Russia: The majority of people regret Soviet Union's collapse, dream of its restoration

Source: Russia Today.

More than half of all Russian citizens believe the collapse of the Soviet Union was a bad thing that could have been avoided, while even more people say they would welcome the restoration of the socialist system and the Soviet state.

According to the latest poll conducted by the independent research agency Levada Center, the proportion of those who confessed to negative feelings over the collapse of the USSR is currently 56 percent, with 28 percent claiming their sentiments are entirely positive and 16 percent deeming the question too complex to give an unambiguous answer.

Fifty-one percent of respondents told researchers that in their opinion the collapse of the USSR could have been avoided, while 33 percent said they considered it inevitable. Some 17 percent said they couldn’t answer.

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.

Mikis Theodorakis: The Pope, the predators and the hunted

Legendary composer Mikis Theodorakis, 91.

The Pope, the predators and the hunted.

By Mikis Theodorakis.

Translation from Greek: In Defense of Communism.

I am watching in live broadcast the visit of the Pope, the Religious Leader of the majority of Europe's people in Lesvos, where tens of thousands victims from Syria and other Middle East countries- who defying death and leaving behind dozens of drowned, especially children- arrived from Turkey.

Who is responsible for that big tragedy that millions of innocent fellow humans are living today?

It is the Black Death that the US and Europe's states, which have war industries, are exporting. How many thousands houses, schools, hospitals and other infrastructures were demolished, how many million people were killed or injured and how many of them were uprooted from their countries and forced to search a foreign refuge because of the weapons made by the hands of Europeans and Americans...

Here it is the splendor, the big crime of our era with the modern victimizers-predators from the one side and their victims-quarries from the other. The big crime which transforms our era into a Jungle and the uncountable hypocrisy of the supposedly civilized European People who seal their countries with wire, like the Nazis were doing with the numerous Auschwitz, Dachau and Mauthausen. With the difference (being) that, this time, the victimizers are inside and the victims are out.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP): "Karanlığa Meydan Okuyoruz" (We dare the darkness)

KP First Secretary Kemal Okuyan.

The Communist Party, Turkey (KP) held a mass meeting denouncing the darkness of Erdoğan's fundamentalism and calling for struggle.

Source: ICP, 19th April 2016.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP) held a mass meeting against the reactionism and fundamentalism in İstanbul last Sunday. At the meeting titled "We dare the darkness!", thousands gathered to challenge the reactionary and fundamentalist politics of President Erdoğan and the AKP regime.

The Top 10 biggest lies of Alexis Tsipras

Opportunism is based on lies and deception. The case of SYRIZA, an opportunistic party of the radical left which during the past five years rapidly turned into a social-democratic party (replacing PASOK), is a characteristic example. SYRIZA's leader and current Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, has been the embodiment of political opportunism. Below, you can read 10 of his biggest blatant lies, in his own words:

1. "The first thing Syriza will do in power is tear up the controversial "memorandum of understanding" Greece signed up to with creditors" - Interview with the "Guardian" (18/5/2012).

2. "The only realistic and saving alternative proposal is the abolition, with one law and in one article, of all the austerity measures" - Tsipras on Twitter (11/11/2012).

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.

Raul Castro- Presentation of the Central Report to the VII Congress (English/Español)

Keeping a close eye at the VII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), we republish the General Report submitted by President Raul Castro at the opening session of the Congress. Below you can read the major parts of the Report in english and the full speech in spanish.

Raul Castro Ruz- General Report / Source: Granma.

PCC First Secretary Raúl Castro Ruz, presented the Central Report to the 7th Congress, after evoking the 55th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution, on April 16, 1961, on the eve of the mercenary invasion at Playa Girón, which was defeated in less than 72 hours, with Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz on the front lines.

He noted that participating in the event were 1,000 delegates and some 280 invitees, representing the Party’s 600,000 members, organized in 54,000 grassroots units.

The first Secretary noted that the Congress would include the presentation of four principal draft documents, work on several of which began after the previous Congress: the conceptualization of Cuba’s socio-economic model; the development plan through 2030; a report on the implementation of the guidelines over the last five years and their updating for the period 2016-2020; and an analysis of Party objectives approved at the First National Party Conference.

KKE MP Liana Kanelli in Nagorno-Karabakh: Capitalist rivalries are responsible for the bloodshed

Liana Kanelli in Yerevan (news.am)

Last week, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) MP Liana Kanelli visited Armenia's capital Yerevan and Nagorno-Karabakh, after an invitation by the ambassador of Armenia in Athens, Gagik Ghalatchian. During the visit, Liana Kanelli met with the President of Nagorno-Karabakh Bako S. Sahakyan, the President of Nagorno-Karabakh's Parliament Ashot Gulian and the Deputy speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov. The Sunday edition of "Rizospastis" (17/4) includes an interesting detailed report of the visit. We translated and present some parts of the report below:

"The setback from the principles of Socialism's construction with the responsibility of CPSU, the counter-revolutionary overthrow and the capitalist restoration from above, also from the CPSU, revived nationalist tensions and brought to the forefront the interests of each country's bourgeoisie after the dissolution of the USSR which created by the plundering of peoples' property. Since 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh has declared it's independence from Azerbaijan, but without gaining international recognition"

[...]

Dimitris Koutsoumbas- The good (EU), the bad (IMF) and the SYRIZA-ANEL government

The good (EU), the bad (IMF) and the SYRIZA-ANEL government.

By Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of KKE.

Published in Ethnos newspaper, 10/4/2016.

Translation from Greek: In Defense of Communism.

The discussions of the IMF's executives, which were published on "Wikileaks" site, highlighted the sharp contradictions between the IMF, parts of US Capital on the one hand and the EU, particularly parts of the German Capital on the other, which (contradictions) are manifested on the occasion of the Greek program and the difficulties regarding the completion of the current evalution.

Because it is naive for someone to think that the publication of these discussions, at this time, but also what followed, such as the Merkel-Langarde meeting, have to do only with the process of the Greek government's negotiation and the attitude of technocrats like Thomsen and Velkulescu.

The causes are much deeper and are related to the debt management as a whole and not only of Greece, as well as the course of the eurozone itself.

RIZOSPASTIS Headlines (17/4/2016)

"Rizospastis" Sunday Edition.

Organ of the CC of KKE.

17/4/2016.

- WITHOUT LIMITS THE GOVERNMENTAL SUPPORT ON CAPITAL... WHILE IT PREPARES NEW SLAUGHTERING OF THE PEOPLE.

- Coalition government-Quartet-USA: Fierce anti-people escalation in the background of geopolitical plans.

- The 48-hour Strike: An important class confrontation.

- Invitation-Call from KNE on the occasion of university students' elections.

Dimitris Mitropanos- In Memoriam

        

Dimitris Mitropanos - "Roza".

Music: Thanos Mikroutsikos, Lyrics: Alkis Alkeos.

In memoriam of Dimitris Mitropanos, popular and beloved Greek singer, an extraordinary talent, a long-time outspoken supporter of the Communist Party and a Man of his words. Born April 2, 1948 in Trikala, Thessaly; Died April 17, 2012 in Athens. 

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.