Nikos Zachariadis (1903-1973)

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

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

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

Communist Party, Turkey (KP): Critical questions on recent coup attempt and its aftermath in Turkey (English, Español)

Source: www.kp.org.tr.

The coup attempt and the continuing dispute in its aftermath was not only the concern of Turkey but of the workers’ and communist parties all over the world. Definitely, the course of the events should be considered regarding the class struggle in Turkey but at the same time that very coup attempt also referred to the class struggle around the world, indicating the relentless rivalry and weaknesses within the imperialist order.

In order to share with the international communist movement, the International Relations Bureau of the Communist Party,Turkey has prepared an analysis which consists of 10 critical questions on recent coup attempt and its aftermath in Turkey.

International Bulletin of Communist Party, Turkey No6.

Critical questions on recent coup attempt and its aftermath in Turkey:

Hillary Clinton: The portrait of an imperialist war criminal

Hillary Rodham Clinton. The so-called "lesser evil". The U.S. Democratic Party's Presidential nominee. The possible first U.S. female President. The supposed counterweight to Trump's right-wing extremism. 

Last June, on the occassion of CPUSA's endorsement of Mrs.Clinton, we were pointing out: "Hillary Clinton, like Donald Trump, is a choice of the U.S. monopoly capital, of the country's bourgeois class, for the position of the President. Mrs.Clinton's service as Obama government's Foreign Secretary is known and has been proved disastrous: Libya, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. The people of these countries know, better than anyone, what Imperialism means and what was Clinton's contribution in war crimes".

If we had to draw Clinton's political portrait that would be a portrait of an imperialist war-monger, a champion of hawkish aggression. 

From her stance as a First Lady to her voting record as a Senator and from her service as Obama's Secretary of State to her Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has proved her role as a ruthless promoter of U.S. Imperialism. 

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part II "Proletarians and Communists"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

First Published: February 1848.

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

II. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS.

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. 

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. 

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. 

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. 

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part I "Bourgeois and Proletarians"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

First Published: February 1848.

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

Preface to The 1872 German Edition.

The Communist League, an international association of workers, which could of course be only a secret one, under conditions obtaining at the time, commissioned us, the undersigned, at the Congress held in London in November 1847, to write for publication a detailed theoretical and practical programme for the Party. Such was the origin of the following Manifesto, the manuscript of which travelled to London to be printed a few weeks before the February [French] Revolution [in 1848]. First published in German, it has been republished in that language in at least twelve different editions in Germany, England, and America. It was published in English for the first time in 1850 in the Red Republican, London, translated by Miss Helen Macfarlane, and in 1871 in at least three different translations in America. The French version first appeared in Paris shortly before the June insurrection of 1848, and recently in Le Socialiste of New York. A new translation is in the course of preparation. A Polish version appeared in London shortly after it was first published in Germany. A Russian translation was published in Geneva in the sixties#. Into Danish, too, it was translated shortly after its appearance. 

Fidel Castro- La historia me absolverá (History will absolve me)

Honoring the 26th of July and the 63rd anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack, we publish the full defense speech of Fidel Castro in court against the charges brought against him after the Moncada attack. The speech was given on 16 October 1953. 

HONORABLE JUDGES:

Never has a lawyer had to practice his profession under such difficult conditions; never has such a number of overwhelming irregularities been committed against an accused man. In this case, counsel and defendant are one and the same. As attorney he has not even been able to take a look at the indictment. As accused, for the past seventy-six days he has been locked away in solitary confinement, held totally and absolutely incommunicado, in violation of every human and legal right.

He who speaks to you hates vanity with all his being, nor are his temperament or frame of mind inclined towards courtroom poses or sensationalism of any kind. If I have had to assume my own defense before this Court it is for two reasons. First: because I have been denied legal aid almost entirely, and second: only one who has been so deeply wounded, who has seen his country so forsaken and its justice trampled so, can speak at a moment like this with words that spring from the blood of his heart and the truth of his very gut.

Ronald Reagan: A Ruthless Mass Murderer No.2

 

9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001.

By Michel Chossudovsky / Source: Global Research.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP): "Step into action!"- Interviews with Kemal Okuyan and Özlem Şen Abay

Communist Party, Turkey: Step into action!

Turkey must exit NATO.

The EU membership process must stop;

All military agreements with the US must be abolished, all relevant military bases must be closed;

All religious associations must be dissolved. Any religious discourse must be forbidden in politics. Educational system must be refashioned on the secular basis;

The support for the terrorist groups in Syria must be called off.

These are the urgent demands that must be raised and popularized after the coup attempt of the Gulenists and their collaborators.

The Communist Party cannot let the immediate connections between the unjust system in the country and what happened thereof be passed over while struggling for such demands.

Imperialist Murderers: U.S. and French airstrikes kill over 140 civilians in Manbij, Syria

NOTE: Yesterday, 22 July, at least nine people were killed after gunmen attacked a shopping mall in Munich. It was a horrific action of terrorism, a crime against innocent citizens- our thoughts and solidarity goes to the families of those who lost their lives and to the German people. The Imperialists, too, expressed their sympathy and condolences for the victims of Munich. Among them, the Presidents of the United States and France, Barack Obama and Francois Hollande. Hypocrites! Just a few hours earlier, the governments of US and France had committed a bloody massacre by killing over 140 civilians- among them numerous children- after extensive airstrikes in the town of Manbij in Syria. 

‘Bloody massacres’: Syria appeals to UN after French & US airstrikes ‘kill over 140 civilians’.  Source: Russia Today.

Syria is demanding the UN take action after it says French war planes killed more than 120 civilians during airstrikes on Tuesday near the Turkish-Syrian border. The deaths came just a day after US air assaults killed a further 20 people in Manbij.

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

By Nikos Mottas.

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

- Harry Truman, 1941.

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

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

Ronald Reagan: A Ruthless Mass Murderer

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, consists a political idol of the world's anticommunists, neoliberals and conservatives. Like his close friend Margaret Thatcher, Reagan was a staunch defender of his class- a bourgeois politician and political representative of monopoly capitalism. During his term in the White House (1981-1989) Reagan played a leading role in supporting the counter-revolutionary forces in the Socialist countries, while he left his mark in various horrific crimes against the people of Latin America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua etc.) and the Middle East (Iraq, Lebanon, etc). Here, we will present a series of articles and testimonies which expose the role of R.Reagan's bloody, murderous imperialist legacy - In Defense of Communism.

Accessory to Genocide in Guatemala.

By Robert Parry.

Source: consortiumnews.com.

May 11, 2013.

The conviction of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide against Mayan villagers in the 1980s has a special meaning for Americans who idolize Ronald Reagan. It means that their hero was an accessory to one of the most grievous crimes that can be committed against humanity.

Communist Party of Greece (KKE): Statement on the developments in Turkey and the attempted military coup

Source: 902.gr / Translation in English: In Defense of Communism.

“The up-to-date data information, regarding the developments in Turkey and the coup attempt, refer to a sharpening of the internal, intra-bourgeois contradictions, of the differences between the various authority centers in the country, which interweave with the total international antagonisms in the broader region of Syria, of Middle East and Eastern Merditerranean, through the direct intervention and juxtaposition of powerful capitalist states.

In these antagonisms, Turkey has participated- and participates- having as an aim the protection of the Turkish bourgeois-class interests and its strengthening as a regional power. The active implication of Turkey in the Syria developments, the military operations it conducted in its northern part which is inhabited by populations of Kurdish origin, the relations with the Islamic State (Daesh) brought it in confrontation with its traditional allies, e.g. USA, NATO and others.

The EU justifies the shameful anti-communist hysteria in Poland

The EU does not condemn the anticommunist persecution in Poland, but even seeks to justify it.

Source: inter.kke.gr.

The answer of the EU commission is unacceptable in relation to the question of the KKE’s delegation in the European Parliament regarding the unacceptable decisions of the Polish courts against members and cadres of the CP of Poland, with sentences of up to 9 months in prison, because it is considered an “offense” and crime to disseminate their ideas in the “Brzask” newspaper and the website www.kompol.org. Not only did it not condemn the anticommunist persecution, but it even attempted to legally justify it by invoking the non-application of the reactionary EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. 

While the Commission and other EU bodies are very noisy in other instances that are convenient for their interests, in the face of the anticommunist hysteria it pretends to “wash its hands of it”. While it presents itself as being … sensitive and an unsolicited “defender of human rights”, intervening in the internal affairs of states all over the world, using all forms of imperialist interventions and pressure, it finds nothing to say about anticommunist persecution and bans.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP): Statement of the Central Committee regarding the latest developments in the country

Source: kp.org.tr.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party has gathered on 17th of July and assessed the latest developments in the country deeply and also discussed the Party's situation and  missions. 

The Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Turkey on July 2016

1.  July 15th coup attempt has not brought ideologically conflicting centers subject to each other, but involved at least two and even more state cliques, which have identical class identities and ideologies. It is not possible that these cliques would be totally unaware of each other's plans and actions just like it is being impossible to dissociated them. However the attempt on 15th of July is not a bloody scenario totally planned by Erdoğan as some claimed so, but is a real coup attempt.

Nâzım Hikmet: "My Greek Brothers..." (1952)

Nazim Hikmet- Letter to the Greek People.

Trasmitted through the Radio Station of Warsaw.

19 August 1952.

Source: Rizospastis, 9 June 2013.
Translation in english: In Defense of Communism. 

"Greek Brothers,

There are two Turkeys and two Greeces. The real one and the fake one. The independent one and the slavish one. One is the Greece of Beloyannis and of the thousand of Greek patriots who suffer in the prisons. The homeland of the Greek people. This is the genuine Greece. It is Turkey with the thousand Turkish patriots who are rotting in the dungeons. The Turkey of the Turkish people. This is the genuine Turkey.

There is the Turkey and Greece of Menderes and Plastiras. They are the official ones, not the real ones. They are those which with their few supporters sold out both countries to the american Imperialism.

Recently, under the american blessings, Menderes and Plastiras shook hands in Athens. Their bloodstained hands, which send Turkish and Greek soldiers in Korea. Their bloodstained hands which prepare a new war. They even issued an official statement and talked about the Greek-Turkish friendship. We all understand this friendship.

To hit together the fighters of the Turkish and Greek people, who are struggling for Independence, peace and freedom. To grind in the same american mincer children of the Greek and the Turkish people. To compel the people of Turkey and Greece to bend the head and worship their bosses and the bosses of their bosses.

But the people of Turkey and Greece give a totally different meaning to the Greek-Turkish friendship. For them, the friendship means a common struggle for the freedom of their homeland. For national independence, for the happiness, in order to be able to taste side by side in the fraternal table of friendship, the bread and the olives of their own country.

The Turkish and the Greek people want to send to hell the foreign conquerors. The experts for the torture and the experts for the economic disaster.

In the hearts of the Turkish and Greek people there are the same feelings. Love for their homelands, love for the Soviet Union, for the People's Republics, the Great People's republic of China. (For) every independent or semi-independent people who struggles for national independence. Love for the Korean people. Love for the decent Americans. This is the meaning of the friendship between the Turkish and the Greek people.

My friends Greeks,

We must fight together, hand by hand for the national independence of our countries, for democracy against every expression of fascism, against the imperialists. Thus, our friendship will becoming day by day more powerful.

As a representative of my people, I can say to you that the Turkish people love the Greek people and feel admiration for their heroic achievements. I can tell you, that the Turkish fighters were learning, even in the prison, the news from the liberation struggles of your people and of your people's army. I can tell you that they were hearing about the incidents in Greece with tears in their eyes. The Turkish people was by the side of the Greek people in these tragic and heroic days and will be in the future always by their side. 

 

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©

Kemal Okuyan (Communist Party, Turkey): "Erdoğan cannot trust anyone anymore"

Interview with Kemal Okuyan, First Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party, Turkey (KP) on the coup attempt in Turkey.

Source: International Communist Press, 17th July 2016.

Following is the interview of the soL news portal with Kemal Okuyan First Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party, Turkey (KP) on the coup attempt in Turkey:

SoL: Was the coup attempt surprising for you?

KO: Nothing happening in Turkey should surprise anyone. But more importantly, the possibility of a military coup had been increasing gradually. There are international actors and some power groups in Turkey, who are frustrated by Erdoğan. We have indicated the causes of this discontent several times, we are not making those up. Those are documented, reported facts. Could there be a rule for the capitalists saying there cannot be any conflict within imperialists, no giving away of their own politicians? Recep Tayyip Erdoğan served a lot for the international monopolies, he is still serving them though… But both he himself has made mistakes and also the inner conflicts of the imperialism have been deepened creating various tendencies some of which are not happy with a Turkey with Erdoğan. In that sense, a coup was predictable. Yet obviously there are surprising things about this attempt.

SoL: Some consider everything as a scenario?

KO: It is not a comparison but: I don't understand how certain people take Talat Aydemir’s interventions* seriously but not consider this attempt as realistic? This is because, everything can be visualised today. Image ruins fetishes, yet creates new ones. There is video footage everywhere, those create perceptions of a “fake coup”. Whereas before, everything was on narrative and documents and could be idealized. The fact that this incident has strengthened Erdoğan’s position does not mean it was organised by him or his men. The attempt had some particular critical moments, and if things had been different at those moments we would be talking about quite a different picture.

Erdogan vs Coup: The two sides of the same coin

COMMENTARY.

By Nikos Mottas.

It is certainly too early in order to draw solid conclusions about the attempted military coup in Turkey. The developments and the information we receive are rapid and continuous. Numerous questions arise: Who was really behind the attempted Coup? What were the real motives of this action? How will Tayip Erdogan and his government respond in the next few days? However, what is sure is the framework within which the developments in Turkey are taking place: It is a framework of inter-bourgeois contradictions which reflect a sharp rivalry between different parts of the Turkish Capital.

The attempted military coup- as well as the almost immediate response from Erdogan and AKP supporters- reflect a situation of internal war within Turkey's bourgeoisie. Taking into account the significant geostrategic role of Turkey in the region, we can understand that this intra-bourgeois, intra-capitalist war consists part of broader inter-imperialist contradictions in the Middle East.

The situation in Turkey cannot be explained on the basis of the- nevertheless existing- political rivalry between pro-Islamists (Erdogan) and Kemalist forces; It is a deeper and much more complicated situation. The internal political turmoil in Turkey is interdependent with the imperialist activity in the region- with the ongoing war in Syria and the relations of the Turkish government with foreign powers such as the US, NATO, Russia, the EU, ISIS etc.

"There is no alternative but people"- Statement of the Communist Party, Turkey (KP) on the attempted military coup

Statement from the Communist Party, Turkey. Source: International Communist Press, 16th July 2016.

Communist Party, Turkey (KP) released a statement on the military activities ongoing since the night of 15th July. Following is the full text of the statement from KP:

"The Communist Party is calling on our people to organize in the Party's ranks against the enemies of the people and humanity.

The liberation is in our own hands.

We do not have all the details of what happened during the coup attempt that took place in Turkey in the hours between July 15 and July 16.

However, we know very well that plans that are supported by foreign forces, that do not take its power from the working class can not defeat AKP darkness and solve Turkey's problems.

SYRIZA government exposed: Τhey rejected KKE's proposal to relieve the people from their debts to the banks

Alexis Tsipras (left) and New Democracy
leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Once again, the coalition government of Alexis Tsipras has been exposed. This time, the governmental coalition of SYRIZA-ANEL, with the support of the other bourgeois parties (New Democracy, PASOK, To Potami, Center Union and the Nazi Golden Dawn) rejected a draft law from the side of the Communist Party (KKE) to relieve low-income families from their debts to the banks. Once again, the Greek bourgeois parties show their real identity, as political representatives of the big Capital.

They refused to relieve the people from their debts to the banks.

Source: inter.kke.gr

The SYRIZA-ANEL government as well as the bourgeois opposition parties, with a common line in defense of capital, but using a "variety" of arguments, rejected  the draft law of the KKE for the relief of popular families from their debts to the banks in the full session of parliament on the 14/7.

Their class choice in favour of the banks and business groups became clear in the discussion and at the same time they were scornful of the KKE's proposal, because it presupposed that the bankers and capital would pay the costs for the measures to provide substantial relief to the working class and popular families. Their goal is to force the people to live with diminished expectations and demands, to live destitute wretched lives, with the noose of indebtedness, which is increasing due to unemployment, very high taxation, reductions in salaries and pensions etc.

Ernesto Che Guevara- Transcript of CBS 'Face the Nation' Interview (1964)

The text below is the trascript of an interesting interview that Ernesto Che Guevara, then Minister of Industry, gave to CBS Television Network in New York. 

Source: Guevaristas.org.

“FACE THE NATION" as broadcast over the CBS Television Network and the Sunday, CBS Radio Network December 13, 1964 – – 12:30 – 1:00 PM EST.

GUEST: MAJOR ERNESTO GUEVARA, Minister of Industry of Cuba.

NEWS CORRESPONDENTS: Paul Niven, CBS News, Tad Szulc, New York Times, Richard C. Hottelet, CBS News. PRODUCERS: Prentiss Childs, Ellen Wadley. DIRECTOR: Robert Vitarelli.

MR. NlVEN: Major Guevara, in your speech to the General Assembly the day before yesterday, you accused the United States of helping Cuba’s neighbors prepare new aggression against her. We, in turn, have often accused your government of abetting subversion in other Latin American countries. Do you see any way out of this situation, any way to improve relations?

MAJOR GUEVARA: I think with regards to solutions, there are solutions, and I think there is only one. we have said repeatedly to the government of the United States that we do not want anything but to forget us, that they do not consider us even for good or evil.

Social-democracy at the service of the ruling classes. The struggle of the Communist Party

Social-democracy at the service of the ruling classes. 

The struggle of the Communist Party.

By Raúl Martínez & Ramón López*.

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 3, 2014.

Revisionism, a historical phenomenon hostile to Marxism.

Since the birth of the labour movement to this day, an intense struggle between two tendencies has been waged within the movement: the revolutionary one and the opportunist one. Over the history, opportunism has adopted different and numerous expressions, diguised under forms of "left wing" and right wing. This article deals with the right wing opportunism or revisionism, initial source of the political current that is nowadays known as social-democracy, whose nature mutated along the twentieth century, from being a current of the labour movement to a political movement which is an uncompromising defender and the essential pillar of monopoly capitalism.

Revisionism emerged in the late nineteenth century when, after the passing away of Frederick Engels, open warfare broke out within the socialist movement led by the German Eduard Bernstein whose maxim “the movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing [1” became the banner of the followers of the revisionist theory and its political practice, reformism. Lenin would argue about it:

KKE's delegation paid respect to Ho Chi Minh and the heroic people of Vietnam

Info from 902.gr / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

HANOI- A delegation of KKE, headed by the General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas, paid their respect to the historic leader of Vietnam and the country's Communist Party, Ho Chi Minh. Visiting the Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum in Hanoi, GS Koutsoumbas led a wreath in memory of the legendary Vietnamese communist. 

The delegation of the Communist Party of Greece had the opportunity to visit the simple wooden traditional apartment which was Ho Chi Minch's residence for years, as long as the Vietnamese leader had declined to stay in the adjacent colonial presidential mansion. Nearby to the apartment, it is the shelter where Ho Chi Minh and the cadres of Vietnam's Communist Party were working during the US imperialist intervention. 

Intervention of KKE: Anti-communism and the glorification of Nazism

Source: inter.kke.gr.

On the 29^th of June, the CP of Ukraine organized a meeting on the margins of the Summit of the Human Rights’ Council of the UN against anti-communism, the persecution at the expense of the CPU and the attempts to rehabilitate Nazism and its supporters in Ukraine. The KKE was invited to this meeting and its representative, Vangelis Katsiavas, cadre of the KKE’s delegation in the European Parliament, made an intervention as did the President of the CP Ukraine, Pyotr Simonenko and a representative of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.

The speech of the KKE’s representative is as follows:

“INTERVENTION AT THE EVENT ON THE "GLORIFICATION OF NAZISM"

We would like to thank you greatly for the invitation to this exceptionally interesting discussion.

Black Lives Matter- but, not in Capitalism

COMMENTARY:

The recent murder of 37-year old African American Alton Sterling by police in Louisiana is another tragic episode in the long chain of racist crimes in the U.S. The United States of America- the metropolis of Capitalism- has a devastating tradition of racial discrimination. A tradition of human chattel slavery back in the 18^th and 19^th century, of lynchings and mob violence against African-Americans, of racial segregation and discrimination against black people in the post WW2 decades.

Racism is an inseparable element of the capitalist exploitative system; it is in the very nature of Capitalism to produce, promote and feed racism. After all, the exploitation of the working class by the capitalists becomes easier and more effective when there are divisions among workers. For that, racism consists a valuable tool of the capitalist establishment in creating disunity within workers. What is best for the exploitative system rather than a splitted working class, filled with racist poison?

Writing for TIME magazine, after the murder of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the former basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was correctly pointing out: “And, unless we want the Ferguson atrocity to also be swallowed and become nothing more than an intestinal irritant to history, we have to address the situation not just as another act of systemic racism, but as what else it is: class warfare” (TIME, 17 Aug. 2014).

KKE: "The Warsaw Summit proved the criminal role of NATO"

On the occasion of the NATO Summit in Warsaw, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) released the following statement:

"Pro-Peace declarations with dangerous heated-war decisions".

Source: 902.gr / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

The Summit of NATO in Warsaw proved, once again, the criminal role of this imperialist organisation, which decided:

- the further concentration and redeployment of wartime military forces to countries which border with Russia,

- the completion of the installation and operation of the so-called "Missile Shield" with bases in Romania, Poland, with  the naval support and general infrastructure connected to the use of nuclear weapons in a destructive showdown. Its not accidental that the Declaration of the Summit's conclusions states the readiness of NATO to use nuclear weapons,

Aleka Papariga- The importance of the critical assessment of the socialist construction in the 20th century

The importance of the critical assessment of the socialist construction in the 20th century for the strengthening of the labor movement and for an effective counter-attack.

By Aleka Papariga*.

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 2, July 2014.

When we made public the subject of our 18th Congress, which, besides the mandatory overview of our work, included as a special subject our conclusions from socialist construction, several friends of the Party wondered whether it was advisable, under the current conditions and while the signs of the economic capitalist crisis had already become visible in the international scene, to focus on such an important issue which, in their opinion, might not have been at the top of the agenda.

It is not necessary, of course, to remind the reaction raised in the bourgeois press, the ironic and bitter comments of well-known journalists, who were annoyed by our decision to deal with this issue as they knew beforehand why we took such a decision. Their reaction is quite understandable from their point of view; they have a sharp instinct, they catch everything that can give strength and dynamic to the revolutionary movement.

From the very first moment that we realized that the infamous course of perestroika was nothing else but the beginning of the counterrevolution and the temporary defeat of the socialist system, we understood that we had to bear the brunt of giving answers to all progressive people –and to ourselves as well- who were reasonably wondering what happened. Even more so, since it was proved that we were not at all prepared for such a tragic development; we had not anticipated it and, unfortunately, we did not have the appropriate reflexes in order to react, even just before the lowering of the red flag from the Kremlin.

KKE delegation visiting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

A delegation of the Communist Party of Greece headed by General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas is visiting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, following an invitation by the GS of the CC of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Except from Secretary Koutsoumbas, the delegation is comprised by Dimitris Arvanitakis, member of the Political Bureau of the CC, Giannis Giokas, KKE MP and member of the CC and Giorgos Eltahir, member of the Editorial Board of 'Rizospastis'. 

During their stay in the country (8-15 July), the members of the KKE delegation will visit Hanoi and the city of Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon), where they will meet with the General Secretary of the CC of the CP of Vietnam, the head of the Party Committee of Ho Chi Minh city as well as other sections of the Central Commitee of the Party. Additionally, the KKE members will pay a visit to the Peace Committee of Vietnam, the Youth Organisation of Ho Chi Minh, the newspaper 'Nhân Dân' as well as to the Greek ambassador in Hanoi. 

Source: Rizospastis, 9 July 2016.

V.I.Lenin- Imperialism and the Split in Socialism (1916)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- 

Imperialism and the Split in Socialism.

Published in Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata No. 2, December 1916. Signed: N. Lenin. Published according to the Sbornik text. 

Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 105-120 / Web source: https://www.marxists.org.

Is there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has gained over the labour movement in Europe?

This is the fundamental question of modern socialism. And having in our Party literature fully established, first, the imperialist character of our era and of the present war [1] , and, second, the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic similarity of their political ideology, we can and must proceed to analyse this fundamental question.

We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command   the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.