Never Again!

The slogan used by liberated prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp to denounce Nazism is always recalled on 27th January, now known as Holocaust Day. That was the day in 1945 when the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops advancing into the Third Reich.
Millions, including some six million Jews, suffered and died in that unspeakable horror. And this year, on the 80th anniversary of its liberation King Charles joined world and religious leaders to mourn those who perished in Nazi death camps to pledge that future generations must never allow the horrors of the Holocaust to be forgotten or repeated. But the role of the Soviet Union that liberated Auschwitz is being deliberately ignored by the imperialists and their lackeys that use Holocaust Day to justify their own moral bankruptcy. 
The decision to exclude Russia from Auschwitz’s 80th  anniversary commemorations sends a troubling message to the world about the value of historical truth. When we start erasing inconvenient aspects of history to suit present-day narratives we lose sight of the lessons that history teaches us. The Holocaust and the broader atrocities of the Second World War  were enabled by dehumanisation, propaganda, and the denial of reality. To combat these forces in our time we must commit to an honest reckoning with the past even when it is uncomfortable.
Selective amnesia is dangerous. The Second World War was a global conflict that required immense sacrifices from the Allied Powers that combined to defeat Nazi Germany and its Axis allies. But no country paid a higher price than the USSR. Over 27 million Soviet citizens died in the war including 8,7 million battlefield losses. To erase or diminish that contribution is to distort the historical record and risk undermining the shared understanding that has underpinned the post-war international order.
 It is undoubtedly true that the Holocaust was perpetrated in a climate of anti-semitism and abhorrent racism deliberately fostered by the Nazis and the German ruling class. The Nazis didn’t invent anti-semitism but they stoked it up and fanned the flames to make pogroms seem respectable and even "patriotic". But it was not the existence of racist ideas on their own which led to Nazism and the “final solution” but the ruling class of finance capitalists which wanted war and territorial expansion.
 It was this class which used the Nazis to advance its aims and which systematically elevated racism – and particularly anti-semitism – in order to find an excuse for wholesale theft, super exploitation and war to provide a convenient internal enemy on which the attention of the people could be focused.
The Nazis said the Jews were to blame for people's ills. They said that it was the Jews who bled the country dry. They claimed that the Jews were the enemies of the Germans and the entire human race.These lies were told in order to conceal the real exploiters and parasites –  the capitalist class as a whole. It ensured that capitalism was not blamed while millions of innocent Jews, most of whom were working class, were persecuted.
The leading German bankers, manufacturers and other big capitalists made a great deal of money from the war itself and from forced labour and the camp system in general. They survived the fall of the Third Reich largely unscathed and some of their successors are still leaders in the field today.
 Yes; we should all learn from the Holocaust. We should learn to struggle against every form of racism. But we should also learn that it was capitalism which backed Hitler, it is capitalism which resorts to unleashing fascism when it cannot rule in the old way and it was capitalism which created the gas chambers of Auschwitz – these are the lessons of history.

The Soviet sacrifice remembered in Durham

By New Worker correspondent

Students studying Russian held a literary and musical evening dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Second World War at Durham University last weekend. The students gave reports on key events of the war, read poems and sang songs about important battles and victory.
    Olga Zabotkina, who proposed the memorial evening, told the students about the members of her family who fought in the Great Patriotic War and the sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in the struggle against the Nazi invaders.
    An important part of the evening was the performance of works of art and music about the War. For the convenience of the audience, during the performance of songs, words were dubbed in Latin letters and video materials were shown with translation into English.
    The participants of the evening received St George ribbons and letters of thanks from the General Convent of Russia in Edinburgh. They plan to continue their work and hold a concert in honour of the Year of Memory and Glory in Russia.

 

 

Real rights and ‘human rights’

Human Rights in America!

By Rob Gowland

As you have no doubt noticed, US leaders are fond of proclaiming their devotion to ‘human rights’. They have to say ‘human rights’ because if they called them ‘democratic rights’ – as they should – it would raise too many awkward questions. Questions like, if the USA is such a democracy, how come you got elected President even though more people voted for your opponent​?
    American mainstream politicians – even those supposedly on ‘the Left’ – like to hold up their country’s devotion to ‘free speech’ as an exemplar to the world. And yes, it’s true: you can say what you think of the government and probably won’t get thrown in jail. But that’s because the rich and powerful know that as long as they control the mass media, your dissenting voice has very little chance of being heard – by anyone at all. So they let you enjoy your ‘right to free speech’ because it’s really just an illusion and they lose no sleep over it.
    But when it comes to real human rights, like the right to shelter, to a job, to education, to health care or a myriad of other rights that people under Socialism take for granted, it’s a different story. People in the USA don’t enjoy any of those rights. They have to pay for them – and pay through the nose.
    American workers through their unions have to wage bitter struggles to get health insurance coverage, and even then, serious illness or an accident can wipe out their insurance and put them in the poor house for life. Health care is {not} a right in the land of the free.
    And what of the people in countries whose resources US imperialism has been looting for a century or more, the countries of Central and South America? Their human rights have been systematically trodden underfoot by a succession of bloodthirsty dictators and gangster regimes, all aided and abetted – if not actually guided – by their masters in Washington.
    Right now, Venezuela is engaged in a fierce struggle with the USA and its local minions, all because successive Venezuelan governments have sought to use its oil revenue to raise the standard of living of the native people and to pursue an independent foreign policy. First under the inspired leadership of the revolutionary humanist Hugo Chavez and now under his successor Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan people are fighting for their human rights against US attempts to install fascist regimes throughout the continent.
    Why fascist? Because the people of South and Central America have regrettably taken bourgeois democracy at face value and too often elected governments that tried to protect the people from predatory US corporations. Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Grenada – to name but a few – have all suffered anti-democratic US-inspired coups against their democratically elected governments whenever they tried to empower the poor, especially the indigenous poor.
    The people of the region are mindful of the horrors that were unleashed on the unfortunate people of Chile at the hands of America’s chosen butchers, but are determined to struggle for their democratic rights, nevertheless.
    The recent US Navy action in which four Iranian oil tankers bound for Venezuela were intercepted at sea and forced to discharge their cargoes into American hands was an act of blatant piracy, an example of ‘great power bullying’ from an earlier era, an era when the leaders of the ‘great powers’ strutted around the world treating smaller countries with contempt and trampling on their democratic rights with impunity.
    In particular, the most powerful and wealthiest capitalist country, the USA, used its economic and military might to dictate the domestic and foreign policies of the rest of the world. The USA even dictated what its own allies must spend on defence. What Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have failed to grasp is that that era is well and truly gone.
    With People’s China and Russia co-operating on the spectacular ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, the USA’s ability to interdict other countries’ trade and shipping will soon be no more than an unfortunate memory.
    But capitalists are not noted for accepting their loss of power and privilege easily. They will fight to retain their power – especially when the fighting is not done by them personally!
    When capitalism’s privileged position at the top of the tree is under threat from the have-nots, that’s when it resorts to fascism. It drops the mask of bourgeois democracy and turns instead to its default position: open, terrorist dictatorship.
    Trump, the rabble-rouser, billionaire “friend of the working man”, whose contempt for science condemned thousands of Americans to death from COVID-19, is undoubtedly a fascist. But let’s face it, he is no worse than some of the other reactionary nut-jobs who have sat in the Oval Office with their finger figuratively on the button that could destroy the world.
    We can, however, take some small comfort from the fact that US leaders must be painfully aware that if they do try to launch a nuclear first strike against their hated Sino-Russian foes, the response will be truly devastating.
    “Mutual Assured Destruction” has the very appropriate acronym MAD, but it is all that stands between us and imperialism’s loonies, those who think “Nuke the Commies” is still a viable slogan for our times.
    As I say, the world has moved on and such people are a hangover from the past. They are still dangerous, with power to kill and maim millions. But history is not static, and the people are not passive. They are determining the direction of world politics despite the best efforts of capitalist politicians to resist them.
    Despite the rabble-rousing appeals to nationalism and patriotism by a rabble-rousing US President, pitching his appeal to the ignorant and the unimaginative, ordinary people even in the USA have learnt the hard way that they have nothing to gain – and everything to lose – from war.
    Like the people of devastated Yemen, the people of the USA too yearn to enjoy the right to live free from body-bags and all the other horrors of war.

In Memoriam Nina Andreyeva

Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva

1938–2020

Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva has passed away in St Petersburg, the city known as Leningrad during the Soviet era. The leader of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB) died on 24th July 2020 after a long illness.

Nina Andreyeva helped revive the Russian communist movement during the chaos that followed the destruction of the Soviet Union and although her party was always overshadowed by the mainstream successors to the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union, her views helped change the public perception of the Stalin leadership in Russia and throughout the world communist movement.

Nina Andreyeva was born on 12th October 1938 in a working-class family in Leningrad. During the Second World War she lost her father, who was killed in action in 1941.

She graduated from high school with a gold medal with honours from the Leningrad Institute of Technology in the technical sciences. In 1966, she joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). As an honest party member, she always took a firm principled stand. For this, the bureaucracy twice tried to deprive her of her Party card. These were the people who would later burn their Party cards to serve imperialism and join the bourgeois camp.

It was in the midst of Gorbachev's perestroika, when the traitors launched an attack on the foundations of socialism, that Nina Andreyeva showed her firm Bolshevik character in the famous letter I cannot compromise my principles that was published in Sovetskaya Rossiya, the daily newspaper of the Supreme Soviet, on 13th March 1988.

The article became known throughout the Soviet Union and beyond. Nina Andreyeva exposed Gorbachev's treacherous policy and caused such a public outcry that the Politburo of the CPSU, at the request of Gorbachev, spent two days discussing how to deal with her.

Her letter divided society into two camps: the defenders of socialism and those who wanted to destroy everything related to the Soviet period. It sparked a wide public debate and was reprinted in 800 regional and local publications.

It was denounced as "a manifesto of anti-perestroika forces" and Nina Andreyeva was forced to leave her teaching post at the Leningrad Institute of Technology. But she still kept up the fight.

In 1989 Nina Andreyeva led the All-Union ‘Unity for Leninism and Communist Ideals’ movement. In July 1991 she became the leader of the ‘Bolshevik platform’ within the CPSU. And on 8th November 1991, she was elected leader of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB).

Nina Andreyeva wrote a number of books dedicated to the struggle against opportunism, Zionism and fascism that were published all over the world, whilst calling on the world communist movement to uphold the cause of Lenin and Stalin at seminars in Democratic Korea, India and across the European continent, including the Brussels international May Day communist conference where she met NCP leader Andy Brooks in the early 1990s.

Her party failed to get mass support for its call for a “political general strike” and it was always overshadowed by the two mainstream successors to the old CPSU in the Russian Federation. But Nina Andreyeva’s scientific defence of the Soviet Union and the Stalin leadership led the fight-back that demolished the myths and lies spread by Gorbachov and Yeltsin during the counter-revolution that destroyed the world’s first socialist republic.

She helped shift Russian public consciousness towards renewed appreciation of the achievements of the Stalin era. Stalin’s memory is now upheld by all the communist parties in Russia and the Soviet leader’s achievements are now even partially accepted by the anti-communist Putin regime.

 Her life is, perhaps, best summed up in the tribute from the party she founded and led for over 30 years. The AUCPB said that the life-long principles of NA Andreyeva could be summed up by Stalin's words: “Not a step back! This should be our main appeal. We must stubbornly, to the last drop of blood, defend every position ... Our Motherland is going through difficult days. We must stop, and then push back and defeat the enemy, no matter what it takes!”

Myths and. Reality of building Soviet Socialism

By John Maryon

There can be little doubt that the social, technical and economic transformation that occurred in the Soviet Union, particularly during the period of Joseph Stalin's leadership, was one of the most significant achievements of the 20th century. Millions of workers and peasants had their lives transformed from the back-breaking toil and oppression of near feudalism to becoming true masters of their own destiny as they carried forwards the historic cause of building socialism.

Soviet power had been proclaimed by the Congress of Soviets on 25th October 1917. The old state machine was abolished and elected Soviets established in the villages, factories and military units. Free education was introduced in all native languages 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 consisting of former military personnel, kulaks (wealthy peasants with land and animals), and sections of the privileged intelligentsia.

The struggle to build Socialism was going to be a hard, demanding sacrifice made more difficult by foreign intervention. The problems faced can be illustrated by an examination of events in the Ukraine, which to avoid becoming vassals of the Polish Princes or the Ottoman Empire had been part of Russia since 1654. Following the Russian Revolution and the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising it became part of the new Soviet state. The population comprised Slavs of the eastern group and Tatars of Turkish origin, in addition to Polish and German descendants and other minority groups.

The Ukraine language is similar to Russian and for many years was considered to be a Russian dialect. The Tatars have their own language and live mainly in the Crimea; a region associated with the suicidal Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 during the war for control of the Middle East. Although the main religion is Russian Orthodox, former Polish influence has left a strong Catholic church. At the time of the Russian revolution Ukraine's social strata comprised 80 per cent toiling peasantry, five per cent workers, and a small but growing class of capitalists who owned over 90 per cent of the wealth and land.

By 1918 Ukrainian reactionaries had set up four separate capitalist statelets, which all fought each other as well as the Soviet government that was using armed detachments of workers to oppose attacks by the White Guard alliance. The White Guards consisted of Nationalist armies and Cossack chieftains.

Following the end of the First World War the Soviet state, including the area of Ukraine, was subject to brazen naked foreign aggression. Attacks and occupations were carried out. Britain occupied Odessa, and Germany occupied a large part of western and central Ukraine. The onslaught against the Soviet state itself was carried out by British, French, German, American, Hungarian/Austrian and Japanese forces. A civil war with a war of intervention was taking place as the workers state opposed reactionary forces and the full fury of Imperialist aggression.

Unlike the imperialist backed forces of counter-revolution who all wanted dominance and personal gain, the Soviets were united for the common good, with military units formed of working peasants who took up arms to join the ranks of the Red army. The Soviets were supported by a war economy, unlike the largely mercenary White Guards who relied on foreign sponsorship. The well-to-do sided with the old regime but increasingly others found Soviet rule to their liking, including women who now enjoyed a new found status of equality with men.

In the spring of 1920 the Poles, encouraged by Western powers, attacked and captured Kiev. The White Guards advanced from their stronghold in the Crimea to capture areas of southern Ukraine. The Red Army counter-attacked and regained some territory. Overall the Soviet Union lost other areas in the Baltic and Byelorussia. Reactionary regimes were installed to form a {cordon sanitaire} designed to isolate the Soviet Union and provide a base from which to carry out sabotage and provocations.

During the 1920s and ‘30s the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became an industrially developed region, with coal from the Donbas supporting iron and steel production for machine building. Many attempts were made to wreck the factories but they were defended gallantly by the workers. The collectivisation of agricultural also took place during this period. For centuries the land, owned by the rulers, had been tilled by peasants on small plots using wooden ploughs with horses. Collectivisation enabled farms to be modernised and by the late 1930s the area had become the bread basket of the Soviet Union. Heavy industry in the region was referred to as the Soviet Ruhr.

The process of collectivisation, however, was not an easy one and coincided with one of the worst known drought periods of 1932–1934. Hitler and later the CIA alleged that the famine had been created deliberately by Stalin and vastly over-estimated casualties. Over one million people died at this time in addition to a vastly greater number who had earlier perished when invading armies killed, raped, slaughtered the farm stock, and burned the crops. There were four chief causes for the suffering:

1. Unprecedented drought conditions in many parts of the Soviet Union.

2. A typhoid epidemic that ravaged the Ukraine and North Caucasus regions.

3. Provocations by the Kulaks who slaughtered their cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and hens to avoid collectivisation.

4. Disorder of work provoked by sabotage, and also the murder of many leading cades and specialists by German-backed nationalists – the same people who would later support Hitler. The lies were designed to justify their invasion seven years later.

At 0400hrs on 22nd June 1941 Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in a war that led to the death of 27 million Soviets, destruction of over 90 per cent of its industry and widespread devastation. Over eight million people lost their lives in Ukraine, including over one million Jews murdered by the SS.

Nationalists from the former ruling class in Western Ukraine enthusiastically supported Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler did not trust them, they had betrayed their own people and no doubt would betray him if given half a chance, so they were not given front-line roles but put in charge of the death camps where they undertook with great enthusiasm the massacre of Jews, Communists, Socialists, trade unionists, disabled people and those mentally ill. Stepan Bandera, a leading fascist, active during this period, is today regarded as a national hero by some leading Ukrainian politicians.