Saturday, January 6, 2018

Italy- Communist Party: The time is now!

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2018/01/italy-communist-party-time-is-now.html

The time is now: 

united for the Communist Party.

 

(Il tempo è adesso: uniti per il Partito Comunista)

 

Translation: Srećko Vojvodić

 

Just a bit less than a month ago, the Communist Party has announced its intention to participate in political elections 2018. Since that day, we have received hundreds of messages of support, proposals of active and specific help, as well as militant joining of our project. We thank everybody and will keep on connect you these days with our local representatives.

Following the developments of these hours, of the discussion in the communist formations and the choices made by the leadership groups, often despite broad opposition of the base of those parties, we want to make a further appeal to the comrades to take note of the choices made and mobilize to actively support the Communist Party, starting from the campaign for the 2018 elections.

Decisions of the Communist Refoundation (Rifondazione Comunista) and the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano), to join the common list of the left, Power to the People (Potere al Popolo), are proofs that the strategy of these parties is moving in a direction, opposite and irreconcilable to the communist reconstruction. As we have already pointed out several times during last couple of years, the communist question is a question of strategic choice and not of simple unitary proclamations, devoid of ideological clarity and political perspective.

Unitary list of the radical left has as its models Podemos, SYRIZA and post-communist movements. It is firmly anchored in the international reference of the Party of the “European Left”, movement built by Bertinotti, whose purpose is dissolution and transformation of communist parties in generic left forces, which accept the capitalist system and European Union, which, due to its perspective, is directly responsible for the social massacre in Greece. In some cases, even the confusion is such that one even looks at the English Labor Party of Corbyn, in Her Majesty’s opposition!

No communist reconstruction is possible within the furrow of the “European Left”. Everyone in the history of Italian communists who had renounced the symbol of the hammer and sickle, and supported the necessity to build a wider front, from Bolognina onward, moved in the direction of overcoming the communist question, which is the question of workers’ emancipation from capitalist exploitation, and of socialist construction.

Do not be fooled again! Communist reconstruction will not pass by yet another watering down into a common list, one more radical than another only by the choice of institutional parties; today in the Free and Equal (Liberi e Uguali), which have “downloaded” the Brancaccio and which were ready to leave, but which carries the same basic contradictions that are already affecting even the most genuine parts of that movement.

Communist reconstruction goes along another perspective. It goes through choices of those who are carrying forward the process of reconstruction of an autonomous and independent field of communists coherently and against many difficulties.

As we have already declared, we are making the list of the Communist Party open to contributions of all communists who do not want to resign themselves and turn themselves into an umpteenth bankruptcy and renunciation project. Imposed deadlines for list presentation are rigid and the time is short. However, the unitary strengthening of the communist reconstruction process is worth more than anything else. The CP is ready to evaluate in any possible way individual and collective contributions of comrades who want to join and support the communist cause, demonstrating in facts and not in words a real willingness to open a unitary process, in the direction indicated by our Party long time ago.

The time is now: united for the Communist Party.

 

* * * 

Poco meno di un mese fa il Partito Comunista ha annunciato l’intenzione di correre alle elezioni politiche 2018. Da quel giorno abbiamo ricevuto centinaia di messaggi di sostegno, proposte di aiuto attivo e concreto, adesioni militanti al nostro progetto. Ringraziamo tutti e continueremo in questi giorni a mettervi in contatto con i nostri referenti locali.

Seguendo gli sviluppi di queste ore della discussione nelle formazioni comuniste e le scelte operate dai gruppi dirigenti,  spesso nonostante ampie contrarietà della base di quei partiti, vogliamo fare un ulteriore appello ai compagni e alle compagne a prendere atto delle scelte operate e mobilitarsi per sostenere attivamente il Partito Comunista a partire dalla campagna per le elezioni 2018.

La decisione di Rifondazione Comunista e del Partito Comunista Italiano di aderire alla lista comune di sinistra, Potere al Popolo, sono la prova che la strategia di questi partiti si muove in una direzione opposta e inconciliabile rispetto alla ricostruzione comunista. Come più volte abbiamo sostenuto in questi anni, la questione comunista è questione di scelte strategiche, non di semplici proclami unitari, privi di chiarezza ideologica e di prospettiva politica.

La lista unitaria della sinistra radicale ha come propri modelli Podemos, Syriza e i movimenti post-comunisti. E’ saldamente ancorata al riferimento internazionale del Partito della “Sinistra Europea”, movimento costruito da Bertinotti, che sta operando per lo scioglimento e la trasformazione dei partiti comunisti in forze genericamente di sinistra, che accetta il sistema capitalistico, l’Unione Europea, che grazie alla sua prospettiva è direttamente responsabile del massacro sociale in Grecia. In alcuni casi addirittura la confusione è tale che si guarda persino al partito laburista inglese di Corbyn, all’opposizione di sua maestà!

Dentro il solco della “Sinistra Europea” non è possibile alcuna ricostruzione comunista. Chiunque nella storia dei comunisti in Italia abbia rinunciato al simbolo della falce e martello e sostenuto la necessità di costruire fronti più ampi, dalla Bolognina in poi è andato nella direzione del superamento della questione comunista, che è la questione dell’emancipazione dei lavoratori dallo sfruttamento capitalistico e della costruzione del socialismo.

Non fatevi ingannare ancora una volta! La ricostruzione comunista non passerà per l’ennesimo annacquamento in una lista comune, più radicale delle precedenti solo per scelta dei partiti istituzionali, oggi in Liberi e Uguali, che hanno “scaricato” il Brancaccio e quanti erano già pronti a salirvi su, ma che porta le medesime contraddizioni di fondo, che già stanno intaccando le parti più genuine persino di quel movimento.

La ricostruzione comunista passa per un’altra prospettiva. Per le scelte di quanti coerentemente e tra mille difficoltà stanno portando avanti quel processo di ricostruzione di un campo autonomo e indipendente dei comunisti.

Come abbiamo già dichiarato, facciamo della lista del Partito Comunista la lista aperta al contributo di tutti i comunisti che non vogliono rassegnarsi e consegnarsi all’ennesimo progetto fallimentare e rinunciatario. Le scadenze imposte dalla presentazione delle liste sono rigide, il tempo è poco. Ma il rafforzamento unitario del processo di ricostruzione comunista, vale più di tutto. Il PC è pronto a valorizzare in ogni modo possibile i contributi individui e collettivi dei compagni che vorranno unirsi e sostenere la causa comunista, dimostrando nei fatti e non a parole la volontà reale di aprire un processo unitario, nella direzione da tempo indicata dal nostro Partito.

Il tempo è adesso: uniti per il Partito Comunista.

Αναρτήθηκε από In Defense of Communism

The Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) condemns and vehemently opposes the unilateral decision of US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel and transfer the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This decision by Trump is not supported by the vast majority of the American people, and has been roundly condemned around the world. The Turkish Party of Labor, or Emek Partisi (EMEP) described the move as a provocative act. PCUSA believes that we in the US bear a special and urgent responsibility to fight this cataclysmic move with all the political and economic might we can muster. The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) struggle must intensify in every trade union, community organization and political formation.

In the US, writing for the organization Jewish Voice for Peace, Rabbi Alissa Wise pointed out the danger of the Trump decision: “There’s a reason the status of Jerusalem hasn’t been determined yet – it’s at the core of the struggle against permanent Israeli domination and Palestinian dispossession. [And] we have to take the initiative and start conversations not just about what happened today, but what’s been happening for the last 70 years and more.”

 In Italy, the Unione Sindicale di Base (USB) said: “The decision of the current U.S. President to transfer his embassy to Jerusalem reiterates, in a very delicate phrase of political and military tension in the Middle East, the war choices adopted by this administration in every geopolitical scenario, from Latin America up to the Far East.”

From Cyprus, the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), representing a neighboring country in the region of Palestine and Israel warned, “[T]his provocative decision constitutes a flagrant violation of the Palestinian people’s national rights and represents support for the Israeli occupation, threatening to undermine the possibility of a two-state solution and to provoke new conflicts both in Jerusalem and in Palestine, and more broadly throughout the region.”

Reaction to the Trump decision inside Israel was swift: “Trump is a crazy pyromaniac capable of setting the entire region ablaze with his madness,” stated the leader of the Joint List, Members of Knesset (MK) Ayman Odeh. “If there is one thing that the past few days have proved, it’s that the US shouldn’t remain the sponsor for discussions between Israel and the Palestinians,” Odeh added. “If the Israeli government wishes for the world to recognize West Jerusalem as the Israel’s capital, all it needs to do is recognize East Jerusalem as the capital city of Palestine.”

It is the responsibility of every Communist and peace loving person to stand on the side of peace. It is the responsibility of every Communist Party to organize for peace and to stand together alongside those forces fighting for peace. The PCUSA, therefore, without reservation or hesitation, condemns the Trump decision and its imperialist, war making intentions. In the words of the Spanish republic fighting fascism in 1936: THEY SHALL NOT PASS!

Friday, December 1, 2017

European Communist Initiative: On the intensification of the militarization and aggressiveness of the EU

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/12/european-communist-initiative-on.html

Statement by the Parties of the European Communist Initiative:

The EU, the NATO and the bourgeois governments of their member-states are engaged in an escalating arms race and in the development of military plans and preparations, which pose a serious danger for the peoples.

These developments reflect the contradictions among the governments within the EU and NATO as well as their contradictions with other imperialist centers and rival powers which are focused on the control of hydrocarbons and energy pipelines in the Middle East, in Northern Africa, in Eastern Mediterranean and other regions.

This process, which concerns the capitalist profits and the division of the market shares, poses a great danger for people’s peace and security, although it is carried out allegedly in the name of the peoples. The EU, as an imperialist union, is reinforcing its militarization. Guided by its “Global Strategy” and the White Paper on Defense it has established the European Defense Union and the related Fund while at the same time it has reinforced the systematic supervision of the promotion of armaments by the member-states through the Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD).

In the same framework, the EU is promoting military forces and formations aiming at the creation of an “EU army” such as the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO), the battle groups, the inter-groups either in competition with the US and NATO, or in cooperation with them, serving in each case the interests of the European monopolies.

In view of these dangerous developments the peoples must be organized and prepared, they must be vigilant and strengthen their struggle against the adventurous military plans, the interventions and the wars of the bourgeois governments and the imperialist organizations such as the EU and NATO.

The European Communist Initiative:

-Calls on the peoples to condemn the bourgeois governments of their countries which promote the reinforcement of armaments, the upgrading, the extension and the increase of US, NATO and EU military bases in their countries as well as the various concessions to them for the implementation of the imperialist plans against the peoples.

-To strengthen the struggle against the EU, the NATO and all imperialist alliances.

-We struggle for the right of the peoples to choose independently their own path of development, including the right to disengage from the EU and NATO. We intensify our struggle for socialism which is necessary and timely.

Αναρτήθηκε από In Defense of Communism

Friday, December 1, 2017

European Communist Initiative: On the intensification of the militarization and aggressiveness of the EU

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/12/european-communist-initiative-on.html

Statement by the Parties of the European Communist Initiative:

The EU, the NATO and the bourgeois governments of their member-states are engaged in an escalating arms race and in the development of military plans and preparations, which pose a serious danger for the peoples.

These developments reflect the contradictions among the governments within the EU and NATO as well as their contradictions with other imperialist centers and rival powers which are focused on the control of hydrocarbons and energy pipelines in the Middle East, in Northern Africa, in Eastern Mediterranean and other regions.

This process, which concerns the capitalist profits and the division of the market shares, poses a great danger for people’s peace and security, although it is carried out allegedly in the name of the peoples. The EU, as an imperialist union, is reinforcing its militarization. Guided by its “Global Strategy” and the White Paper on Defense it has established the European Defense Union and the related Fund while at the same time it has reinforced the systematic supervision of the promotion of armaments by the member-states through the Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD).

In the same framework, the EU is promoting military forces and formations aiming at the creation of an “EU army” such as the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO), the battle groups, the inter-groups either in competition with the US and NATO, or in cooperation with them, serving in each case the interests of the European monopolies.

In view of these dangerous developments the peoples must be organized and prepared, they must be vigilant and strengthen their struggle against the adventurous military plans, the interventions and the wars of the bourgeois governments and the imperialist organizations such as the EU and NATO.

The European Communist Initiative:

-Calls on the peoples to condemn the bourgeois governments of their countries which promote the reinforcement of armaments, the upgrading, the extension and the increase of US, NATO and EU military bases in their countries as well as the various concessions to them for the implementation of the imperialist plans against the peoples.

-To strengthen the struggle against the EU, the NATO and all imperialist alliances.

-We struggle for the right of the peoples to choose independently their own path of development, including the right to disengage from the EU and NATO. We intensify our struggle for socialism which is necessary and timely.

Αναρτήθηκε από In Defense of Communism

Friday, May 26, 2017

The centennial of the 1917 October Revolution to be commemorated in New York (Left Forum, 2-4 June)

 https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-centennial-of-1917-october_26.html

Marxism-Leninism Today is co-organizing a panel commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution at the Left Forum in New York City.

Jointly co-sponsored with the Party of Communists USA, the panel is entitled: “The Russian Revolution and its Indelible Stamp on the Course of World History”  

The event will take place on Sunday, June 4th at 10:00 AM. Room 1.124 John Jay College, 899 10th ave (between 58 & 59th Sts.).

Featured panelists include Zoltan Zigedy and Joseph Jamison both members of the Editorial Board of Marxism-Leninism Today;  George Gruenthal an officer of the PCUSA; and Grover Furr Professor at Montclair State University and author of  several volumes , including “Khrushchev Lied“; “Yezhov vs Stalin” and “Trotsky’s Amalgams”.

Αναρτήθηκε από In Defense of Communism

New York Times, April 30, 2017
When Communism Inspired Americans
by Vivian Gornick

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/…/when-communism-inspired-americans.html

At a rally in New York City in 1962, the famously liberal journalist Murray Kempton said to an audience full of old Reds: “I have known many Communists in my life. I have not known them as criminals. I knew them once as activists — and we had our quarrels. But while this country has not been kind to you, it has been fortunate in having you. You have been arrested, you have been followed, you have had your phones bugged, you have had your children fired. Throughout this, I can think of numbers of you I have known who have remained gallant and pleasant and unbroken.” He added, “I salute you and I hope for times to be better.”

My mother was in the audience that night and said, when she came home: “America was fortunate to have had the Communists here. They, more than most, prodded the country into becoming the democracy it always said it was.”

My parents were working-class socialists. I grew up in the late 1940s and early ’50s thinking of them and their friends as what they themselves called “progressives.” The sociology of the progressive world was complex. At its center were full-time organizers for the Communist Party, at the periphery left-wing sympathizers, and at various points in between everything from rank-and-file party card holders to respected fellow travelers.

In my childhood, these distinctions did not exist for me. The people who came to our Bronx apartment or were present at the fund-raising parties we attended, the rallies we went to, and the May Day parades we marched in were all simply progressives. At the kitchen table they drank tea, ate black bread and herring, and talked “issues.” I understood nothing of what they said, but I was always excited by the richness of their rhetoric, the intensity of their arguments, the urgency and longing behind that hot river of words that came pouring ceaselessly from them.

They were voyagers on that river, these plumbers, pressers and sewing machine operators; and they took with them on their journey not only their own narrow, impoverished experience but also a set of abstractions with transformative powers. When these people sat down to talk, Politics sat down with them, Ideas sat down with them; above all, History sat down with them. They spoke and thought within a context that lifted them out of the nameless, faceless obscurity into which they had been born, and gave them the conviction that they had rights as well as obligations. They were not simply the disinherited of the earth, they were proletarians with a founding myth of their own (the Russian Revolution) and a civilizing worldview (Marxism).

While it is true that thousands of people joined the Communist Party in those years because they were members of the hardscrabble working class (garment district Jews, West Virginia miners, California fruit pickers), it was even truer that many more thousands in the educated middle class (teachers, scientists, writers) joined because for them, too, the party was possessed of a moral authority that lent shape and substance, through its passion for structure and the eloquence of its rhetoric, to an urgent sense of social injustice.

Most Communists never set foot in party headquarters, laid eyes on a Central Committee member, or were privy to policy-making sessions. But every rank-and-filer knew that party unionists were crucial to the rise of industrial labor; party lawyers defended blacks in the South; party organizers lived, worked, and sometimes died with miners in Appalachia; farm workers in California; steel workers in Pittsburgh. What made it all real were the organizations the party built: the International Workers Order, the National Negro Congress, the Unemployment Councils. Whenever some new world catastrophe announced itself throughout the Depression and World War II, The Daily Worker sold out in minutes.

It is perhaps hard to understand now, but at that time, in this place, the Marxist vision of world solidarity as translated by the Communist Party induced in the most ordinary of men and women a sense of one’s own humanity that ran deep, made life feel large; large and clarified. It was to this clarity of inner being that so many became not only attached, but addicted. No reward of life, no love nor fame nor wealth, could compete with the experience. It was this all-in-allness of world and self that, all too often, made of the Communists true believers who could not face up to the police state corruption at the heart of their faith, even when a 3-year-old could see that it was eating itself alive.

I was 20 years old in April 1956 when Nikita Khrushchev addressed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and revealed to the world the incalculable horror of Stalin’s rule. Night after night the people at my father’s kitchen table raged or wept or sat staring into space. I was beside myself with youthful rage. “Lies!” I screamed at them. “Lies and treachery and murder. And all in the name of socialism! In the name of socialism!” Confused and heartbroken, they pleaded with me to wait and see, this couldn’t be the whole truth, it simply couldn’t be. But it was.

The 20th Congress report brought with it political devastation for the organized left around the world. Within weeks of its publication, 30,000 people in this country quit the party, and within the year it was as it had been in its 1919 beginnings: a small sect on the American political map.

The effective life of the Communist Party in the United States was approximately 40 years in length. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were Communists at one time or another during those 40 years. Many of these people endured social isolation, financial and professional ruin, and even imprisonment. They were two generations of Americans whose lives were formed by political history as were no other American lives save those of the original Revolutionists. History is in them — and they are in history.

Vivian Gornick is the author, most recently, of the memoir “The Odd Woman and the City.”