Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts

Friday, August 19, 2016

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part IV "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
First Published: February 1848.
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

IV. POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES.

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America. 

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the Social-Democrats# against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution. 

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Nostalgia for the USSR- People in former Soviet republics say life was better in Socialism

A new survey, conducted by Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), M-Vector, Ipsos, Expert Fikri and Qafqaz in 11 countries of the former Soviet Union, at the request of Sputnik news agency and radio, shows that the residents of 9 out of 11 surveyed former Soviet countries aged over 35 believe that life in the USSR was better than it has been since the breakup of the Soviet Union. 


MOSCOW (sputniknews.com- Some 64% of respondents in Russia who lived in Soviet times believe that the quality of life in the Soviet Union was better. About 60% of respondents in Ukraine agreed with this statement. The survey showed that the highest rates of agreement with this statement are found among respondents in Armenia (71%) and Azerbaijan (69%). Those respondents who do not remember living in the USSR, those aged 18-24, believe that life has improved since the collapse. Some 63% of young people in Russia think so.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

The remorse of a dissident: Alexander Zinoviev on Stalin and the dissolution of the USSR

SPECIAL TO IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM.

Alexander Zinoviev (1922-2006) was a Russian philosopher, sociologist, mathematician and writer. He is an extraordinary case of a dissident in the Soviet Union who later apologized for his anti-sovietism and anti-stalinism. In his youth, in 1939, he was arrested for allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate Joseph Stalin. As a head and professor of the Logic Department at Moscow State University, Zinoviev acquired a dissident reputation. In 1978 he left the Soviet Union - he lived in Western Europe until 1999. 

Having the opportunity to live both the socialist system in the USSR and Western Europe's capitalism, Zinoviev made a u-turn in his thoughts after the counterrevolutionary events in the Soviet Union (1989-1991). He profoundly regreted for his previous anti-soviet stance and even asked from the Russian people to forgive him for that. 

He wrote in one of his books: 

Friday, August 12, 2016

"Life was better under Communism" says the majority of Russians, Romanians and Eastern Germans

SPECIAL TO IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM.

First of all, let us say that the proper phrase is "under Socialism". During the 20th century, the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe were in the process of socialist construction. According to the Marxist-Leninist theory, "Socialism" consist the first stage (phase) of Communism. 

Having said the above, let's go to the core issue. The people who have lived both under Socialism and Capitalism give their answer to the various bourgeois and petty bourgeois unhistorical slanders. Various polls in former Socialist countries prove that the majority of people, in Russia and Eastern Europe, think that life was better before the counter-revolutions and the restoration of Capitalism. Under Socialism their major problems had been solved: Free education, free healthcare for all, social security, jobs, free vacation and holidays for everyone, etc. The restoration of Capitalism brought an unprecedented barbarity in almost every sector of public life: Social inequalities, unemployment, privatization of major public sectors from healthcare to education, etc. 

On March 2016, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) showed that: 

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part III "Socialist and Communist Literature"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
First Published: February 1848.
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

III. SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE.

1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM.
A. Feudal Socialism.

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period had become impossible.*

Friday, July 29, 2016

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part II "Proletarians and Communists"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
First Published: February 1848.
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

II. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS.

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. 

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. 

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. 

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. 

Monday, July 18, 2016

Nâzım Hikmet: "My Greek Brothers..." (1952)

Nazim Hikmet- Letter to the Greek People.
Trasmitted through the Radio Station of Warsaw.
19 August 1952.

Source: Rizospastis, 9 June 2013.
Translation in english: In Defense of Communism. 

"Greek Brothers,

There are two Turkeys and two Greeces. The real one and the fake one. The independent one and the slavish one. One is the Greece of Beloyannis and of the thousand of Greek patriots who suffer in the prisons. The homeland of the Greek people. This is the genuine Greece. It is Turkey with the thousand Turkish patriots who are rotting in the dungeons. The Turkey of the Turkish people. This is the genuine Turkey.

There is the Turkey and Greece of Menderes and Plastiras. They are the official ones, not the real ones. They are those which with their few supporters sold out both countries to the american Imperialism.

Recently, under the american blessings, Menderes and Plastiras shook hands in Athens. Their bloodstained hands, which send Turkish and Greek soldiers in Korea. Their bloodstained hands which prepare a new war. They even issued an official statement and talked about the Greek-Turkish friendship. We all understand this friendship.

To hit together the fighters of the Turkish and Greek people, who are struggling for Independence, peace and freedom. To grind in the same american mincer children of the Greek and the Turkish people. To compel the people of Turkey and Greece to bend the head and worship their bosses and the bosses of their bosses.

But the people of Turkey and Greece give a totally different meaning to the Greek-Turkish friendship. For them, the friendship means a common struggle for the freedom of their homeland. For national independence, for the happiness, in order to be able to taste side by side in the fraternal table of friendship, the bread and the olives of their own country.

The Turkish and the Greek people want to send to hell the foreign conquerors. The experts for the torture and the experts for the economic disaster.

In the hearts of the Turkish and Greek people there are the same feelings. Love for their homelands, love for the Soviet Union, for the People's Republics, the Great People's republic of China. (For) every independent or semi-independent people who struggles for national independence. Love for the Korean people. Love for the decent Americans. This is the meaning of the friendship between the Turkish and the Greek people.

My friends Greeks,

We must fight together, hand by hand for the national independence of our countries, for democracy against every expression of fascism, against the imperialists. Thus, our friendship will becoming day by day more powerful.

As a representative of my people, I can say to you that the Turkish people love the Greek people and feel admiration for their heroic achievements. I can tell you, that the Turkish fighters were learning, even in the prison, the news from the liberation struggles of your people and of your people's army. I can tell you that they were hearing about the incidents in Greece with tears in their eyes. The Turkish people was by the side of the Greek people in these tragic and heroic days and will be in the future always by their side. 
 

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Social-democracy at the service of the ruling classes. The struggle of the Communist Party

Social-democracy at the service of the ruling classes. 
The struggle of the Communist Party.

By Raúl Martínez & Ramón López*.
Source: International Communist Review, Issue 3, 2014.

Revisionism, a historical phenomenon hostile to Marxism.

Since the birth of the labour movement to this day, an intense struggle between two tendencies has been waged within the movement: the revolutionary one and the opportunist one. Over the history, opportunism has adopted different and numerous expressions, diguised under forms of "left wing" and right wing. This article deals with the right wing opportunism or revisionism, initial source of the political current that is nowadays known as social-democracy, whose nature mutated along the twentieth century, from being a current of the labour movement to a political movement which is an uncompromising defender and the essential pillar of monopoly capitalism.

Revisionism emerged in the late nineteenth century when, after the passing away of Frederick Engels, open warfare broke out within the socialist movement led by the German Eduard Bernstein whose maxim “the movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing [1” became the banner of the followers of the revisionist theory and its political practice, reformism. Lenin would argue about it:

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Aleka Papariga- The importance of the critical assessment of the socialist construction in the 20th century

The importance of the critical assessment of the socialist construction in the 20th century for the strengthening of the labor movement and for an effective counter-attack.
By Aleka Papariga*.
Source: International Communist Review, Issue 2, July 2014.
When we made public the subject of our 18th Congress, which, besides the mandatory overview of our work, included as a special subject our conclusions from socialist construction, several friends of the Party wondered whether it was advisable, under the current conditions and while the signs of the economic capitalist crisis had already become visible in the international scene, to focus on such an important issue which, in their opinion, might not have been at the top of the agenda.
It is not necessary, of course, to remind the reaction raised in the bourgeois press, the ironic and bitter comments of well-known journalists, who were annoyed by our decision to deal with this issue as they knew beforehand why we took such a decision. Their reaction is quite understandable from their point of view; they have a sharp instinct, they catch everything that can give strength and dynamic to the revolutionary movement.
From the very first moment that we realized that the infamous course of perestroika was nothing else but the beginning of the counterrevolution and the temporary defeat of the socialist system, we understood that we had to bear the brunt of giving answers to all progressive people –and to ourselves as well- who were reasonably wondering what happened. Even more so, since it was proved that we were not at all prepared for such a tragic development; we had not anticipated it and, unfortunately, we did not have the appropriate reflexes in order to react, even just before the lowering of the red flag from the Kremlin.

V.I.Lenin- Imperialism and the Split in Socialism (1916)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- 
Imperialism and the Split in Socialism.
Published in Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata No. 2, December 1916. Signed: N. Lenin. Published according to the Sbornik text. 

Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 105-120 / Web source: https://www.marxists.org.

Is there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has gained over the labour movement in Europe?

This is the fundamental question of modern socialism. And having in our Party literature fully established, first, the imperialist character of our era and of the present war [1] , and, second, the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic similarity of their political ideology, we can and must proceed to analyse this fundamental question.

We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command   the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Friedrich Engels- The Principles of Communism


FRIEDRICH ENGELS: THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNISM


October-November 1847.
Selected Works, Volume One, p. 81-97, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969. Web Source: Marx2Mao.

* * *

Question 1 :  What is Communism? 

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.

Question 2 :  What is the proletariat? 

The proletariat is that class in society which draws its means of livelihood wholly and solely from the sale of its labour and not from the profit from any kind of capital;[2] whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose whole existence depends on the demand for labour, hence, on the alternations of good times and bad in business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the nineteenth century.