Category: Ecuador
Venezuela & ALBA News 2.12.2021: Congress Letter to End Sanctions; Ecuador rejects Neoliberalism; GAO Report on Sanctions
worker | February 12, 2021 | 8:21 pm | ALBA, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela | Comments closed

 

Venezuela & ALBA News 2.12.2021: Congress Letter to End Sanctions; Ecuador rejects Neoliberalism; GAO Report on Sanctions

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Petition: Sanctions Kill Campaign: Tell the New U.S. Administration – End Economic Sanctions in the Face of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

**27 Congresspeople sign Letter Opposing US Sanctions

Venezuela

CEPR: GAO Report Findings Show that Biden Administration Should Scrap Trump’s Economic Sanctions That Have Killed Tens of Thousands of People in Venezuela, CEPR Co-Director Says

Resumen: The Latest News on Iván Duque and the CIA’s Attacks on Venezuela

Ecuador

The Grayzone: How Ecuador’s US-backed, coup-supporting ‘ecosocialist’ candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing

Resumen: The Indigenous Arm of the Ecuadoran presidential campaign of  Arauz-Rabascall 

Cuba

Granma: Cuba will have a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines available in April

Granma: Some 15 U.S. cities request Cuban healthcare collaboration  including Oakland, San Francisco, Richmond, Sacramento, Detroit, Berkeley, Seattle, Cambridge, MA, Cleveland

Orinoco Tribune: Washington Openly Spent about $250 Million in Subversive Actions Against Cuba Since 2000

Open Letter to President Biden to Close Guantanamo 111 organizations sign letter to Biden

Bolivia

Anti Conquista: An Indigenous Voice Against Neoliberalism, Imperialism & Fascism: A Review of Volveremos y Seremos Millones By Evo Morales

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NicaNotes: Nicaragua, UN Climate Change conference, Climate Justice, and Reparations

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Ecuadorians Reject ‘Neoliberal’ Banker in Favour of Progressive for President, Ex-Diplomat Explains
worker | February 11, 2021 | 8:06 pm | Ecuador | Comments closed

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/202102081082011899-ecuadorians-reject-neoliberal-banker-in-favour-of-progressive-for-president-ex-diplomat-explains/

OPINION

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Ecuador has seen a significant decline in living standards over the last few years after the current president, Lenin Moreno, abandoned his original campaign platform and instead imposed intensive austerity and privatisation policies pushed by the likes of failed presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso and institutions like the IMF.

Exit polls show Ecuador’s progressive candidate Andrés Arauz winning the first round of the country’s presidential elections held on 7 February 2021. However, it appears that Arauz did not win by enough of a margin to avoid a second runoff. The election has been marred by allegations of voter suppression, as Ecuadorians were forced to wait for hours in uncharacteristically long polling lines, especially in areas known to support Arauz.

Fidel Narvaez is the ex-counsel and former first secretary to the Ecuadorian Embassy in LondonIn an exclusive interview with Sputnik, Narvaez explains that even if Arauz does have to go another round with the second closest candidate, the results reflect a clear rejection of the neoliberal policies imposed by current President Lenin Moreno over the last four years.


[Editor’s Note: Following this interview, the National Electoral Council of Ecuador projected Guillermo Lasso to drop to third place, with Yaku Perez making his way into second place]


Sputnik: Andrés Arauz has just declared victory in Ecuador’s presidential election. Are the results final or is more time needed to certify them? What happens next?

Fidel Narvaez: Well, what we have at the moment of this interview, we have the exit poll results, coming from two different companies and being very, very similar, [it] looks like it might be correct. And it shows that Andrés Arauz has won the first round confidently. He’s got something like 36 percent of the votes and is something like 15 points ahead from the second [closest candidate] Lasso with 21 percent. So it’s an important, important victory. However, the result is not enough for Andrés Arauz to become the president.

So, they both have to face a second round in April which will decide who is the president. We are very confident that we will win that second round. And we are also very concerned about the conditions that we have had to face in this first round.

It was very clear that the electoral body, under control of the government, but also under control of Mr Lasso, literally was competing against us. With the pretext of the pandemic, many people didn’t get to vote. All the polling stations [have seen] long, long queues. And according to the Ecuadorian electoral law, at 5:00 p.m., all the voting stations have to close. So, we are not happy with that because if more people were allowed to vote, we could win the first round.

Sputnik: We’ve seen footage of incredibly long queues of people attempting to vote. Is this normal in Ecuador?

Fidel Narvaez: No, not at all. Absolutely not at all. This is the first time we see it. And especially in those places where we have the strongest support, there was clearly, I think, a strategy to not to allow people to vote.

​​Sputnik: How much do you have to win by for there not to be a second round?

Fidel Narvaez: Well, either you have 50 percent plus, or you have to get 40 percent provided that you have a 10 point lead above the second [closest candidate]. So when the official count comes, I’m confident that we will get closer to 40 percent, but probably not enough…

Sputnik: In order to win in the first round?

Fidel Narvaez: In order to win [in the first round].

Sputnik: Who is Andrés Arauz and what is his policy platform? What were the key things he ran on?

Fidel Narvaez: Under the presidency of Rafael Correa, Ecuador went through a transformational process, not just in terms of economics, but also in terms of social policies, which was interrupted, and, in fact, was cut short by Moreno’s treason. Andrés Arauz is the continuation of the citizen revolution started by Raphael Correa. So his platform was basically an anti neoliberal platform – with a huge social investment, with recovering Ecuadorian sovereignty over our national resources [and] natural resources as well. Basically, a progressive platform. In this election we had 16 candidates, Andres Arauz was basically the only progressive candidate.

He’s going to become president, I’m confident of that, he’s going to become the youngest president in Ecuadorian history. ​He turned 36 years [old] [the day before] yesterday. So he’s a very, very bright and talented guy. He’s an economist. He’s held several important posts in Raphael Correa’s government. He was minister of human talent, which basically looks at education and innovation, and technology. He was for a while in charge of the central bank. He’s a brilliant guy and is a result of the citizen revolution. He’s a fresh face, and is basically a new generation of politicians in Ecuador.

Sputnik: Do you know Andrés Arauz from when you worked in the same government as Rafael Correa?

Fidel Narvaez: Yes. I had the privilege to know him personally. He visited London a couple of times. I have met him. I arranged for him an agenda in London to meet research centres and politicians as well. So yes. He’s visited the embassy quite a few times.

I was the consul of Ecuador for three years to begin with and then I was first secretary of the embassy for another five years. I was responsible for providing consular services to our own community [in the UK], but also to whoever wants to visit Ecuador or has relationships with Ecuador. As first secretary, I was kind of a political attaché.

Sputnik: So you advised on political affairs?

Fidel Narvaez: I was advising on political affairs and I was building political relationships for my country and for the embassy as well.

Sputnik: Did this come to an end when Lenin Moreno became president?

Fidel Narvaez: Soon after.

Sputnik: Guillermo Lasso was the candidate who won the second most votes in the presidential election. What kinds of policies and interests did he champion on the campaign trail?

Fidel Narvaez: Well, Guillermo Lasso is one of the richest people in Ecuador. This is his third attempt to become president. He is the darling and the chosen one of the United States. He’s a banker. He’s an extreme conservative and neoliberal. And he lost the presidential election four years ago against Lenin Moreno. Remember that Lenin Moreno came from the same political platform as President Correa. In a quite surreal way, very difficult to understand for Europeans, even for Latin Americans, Moreno betrayed, completely betrayed his voters, his party, and his predecessor. And from day one, he started to adopt, to implement, the manifesto, the policies of the losing side that is Mr Lasso.

 

So Lasso was very, very influential because he also had strong representation in parliament. So he was key and instrumental in supporting Lenin Moreno’s government. I think that’s the principle reason why in his third attempt to become president after a huge expenditure on his campaign, he could not get more than 20 percent of the vote, because in the population’s imagination he is associated with the government. And that’s a very bad thing [for him] because Mr Moreno is the most unpopular serving president in Latin America. 

Sputnik: Did Guillermo Lasso go into detail about the kinds of policies that he would support during his campaign?

Fidel Narvaez: Obviously, in the campaign [Lasso] tried to distance himself as much as he could from the government. As all the other candidates [did]. Nobody wanted to be associated with the [current] government. But his policies are well known for many years in Ecuador, a very radical neoliberal programme. However, especially in the last weeks of his campaign, due to not being able to get the popular vote, he started offering very [populist] policies. Like raising the basic salary, by quite a lot, like saying education and health services should be free, basically trying to adopt more social policies, because he knew that [he] won’t win the election [otherwise].

But he is also kind of ultra-conservative in many [of his] views. He is against abortion. He might be against gay marriage. He basically was for the legalisation of weapons possession – things that Ecuador is very far away from. I don’t think that plays well, especially with [the] younger generations.

Sputnik: Why has Lenin Moreno had such poor approval ratings during the time of these elections?

Fidel Narvaez: Well, it’s a unique combination of ineptitude and corruption, but also he is a compulsive liar, and Ecuadorians do not tolerate treason. As I said, four years ago, he won the elections on a specific progressive platform, and he abandoned that as soon as he got into power. So, all the social and economic indicators have totally worsened with Moreno’s government. He has got into a huge external debt and practically no performance, no infrastructure, no social investment; [he’s] a total failure.

Sputnik: What are some of the examples of how his policies differed from that of his predecessor, Rafael Correa?

Fidel Narvaez: Correa had the most progressive governmental agenda in Ecuadorian history. And Moreno, basically, had probably the most radical neoliberal agenda. So, he has reduced the size of the state. In practical terms it has led to huge amounts of public servants and employees losing their jobs, among them doctors and teachers. The reduction of investment in education and healthcare. And in terms of international policy, total alignment with the United States and letting the international monetary institutions implement the economic agenda in Ecuador.

Sputnik: So, that would be like the privatisation of state assets?

Fidel Narvaez: He is obsessed with privatising state assets. And he’s desperately trying to do it before he has to leave in May this year. The only reason why he hasn’t been successful in fully implementing that agenda is because the legal system that was implemented by Rafael Correa, and most specifically the Ecuadorian constitution, ensures that certain services should be under state control. So that’s the reason why Moreno hasn’t managed to fully implement his neoliberal agenda.

But one thing I think is important to say here – traditionally, before Correa became president, Ecuador was a very unstable country, politically. We had many presidents in only one decade because civil society and social movements were quite well organised and always managed to get rid of previous governments and previous presidents that also betrayed the people. In the case of Moreno it hasn’t been possible despite his unpopularity. Why? Because he has managed to get on his side all the factual powers in Ecuador.

Sputnik: Factual powers?

Fidel Narvaez: We call it factual powers [de facto powers] in Ecuador. I’m talking about the finance sector. I’m talking about media. I’m talking about the army. The church. So, that’s the only reason he managed to stay in power.

Sputnik: In light of all of that, what’s the significance, in your mind, of the current election results, even if it does end up leading to a second round?

Fidel Narvaez: The result is very important. Very important. Why? Because this is also one of the reasons why Moreno was so unpopular. Because he has launched the fiercest, the most brutal and obscene political persecution that Ecuador has seen ever.

 

That means on the pretext of fighting corruption, he has implemented something which is called lawfare, which is very much implemented all over Latin America, but nowhere as much as in Ecuador. So he has put in jail the vice president who ran with him on the same ticket for alleged corruption, which hasn’t been proved; the guy hasn’t had due process – not at all. 

Then apart from him, Rafael Correa is facing many cases of alleged abuse of power or alleged corruption – no truth, no evidence. The only aim of all of that was to ban him from running [against him in a future election] or from coming back into Ecuador. He remains in exile in Belgium. Many others of the main political leaders from the citizens revolution are either legally persecuted, or already in exile, some of them as political asylees abroad.

Sputnik: Am I correct in thinking that Lenin Moreno dismantled the political party that he was originally part of and that actually helped bring him into power in the first place?

Fidel Narvaez: Totally. But Moreno didn’t care about destroying the party or dividing the party. So that’s why this result is very significant. Despite this political persecution that has lasted four years [and] the control of all the media in Ecuador, the only ones he could not control are small alternative media, despite the defamation, the outright lying about Correa, the citizen revolution, [and] about the progressive alternative in Ecuador, despite all of that, it’s a huge win.

Any political party, imagine here in Europe, would want to have 36 percent of the support of the people and a 15 point lead from the next closest candidate. I’m talking about these results being achieved against the state power, against all powerful media and under very, very hard conditions, and then with an electoral body that clearly, clearly tried to impede this result.

* This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

US opts for military solutions in Latin America
worker | July 15, 2017 | 6:36 pm | Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Donald Trump, Ecuador, Latin America | Comments closed

“The hegemonic ambitions of the United States are ultimately based more on the outsized importance of its military power than on the ‘advantages’ of its economic system.”                             — Samir Amin, Monthly Review, July 2017

By W. T. Whitney Jr.

The media circus surrounding Donald Trump’s words and actions may be distracting enough to let a revived insertion of U. S. military influence in Latin America pass unnoticed. For example, a squadron of South Carolina’s Air National Guard will be undertaking joint training exercises with pilots of Colombia’s Air Force at the Palanquero air base on July 15 – 17. The Colombians, flying aerial-refueling planes and Kfir C-10 fighter-bombers obtained from Israel, will be “fine tuning their piloting skills.”

Anticipating possible encounters with Venezuela’s Air Force, Colombian Air Force generals realized that their pilots lacked equipment and skills required for air-to-air encounters.   The Venezuelans are capable and fly well – used U. S. F-16 combat planes and Sukhoi Su-30 fighter-bombers, purchased from Russia in 2015.

Colombia’s government has been negotiating to purchase 12 old F-16 A/B Netz combat planes from Israel, and preparation of pilots is a step along the way. Pilots from the South Carolinian Air National Guard are assisting them.

U.S. military cooperation with Colombia has been ongoing for decades. By contrast, U.S. military involvement in Brazil breaks barriers.

U.S. and Brazilian military officials recently announced that troops of the two countries would be joining those of Peru and Colombia in training exercises in “the heart of the Amazon.” “Operation America United” will take place over two weeks beginning on November 6. Its advertised purpose is to prepare both responses to humanitarian disasters and measures against illegal migration, drug trafficking, and “environmental crimes.”

Brazil will be setting up a temporary international military base in the city of Tabatinga located on the “triple frontier” that separates Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. One report likens the upcoming training exercise to one in Hungary in 2015 where “the gringos arrived and are still there.”

The governments of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Panama, Canada, Bolivia, and Ecuador received invitations to send troops, presumably as observers. Even the Council of South American Defense may take part on behalf of the Union of South American Nations, formed in 2008 to foster regional integration and independence..

Brazil’s military has long been “quite jealous in its custody of Amazonia,” claims analyst Raul Zibechi. The nation’s military leaders also had opted out of Cold War initiatives for which the United States was recruiting Latin American and Caribbean nations. Zibechi attributes Brazil’s shift to accepting a U. S. military presence in the Amazon region to the influence of two new presidents, Donald Trump and Michel Temer.

Brazil’s Defense Ministry signed an arrangement with the Pentagon in March for coordination in “research and development.” A month later, the giant Brazilian airplane manufacturer Embraer and U. S. aviation electronics manufacturer Rockwell Collins agreed “to work on integrating their [products] for joint defense sales.” And the U.S. Army Armament Research and Development Center recently opened an office in Sao Paulo allowing for cooperation in pursuing “research and innovations in defense technologies.”

Perhaps the most dramatic instance of the new militarization of U. S. influence in the region was the “Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America” that took place in Miami on June 14 -16; Mexico and the United States were co-conveners. Attending were the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, countries whose violence and corruption have pushed migrants toward the United States.

The US Chamber of Commerce and the Inter-American Development Bank held a welcoming event for Central American businessmen in attendance. Later they joined a session at Florida International University where speakers included Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Homeland Security chief John F. Kelly.

General Kelly formerly headed the U. S. Army’s Southern Command which is responsible for U.S. military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The conference eventually moved to the Southern Command headquarters where officials presumably touched upon military plans for Central America.

Official U. S. press releases on the conference avoided military specifics, concentrating instead on the “business climate,” “citizen security,” narco-trafficking, and irregular migration. Writing in advance, observer Jake Johnson predicted that, “the military will be leading US policy in Central America.” He cited Tillerson who earlier had insisted, “We must protect our people … And we can only do that with economic prosperity. So it’s foreign policy projected with a strong ability to enforce the protection of our freedoms with a strong military.”

Central American and Mexican organizations defending the rights of migrants, small farmers, and women had already reacted to the prospect of such a conference. Hundreds of them endorsed a fact- filled petition sponsored by “Meso-American Voices.” Their plea condemned “a new military pact [involving] the United States, Mexico, and Central America to increase the presence of the US Southern Command on the border of Guatemala and Mexico.” That “there would be official operations of the United States Army in Mexican territory” was unprecedented.

Communist Party of Greece: Criticism of certain contemporary opportunist views on the state

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Communist Party of Greece: Criticism of certain contemporary opportunist views on the state

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/04/communist-party-of-greece-criticism-of.html

POSITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION OF THE CC OF THE KKE AT THE 11th ANNUAL CONFERENCE “V.I.LENIN, THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD”.

Source: inter.kke.gr.

The importance and timeliness of Lenin’s work on the state. 

100 years ago, a few months before the Great October Socialist Revolution and in particularly difficult and complex political conditions, V.I. Lenin wrote a fundamentally important work, “The State and Revolution”, which, of course, was published for the first time after the October Revolution in 1918.
In this work, Lenin highlighted the essence and analyzed the class nature of the state: “The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonisms objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”[1]

Lenin in this work also establishes the need and timeliness of the socialist revolution and workers’ state.
It was based on the views of K. Marx and F. Engels regarding the issue of the state, which were formulated in several works, such as the “Communist Manifesto”, “the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, “the Civil War in France”, the “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, Engels’ letter to Bebel on 18-18 of March 1875, Engels’ introduction to the third editions of the Marx’ “Civil war in France” etc in relation to the dictatorship of the proletariat. The conclusions Marx and Engels drew from the study and generalization of the experience and lessons of the revolutions was that the working class can acquire political power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat only through socialist revolution, which destroys the bourgeois state apparatus and creates a new state apparatus. So, we can characteristically refer to the fact that Marx in his work “Critique of the Gotha Programme” stressed that: “Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”[2]
Lenin highlighted the fundamental importance of this issue for those that understand the existence and determining role of the class struggle in social progress, noting that “particular attention should be paid to Marx’s extremely profound remark that the destruction of the bureaucratic-military state machine is “the precondition for every real people’s revolution””[3] and stressing that “Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”[4]
In addition, Lenin sought to describe the characteristics of the communist social-political formation, basic aspects of the socialist state, while severely criticizing right opportunist and anarchist views in relation to the state.
Of course, this specific work of Lenin, and this is true for the rest of the entire titanic collection of his works, cannot be detached from his other works, such as, for example, “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky”, and always must be approached in a dialectical relationship with the historical developments. In any case, however, the Leninist approach to the state is an enormous legacy for the international communist movement, which must be utilized in a suitable way in order to repel social-democratic and opportunist views about the state, which have penetrated and continue to penetrate the international communist movement. Consequently, the goal of this intervention is not to present the Leninist positions or appropriate quotations from Lenin, but to provide a response based on the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the state to contemporary opportunist views. This is even more relevant today, when many views that Lenin fought against in his era are re-emerging in old and new forms.

The “neutral” non-class understanding of the state.

The forces of European opportunism constitute the basic tool for the further watering down of the communist characteristics of the communist and workers’ parties. These are forces that are vehicles for bourgeois ideology inside the labour movement. In Europe, they have established their own ideological-political and organizational centre; the Party of the European Left (PEL), which some CPs that in the past were deeply influenced by eurocommunism have joined, such as the CPs of France and Spain. SYRIZA participates in it from Greece. This is a party that is contains forces influenced by the eurocommunist current that split from the KKE in 1968, and also forces that split from the KKE in 1991, under the influence of Gorbachev’s “New Thinking”. This party later merged with forces that came from social-democratic PASOK.
This party argues that:”The state, however, is not a fortress but a network, relationship and strategic arena for political struggle. It does not change from one day to the next, but on the contrary its necessary transformation presupposes constant and continuous battles, the involvement of the people, continuous democratization.”[5]
As is apparent from the above, the bourgeois state is not considered by them to constitute by its very nature an organ for the domination of the bourgeois class, but a collection of institutions that can be transformed in a pro-people direction. On the basis of this view, it is argued that the character of the institutions of the bourgeois state, the bourgeois state as a whole, can be suitable shaped as long as “leftwing governments” hold sway.
This is clearly a misleading view, because in practice it detaches the state from its economic base, from the dominant economic relations. It creates illusions amongst the workers that the role of the bourgeois state and its institutions (e.g. parliament, government, army, police) depends on which political force (“left” or “right”) is dominant in them.
Similarly dangerous views are being cultivated today in a number of Latin American countries, through the concept of “progressivism”, through the various “progressive” and “left” governments, which after their electoral victories attempt to sow illusions among the people that the system can change via bourgeois elections and referenda.
In reality, however, there is no class “neutrality” on the part of the bourgeois state and its institutions. The state, as Marxism-Leninism has demonstrated, has a clear class content, which cannot be used via electoral processes and bourgeois governmental solutions in favour of the working class and social change.
 

On the view concerning the “Deep State”.

The emergence of SYRIZA as a governing party in Greece led to the celebrations of many opportunist forces all over the world. Indeed, its cooperation with the nationalist ANEL party in government was interpreted by some as an attempt to control the deep state of Greece via this political governmental alliance.[6] Similarly, some presented the statements of made by A. Tsipras even before the elections, when he directly stated that Greece “belongs to the West” and that Greece’s withdrawal from NATO was not on the agenda, as being a smart move.[7]
What is the aim of this view that separates the functions of the bourgeois state from each other like “salami slices”? Of course, inside the state apparatus of the bourgeois state, there are structures with different functions and tasks. However this does not support the view that separates the state into «hard” and “soft” sections. So, for example, the municipalities, the local services are an integral part of bourgeois administration, as local government is also tasked with implementing the reactionary, anti-people legal framework that is approved by each bourgeois government and parliamentary majority. The communists in our country are active in local government, seek to win the majority in the municipalities and today have achieved this in 5 of the country’s municipalities, which include the 3rd largest city in Greece, Patras. However they do not foster illusions amongst the workers about the character of this section of the bourgeois state. They seek as an opposition or as majority in the administration of the municipalities to utilize their position to develop the class struggle and not to “cleanse” capitalism which is what SYRIZA and other opportunist forces argue for.
These opportunist forces find the separation of the bourgeois state into sections convenient. First of all, because this can conceal that the entire state apparatus, regardless of the different functions of its sections, is in the service of the bourgeois class. Secondly, because in this way they sow the illusion amongst the workers that gradually, beginning from the “periphery” of the bourgeois state and marching to the “centre”, to its “depths”, they can “cleanse” it, transform it into a state that will be pro-people.
Opportunist forces foster similarly utopian views even about the inter-state capitalist unions, such as the imperialist EU. Indeed, they propagandize that via referenda or the emergence of left, social-democratic governments, allegedly a “democratic structure for the continent” can be created with “respect for the democratic, sovereign rights of the peoples»[8]. In reality, these claims deliberately bypass the class character of this inter-state union, which arises from the class character of the bourgeois states that constitute it, and which from its birth, as the “European Community for Coal and Steel” in 1952, had been created for the interests of capital.

The expansion of democracy in the bourgeois state as a “step” to socialism.

Lenin came into sharp conflict with those, like Bernstein, who argued that the reform of capitalism and the gradual reformist transformation of society are possible.
Later, the views of Eurocommunism gained a lot of ground, views which argued that communists can transform the state in a pro-people direction via the parliamentary road and the expansion of democracy.
The KKE, which fought and continues today to fight against these views, has estimated that the similar assessments made by the CPSU did a great deal of damage to the international communist movement. These views came to hold sway in the international communist movement mainly after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and spoke of a “parliamentary transition”[9]. Consequently, we consider views that developed on this basis and argue for the violation of basic principles of socialist revolution and construction to be problematic, e.g. the talk about “a variety of forms of transition to socialism” or the so-called “non-capitalist development path.”
The KKE has drawn conclusions and has rejected the “stages to socialism”, which tormented and continue today to torment the communist movement, as due to these “stages” they on the one hand negate the role of the CP as a force to overthrow capitalism in the name of the “current” tasks in the framework of the system (e.g. the aim of restoring bourgeois democracy in the conditions of dictatorship) and on the other hand they sow illusions about the “parliamentary transition” to socialism.
The KKE studies its history, draws valuable conclusions from the heroic struggles of the communists in the past decades. The CC of the KKE noted amongst other things in its recent statement on the 50th anniversary of the Junta in Greece:”The KKE and the labour-people’s movement seek and struggle to be able to function in the best possible conditions, which will facilitate their struggle and more generally expand their interventions against capital and its power. They struggle for freedoms and rights, in order to remove obstacles to their activity, in order to restrict-as far as possible-state repression.”[10] Nevertheless our party, studying its history, assesses that:”The dictatorship provided new experience that demonstrates the baseless character of the assessment that held sway in the International Communist Movement and the KKE, that the path of struggle for an advanced bourgeois democracy is fertile terrain for the concentration of forces and for approaching the revolutionary process, that the struggle for democracy is dialectically connected to the struggle for socialism. This assessment impeded the party from highlighting the military dictatorship as a form of the dictatorship of capital, impeded the orientation of the people’s struggle as a whole against the enemy-the dictatorship of the bourgeois class and its imperialist alliances, like NATO.”[11]
Today, similar mistaken views are being fostered within the ranks of the communist movement. These are views that either talk of “stages” on the road to socialism or of communists “penetrating” power, with the aim in both cases of expanding democracy, as a first stage to socialism.
In practice, such views postpone the struggle to overthrow of capitalist exploitation to the distant future, trap and restrict the labour movement inside the framework of only struggling for better conditions for the sale of labour power, negating the orientation of the struggle to radicalize the labour movement, to regroup it, to concentrate social forces, which have an interest in confronting the monopolies and can struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of the new socialist-communist society.

The nationalization of capitalist businesses as a step to change the nature of the state.

Similar confusion exists regarding issues related to the economy. For many years, the international communist movement, which was and to a great extent continues to be trapped in the rationale of stages to socialism, saw the reinforcement of the state sector of the bourgeois state as a step to socialism.
Indeed, today some misunderstand the Leninist position that “state-monopoly capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no intermediate rungs,”[12] in order to justify the active support and participation of communists in bourgeois management with an expanded state sector of the economy. But in this way they mistakenly understand state-monopoly capitalism as being the existence of a strong state sector in the economy and not as imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, as described by Lenin.
Life has demonstrated that capitalism, in line with its needs, can aim for a large section of a country’s economy to be state-managed. So, for example, in the 1970s and 1980s the largest part of the Greek economy was in the hands of the state, however this did not at all change the character of the bourgeois state. Nor, of course, does it mean that a policy of gradually nationalizing private businesses, which usually means capitalists simply passing on their debts to the state, can lead to a change of its character. As long as power is in the hands of the bourgeois class, the state (with a stronger or weaker state sector) will be bourgeois, and the ruling class will act as the “collective capitalist” of state ownership.

The name of the state as a reflection on how its nature is viewed.

Lenin described the basic aspects of the workers’ state. We cannot close our eyes to Lenin’s analysis and just orient ourselves to the adjectives that accompany the name of a state. Today, for example, the “People’s Republic of Lugansk” and the “People’s Republic of Donetsk” have emerged. What is the character of these self-proclaimed “People’s Republics”? And as an aside to this discussion, we could bear in mind the existence, for example, of the so-called “People’s Republic of Congo”, where small children work in the mines in terrible conditions so that the foreign monopolies can acquire valuable minerals like cobalt and copper.
We assess that we cannot judge a state and our stance towards it exclusively on the basis of how it defines itself and its proclamations. A basic criterion must be which class owns the means production and holds power in the specific state, what kinds of relations of production are predominant in the specific country. And this is because the state for Marxist-Leninists is a “repressive machine”, which in our era objectively, in the 21st century, in the era of the passage from capitalism to socialism, ushered in by the October Revolution, will either be in the hands of the bourgeois class or the working class. There is no middle way!
We must not forget that as always, and today is no exception, the bourgeois classes seek to conceal their goals, to conceal the class character of their state. So, for example, a classic method that the bourgeois class uses to camouflage the state is the projection of its “national” character, presenting its state as a “weapon” to defend the entire nation. Today the bourgeois do not hesitate to also utilize other propaganda “weapons” in order to subordinate the labour movement “under their banners». The communists, the labour movement as a whole, must demonstrate a high level of vigilance when bourgeois politicians, who contributed to capitalist restoration in the former USSR, today utilize the anti-fascist “card”.
Today, when the bourgeois class is also reinforcing fascist forces, some of which even seek to play a role in government, such as, for example, in Ukraine, the appeals for new “anti-fascist fronts” and for alliances even with bourgeois political forces, and even bourgeois states that appear with an anti-fascist mantle, are intensifying. However, as the KKE assessed in the Declaration of the CC of the KKE on the 70 years since the end of the 2nd World Imperialist War and the great anti-fascist victory of the peoples:”The reactionary bourgeois state is neither willing nor able to tackle Nazism root and branch; neither can the so called “antifascist fronts”, an alliance of the labour-people’s movement in cooperation with bourgeois political forces.  Only the people’s alliance, the development of the class struggle with the aim of overthrowing the monopolies’ power, the capitalist system can deal with Nazism.”[13]
In addition, the KKE assesses that today the goal of workers’ power must not be pushed aside by another governmental goal on the terrain of capitalism, in the name of the deterioration of the situation of the working class and popular strata, due to the deep and prolonged economic crisis, imperialist war, open terror against the CP and the labour movement by Nazi-fascist organizations, provocations, the intensification of state violence.[14]
 

Socialist construction and the state under socialism.

For decades, social-democrats and opportunists have been carrying out, amongst other things, a systematic effort to negate every scientific approach to socialism and its state. We read, for example, in the material of the opportunist centre of Europe, the PEL, that it defends the “perspective of a democratic socialism». And this “socialist perspective” is defined by the PEL as “a society of justice founded on the pooling of wealth and the means of production, and on the sovereignty of democratic choice, in harmony with the planet’s limited resources.”Similar confusion and anti-Marxist approaches of the socialist society have multiplied in recent years with the various “socialisms” of Latin America. From the “Socialism of the 21st Century” of Chavez to the “socialism of buen vivir” in Ecuador, where the US dollar is used as the national currency.
They aim for us to ignore the fact that at the base of every socio-economic formation is a specific mode of production, which is the dialectical unity of the forces of production and the relations of production. The relations of production as whole in every phase of the process of reproduction-production, distribution, exchange, consumption- constitute the economic base of society. Approaching this issue scientifically, Lenin underscored that:”In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.[15]
J.V. Stalin noted: “There are two types of production: the capitalist, including the state-capitalist, type, where there are two classes, where production is carried on for the profit of the capitalist; and there is the other type, the socialist type of production, where there is no exploitation, where the means of production belong to the working class, and where the enterprises are run not for the profit of an alien class, but for the expansion of industry in the interests of the workers as a whole.”[16]
This is why the KKE rejects various interpretations of socialism, which have nothing to do with the Marxist-Leninist view, and as it has often stressed in relation to the views of the PEL, or the various “socialisms” of Latin America, that what we have in essence is the promotion of opportunist positions about the “humanization” of capitalism, “ the utopia about the democratization of the bourgeois state, while the “mixed” capitalist economy is being presented as being a new model of socialism. “The logic of national specificities constituted the instrument of “eurocommunism” in order to deny the scientific laws of socialist revolution and construction and today the problem manifests itself with the same or similar arguments.(…) in order to substantiate the substitution of the revolutionary path with parliamentarianism, the relegation of socialism into governmental changes which will manage bourgeois society, as, for example, the Sao Paolo Forum and other forces do. The construction of socialism is a unified process, which begins with the conquest of power by the working class in order to form the new mode of production, which will prevail with the complete abolition of capitalist relations, the capital-wage labour relations. The socialization of the means of production and central planning are laws of socialist construction, necessary conditions for the satisfaction of the people’s needs.”[17]
The KKE, studying the experience of socialist construction assessed the 1965 economic reforms in the USSR as being mistaken. These were reforms that gave priority to “market reforms” and brought back the role of profit to the socialist economy. As a result vested interests emerged in the enterprises, which were not always in harmony with the interests of society. The mistaken reforms in the economy were combined with similar mistaken directions in the political superstructure (e.g. the All-people’s state) and in the strategy of the international communist movement (e.g. policy of “peaceful coexistence”).Of course, our party disagrees with the assessments of CPs, which were pulled into the damaging current of “Maoism” and which considered that from one moment to the next, immediately after the 20th Congress, the workers’ state ceased to exist or indeed that it was allegedly transformed into “social-imperialism” and in this way they participated in the anti-soviet propaganda. In contrast, our party, which defends the contribution of the USSR as the international communist and workers’ movement did, considers that socialism was constructed in the USSR. However, it also considers that the 20th Congress of the CPSU was a turning point, because a number of opportunist positions were adopted on issues related to the economy, the strategy of the communist movement and international relations.
Today, we evaluate that 30 years after the counterrevolution in the USSR, Central and Eastern Europe, the capitalization of China has advanced. Capitalist relations of production hold sway there. At the same time we observe the continuing reinforcement of capitalist relations in countries that sought socialist construction, such as Vietnam and Cuba.[18]
Some comrades from other CPs argue that the developments in these countries are reminiscent of the NEP in Lenin’s era. In other texts[19], we have highlighted the differences between the NEP and the changes taking place in these countries and the results of which our party is concerned about, based in its long study of the experience of the USSR. And this is because the socialization of the concentrated means of production, central planning in the distribution of labour power and the means of production, the eradication of the exploitation of man by man for the majority of workers are basic and necessary conditions, not only for the beginning of socialist construction, but also for its continuation.
In addition, as Lenin had noted that:”the dictatorship of the proletariat is not only the use of force against the exploiters, and not even mainly the use of force. The economic foundation of this use of revolutionary force, the guarantee of its effectiveness and success is the fact that the proletariat represents and creates a higher type of social organization of labour compared with capitalism. This is what is important, this is the source of the strength and the guarantee that the final triumph of communism is inevitable.”[20] It is clear that this “higher type of social organization” can have nothing to do with nepotism. As was noted in the Report of the CC of the KKE to the 20th Congress of the party “North Korea has proceeded to reinforcing the so-called “free economic zones”, the “market». The Workers’ Party of Korea has for some years relinquished Marxism-Leninism and promotes the idealist “Juche” theory, speaks of “Kimilsungism-Kimjongunism”, violating every concept of socialist democracy,  workers’-people’s control, in a regime of nepotism.”[21]

Instead of an epilogue: We must close the “loopholes” of the 2nd International.

The KKE carried out a deep study of the causes that led to the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, following the path of many years of inner-party study and discussion and devoting its 18th Congress (in 2009) in order to provide comprehensive answers on this issue, drawing valuable conclusions for the future. On the basis of this effort, grounded in Marxism-Leninism, our party enriched its programmatic understanding of socialism, something that is reflected in the new Programme adopted at the 19th Congress (2013).
 
The Programme of the KKE notes amongst other things:The socialist power is the revolutionary power of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat. The working class power will replace all the bourgeois institutions, which will be smashed by the revolutionary activity, with new institutions that will be created by the people.”[22]
In addition, the Programme of the KKE describes in detail:
  • The material basis of the necessity of socialism in Greece
  • The duties of the KKE for the socialist revolution
  •  Its duties more specifically on the revolutionary situation
  • The leading role of the Party in the revolution
  •  Socialism as the first, lowest phase of communism
  • The issue of the satisfaction of the social needs
  • Fundamental principles of the formation of the socialist power
The 20th Congress of the KKE, which was held this year, on the 30th of March-2nd April 2017, posed the task of the comprehensive ideological-political-organizational steeling of the party and its youth as a party for the revolutionary overthrow.
100 years ago, at the end of his work “State of Revolution”, V. I. Lenin noted that the 2nd International had spiraled into opportunism, that the experience of the Commune was forgotten and distorted and he added that:” Far from inculcating in the workers’ minds the idea that the time is nearing when they must act to smash the old state machine, replace it by a new one, and in this way make their political rule the foundation for the socialist reorganization of society, they have actually preached to the masses the very opposite and have depicted the “conquest of power” in a way that has left thousands of loopholes for opportunism.”[23]
Today, 100 years after the Great October Revolution and a year before the 100th anniversary of the founding of our party, the KKE seeks with its positions and activity to bar the “doors and windows” to opportunism. This is a precondition for the realization of the ideals of a society without the exploitation of man by man.
 

[1] “State and Revolution”, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, V. 25
[2] “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, K. Marx
[3] “State and Revolution”, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, V.25
[4] “State and Revolution”, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, V.25
[5]From SYRIZA’s governmental programme.
[6] The Real News Network, Interview (28/1/2015) with Leo Panitch, Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, Canada. http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13071&updaterx=2015-01-28+01%3A16%3A04
[7] Article of Paul Mason (1/9/2015), former BBC journalist and former economics editor for Channel 4 News.http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/paul-mason-what-unites-the-new-movements-of-the-left-1.2335322
[8] 5th Congress of the PEL. Political Document: “Refound Europe, create new progressive convergence”
[10] “Statement of the CC of the KKE on the Military Coup of the 21st of April 1967. “Rizospastis”, 5 March 2017.
[11] Ibid
[12] “The impending catastrophe and how to combat it”, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, V.25
[14] ibid
[15]  “Karl Marx”, V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, V.21
[16]J.V. Stalin, Works, V. 7
[20] “A great beginning”, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, V. 29
[21]Report of the CC of the KKE to the 20th Congress of the party, March 2017.
[23] «State and Revolution”, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, V. 25.
Ecuador: Lenin Moreno’s social democracy is not the answer to capitalist barbarity
worker | April 5, 2017 | 9:31 pm | Analysis, Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, political struggle, Syriza | Comments closed

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Ecuador: Lenin Moreno’s social democracy is not the answer to capitalist barbarity

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/04/ecuador-lenin-morenos-social-democracy.html
EDITORIAL / In Defense of Communism ©.
 
“It’s Official”, reads the report of teleSUR, Lenin Moreno elected President of Ecuador”. Ecuadorean eleciton authorities made the results of the presidential election official Tuesday, announcing a win for renowned disability activist and former vice president Lenin Moreno of President Rafael Correa’s governing Alianza Pais party. With 99.65 percent of the votes counted, the National Electoral Council, known as CNE, said the trend of Moreno’s win was irreversible and that the results showed the will of the Ecuadoreans”.
 
Moreno and his vice president Jorge Glass won with 5,057,149 votes or 51.16 percent over former banker Guillermo Lasso and his vice president Andres Paez, of the right-wing CREO-SUMA alliance, who secured 4,827,753 votes and 48.84 percent. 
“We want to dignify politics, to be a good example for citizens, especially for our youth,” Moreno said in a press conference in Quito after the CNE announced the official results.
However- and despite the celebrations by parts of the communist Left around the world – Moreno’s electoral victory does not consist a revolutionary act. In fact, both the two candidates- Moreno and Lasso- do not challenge the capitalist way of development. Both the governing Allianza Pais and the right-wing CREO-SUMA alliance have a common strategy: they both aim in preserve the capitalist economic model. Their difference lies on the mixture of policies which will better serve the interests of the local bourgeoisie.
The so-called “Citizens’ Revolution” of Rafael Correa, which Lenin Moreno has promised to continue, did not consist an actual socialist revolution, but a way of managing the current capitalist economy of Ecuador. After all, it is no secret that Correa’s policy has been praised and supported by numerous opportunists and social democratic forces in Europe like, for example, SYRIZA.
Like the cases of Venezuela and Bolivia, the period of Rafael Correa’s leadership in Ecuador consists a proof that the so-called “21st century socialism” is nothing but another mode of capitalism’s management. Within this framework of capitalist economy, the promises for “pro-people, pro-workers” policies are pure illusions aimed at trapping large working masses into the bourgeois political agenda.
The answer to capitalist barbarity does not lie in the social democratic recipes of Mr.Correa or Mr.Moreno. What the working people of Ecuador need is to organise and strengthen their struggle against capital and its power. For that, a necessary prerequisite is the strengthening of the communist-revolutionary forces in the country towards a large, working class front against capitalist exploitation and its servants. 
Raúl congratulates Lenín Moreno for his presidential win in Ecuador
worker | April 4, 2017 | 8:59 pm | Analysis, Announcements, Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, political struggle | Comments closed

http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2017-04-04/raul-congratulates-lenin-moreno-for-his-presidential-win-in-ecuador

Raúl congratulates Lenín Moreno for his presidential win in Ecuador

The President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, congratulated the Alianza País candidate, Lenín Moreno, who this Sunday, April 2, defeated the right wing hopeful of his country in the second round of Ecuador’s presidential elections

The President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, congratulated the Alianza País candidate, Lenín Moreno, who this Sunday, April 2, defeated the right wing hopeful of his country in the second round of Ecuador’s presidential elections.

“I congratulate you on the electoral victory that will initiate a new stage of the Citizens’ Revolution and will continue the commitment of this sister nation to the unity and defense of the sovereignty of Our America,” Raúl wrote in a missive dated April 2.

The Cuban President reaffirmed the island’s support for the changes initiated more than a decade ago by outgoing President Rafael Correa.

“Cuba will accompany you with the same friendship and solidarity as always,” the Army General added, before concluding by expressing the assurances of his “highest consideration and respect,” for Moreno.

According to reports by news agency Andes, this Monday, April 3, the Ecuadoran President-elect expressed his gratitude for the messages of congratulations sent by Latin American leaders following his triumph in the second round of elections.

“Thanks to Latin American presidents for their calls and messages of congratulations and affection – we will strengthen our integration!” Moreno tweeted.

The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales; Salvador Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador; Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia; Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela; Michelle Bachelet of Chile; and former Argentine president, Cristina Fernández, among others, congratulated Moreno on his win.

Among those who expressed support for the president-elect was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012.

Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Guillaume Long also announced that the ministry has received messages from many sister nations congratulating the Ecuadoran people on the successful elections.

It’s Official: Lenin Moreno Elected President of Ecuador
worker | April 4, 2017 | 8:02 pm | Analysis, Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, political struggle | Comments closed

 

TheWorldToday

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Its-Official-Lenin-Moreno-Elected-President-of-Ecuador-20170402-0037.html

Opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso still has not accepted the results.

Ecuadorean eleciton authorities made the results of the presidential election official Tuesday, announcing a win for renowned disability activist and former vice president Lenin Moreno of President Rafael Correa’s governing Alianza Pais party.

IN PHOTOS:
Left or Right? Ecuadoreans Vote in Decisive Presidential Race

With 99.65 percent of the votes counted, the National Electoral Council, known as CNE, said the trend of Moreno’s win was irreversible and that the results showed the will of the Ecuadoreans.

Moreno and his vice president Jorge Glass won with 5,057,149 votes or 51.16 percent over former banker Guillermo Lasso and his vice president Andres Paez, of the right-wing CREO-SUMA alliance, who secured 4,827,753 votes and 48.84 percent.

“We want to dignify politics, to be a good example for citizens, especially for our youth,” Moreno said in a press conference in Quito after the CNE announced the official results.

The president-elect declared victory Sunday night when official results showed a 2 percent lead over the opposition.

In what many had already predicted, right-wing Lasso and Paez called for a recount, even though the CNE said it was a transparent and successful election process, calling for everyone to respect the results.

Moreno is set to continue and expand social programs introduced under outgoing President Rafael Correa, for whom Lenin served as vice president from 2007 to 2013, before working as the U.N. special envoy for Disability and Accessibility.

Moreno who has been wheelchair bound after being shot and paralyzed in 1998, is well known for his advocacy work for people with disabilities and supporting public education. Jorge Glas, who also served in the Correa administration will now serve as vice president. The new administration will be officially inaugurated on May 24.

As Rafael Correa departs after 10 years of consecutive rule and a number of social gains made under the Citizens’ Revolution, the victory for Moreno is seen as key not only for Ecuador but for the wider Latin American region. Ecuador will remain a part of the pink tide that has swept the region in the past two decades, not following the right-wing shift that took place in 2016 in Argentina and Brazil.

OPINION:
Ecuador’s Tax Evading Oligarchs Try to Reconquer the Nation

“This is a positive endorsement of our plan to create a more equal Ecuador,” said Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Guillaume Long in response to the results. “We have made great strides in social progress in the past decade and we will now continue to do so for the next four years.”

After decades of social and economic instability including the frequent changing of presidents, Alianza Pais under Correa lifted more than 1 million people out of poverty, tripled tax income and expanded the country’s universal health care and education system.

Sunday’s election was the second round of voting after Moreno fell short by less than 0.7 percent on Feb. 19 to win in the first round.

Close to 12.5 million Ecuadoreans in the country, along with almost 400,000 emigrants around the world, were eligible to vote in Sunday’s election. Polling stations were set up in Miami, New York, London and Madrid.

Moreno voted in the north of Quito, accompanied by hundreds of his supporters. Lasso voted with his family in his hometown in the port city of Guayaquil. Correa also voted in the capital along with other government ministers.

“It’s a decisive moment for the region because of the extreme right-wing’s reaction in the last years. Ecuadorean elections are very important,” said Correa while voting.

Moreno’s supporters who gathered from the early afternoon celebrated in the central-north of Quito, outside the headquarters of Alianza Pais.

The election was overseen by international observers including former Uruguayan President Jose “Pepe” Mujica, working with the UNASUR electoral mission. Mujica confirmed that the voting had been transparent.

Despite the CNE and international observers announcing that there were no issues with voting, similar to the first round of voting in February, rumors of voting fraud were circulated on social media by the opposition.