Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Monday, August 15, 2016

Declaration of the CC of the KKE: On the 70th anniversary of the Democratic Army of Greece 1946-1949

Athens, February 2016

We are inspired and learn from the 100-year history of the KKE, from the 3-year epic of the DSE.

The CC of the KKE, the entire party and KNE, honours the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the democratic Army of Greece (DSE).

1946 was a year of important developments directly connected to the creation of the DSE, such as:

The 2nd Plenum of the CC of the KKE (12-15 February 1946), which began exactly a year after of the signing of the Varkiza Agreement (12th of February 1945).The 2nd Plenum, even if in a contradictory way, was the one that decided to conduct the armed struggle.

The attack of a group of partisans on the gendarmerie station of Litohoro, on the night of the 30th and early in the morning of the 31st of March 1946, took place on the eve of the parliamentary elections.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Olympic Games and Fascism- The Olympic Deceit of the ‘Divine Baron’ Pierre de Coubertin

Olympism and Fascism.
By Ljubodrag Simonović.
Source: Excerpt from the book “The Olympic Deceit of the ‘Divine Baron’ – Pierre de Coubertin”
Posters: Vanja Zakanji.

As early as 1929, at the time of the great recession, “father” of the modern Olympic Games Pierre de Coubertin expressed his inclination towards authoritarian regimes, namely his discontent with the inefficiency of the capitalist system in its dealing with the working class :

"First of all, it was necessary to establish the International Olympic Committee with its basic rights, that should have been acknowledged by all the nations. This was not easy, because the Constitution of the Committee was opposed to the ideas of the time. It discarded the principle of delegation, so dear to our parliamentary democracies - the principle which, having done some great good, seems to be less efficient every day". (1)

It should also be noted that Coubertin was cordially accepted and his works published in fascist Germany, in spite of being "a great French patriot", a fact important at the time of German revanchism. Theodor Lewald, the president of the Organizing Committee of the Berlin Olympics, wrote of Coubertin at the end of his Introduction to "Olympische Erinnerungen", published in Berlin in 1938:

"He understood and enthusiastically saluted the development of the
new Germany under her Great Führer". (2)

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Hiroshima - Nagasaki 1945: The real reasons behind the 20th century's most horrific war crime

"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us [...] We must constitute ourselves trustees of this new force--to prevent its misuse, and to turn it into the channels of service to mankind. We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes".

The above words are the words of an imperialist war criminal. It was August 9, 1945 when U.S. President Harry Truman was delivering a radio address to the American people. Three days ago, the bomber Enola Gay had dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb in Hiroshima and another bomb was spreading death and destruction in Nagasaki. Truman actually lied to the American people. The reason behind the use of the atomic bomb wasn't to end WW2 or save lives. It was a warning against the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of the "Cold War"

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Solzhenitsyn — The rotten legacy of a Fascist

By Nikos Mottas.



It was August 3, 2008 when the “Patriarch” of anti-communism, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, died. The writings of Solzhenitsyn became a major source of anti-Soviet hysteria and blatant slanders against the first socialist state. Even today, Solzhenitsyn's major work “The Gulag Archipelago” is, more or less, regarded as the anti-communist “bible” of the world's apologists of capitalism and anti-soviet propaganda. 

The supposed “honest” testimonies of Solzhenitsyn- which he was never able to prove- were used in the building of an anti-stalinist, anti-communist obsession which the West had so much need to base upon, especially after the end of WW2.

However, who was really this nobel prize-winning Russian and how much credibility do his anti-soviet fairy tales contain?

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Nikos Zachariadis (1903-1973)

The 1st of August marks the 43rd anniversary of the death of Nikos Zachariadis, General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) from 1931 to 1956. He was born to ethnic Greek parents in Ottoman Empire's Edirne (Andrianoupolis) in 1903. At the age of 16, Nikos moved to Istanbul where he worked in various jobs, including as a dockworker and sailor. It was there when he started having his first organised relationship with the working-class movement. 

In 1919-1922 he travelled extensively to the Soviet Union. In 1923 he became a member of the Communist Party of Turkey. He studied in the newly-founded "KUTV" (Communist University of the Toilers of the East), also known as "Stalin School", in the Soviet Union. After the Greco-Turkish War and the exchange of populations, the Zachariadis family moved permanently to Greece, during a period of severe political and economic crisis. 

On summer 1924, after finishing his studies in the Soviet Union, Nikos Zachariadis travelled secretly to Greece where he undertook duties at the Young Communist League of Greece (OKNE). In 1926, during the dictatorship of General Pangalos, he was arrested and imprisoned in Thessaloniki. He managed to escape and worked secretly in various party positions. He was re-arrested and re-imprisoned in 1929, but once again he escaped and fled to the Soviet Union. During his stay in the Soviet Union he became a member of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). 

Thursday, July 21, 2016

The Truth about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Imperialist Propaganda

By Nikos Mottas.

"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible...”
Harry Truman, 1941.

Since the end of the Second World War, the bourgeois historiography has tried to distort various incidents in order to vilify Socialism and the USSR. One of these incidents- which has been a "banner" of imperialism's apologists and other anticommunists- is the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”* which was signed in 1939. In it's unscientific, unhistorical effort to equate Communism with Nazism, the bourgeois propaganda presents the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a medium of expansive policy by the USSR and Hitler's Germany. The distortion of historical events, the amalgamation of lies and the half-truths by the Imperialists and their collaborators aim in defaming the huge role of the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist struggle of WW2.

However, the reality is different than the one presented by the bourgeois historiography. Here, we will examine the circumstances and the events which led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, in an effort to debunk the anti-communist propaganda on this matter.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan (Part II)

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan (Part II). Continue from Part I.
Source: Cultural Logic, 2009.

Objectivity And Persuasion.

Political prejudice still predominates in the study of Soviet history. Conclusions that contradict the dominant paradigm are routinely dismissed as the result of bias or incompetence. Conclusions that cast doubt upon accusations against Stalin or whose implications tend to make him look either “good” or even less “evil” than the predominant paradigm holds him to have been, are called “Stalinist.” Any objective study of the evidence now available is bound to be called “Stalinist” simply because it reaches conclusions that are politically unacceptable to those who have a strong political bias, be it anticommunist generally or Trotskyist specifically. The aim of the present study is to examine the allegations made in the USSR during the 1930s that Leon Trotsky collaborated with Germany and Japan against the USSR in the light of the evidence now available. 

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan (Part I)

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan.
Source: Cultural Logic, 2009.

“If an objective research project on the events of those years were to be done, free of ideological dogmas, then a great deal could change in our attitude towards those years and towards the personalities of that epoch. And so it would be a “bomb” that would cause some problems. . . .”
Col. Viktor Alksnis, 2000.

“. . . it is essential for historians to defend the foundation of their discipline: the supremacy of evidence. If their texts are fictions, as in some sense they are, being literary compositions, the raw material of these fictions is verifiable fact. Whether the Nazi gas ovens existed or not can be established by evidence. Because it has been so established, those who deny their existence are not writing history, whatever their narrative techniques.” – Eric Hobsbawm, 1994, p. 57.

“. . . we can demolish a myth only insofar as it rests on propositions which can be shown to be mistaken.” – ibid., p. 60.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Honoring Greek guerrilla leader and communist revolutionary Aris Velouchiotis

Today is the 71st anniversary of the death of the First Captain of the People's Army (ELAS) Aris Velouchiotis (1905-1945). Velouchiotis was a partisan, member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and guerrilla leader during the Axis occupation in WW2. 

Aris, who was born in Lamia, central Greece in 1905, was a cadre of the Communist Party of Greece and at the decision of the party he undertook the formation of the People’s Army (ELAS) during the fascist occupation, the armed wing of the National Liberation Front (EAM).

Aris opposed the Varkiza Agreement, which disarmed ELAS, and returned to the mountains. In June 1945, his small armed group was surrounded in Mesounda (Arta) and killed by the bourgeois army, which desecrated their corpses, cutting off the heads of Aris and his comrades, which were hung in the central square in the town of Trikala. The then leadership of the party disowned him. 

However, after 1957, the KKE in essence gradually rehabilitated him, something that was confirmed by the decision to politically rehabilitate him during the discussion on the 2nd Volume of the History of the Party, 1949-1968, at the Nationwide Conference in 2011. On 9 October 2011, an event was held by the CC of the KKE for the presentation of the Decision of the Nationwide Conference concerning the official political rehabilitation of the first captain of ELAS, Aris Velouchiotis. A large delegation of the CC of the KKE headed by the then GS of the CC, Aleka Papariga, was present. Speaking at the rally, Telemachus Dimoulas, member of the PB of the CC of the KKE, made extensive reference to the essay on the history of the KKE approved by the National Conference of the KKE and the special decision concerning Aris Velouchiotis. "In the consciousness of the people, Aris Velouchiotis is identified with the heroic history of the KKE, the struggle for the overthrow of imperialist barbarity”. 

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Fidel Castro- Che’s ideas are absolutely relevant today

Fidel Castro Ruz- Che’s ideas are absolutely relevant today.
Source: Guevaristas.org.

The following speech was given by Fidel Castro on 8 October 1987 at the main ceremony marking the twentieth anniversary of Guevara’s death. It was held at a newly completed electronics components factory in the city of Pinar del Río.

Nearly twenty years ago, on October 18, 1967, we met in the Plaza of the Revolution with a huge crown to honor Compañero Ernesto Che Guevara, Those were very bitter, very difficult days as when we received news of the developments in Vado del Yeso, in the Yuro Ravine, when news agencies reported Che had fallen in battle.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Paul Robeson Vs House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)

On June 12, 1956, an Afro-American militant Civil Rights proponent and talented artist appeared before the anti-communist House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). He was Paul Robeson, the internationally acclaimed concert performer and actor and consistent anti-imperialist activist.  In 1950, his passport was revoked. Several years later, Robeson refused to sign an affidavit stating that he was not a Communist and initiated an unsuccessful lawsuit.

In the following testimony to a HUAC hearing, ostensibly convened to gain information regarding his passport suit, Robeson refused to answer questions concerning his political activities and lectured bigoted Committee members Gordon H. Scherer and Chairman Francis E.Walter about African-American history and civil rights.

We publish Robeson's testimony, honoring the memory of a great human being, a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement for the black people in the U.S. and an honest fighter for the interests of the working class worldwide.

TESTIMONY OF PAUL ROBESON BEFORE THE HUAC
June 12, 1956.

THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee will be in order. This morning the Committee resumes its series of hearings on the vital issue of the use of American passports as travel documents in furtherance of the objectives of the Communist conspiracy. . . .

Mr. ARENS: Now, during the course of the process in which you were applying for this passport, in July of 1954, were you requested to submit a non-Communist affidavit?

Mr. ROBESON: We had a long discussion—with my counsel, who is in the room, Mr. [Leonard B.] Boudin—with the State Department, about just such an affidavit and I was very precise not only in the application but with the State Department, headed by Mr. Henderson and Mr. McLeod, that under no conditions would I think of signing any such affidavit, that it is a complete contradiction of the rights of American citizens.

Mr. ARENS: Did you comply with the requests?

Mr. ROBESON: I certainly did not and I will not.

Mr. ARENS: Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. ROBESON: Oh please, please, please.

Mr. SCHERER: Please answer, will you, Mr. Robeson?

Mr. ROBESON: What is the Communist Party? What do you mean by that?

Mr. SCHERER: I ask that you direct the witness to answer the question.

Mr. ROBESON: What do you mean by the Communist Party? As far as I know it is a legal party like the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Do you mean a party of people who have sacrificed for my people, and for all Americans and workers, that they can live in dignity? Do you mean that party?

Mr. ARENS: Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. ROBESON: Would you like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take out the ballot and see?

Mr. ARENS: Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest that the witness be ordered and directed to answer that question.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer the question.

(The witness consulted with his counsel.)
Mr. ROBESON: I stand upon the Fifth Amendment of the American Constitution.

Mr. ARENS: Do you mean you invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. ARENS: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told this Committee truthfully—

Mr. ROBESON: I have no desire to consider anything. I invoke the Fifth Amendment, and it is none of your business what I would like to do, and I invoke the Fifth Amendment. And forget it.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer that question.

MR, ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment, and so I am answering it, am I not?

Mr. ARENS: I respectfully suggest the witness be ordered and directed to answer the question as to whether or not he honestly apprehends, that if he gave us a truthful answer to this last principal question, he would be supplying information which might be used against him in a criminal proceeding.

(The witness consulted with his counsel.)

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer that question, Mr. Robeson.

Mr. ROBESON: Gentlemen, in the first place, wherever I have been in the world, Scandinavia, England, and many places, the first to die in the struggle against Fascism were the Communists and I laid many wreaths upon graves of Communists. It is not criminal, and the Fifth Amendment has nothing to do with criminality. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Warren, has been very clear on that in many speeches, that the Fifth Amendment does not have anything to do with the inference of criminality. I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. ARENS: Have you ever been known under the name of “John Thomas”?

Mr. ROBESON: Oh, please, does somebody here want—are you suggesting—do you want me to be put up for perjury some place? “John Thomas”! My name is Paul Robeson, and anything I have to say, or stand for, I have said in public all over the world, and that is why I am here today.

Mr. SCHERER: I ask that you direct the witness to answer the question. He is making a speech.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: Excuse me, Mr. Arens, may we have the photographers take their pictures, and then desist, because it is rather nerve-racking for them to be there.

THE CHAIRMAN: They will take the pictures.

Mr. ROBESON: I am used to it and I have been in moving pictures. Do you want me to pose for it good? Do you want me to smile? I cannot smile when I am talking to him.

Mr. ARENS: I put it to you as a fact, and ask you to affirm or deny the fact, that your Communist Party name was “John Thomas.”

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment. This is really ridiculous.

Mr. ARENS: Now, tell this Committee whether or not you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster.

Mr. SCHERER: Mr. Chairman, this is not a laughing matter.

Mr. ROBESON: It is a laughing matter to me, this is really complete nonsense.

Mr. ARENS: Have you ever known Nathan Gregory Silvermaster?

(The witness consulted with his counsel.)
Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. ARENS: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told whether you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster you would be supplying information that could be used against you in a criminal proceeding?

Mr. ROBESON: I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about. I invoke the Fifth—

Mr. ARENS: I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the witness be directed to answer that question.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer the question.

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth.

Mr. SCHERER: The witness talks very loud when he makes a speech, but when he invokes the Fifth Amendment I cannot hear him.

Mr. ROBESON: I invoked the Fifth Amendment very loudly. You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.
. . . .
Mr. ROBESON: Oh, gentlemen, I thought I was here about some passports.

Mr. ARENS: We will get into that in just a few moments.

Mr. ROBESON: This is complete nonsense.
. . . .
THE CHAIRMAN: This is legal. This is not only legal but usual. By a unanimous vote, this Committee has been instructed to perform this very distasteful task.

Mr. ROBESON: To whom am I talking?

THE CHAIRMAN: You are speaking to the Chairman of this Committee.

Mr. ROBESON: Mr. Walter?

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

Mr. ROBESON: The Pennsylvania Walter?

THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.

Mr. ROBESON: Representative of the steelworkers?

THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.

Mr. ROBESON: Of the coal-mining workers and not United States Steel, by any chance? A great patriot.

THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.

Mr. ROBESON: You are the author of all of the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country.

THE CHAIRMAN: No, only your kind.

Mr. ROBESON: Colored people like myself, from the West Indies and all kinds. And just the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock that you would let come in.

THE CHAIRMAN: We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too.

Mr. ROBESON: You do not want any colored people to come in?

THE CHAIRMAN: Proceed. . . .
 

Mr. ROBESON: Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. For many years I have so labored and I can say modestly that my name is very much honored all over Africa, in my struggles for their independence. That is the kind of independence like Sukarno got in Indonesia. Unless we are double-talking, then these efforts in the interest of Africa would be in the same context. The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and from the court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land. I sent a message to the Bandung Conference and so forth. That is why I am here. This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America. My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington’s troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave. I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country. And they are not. They are not in Mississippi. And they are not in Montgomery, Alabama. And they are not in Washington. They are nowhere, and that is why I am here today. You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too. And that is why I am here today. . . .

Mr. ARENS: Did you make a trip to Europe in 1949 and to the Soviet Union?

Mr. ROBESON: Yes, I made a trip. To England. And I sang.

Mr. ARENS: Where did you go?

Mr. ROBESON: I went first to England, where I was with the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of two American groups which was invited to England. I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world. Will you read what the Porgy and Bess people said? They never heard such applause in their lives. One of the most musical peoples in the world, and the great composers and great musicians, very cultured people, and Tolstoy, and—

THE CHAIRMAN: We know all of that.

Mr. ROBESON: They have helped our culture and we can learn a lot.

Mr. ARENS: Did you go to Paris on that trip?

Mr. ROBESON: I went to Paris.

Mr. ARENS: And while you were in Paris, did you tell an audience there that the American Negro would never go to war against the Soviet government?

Mr. ROBESON: May I say that is slightly out of context? May I explain to you what I did say? I remember the speech very well, and the night before, in London, and do not take the newspaper, take me: I made the speech, gentlemen, Mr. So-and-So. It happened that the night before, in London, before I went to Paris . . . and will you please listen?

Mr. ARENS: We are listening.

Mr. ROBESON: Two thousand students from various parts of the colonial world, students who since then have become very important in their governments, in places like Indonesia and India, and in many parts of Africa, two thousand students asked me and Mr. [Dr. Y. M.] Dadoo, a leader of the Indian people in South Africa, when we addressed this conference, and remember I was speaking to a peace conference, they asked me and Mr. Dadoo to say there that they were struggling for peace, that they did not want war against anybody. Two thousand students who came from populations that would range to six or seven hundred million people.

Mr. KEARNEY: Do you know anybody who wants war?

Mr. ROBESON: They asked me to say in their name that they did not want war. That is what I said. No part of my speech made in Paris says fifteen million American Negroes would do anything. I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace, and that has since been underscored by the President of these United States. Now, in passing, I said—

Mr. KEARNEY: Do you know of any people who want war?

Mr. ROBESON: Listen to me. I said it was unthinkable to me that any people would take up arms, in the name of an Eastland, to go against anybody. Gentlemen, I still say that. This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.

THE CHAIRMAN: Did you say what was attributed to you?

Mr. ROBESON: I did not say it in that context.

Mr. ARENS: I lay before you a document containing an article, “I Am Looking for Full Freedom,” by Paul Robeson, in a publication called theWorker, dated July 3, 1949.
At the Paris Conference I said it was unthinkable that the Negro people of America or elsewhere in the world could be drawn into war with the Soviet Union.

Mr. ROBESON: Is that saying the Negro people would do anything? I said it is unthinkable. I did not say that there [in Paris]: I said that in the Worker.

Mr. ARENS:
I repeat it with hundredfold emphasis: they will not.
Did you say that?

Mr. ROBESON: I did not say that in Paris, I said that in America. And, gentlemen, they have not yet done so, and it is quite clear that no Americans, no people in the world probably, are going to war with the Soviet Union. So I was rather prophetic, was I not?

Mr. ARENS: On that trip to Europe, did you go to Stockholm?

Mr. ROBESON: I certainly did, and I understand that some people in the American Embassy tried to break up my concert. They were not successful.

Mr. ARENS: While you were in Stockholm, did you make a little speech?

Mr. ROBESON: I made all kinds of speeches, yes.

Mr. ARENS: Let me read you a quotation.

Mr. ROBESON: Let me listen.

Mr. ARENS: Do so, please.

Mr. ROBESON: I am a lawyer.

Mr. KEARNEY: It would be a revelation if you would listen to counsel.

Mr. ROBESON: In good company, I usually listen, but you know people wander around in such fancy places. Would you please let me read my statement at some point?

THE CHAIRMAN: We will consider your statement.

Mr. ARENS:

I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.

Mr. ROBESON: Just like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were underground railroaders, and fighting for our freedom, you bet your life.

THE CHAIRMAN: I am going to have to insist that you listen to these questions.

MR, ROBESON: I am listening.

Mr. ARENS:
If the American warmongers fancy that they could win America’s millions of Negroes for a war against those countries (i.e., the Soviet Union and the peoples‘ democracies) then they ought to understand that this will never be the case. Why should the Negroes ever fight against the only nations of the world where racial discrimination is prohibited, and where the people can live freely? Never! I can assure you, they will never fight against either the Soviet Union or the peoples’ democracies.

Did you make that statement?

Mr. ROBESON: I do not remember that. But what is perfectly clear today is that nine hundred million other colored people have told you that they will not. Four hundred million in India, and millions everywhere, have told you, precisely, that the colored people are not going to die for anybody: they are going to die for their independence. We are dealing not with fifteen million colored people, we are dealing with hundreds of millions.

Mr. KEARNEY: The witness has answered the question and he does not have to make a speech. . . .

Mr. ROBESON: In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being. Where I did not feel the pressure of color as I feel [it] in this Committee today.

Mr. SCHERER: Why do you not stay in Russia?

Mr. ROBESON: Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear? I am for peace with the Soviet Union, and I am for peace with China, and I am not for peace or friendship with the Fascist Franco, and I am not for peace with Fascist Nazi Germans. I am for peace with decent people.

Mr. SCHERER: You are here because you are promoting the Communist cause.

Mr. ROBESON: I am here because I am opposing the neo-Fascist cause which I see arising in these committees. You are like the Alien [and] Sedition Act, and Jefferson could be sitting here, and Frederick Douglass could be sitting here, and Eugene Debs could be here.
. . . .
THE CHAIRMAN: Now, what prejudice are you talking about? You were graduated from Rutgers and you were graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. I remember seeing you play football at Lehigh.

Mr. ROBESON: We beat Lehigh.

THE CHAIRMAN: And we had a lot of trouble with you.

Mr. ROBESON: That is right. DeWysocki was playing in my team.

THE CHAIRMAN: There was no prejudice against you. Why did you not send your son to Rutgers?

Mr. ROBESON: Just a moment. This is something that I challenge very deeply, and very sincerely: that the success of a few Negroes, including myself or Jackie Robinson can make up—and here is a study from Columbia University—for seven hundred dollars a year for thousands of Negro families in the South. My father was a slave, and I have cousins who are sharecroppers, and I do not see my success in terms of myself. That is the reason my own success has not meant what it should mean: I have sacrificed literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for what I believe in.

Mr. ARENS: While you were in Moscow, did you make a speech lauding Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: I do not know.

Mr. ARENS: Did you say, in effect, that Stalin was a great man, and Stalin had done much for the Russian people, for all of the nations of the world, for all working people of the earth? Did you say something to that effect about Stalin when you were in Moscow?

Mr. ROBESON: I cannot remember.

Mr. ARENS: Do you have a recollection of praising Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: I said a lot about Soviet people, fighting for the peoples of the earth.

Mr. ARENS: Did you praise Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: I do not remember.

Mr. ARENS: Have you recently changed your mind about Stalin?


Mr. ROBESON: Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union, and I would not argue with a representative of the people who, in building America, wasted sixty to a hundred million lives of my people, black people drawn from Africa on the plantations. You are responsible, and your forebears, for sixty million to one hundred million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t ask me about anybody, please.

Mr. ARENS: I am glad you called our attention to that slave problem. While you were in Soviet Russia, did you ask them there to show you the slave labor camps?

THE CHAIRMAN: You have been so greatly interested in slaves, I should think that you would want to see that.

Mr. ROBESON: The slaves I see are still in a kind of semiserfdom. I am interested in the place I am, and in the country that can do something about it. As far as I know, about the slave camps, they were Fascist prisoners who had murdered millions of the Jewish people, and who would have wiped out millions of the Negro people, could they have gotten a hold of them. That is all I know about that.

Mr. ARENS: Tell us whether or not you have changed your opinion in the recent past about Stalin.

Mr. ROBESON: I have told you, mister, that I would not discuss anything with the people who have murdered sixty million of my people, and I will not discuss Stalin with you.

Mr. ARENS: You would not, of course, discuss with us the slave labor camps in Soviet Russia.

Mr. ROBESON: I will discuss Stalin when I may be among the Russian people some day, singing for them, I will discuss it there. It is their problem.
. . . .
Mr. ARENS: Now I would invite your attention, if you please, to the Daily Worker of June 29, 1949, with reference to a get-together with you and Ben Davis. Do you know Ben Davis?

Mr. ROBESON: One of my dearest friends, one of the finest Americans you can imagine, born of a fine family, who went to Amherst and was a great man.

THE CHAIRMAN: The answer is yes?

Mr. ROBESON: Nothing could make me prouder than to know him.

THE CHAIRMAN: That answers the question.

Mr. ARENS: Did I understand you to laud his patriotism?

Mr. ROBESON: I say that he is as patriotic an American as there can be, and you gentlemen belong with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and you are the nonpatriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

THE CHAIRMAN: Just a minute, the hearing is now adjourned.

Mr. ROBESON: I should think it would be.

THE CHAIRMAN: I have endured all of this that I can.

Mr. ROBESON: Can I read my statement?

THE CHAIRMAN: No, you cannot read it. The meeting is adjourned.

Mr. ROBESON: I think it should be, and you should adjourn this forever, that is what I would say. . . .
 
Source: Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of the Unauthorized Use of U.S. Passports, 84th Congress, Part 3, June 12, 1956; in Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938–1968, Eric Bentley, ed. (New York: Viking Press, 1971), 770.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Contemporary Problems of the Class Struggle and the Role of the Communist Party

Fundamental Principles of the 

Revolutionary Workers’ and Communist Movement.

By Dimitris Gontikas* / Source: International Communist Review, Issue 3, 2014.

Every Communist Party which remains fixed on its mission and resolutely focussed on its central task to prepare and organise the working class and to guide its struggle for the fulfilment of its historic mission, is obliged to guide the working class on the basis of the fundamental principle of scientific socialism: “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement”.
It is obliged to unrelentingly and consistently defend this principled position from every form of undermining. It must defend this by struggling continuously for the continual correlation between theory and practice.
The history of the revolutionary and labour movements teaches us that neither willpower nor declarations are sufficient to safeguard and secure a revolutionary struggle-line and the existence of the party as a revolutionary vanguard.
There is a necessity not only for secure theoretical foundations but also for the continuous enrichment of theory through the study of the developments, with a heightened class criterion, the study of the strategy of the opponent, the generalization of experience, as well as the open ideological front against every revisionist attempt. Ideological struggle should reach the level of an open break with the current of revisionism and opportunism within its ranks.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

'Captain-Yiotis' remembered: Charilaos Florakis, 1914-2005

Nikos Mottas writes about the legendary Greek Communist leader, partisan-fighter in WW2 and Greece's Civil War, long-time (1972-1991) General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece, CHARILAOS FLORAKIS.

By Nikos Mottas.

It was the 22nd of May 2005 when the tireless communist, the militant guerrilla captain, the popular leader, comrade Charilaos Florakis passed away. At 91 years of age, he was completing a life full of struggles; a life given to the ideals of a better world, for the perspective of Socialism and Communism. His life was given to KKE, to the Party he loved and gave everything.

The life and activity of Charilaos Florakis has been core part of KKE's history, of the most glorious- but also difficult- peoples struggles in Greece during WW2 occupation, during the Civil War as well as the country's modern history. Comrade Florakis, with his firm faith in the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, was never absent from Greek working class struggles.

Charilaos Florakis' political activity began in the pre-war decade of 1930s, as a member of the Communist Party's youth wing (OKNE) and later as a student and vigorous worker at the so-called “TTT” (Posts, Telegraphs, Telephone Offices). At an early age, as a teenager, he understood the signs of the ongoing class-struggle in the Greek countryside of '30s:

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

"Europe's Day" or "People's Antifascist Victory"? KKE's intervention in the European Parliament

Information from 'Rizospastis', 11 May 2016.

On the anniversary of the Peoples' Great Antifascist Victory of May 9th, the European Parliament organised unhistorical "celebrations" about the "Day of the European Union" accompanied with a lot of anticommunism. That happened within the frame of EU's provocative effort to re-write History, to erase from people's memory, especially of the youth, the great achievements of the working class in Socialism, the irreplaceable achievements of the first socialist state in the world, of the Soviet Union and it's people, of the millions of communists who decisively contributed to the defeat of nazism and fascism.

The German social-democrat president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, managed, through using anticommunist slogans about "communist dictatorship", to show what bourgeoise and the politicians who serve her, fear most...

A response to the distortion of the historical truth and anticommunism of the EU was issued by KKE's MEPs. Addressing the plenary session of the Europarliament, KKE MEP Sotiris Zarianopoulos said the following:

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

European Communist Initiative: Announcement on the 9th of May - The day of the antifascist victory of the peoples

Long live the antifascist victory of the peoples!
The Great Patriotic war of the Soviet people against the Nazi Germany, which was promoted as being invincible at the time, and its allies in Europe ended with the crushing and unconditional surrender of fascism. The 9th of May is the day that signals the end of the 2nd World War in Europe. The Red Army, by raising the red flag with the hammer and sickle over the Reichstag, completed a great people’s victory against fascism.
Fascism was created and supported by the capitalist system itself as a naked and reactionary form of bourgeois management for the protection of capitalist exploitation. The main factor of the fighting capacity and endurance of the Soviet Union was its socialist character, the planned economy, the fact that the people held power in their own hands.
Armed national liberation movements emerged at the side of the USSR in many European countries, movements which acted under the leadership of the communist and workers parties. The communist and workers parties themselves paid a high price in blood in order to crush fascism.

Monday, May 9, 2016

9th of May: Honoring People's Antifascist Victory!

Спасибо! (Thank you) - Veterans of the Red Army.
By Nikos Mottas.

9th May 1945: The day when the Red flag with sickle and hammer was raised thriumphantly over the Reichstag in Berlin. The day when Nazi Germany surrended unconditionally to the Red Army, marking a great victory of humanity over fascism. The 9th May is, without doubt, one of the brightest dates in human history, a glorious day for the first Socialist state, for the Soviet Union and it's people.

On this day, we pay tribute to all those heroes, men and women, who gave their own lives on the battlefields. We remember all those heroes who fought against the monster of Fascism. From the bottom of our heart we express our gratitude to the fighters of the Soviet Army, to the communist and anti-fascist partisans in Europe who led the liberation struggles against the Nazis. We remember and honor all those men and women, of every age, who maintained a heroic stance against the firing squads of the fascists. 

Monday, May 2, 2016

The 1936 “Bloody May” in Greece

Left: Mother mourns her murdered son; Right: Workers rally in Thessaloniki.
The 1936 “Bloody May” in Greece.

May 1936: A milestone in the history of the Greek working movement. The country was in the midst of unprecedented moments of militant upheaval. Large-scale strikes, began on April, gradually took the characteristics of peoples' revolt which had to face the barbarity of the fascist Metaxas government.

The center of the demonstrations was Thessaloniki where, since March, strikes in various sectors had been erupted due to the miserable conditions of labor. On April 29, the tobacco workers declared an indefinite strike demanding, among other things, better wages. Their mobilizations created a wave of solidarity and revolt across Greece. Until the Workers' Day of 1936, the strikes had been spread in other cities, from Serres to Volos and from Karditsa to Athens. By May 7th, the strike had already spread in all over the country, with the participation of thousands of workers. The government of Premier Metaxas- a government of violence and terrorism- had one major aim: the dissolution of the strikes with any means.

Saturday, April 30, 2016

24 years since the Los Angeles Riots (Video & Photos)

On the afternoon of April 29, 1992, a jury in Ventura County acquitted four LAPD officers of beating Rodney G. King. The incident, caught on amateur videotape, had sparked national debate about police brutality and racial injustice. The verdict stunned Los Angeles, where angry crowds gathered on street corners across the city. The flash point was a single intersection in South L.A., but it was a scene eerily repeated in many parts of the city in the hours that followed.

Friday, April 22, 2016

"The Red Army liberated Rzeszow, that is a fact"- Polish city refuses to demolish Soviet-era monument

Citizens of Rzeszow greeting soldiers of the Red Army, 1940s.
Even in today's Poland- an EU and NATO member- there are signs of resistance to the anti-communist hysteria. The distortion of History and the intentional effort for the equation of Communism with Nazism must not- and will not- pass (IDC).
Source: Russia Today.
The city of Rzeszow, close to Poland’s border with Ukraine, has ignored calls to remove a Soviet-era monument celebrating the liberation of the city from the Nazis. Last month, Poland’s historical legacy institute urged the immediate removal of 500 such memorials across the country.
The monument was erected in 1950, and expresses “gratitude” to the Red Army for its actions.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Greece's 'Black Anniversary': Announcement of KKE for the Military Coup of 21 April 1967

21 April 1967: Tanks parade in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens.
The 21st of April is a black anniversary for Greece. It was April 21, 1967 when a group of far-right army officers led by Brigadier General Pattakos and Colonels Papadopoulos and Makarezos seized power after a coup d'etat. In the early morning of that day, tanks were already marching in central streets of Athens while small mobile units of the army were arresting politicians, government officials and prominent figures who were regarded as left-wing sympathies. The military dictatorship (Junta) lasted seven years, from 1967 to 1974. 

KKE: Announcement for the military coup of April 21st.
Source: 902.gr / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

Today, 49 years after the military coup of April 21st 1967 we get taught, we honor the fighters, the victims of Junta. We honor the members and staff of KKE and KNE, all those who stood unbending in detention centers, in the EAT-ESA torture rooms, in prison and exile.

The military dictatorshop was supported by parts of the plutocracy, by centers of our country's bourgeoisie, by the USA, which is a proof that the bourgeoisie and its state can even support military and political coups in order to serve their interests, (to serve) the needs of the exploitative system.