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.