My Red Diary

Blog Shifted

2006-12-19T22:10:00.001+05:00

I have shifted to wordpress blog service, as I was facing some complications with the blogger.com

Please visit my new blog at: http://reddiarypk.wordpress.com/

The Abominable Empire

2006-10-21T18:08:00.000+05:00

"Whatever we think we know about the US foreign policy, Rogue State makes it clear that we don't know nearly enough," said Norman Solomon, author of The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media, while describing William Blum's famous book "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" (2001).

What might appear to be just another U.S. basher with an unimpressive cover-page, Rogue State is a heavy rock hurled towards Imperialism with full power by a conscious citizen of U.S.A. William Blum, with the help of concrete exhaustive evidence and thorough argument, draws out a revealing picture of the role played by U.S. subsequent to World War II. Starting from the U.S. invasion in Greece in latter half of 1940's, Blum vividly presents the crimes committed by U.S.A. against the people of the world, including their own citizens, which entails, amongst others, gross human rights violations, support of dictators, bombings, torture, use of biological and chemical weapons, assassinations, kidnapping, looting, eavesdropping, drugs trade, suppression of national movements, protections of war criminals, and support of apartheid in South Africa. Ironically as ever, according the ruling class of U.S.A, their actions in various corners of the earth are propelled by the "force of peace and freedom, for democracy and security and prosperity."(Clinton, 1996)

This book faces a very noticeable short-coming, i-e., it misses on the events following the September 11 for it was published in 2001. With the initiation of the "War on Terror" the criminal role of USA is becoming more highlighted. The incidents of invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the issues involving treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu-Gharib, the attack of Israel on Lebanon, are unveiling new faces of the devilish character of U.S.A. in our time.

Nevertheless, given this short-coming, Blum's work is a substantial reply to the a-historical argument that postulates that the post-9/11 world is different. Uncle Sam has been roaming around protecting this planet from "International Communist Conspiracy" and "Terrorism" under his self-assumed role as the "world's policeman" consistently for more than the last fifty years. While performing her "responsibilities", U.S. inflicted hunger, misery, death, and war on the innocent masses thought out the world.

William Blum effectively demonstrates that imperialism is an epidemic, which if not curtailed and treated properly can result in destruction of the whole of mankind. I will strongly recommend the readers to read this book as soon as possible.

UN on DPRK's nuclear tests

2006-10-15T05:46:00.000+05:00

"I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy."- Mao Tse Tung

According to the latest news, "the U.N. Security Council has unanimously passed resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea for conducting an apparent nuclear test." (VOA News, 14 October 2006)

U.N. has once again shown that it is only fit to serve the global interests of US Imperialism. It is nothing but a tool, a loyal servant, of imperialism and capitalism. UN posses no power to save any country from armed aggressions of imperialism, as we saw in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countless cases. No country in the world can prudently regard U.N as a safeguard against any violent outrage of USA. UN was wordless and spineless when USA was threatening North Korea by deploying troops and nuclear arsenal in South Korea. Nevertheless, when North Korea, under extreme circumstances, had to strongly assert its rights to self-defense against imperialism, it immediately imposed "economic and weapons sanctions" on it.

The DPRK's successful nuclear test is a great victory for the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle of the masses of the world oppressed under the yoke of imperialism. DPRK's powerful declaration of freedom, independence, and self-defense is indigestible for the imperialist vultures and their lackeys. Let them whine, for they can never tolerate anything contrary to their class interests of imperialism and capitalism.

The masses of the world will have to defeat imperialism to redeem itself from its claws. They will have to kick Uncle Sam and his band out of this planet in order to ensure peace and harmony.

"People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed." - Mao Tse Tung

Long Live the DPRK!

Free-Market World Holocaust

2006-10-03T21:45:00.000+05:00

"In persuit of counterrevolution and in the name of freedom, U.S. forces or the U.S. supported sorrogate forces slaughtered 2,000,000 North Koreans in the three-year war; 3,000,000 Vietnamese; over 500,000 in aerial wars over Laos and Combodia; over 1,500,00 in Angola; oer 1,000,000 in Mozembique; over 500,000 in Afghanistan; 500,000 to 1,000,000 in Indonesia; 200,000 in East Timor; 100,000 in Nicragua (combining the Samoza and Reagan eras); over 100,000 in Guatemala (plus an additional 40,000 disappeared); over 700,000 in Iraq; over 60,000 in El Salvador; 30,000 in the "dirty war" of Argentina (though the government admits to only 9,000); 35,000 in Taiwan, when the Kuomintang military arrived from China; 20,000 in Chile; and many thousands in Haiti, Panama, Grenada, Brazil, South Africa, Western Sahara, Zaire, Turkey, and dozens of ohers countries, in what amounts to a free-market world holocaust."
(Micheal Parenti, Black Shirts and the Red, 1997, p. 25)

The picture presented by Micheal Parenti leaves nothing much to say about the dimensions of crimes committed by U.S. imperialism against the people of the world. The "free-market world holocaust" is not over. We see it being conducted by the same old criminals -- U.S. imperialism and its servants, guided by the corterie of financial capitalists -- in front of our eyes in Lebanon, Philippines, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet, if we choose to close our eyes like a pigeon, or don't take a concrete action to oppose imperialism and its lackeys, the future generations will remember us as those who capitulated with tyrants and oppressors against the oppressed for "there comes a time when silence is betrayal."(Martin Luther King Jr.)

"We shall fight and destroy imperialism....We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice, by any means necessary..." - Malcolm X

Trotskyism, a defeatist path

2006-09-23T14:59:00.001+05:00

This post entails the text of my discussion against the counter-revolutionary ideology of Trotskyism.

Trotskyism, a defeatist path

Is the inherent defeatism in the above theory not clear to you? Permanent revolution would say that if a revolution occurs in Pakistan, and doesn't spread to India, and other countries, it will be dead, revolution will fail. It must also be clear, according to law of uneven development of capitalism, that it is not objectively necessary that revolution in Pakistan will cause a simultaneous revolution in India.

If the revolution didn't occur in Germany in the first quarter of the last century, inspite of a vibrant revolutionary workers' movement present there, what could Lenin have done? Should the leadership of USSR had announced that the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the heroic struggle of workers and peasants of USSR, has failed and there is no point in building a better lifestyle?

We, CMKP, reject defeatism. If workers and peasants can defeat the forces of capitalism and imperialism in their country, then very well, they can also build socialism in their country.

Nevertheless, the final victory of socialism, that is the ultimate defeat of capitalism and imperialism all over the world, is possible only with the world revolution. However, that doesn't mean that revolution can't exist on one country.

Lalbadhsha (trotskyite) wrote, "i want to suggest the upper leadership of CMKP please guide your comrades in better way and Not just idealists but also be a little more practical, Leave luxury rooms and come between people then tell whats going on and that time ur Stalian Theory will see how it effective ."

My Reply:

Writing out it in bold will not make it correct. The leadership of CMKP has facilitated a detailed study of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other great Marxist-Leninist. Therefore, the members of CMKP have the ability to impart correct and accurate understanding of Marxism-Leninism to the working masses.

Let me ask you a question? If the members of CMKP have never left their "luxury rooms", then how are they able to form an alliance with All Pakistan Trade Union Federation, the largest trade union front in Pakistan; Working Women's Organization, one of the very few women workers' front; Anjuman Mazareen Punjab, the militant landless peasant organization of Okara; and Bhutta Mazdoor Ittehad, the brick kiln labour front that has been fighting for their rights since 1967.

In additing to this, those members of CMKP who are living in "luxury rooms" have been conducting study circles among industrial workers for years.

Moreover, I must warn you that personal remarks don't suit a Marxist. If you want to launch personal slanders, then stop calling yourself a Marxist.

---

Che Guevara

"It is very clear for anyone who has even touched the economic works of Che Guevara that he took a very clear anti-Trotskyite position:"In Cuba there is nothing published, if one excludes the Soviet bricks, which bring inconvenience that they do not let you think, the party did it for you and you should digest it.It would be necessary to publish that complete works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and other great Marxists.Here would come to the great revisionists (if you want you can add here Khurschez), well analyzed, more professionally than any other and also your friend Trotsky, who existed and apparently wrote something."

(Che Guevara, Letter to Armando Hart Davalos published in Contracorriente, Havana, September 1997, N9; quoted by Bruce Mellado, Che Guevara and Political Economy of Socialism, Revolutionary Democracy, Vol. XI, No. 1, p. 94)

---

Leninist Internatinalism

"There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is -- working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception."-Lenin

---

I would ask the Trotskyites present on this forum, while hoping against hope, to answer my following question in lucid and clear terms:

The proletarian revoltionary movement didn't succeed in Germany after the World War One, depite of the vibrant struggle of workers led by remarkable figures like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. October revolution was not followed by a revolution in Germany or over-throw of capitalists in any other Western European country. This, as we know, is history. Now, what could Lenin have done after the failure of German revolution, if at all, merely for the sake of arugment, socialism can not develop in one country?

Death Anniversary of Suleman Petras

2006-08-28T21:02:00.000+05:00

The Anjuman-e-Mazreen Punjab (Landless Tenants Union of Punjab- AMP) organized an event on the 4th death anniversary of one of their martyred comrades-- Suleman Petras. The Communist Workers and Pesants Party (CMKP) participated whole-heartedly and expressed solidarity with AMP.

Please, read the detailed report of the event written by Taimur Rahman.

Jhera Wahway, Oh hi Khaway (He who tills the soil shall eat!)

Following are some of the pictures taken by a cadre of CMKP on the death anniversary of Suleman Petras:

The participants of the event paying attention the speeches of their leaders.

******

As can be seen the participation of women is higher than that of men.

******

The flag of AMP masted at the grave of Suleman Petras.

******

Trotskyite Decepetion Once Again

2006-08-28T20:31:00.000+05:00

The tactics of deception and mis-representation to mislead the communist movement is the defining feature of Trotskyism. This method has been used over and over by a number of Trotskyites to propagate their bankrupt proposition of permanent revolution, which must be correctly categorized as 'permanent gloominess', to borrow the phrase from Comrade Stalin.
During a discussion with a group of Trotskyites, a small passage from the Ted Grant's book "Russia, from Revolution to Counter-Revolution" was pointed out to show statements of Lenin in support of the concept of permanent revolution. While this passage, filled with misquotations and misrepresentations, might be able to satisfy the thirst of philistines, it is no better than an example of opportunist writings for a Marxist.

The passage I am dealing with is "Lenin's internationalism" and is available at http://www.marxist.com/russiabook/part1.html

Quotations from 'Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) (1918):

Ted Grant wrote:
"On the 7th March 1918, Lenin weighed up the situation:
"Regarded from the world-historical point of view, there would doubtlessly be no hope of the ultimate victory of our revolution if it were to remain alone, if there were no revolutionary movements in other countries. When the Bolshevik Party tackled the job alone, it did so in the firm conviction that the revolution was maturing in all countries and that in the end - but not at the very beginning - no matter what difficulties we experienced, no matter what defeats were in store for us, the world socialist revolution would come - because it is coming; would mature - because it is maturing and will reach full maturity. I repeat, our salvation from all these difficulties is an all-European revolution." (LCW, Vol. 27, p. 95.)

He then concluded: "At all events, under all conceivable circumstances, if the German Revolution does not come, we are doomed." (LCW, Vol. 27, p. 98.)"

Ted Grant has completely misrepresented the conclusion that Lenin drew. One can easily observe the flawed methodology of Ted Grant by reading the complete article from which the quotations are taken.

Lenin was not waiting for the revolution in Germany at all. He wrote in "Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)" (the same article from where Mr. Grant is picking up his quotations):
"The [German] revolution will not come as quickly as we expected. History has proved this, and we must be able to take this as a fact, to reckon with the fact that the world socialist revolution cannot begin so easily in the advanced countries as the revolution began in Russia—in the land of Nicholas and Rasputin, the land in which an enormous part of the population was absolutely indifferent as to what peoples were living in the outlying regions, or what was happening there. In such a country it was quite easy to start a revolution, as easy as lifting a feather." (Lenin, Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), 1918)

What is the conclusion that Lenin highlight? Is it, as Ted Grant points out, that if "the German Revolution does not come, we are doomed"? No, it is not. If we complete the second quotation of Lenin, as used by Mr. Grant in the afore-mentioned passage, we can see what Lenin is pointing towards:

"At all events, under all conceivable circumstances, if the German revolution does not come, we are doomed. Nevertheless, this does not in the least shake our conviction that we must be able to bear the most difficult position without blustering."(Ibid.)

Isn't it like saying that if the revolution in Germany doesn't occur then we are going to face some very hard times, yet if we try our best, socialism in one country can survive? This very obvious point has been deliberately ignored by Ted Grant. Many other philistines and opportunists, who are incapable to check from the original sources, who were finding it difficult to propagate their defunct ideas, are jubilated for the help that came from misrepresentations. Ted Grant, knowing that those who support him will never pay attention to what great Marxist intellectuals actually said, finds it convenient to quote randomly and inaccurately from the works of Lenin.

In the same article, Lenin sheds light on his stance on internationalism:

"One may dream about the field revolution on a world-wide scale, for it will come. Everything will come in due time; but for the time being, set to work to establish self-discipline, subordination before all else, so that we can have exemplary order, so that the workers for at least one hour in twenty-four may train to fight. This is a little more difficult than relating beautiful fairy-tales. This is what we can do today; in this way you will help the German revolution, the world revolution." (Ibid.)

Quotation from "Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers', Soldiers' And Peasants' Deputies":

Ted Grant presents the following quotation of Lenin:

"We are far from having completed even the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat. We never had any illusions on that score. The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible. Our contingent of workers and peasants which is upholding Soviet power is one of the contingents of the great world army, which at present has been split by the world war, but which is striving for unity. We can now see clearly how far the development of the Revolution will go. The Russian began it - the German, the Frenchman and the Englishman will finish it, and socialism will be victorious." (LCW, Vol. 26, pp. 465-72.)

The above quotation is taken from "Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers', Soldiers' And Peasants' Deputies", where it appears in a very different shape. Mr. Grant has combined different parts knowing that philistines will never bother to check the original sources.
The first part of the "quotation" is taken from what following excerpt:

"We are far from having completed even the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat. We never had any illusions on that score, and we know how difficult is the road that leads from capitalism to socialism. But it is our duty to say that our Soviet Republic is a socialist republic because we have taken this road, and our words will riot be empty words."(Lenin, Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers', Soldiers' And Peasants' Deputies, 1918)

The second part of "quotation" is taken from somewhere else, tough from the same article.
What does Ted Grant wants to suggest by using Lenin's quotations? According to Ted Grant, these quotations proved that "he [Lenin] thought that the October Revolution could not survive for any length of time."

Much to the dislike of Ted Grant and his friends, Lenin wrote in the same article that "The example of the Soviet Republic will stand before them for a long time to come. Our socialist Republic of Soviets will stand secure, as a torch of international socialism and as an example to all the working people." (Ibid.)

Perhaps, Ted Grant is firm that his work would be appreciated only by unscholarly opportunists, who have never bothered to read Lenin from the original sources.
In conclusion, the example of Ted Grant strongly reaffirms the observations of Lenin regarding Trotsky:

"Trotsky unites all to whom ideological decay is dear, all who are not concerned with the defence of Marxism; all philistines who do not understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to learn, think, and discover the ideological roots of the divergence of views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the `hero of the hour' and gather all the shabby elements around himself. The more openly this attempt is made, the more spectacular will be the defeat." (Lenin, Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., 1910)

CMKP Poster Campaign

2006-08-12T17:50:00.000+05:00

Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party (Communist Workers and Peasants Party- CMKP) Lahore has decided to launch a poster campaign. Posters will be placed in the workers' living quarters in the Industrial Area of Lahore.

Following are the posters designed by the CMKP for the campaign:

Workers of the World, Unite!

The Capitalist system is based on the exploitation of Workers.

Communism is the thoery of emancipation of the Working class.

Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party

*****

Theory of Communism, a solution to the Capitalist system!

Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party

****

******

Transfer of power in Cuba

2006-08-02T17:54:00.000+05:00

Many people have raised the argument that the provisional transfer of power from Fidel to his brother Raul in Cuba is a dictatorial move and similiar to transfer of power in a monrachy. This view is incorrect.

Article 94 of The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba 1992 provides that "in cases of the absence, illness or death of the president of the Council of State, the first vice president assumes the president's duties." Who is the first vice president of the Council of State of Cuba? Happens to be Gen. Raul Castro Ruz (since 1976). Moreover, the first vice president of the Council of State is elected by National Assembly of People's Power, not appointed by the Presedent.

According to the constitution of Cuba, Comrade Fidel Castro had no option but to transfer his powers the Comrade Raul Castro. Had Comrade Fidel Castro done otherwise, his action could have been termed as dictatorial.

Sources:
List of Council of Ministers of the Government of Cuba:
http://www.netforcuba.org/InfoCuba-EN/Government/CubanGovernment.htm

Constitution of the Republic of Cuba 1992:
http://www.cubanet.org/ref/dis/const_92_e.htm

On Revolutionary Intelligentsia

2006-07-26T01:43:00.000+05:00

The question about the role of revolutionary intelligentsia in the communist movement of Pakistan is extremely important. The erroneous slogan of "only workers should lead workers" turned out to be extremely expensive for the progress of revolutionary struggle, and became a potent factor in the decline of the movement. This incorrect resolution was a product of the misguided understanding of Marxism-Leninism of the past leaders of the communist movement of Pakistan.

To start with, who is an intellectual? "The term "intellectuals" refers to all those who have had middle school or higher education and those with similar educational levels. They include university and middle school teachers and staff members, university and middle school students, primary school teachers, professionals, engineers and technicians, among whom the university and middle school students occupy an important position". (Footnote from Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume II, p. 303)

The role of revolutionary intelligentsia in the proletarian struggle was first presented by founders of scientific socialism, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, in their most famous pronouncement "The Communist Manifesto":

"Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class (in fact, within the whole range of old society) assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole."

With these words, Marx and Engels described the evolution of revolutionary intelligentsia from the ranks of bourgeoisie as a historical necessity. It is for this reason that even when the attitude of the communist movement was antagonistic towards intellectuals, the latter kept on springing up, and waged a protracted struggle to correct the line of the movement and bring it in conformity with Marxism-Leninism.

Once the principle was laid down by Marx and Engels, it was, just like any other part of Marxist theory, elaborated and highlighted by Lenin. Lenin wrote in his eminent work "What is to be Done?":

"Finally, when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of degeneration going on within the ruling class and the entire society becomes so glaring that a section of the ruling class joins the revolutionary workers. Therefore, just as at an earlier period, a section of the feudals went over to the capitalist class, now a portion of the capitalist class goes over to the workers. Especially a part of the intellectuals who have understood the laws of history and can see that the working class holds the future in its hands."

Lenin further provided:

" We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia."

While expounding on the tenants of Marxism-Leninism, Comrade Mao Tse-Tung not only emphasized the role of revolutionary intelligentsia in the revolution, but also exposed the incorrect stance of those who undermined the importance of intelligentsia.

The decision of the Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party "Recruit Large Numbers of Intelligentsia" (1939), drafted by Comrade Mao, clearly laid out that "without the participation of intellectuals victory of revolution is impossible." (Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume II, p. 301)

According to the Comrade Mao, the reason behind the discrimination of intellectuals is "due to the failure to understand the importance of the intellectuals for the revolutionary cause, the difference between intellectuals in colonial and semi-colonial countries and those in capitalist countries and the difference between intellectuals who serve the landlords and the bourgeoisie and those who serve the working class and the peasantry..." (Ibid.)

The ultimate objective of the inclusion of intellectuals in the party activities is to raise the intellectual level of the workers and peasants, to facilitate the development of intellectuals from amongst workers and peasants. In this mission, the help from the the 'bourgeois class traitors' is meaningful and critical as "the proletariat cannot produce intellectuals of the its own without the help of the existing intellectuals." (Ibid., p. 303)

Moreover, Mao further elaborated on the principle: "The revolutionary forces can not be successfully organized and revolutionary work can not be successfully conducted without the participation of revolutionary intellectuals." (Mao, "Chinese Revolution and Chinese Communist Party", Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume II, p. 322)

Mao suggests that the tough revolutionary intellectuals have some sort-comings, due to their class background, these are not incurable infections. These short-comings can be removed if these intellectuals throw themselves "heart and soul into the mass revolutionary struggles, or [make] up their mind to serve the interests of the masses and become one with them". (Ibid.)

In conclusion, while elaborating on an importance of revolutionary intelligentsia, Mao provided very clear and accurate directions to the Communist Party of China:

"On admitting intellectuals into the Party, more attention must be paid to their degree of loyalty, so as to ensure still tighter Party organization in those areas. We should maintain suitable contact with the huge numbers of non-Party intellectuals who sympathize with us and organize them in great struggle for resistence to Japan and for democracy, and in the cultural movement and the work of the united front."(Mao, "Recruit Large Numbers of Intelligentsia", Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume II, p. 303)

Therefore, the slogan of "only workers should lead workers", which discriminates against the revolutionary intelligentsia, is in contradiction with the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism. Countless revolutionaries, including the most brilliant minds-- such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Chou En Lai-- emerged from the ranks of bourgeoisie and played an extremely instrumental part in the progress of the revolutionary struggle.

CMKP and Revolutionary Intelligentsia

The stance of CMKP on the role of revolutionary intelligentsia is attached below

(excerpts from www.cmkp.tk "Marxism for Beginners").

In every society a special segment of the population is separated from the general work of production to perform of the role of thinkers. Their role in society is not to engage in the direct process of production but to conceive, think, reflect, ponder, contemplate, study, examine, research and analyze all the different elements of society. This group of individuals are called the intelligentsia (danishwar). In a society divided between rich and poor, the intelligentsia (danishwar) are also trained by the rich and serve the rich. They not only develop new scientific discoveries, they also develop ideologies through which the rich can control the poor. However, as the process of scientific inquiry and human understanding develops, a tiny section of the intelligentsia (danishwar) begins to scientifically uncover the economic basis of the exploitation of the working class. They begin to understand the laws of class struggle and history. They begin to unravel all the different mechanisms through which the ruling class is able to control the working class. As they uncover this truth, the truth makes them more and more revolutionary minded. Thus, a small portion of the intelligentsia that has grasped the scientific basis of exploitation and class struggle becomes the revolutionary intelligentsia (inqalabi danishwar). In other words, they are class traitors to the capitalist class...

... The revolutionary intelligentsia plays a very important role in bringing a scientific understanding of the dynamics of history and class struggle to the entire working class. The fact is that the deeper the depth of knowledge of the revolutionary intelligentsia, the greater their loyalty to the working class. That is why the greatest leaders of the workers of the world have been the greatest intellectual minds of the last two centuries. For example, Marx, Engels, and Lenin were all from privileged backgrounds, but their vast knowledge about the capitalist system forms the basis of the principles of class struggle of all the workers of the world today. Thus, on the one hand, workers must learn to distinguish genuine revolutionary intellectuals from impostors, and on the other hand, safeguard and learn from genuine revolutionary intellectuals. But it is not necessary that revolutionary intellectuals come exclusively from privileged backgrounds. Workers who have been hardened by many years of class struggle posses an extraordinary instinct and natural understanding of the dynamics of society. Battle hardened workers are an invaluable asset of the working class movement. Thus, the leadership of the working class (the vanguard) should be composed of the most knowledgeable and revolutionary elements recruited from the revolutionary intelligentsia and battle hardened workers.

Isreal's attacks on Lebanon

2006-07-18T15:46:00.000+05:00

"At this stage we do not think we have to activate massive ground forces into Lebanon but if we have to do this, we will," Moshe Kaplinsky, Israel's deputy army chief, shamelessly declared through the Israel Radio on July 18th. The statements coming out from the Israeli offices indicate that they plan to continue the attacks on the Lebanon on the pretext of rescuing its two Israeli soldiers, while ignoring hundreds of Arabs suffering in Israeli jails. Israeli president has also expressed that Israel is not going to back out even if the situation leads to a conflict between two countries.

Israeli attack have entered their seventh day, killing more than 227 people, including 203 civilians, and causing massive damage to Lebanese civilian transport infrastructure built over decades to support the struggling economy.

Israel's attacks and all such acts of brutality and barbarity must be condemned.

Selected Works from CMKP Discussion Forum

2006-07-14T04:46:00.000+05:00

Lebanon : The Latest Zionist Offensive (July 14, 2006)

Twelve Hour Working Day and its Implications (July, 2006)

Party Conference against Military Dictatorship and Fundamentalism (April, 2006)

CMKP Statement on Cartoons published in Danish and other European Newspaper s (February, 2006)

Felicitations on the 10^th Anniversary of the CPN (Maoists) Revolutionary Struggle

CMKP Condemns US Bombing of Pakistani Villages (January, 2006)

Internation al Appeal for Solidarity with the Earthquake Victims in Pakistan (October, 2005)

CMKP Condemns London Terrorist Attacks, Holds Washington Responsible (July, 2005)

Fraternal Greetings to CPI(M) from CMKP (April, 2005)

In Solidarity with “Revolutionary Democracy” (February, 2005)

Heartiest Felicitations to Revolutionary Warriors of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) on the 9^th Anniversary of the People’s War (February, 2005)

Pakistani Troops Should go to Iraq to Fight US Occupation (August, 2004)

CMKP Martyrs Day (July, 2004)

A conversation with the General Secretary of CMKP (July, 2004)

First Draft of Political Resolutions for Socialism in Pakistan (June, 2004)

Open Letter to All Fraternal Left Parties and Organizations On the Formation of the United Left Front (June, 2004)

On the History of Communist Movement in Pakistan (September, 2001)

For more articles, please visit the “Analysis” section of CMKP website.

Mazdoor Action Committee Demonstration

2006-07-08T23:38:00.000+05:00

Report by Hassan Nasir of CMKP (redpak2000@yahoo.com)

The demonstration of the Mazdoor Action Committee held yesterday was
an incredible success. Over a thousand people attended the rally
organized against the extention of the working day to 12 hours and
all the newspapers of Pakistan have carried pictures and/or articles
about our demonstration.

It was an incredibly hot and humid day yesterday and the July sun
was unsparing. Despite the heat workers came with red banners flying
in high spirits. Tons of buses came in from all industrial areas of
Lahore and each bus was not only brimming with workers inside,
workers an equal number of workers sat and stood on the roof of each
bus to attend this rally. Other workers from Gulberg industrial
area, Kot Lakhpat and Railway workshops came on motorcycles, cycles,
and by foot.

The first workers to get to the location assembled in the small
green area next to the press club unfurling their banners and
raising their flags waiting for their comrades. Spirits were so high
that even before the full force of the demonstration had arrived,
workers began to raise slogans, read poetry and make speaches
against the government. Bashir Zafar (leader of the APTUF--Kot
Lakhpat) and President APTUF General Secretary Railway Workers Union
Fazl-e-Wahid addressed the audience and argued that workers should
ensure that party of the government (PML(Q)) should not be able to
campaign in their areas. They argued that if this party, responsible
for extending the working day to 12 hours, enters a workers district
workers should get a hold of them and blacken their faces before
sending them packing back.

Later as bus after bus of workers arrived the demonstration swelled
to an enormous size and the diminutive green area was insufficient.
The demonstration moved to a small adjoining intersection area. The
tempo of slogans on continued to build throughout this period
especially when slogans were led by the leaders of the Working
Women's Organization.

Read the full Report.

Mazdoor Action Committee is the union of Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, All Pakistan Trade Union Federation, Anjuman Mazarin (Landless peasants organization), Working Women's Organization, and Bhatta Mazdoor Ittehad (Brick Kiln labour union).
..

Pictures:

Long Live the Revolution!

Sign the Petition

2006-07-05T09:12:00.000+05:00

Please sign the online unity statement demanding the immediate release of UP students Karen and Sherlyn and justice for all victims of Arroyo's reign of terror.

http://www.petitiononline.com/070406/petition.html

Long Live the Revolution!

On Socialism in One Country

2006-06-05T22:13:00.000+05:00

[This post includes a group of messages written by my comrade- Bhagat Singh-during the course of an open polemics.]

You have reverted into the tradition of Trotskyism. The tradition of slandering and fabrication. You said:

Lenin says in his article “On the slogan of a United states of Europe”:

”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.”

[Progress Publishers volume 21 , p 339-343]

The dictatorship of the proletariat is the class alliance between the proletariat and the labouring masses of the peasantry for the purpose of overthrowing capital, for achieving the final victory of socialism, on the condition that the guiding force of this alliance is the proletariat.
The theory of permanent revolution is not a question of "slightly" underestimating or "slightly" overestimating the revolutionary potentialities of the peasant movement, as certain diplomatic advocates of "permanent revolution" are now fond of expressing it. It is a question of the nature of the new proletarian state which arose as a result of the October Revolution. It is a question of the character of the proletarian power, of the foundations of the dictatorship of the proletariat itself.

page 123
"The dictatorship of the proletariat," says Lenin, "is a special form of class alliance between the proletariat, the vanguard of the working people, and the numerous non-proletarian strata of working people (the petty bourgeoisie, the small proprietors, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, etc.), or the majority of these; it is an alliance against capital, an alliance aiming at the complete overthrow of capital, at the complete suppression of the resistance of the bourgeoisie and of any attempt on its part at restoration, an alliance aiming at the final establishment and consolidation of socialism." (See Vol. XXIV, p. 311.)

And further on:
"The dictatorship of the proletariat, if we translate this Latin, scientific, historical-philosophical term into simpler language, means the following:
"Only a definite class, namely, the urban workers and the factory, industrial workers in general, is able to lead the whole mass of the toilers and exploited in the struggle for the overthrow of the yoke of capital, in the process of the overthrow itself, in the struggle to maintain and consolidate the victory, in the work of creating the new, socialist social system, in the whole struggle for the complete abolition of classes." (See Vol. XXIV, p. 336.)

Such is the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat given by Lenin.

Lenin constantly reiterated that without an alliance with these masses of other nationalities the proletariat of Russia could not achieve victory. In his articles on the national question and in his speeches at the congresses of the Comintern, Lenin repeatedly said that the victory of the world revolution was impossible without a revolutionary alliance, a revolutionary bloc, between the proletariat of the advanced countries and the oppressed peoples of the enslaved colonies. But what are colonies if not the oppressed labouring masses, and, primarily, the labouring masses of the peasantry? Who does not know that the question of the liberation of the colonies is essentially a question of the liberation of the labouring masses of the non-proletarian classes from the oppression and exploitation of finance capital?

But from this it follows that Lenin's theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a purely "Russian" theory, but a theory which necessarily applies to all countries. Bolshevism is not only a Russian phenomenon. "Bolshevism," says Lenin, is "a model of tactics for all." (See Vol. XXIII, p. 386 )

Such are the characteristics of the first specific feature of the October Revolution.
How do matters stand with regard to Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution" in the light of this specific feature of the October Revolution?

We shall not dwell at length on Trotsky's position when he "simply" forgot all about the peasantry as a revolutionary force and advanced the slogan of "No tsar, but a workers' government," that is, the slogan of revolution without the peasantry. Even Radek, that diplomatic defender of "permanent revolution," is now obliged to admit that "permanent
revolution" in 1905 meant a "leap into the air" away from reality. Now, apparently everyone admits that it is not worth while bothering with this "leap into the air" any more.
Nor shall we dwell at length on Trotsky's position in the period of the war, say, in 1915, when, in his article "The Struggle for Power," proceeding from the fact that "we are living in the era of imperialism," that imperialism "sets up not the bourgeois nation in opposition to the old regime, but the proletariat in opposition to the bourgeois nation," he arrived at the conclusion that the revolutionary role of the peasantry was bound to subside, that the slogan of the confiscation of the land no longer had the same importance as formerly. It is well known that at that time, Lenin, examining this article of Trotsky's, accused him of "denying" "the role of the peasantry," and said that "Trotsky is in fact helping the liberal labour politicians in Russia who understand 'denial' of the role of the peasantry to mean refusal to rouse the peasants to revolution!" (See Vol. XVIII, p. 318.)

Let us rather pass on to the later works of Trotsky on this subject, to the works of the period when the proletarian dictatorship had already become established and when Trotsky had had the opportunity to test his theory of "permanent revolution" in the light of actual events and to correct his errors. Let us take Trotsky's "Preface" to his book The Year 1905, written in 1922. Here is what Trotsky says in this "Preface" concerning "permanent revolution":
"It was precisely during the interval between January 9 and the October strike of 1905 that the views on the character of the revolutionary development of Russia which came to be known as the theory of 'permanent revolution' crystallized in the author's mind. This abstruse term represented the revolution, whose immediate objectives were bourgeois in nature, could not, however, stop when these objectives had been achieved. The revolution would not be able to solve its immediate bourgeois problems except by placing the proletariat in power. And the latter, upon assuming power, would not be able to confine itself to the bourgeois limits of the revolution. On the contrary, precisely in order to ensure its victory, the proletarian vanguard would be forced in the very early stages of its rule to make deep inroads not only into feudal property but into bourgeois property as well. In this it would come into hostile collision not only with all the bourgeois groupings which supported the proletariat during the first stages of its revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses of the peasantry with whose assistance it came into power. The contradictions in the position of a workers' government in a backward country with an overwhelmingly peasant population could be solved only on an international scale, in the arena of the world proletarian revolution."

That is what Trotsky says about his "permanent revolution."

One need only compare this quotation with the above quotations from Lenin's works on the dictatorship of the proletariat to perceive the great chasm that separates Lenin's theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat from Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution."
Lenin speaks of the alliance between the proletariat and the labouring strata of the peasantry as the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Trotsky sees a "hostile collision " between "the proletarian vanguard" and "the broad masses of the peasantry."

Lenin speaks of the leadership of the toiling and exploited masses by the proletariat. Trotsky sees "contradictions in the position of a workers' government in a backward country with an overwhelmingly peasant population."

According to Lenin, the revolution draws its strength primarily from among the workers and peasants of Russia itself.

According to Trotsky, the necessary strength can be found only "in the arena of the world proletarian revolution."

But what if the world revolution is fated to arrive with some delay? Is there any ray of hope for our revolution? Trotsky offers no ray of hope; for "the contradictions in the position of a workers' government . . . could be solved only . . . in the arena of the world proletarian revolution." According to this plan, there is but one prospect left for our revolution: to vegetate in its own contradictions and rot away while waiting for the world revolution.
What is the dictatorship of the proletariat according to Lenin?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is a power which rests on an alliance between the proletariat and the labouring masses of the peasantry for "the complete overthrow of capital" and for "the final establishment and consolidation of socialism."

What is the dictatorship of the proletariat according to Trotsky?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is a power which comes "into hostile collision" with "the broad masses of the peas antry" and seeks the solution of its "contradictions" only "in the arena of the world proletarian revolution."

What difference is there between this "theory of permanent revolution" and the well-known theory of Menshevism which repudiates the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat?
Essentially, there is no difference.

There can be no doubt at all. "Permanent revolution" is not a mere underestimation of the revolutionary potentialities of the peasant movement. "Permanent revolution" is an underestimation of the peasant movement which leads to the repudiation of Lenin's theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Trotsky's "permanent revolution" is a variety of Menshevism.
This is how matters stand with regard to the first specific feature of the October Revolution.
What are the characteristics of the second specific feature of the October Revolution?

In his study of imperialism, especially in the period of the war, Lenin arrived at the law of the uneven, spasmodic, economic and political development of the capitalist countries. According to this law, the development of enterprises, trusts, branches of industry and individual countries proceeds not evenly -- not according to an established sequence, not in such a way that one trust, one branch of industry or one country is always in advance of the others, while other trusts or countries keep consistently one behind the other -- but spasmodically, with interruptions in the development of some countries and leaps ahead in the development of others. Under these circumstances the "quite legitimate" striving of the countries that have slowed down to hold their old positions, and the equally "legitimate" striving of the countries that have leapt ahead to seize new positions, lead to a situation in which armed clashes among the imperialist countries become an inescapable neces sity. Such was the case, for example, with Germany, which half a century ago was a backward country in comparison with France and Britain. The same must be said of Japan as compared with Russia. It is well known, however, that by the beginning of the twentieth century Germany and Japan had leapt so far ahead that Germany had succeeded in overtaking France and had bcgun to press Britain hard on the world market, while Japan was pressing Russia. As is well known, it was from these contradictions that the recent imperialist war arose.

his law proceeds from the following:

1) "Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the vast ma jority of the population of the world by a handful of 'advanced' countries" (see Preface to the French edition ot Lenin's Imperialism, Vol. XIX, p. 74);

2) "This 'booty' is shared between two or three powerful world robbers armed to the teeth (America, Britain, Japan), who involve the whole world in their war over the sharing of their booty" (ibid.);

3) The growth of contradictions within the world system of financial oppression and the inevitability of armed clashes lead to the world front of imperialism becoming easily vulnerable to revolution, and to a breach in this front in individual coun tries becoming probable;

4) This breach is most likely to occur at those points, and in those countries, where the chain of the imperialist front is weakest, that is to say, where imperialism is least consolidated, and where it is easiest for a revolution to expand;

5) In view of this, the victory of socialism in one country, even if that country is less developed in the capitalist sense, while capitalism remains in other countries, even if those countries are more highly developed in the capitalist sense -- is quite possible and probable.

Such, briefly, are the foundations of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution.

What is the second specific feature of the October Revolution? The second specific feature of the October Revolution lies in the fact that this revolution represents a model of the practical application of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution.

He who has not understood this specific feature of the October Revolution will never understand either the international nature of this revolution, or its colossal international might, or the specific features of its foreign policy.

"Uneven economic and political development," says Lenin, "is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country taken separately. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized its own socialist production, would stand up against the rest of the world, the capitalist world, attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, raising revolts in those countries against the capitalists, and in the event of necessity coming out even with armed force against the exploiting classes and their states." For "the free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states." (See Vol. XVIII, pp. 232-33.)

The opportunists of all countries assert that the proletarian revolution can begin -- if it is to begin anywhere at all, according to their theory -- only in industrially developed countries, and that the more highly developed these countries are industrially the more chances there are for the victory of socialism. Moreover, according to them, the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country, and one in which capitalism is little developed at that, is excluded as something absolutely im probable. As far back as the period of the war, Lenin, taking as his basis the law of the uneven development of the imperialist states, opposed to the opportunists his theory of the proletarian revolution about the victory of socialism in one country, even if that country is one in which capitalism is less developed.

It is well known that the October Revolution fully confirmed the correctness of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution.
How do matters stand with Trotsky's "permanent revolution" in the light of Lenin's theory of the victory of the proletarian revolution in one country?
Let us take Trotsky's pamphlet Our Revolution (1906).
Trotsky writes:
"Without direct state support from the European proletariat, the working class of Russia will not be able to maintain itself in power and to transform its temporary rule into a lasting socialist dictatorship. This we cannot doubt for an instant."

What does this quotation mean? It means that the victory of socialism in one country, in this case Russia, is impossible "without direct state support from the European proletariat," i.e., before the European proletariat has conquered power.

What is there in common between this "theory" and Lenin's thesis on the possibility of the victory of socialism "in one capitalist country taken separately"? Clearly, there is nothing in common.

But let us assume that Trotsky's pamphlet, which was published in 1906, at a time when it was difficult to determine the character of our revolution, contains inadvertent errors and does not fully correspond to Trotsky's views at a later period. Let us examine another pamphlet written by Trotsky, his Peace Programme, which appeared before the October Revolution of 1917 and has now (1924) been republished in his book The Year 1917. In this pamphlet Trotsky criticizes Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution about the victory of socialism in one country and opposes to it the slogan of a United States of Europe. He asserts that the victory of socialism in one country is impossible, that the victory of socialism is possible only as the victory of several of the principal countries of Europe (Britain, Russia, Germany), which combine into a United States of Europe; otherwise it is not possible at all. He says quite plainly that "a victorious revolution in Russia or in Britain is inconceivable without a revolution in Germany, and vice versa."

"The only more or less concrete historical argument," says Trotsky, "advanced against the slogan of a United States of Europe was formulated in the Swiss Sotsial-Demokrat (at that time the central organ of the Bolsheviks -- J. St. ) in the following sentence: 'Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.' From this the Sotsial-Demokrat draws the conclusion that the victory of socialism is possible in one country, and that therefore there is no reason to make the dictatorship of the proletariat in each separate country contingent upon the establishment of a United States of Europe. That capitalist development in different countries is uneven is an absolutely incontrovertible argument. But this unevenness is itself extremely uneven. The capitalist level of Britain, Austria, Germany or France is not identical. But in comparison with Africa and Asia all these countries represent capitalist 'Europe,' which has grown ripe for the social revolution. That no country in its struggle must 'wait' for others, is an elementary thought which it is useful and necessary to reiterate in order that the idea of concurrent international action may not be replaced by the idea of temporizing international inaction. Without waiting for the others, we begin and continue the struggle nationally, in the full confidence that our initiative will give an impetus to the struggle in other countries; but if this should not occur, it would be hopeless to think -- as historical experience and theoretical considerations testify -- that, for example, a revolutionary Russia could hold out in the face of a conservative Europe, or that a socialist Germany could exist in isolation in a capitalist world."
As you see, we have before us the same theory of the simultaneous victory of socialism in the principal countries of Europe which, as a rule, excludes Lenin's theory of revolution about the victory of socialism in one country.

Carried away by his criticism of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution, Trotsky unwittingly dealt himself a smashing blow in his pamphlet Peace Programme which appeared in 1917 and was republished in 1924.

But perhaps this pamphlet, too, has become out of date and has ceased for some reason or other to correspond to Trotsky's present views? Let us take his later works, written after the victory of the proletarian revolution in one country, in Russia. Let us take, for example, Trotsky's "Postscript," written in 1922, for the new edition of his pamphlet Peace Programme. Here is what he says in this "Postscript":

"The assertion reiterated several times in the Peace Programme that a proletarian revolution cannot culminate victoriously within national bounds may perhaps seem to some readers to have been refuted by the nearly five years' experience of our Soviet Republic. But such a conclusion would be unwarranted, The fact that the workers' state has held out against the whole world in one country, and a backward country at that, testifies to the colossal might of the proletariat, which in other, more advanced, more civilized countries will be truly capable of performing miracles. But while we have held our ground as a state politically and militarily, we have not arrived, or even begun to arrive, at the creation of a socialist society. . . . As long as the bourgeoisie remains in power in the other European countries we shall be compelled, in our struggle against economic isolation, to strive for agreements with the capitalist world; at the same time it may be said with certainty that these agreements may at best help us to mitigate some of our economic ills, to take one or another step forward, but real progress of a socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the victory[*] of the proletariat in the major European countries." Thus speaks Trotsky, plainly sinning against reality and stubbornly trying to save his "permanent revolution" from final shipwreck.

It appears, then, that, twist and turn as you like, we not only have "not arrived," but we have "not even begun to arrive" at the creation of a socialist society. It appears that some people have been hoping for "agreements with the capitalist world," but it also appears that nothing will come of these agreements; for, twist and turn as you like, "real progress of a socialist economy" will not be possible until the proletariat has been victorious in the "major European countries."
Well, then, since there is still no victory in the West, the only "choice" that remains for the revolution in Russia is: either to rot away or to degenerate into a bourgeois state.
It is no accident that Trotsky has been talking for two years now about the "degeneration" of our Party.

It is no accident that last year Trotsky prophesied the "doom" of our country.
How can this strange "theory" be reconciled with Lenin's theory of the "victory of socialism in one country"?

How can this strange "prospect" be reconciled with Lenin's view that the New Economic Policy will enable us "to build the foundations of socialist economy"?

How can this "permanent" hopelessness be reconciled, for instance, with the following words of Lenin: "Socialism is no longer a matter of the distant future, or an abstract picture, or an icon. We still retain our old bad opinion of icons. We have dragged socialism into everyday life, and here we must find our way. This is the task of our day, the task of our epoch. Permit me to conclude by expressing the conviction that, difficult as this task may be, new as it may be compared with our previous task, and no matter how many difficulties it may entail, we shall all -- not in one day, but in the course of several years -- all of us together fulfil it whatever happens so that NEP Russia will become socialist Russia." (See Vol. XXVII, p. 366.)

How can this "permanent" gloominess of Trotsky's be reconciled, for instance, with the following words of Lenin:

"As a matter of fact, state power over all large-scale means of production, state power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc. -- is not this all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society from the co-operatives, from the co-operatives alone, which we formerly looked down upon as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to look down upon as such now, under NEP? Is this not all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building." (See Vol. XXVII, p 392.)[2]
It is plain that these two views are incompatible and cannot in any way be reconciled. Trotsky's "permanent revolution" is the repudiation of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution; and conversely, Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution is the repudiation of the theory of "permanent revolution."

From the masterpiece "On the Opposition" written by none other than the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our epoch: Joseph Stalin. The man who DESTROYED the ideological roots of the decadent theory of Trotskyism

Long Live Marxism-Leninism!
Long Live Stalin!
Long Live Mao Tse Tung!
Long Live Ho Chi Minh!
Long Live Che Guevara!
Long Live Kim Il Sung!
Long Live the victory of Socialism!

Death to revisionism!
Death to Trotskyism

Bhagat Singh can be reached at bhagatlives@gmail.com

Rally in Kathmandu

2006-06-03T21:43:00.000+05:00

Rally of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) against the Nepali monarchy in Kathmandu.

Long Live the Revolution!

May Day rally in Pakistan

2006-06-01T15:40:00.000+05:00

The radical muse

2006-05-21T20:33:00.000+05:00

April 23, 2006

The radical muse

This book documents the rise of the Progressive Writer’s Association, its period of ascendancy, its crucial role in the struggle for independence and its unflagging spirit of resistance against injustice

Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir write about the emerging of a movement that grew into the Progressive Writer’s Association

On the evening of November 24, 1934, the atmosphere at London’s Nanking Hotel must have been electric. A group of young Indian intellectuals were engaged in an intense discussion over a draft document, that had been circulated by the convenor of the meeting, Sajjad Zaheer. The document was audacious in its scope, for it sought to articulate a manifesto for the future of Indian literature.

Some of the faces in the meeting were to become familiar personalities. Jyotirmaya Ghosh would rise to prominence as a key figure in Bengali literature. Mulk Raj Anand had already begun to gain global prominence as an English novelist. Mohammad Din Tasir was to go on to become the founder of the magazine Nairang-i-Khayaal in Lahore. The British writer Ralph Fox was attending in the capacity of an adviser. The fog of history has blurred the names of other attendees, but the institution that was emerging through this meeting was destined to majestically straddle the traditions of Indian literature in general and Urdu poetry in particular for a long time.

The fact that this meeting was being held in London was no accident. Rather, it was a curious outcome of the history of the colonial experience of India. Many among the gathering were students in England, who had been sent by their affluent parents to develop professional skills in areas such as law and medicine. Yet, their experiences with colonial servitude back home were fresh in their minds, and this smouldering energy was readily spurred by the emerging anti-fascist and socialist currents all over Europe. The formation of the United Front in France, the protest against the persecution of writers like Georgi Dimitrov, and the workers’ rebellion in Austria in the early 1930’s, had galvanised the attendees of the Nanking meeting. In their minds, the literary manifesto that was being discussed would serve to lay the framework for the emergence of a new, emancipated identity.

This gathering had its genesis in an interesting episode that had taken place in 1932 with the publication of a book in India called Angaare (Embers), a set of 10 short stories written by Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan, Mahmuduzzafar and Ahmed Ali, which had attacked a whole range of sacred cows. The stories dealt with prevailing familial and sexual mores, the decadence and hypocrisy of social and religious life in contemporary India, and took more than one potshot at religious orthodoxy, attacking it with what Ahmed Ali later referred to as “the absence of circumspection”.

Within months of its publication, the book generated an uproar within Muslim circles, and was condemned by a variety of organisations as being “obscene” and “blasphemous”. The All India Shia Conference, for example, passed a resolution in 1933 sharply condemning “the heart-rending and filthy pamphlet called Angaare ... which has wounded the feelings of the entire Muslim community by ridiculing God and His prophets and which is extremely objectionable from the standpoint of both religion and morality.” Responding to this outcry, the Police Department of the United Provinces promulgated an order on March 15, 1933 declaring “forfeited to his Majesty every copy of (the book) ... on the grounds that the said book contains matter the publication of which is punishable under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code.”

The Angaare authors were unrepentant. Writing in the April 5, 1933 issue of The Leader, an Allahabad-based newspaper, Mahmuduzzafar’s article “Shall we submit to gagging?” declared:

The writers of this book do not wish to make an apology for it. They leave it to float or sink of itself. They only wish to defend the right of launching it and all other vessels like it ... They have chosen (to critique) the particular field of Islam not because they bear any “special” malice towards it, but because, being born into that particular society, they felt better qualified to speak for that alone ... Our practical purpose is the formation immediately of a league of progressive authors, which should bring forth similar collections from time to time, both in English and the various vernaculars of our country.

Undettered by the widespread criticism, Sajjad Zaheer, the leader of the Angaare group had set about trying to use the field of literature as a battering ram to break down the orthodox and conservative fortifications of Indian society. The Nanking Hotel gathering was a significant step in that direction.

By the end of the meeting, the attendees had resolved to formalise their group as an institution, which would be called the All India Progressive Writers’ Association (henceforth, the PWA). The PWA was to be based in India, and Sajjad Zaheer volunteered to give it institutional shape in the subcontinent.

Their experiences with colonial servitude back home were fresh in their minds, and this smouldering energy was readily spurred by the emerging anti-fascist and socialist currents all over Europe

By the middle of 1935, the final manifesto of the PWA was ready. Zaheer returned to India with the document and circulated it among prominent Indian literary figures. The manifesto found an immediate champion in Premchand, one of the most highly respected figures in Hindustani literature, who published its Hindi translation in the October 1935 issue of his journal Hans (Swan). Subsequently, the English version of the manifesto was published in the February 1936 issue of London’s Left Review. The text of the manifesto was as follows:

Radical changes are taking place in Indian society. Fixed ideas and old beliefs, social and political institutions are being challenged. Out of the present turmoil and conflict a new society is emerging. The spirit of reaction however, though moribund and doomed to ultimate decay, is still operative and is making desperate efforts to prolong itself.

It is the duty of Indian. writers to give expression to the changes taking place in Indian life and to assist in the spirit of progress in the country. Indian literature, since the breakdown of classical literature, has had the fatal tendency to escape from the actualities of life. It has tried to find a refuge from reality in spiritualism and idealism. The result has been that it has produced a rigid formalism and a banal and perverse ideology.

Witness the mystical devotional obsession of our literature, its furtive and sentimental attitude towards sex, its emotional exhibitionism and its almost total lack of rationality. Such literature was produced particularly during the past two centuries, one of the most unfortunate periods of our history, a period of disintegrating feudalism and of acute misery and degradation for the Indian people as a whole.

It is the object of our association to rescue literature and other arts from the priestly, academic and decadent classes in whose hands they have degenerated so long; to bring the arts into the closest touch with the people; and to make them the vital organs which will register the actualities of life, as well as lead us to the future.

While claiming to be the inheritors of the best traditions of Indian civilisation, we shall criticise ruthlessly, in its political, economic and cultural aspects, the spirit of reaction in our country and we shall foster through interpretive and creative work (with both native and foreign resources) everything that will lead our country to the new life for which it is striving. We believe that the new literature of India must deal with the basic problems of our existence today — the problems of hunger and poverty, social backwardness and political subjugation, so that it may help us to understand these problems and through such understanding help us to act.

With the above aims in view. the following resolutions have been adopted:

• The establishment of organisations of writers to correspond to the various linguistic zones of India; the coordinations of these organisations by holding conferences, publishing of magazines, pamphlets, etc.

• To cooperate with those literary organisations whose aims do not conflict with the basic aims of the association.

• To produce and translate literature of a progressive nature and of a high technical standard; to fight cultural reaction; and in this way, to further the cause of Indian freedom and social regeneration.

• To strive for the acceptance of a common language (Hindustani) and a common script (Indo-Roman) for India.

• To protect the interests of authors; to help authors who require and deserve assistance for the publication of their works.

• To fight for the right of free expression of thought and opinion.

The manifesto was unabashedly modernist and anti-religious in its tenor, and utilised a left-liberal vocabulary that was popular at that time. It sought to play an integrative role in the Indian literary landscape through the acceptance of a common language and script. It made a case for building international solidarities. Importantly, it emphasised realism, with its insistence that literature be used as a tool to display the “actualities of life”. Finally, despite the stridency of its tone, it sought to leave the door open for coalitions with other literary groups “whose aims did not conflict with the basic aims of the association.” The manifesto was an astute political document, and a highly ambitious one that sought to position the PWA as the harbinger of revolutionary changes in the literary landscape of India.

The publication of this manifesto had a huge impact, especially in Urdu literary circles. The ideas it espoused were, however, not entirely new. Just a year earlier, a young literary critic named Akhtar Husain Raipuri had published an essay called “Adab our Zindagi” (Literature and life), in which he had attempted to analyse the entire corpus of Urdu literature, and had denounced all works of fiction and poetry that did not directly link themselves to the material conditions of the society in which they were produced. Raipuri’s essay in some measure made the manifesto easier to sell to Urdu literary figures, just as Premchand’s support (and subsequent endorsements by the Hindi poets Sumitranandan Pant, Maithilisharan Gupt and Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’) succeeded in broadening the horizon of the PWA’s influence.

Stalwarts of Indian literature like Mohammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore also provided legitimacy to the PWA through their approval, and eventually Urdu poets like Hasrat Mohani, Josh Malihabadi, and Firaq Gorakhpuri also joined it, as did the Telugu poet Sri Sri, the Gujarati poet Umashankar Joshi, the Punjabi writer Gurbaksh Singh and the Marathi writer Anna Bhau Sathe. The PWA’s anti-colonialist reputation was enhanced and its credentials endorsed by the fact that the British government expressed its deep suspicion of the group. On September 7, 1936, the Home Secretary of India sent a private circular to relevant authorities, which read:

I am directed to address you in connection with an organisation known as the Progressive Writers’ Association ... The proclaimed aims of the association are comparatively innocent and suggest that it concerns itself solely with the organisation of journalists and writers and the promotion of interest in literature of a progressive nature. The inspiration however comes from ... organisations and individuals who are ... advocating policies akin to those of the communists ... I am desired to suggest therefore, that suitable opportunities may be taken to convey, preferably in conversations, friendly warnings about this association to journalists, educationists and others who may be attracted by its ostensible programmes.

It appeared that the PWA had perceptively tapped into the groundswell of a great upheaval in Indian society. The first all-India meeting of the PWA was held at Lucknow in 1936, and was presided over by Premchand, whose inaugural address “Sahitya ka uddeshya” (The purpose of literature) remains one of the most important documents of the movement. The manifesto of the association was reworked to make it more inclusive of those whose politics were not avowedly socialist. Further the demand for a common language and script for Indian literature was dropped, reflecting the political realities of the country’s multilingual structure.

The Hindi version of the manifesto also attempted to articulate a definition of “Progressive” which could accommodate a wide spectrum of views and attract as many people as possible, and included the following additional paragraph:

All those things which take us toward confusion, dissension, and blind imitation are conservative; also, all that which engenders in us a critical capacity, which induces us to test our dear traditions on the touchstone of our reason and perception, which makes us healthy and produces among us the strength of unity and integration, that is what we call Progressive.

From its very inception, the PWA had a group of committed socialists at its core but its larger membership was not limited to writers of any particular political persuasion. In fact, it was consciously opened out to include all writers who shared the manifesto’s basic commitments. The PWA thus functioned as an umbrella under which progressive writers of all stripes could find a place. The PWA understood its mission to be that of constructing a “united front” of writers against imperialism and reactionary social tendencies, and for a life-affirming art. For the longest time then, taraqqi-pasandi or “progressivism” in Urdu literature was justifiably identified with the PWA. Never before had writers across India been mobilised around a single platform so effectively, and in no previous movements had a literary school so redefined the terms of its creative output and its engagement with its society and times.

Excerpted with permission from
A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry: Anthems of Resistance
By Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir
India Ink/Roli Books Pvt.
Available with Liberty Books, Park Towers,
Clifton, Karachi.
Tel: 021-5832525 (Ext: 111)
Website: www.libertybooks.com
ISBN 81-86939-26-1
248pp. Indian Rs395

Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir are university professors. They grew up in Hyderabad, India, on a steady diet of progressive Urdu poetry. They divide their time between India and the US

The making of a democracy

2006-05-16T18:46:00.000+05:00

The making of a democracy

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20060519005300400.htm

BY SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
in Kathmandu

A road map exists, and the people of Nepal are anxious to get moving. But there are also seven roadblocks to be overcome.

FROM every corner of Nepal they came, triumph, hope and anxiety writ large in equal measure on faces as ethnically diverse as any you will find in South Asia. The date was April 28 and the country's House of Representatives, newly restored by Royal proclamation, was meeting behind the imposing gates of the Singhadurbar. In the streets outside, the marginalised and voiceless tried their best to make sure their concerns were not ignored. From the west of Nepal was the Magar Mahila Sangh, its members wearing traditional Magar attire, with their demand for an end to the `Hindu kingdom' ("Hindu rajya chahidey na") and its replacement by a secular state. The Nepal Sherpa Sangh wanted elections to a Constituent Assembly to be held quickly. Then there were Gurungs and Newars and a sprinkling of Rais and Limbus from eastern Nepal. Young men and women from Kathmandu, many of them middle-class and upper-caste, were there in large numbers too, as were representatives of the disabled. Dalit activists made their presence felt. Finally, the leaders of Nepal's vibrant pro-democracy civil society movement - Dr. Devendra Raj Panday, Krishna Khanal, Shyam Shreshta, Krishna Pahadi and Kanak Mani Dixit, besides others - were also present, joining the festive melting pot that had decanted itself on the streets in front of the parliament building in a raucous vigil that lasted until the first sitting ended some hours later with the tabling of a resolution calling for elections to a Constituent Assembly.

One of the most dramatic but least analysed aspects of Nepal's April revolution is the manner in which the Maoist slogan of a nishart samvidhan sabha, or unconditional Constituent Assembly, has managed to capture the imagination of the entire people of Nepal. The Nepali Congress of Girija Prasad Koirala was fixated on the restoration of Parliament but it was only the promise of genuine constitutional change that brought the people of the country on to the streets in their hundreds of thousands.

True, different sections of the population read different meanings into the demand for a Constituent Assembly. For some, it was simply a way of getting even with King Gyanendra, a monarch widely reviled for a host of real and imagined sins, including his supposed involvement in the Royal Palace massacre of 2001. For others, it was something Nepal simply had to do to convince the Maoists to end their decade-long `people's war'. But for many, and probably the majority, the slogan of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly was instinctively appealing, precisely because it was seen as the key which could open the door to a more inclusive and equitable society. Stubbornly turning the worn-out tyres of his wheelchair until he was as close to the Singhadurbar as the police would let him get, Rukmangat Neopani, a disabled rights activist, declared that it was now or never. "Throughout the world people are talking of the rights of the disabled. We are here to make sure Nepal's new Constitution is inclusive in every sense of the word."

Two days later, on the eve of May Day, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling for elections to a Constituent Assembly. And the Koirala government has followed that vote up with the announcement that it was reciprocating the three-month ceasefire announced by the Maoists in the wake of King Gyanendra's proclamation restoring Parliament, as well as revoking the terrorist tag from the party and its front organisations.

ADREES LATIF/REUTERS

Anti-Monarchi Slogans and party flags on a statue of former King Prithvi Narayan Shah outside the gates of the Parliament building on April 28.

There is one last gesture of goodwill left for the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) government to make before the road map for peace and genuine democracy in Nepal starts getting implemented in earnest. This is the decision to release top Maoist leaders from jail and to ask India - which is holding nearly 25 leading cadres of the Nepalese party without charge - also to do the same. To say that the peace road map will soon be implemented, however, is not to minimise the hurdles that lie ahead in any way. The obstacles are legion, both domestic and international, and how they are overcome will depend to a large extent on the maturity and statesmanship that the SPA and Maoist leaderships display in the difficult months that lie ahead.

Obstacle one

In order to insulate the proposed election for a Constituent Assembly from any motivated or frivolous legal challenge, the SPA government needs to amend the preamble to the existing 1990 Constitution. The preamble, akin to the basic structure of the Constitution, specifies the four walls within which amendments are to be made, and this includes constitutional monarchy. In order to ensure that the Supreme Court of Nepal - which has shown itself beholden to King Gyanendra in a variety of ways - does not stay the election, the preamble itself has to be amended to take cognisance of the sovereign people's right to decide the nature of the political system they wish to live under. "Once this is done," says Shambhu Thapa, president of the Nepal Bar Association, "there is no principle of jurisprudence that can be invoked by any court to derail the process of elections to a Constituent Assembly."

But amending the 1990 Constitution's preamble is not a simple matter. King Gyanendra's Royal proclamation did not reconvene the Upper House of Parliament, the National Assembly. Either he will have to be prevailed upon to do so or the government, invoking the doctrine of necessity, can summon the Upper House. There are also nearly 20 vacancies that have to be filled, an additional headache that someone will have to attend to.

Obstacle two

General Pyar Jung Thapa, chief of the Royal Nepal Army, played a key role in persuading King Gyanendra to step back from the brink and agree, in his proclamation of April 24, to the recall of Parliament and the implementation of a political road map that includes constitutional change. As part of the last-minute negotiations leading up to the King's announcement, Gen. Thapa sent a message to the parties that the Army would report to them once they formed a government. How true Gen. Thapa will be to that assurance, however, remains to be seen, especially since his second-in-command, Lt.-Gen. Rukmangat Katuwal, is someone especially beholden to the Palace.

Prime Minister Koirala has announced a ceasefire but must ensure that the RNA scrupulously abides by whatever `code of conduct' his government develops with the Maoists. This is where the international community has a crucial role to play. A clear message must be sent out to the RNA brass that any deviation from the principle of civilian command will be taken serious note of. If it is part of a sustained pattern of indiscipline, the RNA should be told that its future participation in United Nations peace-keeping operations would be put on hold. For such an approach to work, the international community needs to speak in one voice.

Obstacle three

Elections to a Constituent Assembly cannot be treated as just any other election. There are complex issues of representation which have to be sorted out to ensure that every major community and collective in Nepal - the ethno-linguistic groups, the backward regions, the Madhesis, the religious minorities, Dalits, women and youth, not to speak of the disabled - either win direct representation in the Assembly or have confidence that their interests will be protected there. Engineering a balanced and representative composition of the Assembly, without falling into the trap of creating ethnic or communal electorates, will be a major challenge for the SPA, the Maoists and the professional sociologists and political scientists who will no doubt be involved in the process.

To a certain extent, the regional dispersal of ethnic diversities suggests the mission could be accomplished by a fresh delimitation of constituencies based on an increase in the number of seats. Managing this within a reasonable timeframe so that the elections do not get inordinately delayed will be a key challenge.

Obstacle four

Once the modalities for the election are worked out, the SPA and the Maoists will have to turn their attention to establishing a mechanism for the sequestering of all armed men and women for the duration of the elections. The Maoists have said they are prepared to confine their fighters to fixed locations under international supervision provided the RNA is similarly bound down. But who or what will ensure this supervision? Ideally, a job of this magnitude and complexity should be handled by the U.N. In Angola, Cambodia and East Timor, as well as in Afghanistan, the U.N. has had varied experience in holding elections in a variety of military environments.

As long there is no big-power involvement, there is no reason why the U.N. cannot accomplish the task of supervising the confinement of soldiers to their barracks, if not the actual polls to a Constituent Assembly in Nepal. The only other alternative is for the SPA, the Maoists and the RNA to work out domestic arrangements, but this seems unlikely at the moment. If not the U.N., it is possible some `contact group' of European countries might volunteer for the job but their involvement is likely to come with far greater strings than the U.N.

Obstacle five

As elections approach, cleavages between political forces that are working together will possibly increase. And there is every chance that King Gyanendra will try and take advantage of these either to derail the elections or to ensure an outcome more favourable to the monarchy.

The first cleavage is between the Right and the Left. The Nepali Congress may apprehend the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) and the Maoists forging common ground on certain constitutional questions and this may lead it to forge an alliance with either the Palace or the Army. But the Nepali Congress support base, and especially its youth wing, is increasingly republican and this may weaken the leadership's hold on the party.

A second source of tension could be between the Maoists and the CPN(UML), with the latter apprehending the desertion of some of its support base to the former.

A third source of tension could be within the Maoists themselves. Historically, no insurgency has drawn down without more violent factions emerging and denouncing the mainstream as turncoats. Will the Nepalese Maoists produce their equivalent of the `Real IRA,' which in turn provokes the RNA into ending the ceasefire?

Maoist leader Prachanda has said the doctrinal divisions within the party on the need for `competitive democracy' ended at the Rolpa plenum in 2005. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The history of the Maoist movement in South Asia - with its numerous `ideologically pure' factions, most at loggerheads with each other - does not provide grounds for optimism. And yet the Nepalese Maoists have so far proved to be far more disciplined and cohesive a force than any of their naxalite counterparts in India.

Perhaps one factor that might help to dampen any incipient divisions between parties is the plan to have an interim all-party government - with the participation of the Maoists - running the country during and after the Constituent Assembly elections and until the new Constitution is adopted and fresh elections are held.

Obstacle six

Assuming that elections take place and a representative Constituent Assembly meets sometime in 2007, its members are likely to find the task of creating a new Constitution to be an extremely challenging one.

The Indian Constituent Assembly was created on the basis of a partial franchise - by and large, only tax assessees, graduates or property owners were eligible to vote - and had as a constitutional guide the 1935 Government of India Act. Still, this fairly homogeneous, largely elite body took nearly four years to craft a Constitution. In contrast, the Nepalese Constituent Assembly will be far more heterogeneous. They will have the 1990 Constitution as a reference point but that document is so riddled with discriminatory clauses on grounds of religion, gender, ethnicity, language and caste that the temptation will be to go in for a wholesale revision. Especially if the Maoists and the ethno-linguistic groups insist on a robust federalism based on maximum devolution to the country's regions. However, the longer the Assembly deliberates, the greater the danger that the old order will regroup and consolidate itself. The people of Nepal are alert and conscious but they cannot remain in a state of active political mobilisation for an endless amount of time.

But if there is a political imperative to act swiftly, there are many good reasons for the representatives not to hurriedly draw up a new Constitution. Apart from ridding itself of the monarchy, Nepal has the chance of pioneering new forms of inclusive political participation. It can develop political institutions that genuinely empower citizens rather than elites and enact enabling laws to guarantee economic and social rights that elite-driven democracies such as India and the United States ignore - for instance, education, employment, health care and housing. It would be a pity if in the rush to checkmate King Gyanendra, these objectives are sidelined or forgotten.

Obstacle seven

One of the issues the Constituent Assembly will surely settle is what kind of Army Nepal should have. Shyam Shreshta, editor of the weekly Mulyankan, says Nepal should have an Army like that of Switzerland, a purely defensive but well-trained force that relies more on the involvement of citizens rather than on professional soldiers. There will likely be other views. Once this debate is settled, the task of integrating the People's Liberation Army with the RNA to create a new national Army will have to be undertaken.

If enough political confidence has been established, elements of the PLA might even conceivably get demobilised in the interim and be integrated into, say, a new national police force or militia. Integrating Army units is one thing but resolving the status of commanders and officers will be an entirely different ball game, with the Maoists opposed to those senior officers with strong connections to the monarchy.

If the people of Nepal are successfully to negotiate these obstacles, they will need the unstinting support of the government and people of India. At each stage, the choices India makes can help or hinder the implementation of the road map, beginning with the question of the release of Nepalese Maoist leaders incarcerated in Indian jails. So far, the Indian government has done the right thing, though the process by which it ultimately came out in favour of democracy might have been a little muddled.

Let it not be found wanting in the months that lie ahead.

The issue of Gulags

2006-05-11T09:29:00.000+05:00

Statements involving the topic of gulags have taken a very strange place in the polemics on this discussion forum. On and off, one gets to read the remark, "would I be sent Gulag for that"? The question is nothing but a product of ignorance, as well as exploitation of ignorance by the imperialist propaganda over decades of information war, of the penal system working in USSR. In this is the case, the behavior of aforesaid members is understandable, keeping in mind the dimensions of the reactionary propaganda.

Although this question has been discuss over and over again on this platform, it is important to deal with the issue as it is becoming a hindrance for the progression of various debates.

Firstly, the meaning of the word gulag must be clear. In Socialism, the focus of the penal system is to provide reformative punishments, or corrective punishments, rather than extending retributive sentences, as prescribed in Islam, for example. The word `Gulag' is an abbreviation of the term used for the corrective prisons. It is an imperative that in present times no legal system in the world can exist without prisons. Gulag was the word used in the Soviet Union as a substitute for the word prison.

I am attaching the very relevant portion of the article by Mario Sausa -- `Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union' – that would, hopefully, clarify certain misconceptions in the arguments of some members of this email list.
Please Read the complete article here: http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

What the Russian research shows

The research on the Soviet penal system is set out in a report nearly 9,000 pages long. The authors of this report are many, but the best-known of them are the Russian historians V.N. Zemskov, A.N. Dougin and O.V. Xlevnjuk. Their work began to be published in 1990 and by 1993 had nearly been finished and published almost in its entirety. The reports came to the knowledge of the West as a result of collaboration between researchers of different Western countries. The two works with which the present author is familiar are: the one which appeared in the French journal l'Histoire in September 1993, written by Nicholas Werth, the chief researcher of the French scientific research centre, CNRS (Centre National de Ia Recherche Scientifique), and the work published in the US journal American Historical Review by J. Arch Getty, a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside, in collaboration with G.T. Rettersporn, a CNRS researcher, and the Russian researcher, V.A.N. Zemskov, from the Institute of Russian History (part of the Russian Academy of Science). Today books have appeared on the matter written by the above-named researchers or by others from the same research team. Before going any further, I want to make clear, so that no confusion arises in the future, that none of the scientists involved in this research has a socialist world outlook. On the contrary their outlook is bourgeois and anti-socialist. Indeed many of them are quite reactionary. This is said so that the reader should not imagine that what is to be set out below is the product of some 'communist conspiracy'. What has happened is that the above-named researchers have thoroughly exposed the lies of Conquest, Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev and others, which they have done purely by reason of the fact that they place their professional integrity in first place and will not allow themselves to be bought for propaganda purposes.

The results of the Russian research answer a very large number of questions about the Soviet penal system. For us it is the Stalin era that is of greatest interest, and it is there we find cause for debate. We will pose a number of very specific questions and we will seek out our replies in the journals l'Histoire and the American Historical Review. This will be the best way of bringing into the debate some of the most important aspects of the Soviet penal system. The questions are the following:

What did the Soviet penal system consist of?
How many prisoners were there - both political and non-political?
How many people died in the labour camps?
How many people were condemned to death in the years before 1953, especially in the purges of 1937-38?
How long, on average, were the prison sentences?
After answering these five questions, we will discuss the punishments imposed on the two groups which are most frequently mentioned in connection with prisoners and deaths in the Soviet Union, namely the kulaks convicted in 1930 and the counter-revolutionaries convicted in 1936-38.

Labour camps in the penal system

Let us start with the question of the nature of the Soviet penal system. After 1930 the Soviet penal system included prisons, labour camps, the labour colonies of the gulag, special open zones and obligation to pay fines. Whoever was remanded into custody was generally sent to a normal prison while investigations took place to establish whether he might be innocent, and could thus be set free, or whether he should go on trial. An accused person on trial could either be found innocent (and set free) or guilty. If found guilty he could be sentenced to pay a fine, to a term of imprisonment or, more unusually, to face execution. A fine could be a given percentage of his wages for a given period of time. Those sentenced to prison terms could be put in different kinds of prison depending on the type of offence involved.

To the gulag labour camps were sent those who had committed serious offences (homicide, robbery, rape, economic crimes, etc.) as well as a large proportion of those convicted of counter-revolutionary activities. Other criminals sentenced to terms longer than 3 years could also be sent to labour camps. After spending some time in a labour camp, a prisoner might be moved to a labour colony or to a special open zone.

The labour camps were very large areas where the prisoners lived and worked under close supervision. For them to work and not to be a burden on society was obviously necessary. No healthy person got by without working. It is possible that these days people may think this was a terrible thing, but this is the way it was. The number of labour camps in existence in 1940 was 53.

There were 425 gulag labour colonies. These were much smaller units than the labour camps, with a freer regime and less supervision. To these were sent prisoners with shorter prison terms - people who had committed less serious criminal or political offences. They worked in freedom in factories or on the land and formed part of civil society. In most cases the whole of the wages he earned from his labour belonged to the prisoner, who in this respect was treated the same as any other worker.

The special open zones were generally agricultural areas for those who had been exiled, such as the kulaks who had been expropriated during collectivisation. Other people found guilty of minor criminal or political offences might also serve their terms in these areas.

454,000 is not 9 million

The second question concerned how many political prisoners there were, and how many common criminals. This question includes those imprisoned in labour camps, gulag colonies and the prisons (though it should be remembered that in the labour colonies there was, in the majority of cases, only partial loss of liberty). The Table below shows the data which appeared in the American Historical Review, data which encompass a period of 20 years beginning in 1934, when the penal system was unified under a central administration, until 1953, the year Stalin died.

Table - The American Historical Review
USSR Custodial Population 1934-1953

(Could not be posted due to format errors)

From the above Table, there are a series of conclusions which need to be drawn. To start with we can compare its data to those given by Robert Conquest. The latter claims that in 1939 there were 9 million political prisoners in the labour camps and that 3 million others had died in the period 1937-1939. Let the reader not forget that Conquest is here talking only about political prisoners! Apart from these, says Conquest, there were also common criminals who, according to him, were much greater in number than the political prisoners! In 1950 there were, according to Conquest, 12 million political prisoners! Armed with the true facts, we can readily see what a fraudster Conquest really is. Not one of his figures corresponds even remotely to the truth. In 1939 there was a total in all the camps, colonies and prisons of close to 2 million prisoners. Of these 454,000 had committed political crimes, not 9 million as Conquest asserts. Those who died in labour camps between 1937 and 1939 numbered about 160,000, not 3 million as Conquest asserts. In 1950 there were 578,000 political prisoners in labour camps, not 12 million. Let the reader not forget that Robert Conquest to this day remains one of the major sources for right-wing propaganda against communism. Among right-wing pseudo-intellectuals, Robert Conquest is a godlike figure. As for the figures cited by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - 60 million alleged to have died in labour camps - there is no need for comment. The absurdity of such an allegation is manifest. Only a sick mind could promote such delusions.

Let us now leave these fraudsters in order that we may ourselves concretely analyse the statistics relating to the gulag. The first question to be asked is what view we should take about the sheer quantity of people caught up in the penal system? What is the meaning of the figure of 2.5 million? Every person that is put in prison is living proof that society was still insufficiently developed to give every citizen everything he needed for a full life. From this point of view, the 2.5 million do represent a criticism of the society.

The internal and external threat

The number of people caught up in the penal system requires to be properly explained. The Soviet Union was a country which had only recently overthrown feudalism, and its social heritage in matters of human rights was often a burden on society. In an antiquated system like the tsardom, workers were condemned to live in deep poverty, and human life had little value. Robbery and violent crime was punished by unrestrained violence. Revolts against the monarchy usually ended in massacres, death sentences and extremely long prison sentences. These social relations, and the habits of mind associated with them, take a long time to change, a fact which influenced the development of society in the Soviet Union as well as attitudes towards criminals.

Another factor to be taken into account is that the Soviet Union, a country which in the 1930s had close to 160-170 million inhabitants, was seriously threatened by foreign powers. As a result of the great political changes which took place in Europe in the 1930s, there was a major threat of war from the direction of Nazi Germany, a threat to the survival of the Slav people, and the western bloc also harboured interventionist ambitions. This situation was summed up by Stalin in 1931 in the following words: "We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We have to close that gap in 10 years. Either we do it or we will be wiped out." Ten years later, on 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany and its allies. Soviet society was forced to make great efforts in the decade from 1930-1940, when the major part of its resources was dedicated to its defence preparations for the forthcoming war against the Nazis. Because of this, people worked hard while producing little by way of personal benefits. The introduction of the 7-hour day was withdrawn in 1937, and in 1939 practically every Sunday was a work day. In a difficult period such as this, with a great war hanging over the development of society for two decades (the 1930s and 1940s), a war which was to cost the Soviet Union 25 million deaths with half the country burnt to a cinder, crime did tend to increase as people tried to help themselves to what life could not otherwise offer them.

During this very difficult time, the Soviet Union held a maximum number of 2.5 million people in its prison system, i.e., 2.4% of the adult population. How can we evaluate this figure? Is it a lot or a little? Let us compare.

More prisoners in the US

In the United States of America, for example, a country of 252 million inhabitants (in 1996), the richest country in the world, which consumes 60% of the world's resources, how many people are in prison? What is the situation in the US, a country not threatened by any war and where there are no deep social changes affecting economic stability?

In a rather small news item appearing in the newspapers of August 1997, the FLT-AP news agency reported that in the US there had never previously been so many people in the prison system as the 5.5 million held in 1996. This represents an increase of 200,000 people since 1995 and means that the number of criminals in the US equals 2.8% of the adult population. These data are available to all those who are part of the North American Department of Justice. The number of convicts in the US today is 3 million higher than the maximum number ever held in the Soviet Union! In the Soviet Union there was a maximum of 2.4% of the adult population in prison for their crimes - in the US the figure is 2.8%, and rising! According to a press release put out by the US Department of Justice on 18 January 1998, the number of convicts in the US in 1997 rose by 96,100.

As far as the Soviet labour camps were concerned, it is true that the regime was harsh and difficult for the prisoners, but what is the situation today in the prisons of the US, which are rife with violence, drugs, prostitution, sexual slavery (290,000 rapes a year in US prisons). Nobody fees safe in US prisons! And this today, and in a society richer than ever before!

An important factor - the lack of medicines

Let us now respond to the third question posed. How many people died in the labour camps? The number varied from year to year, from 5.2% in 1934 to 0.3% in 1953. Deaths in the labour camps were caused by the general shortage of resources in society as a whole, in particular the medicines necessary to fight epidemics. This problem was not confined to labour camps but was present throughout society, as well as in the great majority of countries of the world. Once antibiotics had been discovered and put into general use after the Second World War, the situation changed radically. In fact, the worst years were the war years when the Nazi barbarians imposed very harsh living conditions on all Soviet citizens. During those 4 years, more than half a million people died in the labour camps - half the total number dying throughout the 20-year period in question. Let us not forget that in the same period, the war years, 25 million people died among those who were free. In 1950, when conditions in the Soviet Union had improved and antibiotics had been introduced, the number of people dying while in prison fell to 0.3%.

Let us turn now to the fourth question posed. How many people were sentenced to death prior to 1953, especially during the purges of 1937-38? We have already noted Robert Conquest's claim that the Bolsheviks killed 12 million political prisoners in the labour camps between 1930 and 1953. Of these 1 million are supposed to have been killed between 1937 and 1938. Solzhenitsyn's figures run to tens of millions supposed to have died in the labour camps - 3 million in 1937-38 alone. Even higher figures have been quoted in the course of the dirty propaganda war against the Soviet Union. The Russian, Olga Shatunovskaya, for example, cites a figure of 7 million dead in the purges of 1937-38.

The documents now emerging from the Soviet archives, however, tell a different story. It is necessary to mention here at the start that the number of those sentenced to death has to be gleaned from different archives and that the researchers, in order to arrive at an approximate figure, have had to gather data from these various archives in a way which gives rise to a risk of double counting and thus of producing estimates higher than the reality. According to Dimitri Volkogonov, the person appointed by Yeltsin to take charge of the old Soviet archives, there were 30,514 persons condemned to death by military tribunals between 1 October 1936 and 30 September 1938. Another piece of information comes from the KGB: according to information released to the press in February 1990, there were 786,098 people condemned to death for crimes against the revolution during the 23 years from 1930-1953. Of those condemned, according to the KGB, 681,692 were condemned between 1937 and 1938. It is not possible to double check the KGB's figures but this last piece of information is open to doubt. It would be very odd for so many people to have been sentenced to death in only two years. Is it possible that the present-day pro-capitalist KGB would give us correct information from the pro-socialist KGB? Be that as it may, it remains to be verified whether the statistics which underlie the KGB information include among those said to have been condemned to death during the 23 years in question common criminals as well as counter-revolutionaries, rather than counter-revolutionaries alone as the pro-capitalist KGB has alleged in a press release of February 1990. The archives also tend to the conclusion that the number of common criminals and the number of counter-revolutionaries condemned to death was approximately equal.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that the number of those condemned to death in 1937-38 was close to 100,000, and not several million as has been claimed by Western propaganda.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that not all those sentenced to death in the Soviet Union were actually executed. A large proportion of death penalties were commuted to terms in labour camps. It is also important to distinguish between common criminals and counter-revolutionaries. Many of those sentenced to death had committed violent crimes such as murder or rape. 60 years ago this type of crime was punishable by death in a large number of countries.

Question 5: How long was the average prison sentence? The length of prison sentences has been the subject of the most scurrilous rumour-mongering in Western propaganda. The usual insinuation is that to be a convict in the Soviet Union involved endless years in prison - whoever went in never came out. This is completely untrue. The vast majority of those who went to prison in Stalin's time were in fact convicted to a term of 5 years at most.

The statistics reproduced in the American Historical Review show the actual facts. Common criminals in the Russian Federation in 1936 received the following sentences: up to 5 years: 82.4%; between 5-10 years: 17.6%. 10 years was the maximum possible prison term before 1937. Political prisoners convicted in the Soviet Union's civilian courts in 1936 received sentences as follows: up to 5 years: 44.2%; between 5-10 years 50.7%. As for those sentenced to terms in the gulag labour camps, where the longer sentences were served, the 1940 statistics show that those serving up to 5 years were 56.8% and those between 5-10 years 42.2%. Only 1% were sentenced to over 10 years.

For 1939 we have the statistics produced by Soviet courts. The distribution of prison terms is as follows: up to 5 years: 95.9%; from 5-10 years: 4%; over 10 years: 0.1%.

As we can see, the supposed eternity of prison sentences in the Soviet Union is another myth spread in the West to combat socialism.

The lies about the Soviet Union

A brief discussion as to the research reports.

The research conducted by the Russian historians shows a reality totally different from that taught in the schools and universities of the capitalist world over the last 50 years. During these 50 years of the cold war, several generations have learnt only lies about the Soviet Union, which have left a deep impression on many people. This fact is also substantiated in the reports made of the French and American research. In these reports are reproduced data, figures and tables enumerating those convicted and those who died, these figures being the subject of intense discussion. But the most important thing to note is that the crimes committed by the people who had been convicted is never a matter of any interest. Capitalist political propaganda has always presented Soviet prisoners as innocent victims and the researchers have taken up this assumption without questioning it. When the researchers go over from their columns of statistics to their commentaries on the events, their bourgeois ideology comes to the fore - with sometimes macabre results. Those who were convicted under the Soviet penal system are treated as innocent victims, but the fact of the matter is that most of them were thieves, murderers, rapists, etc. Criminals of this kind would never be considered to be innocent victims by the press if their crimes were committed in Europe or the US. But since the crimes were committed in the Soviet Union, it is different. To call a murderer, or a person who has raped more than once, an innocent victim is a very dirty game. Some common sense at least needs to be shown when commenting on Soviet justice, at least in relation to criminals convicted of violent crimes, even if it cannot be managed in relation to the nature of the punishment, then at least as regards the propriety of convicting people who have committed crimes of this kind.

Gyanendra’s time is up

2006-04-19T09:51:00.000+05:00

Gyanendra’s time is up
C Raja Mohan
The Indian Express , April 14, 2006

"New Delhi seems paralysed in taking the next steps on dealing with the Nepal crisis...
If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi have criticised the communist parties
for “communalising” India’s foreign policy on Iran, they should be giving no quarter to the Hindutva crowd on Nepal.
In India, the BJP is only part of the problem. The Palace in Nepal retains enduring political links to
India’s own princes and thakurs, some of whom have considerable clout in the Congress Party.
Above all, the Ministry of Defence and the Army have been among the
strongest opponents to any policy that antagonises King Gyanendra".

By his reckless actions, the king has made himself the main problem in Nepal. That he has managed to get Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury, former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and US President George W. Bush on the same side of the debate on Nepal reveals all you need to know about King Gyanendra’s ham-handed power play in the Himalayan kingdom.

Since a shocking regicide put him in charge of Nepal’s destiny in June 2001, Gyanendra’s burning desire to restore royal absolutism has consistently outpaced his judgment on the prospects for his own survival or the collective interests of his country.
Most authoritarian rulers extend their rule either by mobilising valuable external support or by dividing their domestic opposition. However, the ambitious but inept Gyanendra has few friends left in the world or at home.

Much like President Musharraf in Pakistan, Gyanendra was betting that the Bush administration might separate itself from New Delhi and back him in the presumed fight between Palace and Maoists. The Bush administration, however, is also for promoting democracy. Unlike Musharraf, Gyanendra is not in a position to tilt the scales in Washington in favour of the status quo by citing the great war on terror. Further, the Bush administration appears to have taken a political decision to follow the Indian lead in Nepal.

Gyanendra has also sought to play the China card. Beijing, which initially played along in the hope of expanding long-term strategic influence in Nepal, now seem to be having second thoughts. When Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan was in Nepal in March, he found time to interact with opposition political leaders. This in spite of Tang visiting the kingdom as a state guest.

Meanwhile, domestic backing for Gyanendra has long evaporated. As he sought to dominate Nepal, Gyanendra was faced with two opponents — the political parties who wanted restoration of constitutional rule and Maoists who demanded abolition of the monarchy. By trying to divide the political parties and playing the fool with the Maoists, Gyanendra achieved the impossible of getting both opponents together on one platform.

Even the most elementary survival strategy on the part of the Palace demanded peace with one of the opponents. As he shunned repeated advice from India that he make up with the political parties and strengthen his hands vis a vis the Maoists, Delhi played a part in bringing the other two elements in Nepal’s power struggle together.

Gyanendra’s crackdown is yet another reminder that India should not labour under any illusions about Gyanendra’s ability to follow either his own enlightened self-interest or that of Nepal as a whole. Yet, New Delhi seems paralysed in taking the next steps on dealing with the Nepal crisis. Forget for a moment the talk of big bully India intervening in Nepal’s internal affairs. It is Gyanendra who is mobilising different groups within India to keep Delhi’s decision-making on Nepal off balance. Despite Brajesh Mishra’s warning that Gyanendra is digging the grave of the monarchy in Nepal, the RSS and VHP continue to fawn upon the only Hindu king in the world.

If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi have criticised the communist parties for “communalising” India’s foreign policy on Iran, they should be giving no quarter to the Hindutva crowd on Nepal. In India, the BJP is only part of the problem. The Palace in Nepal retains enduring political links to India’s own princes and thakurs, some of whom have considerable clout in the Congress Party. Above all, the Ministry of Defence and the Army have been among the strongest opponents to any policy that antagonises King Gyanendra. Both cite concerns about the need to keep the Royal Nepal Army in good humour and keep in mind the reality of Nepali Gorkhas serving in the Indian Army. There are others who point to the Maoist threat to India.
None of these reasons justify India’s masterly inactivity on Nepal. While questions remain about the sincerity of the Maoists in joining the national mainstream, for the moment the target of India’s policy energy must be the king.

By his reckless actions, he has made himself the main problem in Nepal. An Indian failure to put Gyanendra immediately on notice would have a number of dangerous consequences. In the last few years, much of the world, including the United States and the European Union have waited for India to take the lead on Nepal and agreed to coordinate their policies with those of New Delhi. If India holds back, other powers would soon begin to act on their own.

If India does not act immediately, the ground situation — worsening by the day — would compel India to consider more drastic remedies in the future. That could include military intervention to prevent state failure in Nepal. New Delhi continues to hope that Gyanendra would come up with a new political initiative, which could come as soon as Friday. If the king, however, makes a half-cocked move, the temptation to postpone hard decisions would be irresistible. Resisting that temptation, India should make its bottomline clear. Restoration of parliament, formation of a national government, peace talks with the Maoists, and a schedule for elections to a new Constituent Assembly that would write a new political future for Nepal.

If Gyanendra falls short of that framework, India should be prepared to impose new sanctions against the king. India rightly recognises that any such sanctions should not hurt the ordinary people in Nepal. But it is entirely possible for India to move quickly towards a comprehensive arms embargo and a set of “smart sanctions” targetting the key functionaries of the regime — especially their assets abroad and their right to travel. If Gyanendra comes to terms with reality, a purely ceremonial monarchy might yet have a place in Nepal’s future. If he can’t, India must be prepared for a republican Nepal.

Principles of Red partisan warfare

2006-04-10T20:55:00.000+05:00

While reading the praiseworthy book of Edger Snow, Red Star Over China (1936), I made some notes on the interview of the author with P’eng Teh-huai, Commander of the First Front of the Red Army. At the time of interview, the First Front Army was known for its unique tactics, bravery, consistence, and uninterrupted record of success. It was believed at that time that the news of a combat with the First Front would be enough to dishearten the troops of the enemy.

Composition of Red Army:

38% Agrarian Working Class
58% Peasantry
4% Petty-bourgeoisie

50% of the troops were members of the Communist Party or Communist Youth League.

Literacy: 60-70%
One-third of Army was composed of former Kuomintang soldiers.

“Tactics are important, but we could not exist if the majority of people did not support us. We are nothing but first of the people beating their oppressors” – P’eng

Principles of Red partisan warfare:

1. Must not fight any losing battles.

2. Surprise is the main offensive tactic. Avoid static warfare.

3. Work out the plan of attack and especially the plan of retreat.

4. Greatest attention to min-t’uan, the first, last and most determined line of resistance of the enemy. If possible, min-t’uan must be won over politically.

5. In regular engagements partisan must exceed enemy in number.

6. Partisan line must have the greatest elasticity, even in combat.

7. Master tactics of distraction, decoy, diversion, ambush, feint, and irritation.

8. Concentrate on the weakest link, or the most vital one, of the enemy. Avoid engagements with the main army.

9. Precaution must be taken to prevent the enemy from locking the partisan’s main army.

10. Encourage help of peasants to secure intelligence.

Fight the Net

2006-04-07T13:59:00.000+05:00

As a follow-up to my last post, I am presenting another article that unveils the US plans to wage a war against the progressive elements on the cyber space.

US Plans to 'Fight the Net' Revealed

by Adam Brookes

January 29, 2006
BBC

A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US
military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological
operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.

Bloggers beware.

As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the
military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies
and the modern media offer.

From influencing public opinion through new media to
designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is
learning to fight an electronic war.

The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap".
It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington
University using the Freedom of Information Act.

Read the rest of the article here.

Thought Control

2006-04-04T13:39:00.000+05:00

Attached to this post is an article by Ghali Hassan about the disinformation campaign in the present US-backed 'War on Terror'. I would recommend those who are interested in this subject to read about 'propaganda model' presented by Naom Chomskey. I might write a post about that soon.

Recently, the British government allowed access to the 'Hayward's Report' that contained an inquiry conducted in regard with the treatment of prisoners at Bad Nenndorf during the WW II. The detailed report is present at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/4761

"The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the minf of the oppressed" - Stephen Biko

Thought Control

By Ghali Hassan

03 April, 2006Countercurrents.org

Like all imperialist forces, the US is heavily relaying on misinformation propaganda campaign to promote and enhance its imperialist ideology. Violence and war crimes against defenceless civilians are depicted as Âfighting the enemyÂ. The mass murder of Iraqi civilians by US forces is normalised and welcomed with deafening silence. The purpose is thought control, or as it is called Âperception managementÂ designed to enhance US images. The campaign is part of a wider Western strategy to mislead the public, remove historical memory and justify more wars.
According to George Orwell, newspeak is a form of propaganda to cover up criminal actions, especially killing people unjustly and deliberately, with a veneer of justification and reason. In Iraq, the occupying forces are increasingly covering the truth with lies and deception, blame the Iraqi people for the violence they have inflicted on them, and to remove the Occupation as the generator of violence.

The three-year US Occupation of Iraq is becoming increasingly violent and the occupying forces are killing Iraqi civilians with impunity while encouraging Iraqis to fight each other. The atrocity is aided by massive Western propaganda campaign to demonise Iraqis and portray not only Iraqis but also Muslims in general as fanatic and violent. This includes: 1) the Occupation is a benign Âpeace missionÂ and necessary Âto preventÂ civil war; 2) Iraq is a Âbreeding ground for terroristsÂÂ as if the illegal invasion and Occupation of Iraq are not the greatest acts of terrorism; and 3) Iraqis are responsible for what is happening to them. Each of the three is a falsehood Western elites (Left and Right) have adopted these falsehoods to justify their attacks on the Iraqi people and to jump on the misinformation propaganda of Occupation bandwagon.
A recent secret Pentagon ÂroadmapÂ on war propaganda, personally approved by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for the total control of information before they become available to the American public. The aim is to pacify and remove the public influence on foreign policies. Furthermore, the US continues the practice of paying journalists, including Iraqis, to plant stories in the Iraqi news media in favour of the brutal Occupation. The purpose is thought control, or as it is called Âperception managementÂ, designed to enhance US images, including military image.

On the morning of 19 November 2005, US troops deliberately massacred 15 Iraqi civilians, including seven women, three children and four students in the town of Haditha, northwest of Baghdad. The US army alleged that the dead civilians were ÂinsurgentsÂ. However, eyewitness testimonies and news reports from the area contradict the US allegations. Credible reports supported by local witnesses show that the US Marines were acting in revenge after they were attacked by the Iraqi Resistance. Indeed, the Marines executed Iraqi civilians while they were sleeping, as Aparisim Ghosh of the Time magazine reported. Victims in the town told the Time that Âthe Marines came in and they killed everybody insideÂ. An eyewitness Khaled Ahmed Rsayef whose brother was among the dead told the Time: ÂIt was a [premeditated] massacre in every sense of the wordÂ. The other eyewitness is 9-year-old Eman Walid. She told the Time: ÂFirst, they went into my fatherÂs room, where he was reading the Koran, and we heard shots. Then, the soldiers came back into the living room. I couldnÂt see their faces very well--only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my grannyÂ. The Time also reported that there were no signs of Iraqi Resistance fighters around the scene of the massacre in which four houses were destroyed. The massacre was videotaped by a Haditha journalism student and handed to Hammurabi Human Rights group. The cowardice attack destroyed four families and left a girl and her young brother terrorised and traumatised forever.

On March 15 2006, US forces raided a house in Isahaqi, near the town of Balad about 60 miles north of Baghdad. According to Iraqi Police, and eyewitnesses on the ground, US troops gathered 11 people into a single room and executed them, before destroying the house as they left the area. The initial Iraqi Police report said: ÂAmerican forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Isahaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including five children, four women and two men, [and] then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animalsÂ. According to Mathew Schofield of Knight Ridder news; ÂThe Iraqi police identified the dead as ranging in age from 6 months to 75 [years old]. Iraqi police said that the five children, four women and two men were found together in the wreckage of the houseÂ all with gunshot to the head. The bodies were found handcuffed and lined up under the rubble.

The Army Times reported on 15 March 2006 that Riyadh Majid, the nephew of the killed head of the family Â Faez Khalaf Â told AP at the hospital that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday. KhalafÂs brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitorsÂ. The killed family was not part of the Resistance, they were women and children,Â Ahmed Khalaf said. ÂThe Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only deathÂ, he added.

On Sunday night 26 March 2006, US forces and their Iraqi collaborators attacked Al-Mustapha Mosque in the Ur neighbourhood in east Baghdad and deliberately killed 37 unarmed worshipers including the 80-years old Imam in charge of the Mosque. Eyewitnesses on the scene observed US soldiers entering the Mosque unprovoked and started shooting at random. A video-tape showed several civilians bodies and spent 5.56 mm shell casings ammunition, the type used by the US soldiers. ÂItÂs an organized crime with serious political and security implications. It aims to incite a civil war ... To kill such a great number of the faithful of the family of the Prophet after handcuffing and torturing them is indefensible. It's an attack on the dignity of Iraqis that strips away any credibility from the slogans of freedom, democracy and pluralism flaunted by the American administrationÂ, reported the French daily, Le Figaro quoting an Iraqi communiquÃ©. ÂThey went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded. [The victims] were unarmedÂ, added the Guardian of London on 28 March 2006. Indeed, the puppet government justifiably accusing US forces of committing the massacre, and the Baghdad Âprovincial governorÂ has suspended all cooperation with US forces.
Consistent with the US policy of dehumanising and identifying all Iraqis as the ÂenemyÂ, US forces aided by the BBC Â the mother of all deceptions Â and US mass media have falsely and deliberately portrayed the victims of being ÂinsurgentsÂ and ÂterroristsÂ, and gave contradictory accounts of the massacre. But careful examination of these acts suggests deliberate acts of state terrorism to promote US interests.

As it has always been, the US fabricated ÂterrorismÂ Â disguised as ÂlibertyÂ and ÂdemocracyÂ Â to keep the public engulfed with fear and justify a violent imperialist ideology. The atrocities are purposely masked with lies and distortion in order to put the blame on the so-called ÂIraqi forcesÂ and clear the Occupation from any wrongdoing. These criminal acts are part of the Bush-Blair larger messianic mission of ultra-violence and conquest propagated as Western common values.

Leading the misinformation propaganda campaign is President George W. Bush. In his news conference at the White House on 21 March 2006, Bush said: ÂIt's -- confidence amongst the Iraqis is what is going to be a vital part of achieving a victoryÂ, he said, Âwhich will then enable the American people to understand that victory is possible. In other words, the American people will -- their opinions, I suspect, will be affected by what they see on their TV screensÂ.
On the invited list Â for the first time in three years Â was veteran correspondent Helen Thomas. It was a pre-arranged propaganda coup to justify the illegal and war against the Iraqi people. The question and the answers were well-prepared and designed to manipulate public opinion. Bush was fluent, and Helen Thomas had very little to say except ask the one question. It was what Bush wants to say after three years of a criminal occupation proceeded by an illegal act of aggression. Bush mentioned Tel Afar as a ÂmodelÂ of AmericaÂs ÂsuccessÂ in Iraq. Like Fallujah, Tel Afar is a destroyed city. The majority of its population are ethnically cleansed refugees and the rest is imprisoned in a concentration camp patrolled by US forces and their ÂOccupation dogsÂ. Tel Afar is another model of US criminal atrocity. The aim is Â like always Â to feed a rosy picture of the Occupation to the American public and the rest of the world.
The BushÂs line of distortion was repeated in Australia by Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Blair. John Howard used no other media outlet than the ABC to tell Australians that; in Iraq, ÂI don't think things can be said to be getting worse. I think they can be said to be getting betterÂ. Tony Blair used the Australian Parliament House to promote a relic colonial ideology of changing peoplesÂ culture and assimilate them into the Anglo-American culture through arms conquest and ultra-violence. ÂThe last time we heard talk like this was from a former army corporal in Germany speaking about the values of the Aryan raceÂ, writes author Jeff Archer of MalcomLagauche.com. Three years ago Tony Blair told the biggest lie of the century that Iraq could launch an attack on Britain using chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes.
We know now that the Iraqi people had no chemical or biological weapons and Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack, as clearly stated by George W. Bush. The entire nation of once prosperous Iraq has been destroyed. City after city have been indiscriminately attacked with real WMDs, including napalm, phosphorus and ÂDepleted Uranium in a deliberate act of aggression designed to inflict as much harm as possible on the Iraqi civilian population.
All the destruction and bloodshed is the result of a decision agreed upon by the three Anglo-American demagogues, and aided by an offensive misinformation propaganda campaign promoted by the mass media to justify war crimes on massive scale. BlairÂs Âbattle for modernityÂ is a pretext for attacking Islam, which is identified in the West today as ÂIslamismÂ. For the three Anglo-American demagogues, ÂIslamismÂ writes, Professor Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University in New York; Âis a US-sponsored propaganda gadget manufactured to generate and sustain an illusory enemy to justify warmongering and global dominationÂ. In other words, a diet of distortion, fear and racism is feed to the public in order to provide justification for violent ideology.

The war which the three demagogues continue to promote is responsible for the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children. It is responsible for the illegal mass arrest, imprisonment, torture, abuse and murder of thousands of innocents Iraqi men, women and children. The ÂdemocracyÂ and ÂfreedomÂ that the three demagogues claim to be spreading around the world is the mask of war and ultra-violence. The three demagogues have one thing in common; to continue the current violence against the Iraqi people.
In todayÂs Iraq, a large percentage of Iraqis live in abject poverty. Iraqi families now get less food than before the invasion and during the 13-years long genocidal sanctions. And as a result of this murderous Occupation, essential items have gone missing from the food ration card which was the brainchild of Saddam regime. Prices of staples like rice, sugar, flour and vegetable ghee are soaring. Unemployment is as high as 70 per cent. Iraqis without income find it extremely hard to make ends meet. Electricity and drinking-water supplies are at their lowest levels. The healthcare services are in state of near collapse, and more than 400,000 children are malnourished. Acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and 5 years has increased from 4 percent before the invasion to 7.7 per cent since the US invasion. Basic human rights for Iraqi women have disappeared as a result of an Imperialist and backward US-crafted constitution. Life in US-occupied Iraq is far worse than at any time in the past. Every day since the invasion, Iraqi lives have gotten progressively worse, not better, as the Australian demagogue alleged.

The situation is accurately put by an Iraqi recently. He writes: ÂThree years have passed and Iraq has been destroyed as a state and as a nation. Its natural resources have been plundered [with billions of dollars that could otherwise have been spent on rebuilding Iraq have been looted], its civilisation and cultural heritage looted, its religious heritage desecrated, its people raped, tortured, drilled, murdered and even melted. Cynicism nowadays refuses the call for an immediate and complete withdrawal of occupation forces for fear of Âcivil warÂ, which has been the aim of the US Administration to justify ongoing Occupation.
Furthermore, as Iraqis are increasingly demanding the end to the Occupation, US warmongers are now openly and unashamedly advocating Âcivil warÂ in Iraq. While all the fabricated pretexts to occupy Iraq have expired, the US continues to divide Iraqis and promote civil war in order to destroy of what left in Iraq. One of George W. Bush closest advisors, the Islamophobic Zionist Daniel Pipes said recently: ÂI donÂt think from the point of view of the coalition it is necessarily that bad for our interests... In the first place, there would be fewer attacks on our forces in Iraq as they fight each other Â More broadly outside Iraq, there would be fewer attacks on us as the Shiites and the Sunnis attack each otherÂ. In other words, civil war is good for West and should be encouraged. Only the Nazis were known to have promoted such criminal ideology in the past.

Without the current divisions, it would have been impossible for the US and its vassals to occupy Iraq for three years. The US created, trained, armed and financed the sectarian and ethnic-based militia groups and death squads proved to be useful imperialist tool. It is part of the Âunconventional warfareÂ waged by the Bush Administration against the Iraqi population. The aims are: 1) to foment civil strife and encourage fratricidal killings among Iraqis; 2) terrorise the Iraqi population and subjugate them to US diktats; 3) shield the occupying forces from any attack; and 4) divert public attention from the crimes of the occupying forces. Having failed to ignite an all-out civil war in Iraq, the US is no turning one militia group against another. The militia have been very useful tools. Indeed, US crimes become so obvious that the puppet government demanded that the occupying US forces withdraw from the cities and hand overall security to the Iraqis.

One should not be mislead by the Bush rhetoric of Iraq is a Âmodel for democracyÂ. As Iraqis are demanding that the puppet government form a government and shows some independence, the Bush Administration interfered. The Bush Administration is opposed to the nomination of Ibrahim al-Jaafari as Âprime ministerÂ for a second term despite that al-JaafariÂs Iraqi United Alliance (IUA) won the majority of seats. The US is using al-Jaafari Â an imported stooge Â as a scapegoat to break the Alliance, and prevent the emergence of majority government. By blocking national unity among Iraqis, the US is playing one faction against another. Muqtada al-Sadr Â who the US has sought to assassinate Â was clever enough not to buy into the US agenda and continue to work with all Iraqis to create a national unity government.

US colonial proconsul in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad is on record warning Iraqis that; Âyou canÂt be in the government if you are against the OccupationÂ. His target is Muqtada al-Sadr who is demanding unity and an end to the Occupation. The Bush Administration aim is a divided and sectarian government under its control; a US-appointed subordinate government with Allawi doing photo opportunities for the Occupation. The hypocrisy is so flagrant that most Iraqis now associate Western ÂdemocracyÂ with violence and corruption. Of course, all this meddling and interference in Iraqi affairs is part of Bush-Blair agenda. The reality is that the US is promoting divisions, ongoing bloodshed, torture chambers and colonial dictatorship to serve its imperialist interests. The unjust rejection by the US and its allies of recent HAMASÂ success in the Palestinian elections is another example of the West promotion of fraudulent democracy.

The US did not invade and destroyed Iraq for the sake of ÂdemocracyÂ and ÂfreedomÂ. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq is part of the US imperialist-Zionist ideology. The current US campaign is to divide Iraqis and prevent an Iraqi government of unity at all coast. As it is the case, there has been no government in Iraq since the invasion and the promotion of Âcivil warÂ has increased markedly.

The US-groomed puppet government is a propaganda tool. It is a faÃ§ade designed to legitimise ongoing Occupation and cover up its associated crimes. It has no power and is unable to provide Iraqis with the minimum services required, let alone security. There is no national sovereignty under foreign occupation. Hence, the Iraqi people are struggling to free themselves from the Anglo-American-orchestrated Occupation and oppression.

Three years of violent Occupation and BushÂs Âpolitical processÂ of fraudulent elections, were designed as a veneer to cover-up deliberately instigated crimes and unjustified violence. Propagating an Anglo-American version of ÂdemocracyÂ and ÂfreedomÂ to justify war crimes is like planting Anglo-American version of Âgood newsÂ in the media about a murderous Occupation. It wonÂt affect the Iraqi Resistance and determination of the Iraqi people to liberate their country from foreign Occupation. Resistance to Western terrorism is not terrorism; it is legitimate Resistance. Iraqi is not in Âcivil warÂ; the Occupation is the cause of the violence.
The vast majority of Iraqis (87-92 per cent, the Brookings Institute) is opposed to the presence of foreign forces and demanding the end of the Occupation of their country. In addition, 72 per cent of US troops want to end the Occupation and more than half (60 per cent) of US citizens Â despite and efficient and self-imposed brain-washing Â supports the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

As someone who has followed this war closely, I see nothing can justify the ultra-violent Occupation of Iraq. The Anglo-American has no right to be in Iraq. The invasion of Iraq is a war crimes and crimes against humanity. The only civilised actions are the immediate end to the Occupation, and the full withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.

Blogspot banned in Pakistan

2006-03-28T09:15:00.000+05:00

As you all know that the Pakistani govt. banned all blogs hosted on
blogspot through its internet gateway. An action group was formed by the
Pakistani bloggers to voice their concerns to the media regarding this
issue (http://groups.google.com/group/AGABBIP). As of 27th Feb, all web
logs having an address with .http://name.blogspot.com went offline in
Pakistan.An alternative to the current blogspot ban is to access you blogs
by http://www.pkblogs.com/

Dr. Awab Alvi (a blogger from Karachi) started a campaign "Dont Block the
Blog" which offers website banners to protest the ban.
(http://help-pakistan.com/main/dont-block-the-blog/)

Additionally, many bloggers have also gathered at various fronts to
protest the ban by sending group petitions to the government and raising
the issue with the media.

Support the petition

Bhagat Singh

2006-03-26T06:53:00.000+05:00

March 23rd, 2006 marked the 75th Death anniversary of one of the greatest revolutionaries of the Indian sub-continent - Comrade Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh was martyred by the British colonial government, along with Comrade Sukhdev and Comrade Rajguru, in 1931. Bhagat Singh was only 23 at that time.

When the jail official came to take Bhagat to the gallows, he was reading a book by Lenin. Bhagat asked the jail official to wait as 'one revolutionary was talking with another revolutionary'. One of the revolutionary poets of Punjab paid tribute to Bhagat Singh by saying, "indian youth have to read the next page of Lenin's book, left unread by Bhagat Singh at his death".

Please follow the following links to read more about this shining star of the communist movement of India:

Bhagat Singh Remains Our Symbol of Revolution - Harkishan Singh Surjeet
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/4637

Remembering Bhagat Singh on the 75th Anniversary of His Martyrdom - Chaman Lal
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/4633

The original Photographs and documents of Shahid Bhagat Singh and his Copatriots
http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/

Long Live Bhagat Singh!
Long Live Rajguru!
Long Live Sukhdev!

Long Live Revolution!

Cuba offers 1,000 scholarships for medical students

2006-03-11T14:54:00.000+05:00

Wednesday, February 08, 2006
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C08%5Cstory_8-2-2006_pg7_35

ISLAMABAD: Cuba has offered 1,000 scholarships to Pakistan for medical studies.

This offer was made by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque during a meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday.

The Cuban foreign minister said that his country would be ready to receive 1,000 Pakistani students by the end of the year.

The Cuban foreign minister also called on President Pervez Musharraf at Army House. Musharraf told him that Pakistan is committed to the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). “Pakistan is committed to working with other NAM members to make it a dynamic movement capable of facing the challenges of the 21st century,” Musharraf said.

The Cuban foreign minister delivered an official invitation from President Fidel Castro to Musharraf to participate in the NAM summit in Cuba in September. He underlined the desire for the expansion of bilateral relations between the two countries. The Cuban foreign minister told Aziz that his country would soon open its embassy in Islamabad. He said that the Cuban medical mission working in the quake-hit areas will train Pakistani personnel to take up the job in the earthquake-hit areas following its departure. Cuba will also donate equipment to Pakistan, he said.

He also met Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri. Both agreed that a just and equitable economic order, democratic reforms of the United Nations and “south-south cooperation” were the key issues for the forthcoming NAM summit.

They also agreed that the NAM countries should work closely at international forums to promote common positions on various issues.

CHARGESHEET AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH

2006-02-26T23:27:00.000+05:00

We the People of India and the World -

Drawing upon all the great traditions of justice, fairness and plain
decency evolved in the course of human history;

Upholding the right to life and its perpetuation in all its forms
everywhere;

Resisting with all our might the ongoing assault on human rights,
values and liberties by the forces of capital, racism and authoritarianism;
and

Affirming the overwhelming need for a global uprising against the
relentless march of US militarism across Planet Earth;

Hereby charge George W. Bush, the US Government he represents and all
its allies around the world with the following (among countless others)
crimes against humanity -:

- Attempting to restore the era of Western colonial rule over the world
through devastating violence and systematic looting of resources of
weaker nations;

- Violating and indeed summarily rejecting all known international laws
governing relations between countries of the world;

- Planning, preparing, and waging the supreme crime of a war of
aggression in contravention of the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg
Principles.

- Murdering in cold blood over 200,000 citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan
in the first phase of this project of global recolonisation;

- Targeting civilian populations through indiscriminate use of
violence, systematic destruction of infrastructure and collective punishment of
cities and towns;

- Using illegal weapons including napalm, depleted uranium, cluster and
white phosphorus bombs against both civilian and combatants in
violation of the Geneva Conventions;

- Using deadly violence against peaceful protestors in the occupied
countries;

- Subjecting Iraqi and Afghani soldiers and civilians to torture and
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;

- Obstructing the right to information, in particular through
assassination of journalists and deliberate military targeting of media
facilities;

- Willfully devastating the environment, including through use of
radioactive material with potential to harm all life forms for centuries to
come;

- Planning the use of nuclear weapons against adversaries such as Iran
in the near future;

- Bribing or bullying developing country governments, such as in India,
to become partners in its global crimes;

- Emerging as the greatest threat to global peace, security and human
well being since the advent of the Nazism under Adolf Hitler.

We solemnly pledge that we will not forget, forgive or rest till we
bring the perpetrators of these enormous crimes to justice no matter how
long it takes or what efforts it calls for.

Wikipedia: gagging the encyclopedia?

2006-02-22T18:17:00.000+05:00

Juventud Rebelde
February 16, 2006

Wikipedia: gagging the encyclopedia?

A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs390.html

It came about as an open-content project for worldwide netsurfers,
this website's content is being targeted now by those trying to
'dress up' the image of US politicians or hush-up differing opinions.

In a partially-undercover operation worthy of the terrible
disinformation campaigns waged by Nazi Germany's Minister of
Instruction and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, the U.S. Congress visited
the Internet and modified the public biographies of a dozen senators
that were published in the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia
(www.wikipedia.org).

A free multilingual encyclopedia based on the wiki system, the site
is written and rewritten collaboratively by volunteers from all over
the world, and its articles can be changed and replaced with new
content by anyone who so wishes.

The project began on January 15, 2001 as a complement to the
expert-written Nupedia and presently has more than 3,210,000
articles, including more than 945 000 in the English-language
version, and as of January 2006 it reached a number of 857,000
registered users.

This is the first time, however, that the U.S. government has been
found to be intentionally modifying the site's content to 'embellish'
its senators' biographies by trimming any 'dark angles' or
controversial elements from their past.

Wikipedia reported that Capitol Building-based computers deleted
facts from articles about senators, while other entries were
'vandalized'.

In fact, the scandal spread after some senators admitted to have
'polished' their own biographies, such as Massachusetts Democrat
Marty Meehan, whose confession gave rise to an investigation that has
brought to light similar actions by other American politicians.

ANY CONTENT

Wikipedia is a user-designed Internet site in which visitors can make
entries and edit any page. As a result, it has become a kind of
online reference website where readers can find almost any
information.

Furthermore, users can also edit words within the same article both
to add to their meaning and enrich each entry with new knowledge, so
its information at times exceeds that of other traditional
encyclopedias, either digital or in paper.

On the other hand, since it can be reviewed and enhanced free of
charge, many use it as a daily consultation tool mainly preferred by
students, who gain new knowledge and contribute with whatever
addition they deem useful to others.

For instance, the British journal Nature recently reported to have
examined a wide range of scientific information and concluded that
articles in Wikipedia are comparable in accuracy to those in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, after finding few differences between both
reference works.

Nevertheless, Wikipedia has been repeatedly criticized for a
perceived lack of reliability regarding its information, since by the
nature of its openness some people have introduced inaccuracies or
distorted its contents.

Consequently, Wikipedia was recently forced to request users to
register their generals before they proceed to modify anything so
that readers can be able to know who provided any new text.

'INACCURACIES' AND VANDALISM Owing to the scandal caused by the U.S.
senators who tampered with the online encyclopedia, site-manager
Wikimedia Foundation decided to take a look at previous edition works
made to Wikipedia, and to that end its investigators got the Senate's
computer protocol numbers and thus found out some changes made to
pages online.

According to the website, a dozen biographies of outstanding figures
were modified from Senate-based computers, including that of
Minnesota senator Norm Coleman.

Coleman's own office has already confirmed that its staff has made
some changes to their Internet files. Where it had been described as
a 'liberal' university student, it now says 'activist". Also deleted
was data saying that Coleman had voted for Bush 98% of the time in
2003, when a year before he had campaigned as a 'moderate'.

Coleman's chief of staff Erich Mische said such editing was made to
correct some inaccuracies and delete facts that failed to correctly
portray the politician.

But Wikipedia claims this is just a part of the problem, for there
have been cases of true information 'vandalism', namely in the case
of president George W. Bush's biography, now impossible to be edited
after being altered countless times by supporters and critics alike
as well as acceded to from the U.S. Congress.

ELIMINATING DISSENTING THOUGHTS

Much deeper interests than those of the Empire's makeup artists lie
behind the controversy surrounding these changes to Wikipedia
articles, as proven by pressures exerted on this website to prevent
its content from being modified by netsurfers.

The ultimate goal is to eliminate any thoughts dissenting from
hegemonic ideas disseminated by 'official' encyclopedias, because
Wikipedia has become a bulwark of all kinds of viewpoints, if leftist
ones for the most part.

In addition to how questionable some of the online encyclopedia's
content may be, the truth is no one doubts it has become an essential
reference tool, to the extreme that many prefer it over Encarta or
the abovementioned Encyclopedia Britannica, notwithstanding their
share of mistakes, some accidental. others not.

http://www.jrebelde.cu/secciones/informatica/html/wikipedia.HTML

The Forgery of the 'Lenin Testament'

2006-02-01T12:28:00.000+05:00

V.A. Sakharov
Candidate of Historical Sciences

Below we publish an analysis of documents which are said to have been written or dictated by V.I. Lenin before he died and which were critical of J.V. Stalin. The following article was first published in the newspaper 'Molniya', organ of the Trudovaya Rossiya mass movement, translated by Michael Lucas and published in the collection of articles 'The Lie of the 'Lenin Testament' (Toronto, 1997). The article is prefaced by extracts from 'Letter to the Congress', which has been stated to have been dictated by Lenin. V.A. Sakharov raises the question of the authorship of this and related documents.

Read the complete article.

Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union

2006-02-01T12:24:00.000+05:00

From Hitler to Hearst, from Conquest to Solzhenitsyn: the history of the millions of people who allegedly were incarcerated and died in the labour camps of the Soviet Union and as a result of starvation during Stalin's time.
Speech by Mario Sousa, KPML (r) Sweden
Translated and presented to the Stalin Society by Ella Rule March 1999.

In this world we live in, who can avoid hearing the terrible stories of suspected death and murders in the gulag labour camps of the Soviet Union? Who can avoid the stories of the millions who starved to death and the millions of oppositionists executed in the Soviet Union during Stalin's time? In the capitalist world these stories are repeated over and over again in books, newspapers, on the radio and television, and in films, and the mythical numbers of millions of victims of socialism have increased by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years.
But where in fact do these stories, and these figures, come from? Who is behind all this?

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov's Notes) - V. I. Lenin

2006-01-20T09:12:00.000+05:00

I have lately been glancing through Sukhanov's notes on the revolution. What strikes one most is the pedantry of all our petty-bourgeois Democrats and of all heroes of the Second International. Apart from the fact that they are all extremely fainthearted, that when it comes to the minutest deviation from the German model [of Socialism] even the best of them fortified themselves with reservations — apart from this characteristic, which is common to all petty-bourgeois Democrats and has been abundantly manifested by them throughout the revolution, what strikes one is their slavish imitation of the past.

They all call themselves Marxists, but their conception of Marxism is impossibly pedantic. They have completely failed to understand what is decisive in Marxism, namely, its revolutionary dialectics. They have even absolutely failed to understand Marx's plain statements that in times of revolution the utmost flexibility is demanded,[A] and have even failed to notice, for instance, the statements Marx made in his letters — I think it was in 1856 — expressing the hope of combining the peasant war in Germany, which might create a revolutionary situation, with the working-class movement[B] — they avoid even this plain statement and walk around and about it like a cat around a bowl of hot porridge.

To read the rest of the article, click HERE.

US Bombing of Pakistani Villages

2006-01-18T17:51:00.000+05:00

CMKP Condemns US Bombing of Pakistani VillagesIn a flagrant display of imperial arrogance the US army has openlyviolated the sovereignty of Pakistan by bombing Pakistani villagestwice in the last week. The Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party condemnsthese brutal acts and extends its heartfelt condolences to thefamilies of the innocent people who were murdered by these brutalattacks. The incredibly mild and weak objections raised by thegovernment to this clear violation of our national sovereigntyreveals to the people the utter spinelessness of the illegitimatemilitary dictatorship imposed by imperialism on the people ofPakistan. Right-wing parties, the former fiercest allies ofimperialism, have acted as great pressure valves in order only toallow people to let off steam. They have always acted as a loyalopposition to the military regime. The people need real change.

Real change can come about only with the recognition that this act ofviolation of the national sovereignty of our country is a product ofthe imperialist war system. Therefore, the only way the people cancreate meaningful national sovereignty is by opposing the imperialistsystem that in turn is a product of the monopoly stage of capitalism.Communists are the only political force in the last century to haveconsistently opposed imperialism and won significant victories. Thisis because only communists recognize the intricate connection betweenthe class system and the system of imperialist war. Whether we lookat Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, or China, societies that have successfullychallenged imperialism and liberated themselves have done so onlyunder the leadership of scientific socialism and Marxist-Leninistparties.

We appeal to the people of Pakistan to channel their anger into theformation of an organized progressive anti-imperialist liberationmovement. That is the only way forward towards real and meaningfulchange.

Balochistan on fire

2006-01-17T18:49:00.000+05:00

Balochistan is once again going through an intense civil war as Baloch population is fighting for their rights against pro-Punjab Pakistan government. We damand the right of self-determinaton of Baloch nation including succession.

Down with national oppression!!!

For more information, please follow following links:

Marxism and National Question - J. V. Stalin
Gwader and China angle
Communists and Baloch Nationalism
Balochvoice.com

Cuba to the rescue

2006-01-16T01:32:00.000+05:00

I am posting an article that was written by Kamila Hyat for the DAWN Magazine and was published by them on January 15, 2006. My remarks are present in brackets.

Visitors from across the divide

AT present, some 900 Cuban medical personnel, including over 500 doctors and 400 paramedics, continue to offer their services to quake victims in Azad Kashmir and affected areas of the North West Frontier Province. The Cubans, known around the world for their expertise in emergency situations and in trauma care, had volunteered 500 doctors within hours of the October 8 quake. The offer from Havana, according to reports from Islamabad, created something akin to panic in the corridors of decision-making, and Pakistan eventually agreed to accept only 200. The number was raised to 500 several weeks later, as the true scale of the crisis became known, and President Pervez Musharraf held a 30-minute telephonic conversation with President Fidel Castro, who was apparently able to persuade him to accept the Cuban medics.

[Henry Reeve Interanational Madical Contingent is a brigade of doctors ready to participate in relief work of humanitarian crises. Moreover, Cuban doctors are serving in more than 67 countries around the globe.]

While the work of the Cuban teams, who swiftly established field hospitals after arriving, has been widely praised by the locals, the presence of the 900-plus Cubans has also exposed the extent to which communism still strikes terror in the heart of the State. The Cubans, whose presence on the ground was reportedly opposed by Washington, have in many cases been closely monitored by literally dozens of intelligence operatives. Some report being closely scrutinized almost round the clock by personnel, who apparently feared they could incite a revolution despite their difficulties in communicating with the locals.

[These doctors, in their true professional spirit, said that they are in Pakistan to serve the earth-quake victims and have no political motives.]

In places, such as Balakot, where interaction between English-speaking locals and volunteers, and the Cubans, apparently increased after the frenetic initial days of the quake, the Cubans were in some cases forced by authorities to pack their camps and move to more remote, mountain areas, where, perhaps, it was thought there was less potential for an exchange of views.

The almost farcical situation reflects the plight of a State which is well aware that it has done little for its people, and terrified at the prospect that they may become more conscious of this through dialogue with the citizens of a State that has done a great deal more.

While Cuba’s healthcare system has suffered in recent years from resource shortages, it remains the envy of the developing world. Even developed countries such as Britain have studied the system as part of attempts to improve their own. With 5.3 doctors available per every 1,000 people — compared to 2.7 per 1,000 in the US — Cuba’s health statistics, especially in preventing diseases, rank as some of the best on the globe. Its literacy rate of 96 per cent is only one point lower than that of the US. The infant mortality rate, at seven per 1,000 births, is equal to that of the US, while on all other health indicators, Cuba finishes either ahead of the US or equal to it. This is no mean achievement for a country that has for decades faced harsh economic sanctions from the US and its allies.

[Some inaccuracies in the data: infant mortality rate in Cuba is 5 per children, even lesser than that of USA; there is one doctor for every 177 people; the literacy rate, I will have to check, is also higher than 96 percent.]

Crucially, 50 per cent of the Cuban medics in Pakistan are women, and as such have been able to offer treatment to female patients in a society where traditionally male doctors do not attend to women. Local people have described the Cubans as being sympathetic, good humoured, extremely efficient and willing to work in the most arduous conditions. In some places, such as the village of Danna, 40km from Muzaffarabad, the 50 or so Cubans running a field hospital gained quite a fan following amongst the people they treated.

[There are very interesting news from the earth-quake hit areas. Many people are naming their babies on the name of the Cuban doctor who helped in delivery of the baby. More interestingly, one baby was named 'Cuba']

The young NGO volunteers who have interacted with Cubans have also found the experience eye-opening, in more ways than one. Some of the young Cuban doctors have quite openly been dismayed at the conditions of life for ordinary Pakistani people — the lack of proper housing, sanitation, healthcare or schooling — even in ordinary times. In turn, the accounts given by the Cubans regarding services available in their country has forced Pakistanis to think longer and deeper as to why similar facilities are not available to them, given the fact that the tiny Caribbean island of Cuba is by no means a rich country.

It is as such no surprise that the State of Pakistan is anxious to prevent this information being disseminated, and has as such made every possible effort to restrict contact between the Cuban visitors and those they have come to assist in a time of crisis.

[UNICEF's director of operations in Pakistan, Indiana Gonzalez Mairena, told the Cuban newspaper Vanguardia, "I recognize this as valuable humanitarian aid which we would not expect from other countries possessing much more resources than Cuba. It's just a matter of will"]

History of Communist Movement in Pakistan

2006-01-14T17:37:00.000+05:00

Please visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/3971, to read an article about the history of communist movement of Pakistan.

This article was presented to Socialist Labour Party public meeting on 27/09/01.

APTUF Appeal

2006-01-14T17:22:00.000+05:00

All Pakistan Trade Union Federation

Appeal

“APTUF call upon for the cancellation of the foreign debt of Pakistan which in fiscal year 2005 rose 23 047 billion dollars (8 times more than the total of new loans and grants which have been decided by the donors conference) the servicing of the debt was up to 2716 billion dollars for the same year (4 times the amount which the United Nations regard as necessary for immediate assistance). Today, in most the earthquake affected areas, cold, hunger, lack of childcare and health facilities, diseases are taking their toll. People are dying.

That’s why the APTUF calls for the cancellation of the foreign debt of Pakistan and for an immediate stop in the servicing of that debt. All the available money, instead of being absorbed by international speculation, should now be used to help the people, to save them, to start rebuilding the destroyed areas.

That campaign we regard as an international campaign concerning all the labour movement.

We specially call upon the trade union organisations in the creditors’ countries, the members of the so-called Paris Club: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russian federation, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

In the last year only, Pakistan paid back 563 millions worth of the Paris Club loan.

We call upon you to associate with the APTUF to demand:

The cancellation of the foreign debt which is not the debt of the people of Pakistan
The immediate halt to the servicing of the debt.

To prevent the earthquake consequences from killing thousands and thousands of people, to save those who have lost their home and jobs, to rebuild the country needs a lot of money. That money exists: it is in the hands of the IMF, the World Bank and the world powers. It must go the people of Pakistan.”

Gulzar Ahmed Chaudhary

General Secretary

All Pakistan Trade Union Federation

14-N, Industrial Area, Gulberg, Lahore, Pakistan

Tel: 92-42-5755078/5755079

Fax: 92-42-6686382/6686519

Crimes of Capitalists

2006-01-10T12:30:00.000+05:00

"When capital and the ruling classes apologise for: Colonialism, the 14 hour day, Class Privilege, the 7 day working week, children in coalmines, the opium wars, the massacre of the paris commune, slavery, the spanish-american war, the boer war, starvation, apartheid, anti-union laws, the first world war, flanders, trench warfare, mustard gas, aerial bombing, the soviet intervention, the armenian genocide, chemical weapons, fascism, the great depression, hunger marches, nazism, the spanish civil war, militarism, asbestosis, radiation death, the massacre of Nanking, the second world war, belsen, dresden, hiroshima, racism, the mafia, nuclear weapons, the korean war, DDT, McCarthyism, production lines, blacklists, thalidomide, the rape of the third world, poverty, the arms race, plastic surgery, the electric chair, environmental degradation, the vietnam war, the military suppression of greece, india, malaya, indonesia, chile, el salvador, nicaragua, panama and turkey, the gulf war, trade in human body parts, malnutrition, exxon valdez, deforestation, organised crime, the heroin and cocaine trade, tuberculosis, the destruction of the ozone layer, cancer, exploitation of labour and the deaths of 50,000,000 communists and trade unionists in this century alone, then - and only then - will I consider apologising for the errors of socialism." - J. V. Stalin

The Red Flag

2006-01-10T09:46:00.000+05:00

The Red Flag - Joe Hill

The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its every fold.

Then raise the scarlet standard high!
Within its shade we'll live or die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.

It waved above out infant might,
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow
We must not change its colour now.

It well recalls the triumphs past,
It gives the hope of peace at last;
The banner bright, the symbol plain,
Of human right and human gain.

It suits today the weak and base,
Whose minds are fixed on self and place;
To cringe before the rich man's frown,
And haul the sacred emblem down.

With heads uncovered swear we all,
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeon dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be out parting hymn.

Then raise the scarlet standard high!
Within its shade we'll live or die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.

Evo Morales

2006-01-05T15:40:00.000+05:00

In Bolivia a yearning of the peoples for change has triumphed

Editorial Board of En Marcha

Central Organ of the Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE)

(December 21, 2005)

The electoral victory of Evo Morales in the last elections is a political phenomenon that one could see coming, but the final results notably surpassed the predictions and polls that said that the candidate of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) would obtain 38% of the electorate.

This victory is part of the democratic, progressive and left-wing current that is taking shape in the Latin American countries, shown in various electoral processes and in the development of the struggle of the workers and peoples fighting for change; it is the answer to three decades of structural adjustment policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and by governments submissive to U.S. policies that have notably affected the conditions of life of the Bolivians.

Morales knows how to concentrate popular feeling and he has raised a political proposal that contradicts the one defined by the United States for the region. He proposes to defend national sovereignty, to oppose endorsing the Free Trade Agreement and the presence of Yankee military bases in the continent, he promises to nationalize the oil and gas resources; he demands the political and material rights of the indigenous peoples and of the working classes; this has led him to gain the support of a people that is mobilized, as has been shown in these last years through the popular uprisings that have put an end to two anti-popular and pro-imperialist governments.

Morales has not only won due to the support of the indigenous peoples (Aymaras, Kichwas, Guaranis and others), but due to the support of sectors of the workers, miners, peasants, small traders, youths and unemployed who voted against neo-liberalism and for social change. Now he has a great commitment and an enormous responsibility towards a people that expects the new government to attend to their needs disregarded for years. Some social sectors (such as those organized in the Bolivian Trade Union Federation, COB) have set a time limit for Morales to meet certain demands and apply determined political measures. The level of mobilization of the masses will be a determining factor for the political program to be applied. But Evo Morales will also face a series of boycott actions from inside and outside the country promoted by U.S. imperialism and the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie. Certainly the oligarchy from Santa Cruz and that of other regions will persist in their plans for autonomy to break up Bolivia; and the demand to legalize the cultivation of coca will be taken as a pretext to call that country of the high plateau an emporium for drug trafficking, to justify interventionist actions.

We revolutionaries look with sympathy on this political victory gained by the workers and peoples of Bolivia, which is also a harsh blow to imperialism and the local bourgeoisie. The Bolivian people and their new government count on our solidarity and support in all those measures directed at striking a blow against the privileges of the ruling classes and at foreign domination; in all those actions that demand the sovereign right of that people to live with liberty and in equity.

Some facts about Bolivian reality

The last two decades of the application of neo-liberal policies in Bolivia have meant that, in the countryside, the number of wage workers has diminished from 73 thousand to 64 thousand. The number of households that work for themselves – basically with subsistence economies – went from 43 thousand to 447 thousand. In the cities, the so-called informal sector, composed of household units, artisans, based on family labor and not wage labor, grew from the 60% to 68% of the total working population. Thus, the number of people with work contracts fell from 40% to 32% of the total labor force.

Bolivia has very bad indices of income distribution, only exceeded – negatively – by Brazil. The richest 20% dispose of an income 30 times greater that the poorest 20%. Sixty percent of the population lives in poverty in the whole country, but that index reaches 90% in the rural areas. Official unemployment figures tripled in the last 17 years, since the monetary stabilization plans began to be applied, reaching 13.9%, while the proportion of persons in the "informal" sector – that is, those with precarious jobs – grew from 58% to 68% in 15 years. Infant mortality is 60 for every thousand live births, while the average for the continent is 28. Life expectancy at birth is 63 years, while the average for Latin America and the Caribbean is 70 years.

Two and a half million peasants have as their main instrument of labor the Egyptian plow, which is 3,000 years old. Modern technology is only utilized in the extraction of oil and gas, in telecommunications, the banks and in 10% of mining extraction and industrial production.

Detention of Com. Vijay

2006-01-03T08:52:00.000+05:00

Press Statement

Central Committee 30-12-2005
Communist Party Of India (Maoist)

Condemn the detention of Com. Vijay alias Prasad, CC member CPI (Maoist)
Demand the unconditional release immediately!!

The Chattisgarh police arrested Com. Vijay alias Prasad on 27th of December night at Raipur City (Chattisgarh state). 48 hours elapsed so far. They are denying his arrest and refusing to produce him before court. The intelligence officials of Chattisgarh are interrogating in an undisclosed location and waiting for the arrival of the notorious and nefarious Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) officials from AP.
Com. Vijay alias Prasad has a glorious history of participating in the revolutionary movement. Following the call of Com. Charu Majumdar, he jumped into Naxalbari movement leaving his bank job in West Bengal, and continued his journey till date. He went to Bihar to become part of the movement there in 70's and was arrested in 1973. He was kept in various prisons in west Bengal and Bihar till 1978. Inside the jail he led several struggles for the rights of the political prisoners. He stood steadfast for the unity of communist revolutionaries. The post-emergency movement to release the political prisoners forced the Bihar government to release him. Immediately he jumped into revolutionary movement and his efforts paved way to form CPI (ML) (Unity Organisation). Later it was metamorphosed into CPI (ML) (Party Unity) which led many heroic struggles in (the then) Central Bihar. He became the Secretary of the Central Committee of CPI (ML) (Party Unity) in 1987. When CPI (ML) (Party Unity) and CPI (ML) (PW) merged into CPI (ML) (PW) in 1998, Com. Vijay became its CC Member. He played an important role in the unity process between CPI (ML) (PW) and MCCI, which merged into CPI (Maoist) in September 2004. He became CC Member of the CPI (Maoist).
He reached Raipur a few days back before his arrest on 28th for medical treatment. The Chattisgarh police has notorious history of fake encounters. It is not even sparing ordinary tribal people. In the name of Salwa Judum it has raged 40 villages to ground, killed around 100 people, and raped women since August. The genocide is still continuing.
In this background it is but natural to suspect danger to Com. Vijay's life.
We appeal to all sections of people, human rights organizations in India and abroad to press for the immediate and unconditional release of Com. Vijay.

AZAD
Communist Party Of India (Maoist) 30-12-2005
All India Spokesperson

Two articles about Stalin

2005-12-30T21:10:00.000+05:00

Comrades,

In order to answer the allegations against the great revolutionary leader, Comrade J. V. Stalin, links of two articles are provided in this post. One of the articles is by Comrade Krupskaya, wife of Lenin, and the other one is a summary and commentary of an article by Maria Ulyanova, sister of Lenin. Both the articles are written in defense of Stalin against the groundless allegations by Trotsky, and his counter-revolutionary gang.

"The Slander Drive of Second International" by N.Krupskaya
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/3901)

"On the Relations between Lenin and Stalin" by Maria Ulyanova
(http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n1/lenstalintro.htm; also present at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/3920)

Sajjad Zaheer

2005-12-22T12:31:00.000+05:00

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/

With the partition of the Indian Sub-Continent came the arduous task
for the Communists of the region: to set up and strengthen a Communist
Party in the newly formed country Pakistan. The enormity of the task
demanded a man with multifarious talents, yet one with such dynamism that
could galvanize and lead the path to the emancipation of the
proletariat in this country. The man who set out to complete this task: Sajjad
Zaheer.

It was while studying at Oxford and London universities that the then
young Sajjad Zaheer organized a group of left-minded Indian students to
work for the national freedom struggle in 1927 and developed contacts
with the British Communist Party. He convened the founding conference of
Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) in London in 1935 and prepared
its manifesto. Coming back to India in November 1935, he started
practicing law at Allahabad High Court and was appointed secretary of the
Allahabad Congress Committee and worked in close cooperation with Nehru,
K.M. Ashraf and Z.A. Ahmed. He came into contact with the leaders of the
then underground Communist Party of India. Later he became the
Secretary of the U.P. State Committee and a Central Committee Member of the
undivided Communist Party of India. He was the chief architect of the
historic first conference of PWA in Lucknow in1936 inaugurated by
Premchand.

With such credentials to his name, it is easy to see why Sajjad
Zaheer was chosen as the first Secretary General of the Communist Party of
Pakistan when it was established among difficult conditions in 1948.
Though a small party, the CPP was well disciplined and tightly organized.
The CPP set up many frontal organizations. Amongst the most prominent
was the Progressive Writers Movement inspired by Sajjad Zaheer and Faiz
Ahmed Faiz. The party laid the foundations for the Railway Workers
Union (RWU) and the Pakistan Trade Union Federation. Similarly the
Democratic Students Front enjoyed substantial influence in the student
movement.

But continuous persecution by the pro-imperialist establishment of
Pakistan adversely affected the nascent and fragile Communist movement
forcing it underground. The so-called Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case in 1951
in which the top leadership of the CPP, including Sajjad Zaheer,
Mohammad Hussain Ata and Lenin-Prize winning poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz were all
implicated and also imprisoned, dealt a heavy blow to the Communist
movement. After his release in 1954, Sajjad Zaheer continued to lead the
left cultural movement through PWA, Indian Peoples’ Theatrical association
(IPTA) and Afro-Asian Writer’s Association in India. The PWA
influenced and galvanized writers, poets, and artists in diverse branches of
creative activity. It played a gigantic role in the literary field in
almost all the major languages of the subcontinent. It was virtually the
nursery for political activists, trade unionists, cadres of the peasant
movement students and leaders.

The Sino-Soviet split in the international communist movement in the
late 1960s also adversely affected the movement in Pakistan.
Nonetheless, in Pakistan all elements retained a comradely attitude towards each
other and continued to wage a joint struggle against their common
enemy. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, owing to the betrayal
Marxism-Leninism by the post-Stalin leadership, caused even immense confusion
and vacillation. In these circumstances those organizations that
firmly defended Marxism-Leninism decided to put aside their differences and
unite as one party. Thus, the Communist Party of Pakistan led by
Comrade Imam Ali Nazish and the Mazdoor Kissan Party (founded by Major
Ishaq) led by Ghulam Nabi Kalu committed themselves to a historic merger in
1994 to form the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party. The first chairman of
the united CMKP was Imam Ali Nazish (1994-98) followed by Comrade Sufi
Abdul Khalik Baloch (1998-present). Two splinter groups that could not
grasp the significance of this historic union parted company for
opportunist reasons or personal ambitions. Despite these tribulations the
CMKP remains steadfast to its principles of Marxist-Leninist unity.

The CMKP stands for a peoples’ democratic revolution to create the
conditions for a socialist society. The party has boldly championed the
right of nations to self-determination, fought against military
dictatorships, struggled against religious extremists, upheld the rights of
women and minorities, and championed the cause of the oppressed. We feel
that it is our historic duty to build meaningful, firm, and lasting
relations with the leftwing and communist parties of South Asia. This is
necessary not only to initiate a dialogue within the left but also to
fight against imperialism and win true national sovereignty and economic
independence. The ruling-class of India and Pakistan has perpetually
kept the region in an economically destructive state of continuous
militarization. In these circumstances, the growing cohesion of the left
across South Asia is the only real guarantee of eliminating the
possibility of war. The CMKP is working to bring about a broad-based alliance of
left-wing parties and anti-imperialist forces in Pakistan as well as
meaningful affinity with the Marxist-Leninist parties of South Asia.

Sajjad Zaheer dedicated his whole life to the communist movement and
the emancipation of the working-class. The fighting unity of all
Marxist-Leninists, the broad alliance of secular-democratic anti-imperialist
forces, and peace between the peoples of South Asia, this is the
inheritance of the Communist Party of Pakistan built and led by Sajjad
Zaheer. We salute Sajjad Zaheer whose pioneering work for the communist
movement in its formative stage in the most difficult post-partition
conditions continues to inspire the next generation of revolutionaries.

Stalin

2005-12-21T13:07:00.000+05:00

`Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help.'

This was the resolution with which Mao Zedong , on December 21, 1939, "in the distant caves of that huge China, toasted Stalin's sixtieth birthday."

Mao Tse-Tung, `Stalin, Friend of the Chinese People', Works, vol. 2, p. 335.

Imperialism

2005-12-17T00:53:00.000+05:00

(Excerpt from Hassan Nasir's article "Imperialism and Awami Jamhori Forum" presented to the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party email list. Complete text of the article is present at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/3865)

Lenin says:

"If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist combines of industrialists; and, on the other, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which
has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolistic possession of the territory of the world which has been completely divided up."

Lenin provides further clerifications:

"[A] definition of imperialism will include the following five of its basic features:
1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; 2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this "finance capital," of a financial oligarchy; 3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; 4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist combines which share the world among themselves; and 5) territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the
international trusts has begun; in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed."

Therefore, Imperialism does not mean militaristic or aggressive behaviour. That can be done by any power (feudal, capitalist, religious, or fascist). Lets be very clear on this. Imperialism is
not behaviour, or a policy, or a personal habit of this or that ruler. Imperialism is a social system that has the following five characteristics:

1) monopoly
2) domination of finance capital
3) Export of capital
4) International capitalist combines (cartels)
5) Territorial division of the world

Is India a society that has reached monopoly capitalism, where the big banks dominate, that exports capital, and has divided the world within its own capitalist combines, and engaged in the territorial division of the world. Hardly.

In fact, its quite clear that India is a country that is dominated by monopoly capitalism from US and Europe, is dominated by foreign big banks, is receiving international imperialist capital (MNC's), has been captured by capitalist combines and cartels (coke, Levi's, Pepsi, Gap), and has been territorially dominated during colonial times (British Raj).

So to characterise India as an Imperialist country is not only preposterous, in fact, it only seeks to serve the interests of the Pakistani bourgeoisie. Whosoever characterizes India as an
Imperialist country will automatically come to the conclusion that war between India and Pakistan is a "National Liberation Struggle" on the part of Pakistan and that the workers should support the Pakistani bourgeoisie against the imperialist Indian bourgeoisie. This is class capitulationism and pure opportunism. It would imply that leftist rhetoric is being utilised to support the foreign policy of the Pakistani bourgeoisie over and above the international interests of the working class.

Therefore, the view that India is an Imperialist country is entirely incorrect. The correct view is that India is a neo-colonial society. This is historically and scientifically correct.

Next was the Soviet Union an "Imperialist" country.

Again I want to come back to Lenin's definition of Imperialism. Imperialism is not aggressive behaviour. Just because the Soviet Union invaded Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1980 does not imply that the USSR was an imperialist society. Although all three invasions hurt the "nationalist" sentiment of people in those countries, but the invasions in and of themselves do not prove that the Soviet Union was a society dominated by 1. monopoly capitalism, 2. finance capital, 3. the desire to export capital 4. the USSR had divided the world among its capitalist cartels, 5) Had engaged in a colonial territorial division of the world.

Bill Bland and Martin Nichalous have made a strong case in their respective books to show that the process of the restoration of capitalism had begun in 1956 and had been tremendously accelerated in 1965, but having read their books in detail, I'm still not convinced that they have been able to conclusively prove that the Soviet Union was DOMINATED BY MONOPOLY FINANCE CAPITAL. For example, even Bill Bland and Martin Nichalous have to admit that the move to fully restore private property was begun under perestroika under the advice of Leonid Abalkin. And the complete restoration of Private Property in the USSR (which occurred with Gaider's so called "shock therapy" in 1993) required the 1991 Boris Yeltsin counter-revolution as a pre-requisite. Therefore, given that private property was only fully restored in 1993 under the shock therapy reforms of Gaider, given that these reforms could not be implemented without the complete overthrow of the rule of the communist party (which had by this time
degenerated into a completely revisionist party) which occurred in 1991 under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, how is it possible that the Soviet Union had already come to be dominated by Monopoly Capitalism, Finance Capital, Export of Capital, Cartels, and Territorial Division back in 1956 or 1965.

The answer is that it is not possible. The theory of Soviet Social Imperialism that was accepted at the 9th Congress of the Communist Party of China and also accepted by the Labour Party of Albania was a counter-revolutionary theory. The principle proponent of this theory was Lin Biao who despite his great contributions in all other respects made a serious error with respect to this particular piece of analysis. Comrade Sam Marcy has correctly stated that the theory of Soviet Social Imperialism was NOT a product not of a dispassionate scientific appraisal of the actually existing social system in the Soviet Union but a knee jerk reaction owing to the fear of a Soviet
invasion of the PRC. Furthermore, the CIA did its best to aggravate these differences by "leaking" incorrect information to the Chinese that the Soviets were preparing for a surgical strike against China's nuclear instalments. The end of the Cold War has definitively proved
that this was a piece of deliberate misinformation to worsen the Sino-Soviet split in order to weaken both the USSR and China.

Furthermore, what conclusion can we reach if we believe that the Soviet Union was indeed an imperialist system.

1) All nationalist struggles in the USSR were struggles
for "National Liberation" and should be supported.
2) All struggles for "democracy" were struggles against an
imperialist system that should be supported.

In a word, all counter-revolutionary struggles such as Sajudis in Estonia, Solidarity in Poland, Democratic Russia in Russia, the pope all over Eastern Europe were all struggles against an imperialist system. Well it later turns out that these were all struggles to restore a capitalist system. And those communists who were mislead by the slogan of Soviet Social Imperialism ended up supporting all of these struggles thereby weakening their own forces.

Conclusion, India, China, Soviet Union are not imperialist countries. USA, Britian, France, Germany, and Japan are imperialist countries (there is sufficient proof that they are dominated by monopoly finance capital etc. etc.). An imperialist country is entirely different from a socialist society that has degenerated owing to the influence of opportunism. A socialist society that has
degenerated owing to the influence of revisionism may engage in certain actions that are militaristic, chauvinist, and actions that hurt the "national sentiments" of other countries. Even this unjustified militaristic action in and of itself, however, in no way implies that that country is now an `imperialist' society.

I hope this clears up the position of the CMKP with respect to imperialism, the Soviet Union, China, India and so on.

In solidarity
Hassan Nasir

Discussion on Orkut community: "Islam Socialist Revolution"

2005-12-11T02:14:00.000+05:00

Z said, “If the USSR departs from the Marxist policy by brutal policies during the Stalinist era and afterwards as well, it is all OK...Marxism remains a valid concept!”

My reply,
This is not my double standards but your complete failure to comprehend Marxism. Marxism is beyond any single individual. ‘How did Stalin do to defend the precepts of Marxism’ is a topic for another discussion. Nonetheless, in my opinion he did a wonderful job.

Z said, “But when Islam is taken over by monarchist enemies of the people, Islamic Socialism as a concept seems to become invalid. Why?”

My reply,
The communist doctrines were abused Modern Revisionists of SU, not Stalin, for a period extending from 1953 to 1991. If my mathematics is not wrong then that is for 38 years. In case of Islam, the period of abuse was roughly 1300 years. Keeping everything else constant, Islam seems to be much more capable of ‘internal abuse’ then scientific socialism. There is no room for revisionism is Marxism, as it is brought to practical world. It is a principle of Dialectical Materialism, as formulated by Karl Marx, not Islam, that a society can not step from an advanced stage to means of production and productive relations to an ‘old’ one. The effect of the principle is not that that cannot happen, but such an attempt would result in a catastrophe, that we have seen as the economy of Russia became smaller than that of Norway as it marched into capitalism.

Z said, “Vidrohi, this clearly shows that religion is something that Marxists suspect and fear.”

My reply,
What clearly shows that? Your assertions based on incorrect logic and reason let alone true historic facts.

Z said, “a) you will never have the mass support needed to fulfill your purpose.”

My reply,
Wrong. This is never the response of people, if that is all you fear. Workers understand they are divided on religious grounds by the bourgeoisie. The proletariat appreciates messages of solidarity that is beyond the limitations of religion. Your assertion emerges from distrust towards the mental incapability of workers. Few hours among the proletariat, if at all that happens, would be enough for you revise your ‘a proiri’ principle.

Z said, “you will be following a system devised by someone like Marx who was an intellectual sitting and writing in a library in England...he was not exactly a revolutionary, was he?”

Lets see. Esmod Wright writes about Marx for the book “Great Europeans”:

“In any event he (Marx) was never-unlike Hegel- an Ivory Tower philosopher; he always sought to combine the theory with organization and action; he was always a man of two worlds, the study and the forum. By nature combative, he turned towards politics and journalism and abandoned his dream of becoming a university teacher.” (Page 366)

Wright’s article is highly critical of Marx’s personality. Yet he affirms the revolutionary character of Karl Marx.

Z said, “Marxism alone does not have enough vitality as an idea... ”

My reply,
Perhaps you, like me, have not studied Marxism thoroughly.

Z said, “Do you think that the imperialist powers of today will even allow you to carry on peacefully after your revolution?I do not think so! ”

My reply,
Just like your previous assertions, this is wrong as well. I recognize that imperialist powers of today would practice all their might to cause a counter-revolution.

Z said, “Your idea is to tell them that Marx said so-and-so, so it must be right. ”

My reply,
You have started to degenerate. This is not the scientific approach. The people once assured that their well protected by socialist regime, would provide the state all the support that it needs to fight an anti-imperialist war.

Z said, “We prove to the people that GOD commands them to bring about a socialist system. Who sounds more convincing to them? You or us? You do not understand the power of Islam as an idea... ”

My reply,
I would like to know when Lenin invoked a god to gather support from the people of SU to fight a Civil War in which six imperialist powers were directly involved. Which religion Ho Chi Minh referred to fight against two imperialist powers, France, and US successively in the Vietnam War, where thousands of Vietnamese peasants sacrificed to ensure a better future for their children. Which divine command has the Fidel Castro and his fellow Cubans followed while fighting an economic war against imperialism for the past forty years? You don’t understand the power of Marxism and proletariat…

I don’t need to answer any question, as I can say straight away, to inform you that we do not share the same platform.

Workers of all religions, Unite!

Another View of Stalin

2005-12-09T14:13:00.000+05:00

These days I am reading "Another View of Stalin" by Ludo Martins. It is a very thorough study of propoganda, emerging from the right-wing and Trotskyists, against the great leader of socialism. The rich contributions of Stalin must not be ignored, let alone misunderstood. An online copy of the above mentioned book is present at: http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/book.html."

Have a good reading!

Venezuelans vote for Congress

2005-12-05T09:01:00.000+05:00

Venezuelans vote for Congress
CARACAS (Venezuela), Dec 4: Venezuelans voted on Sunday in a congressional election with lawmakers allied to left-wing President Hugo Chavez looked set to sweep most seats after the main opposition parties boycotted the poll.

Hours before voting began, an oil pipeline in the west of the country was damaged by a small blast the government branded a sabotage attack on the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

"This is a miserable terrorist attack," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told state television.

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said the explosion at a pipeline supplying the country's huge Amuay-Cardon refinery had not affected fuel supplies or exports and that firefighters had controlled a subsequent fire and oil spill.

The damaged pipeline carried 150,000 barrels per day to the refinery, state news agency ABN said. Authorities said the explosion was caused by a home-made pipe bomb, but they stopped short of directly accusing Chavez opponents, blaming only "radical groups."

Chavez, a former army officer opposed to Washington, has accused US officials of orchestrating the boycott to trigger a political crisis. - Reuters

http://dawn.com/2005/12/05/int8.htm

---

http://reddiarypk.blogspot.com/

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Revisionism and de-Stalinization

2005-11-29T01:21:00.000+05:00

A very careful and gradual process took the process of “revisionism” forward. It was evident to the revisionists that they cannot attack socialism directly or else they would face popular opposition. So instead of attacking the idea, that would have invited hostility, they attacked the person who developed socialism in USSR. They attacked Stalin.

During the last decade or so of Stalin's life the western media, controlled and run by bourgeois-imperialist states, was vomiting every possible criticism against Stalin. “Stalin killed 50 million people in USSR”, was the slogan of the every imperialist.

The revisionists deployed a shrewd and evil tactic. Khrushchev, in his four hour long speech in 1956 in the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of SU, if I am not mistaken, accepted all the blames against Stalin. He accepted that Stalin was the “evil-doer”, getting in coherence with the western media. The repercussions of such a statement on the people can be thought of but must be researched. The people were told that it was not socialism that is bad, but it was Stalin who made it bad. The effect of the propaganda done at that time is even present today when every second newcomer in socialist struggle disowns Stalin.

Thus started the process of de-Stalinization, better known as “revisionism”. The revisionists, while taking steps against the name of Stalin, made arrangement to end socialism in the Soviet Union.

Communism collapsed in USSR

2005-11-01T14:09:00.000+05:00

This is a discussion that took place on the orkut community of CMKP.

I asked, "Don't dare to think that it is me who thinks communism collapsed in USSR."Communism collapsed in USSR", is usually the first statement that you would listen from a non-communist. Almost all of us know the frequency of this statement in the non-communist circles. I would like to know how comrades, on this community, answer this ignorant statement.I will also give my reply soon."

Asad said, "Soviet collapse does'nt mean tht communism collaps still communism in the shape of MAOISM is big problem for USA.As China is making probleems for USA and just look at North Korea.Soviet Union was breakup due to long lasting war in Afghanistan.Communism was not a factor in tht breakup. "

My reply to Asad, "Well, this was not an answer I was expecting. Please allow me to ask you few further questions to continue the discussion. In the mean time, other comrades should come forward to give their views on the topic.

Soviet collapse does'nt mean tht communism collaps still communism in the shape of MAOISM is big problem for USA.

So, do you mean to say that collapse of Soviet Union was the collapse of Soviet socialist model, which was presented by Lenin and stregthened by Stalin?

Is Maoism different from marxism-leninism?

Soviet Union was breakup due to long lasting war in Afghanistan

How? USSR defeated fascist/nazi super powers during the WW2. How could it not bear the Afghan war? USSR emerged as a military super power after WW2, thanks to the leadership of Stalin and CPSU, and was in a position to easily bear any military pressure from anyside.

Clearly, Afghan war was not a major factor in Soviet Union disintegration at a time when USSR.

Communism was not a factor in tht breakup.

Alright. But what was the major factor? Where is Revisionism?

After the death of great communist leader, Stalin, in 1953, revisionist powers took control of the USSR, under a imperialist conspiracy. So, the collapse of USSR was not of communism, but a collapse of this revisionist philosophy.

The last leader of USSR, Gorbachev, said in an interview in 2001 that "my aim was to bring an end to communism in USSR".

So, the phenomenon that caused disintegration of USSR was not socialism but revisionism. Had the USSR followed the soclist legacy of Stalin, USSR would have been a super-power. The propect of a disintegration under Stalin was out of question because of his strategy of dealing with nationalities, approved by Lenin in 1913.

So, the moral of the story is Down with Revisionism"

Bhagat Singh said, "The process of capitalist restoration in the former Soviet Union began after the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Khrushev and his gang of revisionists started this counter revolutionary process in the name of "De-Stalinization". In the name de-stalinization he and the group of revisionist leaders after him(Brezhnev and Gorbachev) succesfully purged the Soviet Union from the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism. Mao said in 1963:

"I believe there are two swords. One is the sword of Lenin, and the other is the sword of Stalin. The Soviet Union has thrown away the sword of Stalin, and has thus also thrown away the sword of Lenin. We Chinese, have not thrown these swords away, and are continuing to build Socialism on the principles of Marxism-Leninism."

A series of Economic, and political reforms, coupled with a radical change in the foreign policy of the CPSU led to a gradual process of degeneration in the Soviet Union. Ultimately, the process of capitalist restoration was completed in 1991, when capitalism was firmly established in the Soviet Union, and replaced the remnants of Socialism in that country. This transition pushed over 20 million people into the poverty trap, and today Russia has been transformed from a Super power, into a third world country.

However, all is not lost. The Communist movement is gaining strength each day in the former Soviet Union. The Communist party is once again the largest party of Russia. It got the most votes in the 2000 local elections. In a recent protest it managed to bring millions of people to the streets, with the Red Flag raised over their heads, and pictures of Lenin and Stalin hailed with pride.

Marxist-Leninists the world over are waiting patiently for the revival of worker's power in the Soviet Union.

Long Live Marxism-Leninism!
Long Live the Workers Struggle!
Death to Imperialism!
Death to America!"

I agree with Bhagat Singh's reply.

Raza said, "In the 1940s and 1950s within the international Communist movement, revisionism was used to describe Communists who focused on consumer goods production instead of heavy industry, accepted national differences and encouraged capital reforms.

USSR was under authoritarian rule. Isnt that revisionism enough? And then, wasn't it just another threat to capitalism and imperialism that just had to be brought down? Communism never collapsed and never will. USSR did not have the flesh to bring communism down with it."

Bhagat Singh reply to Raza,
"Comrade,
I seriously disagree with you, over various points. Firstly, I disagree with your definition of Revisionism. Modern revisionism refers to a tendency which arose within the Communist movement. It was a regressive movement, which began a process of capitalist restoration in the former Soviet Union under Khrushchv, Brezhnev and Gorbachev.
However, to say that the U.S.S.R was an authoritarian state(and hence revisionist) is doubly incorrect in my opinion.
Firstly, I disagree with the statement that the U.S.S.R was an authoritarian state, on the grounds that the U.S.S.R(despite its revisionist tendencies) continued to be a Socialist state albeit in a revisionist form. The political and socio-economic framework of the U.S.S.R continued to adhere to the principles of socialism in one way or the other, and hence, to suggest that the U.S.S.R was an authoritarian state is to give in to the propaganda of the imperialists.
Secondly, authoritarianism is not equal to revisionism. Revisionism(derived from the root word revision), when appllied to the Communist movement, refers to the tendency of "revising" the political and historic program of the party leading to a deviation from the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism.
I would agree with your last statement.. the disintegration of the Soviet Union does not mean the end of Communism. However, the CMKP own's the heritage of the U.S.S.R, and considers it one of the greatest victories of the workers and peasants in the 20th century.

Long Live Marxism-Leninism!"

My reply to Raza, " I would first chanllenge the premises that you used to legitimize revisionism.

Was USSR government auhtoritarian in 40s and 50s (under Stalin’s rule)?

The USSR government was not authoritarian both in theory and substance of the Stalin Constitution of 1936.

"If democracy lies in the participation of people in the affairs of government and freedom from material worries and cares, then one shall have to admit that Soviet Union is the most democratic country in the World [under the Stalin Constitution of 1936(pg 278)... While defending the monopolistic position of the Communist party, Stalin said, "As to freedom for various political parties, we adhere to somewhat different view. A party is a part of class, its most advanced part. Several parties can exist only in a society in which there are antagonistic classes whose interests are mutually hostile and irreconcilable... But in Soviet Union there are no longer such classes. In USSR, there are only two different classes, workers and peasants, whose interests, far from being hostile, are on the contrary, friendly. Hence there is no ground in the USSR far existence of several parties and consequently for the freedom of these parties"" World Constitution by S.L. Kaeley

There were direct elections in USSR, and they continued even during the WW2, while there were no elections elsewhere in the world during that time.

"The Communist leadership of the SU is very proud of the fact that voters in the SU take and living interest in public affairs since almost 100% votes were recorded whereas in democratic countries like England and the USA only 50 to 76% voters record their votes" World Constitution by S.L. Kaeley pg 282

Furthermore, there was also a Right of Recall available to the citizens. By employing this right the citizens were allowed to "pull-back" their representatives from the representative bodies.

The second part of the question is: did Stalin play an authoritarian role in the Communist Party of Soviet Union?

The evidence points out that in the start there was active opposition to the programs of Stalin. The Party often restrained his proposals.

This is what Comrade Klo pointed out in the CMKP email list on Yahoo groups.

"In 1932 events seem to be coming to a climax, with Stalin's most loyal
supporters at their wits' ends. There was a dramatic meeting in the
Politburo that must have taken place about the end of 1932. The actual
date is not known, but there's no question that at that meeting Stalin
suffered a painful reverse. The most credible account of the meeting is
as follows:
The situation at the moment was under discussion. A dramatic speech
was made by Voroshilov, who was then Commander-in-Chief in the army....
Voroshilov is said to have given, in the utmost agitation, a report of a
disastrous state of feeling in the Army; he is said to have thrown whole
packets of soldiers letters on the table and demanded that something
should at once be done. Stalin's proposals-- their nature is not
known--were rejected,...."
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 188

To read complete Klo's post on the issue, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/3404.

Many of the Stalin's proposals were not opposed later on because all his bona fide opposers later found that Stalin was correct on the issue that they opposed.

Therefore, having attempted to establish that USSR was not authoritarian state under Stalin (1924-1953) in the first place, it is a contradiction, for me, to accept revisionism on that perticular reason.

And then, wasn't it just another threat to capitalism and imperialism that just had to be brought down?

According to Marxist principles, it’s not possible to move from an advanced stage of Production and Production relations to a backward one. The principle does not mean that this movement is not possible but that this backward movement will result in a disaster. Substantially, revisionism is incompetent to fight capitalism and imperialism as it is bound to fail.

Now that the Russian economy is even smaller from that of Norway, the theory presented above holds true.

Communism never collapsed and never will.

Long Live the Revolution!

P.S. Read the article about Gorbachev. According to Clinton, Gorbacev "will go down in history as a person who changed the world for the better."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/message/3502

I would suggest you to read "Another View of Stalin" by Ludo Martins. An online copy of the book is available free at http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/book.html."

Privatization at Gunpoint By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

2005-11-01T08:48:00.000+05:00

The transfer of assets from peripheral states to international financial oligarchies is one of the defining tenets of the neoliberal counter-revolution. As a general rule, this latest form of neocolonial transfer of surplus to the industrialized core has proceeded relatively successfully in many peripheral states, with many Latin American states standing out as significant exceptions. In Pakistan, where the ruling state oligarchy has historically been the equivalent of a comprador bourgeoisie, this process has accelerated since it was initiated in the late 1980s...

To read rest of the article visit http://monthlyreview.org/1005akhtar.htm.

Cuba and the U.S. Che Guevara

2005-11-01T01:36:00.000+05:00

The questions below were submitted, in writing, to Comandante Guevara by Leo Huberman during the week of the invasion; the answers were received the end of June.—The Editors

(1) Have relations with the U.S. gone “over the brink” or is it still possible to work out a modus vivendi?

This question has two answers: one, which we might term “philosophical,” and the other, “political.” The philosophical answer is that the aggressive state of North American monopoly capitalism and the accelerated transition toward fascism make any kind of agreement impossible; and relations will necessarily remain tense or even worse until the final destruction of imperialism. The other, political answer, asserts that these relations are not our fault, and that, as we have many times demonstrated, the most recent time being after the defeat of the Giron Beach landing, we are ready for any kind of agreement on terms of equality with the Government of the United States.

(2) The U.S. holds Cuba responsible for the rupture in relations while Cuba blames the U.S. What part of the blame, in your opinion, can be correctly attributed to your country? In short, what mistakes have you made in your dealings with the U.S.?

Very few, we believe; perhaps some in matters of form. But we hold the firm conviction that we have acted for our part in accord with the right, and that we have responded to the interests of the people in each of our acts. The trouble is that our interests, that is, those of the people, and the interests of the North American monopolies are at variance.

(3) Assuming that the U.S. means to smash the Cuban Revolution, what are the chances of its getting help from the O.A.S. group?

Everything depends on what is meant by “smash.” If this means the violent destruction of the revolutionary regime with the help—likewise direct—of the O.A.S., I believe there is very little possibility, because history cannot be ignored. The countries of America understand the value of active solidarity among friendly countries, and they would not risk a reversal of such magnitude.

(4) Does Cuba align itself in international affairs with the neutralist or Soviet bloc

Cuba will align herself with justice; or, to be less absolute, with what she takes for justice. We do not practice politics by blocs, so that we cannot side with the neutralist bloc, nor, for the same reason, do we belong to the socialist bloc. But wherever there is a question of defending a just cause, there we will cast our votes—even on the side of the United States if that country should ever assume the role of defending just causes.

(5) What is Cuba's chief domestic problem?

It is difficult to assess problems with such precision. I can mention several: the “guerrillerismo” which still exists in the government; the lack of comprehension on the part of some sectors of the people of the necessity for sacrifice; the lack of some raw materials for industries and some non-durable consumer goods, resulting in certain scarcities; the uncertainty as to when the next imperialist attack will take place; the upsets in production caused by mobilization. These are some of the problems which trouble us at times, but, far from distressing us, they serve to accustom us to the struggle.

(6) How do you explain the growing number of Cuban counter-revolutionaries and the defection of so many former revolutionaries?:

Revolutions function by waves. When Mr. Huberman asked this question, perhaps it was accurate, but today there are fewer counter-revolutionaries than before Giron Beach. The counter-revolutionary attack increased slowly until it reached its climax on Giron Beach; then it was defeated and fell drastically to zero. Now that it is again attempting to raise its head and inflict new harm, our intention is to eliminate the counter-revolutionaries.

The defections of more or less prominent figures are due to the fact that the socialist revolution left the opportunists, the ambitious, and the fearful far behind and now advances toward a new regime free of this class of vermin.

(7) Can the countries of Latin America solve their problems while maintaining the capitalist system, or must they take the path of socialism as Cuba has done?

It seems elementary to us that the way of the socialist revolution must be chosen, the exploitation of man by man must be abolished, economic planning must be undertaken, and all means of assisting the public welfare must be placed at the service of the community.

(8) Are civil liberties, Western style, permanently finished while your government is in power?

This would depend on what civil rights were referred to—the civil right, for example, of the white to make the Negro sit in the rear of a bus; the right of the white to keep the Negro off a beach or bar him from a certain zone; the right of the Ku Klux Klan to assassinate any Negro who looks at a white woman; the right of a Faubus, in a word, or perhaps the right of a Trujillo, or Somoza, or Stroessner, or Duvalier. In any case, it would be necessary to define the term more precisely, to see if it also includes the right to welcome punitive expeditions sent by a country to the north.

(9) What kind of political system do you envisage for Cuba after the present emergency period of reorganization and reconstruction is over?

In general terms it may be said that a political power which is attentive to the needs of the majority of the people must be in constant communication with the people and must know how to express what the people, with their many mouths, only hint at. How to achieve this is a practical task which will take us some time. In any event, the present revolutionary period must still persist for some time, and it is not possible to talk of structural reorganization while the threat of war still haunts our island.

NAXALITE

2005-10-26T18:22:00.000+05:00

Brothers and sisters of the soul unite
We are one, indivisible and strong
They may try to break us
But they dare not underestimate us
They know our memories are long
A mass of sleeping villages
That’s how they’re pitching it
At least that’s what they try to pretend
But check out our history
So rich and revolutionary
A prophecy
That we will rise again!

Like springing tigers
We encircle the cities
To the future we will take an oath
High up in the mountains
Deep in the forest
Our home is the undergrowth.

And we must never give up
Until the land is ours
No never give in
’til we have taken the power.

Because, I am just a naxalite warrior
Fighting for survival and equality
Policeman beating up me, my brother and my father
My mother crying ’can’t believe this reality’

Iron like a lion from zion
This one going out to all youth, man and woman
Original master ’d’ ’pon the microphone stand
Cater for no sceptical man me don’t give a damn!

’cos me a naxalite warrior.....

Long Live Revolution!

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/asian-dub-foundation/9693.html

Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa

2005-10-26T17:09:00.000+05:00

I came accross this movie review while surfing the internet. It's a well written review about a seemingly good movie.

Have a good reading.

In Solidarity!

Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa

*ing: Jaya Bachchan, Nandita Das, Seema Biswas, Anupam Kher and Joy Sengupta

Director: Govind Nihalani

Six years back when I visited India, I saw a poster of a movie Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa (Mother of 1084) at the Novelty Cinema located in Hazrat Ganj, Lucknow. The cinema was not a third rate one, but I didn't go inside to see the film. However, some two months back, when I was roaming around Rainbow Centre in the metropolis of Karachi, the same poster with the same title passed from my eyes, and I bought the movie, because this is one of those films that look very arty and innocuous, but if you have been initiated into good cinema, they merit a watch.

Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa is directed by Govind Nihalani and is based on a seminal novel by the formidable Mahasweta Devi. It is scripted faithfully and keeps in mind the human truth of the Naxalbari Movement, waged on May 25, 1967, in the Darjeeling area a completely agricultural land of West Bengal, India for getting minimum wages for agricultural workers. During the time of CPIM's coalition government, the movement spread quickly and finally it reached the main cities of West Bengal, especially Calcutta the capital of the state.

In Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, the Calcutta of the 1970s is captured when the air was alive with revolutionary fervour and Bengali youth reacted with anger against hypocrisies, injustices, betrayals and counter violence of the State. During this period, the city was in grip of a MarxistLeninistMaoist movement of liberating the downtrodden farmers from the iron clinch of upper class landlords. Thousands of young men were arrested and many were shot dead. A special force, organised by the government to tackle these young revolutionaries, was given the authority to use brute force to handle the situation.

The movie begins with a phone call asking the mother of a Naxalite, Sujata Chatterjee (Jaya Bachchan) to come to a morgue to recognise her son's corpse. The body has been reduced to a mere numerical, corpse no. 1084. Her 22yearold son named Bratti Chatterjee (Joy Sengupta) was a scion of an educated, cultured bhadralok family and, by every means, was a firebrand Marxist. He was in close contact with the leading members of the Naxalbari Movement that was led by the Communist Party of India.

Though she is many ways a traditional housewife, Sujata is shown as the most powerful character in the movie. She also works for a commercial bank in Calcutta and belongs to an upper middle class family. Her husband Dibyanath Chatterjee (Anupam Kher) is a typical businessman, who believes in saluting the powerful. The story really starts unravelling when Sujata comes to know that the death of her son was at the hands of certain members of the Calcutta police. She decides to investigate what really happened to her son and his friends and comrades.

On the journey of discovering her son's militant revolutionary commitment and to understand his struggle against the exploitative system, that is feudalismcumcapitalism, Sujata begins to realise that she herself is alienated as a woman, housewife and mother from the bourgeois social values prevailing in the social circles of Calcutta. It is her story and her realisations as an individual that form the heart of Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa.

It is difficult for a person like me to remember when I was so disturbed by the depths and insights shown in any Indian movie lately. Yes, watching Chandni Bar, The Terrorist, or The Legend of Bhagat Singh (Raj Kumar Santoshi's version) gave me much food for thought, but this Govind Nihalani venture, which circles the revolutionary political consciousness of the region's Leftist youth made me an insomniac for some days. Sometimes, a film transcends your objective critical faculties and touches that rare chord of emotion. That is the point where you get absorbed in the emotional trauma of the story depicted in a particular movie to make you realise that 'People of this kind have also lived their lives for a cause.'

It also makes you think about the real events on which the film is based and when the context of such a movie was produced by a director like Nihalani, the whole story makes such an impact on you, it can cut your heart into two and stun your brain with emotional shock. And then it makes you think and re evaluate your own value system Playing an intense role of Mrs. Sujata Chatterjee, Jaya, in an attempt to regain a sense of self from the intense psychological and emotional trauma, gains some deep insights, through the whole course of the movie, into a complex relationship between personal and apolitical aspects of her social life. Though, the film proceeds on a slow and reflective pace so as to be proper to its conversational approach, which is of such a length that all characters gradually open their minds and hearts to viewers regarding the lamentable family loss in particular, and the state of their society, in general.

The dusky beauty Nandita Das, who was so effective in Deepa Mehta's controversial film Fire, plays a marvellous role of an idealist believer of Marxism. Being a revolutionary figure she goes beyond her personal grief to become an uncompromising fighter against the atrocities of police. Do concentrate on the scene where Jaya visits her son's girlfriend Nandani Mitra (Nandita Das) who is also a member of the movement. Nandani recalls memories of Bratti and helps Sujata connect with her dead son. They 'meet' one another in a real emotional, loving and caring way for the last time. The scene is handled beautifully. After all, Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa is not your standard Bollywood potboiler.

The film goes back and forth in time, with flashbacks of Bratti, when the mother relives those moments and finds the clues for her state of mind, which she had not noticed before. It is easy to quibble and wonder how a working woman of Calcutta of those times could be so blind, so uninformed and so apolitical, but then, the way the film translates the novel makes Sujata's selfwrought isolation, not only understandable but also representative of a certain social segment, which wants to have nothing to do with politics.

Seema Biswas (the mother of Somu, who was a comrade of Bratti) plays the role of a low class Bihari woman whose son has also been killed during the same clash in which Bratti was murdered. The scene when Sujata visits Somu's place first time is enough to disturb anyone who has a soft heart and inflict great pain on someone who knows the real history of the movement. The way the two mothers mourn their loss brings out the class and cultural differences. Seema Biswas is warmly uninhibited both in grief and expression of affection and Jaya Bachchan contains her feelings, which gradually reveal themselves in all their complexity, rather than the usual cathartic outburst.

But there are flaws in this gem of a film. A scene in which Bratti beats an outlaw seems so childishly filmed. The way he is beating him gives you a feeling that the director has failed to capture the scene of a real clash. Action is not a forte of Govind Nihalani, not even when it is as raw as this.

Another sequence which seems uselessly prolonged, compared to the smooth dramatic flow and astonishing poetic transitions, comes during the crucial interaction between the two women Sujata and Nandani, the grieving mother and the resolute sweetheart, whose torture by the police has hardened her resolve into steely strength. It is the younger woman who gives the older woman the courage to do something purposeful with her life, but the scene does drag.

But then there is one scene that more than makes up for all shortcomings. It is when a party is held at the Chatterjee House to celebrate the engagement of Bratti's sister on the eve of his second death anniversary. The dialogue narrated by Sujata in the background shows the intense condition of her state of mind. The scene also shows the naked reality of the capitalist system and becomes extremely critical against the attitudes of the elite class. Incidentally, Nihalani shoots this scene like an extended piece of satire, when a lot of noted stage and screen names play brilliant cameos in a charade of social pretension and hypocrisy.

Govind Nihalani has always tried to fuse his political consciousness with cinema and proves that he is presently one of the subcontinent's most politically daring filmmakers. He is also famous for depicting sensitive issues existing in Indian society. From the intense characterisation in Aakrosh to the dramatic depiction of the psyche of angry antiestablishment lads holding AK47s in Drohkaal, Nihalani has proved his worth as a director. Though, he over-sensationalised the characters in Dev, but people still have good hopes for new artistic pieces.

Not to overestimate Nihalani's wonderful personality as a director by regarding him as a sensitive and sober director in Bollywood, I think it was his artistic capabilities and Jaya Bachchan's impressive facial expressions, which helped Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa win the National Award for Best Regional Feature Film in 1998.

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please," Marx famously wrote. I think this statement does imply on Indian directors too. In the process of making such movies, Nihalani is trying to make his own history as an alternative revolutionary director, though he cannot write it just as he pleases.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2004-weekly/nos-26-12-2004/instep.htm#3

---

http://reddiarypk.blogspot.com/

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When the mountains mourn By Amar Jaleel

2005-10-24T10:45:00.000+05:00

Was the earthquake a punishment from God or just nature’s way of trimming the population?

Pompeii, a Roman port and a resort in Italy for the sensuous pleasures of the rulers, the rich and the commanders of the world conquering legions was violently jolted by a massive earthquake in AD63. Much of the city of pomp, power and grandeur was destroyed.

The Romans recovered from the shock, restored what was devastated and commenced the life of luxury and lust. Within 15 years the lechers erased the dreadful memory of the frightening earthquake, as if it was a nightmare. One night when the elites, rulers and the generals were immersed in pleasure, Mount Vesuvius, a nearby volcano erupted hell that lit the sky above. Pompeii was completely buried beneath the smouldering lava. Its ruins now constitute one of the major tourist attractions in Italy.

It is generally believed to this day that the earthquake, and then the volcanic eruption was a punishment that God inflicted on the sinners of Pompeii. It is a common belief among the followers of different religions. They maintain that God punishes the wayward, the misled and the ones who go astray. They defy His Commandments and in return are scourged. Natural disasters are always taken in this context by the adherents of the various faiths.

Thomas Robert Malthus, social scientist and an economist advocated that population increases faster than food supply. When the population outgrows food production, the nature steps in and checks the population through disasters such as epidemics, earthquakes, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions. According to Malthus, only the required number of people survive a holocaust for whom the food is sufficient. All along Malthus had not been able to provide a convincing foundation to his theory. His hypothesis was rejected and turned down by both the physical as well as the social scientists. Medicinal checks on population have proved more effective than the natural checks.

From times immemorial, man has tried his hand at giving some kind of definition to the phenomenon beyond his comprehension. He associates most of the explanations with his faith and belief. He pays no heed to the scientific interpretations for the natural calamities. He attributes a ritual meaning to the solar and lunar eclipses. Man is on the record to have worshipped anything that inspired awe within him. He worshipped oceans because the immenseness frightened him. He worshipped lightening. He worshipped huge mountains. He worshipped volcanoes. He worshipped trees. He worshipped serpents. He worshipped fire. He worshipped rivers. He worshipped the sun and the moon.

Later on when he comprehended what had remained unexplained to him, he abandoned the gods he had worshipped out of his own enigma. His creativity later on induced him for making images of the deities he had never seen, a man with a bull’s head, man with a lion’s limbs, man with a pair of wings, man with several arms and heads, and so on. Of all such images the most revered image is that of Ganesh, a god with the body of a man and head of an elephant.

The scientific age of today has not altered the fundamental thinking of man. He very strongly believes that the volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and rest of the natural disasters are God’s punishment that he inflicts on the disobedient. While respecting other peoples’ faiths and beliefs, let us take an academic view of Pompeii’s devastation.

The rich and the influential who indulged in all sorts of sensuous pleasures were not the only residents of Pompeii. The port resort was inhabited by large number of servants, maids, slaves, gardeners, guards and the foot soldiers who protected the palaces. They were the wretched, insulted and humiliated souls on the soil of the sinners. If God had intended to punish the evildoers, then He, in His all providence, could have saved the poor from the holocaust. Thereby, He would have shown to the world that he punishes the sinners and doesn’t touch the innocent.

In Pompeii’s devastation a large number of servants and the slaves perished along with a handful of debauches. God couldn’t have been that callous. What struck Pompeii were two natural disasters, an earthquake and a volcanic eruption.

I have been constantly listening and reading in the newspapers ever since the devastating earthquake played havoc with Pakistan in the North that the holocaust was God’s punishment for our sins. Man doesn’t desist from attributing his wishful thinking to the Creator. He wants Allah to speak his language. The hundreds of thousands of men, women and the children who perished in Abbotabad, Mansehra, Balakot, Bagh, Muzaffarabad, and the surrounding towns and villages were men of moderate means. Most of them belonged to the lower income group who had to strive for their survival. They did not belong to the coterie of corrupt bureaucrats, funds usurpers, swindlers of banks, and kickback receivers with bank accounts in distant lands. The mountain people were not the drugs dealers. They were clean people with clean conscience.

We have Pompeiis in some of the so-called posh localities in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, patronized and frequented by the rich and the influential. Why would God bury alive the children of the mountain people in their schools for the sins committed by the prosperous evildoers elsewhere in the Pompeiis of Pakistan!

(Dawn Magazine; October 23, 2005)

Let the Cuban doctors come to Pakistan!

2005-10-18T00:02:00.000+05:00

Rahimullah Yusufzai

A BBC TV report by Gavin Hewitt from Abbottabad highlighted the plight of overworked doctors as they try to cope with an unending flow of people injured in the October 8 earthquake. One of the younger surgeons said he had performed around 100 amputations on patients with gangrenous limbs. Senior surgeon Dr Sahibzada made a telling parting remark. He said instead of money (he used the word pound) there was a need for skilled doctors to undertake the mounting load of work at the Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad and other hospitals in the quake-affected region.

We must seek advise from people such as Dr Sahibzada while making contingency medical plans to cope with the tragedy that has struck Pakistan. He and his colleagues need helping hands to treat patients and perform surgeries. This reminds one of the generous offer made by President Fidel Castro of Cuba to send 200 doctors specialised in natural disasters and serious epidemics to help the earthquake affectees. The Cuban government has made it clear that it would bear all expenses relating to transportation of the doctors while requisite stock of medicines would also be sent to Pakistan.

It is learnt that the Pakistan government has conveyed to Cuba that it wants 50 doctors only. One hopes Islamabad would review its decision and let all 200 doctors come to Pakistan. We need many more doctors, nurses and paramedics in view of the unprecedented scale of the death and destruction wrought by the earthquake. Hundreds of injured people are flocking to hospitals in Azad Kashmir, Mansehra, Battagram, Abbottabad, Dassu, Swat, Peshawar and even Rawalpindi-Islamabad and Lahore. A UN report said 1,000 hospitals, mostly small ones, in Pakistan have been destroyed in the earthquake, prompting the government to make an urgent appeal to the international community for field hospitals, antibiotics, anti-typhoid medicines, fracture treatment kits, and surgical equipment.

One is sure the Cubans would be able to contribute a lot toward meeting this need. Their doctors have served in Third World countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia and have done commendable work to earn the affection of their patients and the gratitude of numerous communities and governments. They also possess experience in working in tough conditions and dealing with natural disasters and epidemics. The Cubans are best suited to working in conditions prevailing in poor developing countries such as Pakistan.

They have proved time and again that good results could be achieved with minimum resources. Despite US-sponsored economic sanctions and limited resources, Cuba has been able to offer its citizens an efficient health delivery system that has earned praise from international organizations.

In fact, we could learn a lot from the Cuban doctors and medical administrators and apply some of the lessons learnt to improve our hopelessly inadequate health delivery system. A number of countries have benefited from the Cuban experience and Pakistan too would gain rather than lose anything by experimenting with methods employed by Mr Castro's revolutionary government to build one of the best health delivery systems in the world. By opting not to benefit from the well-meaning and generous Cuban offer, Pakistan would be depriving its hapless earthquake affectees of an opportunity to benefit from badly needed medical treatment at the hands of men and women who have worked in places hit by natural calamities and epidemics. Rather it would be cruel to ask President Castro not to send Cuban doctors to Pakistan, or dispatch only 50. We need each one of those 200 Cuban doctors waiting to fly to Pakistan for the sake of the thousands of injured quake victims lining up at overcrowded hospitals and losing precious time that could save lives.

The writer is an executive editor of The News in Peshawar

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State and Earthquake Relief Effort

2005-10-17T02:23:00.000+05:00

The earthquake disaster is expected to grow with the arrival of winters, if government does not take any substantial measures for the earthquake victims. Snowfall has already been reported from some affected areas. Situation is getting worse with the passage of time due to weather conditions. According to General Musharraf, the death toll is likely to rise beyond 38,000 (http://www.dawn.com/2005/10/16/top1.htm).

"When we go into these villages of the Neelum and Jhelum river valleys, I am reasonably sure it is going to rise," said General Musharraf. The expression that "they" have not reached the villages of Neelum and Jhelum by now gives a very clear impression of the efforts of government.

I am highly impressed by the concern of the general population of Pakistan for the earthquake victims. They have donated generously for the relief efforts. I heard one of my elders mention that such mobilization of people was last seen in 1969, resulting in the resignation of Ayub Khan. However, the role of state has been highly disappointing through out in the last eight or nine days. I do not wish to start blaming at the present but it is truly very frustrating.

With one million organized men under his control, General Musharraf, who also calls himself the President of Pakistan, has not been able to manage the aid collected by the civilians after enormous labor. Army, at present, is the only institution that has the information, means, and resources to deal with the problem of distribution in the affected area in a appropraite manner. No NGO or a political party is in a position as effective as that of army. Yet, there are villages and towns that are not yet touched by the army men. I do not intend to say that army present in the affected areas is not doing anything. But look at their quantity. If General Musharraf had sent around 50-75% of the army on the second day after earthquake, situation might have been different. At least, relief workers in the affected areas would not have asked their counter-parts in the unaffected areas to stop sending aid.

It is inspiring to see that small groups of volunteers have started visiting the earthquake hit areas, knowing that they might not be able to make significant difference. They are obviously not organized as such and lack proper resources and information to deal with the problems. It is the trustless attitude of the people towards the army, that they are undertaking the relief efforts in their own hands.

Comrades, civilians have played and are playing their part in collecting relief goods in a commendable way. The part played by the state is contributing towards the misery of earthquake victims that make them believe that the rest of Pakistan does not care.

General Musharraf should mobilize the army on war scale to deal with the earthquake disaster. That might justify the portion of budget spent on defense each year. The arrival of winters is going to be highly dangerous for those who have no shelter. If something significant is not done immediately, then Musharraf is correct in his "reasonable" analysis that the death toll is going to increase. Isn't this earthquake a loud enough noise to make the deaf hear?

This earthquake is a lesson for the general population of Pakistan. The interests of state are significantly different from that of people. It's a matter of time alone, when the people will rise to over-throw these unconcerned rulers to govern themselves through a people's government.

In Solidarity!

Dialectical and Historical Materialism By J. V. Stalin

2005-10-11T10:39:00.000+05:00

Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic.

To read the full paper, please visit http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm.

CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM By Liam O'Ruairc

2005-10-05T14:51:00.000+05:00

Every year since 1990, the United Nations publishes its Human
Development Report. It contains the most authoritative data on the
state of the world. These reports are available online:
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/view_reports.cfm?type=1. Based on those
reports (referred to by year, followed by page), what does our world
look like?

CAPITALISM

We live in a capitalist world. Capitalism is a very dynamic system
that produces a tremendous amount of wealth. Never has the world been
so rich.

Global output increased more than eleven fold between 1850 and 1960,
from $611 billion to $6,936 billion in 1993 dollars. The world's
population more than doubled during the same period, rising from 1.2
billion in 1850 to 3 billion in 1960. The net outcome: nearly a
fivefold increase in per capita income. During the same period, the
goods and services produced in the industrial countries expanded
nearly thirty fold, from $212 billion to $6,103 billion (1996, 12)

Between 1960 and 1993, global income increased from $4 trillion to $23
trillion, and per capita income more than tripled. (1996, 12) If
trends continue, it should grow form 23 trillion in 1993 to 56
trillion in 2030. (1996, 36)

Global GDP increased nine folds from $3 trillion to $30 trillion over
the past 50 years. (1999, 25)

It has allowed a huge development of consumerism. Private and public
consumption expenditure reached $24 trillion in 1998, twice the level
of 1975 and six times that of 1950. In 1900, real consumption
expenditure was barely $1.5 trillion. (1998, 1)

INEQUALITY

But capitalism has made the world a very unequal place.

The people living in the 20% richest countries in the world have 86%
of global GDP (global income), 82% of world export markets, 68% of
Foreign Direct Investment. (1999, 3)

The richest 1% of the world received as much income as the poorest
57%. The richest 10% of the US population (around 25 million people)
have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 43% of the
world population (around 2 billion people). (2001, 19; 2003, 39)

The poorest 40% of the world's population account for 5% of global
income, the richest 10% account for 54%.(2005, 4)

The 20% of the world's people in the high income countries account for
86% of total private consumption expenditure. The poorest 20% for a
mere 1.3%.

The richest fifth consume 45% of all meat and fish, 58% of total
energy, 65% of electricity, 84% of all paper, have 74% of phone lines
and own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet. The poorest fifth
consumes
5%, less than 4%, 1.1%, 1.5%, and less than 1% of all this. (1998, 2)

The poorest 20% of the world's people saw their share of the global
income decline from 2.3% to 1.4% in the past 30 years, meanwhile the
share of the richest 20% rose from 70% to 85%. (1996, 2)

Capitalism not only creates inequality, but it increases it both
between and within countries. The income gap between the richest
countries and the poorest countries was a ratio of 1:3 in 1820. This
increased to 1:7 in 1870 and 1:11 in 1913. In 1960 it was 1:30 and in
1990 1:60. In 1997 it was 1:74. (1999, 3)

Measured at the extremes, the gap between the average citizen in the
richest and in the poorest countries is wide and getting wider. In
1990 the average American was 38 times richer than the average
Tanzanian. Today the average American is 61 times richer. (2005, 37)

A Zambian today has less chance of reaching thirty years of age than
someone born in England in 1840. (2005, 4, 26)

GROWING INEQUALITY

A study of 77 countries with 82% of the world's population shows that
between the 1950s and the 1990s, inequality rose in 45 of those
countries and fell in 16 countries. (2001, 17)

Inequality within countries has been increasing over the last 30
years. Among the 73 countries with data (and 80% of the world's
people), 48 have seen inequality increase since the 1950s, 16 have
experienced no change, and only 9 (with 4% of the world's people) have
seen inequality fall. (2002, 20)

Between the 1980s and the late 1990s inequality increased in 42 of 73
countries with complete and comparable data. Only 6 of the 33
development countries saw inequality decline, while 17 saw an
increase. "In other words, within national boundaries, control over
assets and resources is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a
few people." (2003, 39)

Inequality is on the increase in countries which account for 80% of
the world's population. (2005, 6)

Between 1979 and 1997, US real GDP per capita grew 38%, but the income
of a family with median earnings grew only 9%. So most of the gain was
captured by the very richest people, with the incomes of the richest
1% of families growing 140%, three times the average. The income of
the top 1% of families was 10 times that of the median family in 1979
and 23 times in 1997. (2002, 20)

INFANTANT MORTALITY

The USA has the same infant mortality rate as Malaysia, a country with
an average income one quarter that of the USA. And the Indian state of
Kerala has an infant death rate lower than that for African Americans
in Washington DC. (2005, 58)

DISPOSABLE INCOME

At the end of the 1970s, the richest 10% of the UK population received
21% of total disposable income. Twenty years later, it received 28%,
nearly was much as for the entire bottom half of the population.
Average annual incomes for the richest 20% increased at about ten
times the rate for the poorest 20%. (3.8% compared with 0.4%) The UK's
GINI coefficient climbed from 25 to 35 by the mid-1990s, one of the
biggest increases in inequality in the world. (2005, 68)

A FAILING SYSTEM

As a system, capitalism does not work for the vast majority of the
world's population; it fails to provide for their basic needs.

Of the 4.4 billion people in developing countries, nearly three fifth
lack basic sanitation. A third have no access to clean water. A
quarter do not have adequate housing. A fifth no access to health
services. (1998, 2)

More than one billion people lack access to safe water. (2005, 24)
More than 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation. (2005, 24)
More than 850 million people, including one in three preschool
children suffer from malnutrition. (2005, 24)

$1 A DAY

One in five people in the world, more than one billion, still survive
on less than $1 a day in abject poverty. (2005, 24) "Living on $1 a
day does not mean being able to afford what $1 would buy when
converted into a local currency, but the equivalent of what $1 would
buy in the United States, a newspaper, a local bus ride, a bag of
rice." (2003, 41)

Another 1.5 billion people live on $1-2 a day. (2005, 24) "One fifth
of humanity lives in countries where many people think nothing of
spending $2 a day on capuccino. Another fifth of humanity survives on
less than $1 a day and live in countries where children die for want
of a simple anti-mosquito bed net." (2005, 3)

ILLITERACY

There are 854 million illiterate adults, 543 million of them women,
325 million children (one in seven) out of school at primary and
secondary levels, 183 million of them girls. (2001, 9) More than one
billion people live without adequate shelter, sanitation, electricity,
and there are 100 million people homeless sleeping in the street.
(1996,24)

THE WEALTHY

But capitalism allows a tiny minority to accumulate a vast amount of
wealth.

The 350 largest companies in the world account for 40% of global trade
and their turnover exceeds the GDP of many countries.

The turnover of General Motors ($168.8 billion) exceeds that of the
GDP of Denmark ($146.1 billion).

The turnover of Ford ($137.1 billion) exceeds the GDP of South Africa
($123.3 billion).

The turnover of Toyota ($111.1 billion), Exxon ($110 billion) and
Royal Dutch/Shell ($109.8 billion) exceeds the GDP of Norway, Poland
and Portugal ($109.6, $92.8, and $91.6 billion respectively).

The turnover of IBM ($72 billion) is greater than that of Malaysia
($68.5 billion). The combined assets of the top five corporations
($871.4 billion) is greater than that of the combined GDP of South
Asia ($451.3 billion), Sub-Saharan Africa ($246.8 billion) and least
developed countries ($76.5 billion). (1997, 92)

BILLIONAIRES

Between 1989 and 1996 the number of billionaires increased from 157 to
447. Today the net wealth of the ten richest billionaires is $133
billion, more than 1.5 times the total national income of all the
least developed countries. (1997, 38)

The world's 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth in
the four years to 1998, to more than $1 trillion. The assts of the top
three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all least
developed countries and their 600 million people. (1999, 3)

The world's 225 richest people have a combined wealth of over $1
trillion, equal to the annual income of the poorest 47% of the world
($2.5 billion). It is estimated that the cost of achieving and
maintaining universal access to education for all, health care for
all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for all and
safe water and sanitation for all is roughly $40 billion a year (0.1%
of world income). This is less than 4% of the combined wealth of the
225 richest people in the world. (1998, 30)

MATERIAL RESOURCES

The material resources to end poverty and inequality are there.

To provide universal access to basic social services and transfers to
alleviate income poverty with efficient targeting would cost roughly
$80 billion. That is less than 0.5% of global income and less than the
combined net worth of the seven richest men in the world. (1997, 112)

Redistributing 1.6% of the income of the richest 10 percent of the
global population would provide the $300 billion needed to lift the
one billion people living on less than a dollar a day out of extreme
poverty. (2005, 4)

COMPARATIVES EXPENDITURES

However, meeting the basic needs of the world's population is not a
priority for capitalism.

The annual expenditure necessary to provide basic education for all
around the world is $6 billion. In comparison, the annual expenditure
for cosmetics in the USA is $8 billion.

Annual expenditure to provide water and sanitation for all is $9
billion. In comparison the annual expenditure on ice cream in Europe
is $11 billion. The annual expenditure to provide reproductive health
for all women is $12 billion. In comparison, the annual expenditure on
perfumes in Europe and the USA is $12 billion.

Annual expenditure necessary to provide basic health and nutrition is
$13 billion. In contrast, annual expenditure on pet foods in Europe
and USA is $17 billion. Compared to all those, annual military
spending in the world is $780 billion. (1998, 37)

For every $1 that rich countries spend on aid, they allocate $10 to
military spending. Current spending on HIV/AIDS, a disease that claims
3 million lives per year, represents three days' worth of military
spending (2005, 8)

The $7 billion needed to provide 2.6 billion people with access to
clean water is less than European spends on perfume and less than
Americans spend on elective corrective surgery. This is for an
investment that would save an estimated 4,000 lives each day. (2005,
8)

PROFIT NOT NEED

This is because capitalism is a system based on profit rather than
need. Food production has increased and prices fallen.

"If all the food produced worldwide were distributed equally, every
person would be able to consume 2,760 calories a day -- hunger is
defined as consuming under 1,960 calories a day." (2003, 87)

But as a result of the operations of capitalism, every day, 800
million people (almost one in five) go hungry, and every year ten
million people die of hunger.

MEDICINES

Millions of people are in desperate need of medicines. But as the
pharmaceutical industry is capitalist in nature, less than 10% of
global spending on health research addressed 90% of the global disease
burden and health problems of 90% of the world's people. (2002, 7)
People dying of hunger in a world where there has never been so much
food, and people dying because they lack essential medicines because
less than 10% of global spending on health research and production
addresses 90% of the global disease burden shows that a system based
on profit rather than need is irrational and inhuman.

HUMAN COST

The human costs of maintaining the present system are far too high.
Every year, 10.7 million children died before five of preventable
causes (2005, 24) This means that every hour of everyday, 12000
children die of preventable causes. (2005, 1)

In the 1990s the number of children killed by diarrhea exceeded the
number of people killed in armed conflicts since the Second World War.
(2003, 104)

Some 500,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth each year, one for
every minute of the day. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a woman is one hundred
times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than in a
high-income OECD country. (2003)

THE ENVIRONMENT

The environmental costs of maintaining capitalism are also too high.
The problem is that corporations resist regulations and do not take
into account damage to the environment; resulting in water scarcity,
deforestation, desertification, pollution and natural disaster.
Annual carbon dioxide emissions quadrupled over the past 50 years.
Sulphur dioxide emissions have more than doubled during the same
period. (98, 4)

Burning of fossil fuels has almost quintupled since 1950, consumption
of fresh water has doubled since 1960, marine catch has increased
fourfold, wood consumption is now 40% higher than 25 years ago.
(1998, 2)

In industrial countries, per capita waste generation has increased
threefold in the past 20 years. Water's global availability has
dropped from 17,000 cubic meters per capita in 1950 to 7,000 today.

A sixth of the world's land area (2 billion hectares) is degraded as a
result of poor farming since 1945. Forests are shrinking, since 1970
the wooded area per 1,000 people has fallen from 11.4 square kilometer
to 7.3. Some eight million to ten million acres of forest land are
lost each year.

Fish stocks are declining with about a quarter in danger of depletion
and another 44% being fished at their biological limits. Wild species
are becoming extinct 50 to 100 times faster than they would naturally.
(1998, 4)

And during 1967-1993 natural disasters affected three billion people
in developing countries with more than seven million deaths and two
million injuries. At current rate of loss, 15% of the earth's species
could disappear over the next 25 years. (1996, 26)

Air pollution is a serious problem for 700 million people, primarily
women and children. 2.7 million deaths each year from air pollution
(1998, 5)

THE ALTERNATIVES

A common objection is that capitalism might not be good, however there
are no alternatives. Socialism does and did not work, the fact that
countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union abandoned it
and adopted capitalism proves it.

However, the UN's Human Development Reports show the achievements and
successes of socialism. It notes that socialism was one of the world's
history's "great ascent from human poverty". "There have been two
great ascents from human poverty in recent history: the first in
industrial countries during the late 19th and the early 20th
centuries, and the second in developing countries, Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union after the Second World War. They had similar
elements, but the second had a larger scale and a faster timetable.
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union made advances: infant
mortality was reduced by half, from 81 to 41 per 1,000 live births.
Life expectancy increased from 58 to 66 years for men and from 63 to
74 years for women. And income poverty was declining. In Hungary
between the early 1960s and 1972, the proportion of people living
below the poverty line fell from 60% to 14%". (1997, 25)

CHINA AND INDIA

If we compare similar countries today on the basis of Human
Development Indicators, socialist China and capitalist India, or
socialist Cuba and capitalist Latin America, the achievements
successes of socialism compared to capitalism are evident.

Since 1949, China has made impressive reductions in human poverty.
Between 1949 and 1995 it reduced infant mortality from 200 per 1,000
live births to 42 per 1000 live births, and increased life expectancy
at birth from 35 years to 69. Today almost all children go to school
and adult illiteracy, 80% in the 1950s has fallen to 19%. The
incidence of poverty from widespread fell to 9% in the 1980s. Hunger
has been totally eradicated. (1997, 49-50)

By contrast, in India, 53% of children under age four, 60 million,
remain undernourished. Infant mortality is 74 per 1,000 live births,
and there are each year 2.2 million infant deaths, most of them
avoidable. Rural poverty is 39% and urban poverty 30%. Half the
population is still illiterate. Life expectancy is 61, eight years
less than China. (1997, 51-52)

In China, public spending on education is 2.3% of GDP while that on
health is 2.1% of GDP. The outcomes for human development are clear.
Literacy stands at 84%, infant mortality rates at 32 per 1,000 lives
birth and under-five mortality rates at 40 per 1,000 live births.
(2003, 73)

Proportional to population, China spends three times as much as India
on health care. In India health spending stands at 1.3% of GDP.
(central and state governments combined) Human development indicators
remain much lower for India than for China. Literacy stands at 65%,
infant mortality at 68 per 1,000 live births, and under five mortality
rates at 96 per 1,000 live births. (2003, 73)

If India provided the same health care as China, every year 1.7
million children could be saved. (1998, 156-157 and 176-177)

CUBA

In Cuba, there is one medical doctor for 170 people. In the rest of
Latin America, the proportion is of one doctor for 613 people. Cuba
spends per inhabitant twice as much on health care and education than
the rest of Latin America. (2003, 255)

Cuba's per capita income is a small fraction of that of the USA, yet
it has the same infant mortality rate and has kept HIV/AIDS under
control. (2003, 87)

If the rest of Latin America invested as much as Cuba on health care,
every year 400,000 Latin American children could be saved and 20,000
fewer women would die in pregnancy or child birth.

In Latin America, the ten per cent richest people earn 46 times what
the poorest earn. In Cuba the proportion is five times. (2003, 283)

A quarter of Latin Americans have to survive on two dollars a day or
less. In Cuba, less than two per cent do. (2003, 245)

THE FORMER SOVIET BLOC

Evidence shows that countries that abandoned the construction of
socialism and adopted capitalism experienced a massive regression.
Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS experienced the sharpest
increase in poverty in the 1990s, the only other region with worsening
trends in poverty is Sub-Saharan Africa. (2005, 21)

Ukraine fell 17 places and Russia 15 places while Tadjikistan fell 21
places. Russia fell 48 places in world life expectancy ranking from
1990 to 2003. (2005, 22) Life expectancy for men has fallen from 70
in 1990 to 59 today, lower than India. If this remains constant, 40
percent of 15 years old Russians will be dead before they reach 60.
(2005, 26)

Between 2.5 to 3 million people died during the 1992-2001 period. "In
the absence of war, famine or health epidemics, there is no recent
historical precedent for the scale of the loss." (2005, 23)

Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS experienced a dramatic increase
in poverty. The number of people on less than $2 a day there rose from
23 million in 1990 to 93 million in 2001, from 5% to 20%. (2005, 34)

In the countries of the former Soviet Union, transition brought with
it one of the deepest recessions since the Great Depression of the
1930s, and in many case despite positive growth over the last few
years, incomes are still lower than they were 15 years ago. (2005,
34)

Since 1990 real per capita incomes have fallen by more than 10% in
Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine and by 40% in Georgia, Moldova and
Tajikistan. In Russia, 10 percent of the population live on less than
$2 a day and 25 percent live below the national subsistence level.
(2005, 35)

WHY WE ARE SOCIALISTS

These are the main reasons why we believe that capitalism, as a way of
organizing society and the economy, fails and is not sustainable; and
advocate socialism as a viable alternative and a better way of
organizing the world.

*******

Back copies of The Plough can be accessed at:
http://www.irsm.org/irsp/plough/.

Royal Indian Navy Srike, 1946

2005-09-22T23:09:00.000+05:00

Few months ago, 65,000 employees of Pakistan united against the privatization of PTCL. This event, at least, will be marked as a historic union in the working class struggle. The workers, once again, expressed a concern to unify in order to protect their rights from the neo-liberal imperial agenda of, specifically, privatization. It would not be late to present one of the immortal stories of the working-class struggle.

The strike by the sailors of the Royal Indian Navy in 1946 is distinguished as a spectacular episode of struggle against the imperialist force of British Raj. Sumit Sarkar refers to the strike as “one of the most truly heroic, if largely forgotten, episodes of our freedom struggle.”

The strike grew out of the entrenched discontent growing calmly inside the sailors against the British officers. Indian sailors were highly disturbed by the discriminatory attitude of British targeted towards them. This attitude was complemented by off-the-cuff remarks of the newly arrived Commander King. He made a remark about Indian Ratings as sons of Indian bitches on a routine visit to the ship known as H.M.I.S (Her Majesty’s Indian Ship) Talwaar, posted to the Bombay Harbor. The arrogant behavior of the officers was becoming unbearable for the well-educated ratings of Talwaar. They tried to protest through the official chancel, and were subsequently threatened.

The spark was the breakfast, unfit for consumption, served on the morning of 18th February 1946 on H.M.I.S Talwaar. The sailors of the ship united and shouted “No food no work”, and launched a peaceful hunger strike. The possibility of a forthcoming rebellion against the rulers was evident to emerge from the nonviolent strike because it was not a matter of food alone.

On 19 February the strike was officially announced to the naval personnel. Sailors on strike started patrolling in Bombay on the captured naval trucks hoisting Red Flag to invite the anti-British sentiments. The news of rebellion came pouring out of the radio station that the rebels managed to take over. The number of naval personnel involved in the revolt saw a sharp incline. Within 48 hours the British government was facing the largest ever revolt in the naval units. 74 ships, 20 fleets, 22 units with 20,000 sailors joined the rebellion. The naval stations included important locations like Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Cochin and Vishapatam. On 20 February, just ten ships and two naval stations were not in complete revolt.

Union Jacks on most of the ships had been replaced by Red Flags, along with flags of other political parties involved in the independence struggle, by the eve of 19 February. A 36 member Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC) was elected with Signalman M.S. Khan as the President and telegraph operator Madan Singh as the vice-president. The election of a Muslim and a Sikh was a conscious _expression of rejection of division on religious grounds. The committee instantly drew its agenda and put forward demands to the government. One of the priorities of the strike committee agenda was to involve political parties in the movement to gain support.

The role played by the political parties in the rebellion was very disappointing. Instead of connecting this revolt with other strikes taking place in the textile industry, railways, and other industrial sectors, they actively supported the British in suppressing the strike. The Communist Party of India (CPI) lacked the support, strength, and leadership to take any effective measure. Although certain factions supported the rebellion, both Congress and Muslim League detested the event.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah issued a statement from Calcutta, on behalf of Muslim League, calling the strikers to end their action. An important figure of the independence movement, and a leader of the Indian National Congress, Sardar Patel, came up as a negotiator from the British side. According to the Patel, the rebels were “only a small band of insolents, hot headed and insane youngsters (who) are trying to get involved in politics through these acts, when they have nothing to do with politics”.

On 21 and 22 February, the strike committee called for a general strike that received a huge response from public. The influence of the sailors was being perceived as a genuine challenge to the government. As a direct result, the displeasure in the British government in London was increasing. The messages to crush the uprising at once came out from the office of the British Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee. Admiral Godfrey, the commander of the Royal Indian Navy threatened the rebels to “surrender or perish”.

The British government started an armed struggle against the sailors on 21 February. On February 22 and 23, the imperialist forces martyred 250 sailors and workers. The peaceful strike transformed into an armed struggle. With the chances of an armed suppression increasing, the sailors pointed the guns on ships towards the British Naval Installations and command centers along the coast. They threatened to destroy these bases and installations to defend their comrades in the cities and harbor in case of an armed attack.

Back on the Talwaar the situation gained intensity and tension. Disheartened by the attitude of the leaders of the independence movement, NCSC started to narrow down its options. Assured and persuaded by the Sardar Patel, M. S. Khan proposed surrender that was first rejected by the strike committee. Absolutely demoralized, and isolated, the strike committee later on announced surrender by raising black flags on the morning of 24 February 1946. That marked an end to a chapter that showed the British what laid ahead, if they choose to stay in India.

In a resolution announcing surrender, the revolutionary sailors sent their last message to the general public of India: “Our uprising was an important historical event in the lives of our people. For the first time the blood of the uniformed and non-uniformed workers flowed in one current for the same collective cause. We the workers in uniform shall never forget this. We also know that you, our proletarian brother and sisters shall also never forget this. The coming generations, learning a lesson shall accomplish what we have not been able to achieve. Long live the working masses. Long live the Revolution”.(emphasis added)

Religious Question

2005-09-19T02:55:00.000+05:00

Workers of all Religions Unite and Fight the Rich!

The object of our party and movement is to unite the workers to end exploitation. In other words, the aim of our party and movement is to struggle for the oppressed against the oppressor. This is a continuation of the struggle of the all the great Prophets of all the great religions in every part of the world. For example, Hazrat Mohammed led the greatest revolt of the oppressed in Arabia against the degenerate rich and powerful. Hazrat Mosa led the greatest slave rebellion against the mighty Ferons. Jesus Christ said, “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven”. Buddha led a powerful social movement against the caste system.

Given this fact, the maulvis should bless our party and movement for continuing this great work. Instead, from the moment when workers began their struggle against the ruling-class, the maulvis came out with fatwas not only against our party and against all working-class leaders. They tried to belittle the working-class leaders in the eyes of the people. Even today, every Friday they never fail to bring forward their political program of Jihad in Kashmir. But they never speak about the struggle of the workers against capitalists, or the struggle of the peasants against the feudals. To the workers they preach that workers must show more humility, patience, and forbearance. They tell the workers not to revolt but to submit obediently. Thus, the maulvis have made themselves the spokesmen of the rich, the defender of exploitation, and placed themselves in flagrant violation with the revolutionary spirit of the doctrines of all the great religions. Why?

This is simply because most mosques are financed by the rich. The mosques have been taken over by the rich. The rich pay for the marbles, the arches, the fine minarets and domes. The rich even pay the salary of the maulvis. The maulvis go to rich peoples houses to teach their children the word of God and receive big salaries for doing so. On the other hand, the maulvis extract money out of the workers. Some maulvis will not perform marriage or burial ceremonies until they have been paid in full. For these individuals religion is no longer a selfless service but a trade. How often do workers have to sell their last possessions just to bury their dead or to marry their children? Still the workers bear their pain with fortitude and courage.
It is true that there are maulvis of an entirely different character. There are some who are full of goodness and pity and who do not seek gain. They are always ready to help the poor. But these are very uncommon. The majority of maulvis bow and scrape to the rich and powerful and silently pardon them for every sin, every depravity, and every iniquity. But with the workers the majority of maulvis behave in a different way. They only think of squeezing them.
Our party and movement never wishes to drive the workers to fight against the maulvis or try to interfere with people’s religious beliefs. Our party and movement uphold the right of all religious communities to the Freedom of Religious practice. No one has the right to persecute or attack the particular religious opinion of others. But when people use religion to fight the workers, then it is our duty to expose their evil designs.

The Political Program of the Religious Parties

The political program of the religious parties does not include the elimination of capitalism that is, the elimination of private property. They want to maintain capitalism because they think it is a very good system. When workers ask them how corruption, poverty, inflation, and unemployment will be eliminated, their only answer is that “once Islam is introduced everything will be fine”. By this phrase they mean that once the ruling-class accept Islam the capitalists will change their attitude towards the poor. In their view it is only a matter of the ruling-class accepting Islam for the poor and the rich to live amicably.
However, what they do not realise is that the capitalist system has its own economic logic that compels the ruling-class to exploit the workers. As we explained earlier, capitalist competition constantly forces individual capitalists to expand, increase their profits, and take over other industries. If one capitalist does not expand and becomes charitable other capitalists will eat him like a shark. Thus, as long as the factories and farms are private property, this competition whereby the big fish eat the small fish cannot stop. As long as capitalism continues the exploitation and poverty of the workers will continue to increase. Thus, even if the ruling-class becomes religious (which is next to impossible), they are part of the capitalist system simply cannot stop exploiting workers and creating poverty and misery.
Sometimes, the maulvis say that they don’t believe in capitalism but in Islam. But this is dishonest because their interpretation of Islam upholds the inviolability of private property. In other words, their interpretation of Islam is compatible with private property and capitalism. In conclusion, they fully uphold private property and capitalism. The reason why religious parties uphold capitalism is that they are mostly based in small traders. Therefore, they are strong upholders of capitalism and private property. However, bigger capitalists continuously crush these small traders. Thus, they are caught in the middle. On the one hand, they want to maintain private-property. On the other hand, bigger capitalists continuously crush them. However, through most of Pakistan’s history they have sided with the rich against the poor.

How the rich use the maulvis to fight the workers!

The rich utilise the services of maulvis to divide the workers along religious lines. Once workers are divided the rich can use them as cannon fodder to fight wars of conquest. In sum, the policy of the capitalists is to create religious hostility between peoples of different religions.
It follows that the aim of the workers should be to create the unity of workers of all religions. Therefore, the policy of the workers is to remove the hostility between religions. In order to remove the hostility between religions, it is important to struggle against all forms of religious oppression. Thus, it is important to uphold the right to the Freedom of Religious Practice. The freedom of religious practice means that no one has the right to forcibly interfere in religious affairs, to destroy madrassas, places of worship, and other institutions, or to violate religious habits and customs, or to repress sacred texts, or to curtail rights. The right of freedom of religious practice means that the people of each religion themselves decide how to arrange their life. It means that the people of all religions are equal.
Does the freedom of religious practice mean that we support every demand of a religious community? No, upholding the right of freedom of religion should not be confused with endorsing the views of religious movements. Sometimes, religion is used as a cover to justify oppressive practices. For example, religion is used as a justification for honour killings and to oppress women. Workers should struggle against all oppressive practices, and should not be fooled when these practices are justified in the name of religion. In conclusion, it is important to draw the distinction between the freedom of religious practice and the program of a workers party. There may be demands that may not be contrary to the freedom of religious practice but are contrary to the program of a workers party.
In conclusion, workers should struggle against all forms of religious oppression in order to bring about the unity of workers of all religions. It follows from this that not only should workers struggle against religious oppression; they should at the same time struggle against the ideas of religious sectarianism. In creating the unity of workers of all religions two errors are possible. Sometimes, workers get so carried away in the struggle against religious oppression that they become religious sectarians. They thus become pawns of the ruling-class of that religious community. Working-class party and working-class organisations should work against any form of organisational federalism, disintegration, or separatism caused by religious sectarianism within their ranks. At other times, workers get so carried away in the struggle against religious sectarianism that they discontinue the fight against religious oppression. They thus become pawns of the dominant religious community.
A new way of fighting the workers!

The maulvis have devised two ways of fighting the workers. Where the working-class movement is weak the maulvis try to crush it by threats of force, slandering them, condemning them and issuing fatwas against them. But where the working-class movement is strong the maulvis hide their real purpose and becomes a false friend of the working-class movement. Thus, you see the maulvis making Islamic Trade Unions in order to catch the fish in their net to teach the workers humility and obedience. True working-class organisations teach the workers that they are equal to the capitalists and they must prepare for a working-class revolution. The false working-class organisations mislead the workers. Therefore, it is important to forewarn the workers against the honeyed words of the false friends of the working-class. The working-class does not fight against religious beliefs. On the contrary, it demands complete freedom of religious practice and the widest possible toleration of every faith and every opinion. But from the moment that the maulvis use their position against the working-class the workers must fight the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the working-class, whether he is in uniform or religious clothes. In conclusion, our goal is to create the solid iron unity of the workers of all religions in order to fight the rich.

Workers of all Religions
Unite and Fight the Rich!!!

[Text taken from the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, Pakistan website. The website of CMKP is: www.cmkp.tk]

Newsday Lies about the Revolutionary Road in Nepal by Li Onesto

2005-09-15T08:43:00.000+05:00

http://www.rwor.org/a/014/newsday-lies-nepal.htm

Revolution #014, September 18, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Newsday, a liberal newspaper in New York, recently ran a special nine-part series by Matthew McAllester on the Maoist revolution in Nepal (August 14-17, 2005). Like recent articles in Harper’s 1 magazine and Rolling Stone, McAllester echoes the U.S. State Department, arguing that the Maoist revolution is a horrible and totalitarian thing that must be stopped at all costs. And like most mainstream coverage of the People’s War in Nepal, this Newsday series is based on disinformation, outright lies, and extreme anti-communist hysteria.
There is much to expose about this series and McAllester should really be forced to publicly debate and defend this rather crude piece of reactionary “journalism.” But right now, I want to focus on McAllester’s attack on the revolutionary road being built by the Maoists in Rolpa.
As A World to Win News Service reports, tens of thousands of people have been involved in building a much-needed roadway to be known as Sahid Marg, Martyr’s Highway ( Rolpa, Nepal: Building the road to the future). King Gyanendra’s Royal Army has tried many times to disrupt this project—dropping bombs from helicopters and firing on people working on the road.
But as a 75-year-old man working on the road said, “The new [Maoist] regime has responded to our sentiments, and has tried to make our dreams real, so we are ready even to give our blood for this great campaign.”
This kind of revolutionary enthusiasm and sacrifice is something McAllester can’t understand and cynically attacks. After talking to people in Rolpa he claims this project is nothing but “forced labor.” His capitalist outlook of dog-eat-dog individualism can’t comprehend how people would walk for two days to do volunteer work and that some people would do this, even though the road is “not even routed through their village.” To his way of thinking, if someone is working for no money, if someone is helping to build something that doesn’t directly benefit them—then this must be coercive, forced labor.
When “old women, young men, -mothers, grandfathers, boys and girls” tell him they “were only too happy to help the region’s development,” McAllester can only respond by claiming these people are “repeating a party mantra.” With such cynical contempt for the people McAllester cannot believe—even when he sees it with his own eyes—that the masses of people can consciously remake themselves and the world around them.
McAllester warns that “The scene on the Martyrs Road is a snapshot of what Nepal might look like if the Maoist insurgents ever came to power...” and then talks about how the Maoists could turn Nepal “into the world’s next killing fields.” He doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to support this but poses the question, if the Maoists win, will they “spill oceans of blood”? He hopes this will convince people of the “horror” of communist rule. But what horrifies McAllester is the fact that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) now controls most of Nepal’s countryside and that they are leading millions of people to radically transform their economic, political, and cultural life.
The Maoist revolution in Nepal is bringing into being a whole new revolutionary way of thinking and acting—a revolutionary spirit where thousands of poor peasants are willing to sacrifice their very lives to get rid of the system oppressing them; where people are consciously working to bring into being a whole new way of running society; where people are working together to redistribute the land, get rid of women’s oppression, abolish caste distinctions and give equality to oppressed national minorities.
As a schoolteacher working on Martyr’s Road said,
“If the Maoists seize power centrally, I believe that within ten years Nepal will be changed dramatically. The work the Maoists have initiated in the base areas involving agriculture, industry, education and health is novel, scientific and positive. One cannot underestimate this great work...”

NOTES:
1 See: “Refutation of Harper’s Article on the Maoists in Nepal—Telling Lies in Kathmandu” by Li Onesto, Revolution #7, June 26, 2005, posted at revcom.us
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Dear Mr. Bush

2005-09-05T09:05:00.000+05:00

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag. Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike? And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours, Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

Call for Youth Solidarity!

2005-08-31T07:01:00.000+05:00

Revolutionary Greetings,

So many deeds cry out to be done, And always urgently;
The world rolls on, Time presses.
Ten thousand years are too long, Seize the day, seize the hour!
Mao Tse-Tung 1963.

There is no doubt that youth have always played one of the most crucial roles in the development of socialist struggle and social change. They have been on the forefront for social change. The youth of Pakistan must also uphold the tradition. They must give a voice to their demand for social justice and equality and end of exploitation of man by man.

We are a group of students from Pakistan who are working to form a youth organization on the communist principles. We are working in collaboration with the Communist Workers and Peasants Party (CMKP). We are hoping that our organization will be setup by the end of September this year. Our mission is to organize the young people of Pakistan in a vibrant movement for socialism.

I hope that you can also work with us and support the revolutionary cause in your region.

I will keep you update with our progress. You can get more information about our activities by visiting http://cmkp.tk or joining our yahoo group at cmkp_pk@yahoogroups.com (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/).

Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

In Solidarity!

Mass exodus from Cuba to US

2005-08-25T17:51:00.000+05:00

While arguing that Cuban model is one of the best alternatives present for the third world, this is one argument that I have come across the most. “If Cuba is such a heaven, then why does ship loads of people escape to United State?”

L. S. Stavrianos in his book, “Global Rift: Third World Comes of Age”, have also asked similar questions to himself. His questions are, “Does it [exodus] not substantiate the view of the Castro regime as a “totalitarian dictatorship” repressing a “captive people” ever ready to take the first available “freedom flight”?

Lets first of all take a look at the people who migrate in the mass exodus of 1980. A survey by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) of the first 15,000 émigrés who arrives in April and May disclosed that only 15 percent were black or mulattos, though they comprise 30 to 40 percent of Cuban population. Also, only 15 to 20 percent of the émigrés were from the countryside, as against the 35 percent of the Cuban population that is rural. These figures explain the claim that it is the nonwhite and rural population of the Cuban Society that has made the greatest gains under the revolutionary government. This majority segment of the society was the bottom of the society before the revolution of 1959.

Also illuminating was the contrast between the Cuban and Haitians boat people who landed simultaneously on the Florida beach. The Haitians were generally uneducated, under nourished and unemployed. The left their homeland because their basic needs were not being met. The Cubans, on the other hand, were educated, healthy and employed. The left their homes because of monotonous diet, inadequate housing and limited supplies of clothing and other consumer goods.

The 1980 Cuban exodus was sparked more by the lure of consumerism than by the failure of communism. The American life-style was promoted through effective means of propaganda such as radio and television. The message was persuasive as personal comforts and advancement remained important than collective welfare and goals for many people.

Fidel Castro reacted with his two policies: more stress on material incentives, and correction of bureaucratic abuses and high living. Castro introduced a new salary policy on July 1, 1980, that substantially increased the minimum earnings for Cuban workers with some extra benefits. He also attacked Cuban officials for “using and abusing the prerogative that go with the post and the resources of their enterprise to solve problems of their own and their friends.” It is worthwhile to know that instead of ignoring, Fidel Castro learnt from the events like the exodus and used the lesson for the betterment of the Cuban people and society.

Peter Winn of Yale University said about the 1980 exodus, “If they can confront the current crisis with the same critical and innovative spirit, then the loss of even several hundred Cubans may be more than compensated by the gains of strengthened revolution that the émigrés leave behind.”

thousand words

2005-08-22T04:46:00.000+05:00

The Principles of Communism

2005-08-22T04:26:00.000+05:00

This one single piece of literature encapsulates the worldwide theory of communism. This paper is strongly recommended for a beginner. A set of 25 questions articulate the basics of communism in the simplest manner in layman terms. Enjoy reading this classical communist master piece.

---

1. What is Communism?
Communism is a theoretical statement of the conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.

2. What is the proletariat?
The proletariat is that class in society which obtains its livelihood wholly and solely from the sale of its labour, and not from the profit of any capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose whole existence depends upon the demand for labour, and therefore upon the variations of anarchical competition, with its alternations of good and bad periods of trade. The proletariat, in a word, is the working class of the 19th century. [And also of the present time].

3. Has there not, then, been a proletariat always?
No. There have always been poor and working classes - and the working classes have usually been poor. But never before have there been poor men or workers living under such condition as those just mentioned; and there has not, therefore, been a proletariat always, any more than there has been free and unchecked competition.

4. How did the proletariat originate?
The proletariat originated with the Industrial Revolution, which began in England in the later half of the 18th century, and which has since been repeated in every civilised country in the world. The Industrial Revolution was caused by the invention of the steam engine, the various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole host of other mechanical contrivances. These machines, which being very expensive could only be purchased by men with considerable capital, changed the whole method of production; and supplanted the workers of that day, because they could produce commodities much more cheaply and efficiently than the workers, with their imperfect spinning wheels and looms. The machines, therefore, placed industry entirely in the hands of the capitalists, making the former property of the workers - tools, hand-looms, etc., - useless, and thus leaving them propertyless. The factory system had first been introduced in the textile industry. Work was more and more divided among individual workers, so that he who formerly had completed a whole piece of work, now worked at only one part of it. This division of labour made it possible for products to be turned out more rapidly, and therefore more cheaply. It reduced the activity of each worker to a very simple operation, constantly repeated, which could therefore be performed as well, or even better, by a machine.

Once the impulse was given to the factory system by the installation of machinery, this system quickly assumed the mastery of other branches of industry, e.g. printing, pottery, metal ware. In this way, various branches of industry, one after the other, were dominated by steam power, machinery, and the factory system, as had already happened in the textile industries. But at the same time these industries necessarily passed into the control of capitalists. In addition to actual manufactures, handicrafts also gradually came under the domination of the factory system; since here as well capitalists supplanted the small producers by the establishment of the greater workshop, which saved time and expense, and permitted an increasing division of labour. Thus, in civilised countries, all branches of work and manufacture were replaced by the great industry.

The former status of the workers was entirely revolutionised, and the middle class of the period - particularly the master-craftsmen - ruined; and thus arose two new classes, gradually absorbing all the rest, namely: (i) the capitalist class, which everywhere is in possession of the means of subsistence - the raw materials and tools, machines, factories, etc., necessary for the production of the means of life. This is the class of the bourgeois, or the bourgeoisie; (ii) the working class who, being propertyless, are compelled to sell their labour to the bourgeoisie, in order to obtain the means of subsistence. This class is called the proletariat.

5. Under what conditions does the proletariat sell its labour to the bourgeoisie?
Labour is a commodity, and its price is therefore determined by the same laws as other commodities. Under the system of large-scale industry or of free competition - which, as we shall see, amount to the same thing - the price of a commodity is, on the average, determined by its labour-cost of production. The cost of production of labour, however, is in reality just as much of the means of subsistence as is necessary to keep the worker physically fit, and to enable him to reproduce his kind. The worker will thus receive for this work no more than is necessary for this purpose. The price of labour, or wage, will therefore be the lowest, the minimum, necessary for subsistence.

But trade being at one time good, at another bad, the wage of the worker will vary accordingly, just as the manufacturer receives more or less for his commodities. Just as the manufacturer, however, receives on the average neither more nor less for his commodities than the equivalent of their cost of production, so the worker will, on the average, receive neither more nor less than this minimum of wages. And the more large-scale industry conquers all branches of industry, the more definitely will this economic law of wages assert itself.

6. What was the position of the working classes before the Industrial Revolution?
At different stages of the evolution of society, the working class has occupied different positions in relation to the owning and ruling classes. In ancient times the workers were the slaves of the landowner, as they still are in many backward countries, and even in the Southern part of the United States. In the Middle Ages they were the serfs of the landowning noble, as they are yet in Hungary, Poland and Russia. In the Middle Ages also, and until the Industrial Revolution, there were handicraft guilds in the towns under the control of small masters, out of which developed manufacture, the factory system, and the wage-worker employed by a capitalist.

7. What distinguishes the proletarian from the slave?
The slave was sold outright. The proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. It is to the interest of the slave-owner that his property, the slave, should have an assured existence, however wretched that may be. The individual proletarian, the property, so to speak, of the whole capitalist class, has no assured existence; since his labour will only be purchased for just the period when someone has need of it. Existence is only assured to the workers as a class. The slave stands outside competition; the proletarian stands within it and suffers all its variations. The slave is regarded as a thing, and not as a member of society; the proletarian is regarded as a human being, and is acknowledged as a member of bourgeois society. The slave may enjoy a more assured existence, but the proletarian belongs to a higher stage of the development of society - stands indeed on a higher level than the slave. The slave can free himself because, of all the private property relations, he need only abolish the single relation of slavery - in this way, indeed, becoming a proletarian; the proletarian, on the other hand, can only free himself on condition that he abolishes private property in general.

8. What distinguishes the proletarian from the serf?
The serf has the possession and use of a means of production - a piece of land - in exchange for a tribute of a part of the produce, or for the performance of work for his lord. The proletarian works with another's implements of production, for the benefit of this other, in exchange for a part of his produce. The serf, therefore, pays; whereas payment is made to the proletarian. The serf has an assured existence; the proletarian has not. The serf stands outside competition; the proletarian within it. The serf frees himself either by running away to the town, and there becoming a handicraftsman; or by making payments in money to his lord instead of labour or payments in kind, thereby becoming a free farmer; or by forcibly ridding himself of his feudal lord, and becoming himself a private owner; in short, by one or other of these means, entering either the ranks of the owners or of the competing workers. The proletarian can only free himself by abolishing competition, private property, and all class distinction.

9. What distinguishes the proletarian from the handicraftsman?
In the old handicraft industries, the workman, after his apprenticeship was served, became a wage worker for a time, but only in order that he might become an employer later. The proletarian is almost always a wage-worker all his life. The handicraftsman who had not yet become an employer was the companion of his master, lived in his house, and ate at his table. The proletarian stands solely in a money relation to his employer. The handicraftsman was a member of the same class of society as his master, and shared the same mode of life. The proletarian is separated from his master, the capitalist, by a whole world of class distinctions; he lives in a totally different environment, and his outlook is totally different. The tools used by the handicraftsman were usually his own property, and he could carry them with him. The machine worked by the proletarian is neither his own property, nor is it ever likely to become such. The handicraftsman usually made a complete object, and his skill in the use of his tools was always an important factor in the making of the product. The proletarian as a rule makes only one part of an article, or even contributes only to one process in the making of a single part, and his personal skill is in inverse ratio to the work done by the machine. The handicraftsman, like his master, was secured throughout his life against hurtful competition by means of guild regulations and trade customs. The proletarian must combine with his fellows, or seek the aid of legislation, in order to avoid being crushed by competition; if he is outbid by other sellers of labour-power, he - and never his employer - is crushed. The handicraftsman, like his master, had a narrow outlook, was thrifty, and disliked new inventions or ideas. The proletarian becomes daily more convinced that the interests of his class are fundamentally opposed to those of his employer; thrift gives place to class-consciousness and the conviction that an improvement in his position can come only by general social progress. The handicraftsman was a conservative even when he rebelled - it was indeed his desire for reaction that usually made him a rebel. The proletarian must inevitably be a revolutionary. The first step in social progress to which the reactionary handicraft spirit opposed itself was manufacture - the subjection of handicraft, master as well as worker, to mercantile capital, which developed later into commercial and industrial capital.

10. What distinguishes the proletarian from the early factory worker?
The factory worker of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries had usually some implement of production as his own property - his loom or spinning wheels, or a piece of land which he cultivated in his leisure time. The proletarian has none of these things. The factory worker usually lived on the land, in more or less patriarchal[f] relations with his landlord or employer. The proletarian lives mostly in large towns, and stands to his employer solely in a money relation. The factory worker's more personal relations with his master were destroyed by the coming of large-scale industries; he lost what little he still had, and became the first proletarian.

11. What were the immediate consequences of the Industrial Revolution and the resulting division of society into bourgeoisie and proletariat?
Firstly, in consequence of the universal cheapening of all the products of industry following on the use of machinery, the old system of manufacture, depending on hand labour, was completely destroyed. Semi-barbaric countries which had previously remained more or less outside the influence of historical development were now forced out of their seclusion. They purchased the cheaper commodities from England, and allowed their own hand workers to be ruined. So countries which for centuries had made no progress, e.g., India, were completely revolutionised; and even China now advances towards revolution. It has thus come to pass that a new machine, invented today in England, results in less than a year in millions of workers in China being without bread. In this way have large-scale industries brought all the peoples of the earth into close touch with one another; small local markets have been lumped together into a great world market. The path has been prepared for civilisation and progress, since whatever takes place in civilised countries nowadays must react on all other countries; and if today the workers of France or England were to free themselves, revolutions must inevitably follow in other lands.

Secondly, the Industrial Revolution has developed the wealth and power of the bourgeoisie to the greatest possible extent, making it the most powerful class everywhere. It proceeded to get political power into its own hands, superseding the classes which had been predominant previously - the aristocracy, the townsmen of the guilds, and the absolute monarchy representing both. It destroyed the power of the aristocracy by abolishing the right of primogeniture, or the unsaleable character of real property, as well as the various privileges of the nobility. It destroyed the power of the townsmen of the guilds by abolishing all the guild and handicraft privileges. In place of these it established free competition - i.e., a state of society, in which any individual is free to carry on any branch of industry agreeable to him, and in which there is no hindrance to his so doing but the need of the required capital. With the introduction of free competition, therefore, the individual members of society are only unequal in so far as their capitals are unequal; capital is the determining factor, and the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the real ruling class.

Free competition is necessary for the establishment of large-scale industry, since it is the only state of society in which large-scale industry can develop. The bourgeoisie, after it had thus abolished the social privileges of the aristocracy, and the guildsmen, next abolished their political power. Since it had raised itself to the position of the chief class in society, it proceeded to proclaim itself, in political form, as the chief class. It accomplished this by the introduction of the representative system, which depends on civic equality and the legal recognition of free competition. This was bound up in European countries with a constitutional monarchy. In these countries, electors had to possess a certain amount of capital - and were therefore confined to the bourgeoisie. These bourgeois voters elect bourgeois representatives; and these in turn ensure a bourgeois regime. Thirdly, the Industrial Revolution has developed the proletariat to the same extent that it has developed the bourgeoisie. Just in the same ratio as the bourgeoisie has become richer, the proletariat has grown more numerous. The proletariat could only come into being through the power of capital, and capital only increases when it is increasing the number of workers. An increase of the proletariat has therefore gone hand in hand with the increase of capital. At the same time, bourgeoisie and proletariat have both been concentrated in large towns, and this massing of the workers in large numbers has given them a consciousness of their power.

Further, the more this process develops, the more labour-saving machines are invented and utilised, and in this way, as has already been pointed out, wages are reduced to a minimum, and the position of the proletariat becomes more and more unendurable. Thus, by means on the one hand of the growing discontent, and on the other of the increasing consciousness of the proletariat, the way is made ready for a revolution of society.

12. What were the wider consequences of the Industrial Revolution?
By means of the steam engine and other machines, large-scale industry created the means of indefinitely increasing the industrial output, at a diminishing cost both of time and money. The free competition which followed this accelerated production soon produced definite results; a crowd of capitalists seized upon industry, and in a short time far more was produced than was actually needed. The commodities manufactured could not be sold, and a so-called trade crisis occurred. Factories had to be closed, employers became bankrupt, and the workers starved. After a time the surplus products were sold, the factories opened again, wages rose, and trade gradually became more prosperous than before.

But this could not last long. Again, too many commodities were produced, and another crisis occurred, with all the effects of the first. Thus, since the beginning of the 19th century the condition of industry has constantly fluctuated between periods of prosperity and periods of crisis. Such crises have recurred almost regularly every five or seven years; each time resulting in the greatest misery for the workers, and each time stimulating revolutionary tendencies and threatening shipwreck of the whole existing state of society.

13. What is apparent from these regularly recurring business crises?
In the first place, that large-scale industry - although in its earlier stages it had itself given birth to free competition - has now reached a stage at which free competition, so far from being useful to it, is actually a hindrance - a fetter from which it must break free. So long as it is organised on this basis of free competition, large-scale industry can only exist at the cost of a general upheaval every few years, an upheaval which each time threatens the whole fabric of civilisation, thrusting not only the proletariat into misery, but also ruining some section of the bourgeoisie itself. It is plain, therefore, either that large-scale industry must be abolished - which is an absolute impossibility - or that it must develop into a new organisation of society, in which industrial production shall no longer be in the hands of individual owners all competing one against the other, but shall be owned and controlled by society as a whole and shall satisfy the needs of all.

In the second place, it is apparent that large-scale industry, and the tremendous increase in the production made possible thereby, now makes practicable a new order of society in which such a sufficiency of the necessaries of life will be assured, that every member of that society will have leisure and opportunity to develop his natural powers and abilities in comparative freedom: in fact, that those same qualities or aspects of large-scale industry which under our existing social organisation result in misery and instability, could, under another social system, have exactly opposite consequences. It is obvious, therefore:
That from now onwards all our social problems and evils are simply the result of a social system which is no longer adapted to social needs; and

That the only means by which these evils can be abolished, viz., a new order of society, is now close at hand.

14. Of what nature must this new order of society be?
First and foremost, it will take all industry and all branches of production out of the hands of individual competitive owners; carrying on industry by the active participation of all the members of society. It will abolish competition, and put association in its place. Further, since production for individual profit is based upon private property, this latter must also be abolished, and its place taken by the use of all instruments of production, and the division of all products - by communism, in short. The abolition of private property in itself sums up the new order of society, which in itself is the inevitable result of industrial development.

15. Was not the abolition of private property possible at an earlier date?
No. Every change in the social order, every revolution as regards property relations, has been the necessary consequence of new productive powers, which could no longer be adapted to the existing property relations.

Private property itself arose in this way. For private property has not always existed; towards the end of the Middle Ages a new means of production - manufacture - was evolved, which could not be adapted to feudal or guild relations, and which accordingly outgrew and overwhelmed them, producing a new form of property - private property. But for the first stages of development of large-scale industry, no other form of property but private property was possible - no other order of society than one based upon private property. So long as the productive powers only produce enough to satisfy the needs of a given time, without a surplus being available for the augmentation of social capital and the further development of the forces of production, so long must there inevitably be a ruling class controlling and an oppressed class subject to the social productive powers. The creation of these classes depends upon the development of these productive powers. The Middle Ages - the period of agriculture - gave us the baron and the serf; the towns of the later Middle Ages, the guild master, the journeyman, and the day-labourer; the 17th century evolves the manufacturer and the mechanic; the 19th century, the great manufacturer and the proletarian. Up to that time the productive powers were not so widely developed that private property in them were a fetter or restraint upon them. But now, when, owing to the development of large-scale industry, the powers of production are constantly increasing by leaps and bounds; when, moreover, these powers are in the hands of a constantly decreasing number of bourgeois owners, while the great mass of the people become ever more firmly fixed as proletarians, and their condition becomes ever more unbearable; when, finally, these colossal productive powers have grown so far beyond the control of the bourgeois private property owners that they threaten to over-balance the whole social order, now surely, the abolition of private property has become not only possible, but absolutely necessary.

16. Will the abolition of private property be achieved by peaceful means?
That it may be is much to be wished, and the Communists are certainly the last people likely to wish otherwise. But they know that revolutions are not planned arbitrarily and deliberately, having always been the inevitable results of circumstances, and to that extent independent of the will and guidance of individuals or even of whole classes. They see the growing oppression of the proletariat in all civilised countries, and they foresee that sooner or later the proletariat will be forced into active revolution. And in that day Communists will be prepared to defend the interests of the proletariat with deeds as well as with words.

17. Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
No. Since the existing mode of production must be allowed to develop to a degree at which it can meet the demands of the whole community, it is more probable that even after the revolution has begun the proletariat will only be able to transform society gradually. It can only abolish private property entirely when the mode of production is sufficiently developed to make this possible.

18. What course of development will the revolution have?
First and foremost, it will set up a democratic political constitution, thereby ensuring, directly or indirectly, the political sovereignty of the proletariat.

Directly in England, where the proletariat already form the majority of the people. Indirectly in France and Germany, where the majority consists not wholly of the proletariat proper, but also of peasants and small bourgeois, whose political interests, however, must depend more and more upon those of the proletariat, and who must therefore inevitably submit themselves to the proletarian will. This may indeed involve a second struggle, but the ultimate victory of the proletariat would not be long delayed. A democratic constitution, of course, would be entirely useless to the proletariat if it did not immediately take further measures aimed directly at private property and thereby making the existence of the proletariat more secure. The most important of these measures, as suggested by existing relations, are as follows:
The gradual limitation of private property by means of progressive taxation, heavy estate duties, the abolition of inheritance by collaterals (brothers, nephews, etc.), forced loans, and so forth.
The gradual expropriation of ground landlords, manufacturers, railroad and ship owners, partly through the competition of State industry, partly directly in exchange for assignats (state paper money).
The confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.
The organisation of work for all the proletariat upon national estates or in factories and workshops, in order that the competition of the workers amongst themselves may be abolished. Private owners, so long as they are allowed to remain so, will be compelled to pay the State rate of wages.
The compulsion of every member of society to work, and the organisation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
The centralisation of the credit system and the money market under the control of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital; and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.
The extension of State factories, railroads, and shipping; the bringing into cultivation of all waste land; and the improvement of all land already cultivated in proportion to the increased capital and greater number of workers at the disposal of the nation.
The education of every child in national institutions at the national expense.
The erection of large buildings on national estates as communal dwellings for groups of citizens following industrial as well as agricultural pursuits.
The destruction of all insanitary and badly built slums and dwellings.
Equal opportunities for all children.
The concentration of all means of transport in the hands of the State.
Obviously, all these measures cannot be carried through at once. But one will necessitate another. Once the first attack on private property has taken place, the proletariat will find itself compelled to go ever further, until finally all capital, all agriculture, all industry, all transport, and all exchange are in the hands of the State. All the above measures inevitably lead in that direction, and will be practicable enough as they are proceeded with. Then, if all capital production, and exchange are in the hands of the State, private property has not so much been abolished as been enabled to disappear of itself, money has become superfluous, production so far changed, and mankind so far altered that all remaining forms of the old society can also be permitted to perish.

19. Will this revolution be confined to a single country?
No. Large-scale industry, by creating the world market, has already brought the people of every country (and particularly of civilised countries), into such close touch with each other, that each separate nation is affected by events in any other one. It has further so far levelled social development, that in every country the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat has become the most important matter of the day. The communist revolution will not merely be national: it will take place simultaneously in every civilised country, that is, in England, France, America, and Germany, at least. It will develop in each country more quickly or more slowly according as that country possesses a more highly developed industry, greater wealth, or more perfected productive forces. It will, therefore, probably come about most slowly in Germany, most quickly and easily in England. It will at once have an important reaction on other countries, altering or accelerating their development. It is a universal revolution, and must have, therefore, a universal sphere of action.

20. What will be the consequences of the abolition of private property?
First, that as society will have taken out of the hands of the capitalists the entire forces of production and means of transport, administering them according to the actual needs of the whole community, all the evils which are at present inseparably bound up with large-scale industries will be done away with. Crises will end; an increased production, which under the existing order would mean overproduction - a very fruitful source of misery - will then not even be adequate, and would need to be increased yet more, since production over and above the immediate necessities of society would assure the satisfaction of the needs of all, and also beget new necessities and the means of satisfying them. It will be the condition and occasion of further stages of progress, and it will bring about their accomplishment without, as hitherto, society having to go through a period of disorder and disorganisation at every new stage. Large-scale industry, freed from the shackles of private ownership, will develop to an extent compared to which its present development will appear as feeble as does the stage of manufacture compared to large-scale industry of today. Agriculture, too, which is hampered by private ownership and the accompanying parceling-out of land, will be improved and developed by the scientific methods already discovered.

Society will be able to regulate production so that the needs of all its members will be satisfied. The division of society into classes with antagonistic interests ceases automatically. The existence of classes has resulted from the division of labour, and the division of labour to which we are accustomed today will come to an end. For in order to raise industrial and agricultural production to the standards already suggested, mechanical and chemical forces will not of themselves be sufficient. The capacities of the men setting those forces in motion will have to be developed in corresponding measure. Just as the peasants and artisans of the past century altered their whole mode of life, and became quite other men, when they were forced into large-scale industry, so will the common pursuit of production throughout the whole of society, and the new developments of production following thereon, necessitate - and produce - a new type of man. Today men are confined to a single branch of production; they are forced to develop one talent at the expense of all the rest, and know only one process, or even one part of a process. But an industrial commonwealth presupposes men whose talents have been developed on all sides, men who will have an intelligent knowledge of the whole business of production. That division of labour which now makes one man a peasant, another a shoemaker a third a mechanic, and a fourth a stock-market speculator, will entirely vanish. Education will aim at enabling young people to go through the whole system of production, so that they can be transferred from one branch to another according as the necessities of the community demand. A communist society will in this way give far more scope for individual development than does the capitalist society of today.

And along with antagonistic classes, the opposition between town and country will disappear. The pursuit of agriculture and industry by the same men, instead of by two different classes, is already a necessary condition of communistic association. The dispersion of the agricultural population, side by side with the growth of the industrial population in the great towns, is the result of an incompletely developed stage both of agriculture and industry, and is, moreover, an obstacle in the way of further development.

The association of all the members of society in a regulated system of production; the increase of production to an extent at which the needs of all will be satisfied; the cessation of a state of things in which the needs of one are satisfied at the cost of another; the abolition of classes; and the full development of the abilities of all the members of society by the abolition of the present division of labour, by industrial education, and by the blending together of town and country - these will be the results of the abolition of private property.

21. How will Communism affect the family?
It will make the relation of the two sexes a purely private relation, which concerns the interested parties and them alone. It can do this because it puts an end to private property and cares for all children alike, thereby doing away with two fundamental characteristics of present-day marriage - the dependence of the wife on the husband, and of the children on their parents. This is the answer to the shrieks of those highly moral philistines who rave about "community of wives." Community of wives is a relation pertaining to bourgeois society, and exists today, in prostitution. Prostitution, however, is based on private property, and falls with it. Communism, therefore, so far from introducing community of wives, abolishes it.

22. How will Communism affect existing nationalities?
"National differences and antagonisms between peoples," says the Communist Manifesto, "already tend to disappear owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, the freedom of commerce, the world market, and uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to disappear still more quickly. United action, on the part of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the primary conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end."

23. How will Communism affect existing religions?
"Does it require deep intuition," asks the Communist Manifesto, "to comprehend the fact that man's ideas, views, conceptions, in a word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?.. When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely proclaimed the sway of free competition in the realm of knowledge. The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder, then, that its development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas."

24. How do Communists differ from Socialists?
The so-called Socialists are divided into three classes.

The first class consists of hangers-on of that feudal and patriarchal society which has already been largely abolished by the development of large-scale industry, and the consequent creation of bourgeois society.

This class, pointing to the evils of existing society, declared that the feudal, patriarchal form of society must be re-established, since it was free from these particular evils. All their proposals are aimed, directly or indirectly, at this object. And these reactionary "Socialists," in spite of the hot tears they shed over the misery of the proletariat, will always be energetically opposed by the Communists, because (1) they strive for something absolutely impossible; (2) they seek to establish the sovereignty of the aristocracy and the guildmasters, with all their retinue of absolute or feudal kings, officials, soldiers and priests - a form of society which was certainly free from the evils of present-day society, but had just as many evils of its own, and held out, moreover, much less hope for the proletariat; and (3) because they reveal themselves in their true colours every time the proletariat revolts, by immediately uniting themselves with the bourgeoisie against the forces of revolution.

The second class of so-called Socialists consists of hangers-on of present-day society, who, being fully alive to the evils of that society, are full of fears for its stability. Accordingly they try to strengthen and maintain the existing form of society by getting rid of its more obvious evils. Their watchword is Reform. And these bourgeois Socialists will also be constantly opposed by the Communists, since they seek to defend the society which the Communists aim at overthrowing.

The third class consists of "democratic" Socialists, who, along with the Communists, are in favour of certain of the reforms outlined in the answer to Question 18; but regard these, not as means of transition to Communism, but as measures adequate in themselves to abolish poverty and misery, and all the other evils of present-day society. These democratic Socialists are either proletarians who have not yet realised the conditions necessary to the emancipation of their class, or they are members of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, up to a certain point, has the same interests as the proletariat. The Communists will therefore avail themselves of the assistance of this class for the moment, but will not lose sight of the difference of interests which will prevent that assistance being depended upon when the time for action comes.

25. Where do the Communists stand in relation to the other political parties of our times?
The relationship varies in different countries. In England, France and Belgium, where the bourgeoisie is in power, the Communists have many interests in common with the various democratic parties - with the Chartists [n] in England, for instance, who stand much nearer to the Communists than do the democratic petty bourgeoisie, the so-called Radicals. In America, where democratic conditions already exist, the Communists will work with the party which applies these conditions against the bourgeoisie - i.e.., with the Land Reformers.

In Switzerland there are various Radical parties, some of which have progressed further than others, and with which, although they are still somewhat confused in their aims and interests, the Communists can temporarily ally themselves.

Finally, in Germany, a determined struggle between the bourgeoisie and the absolute monarchies is imminent; and since the Communists cannot make their reckoning with the bourgeoisie until the latter has attained power, it is thus to their interest to assist the bourgeoisie in the struggle in order to attack them again as soon as possible on their own account. The Communists will therefore side with the Liberals in opposition to the Government, remembering, however, that the only advantages which the victory of the bourgeoisie would win for the proletariat are (1) greater freedom of discussion and propaganda, thus facilitating the organisation of the proletariat, and (2) the fact that on the day when absolutism fails, the struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat takes front place. From that day onwards the policy of the Communists will be the same as in the countries where the bourgeoisie already rules.

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2005-08-21T19:35:00.000+05:00