Anniversary of the defeat of fascism - WFDY

On the occasion of the 65th Anniversary of the Peoples’ Victory over Nazifascism

On the morning of May 9 of 1945, 65 years ago, mankind woke up free from nazifascism after the brave Soviet soldiers finally entered Berlin and defeated the hideous Nazi regime. Nevertheless, this victory could only be achieved after a war of suffering for all mankind and destruction of most of Europe, particularly the Eastern side, in which the troops of Nazi and Fascist regimes destroyed and killed all in its way until they were stopped.

On this 65th anniversary of the peoples’ victory against Nazifascism we remind the main actor of this victory that freed mankind: the people. It was the popular resistance organized against fascist imperialist offense that defeated fascism.

We remind particularly the contribution of the Soviet people, who had to face more than 2/3 of the battlefronts. It is upon that victory, essentially conquered by youngsters, that WFDY was built to ensure that the youth would never again live under fascism and would never have to face war again.

However, 65 years after the peoples’ victory over fascism the total freedom is still not here. As 65 years ago also today the dominant classes are using the crisis of capitalism to directly attack the workers’ rights, to promote xenophobia and racism against immigrants and to attack the freedom and democratic rights attempting to criminalize all those who struggle for an alternative to this obsolete capitalist system. It is remarkable how now, as in that period, the communists, anti-imperialist and progressive forces are always the firsts to be chased.

Nowadays the people of Palestine suffer the same slaughter, persecution and humiliation that Jews faced from the fascist regimes that chased them, enslaved them and killed them in their concentration camps that were not that different from the authentic ghettos that the blockade policy of Israel is spreading throughout the West Bank, as the siege done together with Egypt and USA to the Palestinian land of Gaza.

Even 65 years after the use of the nuclear bombs against people, following the limitless ambition of power of USA against a already surrendered Japan, the race for massive destruction, high technology and nuclear weapons continues and is lead by the USA, whose leading position as detainer of the biggest amount of nuclear weapons states for itself as a fact against all sorts of hypocrisies made by its administration.

On this occasion, WFDY calls upon all its member and friendly organizations to rally their efforts and spread throughout the world the criminal nature of the fascist regimes as upper stages of the not less criminal nature of imperialism and
capitalism. For the full recognition of the historical facts and its inclusion in school books, for the end of all sorts of discriminations and xenophobia, for freedom, democracy, social justice and peace, let us join our voices as one and stand up to conquer this world forever free of injustice, war, destruction, hunger and illness.

Never again fascism, never again war – let’s defeat imperialism!

Debate "European Union 2020 Strategy" May 10th 2010, Lisbon, Portugal

Debate "European Union 2020 Strategy" May 10th 2010, Lisbon, Portugal

Speech by Jerónimo de Sousa,

Secretary General of the Portuguese Communist Party

Allow me to begin by saluting and valuing your presence and contributions to this initiative of the GUE/NGL and PCP, and particularly thank those comrades that accepted our invitation to come to Portugal and participate in this reflection.

Your presence is not only an expression of cooperation that our Parties maintain within the Parliamentary Group of the European Parliament – to which PCP has given and will continue to give its contribution – but also a demonstration of solidarity with our people and with our Party.

Solidarity that – during a time of special demand and complexity for the worker's and people's struggle and for the worker's movement, communists and other progressive forces of Europe ¬we want to repay by strongly valuing the struggles that develop and strengthen all over the continent, as well as here in Portugal.

Already here today much has been said about the nature, the real objective and the content of the 2020 Strategy. It is in fact a strategic document for big European capital, that while pilfering the nefarious consequences of its predecessor – the Lisbon Strategy – reaffirms and deepens the neoliberal policies of the European Union in very diverse fields and insists on the strategy of so-called "exit to the crisis" by means of increased exploitation and supporting big capital. A Strategy that will deepen – if implemented – all the roots and causes of the profound crisis we are living today.

Several comrades referred to the failure of the Lisbon Strategy and they have reason to do so. Here, in Lisbon, during the European Council of March 2000, we alerted that the Lisbon Strategy would not create more jobs with rights, would not eradicate poverty and social exclusion, and would hardly ensure a strong growth that would make Europe – I quote – "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy of the world, characterized by durable economic growth, full employment and greater economic and social cohesion".

Today, whenever we recall this propaganda catch-phrase, some smirk and other disguise their responsibility by whistling to the side. That's natural. It is the European Commission itself that today affirms that industrial production is at the level of the 90s; that unemployment affects 10% of the active population, that is 23 million people; that 21% of young people don't have a right to work; that there are 83 million poor in the European Union and that the combined GDP of the European Union member states fell 4% only in the last year.

There are, in fact, enough reasons to state that the Lisbon Strategy failed. It failed in its proclaimed objectives, although we know it did not fail in achieving its class objectives. For the Lisbon Strategy had, in fact, other objectives. Class objectives, of a specific class, and that we denounced at the time: to increase the exploitation of workers, adopting the demands of European bosses; to reduce what they call "labor costs", legalizing and generalizing labor deregulation, casualisation and mobility; guaranteeing hefty profits for the big economic groups (namely in the area of new technologies and services), and to financial capital; to hand over to private capital the strategic sectors of the economy and proceed with its deregulation; to seriously attack public services that are of interest to capital, in areas such as health, social security, education, culture and justice, and advance in the liberalization of commerce in the name of sacred competitiveness and free enterprise. It is therefore easy to conclude, from this point of view – a class perspective, I insist – that the Lisbon Strategy was a success. We need only review the evolution of profits by the big economic groups in the financial, energy, transportation, new technologies, communication and service sectors. We need only see how the Bolkestein directive and Working Time directive (to refer but two examples) went along with the interests of European bosses. Or yet, how the redistribution of wealth evolved, with clear and constant advantage towards capital in detriment of work incomes.

It is likewise easy to conclude that, if not defeated by the struggle, the 2020 Strategy will mean even more success for capital at the cost of the destruction of what remains of the social functions of States, of the destruction of the productive systems of the economies most weakened by economic dependency, at the cost of more unemployment, lower wages, less social and labor rights, greater poverty and other social ailments that spread across Europe, like hunger. We are therefore on the battleground of the old, yet so present, class struggle in Europe. Upon this battleground, we cannot, obviously, isolate this or that aspect of policies or orientations that preside the process of European capitalist integration. If we are justified in asking, with regards to the 2020 Strategy, "what is it good for and whom does it serve?" , the same question should also be asked of the Stability Pact, the Economic and Monetary Union, the Euro, the European Central Bank, the so-called foreign policy of the European Union and the Treaties – such as the Maasctricht and Lisbon Treaties. In summary, the same question need be asked of the neoliberal, federalist and militarist European Union. And the answer is to be found, as well, in this 2020 Strategy: it increasingly serves interests that are alien to the workers and peoples of Europe.

The situation we are living demonstrates very well what we have just affirmed. One by one, the dogmas of the European Union and the instruments destined to impose an accelerated capitalist integration in Europe are put into question by reality, the facts. The most recent events clearly reveal the degree of falsehood of the discourse of solidarity, cohesion and "social Europe", and lay bare the true purpose of the instruments contained in the treaties, the common policies and the Strategies.

So say the workers, victims of real social terrorism resulting from the forward escape of big capital, of the European Union and the vast majority of governments, faced with the deepening crisis of capitalism.

So say the peoples of several European countries, confronted with speculation directed by the decisions centers of big capital. The same financial capital that received billions of euros from governments. The same governments and Parties that now, faced with speculation, do not hide their class nature and extend the red carpet to pillaging, transferring the bill of the theft onto workers.

So say the workers and people of Greece. Unfortunately, the volcanic ashes did not allow the representative from the Communist Party of Greece to land last night in Lisbon. But it will not be because of his forced absence from this debate that we will refrain from very fraternally saluting the Greek communists and expressing our firm solidarity with the struggle that, side by side with the working and popular masses and with the class-based trade union movement, they are so courageously undertaking.

An entire people falls victim of blackmail from the IMF, the Commission, the Council, the ECB, the big powers like Germany, and its own government, but does not break. A people that understood the real meaning of some ill-labeled "aids", paid with talk and that will go straight to the safes of big capital. It is fair to say: help like this is rejected by the Greek workers and people! And it was out of solidarity with the people of Greece that PCP, together with the Ecologist Party "The Greens", were the only two political forces to vote against the legislative proposal that will unleash the so-called "aid to Greece".

The reality, and these "loans" prove it, is that the peoples of Europe are the victims of a policy of concentration and centralization of economic and political power, source of economic dependency and fragility of their country's economies. The truth is that they are the victims of a policy of competition between the big European powers and the USA, namely around the monetary issue, a very concrete expression of the deepening of inter-imperialist contradictions, between the European Union and the USA, and within the European Union itself.

They are the victims of the classic capitalist escape from its own crisis, that is: increase in the rate of exploitation; greater inequalities; more and deeper attacks upon the sovereignty of countries; growing threats and provocations to democracy and the forces that resist the voracity of capitalist exploitation. The reality is that, in this framework, the European Union, with its policies, instruments and institutions is once more operating as an instrument of oppression by the dominant classes.

Many attempts to throw sand in our eyes with speeches invoking the need for sacrifices in order to fight the crisis and save the Euro, the Economic and Monetary Union, save the European Union, imagine!

To those people we reply, first, that with regards to sacrifices, the workers and peoples know them better than anyone else. Sacrifices were asked of us in order to avoid a crisis, then to pay for the crisis and now to "recover from the crisis".

Second, we reply that we know that these sacrifices are not inevitable. On the contrary, they are a premeditated and conscience class option, strategic from the point of view of capital's interests, to ensure profits in the present and guarantee in the future – with the so-called strategy to exit the crisis – an even more unbalanced correlation between capital and labor.

Third, we retort with a question: sacrifices to save what and whom? To save the big economic groups that continue to register obscene profits? To save financial capital that is profiting rivers of money with this crisis? To save the policies that withdraw rights, that worsen the living conditions of workers and peoples and that destroy the productive sectors of countries like Portugal? Do not count on us for that. It would be like asking the condemned to save the executioner. And fourth, we respond that – because we know the origin of this profound crisis affecting the whole world all too well – we have very clear ideas and very concrete proposals to fight the crisis. We respond that fighting the crisis in the European Union requires a rupture with its neoliberal and federalist path, a rupture with the orientations of its economic and monetary policy, and the end of the ill named "Growth and Stability Pact". Fighting the crisis requires a total inversion of the anti-social policies of the European Union, so blatant in the "2020 Strategy". Fighting the crisis requires a respect for democracy, a deepening of labor and social rights, and fostering the action and struggle of the worker's movements, namely the class-based trade unions – not targeting them. Fighting the crisis requires defending a real convergence and cooperation. A cooperation founded on social progress, on the support to national production and public investment, on the reinforcement of public services, on jobs with rights. A cooperation that puts an end to the so-called "free" circulation of capitals, an end to fiscal paradises and derived financial products, and assumes once and for all a real fight against financial and stock-market speculation. If that is the path, then we will be along the path to fight the crisis.

A crisis that, in Portugal, takes a dramatic form, amplifying the main problems our country was already facing. A crisis that struck a highly debilitated country, as a result of years and years of right-wing policies and the monopolistic recovery – against the achievements of the April Revolution – implemented by the government of the Socialist Party (PS) and the right-wing parties, precisely those that worship the system and the policies that are at the heart of the international crisis.

Crisis that erupted when Portugal was, since 2002, in an accelerated economic and social divergence in relation to the European average, facing its most prolonged economic stagnation in the last decades and a dramatic worsening of the working and living conditions of workers and working populations.

In the name of the Lisbon Strategy and the competitiveness of the economy, the most brutal offensive against labor and socials rights was promoted, and by joining the common currency the Portuguese economy was not only confronted with a new factor of reduction of its competitive capacity, but also with its entailment to the Stability and Growth Pact and the nominal convergence criteria, which put an end to economic growth and development.

In the name of balancing the public deficit, steps were taken, as never before, in attacking the right of the Portuguese to health care, social security, education and culture, and a brutal offensive was launched against essential aspects of our democratic regime. The Public Education System, Social Security and the National Health Service suffered, during the last years, one of the greatest offensives of all time. The last two years of acute crisis of global capitalism and the destructive action that it brought added to the developing internal crisis, and led to an explosive destruction of the country's productive sector, the degradation of working conditions of large masses of workers, particularly with the brutal increase in unemployment.

Today the consequences of the policies that promoted financial deregulation and the casino economy, the privatizations, the market liberalizations, in detriment of real production and the living conditions of workers and peoples are well visible. Portugal is today not only a more unjust and unequal country socially and in the development of its territory, but it is also a more dependent, more indebted, more in deficit and more vulnerable country. This is the result of a prolonged political action oriented to promote a staggering centralization and concentration of wealth in favor of the big monopolist capital.

A policy that they are preparing to continue. This after condemning and distancing themselves from neo-liberalism and the free market; after giving speeches about "regulation", fighting off-shores and speculative financial activities. A staged farce enacted during the peak of the scandals of the financial system, when it became necessary to justify giving public funds to save speculators and financial capital.

Who can now remember the famous G-20 meeting that demanded supervision, regulation and the end of off-shores? Enough time has passed to see that nothing new or different has arisen or occurred under the dominion of the same political power that led us to the crisis and gave cover, here and in the rest of Europe, to the interests of big monopolistic financiers. And we didn't need to wait long to see those that absorbed immeasurable public resources once again unleashing the dogs of financial speculation and blackmail, and lunging, like implacable predators, at the resources of peoples.

Portugal lives at the present under an intense and dangerous operation of a speculative nature and is the object of true robbery, as are other countries. But the only exit that the dominant political powers present is the demand for more sacrifices from peoples. Powers that do not limit themselves to accepting blackmail. They use it, in concert and coordination, in order to double the stakes in the demand for sacrifices.

This is very clear in the Growth and Stability Program elaborated by the Portuguese government, that was presented to Brussels, and enabled by a negotiated resolution between the two parties that have led our country's governments during the last years. This a new attack being prepared against worker incomes, by cutting wages and increasing taxes, but also against all the main social benefits, against public and participated services and companies, with new privatizations and an unacceptable freeze of economic and employment growth, deepening and worsening even more the relative arrears of the country.

A Program that is simultaneously the unconditional surrender to the dictates of financial markets and a repetition of the harsher recipes, measures and orientations that have imposed so many sacrifices, inequalities and injustices upon the majority of the Portuguese people.

At a time when what is necessary is to give priority to policies that promote the growth of the economy and employment, what we see is a complete claudication – and from a government that calls itself socialist – to the demands of national and international big capital. A claudication that is often justified with the lament "that's how it is, there's nothing to be done". But we respond that yes, there is much, much to be done! We will not be defeated, whatever the circumstances in which we develop our struggle, and here we stand to build the present and future. We state this because we have a deep confidence in workers, our people and their struggle. A profound confidence in the women and men that do not give up struggling for their rights, that do not conform with the growing inequalities and with the attempts to make them pay for a crisis for which they bear no responsibility.

A confidence that has always been present throughout several generations of fighters. Those that defeated nazi¬fascism 65 years ago; those that 120 years ago, defying criminal repression, inaugurated the historic global day of struggle that is May 1st; those that, in our country, resisted half a century of fascism and made April 25th the most beautiful day of our History; and, finally, confidence present among those that in the last several years have filled the streets and avenues of our cities and towns. Folk, people, workers disposed to say Yes. Yes to a future of progress, equality, justice, peace and cooperation. These fighters can count on this Communist Party and all its forces, and so can those peoples here represented in our debate, specially the communist and progressive parties present here. Transmit to your militants and activists a message of confidence from the Portuguese communists and the solidarity of the Portuguese Communist Party.

Huge rally of KKE in Athens on 15 May 2010

The Saturday’s rally unfolded to a thrilling march

The rally of KKE held on Saturday May 15 at Pedion Areos Square was a thrilling red river of people. The slogans and the atmosphere of the rally reflected the determination of the whole people to resist, struggle, defend their rights and pave a new way through their class struggles. From the very first moment the nationwide rally of the party established itself as one of the most massive demonstrations held in Athens over the last years.

The impact of the rally, the message of tens of thousands communists, supporters, friends of the party and KNE, of people who cooperate with the party, of mass organisations of the people’s movement, intellectuals and artists who came from every corner of the country will have a multiplied effect in the next days.

It will have a special impact on the moments of responsibility which are about to come; for the daily workers’ and people’s struggles, for the improvement of their organization; for the tireless work of KKE and KNE for the formation of the front, the other path of development, the people’s power and economy, socialism.

The long distance and the tiredness did not prevent the people to participate in the rally. The blocks were so huge that it took them more than one hour to gather in the place where the rally was held. “KKE does not sign a statement of repentance for imperialism”, “come with us there is a solution”, “the winner must be the people not the monopolies”, “organization, alliance, people’s power” were the main slogans of the rally.

The mass rally and the march of KKE were covered by the “902” radio and TV station. The Greek bourgeois media (except from the state TV channel) sought to bury the rally and the march of KKE. The radio station “SKAI” reported in the news a demonstration of 30 people in Thessaloniki while it did not say a word about the one 100.000 protesters in the rally of KKE providing monumental bourgeois “information”.

Latest KKE Video of Demo in Greece

Socialist Workers Party Opportunism

I wouldnt usually blog against another so-called left wing party in Ireland but the Socialist Workers Party (a trotsykist or even Cliffite party) a so-called left wing party today held a demo against the Government and at it they had pictures of the demo from Greece but they took out the hammer sickle of the KKe from their banners that said 'People of Europe Rise Up'.

In doing this they misrepresented the demo's in Greece for their own ends and in fact ultimately played into the hands of the State and the Establishment.

It is a disgrace. And once again they show who's side they are really on.

Com Perpspective

CPI Political Statement

GREECE AND IRELAND: THE TALE OF TWO BANKRUPT STATES

Yesterday in Athens tens of thousands of Greek workers took part in another general strike against the austerity measures being imposed by the Greek government at the behest of the European Union. Throughout Greece millions of workers took part in the general strike to show their opposition to these anti-people and anti-democratic policies.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is attempting to make the peripheral countries pay for the crisis surrounding the Euro in its bid to prop up a failing currency. They are imposing massive cuts making the people pay for the crisis. Within the European Union the relationship between the centre (Germany and France) and the periphery is increasingly taking a neo-colonial form.

The establishment media have focused on the tragic loss of three workers’ lives in an attempt to isolate Greek workers and to deliberately confuse and shield other European workers from the intense battle now under way.

The perpetrators of this deed, whoever they are, are not part of the working class movement or even the popular protest. They act and work as the left hand of the right wing establishment and of the state. The threat of the example shown by the Greek workers clearly terrifies the political and economic establishments throughout the European Union and particularly here in Ireland.

They touted the values and strategy of the so-called “Celtic Tiger” model of “light-touch regulation” and privatisation—a happy harvesting ground for transnational corporations, not just in Europe but around the world—as the best and the only way forward.

They now continue to tout their current polices as the only way of dealing with the stinking carcase of that tiger. They wish to impose massive cuts in workers’ terms and conditions and cuts in essential services, not just for Ireland but for the whole of Europe at the behest of the ECB and the EU Commission. We now have a new TINA—“There is no alternative.”

Irish workers need to learn the lesson and follow the leadership shown by Greek workers by mobilising and resisting this Government. The first step is to reject the flawed “Croke Park deal.”

Eugene McCartan
General Secretary
Ph: 087 9733414

Message of Solidarity to KKE from the CPI

Communist Party of Greece
Central Committee


Dear comrades,

May I, on behalf of Irish communists, express our sorrow at the loss of the lives of three workers in Athens on 5 May. We are in no doubt that the actions of a few self-serving elitist groups, and of those groups organised by the state itself, are all aimed at undermining and discrediting the tremendous struggle of the Greek working class.

We admire the tenacity and determination of your party and of PAME, and the militant spirit of the Greek workers. We wish to express our solidarity with all Greek workers and to show that not all Irish political parties, nor all Irish workers, accept the argument that workers must carry the burden of the crisis.

We will continue to do our best to convince and to mobilise workers to resist the attacks by capital and its political and media hired guns.

Ireland of the “Celtic Tiger” was prostituted and paraded around Europe and the world as an example of how an “open deregulated economy” was the best and indeed the only way forward. Now, as the crisis deepens, once again our country is being prostituted among the EU member-states and told to lie down and to allow our rights, terms and working conditions to be shredded in order to keep a small rich and powerful parasitic class in power and to support a grab for greater power and control by the EU Commission—the front for European monopoly capital.

Once again we Irish communists, and a significant section of the Irish working class, salute you and express our solidarity. It is better to die fighting on your feet than to live on your knees, cowed before corporate power.

For anti-imperialist unity,
Eugene McCartan,
General Secretary

Democracy marketised

A sunday paper reported the dept of finance instructed Anglo Irish bank to downplay it's exposure for fear of impact upon investor confidence. This clearly exposes the sham of bourgeois democracy. Democracy and honesty are only tolerable so longas they do not interefere with investor confidence.

Every week the nature of this state is exposed more and more as a committee to manage the affairs of the ruling class

CP

With a symbolic action on 4 May 2010 KKE sends to the peoples of Europe a message of resistance and counterattack against the anti-labour measures taken in Greece and in other countries under the pretext of the exit from the capitalist crisis.



Tens of members of KKE proceeded early in the morning of 4 May in a symbolic occupation of the Acropolis rock. With red flags and two enormous banners bearing the slogan “Peoples of Europe rise up” written in Greek and in English they called for the further development of the class struggle just a few hours after the great demonstrations for the May Day organised by the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) in 75 cities throughout Greece and just before the 24hour nationwide strike on 5th May against the anti-peoples and anti-workers measures promoted by the social-democrat government of PASOK, the EU and the IMF. At the same time, the civil servants went on strike on May 4.

KKE

Greek Workers To Strike

The forces of KKE, PAME and the class oriented trade unions are working for the success of the 48-hour strike on April 21-22 with placard protests, leafletings, and visits to the workplaces.

The mass participation in the strike pickets and the mass rallies of PAME can cause terror to all those who join the reactionary block against the workers and seek the submission of the working class and the popular strata; that is the government of PASOK, the EU, the parties of the bourgeoisie, the reformist and opportunist ones, the workers’ aristocracy, the capital itself.

The activation of the lending mechanism is expected to be followed by the acceleration of the measures that the government had already decided, namely by the cuts on salaries both in public and private sector, the drastic cuts on pensions, the increase of the retirement age, the lifting of the limits on mass layoffs, the abolition of collective labour agreements, the “flexicurity in labour relations, the drastic cuts in public expenditure, the dismissals of civil servants, the privatization of former public institutions (telecommunications, ports, water supply and electricity enterprises) the reduction of expenditure for healthcare and welfare, the new privatizations and the assumption of new responsibilities by the municipalities.

During the 48-hour strike the class oriented forces will organize picket lines in the big industries. On April 22 strike demonstrations will take place in Athens and in 67 towns and cities throughout the country.

The tomorrow’s strike constitutes a crucial battle. Nevertheless, the working people, the poor farmers and the self employed who will fight in this battle are not alone; they are supported by the class oriented pole, by PAME.

On the other side, the employers have activated all their mechanisms in order to intimidate and threaten the working people. Thus, the ship-owners resorted to the courts in order to declare the strike of the seamen illegal and abusive. “When the seamen go on strike, ships do not sail!” declare the class oriented trade unions and call upon the working people to participate in a demonstration against the threats of the ship-owners and the intimidation of the bourgeois “democracy”. In spite of the threats and the intimidation of the plutocracy the strike on April 21-21 can be a strong response of the working class in order to prevent the measures and contribute to the emancipation of workers’ and people’s movement by means of struggling against the very power of the capital.