Vladimir Podgorbunsky, a former criminal from Chita.

Born in the Irkutsk region, Vladimir Podgorbunsky lost his father soon after his birth, and then tragically lost his mother, leaving him in the care of an orphanage . To survive, he became a thief and quickly became a leader among the inmates of the orphanage. He was sent to a juvenile colony at the age of 18, from where he repeatedly escaped, continuing to lead a life of crime.

Vladimir Mayakovsky's 130th birth anniversary

Vladimir Mayakovsky, the "the best and most talented poet of the Soviet epoch" according to Stalin, was born 130 years ago, on 19 July 1893. 

Mayakovsky was born on 19 July 1893 in the village of Baghdadi (today Mayakovsky) near Kutais in Georgia. His father was a simple forester, and the family was nourished on progressive ideas. 

Vladimir was twelve years of age when the first Russian Revolution broke out in 1905. its echo was felt even in the mountains of the Caucasus. 

Henri Barbusse on the Soviet Union

By Nikos Mottas.

The 17th of May marked the 150th birth anniversary of French novelist, journalist and member of the French Communist Party, Henri Barbusse. He rose to fame following the publication of his novel “Le Feu” (Under Fire) in 1916, which is based on Barbusse's experiences as a soldier on the Western Front during the First World War.

The Great October Socialist Revolution, the the world-changing event of 'the twentieth century, had a profound influence on Barbusse. In January 1918 he left France and moved to Soviet Russia where he joined Lenin's Bolshevik Party. Later, in 1923, he became a member of the French Communist Party. 

Material Forces that Turn Socialism into Capitalism

Nikita Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping.

By Charles Andrews.

The Soviet Union and China proved that people can build socialism. They also showed that apparently firm socialist countries can fall to capitalism – from within and from the top of the communist party.

Should we give up on socialism, or shall we solve a problem: how do we keep on the communist road to a society of no rich and no poor, securing common prosperity for everyone, and with full development of our humanity in work?

Remembering the Khatyn Massacre in Belarus

80 years passed since the massacre at the Byelorussian village of Khatyn, perpetrated by the Nazis and their Ukrainian fascist collaborators. 149 people, including 75 children, were brutally murdered. 

 

The heinous crime was committed by the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118, composed primarily of Ukrainian fascists, assisted by the Dirlewanger Waffen-SS special battalion. 

On the 70th death anniversary of Joseph Stalin

By Nikos Mottas.

Seven decades later they tremble at his name. For the bourgeoisie,  capitalists and exploiters, he is the personification of evil. For fascists and neo-Nazis, his image is enough to cause nightmares. Social Democrats, opportunists and other enemies of the working class movement have been trying for many decades to slander him with tones of lies and propaganda.

On March 5, 1953, 70 years ago, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzughasvilli, the man whose leadership influenced the course of the 20th century like very few others, left his last breath at his dacha in Kunchevo. The next day, in a joint statement published in “Pravda”, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet were announcing the death of Stalin: 

70th anniversary of Stalin's death: The announcement of his death on PRAVDA, 6 March 1953

PRAVDA, 6 March 1953:

"Dear Comrades and Friends: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet announce with profound sorrow to the Party and all working people of the Soviet Union that at 9:50 p.m. 5 March, Iosif Vissarionovich STALIN, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, died after a grave illness.

The heart of Lenin’s comrade-in-arms and the inspired continuer of Lenin’s cause, the wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people, Joseph Vissarionovich STALIN, has stopped beating.

Stalin bust unveiled in Volgograd to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Stalingrad victory

A new bust of Soviet leader Josef Stalin has been unveiled in the Russian city of Volgograd ahead of Wednesday's 80th anniversary of the Red Army's victory over Nazi invaders in one of the most significant battles of World War Two.

The bust is flanked by two others - legendary Soviet commanders Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilyevsky - beside the Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad - Volgograd's name from 1925 to 1961, the local news outlet V1.RU reported on Tuesday. 

100th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union: Socialism proved its superiority over capitalism

By Nikos Mottas.

December 30th marked the 100th anniversary since the founding of the world's first workers' state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

The creation of the USSR was the practical result of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution, the single most important event in modern history that became the first conscious step for the transition from capitalism to socialism and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. 

100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR: Speech by Tibor Zenker, Party of Labour of Austria (PdA)

Contribution by Tibor Zenker, chairman of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA), at the teleconference of the European Communist Initiative on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR:

The founding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 30 December 1922 marked the greatest state-political achievement of the revolutionary working class to date. It was the result of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, the successful struggle of the young Russian Soviet Republic against counterrevolution and interventions, the overcoming of civil war and so-called "war communism". 

100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR: Closing remarks by Giorgos Marinos, KKE Politburo member

Closing remarks by Giorgos Marinos, member of the PB of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), at the teleconference of the European Communist Initiative on the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the USSR.  Read here the speech of Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the CC of the KKE. 

Concluding the teleconference of the European Communist Initiative, Giorgos Marinos, among other things, noted the following: 

100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR: Speech by the KKE General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas

The following speech was delivered by the General Secretary of the CC of the KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas at the teleconference of the European Communist Initiative on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR:

Dear comrades,

The international and domestic developments in the 100 years since the founding of the USSR confirm the necessity to enrich our programmatic conception of socialism, incorporating all the positive and at the same time negative experience from the very course of socialist construction in the 20^th century and drawing useful conclusions from the victory of the counter-revolution, first of all in the USSR.

Germany to officially adopt anti-communist conspiracy theory on Ukrainian famine

Here we go again! The filthy, old anti-communist falsehoods about the Ukrainian Famine, known as Holodomor, are back in the news. 

 

This time, its the government of Germany that plans to recognize the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as a "genocide" perpetrated by Joseph Stalin's leadership.

"German lawmakers have put forth a resolution to raise awareness of the 1932-1933 famine that led to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians as a result of Soviet leader Josef Stalin's policies", reads a recent article on "Deutsche Welle". 

KKE MEPs: The European Union encourages and promotes the destruction of Soviet WWII monuments

The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) denounced the destruction of monuments of the great Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples, which is taking place with the encouragement of the EU, by submitting a Question to the European Commission.

They note that “After the dissolution of the USSR, a plan of destruction and vandalism of monuments commemorating the Great Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples is being implemented in several EU member states. These provocative actions have multiplied since the imperialist conflict in Ukraine. 

Mikhail Gorbachev, a modern Judas

By Nikos Mottas.

"My ambition was to liquidate communism, the dictatorship over all the people. I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and Shevernadze, they all deserve to be thanked for the break-up of the USSR and the defeat of Communism”

 — Mikhail Gorbachev, 2000. 

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, the man who betrayed the dreams and expectations of his own people, has died at 91. His biological death bears little importance. In fact, in the consciousness and hearts of the working class people all over the world Gorbachev had died a long time ago, when he consciously decided to become the gravedigger of the first socialist state in human history, the Soviet Union. 

Traitor Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91

Mikhail Gorbachev, the counterrevolutionary who betrayed the dreams and aspirations of millions of people in the former Soviet Union, has died at the age of 91. 

"Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease," Interfax news agency cited Russia's Central Clinical Hospital as saying in a statement.

Gorbachev will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, said Tass news agency, citing the foundation that the former Soviet leader set up once he left office.

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©

Latvian workers refuse to demolish Soviet memorial

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org/Александр Тимофеев

A few days ago we wrote about the despicable decision of the Latvian authorities to dismantle Soviet monuments, including the memorial complex dedicated to the country's liberation by the Red Army in Riga. 

News source from the Baltic country reported that workers refused to dismantle Soviet-era monuments in the eastern Balvi region. 

Like many other memorials of Soviet heritage, the monument that is dedicated to the partisans of the Red Army in the Balvi region is planned to be dismantled and transferred to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. According to a statement by the chairman of the regional Duma, Sergei Maksimov, local workers refuse to do this.

The Shame of the Baltics: Latvia, Estonia dismantle Red Army memorials

Following the overthrow of Socialism in the beginning of the 1990s, the bourgeois governments in the former Soviet Republics of the Baltic region (namely Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) engaged in long-term anti-communist, anti-soviet campaigns. The activity of Communist Parties was prohibited, communist symbols were banned and socialist-era monuments were destroyed.

In a recent episode of this anti-communist hysteria, Latvian authorities decided to proceed to the the dismantling of a 1985 memorial dedicated to the Red Army. As a pretext for this shameful act the Latvian government used the Russian invasion in Ukraine! The first question that comes to our mind is: What does the ongoing war in Ukraine have to do with the Soviet Red Army? What kind of relation does capitalist Russia have with the Soviet Union?

Stalin never allied with Hitler: The Truth about the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

 By Nikos Mottas.

"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible...”

- Harry Truman, 1941.

Since the end of the Second World War, the bourgeois historiography has tried to distort various incidents in order to vilify Socialism and the USSR. One of these incidents- which has been a "banner" of imperialism's apologists and other anticommunists- is the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” which was signed in 1939. In it's unscientific, unhistorical effort to equate Communism with Nazism, the bourgeois propaganda presents the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a medium of expansive policy by the USSR and Hitler's Germany. The distortion of historical events, the amalgamation of lies and the half-truths by the Imperialists and their collaborators aim in defaming the huge role of the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist struggle of WW2.

The 1968 Prague Spring — Counterrevolution as the “Trojan Horse” of Imperialism

By Nikos Mottas.

 

It was August 1968, in the capital of the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, Prague, where the internationalist solidarity of the Warsaw Pact countries crushed one of the most significant counterrevolutionary efforts of the Cold War era. The events in Prague consist a milestone in the struggle of the socialist world against imperialism. At the same time, the then events continue serving as a source of anticommunist propaganda by various bourgeois and opportunist forces.

For many decades, the bourgeois historiography- supported by opportunists and counterrevolutionaries (trotskyites, eurocommunists, social democrats, etc.) refers to the “soviet tanks” which, as they argue, “drowned Prague in blood” thus ending prematurely the effort for a “socialism with a human face”.