Lebanese Communist Party on listing of Hezbollah

The Lebanese Communist Party condemns the European Union decision

And calls for rejecting it for being an attack on the national sovereignty

 

The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) condemns the decision that has been taken by European Union (EU) which put on the blacklist what has named it “the military wing” of Hezbollah. This decision was taken to satisfy the will of the American imperialism and Israel. It ignores all the norms of relations with an independent and sovereign state, especially that the Lebanese president has addressed a letter, ahead of time, about the dangerousness of taking such decision on the stability peace in Lebanon.

 

LCP sees that this new abdication toward the dictates of USA and Israel comes with an old path which does not take into consideration neither the interests of the people of E.U nor the aspirations of Arab peoples toward liberation, independence and democratic change. Here we mention that the full support to the Zionist state of Israel which is obvious, not only in resolution 1701, and its negative consequences on the national resistance… while the enemy insisting on its occupation to Shebaa farms and Kfarshouba hills adding to that its daily aggressions on our territorial water and space.

 

On these bases the LCP calls the executive authority to reject this decision for being an attack on the national sovereignty and also calls for taking the necessary procedures to reply on these states which approved on this aggression.

Lebanese Communist Party

Political bureau

KKE on 60th anniversary of Moncada

Dear comrades,

 

On the occasion of the 60^th anniversary of Moncada, which was the spark that lit up the Revolution of the Cuban people against the hated Batista dictatorship and the bonds of capitalist exploitation, we address warm comradely greetings to the CP and the workers of Cuba.

 

This anniversary sends a very useful and timely message to the workers all over the world. This message is that no struggle, no fight, which is waged by the revolutionary forces, is wasted, even if it does not bring immediate results and is not immediately victorious.

 

Today, when the global correlation of forces is not positive for the peoples, the message of the Moncada attack is that the working class, in alliance with the other popular strata, can and must change the correlation of forces. They can and must fight for the overthrow of capitalist barbarity and for the construction of a society without the exploitation of man by man, socialism-communism.

 

With these thoughts we express the consistent solidarity of the KKE with the communists and the people of Cuba. We struggle for the abolition of the long-standing blockade which has been imposed by the USA and the anti-Cuban “Common Position” of the EU. We demand the release of the 5 imprisoned Cuban patriots and the return to their country.

 

With comradely greetings,

The CC of the KKE

PCP Statement on latest in Portugal

Statement of the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the Portuguese Communist Party on the political situation and its developments

The violent offensive against the rights of the workers and populations, of attack on the democratic regime and national sovereignty, has met in the mass struggle, with particular emphasis on the workers’ struggle, a determining factor to resist it and help to raise the social and political awareness of large strata of Portuguese people. It was this daily struggle in the companies and streets, this larger struggle represented by the General Strike, that irreparably shook this government, swelled contradictions, undermined its credibility and isolated it socially.

The resignations of Vítor Gaspar [Finance Minister] and Paulo Portas [Foreign Affairs Minister], inseparable from the degradation of the economic and social situation imposed by the Pact of Aggression [the so­called memorandum of understanding with the EU and IMF], confirm the development of a deep political and institutional crisis and the debacle of an illegitimate government and majority.

A government and a majority that are responsible for the suffering and impoverishment caused to millions of Portuguese, and are today, by the force of the workers’ and people’s struggle, politically defeated.

II

1. The country is witnessing a real assault on democratic institutions by some of those who want to implement a programme of centralisation and concentration of capital built on the exploitation and impoverishment of the Portuguese people and plunder of national resources.

It is not the Constitution, or the Portuguese forced to emigrate, who do not belong into the country. It is the government, the parliamentary majority that supports it and the Pact of Aggression who do not belong.

Whatever the manoeuvres or the developments underway to save the right­wing policy, nothing conceals the two essential issues that are placed before the country:

that this government, politically and irreparably defeated and socially isolated by the struggle of the workers and populations, despite clinging desperately to power, is already part of the past;

that in view of an outlaw government, majority and policy, in confrontation with the Constitution of the Republic, are imposing, in practice, a true state of exception, there is no other dignified and democratic way out than the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and calling early elections.

2. The worsening of the economic and social situation, the imminence of early elections, and the fact that the present governing solution no longer responds to the agenda of materialisation of exploitation and regression associated with the Pact of Aggression in the near future, led big national and transnational business to a gathering of efforts, in articulation with the President of the Republic, to ensure the continuation of the course of national disaster.

The position of the President of the Republic [Cavaco Silva] to try to bring together those who two years ago signed the so­called memorandum of understanding (PS/PSD/CDS­PP) to thus ensure the implementation of the Pact of Aggression and the perpetuation of the policy that accompanies it shows a President committed to saving and perpetuating the right­wing policy.

The Political Committee of the Central Committee of the PCP denounces the blackmail, invoking bankruptcy and the risk of a second bailout allegedly linked to the political instability, aims to conceal that for a long time this same bailout, now christened precautionary programme, is being negotiated by the government in Brussels, hidden from the Portuguese. It is not the “political crisis” that will lead to a second bailout, but the implementation of this policy.

The President of the Republic by not immediately dismissing the government and not calling early elections assumes, under the present circumstances, the responsibility of each and every consequence resulting from the prolongation of this path to economic and social abyss.

3. It is unacceptable that, instead of his responsibility regarding his constitutional duties, the President of the Republic ambitions to promote and impose political promises contrary to the Constitution, on the margin of the regular functioning of the democratic institutions and leaving out political forces. An imposition which in itself reveals antidemocratic concepts that would mean denying the Portuguese the right to choose a different course and a policy able to free the country from the colonised condition they want to place it in and ensure a better life in a Portugal with future.

The alleged “compromise” proposed by Cavaco Silva that PS, PSD and CDS reveal they are available to implement, aims, not to save the country, but rather to create the conditions to ensure that the next State Budget will continue the theft of wages and pensions, more and devastating cuts in the rights of the Portuguese to health and education, of new attacks on social security and social benefits in unemployment and sick leave, of more redundancies in public administration, more privatisation of strategic sectors and companies.

A compromise that is not of national salvation but rather of continuation of national destruction. A compromise between those responsible for the state the country has come to, to thus ensure a wider base of support to the Pact of Aggression and the programme of exploitation and liquidation of rights which will only bring more economic decline, social regression and national submission

The necessary compromise of national salvation is around the interests and rights of the workers, the people and country, of the Constitution of the Republic and the values it embodies.

III

The urgency of a rupture with the right­wing policy and a change in national life that can open the way for the construction of an alternative, patriotic and left­wing policy is a national imperative, a condition to ensure Portugal with a future, of social justice and progress, a sovereign and independent country. A policy that is able to free Portugal from dependence and submission, to hand back to the country that which belongs to the country, return to the workers and people their rights, wages and incomes.

A policy which is based on six fundamental options:

first, the rejection of the Pact of Aggression and renegotiation of the debt in its amounts, interest, payment terms and conditions, rejecting its illegitimate part, with an immediate acceptance of a negotiated or unilateral moratorium and a cut in the debt service to a level compatible with economic growth and improvement of the living conditions;

second, the defence and increase of national production, recovery to the State of the financial sector and other strategic companies and sectors, essential to support the economy, increase public investment and encourage domestic demand;

third, real valorisation of wages and pensions and a clear commitment to reinstate the stolen wages, incomes and rights, including social benefits;

fourth, the option for a budgetary policy of combat against overspending, sumptuary expenses, based on a fiscal component of increased taxation on dividends and profits of big business and relief on workers and small and medium­sized companies, ensuring the necessary funds for an efficient functioning of the State and public investment;

fifth, a policy of defence and restoration of public services, namely the social functions of the State (like health, education and social security) strengthening human and material means, as an essential factor for the materialisation of the rights of the people and development of the country;

sixth, the assumption of a sovereign policy and the affirmation of the primacy of national interests in the relations with the European Union, diversifying economic and financial relations and adopting measures to prepare the country in case of leaving the Euro, either by decision of the Portuguese people, or the heightening of the crisis of the European Union.

IV

1. While saluting all those who, during the past two years, did not waver in the struggle against the course of national disaster and demanded another course, the PCP reaffirms that it lies increasingly in the hands of the workers and the people the possibility to ensure a different course for the country. Stressing the decisive role of the struggle and its intensification, the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the PCP calls on the workers and populations, hit by the destruction of public services and social functions, to join the important struggle actions already set, namely by the Public Administration trade union structures and User Committees, for this coming July 24 near the Assembly of the Republic.

The PCP will vote in favour of the motion of censure to the government, its policy and the majority that supports it, presented by the Ecologist Party “The Greens”. It is a parliamentary and political initiative that voices the widespread popular opposition to the PSD/CDS government, reflecting the unavoidable demand for its resignation and calling of early elections.

In view of the demanding political situation and its developments, the PCP addresses the social forces, the political parties and forces and democrats who, guided by the respect for the constitutional principles and values, have as aims the dismissal of the government, early elections and rejection of the Pact of Aggression. Hence, the PCP addresses invitations to shortly hold meetings with social organisations, like the PEV [Ecologist Party “The Greens”], the Left Bloc and Democratic Intervention. The PCP will also promote a series of contacts, meetings with personalities committed to the affirmation of a developed and sovereign Portugal.

The PCP is not, nor will be, available to be an instrument or accomplice of policies that maintain the structuring guidelines of the right­wing policy. A force that embodies a clear project of change, the PCP asserts in its actions and political initiatives, as a crucial factor for the construction of a patriotic and left­wing policy and assumes to the workers and people its willingness and capability to exercise the highest responsibilities they assign to it.

V

The Political Committee of the Central Committee of the PCP calls for the mobilisation and involvement of its militants and CDU activists to carry out a broad campaign to explain the importance of strengthening CDU to defend popular interests, to solve their problems and affirm an alternative policy. Widely recognised for its work, honesty and competence – themselves values of added importance when there is widespread lack of political ethics, disregard for assumed pledges and promises and the use of power for strictly personal benefit or economic interests – CDU asserts itself as a broad space of united convergence, democratic intervention, struggle and commitment and dedication to the interests and aspirations of the workers and people.

There will be no shortage of manoeuvres to try to perpetuate, with Passos Coelho [Prime Minister and PSD’s leader] and Portas [Foreign Affairs Minister and CDS­PP leader] or without them, with the present or other promoters of right­wing policies, with or without elections, the same policy of exploitation of workers. But, sooner or later, the Portuguese people will speak louder, will take into their hands the construction of a policy that will answer their interests and rights, inseparable from the widening and strengthening of the mass struggle, with all the expression it may come to assume in the rupture with the right­wing policy and the construction of a patriotic and left­wing alternative.

July 15, 2013

New Party for the American working class

We have resolved to begin the process of refounding a new US Communist or Workers' Party based on the science of Marxism–Leninism.

For almost ten years, Marxism-Leninism Today has tried to clarify the ideological issues confronting the US Left. After much thought, we have concluded it is now necessary to go a step further and create an organization that carries theory into practice.

It is necessary because the long US tradition of advocacy of socialism, a historic task borne by the Communist Party USA, has been broken. For over a decade, the leadership of the CPUSA has embarked on a different road. The leadership has turned away from the vision elaborated by the Party's founders and such respected leaders as William Z. Foster, Claudia Jones, Benjamin Davis, Paul Robeson, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Gus Hall, and Henry Winston. 

Instead, the current leaders have abandoned independence and linked the CPUSA's direction to the hierarchy of the Democratic Party controlled by Big Business and the class-collaborationist trade union leadership, two institutions that have too often failed the loyalty of working people. Most recently, plans to merge the Party with reformist non-Communist (even anti-Communist) organizations have come to light, plans made without consulting the remaining members.

Politics without Marxism-Leninism is like a journey with no map. Throughout the last century and a half, the thinking of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin and many of their followers has propelled the working classes and the oppressed — the vast majority of the world's population — to fight for a just and equitable world. Inspired by the idea of a community of ownership, shared possession of the wealth of society — what we have come to call "socialism," the poor, the neglected, the powerless, and exploited have found comfort and inspiration in the path to liberation developed and elaborated by these revolutionaries.

"As long as there are two classes
Proletarians must agree
It's the task of none but the working class
To set the worker free..."

Bertolt Brecht, United Front Song

Before the theories of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, the great mass of humanity was relegated to the political sidelines. It lacked a vision, a plan, and an organization. With the brutal suppression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the first working class revolution as a lesson, Lenin brilliantly developed the idea of a vanguard, working class party with the organizational principles necessary to carry out a socialist revolution.

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution in the cauldron of war, class conflict, confusion, betrayal and intervention proved the correctness of his views. Thus began the era of the working classes contesting for power throughout the world. Despite unspeakable imperialist war and aggression, the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution brought the liberation of the entire colonial world and a vast expansion of the socialist community.

Much has changed since the founders of Marxism-Leninism wrote. But the underlying structures, conflicts and problems of capitalism remain the same. New trends posing new questions have come to the fore: the further development of a global economy and global movement of populations, the emergence of computer technology and the internet, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, cyber surveillance and drones, and the mounting threats to the environment. The new  has intensified the old contradictions of capitalism and imperialism. 

The conflict between the interests of the one percent of elite capitalists and the rest of the 99 percent of the world's people has only grown sharper. The threat to world peace and human well-being has only become more grave.

Sadly, forty-five years of a so-called "Cold War" — a life or death ideological, social, and military struggle — closed with the scribes of the capitalist world claiming victory. An ideologically disarmed Soviet Communist Party surrendered to the enemy with barely a fight. A chapter closed, but the book of working class struggle remains open.

It has become commonplace to search the wreckage of Soviet Communism for the mistakes, missteps, and moral failings. Certainly they are there to be found, but we insist that there is also a noble, brave, and selfless struggle unparalleled in human history. While we are not afraid of the negative, we see this era of capitalist triumphalism as a crusade to erase the great achievements of 20th century socialism.

We exist to fight for that history. We exist to defend and elaborate that map first sketched some hundred and fifty years ago. We exist to help bring life back to the working class movement.

Today, in 2013 we live at a moment when US political and social institutions have lost all credibility and fail the vast majority of working people.  With no Communist leadership, mass movements languish. We need a Communist Party not just to struggle for socialism but to lead the immediate struggles of workers and other people:  for wages, benefits, pensions, health care, education and housing and for peace, justice, civil liberties, and equality.

After five years, a prolonged world economic crisis may well be deepening again. At US instigation, wars multiply in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and the danger of a world war grows. But the US antiwar movement seems paralyzed. The trade union movement is in decline and confusion. Racism and other forms of oppression and inequality intensify. These objective trends have caused suffering for the US working class, but they also have opened the eyes of millions and readied the ground for radical ideas. The illusions of millions of people about the two-party system are waning.

Working class women and men, our sisters and brothers, face a crisis — economic, social, and political — unprecedented since the Great Depression. We are convinced that the only ultimate solution to this crisis is the establishment of public ownership and control of the corporations that dominate our lives. We are convinced that state power must be wrested from the hands of those corporations and entrusted to the people. We are convinced that socialism is our destiny.

We see ourselves at a critical juncture. We see the destiny of Marxism-Leninism in the balance, while the need for a vanguard party of socialism becomes ever more urgent, above all here, in our country, the strongest center of imperialism. Many of our international friends share this assessment and share our recognition of the need for action.

Therefore, we have resolved to begin the process of refounding a new US Communist or Workers’ Party based on the science of Marxism-Leninism. Aware that it is an enormous task,  we also draw confidence from the awareness that it is a necessity. 

 

<editor@mltoday.com>

 

June 25, 2013

Old Wine in New Bottles - James Connolly

Below is an article Connolly written in 1914 about the future of the trade union movement and the necessary new industrial unionism necessary to meet the news of the new industrialised working class. Is a similar review necessary of the trade union movement today in the context of growing precarious work and the changes in the nature of the working class?

 

Scripture tells us in a very notable passage about the danger of putting new wine into old bottles. I propose to say a few words about the equally suicidal folly of putting old wine into new bottles. For I humbly submit that the experiment spoken of is very popular just now in the industrial world, has engaged the most earnest attention of most of the leaders of the working class, and received the practically unanimous endorsement of the Labour and Socialist Press. I have waited in vain for a word of protest.

THE IDEA BEHIND INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM

In the year of grace 1905 a convention of American Labour bodies was held in Chicago for the purpose of promoting a new working-class organisation on more militant and scientific lines. The result of that convention was the establishment of the Industrial Workers of the World – the first Labour organisation to organise itself with the definite ideal of taking over and holding the economic machinery of society. The means proposed to that end – and it is necessary to remember that the form of organisation adopted was primarily intended to accomplish that end, and only in the second degree as a means of industrial warfare under capitalism – was the enrolment of the working class in Unions built upon the lines of the great industries. It was the idea of the promoters of the new organisation that craft interests and technical requirements should be met by the creation of branches, that all such branches should be represented in a common executive, that all united should be members of an industrial Union, which should embrace all branches and be co-extensive with the industry, that all industrial Unions should be linked as members of one great Union, and that one membership card should cover the whole working-class organisation. Thus was to be built up a working-class administration which should be capable of the revolutionary act of taking over society, and whose organisers and officers should in the preliminary stages of organising and fighting constantly remember, and remembering, teach, that no new order can replace the old until it is capable of performing the work of the old, and performing it more efficiently for human needs.

FIGHTING SPIRIT MORE THAN MASS ORGANIZATION

As one of the earliest organisers of that body, I desire to emphasise also that as a means of creating in the working class the frame of mind necessary to the upbuilding of this new order within the old, we taught, and I have yet seen no reason to reconsider our attitude upon this matter, that the interests of one were the interests of all, and that no consideration of a contract with a section of the capitalist class absolved any section of us from the duty of taking instant action to protect other sections when said sections were in danger from the capitalist enemy. Our attitude always was that in the swiftness and unexpectedness of our action lay our chief hopes of temporary victory, and since permanent peace was an illusory hope until permanent victory was secured, temporary victories were all that need concern us. We realised that every victory gained by the working class would be followed by some capitalist development that in course of time would tend to nullify it, but that until that development was perfect the fruits of our victory would be ours to enjoy, and the resultant moral effect would be of incalculable value to the character and to the mental attitude of our class towards their rulers. It will thus be seen that in our view – and now that I am about to point the moral I may personally appropriate it and call it my point of view – the spirit, the character, the militant spirit, the fighting character of the organisation, was of the first importance. I believe that the development of the fighting spirit is of more importance than the creation of the theoretically perfect organisation; that, indeed, the most theoretically perfect organisation may, because of its very perfection and vastness, be of the greatest possible danger to the revolutionary movement if it tends, or is used, to repress and curb the fighting spirit of comradeship in the rank and file.

SUCCESS OF THE SYMPATHETIC STRIKE IN 1911

Since the establishment in America of the organisation I have just sketched, and the initiation of propaganda on the lines necessary for its purpose, we have seen in all capitalist countries, and notably in Great Britain, great efforts being made to abolish sectional division, and to unite or amalgamate kindred Unions. Many instances will arise in the minds of my readers, but I propose to take as a concrete example the National Transport Workers’ Federation. Previous to the formation of this body, Great Britain was the scene of the propagandist activities of a great number of irregular and unorthodox bodies, which, taking their cue in the main from the Industrial Workers of the World, made great campaigns in favour of the new idea. Naturally their arguments were in the main directed towards emphasising the absurdity implied in one body of workers remaining at work whilst another body of workers were on strike in the same employment. As a result of this campaign, frowned upon by leading officials in Great Britain, the Seamen’s strike of 1911 was conducted on, and resulted in, entirely new lines of action. The sympathetic strike sprang into being; every group of workers stood by every allied group of workers; and a great wave of effective solidarity caught the workers in its grasp and beat and terrified the masters. Let me emphasise the point that the greatest weapon against capital was proven in those days to be the sporadic strike. It was its very sporadic nature, its swiftness and unexpectedness, that won. It was ambush, the surprise attack of our industrial army, before which the well-trained battalions of the capitalist crumpled up in panic, against which no precautions were available.

WEAKNESS OF THE NATIONAL TRANSPORT WORKERS’ FEDERATION

Since that time we have had all over these countries a great wave of enthusiasm for amalgamations, for more cohesion in the working-class organisations. In the transport industry all Unions are being linked up until the numbers now affiliated have become imposing enough to awe the casual reader and silence the cavilling objector at Trade Union meetings. But I humbly submit that, side by side with that enlargement and affiliation of organisations, there has proceeded a freezing up of the fraternal spirit of 1911; there is now, despite the amalgamations, less solidarity in the ranks of Labour than was exhibited in that year of conflict and victory.

If I could venture an analysis of the reason for this falling-off in solidarity, I would have to point out that the amalgamations and federations are being carried out in the main by officials absolutely destitute of the revolutionary spirit, and that as a consequence the methods of what should be militant organisations having the broad working-class outlook are conceived and enforced in the temper and spirit of the sectionalism those organisations were meant to destroy.
Into the new bottles of industrial organisation is being poured the old, cold wine of Craft Unionism.
The much-condemned small Unions of the past had at least this to recommend them, viz., that they were susceptible to pressure from the sudden fraternal impulses of their small membership. If their members worked side by side with scabs, or received tainted goods from places where scabs were employed, the shame was all their own, and proved frequently too great to be borne. When it did so we had the sympathetic strike and the fraternisation of the working class. But when the workers handling tainted goods, or working vessels loaded by scabs, are members of a nation-wide organisation, with branches in all great centres or ports, the sense of the personal responsibility is taken off the shoulders of each member and local officials, and the spirit of solidarity destroyed. The local official can conscientiously order the local member to remain at work with the scab, or to handle the tainted goods, ‘pending action by the General Executive’.

RECENT EVENTS FORETOLD IN 1914

As the General Executive cannot take action pending a meeting of delegates, and as the delegates at that meeting have to report back to their bodies, and these bodies again to meet, discuss, and then report back to the General Executive, which must meet, hear their reports, and then, perhaps, order a ballot vote of the entire membership, after which another meeting must be held to tabulate the result of the vote and transmit it to the local branches, which must meet again to receive it, the chances are, of course, a million to one that the body of workers in distress will be starved into subjection, bankrupted, or disrupted, before the leviathan organisation will allow their brothers on the spot to lift a finger or drop a tool in their aid. Readers may, perhaps, think that I am exaggerating the danger. But who will think so that remembers the vindictive fine imposed by the NUR upon its members in the North of England for taking swift action on behalf of a persecuted comrade instead of going through all this red tape whilst he was suffering? Or who will think so that knows that Dublin and Belfast members of the Irish Transport Workers’ Union have been victimised ever since the end of the lock-out by the Head Line Company, whose steamers have been and are regularly coaled in British ports, and manned by Belfast and British members of the Seamen’s and Firemen’s Union?

TACTICS THAT WILL WIN

The amalgamations and federations that are being built up today are, without exception, being used in the old spirit of the worst type of sectionalism; each local Union or branch finds in the greater organisation of which it is a part a shield and excuse for refusing to respond to the call of brothers and sisters in distress, for the handling of tainted goods, for the working of scab boats. A main reason for this shameful distortion of the Greater Unionism from its true purpose is to be found in the campaign against ‘sporadic strikes’.

I have no doubt but that Robert Williams, of the National Transport Workers’ Federation, is fully convinced that his articles and speeches against such strikes are and were wise; I have just a little doubt that they were the best service performed for the capitalist by any Labour leader of late years. The big strike, the vast massed battalions of Labour against the massed battalions of capital on a field every inch of which has been explored and mapped out beforehand, is seldom successful, for very obvious reasons. The sudden strike, and the sudden threat to strike suddenly, has won more for Labour than all the great Labour conflicts in history. In the Boer war the long line of communications was the weak point of the British army; in a Labour war the ground to be covered by the goods of the capitalist is his line of communication. The larger it is the better for the attacking forces of Labour. But these forces must be free to attack or refuse to attack, just as their local knowledge guides them. But, it will be argued, their action might imperil the whole organisation. Exactly so, and their inaction might imperil that working-class spirit which is more important than any organisation. Between the horns of that dilemma what can be done? In my opinion, we must recognise that the only solution of that problem is the choice of officers, local or national, from the standpoint of their responsiveness to the call for solidarity, and, having got such officials, to retain them only as long as they can show results in the amelioration of the condition of their members and the development of their Union as a weapon of class warfare.

ADVANCE OR RETREAT

If we develop on those lines, then the creation of a great Industrial Union, such as I have rudely sketched in my opening reminiscence, or the creation of those much more clumsy federations and amalgamations now being formed, will be of immense revolutionary value to the working class; if, on the contrary, we allow officialism of the old, narrow sectional kind to infuse their spirit into the new organisations, and to strangle these with rules suited only to a somnolent working class, then the Greater Unionism will but serve to load us with great fetters. It will but be to real Industrial Unionism what the Servile State would be to our ideal Co-operative Commonwealth.

Statement of solidarity with President Evo Morales and the Bolivian people

Faced with the decision of the governments of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy to prevent the overflight and landing of the official aeroplane carrying the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales, on his return from a visit to the Russian Federation, the undersigned parties and organisations—

(1) vehemently condemn the decision of the governments of the above-mentioned countries and demand a formal apology to President Evo Morales and to the Plurinational State of Bolivia for a co-ordinated attitude which disrespected the most elementary legal principles and international conventions and which attempted against the safety and the life of President Evo Morales;

(2) consider that this behaviour, which has no precedent in peacetime Europe, is all the more serious since it is clearly related to the attempt by the US government to persecute a former agent of the US National Security Agency who confirmed the existence of an international network of mass surveillance and of violation of the most elementary rights, freedoms and guarantees of the peoples and of the sovereignty of states;

(3) demand that the governments of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy publicly and comprehensively explain the details surrounding those decisions, which represent an illegal act that, from the point of view of International law, can be considered an act of state terrorism;

(4) condemn the complicity of the European Union with these illegal acts, in a display of its true nature and policies and of its submission within the framework of NATO;

(5) demand a clear and unequivocal condemnation of these decisions by the relevant bodies of the United Nations;

(6) hail the states and multilateral and international organisations which have condemned these acts and call upon the peoples of Bolivia, of the above-mentioned European countries, as well as upon all peoples of the world, namely in Latin America, to express in the most diverse manner their condemnation and repudiation of such a serious affront to President Evo Morales, to the sovereignty of Bolivia and of the other peoples targeted by this decision, as well as to national and democratic rights and to the freedom of the peoples;

(7) express their solidarity with the peoples of Portugal, Spain, Italy and France who, in their countries, fight against the policies of exploitation, oppression, national surrender and submission to the interests of imperialism;

(8) reaffirm their commitment to continuing and intensifying the internationalist solidarity with all forces that, in the most diverse corners of the world, carry on the struggle against the warmongering and authoritarian strategy of interference, targeting the social, labour, democratic and national rights of the peoples, which is being stepped up by imperialism, in the context of the ever more profound crisis of capitalism.

July SV Out

July Issue of Socialist Voice out:

•Belfast says No to G8

•Haddington Road rebranded, or I’m all right, Jack [NOM]

•What’s “left” for Ireland? [EON]

•Ireland’s ruling class [NL]

•Government to abolish people’s right to cut their own turf [MH]

•Credit unions a target for carpetbaggers [MA]

 •G8: A club of the rich to protect the interests of the rich

•An honest citizen criminalised [TMS]

•Getting a handle on events in Brazil [RCN]

•Repression and criminalisation in Colombia [JAG]

•Tax justice for the rich! [NL]

•Letter: The iron heel of capitalism

http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/sv/SV-103.pdf

Death of a committed and principled friend of Cuba

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND

10 July 2013

Death of a committed and principled friend of Cuba

The Communist Party of Ireland offers its deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Bernie Dwyer, who has just passed away.

Bernie was a staunch defender of the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban people. She committed a large part of her life to both working in Cuba and travelling around the world campaigning for an end to the illegal blockade of Cuba and for the release of the five Cuban patriots unjustly imprisoned in the United States. She was tireless in her efforts to expose the lies and hypocrisy of western governments in their attitude to Cuba and the Cuban people. She put her formidable talents unselfishly at the disposal of the Cuban Revolution, including making a number of important films about Cuba.

Bernie was not alone a champion of Cuba but also a great anti-imperialist who stood up and supported many of the struggles of oppressed peoples, with her great anger and passion most acute regarding the effect of war and violence upon women.

Here in Ireland Bernie had a long record of supporting women’s rights, in particular their right to control their fertility, and for absolute equality between women and men. She was pro-choice and pro-worker, opposed to exploitation no matter where it came from.

Bernie Dwyer was one of the unsung heroes of the people’s struggles. Her contribution, her energy, her compassion, her intellect and understanding, her love and kindness will be greatly missed. We salute her memory.