Showing posts with label Lenin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lenin. Show all posts

Monday, November 23, 2020

So long Dominic Cummings

As the Trump era ends in acrimony in Washington the waves of discontent ripple across the Atlantic. None of us will shed a tear at the departure of Dominic Cummings or his shadowy side-kick Lee Cain from the corridors of power. The loathsome Rasputin-like adviser who seemed pull all the strings in the Johnson government has now gone. Some say that this is largely down to disagreements with Boris Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds. Others suspect that the ousting of two of the most prominent Leavers in the Tory camp has more to do with Johnson’s need to appease the new Biden administration.
    Boris Johnson knows that Joe Biden’s victory means the end of his dream of trans-Atlantic free-trade deal to replace the Treaty of Rome. The Brexit transitional period ends at the end of the year and without an agreement with Brussels Johnson’s options, within the parameters set by the ruling class, are limited.
    A “no deal” Brexit would clear the decks for free trade agreements with People’s China, India and Russia that would easily off-set any losses sustained from departing from the European Union. But there’s little enthusiasm within the Establishment for anything that could jeopardise British imperialism’s existing relationships with American and Franco-German imperialism.
    Cummings, whose departure was welcomed by the Tory grandees, stood in the way of any reset of the British position toward the European Union. Now he can write his book…

Corbyn’s reinstatement


Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party membership has been restored in return for an appeasing statement following efforts by Unite and some left social-democratic MPs to end the crisis. The Corbynistas say this is a climb-down by Sir Keir Starmer, Corbyn’s ineffectual successor, and a victory for the Labour left. But this “victory” came at a price and it was hardly decisive.
     Instead of challenging the reactionary nonsense of the Zionists and Blairites Corbyn plays into his enemies’ hands when he says that “concerns about anti-semitism [within the Labour Party] are neither ‘exaggerated’ nor ‘overstated’”. But even that isn’t enough for the Blairite bloc that want him and all his followers out of the Labour Party. Corbyn remains excluded from the Parliamentary Labour Party and the hate campaign will continue reaction unabated.
    At every step of the way, the left around Jeremy Corbyn have refused to challenge the basis of the accusations or defend the right to speak out for Palestine. Instead they have made concession after concession, and apology after apology.
    Rank and file opposition to the Blairites and Zionists inside the labour movement is the only way we can combat the lies and filth of the bourgeois media.
    Marxists have always repudiated the theory and practice of Zionism. In1903, Lenin himself said that the concept itself of a Jewish nation had become a “Zionist idea absolutely false and essentially reactionary”.
     The Bolshevik leader exposed the reactionary essence of Zionism, emphasising that its dogmas are reactionary, false and contrary to the interests of the Jewish proletariat. He criticised the Zionists’ theses concerning the unique nature of the Jewish people, the alleged absence of class differences amongst the Jews and the imaginary communality of their interests, explaining that such assertions aimed to distract the Jewish toiling masses from the proletariat’s common class struggle. Lenin was right then and he is right now!

Friday, April 24, 2020

The greatness of Lenin



This week communists marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Illych Lenin, the Bolshevik leader who led the working people of Russia in their struggle to overthrow the hated Czarist regime and establish the first workers’ and peasants republic in the entire history of humanity.
Lenin led the revolutionary upsurge that swept the old guard out in 1917 and established workers’ power in what would soon be called the Soviet Union. The Great October Socialist Revolution ushered in a period in which a sixth of the world would throw off the yoke of capitalism. For the first time in history the oppressed seized the reins of state power and began the task of building socialism.
Soviet power was proclaimed by the Congress of Soviets on 25th October 1917. The old state machine was abolished and elected Soviet workers’ councils were established in the villages, factories and military units. Free education was introduced in all the languages of the peoples of the former Russian empire and the people started to build a new socialist society.
The peaceful progress of the young republic was cut short, however, by counter-revolutionary forces led by senior military officers from the old regime and supported by reactionary religious leaders, rich peasants known as kulaks and sections of the privileged intelligentsia. They were armed and funded by the imperialists who sent expeditionary forces to try to crush the revolution they feared would bring down the entire capitalist system.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks relied on the determination of the workers and peasants to defend their revolution whatever the cost. They did, and Lenin led the Red Army to victory over the White Guards and their imperialist backers in the Civil War that ended in 1921 with the total defeat of the Whites and the establishment of Soviet power throughout virtually all of the former Czarist empire. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was proclaimed the following year.
Lenin proved that you could build socialism in one state. In his study of capitalism at its imperialist stage he concluded: “Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.”
Lenin explained that the world socialist revolution would consist of several stages separated by longer or shorter periods of time. Revolutions in individual countries would emerge as relatively independent links in a single world-wide socialist revolution that embraces an entire epoch in history.
The Russian revolution, with its call for peace and socialism, fired the mass movements that led to the uprisings in Germany that brought the First World War to an end in 1918. The next generation ended the Second World War with Hitler dead in his bunker and the Red Flag flying over the Reichstag in Berlin.
The colossal achievements of the Soviet Union led by Lenin and Stalin were living proof of the validity of the socialist system. The Soviets swept out the capitalists and land-owners, and unleashed the immense potential of the workers and peasants to build a new life for themselves.
Lenin inspired Russia’s workers and peasants to take up the gun to end Czarism in 1917. They won the civil war, and fought tooth and nail to defeat and destroy Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The communists who followed in his footsteps, like the Chinese, Korean, Laotian and Vietnamese people, defeated imperialism to build a better tomorrow in Asia. The 1917 revolution inspired the Cubans and the countless millions throughout the Third World who fought to smash the old colonial system that enslaved so much of the world in the last century.
The immense contributions of the former Soviet Union in war and peace and science and culture cannot be concealed nor denied. Like Lenin, we have every reason to face the future with confidence and enthusiasm!

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

On the 150th anniversary of the birth of V I Lenin

 Joint Statement of Communist and Workers' Parties


We honour the great revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin, we are committed to continuing his work!


The Communist and Workers' Parties, which co-sign this Joint Statement, would like also in this way to honor a great revolutionary and theorist of scientific socialism, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, as April 22 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.
 Especially in the current conditions, and while the pandemic of CoVID-19 is spreading, tragically demonstrating the great shortages of health systems in capitalist countries as well as the anti-social and parasitic nature of the capitalist system, in the face of the new crisis, the burdens of which will be again put on the workers' shoulders, the aggressive nature of capitalism and the escalation of imperialist competitions, which pose new dangers to peace and peoples, we feel an even greater need to refer to the historical physiognomy of V.I. Lenin. A personality that dedicated his life to the cause of the working class and other popular strata, to the struggle for the abolition of exploitation and the construction of the socialist society.

We honour V.I. Lenin as the founder of the contemporary working-class party, the "party of a new type", which was firmly separated from the opportunism and apostasy of the old social-democratic parties. Such was the Bolshevik Party, which was at the forefront of the class struggle of the proletariat and the other oppressed strata of Russia. Lenin's party led Russia's working class to victory by overthrowing the exploiting classes and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, the workers' and peasants' government, in the service of the interests of the many, the exploited and the oppressed. V.I. Lenin defined and substantiated the leading role of the Communist Party, not only in establishing workers' power but also in constructing socialism.

We honour V.I. Lenin as the theorist who, taking into account the particular reality, further developed the constituent parts of Marxism, i.e. philosophy, political economy, and scientific communism. As an opponent of any opportunistic and revisionist distortion of revolutionary theory and practice, dogmatism, sectarianism, and parliamentary illusions, without denying the intervention through the parliament.
His works, such as What the friends of the people are and how they fight the Social-Democrats, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, What Is to Be Done, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Marxism and Revisionism, The Collapse of the Second International, Socialism and War, On the Slogan for the United States of Europe, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, The State and Revolution, The April Theses, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, and The Great Initiative are milestones in the propagation and development of Marxism and revolutionary struggle. Lenin's valuable theoretical work is still timely and serves as a beacon for the ideological-political education and action of every new generation of revolutionaries.

We honour V.I. Lenin as the leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which about a century ago shook the world. The victorious revolution illuminated the power of the class struggle, the power of the exploited and the oppressed -when they take the case of their interests into their own hands and turn the wheel of history forward- in the direction of social liberation. The October flame led and accelerated the establishment of a number of Communist and revolutionary Workers' parties. Lenin had an insightful strategic ability and skillfully handled alliances, abilities that he devoted to the cause of the socialist revolution.

We honour V.I. Lenin as the leader of the world's first socialist state, which for the first time established workers' power based on new revolutionary institutions, such as the Soviets, sought the economic functioning of society on a new basis, the basis of the satisfaction of contemporary people's needs and the multi-faceted free development of all people, not the profitability of the few. The USSR, the first socialist state in the world, which was realized with the special contribution of V.I. Lenin, brought to the fore new unprecedented economic, social, political, and cultural achievements for the working class and the wider popular strata that had a profound effect on historical progressive developments around the world. It was a support to the peoples in the struggle for socialism and peace.

We honour V.I. Lenin as the great internationalist, the leader who raised the flag of proletarian internationalism against the treacherous attitude of the Second International during the imperialist World War I, opposed bourgeois nationalism and other bourgeois views such as the cosmopolitanism of the capital, and led the establishment of the Third Communist International, which made a major contribution to the international labor and communist movement and today is a basic source for drawing useful lessons from the experience it accumulated through its action. Lenin's positions on colonialism led the Communists to understand the issue of colonies and inspired them to lead the anti-colonial struggles, both in colonial countries and colonies.

We honour V.I. Lenin as the tireless and consistent opponent of the imperialist war, the defender of peoples' struggle for national and social liberation, social justice, peace, and socialism.
The counter-revolution and capitalist restoration cannot conceal the achievements of Socialism. The disasters and injustice we are experiencing, the acute problems and the suffering of the working class, the small-middle strata, the peasantry and the peoples overall caused by capitalist exploitation and oppression, emphasize the necessity and timeliness of socialism all over the world.
The Communist and Workers' Parties denounce the wave of silence as well as the reactionary and anti-communist distortion that has been unleashed around the world by the political forces that serve the interests of the capital against V.I. Lenin to the workers and the youth. We struggle for the continuation of his work, we are committed to continue defending and propagating his legacy and we call on the workers and the people to learn from it.

22/04/2020

SolidNet Parties signing the Joint Statement

  1. Communist Party of Albania
  2. PADS, Algeria
  3. Communist Party of Argentina
  4. Communist Party of Armenia
  5. Communist Party of Australia
  6. Party of Labour of Austria
  7. Communist Party of Azerbaijan
  8. Democratic Progressive Tribune of Bahrain
  9. Communist Party of Bangladesh
  10. Communist Party of Belarus
  11. Communist Party of Belgium
  12. Brazilian Communist Party
  13. CP of Brazil
  14. Communist Party of Britain
  15. New Communist Party of Britain
  16. Communist Party of Bulgaria
  17. Party of Bulgarian Communists
  18. Communist Party of Canada
  19. Communist Party of Chile
  20. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
  21. AKEL, Cyprus
  22. Communist Party of Bohemia-Moravia
  23. Communist Party of Denmark
  24. Communist Party in Denmark
  25. Force of the Revolution, Dominican Republic
  26. Communist Party Ecuador
  27. Egyptian CP
  28. Communist Party of El Salvador
  29. Communist Party of Finland
  30. United Communist Party of Georgia
  31. German Communist Party
  32. Communist Party of Greece
  33. Hungarian Workers Party
  34. Communist Party of India
  35. Communist Party of India (Marxist)
  36. Communist Party of Kurdistan – Iraq
  37. Tudeh Party of Iran
  38. Workers' Party of Ireland
  39. Communist Party of Ireland
  40. Communist Party of Israel
  41. Communist Party, Italy
  42. Italian Communist Party
  43. Jordanian Communist Party
  44. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
  45. Workers' Party of Korea
  46. Party of the Communists of Kyrgyzstan
  47. Lebanese Communist Party
  48. Socialist Party of Latvia
  49. Socialist Party, Lithuania
  50. Communist Party of Luxembourg
  51. Communist Party of Malta
  52. Communist Party of Mexico
  53. Popular Socialist Party- National Political Association, Mexico
  54. Communist Party of Norway
  55. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
  56. Communist Party of Pakistan
  57. Palestinian Communist Party
  58. Palestinian People's Party
  59. Paraguayan Communist Party
  60. Peruan Communist Party
  61. Communist Party of Poland
  62. Portuguese Communist Party
  63. Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930)
  64. Communist Party of Ukraine
  65. Union of Communists of Ukraine
  66. Communist Party of the Russian Federation
  67. Communist Workers' Party of Russia
  68. Communist Party of the Soviet Union
  69. Union of Communist Parties - CPSU
  70. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
  71. Communists of Serbia
  72. Communist Party of Slovakia
  73. South African Communist Party
  74. Communist Party of Spain
  75. Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
  76. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
  77. Communists of Catalonia
  78. Communist Party of Sri Lanka
  79. Communist Party of Swaziland
  80. Communist Party of Sweden
  81. Sudanese Communist Party
  82. Syrian Communist Party
  83. Communist Party of Turkey
  84. Communist Party of Venezuela

Other Parties signing the Joint Statement

  1. Union of Communists in Bulgaria
  2. Communist Revolutionary Party of France
  3. Pole of Communist Revival in France
  4. Shiso-Undo, Japan
  5. Communist Party of Puerto Rico
  6. JVP Sri Lanka
  7. Galizan People's Union
  8. Communist Party, Switzerland
  9. Party of Communists, USA

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

OLIVER CROMWELL




Oliver Cromwell



1599 – 1658


OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the bourgeois English Revolution, died on 3rd September 1658. Cromwell, the MP for Huntingdon, was the leading Parliamentary commander during the English Civil War, which began in 1642 and ended in 1649 with the trial and execution of Charles Stuart and the abolition of the monarchy. The Republic of England, or Commonwealth as it was styled in English, was proclaimed soon after.
In 1653 Oliver became head of state, the Lord Protector. By then the republic Cromwell led included England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as colonies in New England and the Caribbean. During its brief life the Commonwealth became a force in Europe. Culturally it inspired the great poetry of John Milton and Andrew Marvell and other radical and pacifist religious movements like the Quakers who are still with us today.
Oliver Cromwell was succeeded by his son, Richard, who was neither a politician nor a soldier. Unable to reconcile republican generals with the demands of the rich merchants and landowners to curb the influence of the New Model Army, Richard Cromwell resigned the following year. The government collapsed. The monarchy was restored in 1660 and the New Model Army was dissolved.
Monarchists see Cromwell as an upstart general who made himself dictator through the might of his New Model Army. For some Protestants Cromwell is still a religious reformer who fought for freedom of conscience for all faiths apart from Catholicism. Many in the Jewish community still remember Cromwell as the leader who allowed Jews to live, worship and work in England for the first time since the pogroms of 1290. But for the bourgeoisie Oliver is best forgotten, even though their ascendancy began when their ancestors took up the gun in the 1640s.
As Lenin said in 1918: “The British bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1649, the French bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1793. Terror was just and legitimate when the bourgeoisie resorted to it for their own benefit against feudalism. Terror became monstrous and criminal when the workers and poor peasants dared to use it against the bourgeoisie! Terror was just and legitimate when used for the purpose of substituting one exploiting minority for another exploiting minority. Terror became monstrous and criminal when it began to be used for the purpose of overthrowing every exploiting minority, to be used in the interests of the vast actual majority, in the interests of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, the working class and the poor peasants!”
The ruling class abhor revolutionary change today because it threatens their own domination so they naturally deny that their class ever came to power through it in the first place. For them the English republic is an aberration, a temporary blip in the steady advance of bourgeois progress which is the myth they teach us in school. If they elevate anything at all it is the “glorious revolution” of 1688 when the last of the Stuarts was deposed and replaced by a king of their own choosing. Though not as bloodless as they claimed – plenty was shed in Ireland – the establishment of a monarchy that was the gift of Parliament was achieved without the involvement of the masses, which was precisely what was intended.