France in Mali: The longue durée of imperial blowback

The present intervention in Mali, however necessary and well-intentioned it is, may produce its own blowback [Reuters]

The current crisis in Mali is a product of French colonialism, and their intervention will sadly create more blowback.

The dispatching of French soldiers to beat back rapidly advancing Salafi militants in northern Mali represents the convergence of multiple circles of blowback from two centuries of French policies in Africa. Some date back to the beginning of the 19th century, others to policies put in place during the last few years. Together, they spell potential disaster for France and the United States (the two primary external Western actors in Mali today), and even more so for Mali and the surrounding countries.

Only two outcomes, together, can prevent the nightmare scenario of a huge failed state in the heart of Africa spreading violence across the continent. First, the French-led assault on the north must manage to force most of the Salafi fighters out of the populated areas presently under their control and install a viable African-led security force that can hold the population centres for several years. If that weren’t difficult enough, French and international diplomats must create space for the establishment of a much more representative and less corrupt Malian government, one which can and will negotiate an equitable resolution to the decades long conflict with the Touareg peoples of the North, whose latest attempt violently to carve out a quasi-independent zone in the north early last year helped create the political and security vacuum so expertly, if ruthlessly, exploited by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib (AQIM) and its allied radical groups.

The first and largest circle of blowback returns to French colonial policy in North and West Africa, which was responsible for the creation of most of the states that are involved in the present conflict. France began deliberately to colonise large swaths of West Africa at the start of the 19th century, gaining control of what today is Mauritania and Senegal by 1815, followed by the invasion of Algeria in 1830, Tunisia in 1881, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and the French Sudan (which would become Mali) – in the 1890s, Niger in 1903-4 and Morocco in 1912.

Carved from colonialism

It is impossible to know how the map of Africa would have evolved without European colonialism to shape it. What is sure, however, is that the European “scramble for Africa” that dominated the 19th century – and in which local rulers played a willing part whenever it served their interests – ensured that European powers would create the territorial foundation for modern nation-states whose borders bore little correspondence to the ethnic and religious geography of the continent. Mali in particular was composed of several distinct ethnic, linguistic and what today are considered “racial” groups. Its brief and ill-fated union with Senegal at the time of independence in 1960 highlights the artificial foundation of the region’s states and their borders.

The lack of consideration for local ethnic, religious and cultural dynamics and the colonial imperative to arrogate as much territory under one rule as possible created a situation in which states with areas over twice the size of France and population groups which had little historical or cultural reason to live under one sovereignty and had few natural resources of comparative advantages to support themselves, were nevertheless forced to do just that; first, under foreign rule, whose main goal – whatever the “civilising mission” proclaimed by Paris – was to extract as much wealth and resources as possible and enforce control by whatever means necessary, then under postcolonial indigenous governments whose policies towards their people often differed little on the ground from their colonial predecessors.

Indeed, even those countries which secured independence peacefully were structurally deformed by foreign rule and the establishment of states with borders that did not naturally correspond to the political and cultural ecologies of the regions in which they were created. As epitomised by the plight of the Mali’s Touareg communities (who are spread across the Sahel much like Kurds are spread across the countries of the Fertile Crescent), most states in West, North and Central Africa wound up including significant populations who were different from, and thus disadvantaged by, the group who assumed power. At the same time, post-independence governments were riven by corruption and narrow loyalties, with leaders who were most often unwilling to pursue or incapable of pursuing a truly national, democratic vision of development.

In such a situation, religion, which might have played a positive role in shaping morally grounded public spheres and economies, became marginalised from governance, while slowly taking hold in a toxic form among many of the region’s most marginalised peoples.

Supporting the wrong team

If France’s colonial history created the structures in which the present crisis inevitably has unfolded, a more recent set of policies constitutes the second circle of blowback; namely, France’s unreserved support for the Algerian government in its repression of the democratic transition that began in 1988 and was crushed in 1992. As is well known, rather than allow the Islamic Salvation Front – a Muslim Brotherhood-inspired group not that different in its roots and outlook than its Egyptian or Tunisian mainstream Islamist counterparts – to take power after its clear electoral victory in the first round of the 1991-92 parliamentary elections, the Algerian military cancelled the next round and began a crackdown that quickly exploded into a civil war between the military government and radical Islamist groups.

Faced with the choice of allowing a new, Islamist political actor take the reigns of power, France, joined by the US, chose to support the Algerian military, with whom it had retained close relations. In allying with an authoritarian, brutal and corrupt government the French, and the West more broadly, became party to a vicious conflict that saw the emergence of a dangerous terrorist group, the GIA (Armed Islamic Group), quite possibly controlled at least in part by the military itself, and the subsequent bloody decade-long civil war that cost the lives of well over 100,000 civilians.

The GIA in turn was the kernel out of which another group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, and then al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghbrib, emerged. These groups focused their attention on North Africa for much of the last decade, but gradually moved more deeply into the Sahelian regions linking Algeria to Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Morocco.

Had France and the West not given unreserved support to the Algerian military, it is highly unlikely that these groups would have been created, never mind grown to their present position (a similar argument could of course be made about the main branch of al-Qaeda, which is so many ways was a direct product of unceasing US support for some of the most corrupt and brutal regimes in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan).

As in so many other cases, France and its Western allies chose stability over democracy. In so doing it inevitably, if ironically, set the stage for the present chaos in which its troops are being forced to fight.

Supporting the wrong team… again

The third and most recent circle of blowback stems from France’s longstanding support for Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Specifically, French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered strong support for Ben Ali at the start of the crisis, specifically including, as foreign affairs minister Michèle Alliot-Marie described it, “the savoir-faire, recognised throughout the world of [French] security forces in order to settle security situations of this type”. The French president’s words embarrassed his government once the protests picked up steam to the point of creating a “crisis of credibility” that necessitated Sarkozy’s “admission of mistakes” in supporting Ben Ali against the revolutionaries.

So strong was Sarkozy’s embarrassment that when the Libyan crisis erupted, France took the lead in pressing for Western military intervention to force Gaddafi from power in order to absolve itself of its Tunisian sins. Yet it was precisely the launching of NATO’s air war and military support for the Libyan rebels that led to the exodus of well-trained fighters and significant weapons stocks from Libya into Niger, Mali and other parts of the Sahel in the wake of the crumbling of Gaddafi’s state. The chaos and spread of weapons generated by the Libya war put crucial numbers of men and arms into play in northern Mali at a particularly dangerous moment in the country’s history, when long oppressed Touaregs, who’d been recipients of Gaddafi’s largesse in the past (and some of whom in fact fought for Gaddafi), were once again primed to rebel against the central government.

This situation became even more ripe for chaos with the unexpected and apparently unintended military coup against the country’s soon to be retired president, Amadou Toumani Touré, in March, 2012, which created an even bigger power vacuum throughout the country.

The blowback’s blowback

Here we see decades, and indeed centuries, of French and broader European and American policies coming together to produce maximum chaos. This in turn was strengthened by the blowback from longstanding local conflicts, from the hostility of Mali’s military leadership to the extremely poor rank and file conscripts (which prompted the protests that sent the President to flight in March, 2012) to the inability of the broader Touareg rebel movement to set aside its tradition of violent resistance and embrace a younger generation of activists, who were advocating a revolutionary movement that was much closer to the soon to erupt Arab Spring than to the violent insurrection for which Touaregs had long been known. Almost a year later, the army has lost control over the majority of the country, while Touaregs have been largely sidelined from the revolt they started by Salafi groups aligned with al-Qaeda.

What is most interesting in this regard is that the present blowback had significant advance warning and should in fact have been anticipated by French and Western policymakers in the planning of the Libyan war. North Africa experts, such as Sciences Po political scientist Jean-Pierre Filiu, were pointing out already in 2010 that al-Qaeda in the Maghrib and other salafi fighting groups were moving away from their focus on Algeria and towards developing a strategic presence, and even “new theatre” in the Sahel, with the ultimate aim of destabilising those countries.

These jihadis “now represent a serious security threat in northern parts of Mali and Niger”, Filiu explained, because of numerous kidnappings, smuggling and other illicit activities the recruitment of a “new generation” of fighters from the many poor communities of the region. This reality of clearly increased operations by radical Islamist groups in northern Mali, coupled with the increase in Touareg agitation and Gaddafi’s well-known use of various nomadic groups as mercenaries, should have raised loud alarms among French and Western policymakers in the lead up to the decision to enter for Libyan civil war.

Indeed, on the US side, the American Ambassador to Mali warned already in 2004 that Mali is a “remote, tribal and barely governed swath of Africa… a potential new staging ground for religious extremism and terrorism similar to Afghanistan under the Taliban… If Mali goes, the rest goes”. This warning was made just as the US military was deepening its military presence across the continent, culminating in the creation of AFRICOM in 2008.

Given the clear attention being paid to the Sahel in the last decade by French and US policymakers, we can only assume that either they were utterly incompetent in failing to understand the inevitable results of Western military intervention in Libya, or saw that as a win-win situation, providing a new theatre in a strategically rising area of the world in which US, French and Western militaries could become increasingly engaged (and in so doing, keep rivals such as China further at bay).

Either way, just as previous African interventions generated the blowback that helped create the present Malian crisis, the present intervention in Mali, however necessary, well-intentioned and even wished for by the majority of Malians (to the extent the wishes of Malians can even be determined that clearly), will no doubt produce its own blowback, which will claim the lives of many more Africans, French, American and other Western citizens.

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On the deaths in Stalin’s USSR

In the West, when Stalin’s name is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is the “millions of deaths” under his “ruthless regime”. For decades, fascist and capitalist propagandists alike perpetuated this vision of Stalin as a monster, employing the best World War 2 and Cold War propagandists to slander Stalin’s role as a statesman. What is the truth behind this claims? I hope to shed some light on the matter.

As has been now resolved, the varying numbers of deaths under the Stalin administration are a product of propaganda, and have hence been wildly exaggerated. The evidence found in Russian archives, opened up by the capitalist roader Yeltsin, put the total number of death sentences from 1923 to 1953, the post-Lenin Soviet Union, between 775,866 and 786,098^a. To this we must add up the 40,000 who may have been executed without trial and unofficially^b. If we add up the numbers, what we get achieve is 800,000 executions in a period of 36 years, less than the lives claimed by the dictatorship of the CIA-backed anti-communist Suharto in Indonesia in a time span of 2 years. This is not to say the deaths are to be condoned, but it raises an important question: if less lives have been claimed by the Soviet Union under Stalin than Suharto’s Indonesia, why is Stalin demonized to that extent when Suharto is rarely even known among pro-capitalists?

We shall answer this question in a future post about cultural hegemony, let’s now continue with our examination of Soviet deaths. Because the figure of 800,000 executions includes those persons sentenced to death but had, for instance, their sentences reduced^a, this too may be an overestimation. In fact, in a research by Vinton, evidence has been provided indicating that the number of executions was significantly below the number of civilian prisoners sentenced to death in the USSR, with only 7,305 executions in a sample of 11,000 prisoners authorized to be executed in 1940 (or around 60%)^c. In addition, 681,692 of the 780,000 or so death sentences were issued during the Great Purge (1937-1938 period)^a.

Initially, the NKVD, under Yezhov’s orders, set a cap of 186,500 imprisonments and 72,950 death penalties for a 1937 special operation to combat the threat of foreign and internal subversion. The operation was decided upon after the discovery of Bonapartist plots against the government, led by Tukhacevsky, whose links with opportunist factions within the Party caused total panic. The NKVD’s orders had to be carried out by troikas, 3-men tribunals^a. As the troikas passed sentences before the accused had even been arrested, local authorities requested increases in their own quotas, and there was an official request in 1938 for a doubling of the amount of prisoner transport that had been initially requisitioned to carry out the original campaign quotas of the tribunals^d.

However, even if there had been twice as many actual executions as originally planned, which I would doubt, the number would still be less than 150,000. Many, in fact, may have had their death sentence refused or revoked by authorities before arrest or execution could take place, especially since Stalin, Molotov and Beria later realized that excesses had been committed in the 1937-38 period (the Great Purge), had a number of convictions overturned, and had many of the responsible local leaders punished^e. Soviet records indicate only about 300,000 actual arrests for anti-Soviet activities or political crimes during this 1937-1938 interval. With a ratio of 1 execution for every 3 arrests as originally specified by the NKVD, that would imply about 100,000 executions. Since some of the people sentenced to death may have already been in confinement, and since there is some evidence of a 50,000 increase in the total number of deaths in labor camps over the 1937-38 interval that was probably caused by such executions, the total number executed by the troika campaign would probably be around 150,000^a. There were also 30,514 death sentences passed by military courts and 4,387 by regular courts during the 1937-38 period, but, even if all these death sentences were carried out, the total number remains under 200,000. Such a low number seems especially likely given the fact that aggregate death rates from all causes throughout the Soviet Union were actually lower in 1937-38 than in prior years^f, possibly a result of universal health care, vaccination and an improvement in living standards.

Assuming the remaining 100,000 or so death sentences passed in the other years of Stalin’s administration (1923-1936 and 1939-53) resulted in a 60% execution rate, as per the Vinton sample, the total number executed by the Soviet Union during the period would be about 250,000. Even with the thousands executed between 1917 and 1921, it is plausible that the number of unarmed civilians killed between 1917-1953 amounted to considerably less than a quarter million given that thousands of these victims may have been Soviet soldiers, given that many may have been armed bandits and guerrillas, and given that at least 14,000 of the actual executions were of foreign prisoners of war^c.

A USA former attache to the Soviet Union, George Kennan, has stated that the number executed was really only in the tens of thousands^g, and so it is very likely that the true number of people killed by the Soviet Union over its entire history (including the thousands killed in Afghanistan) is too small for the country to make it even in the top ten in mass murders (unlike the United States of America, but that’s for another day). There were no doubt many innocent victims during the 1937-38 Stalin purge, but it should also be mentioned that there is substantial evidence from the Soviet archives of Soviet citizens advocating treasonable offenses such as the violent overthrow of the Soviet government or foreign invasion of the Soviet Unionⁱ. In addition, the Soviet Union felt itself so threatened by subversion and imminent military invasions by Japan and Germany (which occurred in full force in 1938 and 1941, respectively) that it perceived a need to undertake a nationwide campaign to eliminate potential internal enemies. Moreover, these external threats were further fueled by the fact that the Russian nobility and czarists (over a million of whom had emigrated after the communist revolution in 1917) had given financial aid to the German Nazis in the 1930s for the purpose of using them (once they had successfully taken power in Germany) to help them overthrow the Soviet government^j. Forged documents and misinformation spread by Nazi Germany to incriminate innocent and patriotic Soviets also contributed to Soviet paranoia^k. It must also be remembered that Soviet fear of foreign-sponsored subversion in the 1930s existed within the context of guerrilla warfare fought against the Soviet Union by some of the same groups of people who had fought with the foreign invaders against the Soviet Union in the 1918-22 Foreign Interventionist Civil War. While the 1937-38 purges were very repressive and tragic by almost any measure, they may have helped prevent the fascists from inciting a successful rebellion or coup in the Soviet Union. Such a threat was a very real one given that the German Nazis did succeed in using political intrigues, threats, economic pressure, and offers of territorial gains to bring other Eastern European countries into their orbit, including Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, as well as Yugoslavia for a short period of time^h, given that the Soviet Union had been subjected to a brutal 1918-22 civil war which was launched by rebels who were supported by over a million foreign invading troops from over a dozen capitalist countries, given that there was a large amount of sabotage committed by Soviet citizens in the 1930s, and given that there were a significant number of Soviet dissidents who were in favor of overthrowing the Soviet government even if it required an invasion by Germany or some other foreign powerⁱ. In addition, many people may have worked independently to sabotage the Soviet Union in the hope that they would thereby contribute to a foreign overthrow of the Soviet Union, especially since Nazi Germany did make extensive efforts to incite uprisings, cause subversive actions, and create ethnic conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Despite the Soviet Union’s success in defeating the subsequent invasions by fascist Japan (in 1938) and Germany (1941-44), the danger posed by the Nazi spies and saboteurs in Eastern Europe is illustrated by the fact that the CIA considered them so effective that it adopted virtually the entire Nazi network into its own system of terrorism in Eastern Europe after World War II^l.

Evidence from the Soviet archives indicates that the officials responsible for the political repression of the 1930s sincerely felt the victims were guilty of some crime such as sabotage, spying, or treason, and many of the executions of the Great Purge were reported in the local Soviet press at the time. Even when there was proven to be no direct connection between the accused and the fascist foreign powers, there was often a strong belief that the suspects were foreign sympathizers who were working on their own (without formal direction) to contribute to the overthrow of the Soviet Union. It should also be noted that much of the 1937-38 repression, often called the Great Purge, was actually directed against the widespread banditry and criminal activity (such as theft, smuggling, misuse of public office for personal gain, and swindles) that was occurring in the Soviet Union at the time^m. In addition to the executions, there were also many imprisoned, and hundreds of thousands of people were expelled from the Communist Party during the Great Purge for being incompetent, corrupt, and/or excessively bureaucratic, with such targeting of inept or dishonest Soviet bureaucrats being fairly popular among the average Soviet citizensⁱ. Like the myths of millions of executions, the fairy tales that Stalin had tens of millions of people arrested and permanently thrown into prison or labor camps to die in the 1930-53 interval are untrue. In particular, the Soviet archives indicate that the number of people in Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s averaged about 2 million, of whom 20-40% were released each year^a. This average, which includes desperate World War II years, is similar to the number imprisoned in the USA in the 1990s and is only slightly higher as a percentage of the population. It should also be noted that the annual death rate for the Soviet interned population was about 4%, which incorporates the effect of prisoner executions^a. Excluding the desperate World War II years, the death rate in the Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps was only 2.5%^a, which is below that of the average citizen in Russia under the tsar in peacetime in 1913^f. This finding is not very surprising, given that about 1/3 of the confined people were not even required to workⁿ, and given that the maximum work week was 84 hours in even the harshest Soviet labor camps during the most desperate wartime years^o. The latter maximum (and unusual) work week actually compares favorably to the 100-hour work weeks that existed even for “free” 6-year old children during peacetime in the Gilded era and industrial revolution^p(shoutout to libertarians), although it may seem high compared to the 7-hour day worked by the typical Soviet citizen under Stalinⁱ.

In addition, it should also be mentioned that most of the arrests under Stalin were motivated by an attempt to stamp out crimes such as banditry, theft, misuse of public office for personal gain, smuggling, and swindles, with less than 10% of the arrests during Stalin’s rule being for political reasons or secret police matters^a. The Soviet archives reveal a great deal more political dissent permitted in Stalin’s Soviet Union (including a widespread amount of criticism of individual government policies and local leaders) than is normally perceived in the Westⁱ. Given that the regular police, the political or secret police, prison guards, some national guard troops, and fire fighters (who were in the same ministry as the police) comprised scarcely 0.2% of the Soviet population under Stalin^e, severe repression would have been impossible even if the Soviet Union had wanted to exercise it. In comparison, the USA today has many times more police as a percentage of the population (about 1%), not to mention prison guards, national guard troops, and fire fighters included in the numbers used to compute the far smaller 0.2% ratio for the Soviet Union. In any event, it is possible that the communist countries of Eastern Europe would have become politically less repressive and more democratic (especially over time), if there hadn’t been overt and covert efforts by capitalist powers to overthrow their governments, including subversion conducted in the USSR as late as the 1980s that the USA government admitted to in the 1990s. These efforts at violent subversion were initially carried out mostly by the British (before World War II) and then later more so by the USA through the CIA, which did succeed violently overthrowing a very democratic communist government in Chile in 1973. If the communists had truly been as evil and dictatorial as they are portrayed to be in the capitalist press, the peaceful revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe (with virtually no related deaths except in Romania) could never have occurred.

Sources:

a: Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence”

http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf

b: Hellmut Andics, “Rule of Terror”

c: Louisa Vinton, “The Katyn Documents: Politics and History.”

d: Amy Knight, “Beria, Stalin’s First Lieutenant”

http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1993-804-08-Knight.pdf

e: Robert Thurston, “Life and Terror in Stalin s Russia”

f: Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s”

http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511626012&cid=CBO9780511626012A025

g: J. W. Smith, “Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of the 21st Century”

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780765604682/Economic-Democracy-Political-Struggle-21st-076560468X/plp

h: Marshall Miller, “Bulgaria during the Second World War”

i: Sarah Davies, “Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia”

http://books.google.com/books/about/Popular_Opinion_in_Stalin_s_Russia.html?id=yTGgOwH_mwgC&redir_esc=y

j: Leslie Feinberg, “The Class Character of German Fascism”

<a href=”http://www.workers.org/ww/1999/fascism0304.php

k: Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky “KGB: The Inside Story”

l: Von Schnitzler, “Der Rote Kana”

m: John Arch Getty, “Origins of the Great Purges”

http://books.google.com/books/about/Origins_of_the_Great_Purges.html?id=R5zx54LB-A4C&redir_esc=y

n: Edwin Bacon, “The Gulag at War: Stalin’s Forced Labour System in the Light of the Archives”

o: R. J. Rummel, “Lethal Politics”

p: Marx and Engels, “Das Kapital”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/index.htm

q: Numbers taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Soviet_Union, which in turn cites Andreev et al, “Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922-1991″

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Forever in Chains: The Tragic History of Congo

Nsala, of the district of Wala, looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year old daughter, Boali, who was killed and allegedly cannibalized by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (A.B.I.R.) militia. Source: E. D Morel, King Leopold’s rule in Africa, between pages 144 and 145

FRIDAY 28 JULY 2006

The most blighted nation on earth goes to the polls this weekend – more in hope than expectation that stability and peace might result. In Congo, mass suffering has been a way of life ever since the Belgian King Leopold enslaved millions in the 19th century. Paul Vallely traces the story of a people for whom the horror never let up

One picture sums it up. It shows a man named Nsala sitting on the porch of a missionary’s house in the Congo. His face is a portrait of impenetrable sorrow.

Before him lie a small hand and foot. It is all that remains of his five-year-old daughter who has – together with his wife and son – been killed, dismembered, cooked and eaten by soldiers.

The photograph was taken during the biggest atrocity in recorded African history. And it was perpetrated not by Africans, but by Europeans.

No one knows how many people died, but it was at least three million men, women and children. Some historians say it was five million, or 10 million. The Encyclopaedia Britannica has said that as many as 30 million people may have perished.

It is but a single chapter in the long and bloody history of the Congo. This weekend, voters go to the polls in Democratic Republic of Congo for the first elections in 40 years, during which havoc has been wreaked by despotism and war. But will Sunday’s poll do anything to change lives there for the better?

The first that was written of the hot and humid river basin that straddles the Equator on the west of the great African continent came from Portuguese travellers in the 15th century. They had encountered a place called the Kingdom of Kongo and, with its capital city of Mbanza Kongo, it had a population close to half a million people. It was a highly developed state at the centre of an extensive trading network.

Merchants traded all manner of raw materials, the most precious of which was ivory, but which also included a wealth of manufactured goods such as copper and ironware, raffia cloth and pottery. It was also a centre for the buying and selling of individuals captured in war. Long before the arrival of the Europeans, the slave trade existed. The ruler was a king who rejoiced in the title of “Mother of the King of Kongo”.

Not much more was heard of the place in Europe until the great Victorian missionary explorer David Livingstone discovered that quinine was the key to unlocking the African interior. He became a hero and a household name in the second half of the 19th century, but then disappeared into the bush. The New York Herald sent another intrepid Briton to find him, and the young man, Henry Morton Stanley, walked into the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his greeting: “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

Across the other side of the globe, King Leopold II of the Belgians read about it over breakfast in the The Times, which was thrown from the continental mail train into the grounds of his palace each morning. (His butler ironed it before the monarch read it.)

Leopold had been of the opinion for some time that “il faut à la Belgique une colonie”. He didn’t want to miss the chance of getting a good slice of what he called the “magnifique gâteau africain”. But he was having a hard time persuading the Belgian government to agree. So he decided to acquire a colony by himself. In doing so, he ignited what came to be called “the scramble of Africa”.

Stanley’s encounter with the Congo was being hailed as the most important geographical “discovery” ever made in Africa. The king summoned the Welshman and in 1878 commissioned him to go back – under the guise of an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Society – to negotiate with the local chiefs.

Over the five years that followed, Stanley concluded some 400 “cloth and trinket” treaties with the Congo chiefs. The Africans thought they were signing friendship pacts, but they were in fact selling their land.

Leopold, who was devious as well as greedy, persuaded the world that he was acting from humanitarian motives. In 1884, the The Daily Telegraph, perspicacious as ever, opined: “Leopold II has knit adventurers, traders and missionaries of many races into one band of men under the most illustrious of modern travellers [Stanley] to carry to the interior of Africa new ideas of law, order, humanity and protection of the natives.”

That year, at the Berlin Conference called by Bismarck to carve up Africa – which no African attended, even as an observer – Leopold displayed some nifty footwork. He persuaded the Iron Chancellor that, in order to exclude Germany’s rivals, Britain and France, from the important new region, it would be best to declare it a free trade area and give it to him. Not to Belgium, not even to the Belgian crown, but to him personally.

Without ever setting foot there, Leopold II had become the owner of nearly a million square miles of unmapped jungle, 75 times the size of Belgium itself. Ivory was what the king had his eye on. And, though plenty of it was yielded, Leopold struggled to make a profit. In 1895, he tried to give the colony to the Belgian government because it was costing him too much.

But then a Scot called Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre for his bicycle, and the worldwide boom in rubber began. In the Congo, wild jungle vines that yielded the stuff grew everywhere. The natives would slash them and lather their bodies with the rubber. All that Leopold needed to do was to persuade the natives to scrape it off into huge baskets for him.

He did this by setting quotas of both rubber and ivory for each village, for which they were paid a pitifully low fixed price set by his officials on the ground. Each community was told to provide 10 per cent of their number as full-time forced labourers, and another 25 per cent part-time. It was a form of slavery.

Stanley, who supervised all this, became known in Kikongo as Bula Matari (the Breaker of Rocks), a tag the people later transferred to the Congolese state itself. The scheme was a huge success; by 1902, the price of rubber had risen 15 times in eight years, and it constituted 80 per cent of the exports of “The Congo Free State”, as Leopold had dubbed it.

Free is what the people were not. The symbol of Leopold’s rule was the schicotte – a whip of raw sun-dried hippopotamus hide cut into long sharp-edged strips which could quickly remove the skin from a man’s back. The king established a Force Publique to enforce the rubber quotas. Its soldiers were black – many of them cannibals from the fiercest tribes of upper Congo – but they were led by white officers who routinely supervised the burning of non-compliant villages and the torture and rape of those who were struggling to fill quotas.

One local man spelt out what this meant. “Wild beasts – leopards – killed some of us while we were working away in the forest, and others got lost or died from exposure or starvation and we begged the white men to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and the soldiers said, ‘Go. You are only beasts yourselves. You are only snyama [meat].’ Many were shot, some had their ears cut off.”

But the routine penalty for failing to bring in enough rubber was the severing of a hand. Soldiers collected them by the basketload, from the living and the dead. A Baptist missionary wrote a letter to The Times about it: “The hands – the hands of men, women and children – were placed in rows before the commissary who counted them to see that the soldiers had not wasted cartridges.” Officers were worried that the men might waste their ammunition on hunting animals for sport, so they required soldiers to submit one hand for every bullet spent. Hands became a grim currency, traded to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas. “This rubber traffic is steeped in blood,” the letter-writer said.

Other testimony disclosed how Belgian officers ordered their men “to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, also their sexual members, and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross”. This blood-curdling business carried on for more than 12 years before word leaked out. One of the first to blow the whistle was the captain of one of the riverboats that transported the ivory and rubber downstream to port. His name was Joseph Conrad, and eight years later he wrote a book that has shaped the emotional language in which white people discuss Africa.

It was called Heart of Darkness. The atmosphere it conjures is of fetid fever-ridden ports in an Equatorial river basin surrounded by dense tropical rainforest. It is a climate of persistent high temperatures and humidity, as enervating to the soul as to the body. It is a world of madness, greed and violence, centred on a charismatic ivory trader called Kurtz who turns himself into a demigod to the local tribes and gathers vast quantities of ivory. Eventually, he dies – “The horror, the horror,” his last words.

When the book was published in magazine serial form in 1899, it did not just expose what Conrad was to call “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience”. It also gave backing to the writings of a man whose campaigns on the Congo the public had been reluctant to believe.

ED Morel was a clerk in a Liverpool shipping office who began to wonder why the ships that brought vast loads of rubber from the Congo returned carrying no commercial goods, but only guns and ammunition. He began to investigate the Force Publique and concluded that Leopold’s well-publicised philanthropy was in fact “legalised robbery enforced by violence”. He wrote: “I had stumbled upon a secret society of murderers with a king for a croniman.”

In 1903, the House of Commons debated the Congo atrocities. The British consul in Congo, Roger Casement, was sent to investigate. The year after, he returned with a vivid and detailed eyewitness report, which was made public. His 1904 report, which confirmed Morel’s accusations and suggested that at least three million people had died, had a considerable impact on public opinion.

Even then, Leopold countered with a wicked publicity campaign to discredit the reports. He even created a bogus Commission for the Protection of the Natives to root out the “few isolated instances” of abuse. But he reckoned without another recent invention – the camera. Before long, horrifying photographs such as the one of the man with his daughter’s little hand and foot, were in circulation.

International opinion was outraged. In America, Mark Twain penned a savage piece of sarcasm called King Leopold’s Soliloquy. In Britain, Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired to write the book The Crime of the Congo, which he completed in eight days. Before long, the American President and the British prime minister were pressing the Belgian government to act.

Leopold offered to reform his regime, but few took him seriously. After two years of agonised deliberation, a further report (which confirmed Casement’s) and a general election, the Parliament of Belgium annexed the Congo Free State and took over its administration. It paid Leopold £2m to compensate him for his sacrifices.

Renamed the Belgian Congo (to contrast with the much smaller French Congo, now the Republic of Congo, to the west), the region became a “model colony”. In the decades that followed the transfer of responsibility to the government of Belgium, large amounts of the wealth produced in the Congo were spent there by the alliance of church, commerce and state.

The missionaries built hospitals and clinics to which large numbers of Congolese had access. Doctors and medics achieved great victories against disease, managing to eradicate sleeping sickness. Many villages had medical posts, and bigger cities had well-equipped hospitals. The church ran schools to which 10 per cent of the people were admitted, comparing favourably with the 6 per cent of the population in school in India and the much lower percentages elsewhere in Africa. The colonial authorities built railways, ports and roads. The mining companies built houses for their staff, provided welfare and technical training.

By the Second World War, production and profits had risen to the point where the Congo was Africa’s richest colony. In the 1950s, life expectancy was 55 years (today, it is 51). By 1959, the year before independence, the Belgian Congo was producing 10 per cent of world’s copper, 50 per cent of its cobalt and 70 per cent of industrial diamonds.

What was missing was the development of a Congolese elite to take over the running of the place. The Congolese had no rights to own land, to vote or to travel freely. There were curfews in towns and forced labour in the countryside. There was no higher education, except for those who wanted to become priests. The Congolese were encouraged to become clerks, medical assistants and mechanics, but not doctors, lawyers or engineers.

At independence, out of a population of 60 million, there were just 16 university graduates. Educated Congolese were given the status of Sévolués, but this won them few privileges when what they wanted, wrote Patrice Lumumba, who was to become the first prime minister of what became Democratic Republic of Congo, “was to be Belgians and have the same freedoms and rights as whites”.

It would come eventually, their colonial masters thought, in perhaps another 100 years. When a Belgian academic suggested a 30-year transition plan was needed, he was greeted with derision. But when the change came, on the back of the sudden tide of African nationalism that swept the continent, accompanied by riots, it happened in just 18 months. The Congo was perhaps the least well-prepared of any colony for independence.

It didn’t help that on Independence Day in 1960, King Baudouin arrived to make a speech praising the “genius” of Leopold II, listing the sacrifices that Belgium had made for the Congo and doling out patronising advice. Prime Minister Lumumba responded with an off-the-cuff speech about the “terrible suffering and exploitation” that had been experienced by “we niggers” and promising: “We shall make of the Congo a shining example for the whole of Africa.” It was not to be.

Lumumba was charismatic, with extraordinary powers of oratory, but he was volatile. Within days of the independence ceremonies, rebellions and violence broke out. The province of Katanga declared independence. Belgium moved troops in. So did the United Nations. Feeling betrayed, Lumumba requested Soviet military aid.

The local CIA chief telegrammed back to Washington that the Congo was “a Cuba in the making” and that Lumumba was a “Castro or worse”. President Eisenhower allegedly authorised that Lumumba be assassinated and a CIA hit man came from Paris with poison to be, bizarrely, injected into the prime minister’s toothpaste. (The local CIA man refused to do it.)

The plot thickened with Dag Hammarskjold, the UN Secretary General, dying in a plane crash in uncertain circumstances while trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Katanga. Letters recently uncovered by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested that South African agents planted a bomb in the aircraft’s wheel-bay. And, not long afterwards, the Marxist guerrilla leader Che Guevara appeared in the Congo with 100 men in a plot to bring about a Cuban-style revolution.

Amid all that, Patrice Lumumba had fallen out with the Congo’s first president, Joseph Kasavubu. As the pair engaged in a power struggle in September 1960, a military coup overthrew Lumumba in favour of the president. The putsch was staged by the 29-year-old army chief of staff, Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Five years later, he staged another one, ousting Kasavubu and beginning his own bizarre 32-year rule.

Lumumba was shot in the bush at the command of a Belgian officer. His body was hacked to pieces and dissolved in sulphuric acid, his skull ground to dust and his bones and teeth scattered – some say by a witch doctor from an aircraft along the country’s borders, to make sure he could not come back from the dead.

Things did not get better. Mobutu sent the Russians packing, which greatly pleased the Americans. So did almost everything else he did, for he staunchly followed US foreign policy in all key matters. It was the height of the Cold War and Africa had become a proxy battlefield. Keeping the Soviets out was more important than anything else. As long as Mobutu did that, and supported anti-Communist rebels in neighbouring countries, Washington would turn a blind eye to anything else.

Mobutu made the most of that. He set up a one-party state that tolerated no dissent. In the early years, he consolidated power by publicly executing political rivals. One rebel leader had his eyes gouged out, his genitals ripped off and his limbs amputated one by one before he died.

Later, Mobutu switched to a new tactic – that of buying off political rivals rather than killing them. He did so by elevating theft to a form of government. A new word was coined to describe it – kleptocracy. At first, he had tried simply printing more money to pay the bills for his schemes. He issued new stamps, coins and currency notes with his portrait on.

There were posters and billboards everywhere. His personality cult reached its peak every night when the television news began with an image of him descending through clouds from the heavens. He put the story about that even his walking stick had magic powers.

In the early years, he launched an African Authenticity campaign. He renamed the country Zaire in 1971. He ordered everyone to drop their Christian names for African ones, rebranding himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (“The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake”). He outlawed hair-straightening, skin bleaching, the wearing of ties and listening to foreign music. He nationalised foreign-owned firms and handed them to relatives and associates.

When the economy slumped, he printed more money. Hyperinflation followed, and even the central bank bought its hard currency on the black market. But he was a Cold War warrior, so the West bailed him out. The more they gave him, the more he stole. Of the $73m education budget one year, schools got only $8m; he pocketed the rest. So it went with every area of government.

Mobutu’s extravagance was legendary. He had villas, ranches, palaces and yachts throughout Europe. Concorde was constantly hired. He didn’t just have Swiss bank accounts; he bought a Swiss bank. He didn’t just get his wife a Mercedes; he bought a Mercedes assembly plant for her. He stashed away nearly $5bn – almost the equivalent of the country’s foreign debt at the time.

Still, the West smiled and paid up to the man Ronald Reagan called “a voice of good sense and good will”. The US gave him a total of $2bn over 30 years. The CIA trained and armed his bodyguards. When rebels attacked him, France airlifted in 1,500 elite Moroccan paratroopers. When that wasn’t enough, a year later Belgium and France deployed troops (with American logistical support).

All the while, the Congo became Africa’s haven for mercenaries, money launderers and diamond smugglers – while its public infrastructure rotted and child mortality rose. Mobutu became the longest-surviving despot of the Cold War era. It was either “Mobutu or chaos”, the US said. But the hapless people of the Congo got both.

Then it was over. The Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War ended. The IMF experts who had been brought in to reform his finances – and left after a year in despair – pulled the plug on his loans. The US would lend no more. Mobutu declared an end to one-party rule, but it was too late.

What finished him off was the decision to back the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. After the Hutu genocidaires were chased from Rwanda in 1994, Mobutu gave them shelter in Zaire. More than that; he issued an order forcing Tutsis to leave Zaire on penalty of death. They erupted in rebellion. Rwanda and Uganda joined in, invading eastern Congo in pursuit of the genocidaires. When they met no resistance – the Congolese army being more used to suppressing civilians than fighting – they marched on the capital Kinshasa.

Mobutu – the “all-powerful warrior”, the fifth-richest man in the world, who bled the Congo even more efficiently than King Leopold, and who looted the state into paralysis – escaped on a cargo plane with bullets ripping into the fuselage as it took off. After 20 years of Mobutist dictatorship, in the words of the African historian Basil Davidson: “Zaire remained a state without a nation, a geographical concept without a people.” And Kinshasa la belle had become Kinshasa la poubell – the dustbin.

The new man was Laurent-Désiré Kabila. He presented himself as the heir to the murdered Lumumba. Outsiders hailed him as one of the “new breed” of African leaders. Nelson Mandela paid tribute. The US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, stood next to Kabila early on and said that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or Democratic Republic of Congo as it was re-re-named) would now emerge as “an engine of regional growth”. Those who knew Kabila thought differently.

His critics sneered that all he had ever run was a brothel in Tanzania. Others recalled the judgement of Che Guevara who had concluded three decades earlier that Kabila was “not the man of the hour”. He was too interested in drinking, bedding women and showing up days late. The lack of co-operation between Kabila and Guevara was what had led to the Cuban-style revolution foundering in the Sixties.

He had not, it seemed, improved with age. Kabila turned out to be another petty tyrant. Secretive and paranoid, he had no political programme and just doled out jobs to family and friends. He made his cousin chief of the armed forces, gave his son a top army job and made his brother-in-law the police chief. Worse, he was as cruel as Mobutu, jailing and torturing opponents, but lacking his skill in playing the ethnic card. He promised elections but never held them.

And he did not learn from Mobutu’s mistakes. Put in power by the Rwandans and Ugandans, he decided to distance himself from them by again supporting the Hutus and allowing them to regroup on Congolese soil. Rwanda had learnt the lessons of the past; it immediately flew 2,000 troops to within striking distance of the capital. Uganda joined in. Kabila was only saved because Angola and Zimbabwe came to his rescue, the former fearing that a power vacuum in the DRC would allow Angolan rebels to flourish, the later trying to play the statesman and grab some mining contracts.

The fighting soon stalemated. But no one was bothered; all involved just used the bases they had established inside the DRC to plunder. The war became self-financing as all sides scrabbled for diamonds, gold and timber.

Suddenly, 70 per cent of the Congo’s coltan – an essential component in making mobile phones – was being exported through Rwanda. And Congo gold turned into a major Ugandan export. Rwanda and Uganda even began to fight each other at one point over control of Kisangani and its diamond fields.

What broke the stalemate was a coup in 2001. The plot failed, but Kabila was assassinated. His son, Joseph Kabila Kabange, became President. The Congo’s warlords were happy, assuming that junior would be a pushover.

But Kabila II had done his military training in China and turned out to be an operator. Within a year, he had successfully negotiated an international peace deal that saw Rwanda withdraw and all the remaining warring parties agree to end the fighting and establish a government of national unity.

Peace has returned to two-thirds of the country – there are factions fighting in the east – and Kabila has delivered the referendum he promised and now, on Sunday, the elections. He is, of course, standing and is, of course, the favourite of the 33 candidates.

The country is still in a dire state. Aid organisations say about 1,200 people die daily due to the effects of the conflict, hunger and disease. The DRC has Aids, low life expectancy and a high rate of child deaths. More than two million Congolese are internal refugees. National output and government revenue slumped – and external debt increased – during the five years of fighting, in which perhaps four million people died.

Even so, this weekend’s elections – the first multiparty elections in 40 years – are the biggest and most costly the UN has organised. Another eastern warlord yesterday agreed to lay down arms. Last month, the world’s largest mining company, BHP Billiton, said it would open an office in Kinshasa once the election is over. Other big mining groups may follow.

The prospects look a little brighter. It may be too soon – in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back world of contemporary Africa – to be optimistic. But, in their terrible story, the people of the Congo hope that, at last, it may be that a corner is being turned.

The horror: from Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’

Paths, paths, everywhere; a stamped-in network of paths spreading over the empty land, through the long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat; and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, not a hut. The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons suddenly took to travelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone, too. Still I passed through several abandoned villages. There’s something pathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of 60 pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60lb load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness, at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty water gourd and his long staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above. Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive and wild – and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive – not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered a permanent improvement.

Source

Workers Communist Party of Denmark (APK) says: No to French Invasion of Mali!

No to invasion in Mali!

Stop the wars of EU and NATO!

Statement from the APK

The APK proclaims its most profound rejection and protest against Danish participation in another imperialist war, this time against the African state Mali.

Behind the invasion in Mali is a dirty tactic, where the imperialist great powers,
with USA at the front, plays a double game, where they on one hand set the world on fire
by supporting and arm the terror organizations, while they afterwards send out their fire brigade
to “clean up”. They play the familiar game about invasion for humanitarian reasons and the war against terror. A terror USA, NATO, and France actively have been behind in both Libya and Syria.

The president of the European Commission, Barroso, proclaims his full support
to the invasion in Mali – the Nobel Peace honoured EU once again shows its true face in the African war.

Denmark is now a part of the invasion in Mali, regardless that we, as Villy Søvndal [1] emphasizes, ”only send transport aircraft” for help. The bombs and the land war is our allies in NATO and EU going to take care of.

The reasons for the invasion are by no means humane; it’s about gold, oil, uranium, and all the other riches, that are so numerous on the African continent. The old colonial powers return and lead a strong offensive not only in the Middle East but also intensively in Africa, where USA now is present in 35 countries.

Denmark out of the war coalition in Mali!

No to all Danish war participation!

Stop the wars of EU and NATO!

The Netpaper 15. January 2012

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[1] Foreign minister of Denmark.

Source

Communist Party of the Workers of France: No to French military intervention in Mali, No to the “sacred union” to support the war!

Position of January 12

The French government has decided to send French troops to Mali.

After the Ivory Coast and Libya, now it is Mali. This is a decision that involves France in a war in a former French colony.

This option was the only one that has been used since northern Mali has been in the hands of armed Islamist groups.

Since the beginning, [French President] Francois Holland asked the UN to give the green light to an international military intervention, in which the French General Staff and diplomacy would organize the concrete arrangements.

Men like Ouattara, put in place in the Ivory Coast by military intervention in which France played the lead role, Compaore, the head of Burkina Faso, who has continued to serve the interests of French imperialism in the region, regardless of the government in Paris, or Yayi Boni, an autocrat in Benin, serve as an “African” screen for this military intervention. Who can believe that ECOWAS would be able to set up a military force independent of the French army? On the contrary, it is clear today that the whole of the French military deployed in Africa has been mobilized for this intervention.

The justification for this French military intervention is the fight against armed Islamist groups who control part of the territory of Mali. They threaten the integrity of Mali and carry out a reign of terror in the areas they control. But their presence and the ease with which they are deployed reflect the existence of profound social, economic and political problems that the ruling regimes in Mali have not resolved, when they are not aggravated by their management of the country. This means that a military solution, let alone a foreign military intervention, will not resolve any of these problems, quite the contrary.

The Malian forces have denounced this situation and have from the beginning rejected a foreign military intervention; they stated that the question of the territorial integrity of Mali should be the responsibility of the Malian army. They were not listened to.

The military operation is complicated and can take time to mobilize the greatest resources. The victims are mainly Malian civilians caught in the crossfire.

The reinforcement of the “Vigipirate” plan is part of the strategy of tension and conditioning to convince the people of our country that they may be the target of attacks, whose perpetrators are linked directly or indirectly to Islamist groups acting in Mali. It is part of the government’s desire to create a climate of national unity, while it is carrying out an aggressive policy of austerity that strikes the masses.

Behind this intervention is the control of an area rich in strategic raw materials, particularly uranium that [the French company] Areva is exploiting in neighboring Niger and is also found in the subsoil of Mali.

For all these reasons, and because the war in the Ivory Coast, Afghanistan and Libya have amply shown that their justification by the fight against terrorism and the defense of democracy is a big lie, we express our total disagreement with the military intervention of France in Mali.

We reaffirm the need to put an end to the policy known as the “French-Africa,” a policy of economic domination and political and military intervention.

We affirm that it is up to the people of Mali, its democratic and patriotic forces, to find ways for a political solution to the crisis in their country.

Paris, January 12, 2013
Communist Party of the Workers of France

Source

The Path of the Danish People: Programme from 1952 of the Communist Party of Denmark

DKP: The Path of the Danish People

Adopted by the 17th Congress of the Communist Party of Denmark, 22-25 May, 1952

The time has come, where Denmark must embark on new tracks. It cannot continue like it does! After years with economic crisis and unemployment came the tribulation of the foreign rule. And now the country is clenched with fear for war, fear for want, and fear for the fate of Denmark under a development that goes against everything that the people wish for and hopes. But there is a way forward for Denmark and the Danish people.

Denmark has previously gone through tough times. Also previously headstrong rulers have mortgaged the country, or lead it to defeat, default, and dissolution. But always new forces have broken forth. They have united the people, so that it with united strength carried the country forward again.

Therefore, through the history of the Danish people, there goes an unbroken line of willingness for peace and prosperity, for popular rule and independence. This willingness has become the supreme hallmark of the Danish people, and it lives with unimpaired strength today.

The liberation struggle under the occupation still stands clearly in the memory.
When the people joined their ranks in a united front and swept the false leaders away, broke the subjugation and humiliation of the Scavenius-policy[1].
The Danish people took its place in the common struggle of the peoples for freedom, and the liberation opened paths for prosperity and a new era.

At that time all opportunities were present. Consensus and commitment to break with the old reigned like never before among the people. But the will of the people wasn’t followed.

The old politicians surely spoke pretty words about a “new policy”, that should fulfil the demands of the people, but in reality they turned everything into the old rut.

They are responsible for that we instead of peace, freedom, and social progress have gotten the circumstances, that reigns now. Their policy has failed.

But the people were on the right track. And for Denmark to escape the trouble, the people must stand firm, that its interests will be respected. The power of the ruling political clique must be broken. A whole other scheme must be created.

The Danish people own the strength to enforce the needed changes.

In our time it is the working class that is the backbone in the nation and in the struggle of the people. In its rising it has defied reaction and men of wealth and guarded the most cherished values of the Danish people.

It created powerful organizations that were of irresistible strength, when they were put into the struggle for the case of the poor. In crucial moments – like under the occupation – it has shown itself as the power that united the people and took the lead in its struggle against internal and external enemies. It is this task, that now again accrues the Danish working class.

Ever since the working class rose up as an independent force, its goal has been socialism, a society where no one thrives on the labour of others. The people would have long ago been won for socialism, if not the social democratic leaders had betrayed the struggle and dishonoured the name of socialism. But their political failure doesn’t mean the failure of socialism. That is demonstrated by the development there, where socialism has been victorious and has created societies with lasting prosperity and public happiness. More and more realize that there must be decisive societal changes in Denmark. But what needs to be done, and how should it be done?

This programme shows how a real safeguarding of the interests of the people must lead to a socialistic transformation of society. 

The power of the high finance has led Denmark into misfortune.

It is not the people that have the power in Denmark today. The real power rests within a small circle of money men, industrialists, and landlords, who via their capitalistic monopolies own the banks, the large industry, the large commerce and the manors, and by virtue of their dominance over the credit control the agriculture, fisheries, commerce, and crafts.

Such monopolies are e.g. the large banking groups and shipping companies, the oil companies, the cement trust, the margarine trust, etc. Via the monopolies a dozen persons rule over two thirds of all share capital in Denmark. “Money rules everything” is the slogan of the high finance, and so it is in today’s Denmark. By their economic power the financial lords have directly and indirectly secured influence on the state apparatus and willing politicians, so that the government and the state administration carry out their will. Profit is their intent and goal. They only achieve that on the expense of the working people. Therefore their policy is directed against the interests of the people.

Through many years the capitalists in Denmark managed partly to conceal these facts and propagate the belief that lasting prosperity could be created for the Danish people without a revolution.

In the beginning of the century capitalism was still in its relatively peaceful period of development.

Danish capitalism was by virtue of specific circumstances in a favourable position.

It was, when England still flourished as a colonial power. At that time the English market was capable of purchasing and pay quality prices for Danish agricultural products.

Thereby Danish capitalism also obtained a part of the extra profits that the English high finance squeezed out of the slave labour of the colonial peoples.

It was, when British and German power politics kept each other in balance in Denmark.

At that time Danish capitalism obtained special advantages by acting as “neutral” and therefore did not participate in the weapons race.

Under those circumstances the Danish working class managed through tough struggles, although easier than in many other countries, to win certain economic and social concessions

But now all that is over. Capitalism is in decline and decay. It is therefore not temporarily inconveniences, but a profound crisis it has brought over the Danish society.

The British Empire flourishes no more, but sinks into ever deeper dependence on the USA.

Rather than leaving a bit of its profits to the Danish capitalists, British monopoly capital plunders Denmark in a most brutal way by the trading conditions laid down by the England Agreement. While the majority of Danish agricultural export is being sold to England to established low prices, England has free hands to turn the prices on its deliveries of goods to Denmark up high and to default on its delivery obligations.

Danish capitalism no longer acts ”neutral”. The monopoly capital of Denmark which itself is dependent on the giant trusts of the capitalistic world has economically and politically handed out our country to the imperialism of England and above all to the imperialism of USA.

For this the Marshall Plan has served. Its golden promises about “help to economic progress” have shown itself to only conceal the intent, which is to harness Denmark into the war economy of USA.

Devaluation of the Danish currency, shortages of raw materials for the peace industry, shortages of foreign currency, flagrant interference and control with Danish business, and American dictate about continuous reduction of Denmark’s trade with Eastern Europe is the true nature of the Marshall “Aid”. On all this the American capitalists enrich themselves, so they have taken plenty of payment for the “aid”.

While the Marshall Aid meant a surrender of the Denmark’s economic independence, the North Atlantic Treaty meant that our political and national independence was put at risk.

Denmark has been fully involved in the capitalistic armament madness that is about to transform the country into a fortified poorhouse.

The Danish people are now being exploited twice, both by the British-American monopoly capital and at the same time by the domestic capitalist class which exploits the war economy and the inflation to turn its profits higher and higher up.

The work effort of the people and the production has reached heights like never before.

So the conditions to improve the circumstances of the people are there.
When they nevertheless are deteriorated it is due to the fact that the government and the Rigsdag carry out the policy of the monopoly capital.

The deception against the Danish people.

How could it happen that such a policy has been imposed on the Danish people?
It has first and foremost happened through a huge deception. Those who have the money have the power over the press and the general propaganda.

They have used it to keep the people in ignorance of the actual development at home and in the world around us. Always the policy of the big business is presented as altruistic acts, and systematically and mendacious has it been denied that the consequence would be all this that we now are in.

At the same time the socialistic world is being depicted as a misfortune for the people and as a threat against Denmark, regardless that the facts of the socialistic construction every day testify to the contrary.

The American war propaganda is being more and more unidirectional parroted.
The callous lifestyles of the official USA is being mimicked and spread through the press and literature, film and radio. Danish cultural life is forced back and is offered deteriorating conditions in an attempt to break the self-respect of the Danish people.

The ”old politicians” who claimed to defend the interests of the people, has on the contrary served the moneymen and the foreign powers to mislead the people and bring it into doubt about its own strength. They put every effort in to split the people’s unity after the liberation.

They strewed around with empty promises, waged political sham fencings between themselves, while in reality they were in agreement to make the Rigsdag[2] into a mere channel for foreign orders in all essential affairs.
Thus they have eroded the democracy from inside and made the people’s freedom rights illusory. Police state methods are invoked, while bureaucracy and corruption are spreading in the swollen police- and judicial apparatus.

The deception against the Danish people could not have been done without the right-wing socialist leaders. This was seen in 1945, at that time everything was to gain. They put their influence into bringing the advance of the working class to a halt. In words they proclaimed: “Three steps to the left!”. In actions they helped Knud Kristensen[3] to power.

Step by step the social democratic leaders have evolved to play such a role, so that they today have nothing in common with the ideas that the Danish labour movement was build upon and was carried forward. They have betrayed socialism long time ago and adapted themselves in warm positions in the capitalistic society. Thus they sank down to conduct bourgeois-liberal reform policy.

But their fall has become even deeper. Today they are in league with the capitalistic right-wing parties to implement the most anti-popular and reactionary policy Denmark has known in living memory. They receive praise from the militarists for their indispensable support to the armament policy that they once professed to fight. The actively fight to maintain the capitalistic social system.

Also internationally they have associated themselves with the worst enemies of the working class. They praise the USA, the country of the most brutal and ruthless monopoly lords, and praise its “leadership in the world”. They are the most officious whips for the American war policy which they follow and praise, no matter how disastrous it is for the working class and the Danish nation.
Their theory that ”national sovereignty is an outdated concept” is to serve as a cover over their betrayal against the interests of the nation. As they under Hitler’s heyday adapted to a life under his supremacy, they now submissively assist the USA of the high finance.

They base their influence on the power, they have within the bureaucracy in the labour organizations. They seek to stifle the democracy in them and get them tied and bound through legislation. Thus, in the service of their anti-popular policy, they have been able to abuse the workers’ loyality to organizations that have been built up through the arduous work of the generations.

There is now in standard of living and thinking a gap between the right-social democratic leaders and the ordinary workers. When many ordinary workers still follow the Social Democracy, it happens in an honest but vain hope that the leaders, however, sometime will go to battle for the cause of the working class and the people.

To keep that hope alive the leaders regularly present well-sounding programs and manifestos.

With words they seek to win the trust of the workers, in action they continue the policy of the big business.

In reality they have put all their influence to create division and to sow discouragement in the working class, to weaken and disorganize its and thus the people’s struggle.

Their phrases about “democratic socialism” have only had to serve to cover over a policy that neither is democratic nor socialist. They have in all things guarded the interests of the monopolies, while they continuously prevent the workers in guarding theirs.

When the workers raise their demands, the only answer is streams of shameful lies and hateful smear campaigns against the Soviet Union and every country that builds socialism.

The victories of socialism.

The deceit of capitalism is not feasible, when the people become aware of the truth about the development in the countries of socialism. For it delivers the proof that the working class in its struggle for socialism has steered towards the correct target.

Socialism has in practice shown itself as a social system that is superior to capitalism, and the one which will replace it in history.

In the Soviet Union the socialist society, which workers through generations have dreamt about and fought for, has become reality. All means of production, all the riches of society, have become the common property of the people, and thus the exploitation of humans by humans has been removed. The production is organized according to a plan after the needs of the people. Therefore the right to work could be realized. Unemployment is unknown, living standards are raised rapidly, and the culture is brought to a thriving development.

The people live without fear for the future and participate actively in the management of the society.

In the ordeal of the war the Soviet Union showed, how a socialist society by virtue of the devotion of the people becomes an invincible power. After the war the Soviet people not only have been able to overcome the appalling devastations of the war by putting its full power into peaceful construction, but have also embarked on new gigantic works that will make the land fertile and increase its wealth.

Through the progress that in the Soviet Union has been created for the people, through the peaceful coexistence that within the Union is created between the nations, the first country of socialism shows the way forward for the oppressed masses in the capitalist countries and the colonies.

Since the war the peoples in the most of Eastern Europe have seized power and have begun to build socialism. Thus the countries, where the people until just a few years ago lived in misery and fascistic oppression, have been transformed into free people’s communities in rapid development. In the Far East China has pulled itself out of the oppression and backwardness that the landowners, speculators, and foreign financial lords through centuries have kept it down in and now builds a free future for itself.

In contrast to this development the countries of capitalism are having crises, decline, and all-encompassing preparations for war.

The victories of socialism prove that it doesn’t have to be so. This is the truth that the political leaders of capitalism fear, but which they in the long run will not manage to hide from the peoples.

The struggle for peace.

The most terrible danger that threatens our land and our people is a new world war.

More than anything else this calls on the people to take the fate of Denmark in their own hands.

It is capitalism that has led to the world wars of our time. It is the big monopolies who benefit from the armament. By war they rob colonies and territories which they squeeze for new profits. For them war isn’t a terrible thing, but a terribly lucrative thing.

The American monopolies that are the biggest and strongest of capitalism strive after world domination. They morbidly fantasize about an atomic war as a mean to subdue everything under their will. The war has become the main objective of their policy.

In league with them are the forces around the world who expect to benefit from the war, or who in the war see a mean to subdue the increasingly stronger rising of the peoples, in the colonies as in the capitalist countries. Above all they seek a war against the Soviet Union, because they fear the upswing of socialism and want to lay its construction results desolate.

In spite of the contradictions and conflicting power interests among them, these powers have united themselves in a war camp which is subject to the dictatorship of the American power policy. It has shattered the allied collaboration of great powers and split the world. It misuses the UN which was created for peace and collaboration, as a tool to organize war. It launches deafening war propaganda to incite the peoples to enmity and fratricide.

On the other side stand the countries and the forces that fight for peace and independence.

Hundreds of millions of people, regular people who know what they have to defend, belong together in the peace camp, whose strongest and guiding force is the socialist Soviet Union.

For socialist countries peace is a vital interest. Under socialism there is no one who can benefit from war. War is a disaster for each as well as the entire society.
The Soviet Union who more than anyone else knows the horrors of war therefore leads an indispensable peace policy, and makes one initiative after another for the cause of peace.

For the peoples in all the countries of the world, the struggle for peace is the struggle for life itself.

The seriousness of present time therefore compels all good forces to across any political, religious, or other kind of dividing line to get together about one thing: the preservation of peace.

A lasting peace must build on the following principles:

Disputes between the states must be solved through negotiations, not through war. Freely made commitments must be respected.

Countries with socialist and countries with capitalist economic systems must live side by side in peaceful emulation and in relations on equal footing.

Changes in a state’s social system must be in accordance with the will of the people and not imposed or prevented by aggression.

These principles are recognized by the communists and must be recognized by anyone who sincerely wants peace. These principles are recognized by the socialist countries and furthermore by any country that pursues a policy of peace. It is the powers and groups, who through threats about atomic war and with the most brutal acts of war seek to impose their will on other peoples, who break these principles and puts peace in jeopardy.

But the bellicose rulers can be stopped. Repeatedly the peoples’ opposition has forced them to stop in their ventures. If the peoples stand invariably fixed, they can enforce respect for their demands about negotiation instead of war, and the foundation will be laid for cooperation between the states in accordance with the spirit and letter of the UN charter.

The peoples join their ranks in defence of peace. An organized peace front has arisen worldwide, with a force that history never has seen before. It already includes a majority of the world’s population and is in constant strengthening and growth.

Although peace is in imminent danger, it is therefore false to claim, that a new world war should be inevitable. Such propaganda is only spread to undermine the determination of the peoples in the resistance against the war preparations and in the struggle to prevent the war.

This time it can be prevented, that capitalism’s armament rush and war hysteria ends up in a new war. Peace will be preserved and strengthened if the peoples take the cause of peace in their own hands and defend it to the utmost.

This is the task of present time that is above all others.

For a Danish peace policy out of the North Atlantic Treaty.

For the Danish people peace is a necessity of life. The war is an immediate threat to the very existence of Denmark as a habitable area.

This is a consequence of Denmark’s incorporation into the aggressive North Atlantic Treaty.

If it comes to war, the North Atlantic Treaty makes Denmark from the outset a war participant and battleground. When the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, it was asseverated that its purpose was to secure peace, democracy, and independence. But it has resulted in British and American generals arrange Denmark as an attack base against the Soviet Union, that we are being allied with the worst enemies of democracy, from German Nazis to Franco, and that our political and military independence is compromised. It is obvious that the pact was signed under false pretence.

The Danish people has never got the treaty submitted, has never approved it, and can not be bound by it. If Denmark is to secure its peace, the people must first and foremost free itself from the North Atlantic Treaty and regain its independence.

Alone the Danish people don’t manage to secure the peace. But it can do its independent effort for the peace by keeping its own country outside all involvement to war plans and stand up for the cause of peace. Thereby it also provides its valuable contribution to that common struggle of the peoples that is necessary for the preservation of peace. Denmark has by virtue of its geographical and political position special opportunities for this.

Denmark must go from Atlantic policy to peace policy. Danish peace policy is:

Denmark is in favour, that a peace pact is concluded between the five great powers, which is open for all states.

Denmark terminates all pacts that violate its independence, first and foremost the Marshall Agreement and the North Atlantic Treaty.

Denmark opposes the misapplication of the UN in the interest of one group of power and is in favour of détente and cooperation.

Denmark is in favour of general and controlled disarmament and prohibition of nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction.

Denmark is in favour of a ban on war propaganda. Denmark breaks with the systematic poisoning of the relations with the Soviet Union and replaces it with good neighbourly relations.

The same applies to the relations to China and the people’s democracies.
Denmark is in favour of a united, demilitarized and democratic Germany.

Denmark develops its trade relations to all sides on the ground of equal rights.

The transition from war policy to peace policy means, that the burdens that now rest heavily on the Danish people are immediately facilitated.

The armament madness is halted, so taxes can be eased.

The foreign trade is reorganized, so the currency crisis can be resolved.

The war economy will be broken, so that peace production can provide labour and cheap goods to the people.

The policy of cuts is brought to an end, so social improvements can be implemented.

Military construction is halted, so that residential construction can be started.

The Americanization of the culture is prevented, so that Danish cultural life can flourish.

The crushing pressure of the dread for war over the minds will be lifted, and the Danes can live as Danish.

This is the policy that corresponds to the interests of the Danish people. This is the policy that meets the just demands that today come from worker as from the peasant, from scientist as from shopkeeper.

This policy can be brought to victory, when the Danish people united raise up against the impoverishment, which has been inflicted on them by the armament for a foreign matter, and when it resolutely refuses to make its youth and land available to the American war plans.

It will happen through a people’s unity on peace and independence. As the Danish people once rejected the Scavenius-politicians, it must now reject the excuses and pretexts of the Atlantic-politicians to lead the country into disaster after foreign order. If the people stand united and firm in their opposition against impoverishment and war-policy, the Atlantic-politicians will experience their 29th August.[4]

But there is no time to waste! All those, who see where the war policy is carrying us, must find each other in common opposition while there still is time.

The communists therefore declare themselves willing to cooperate, regardless of other differences of opinion, with all persons, movements, or organizations, that are in favour of peace policy, that will break the policy of national defeatism, and will use the war billions for the good of the people. They will provide support to any government and any political initiative that takes steps in this direction.

Aware that the whole future of the country and the people depends on the victory of peace, the communists will make every effort to bring such a unity about. They will as always loyally respect the obligations they assume in such cooperation. At the same time they will as an independent party show the paths onwards for Denmark and work to win the people for the socialist transformation of society.

Only the people’s power ensures lasting prosperity.

Transition to peace policy would be a huge victory for the Danish people, but their problems will not be solved by that alone. Poverty would still exist, and there would still be rich people, who would use their economic power to extort the people, corrupt the political life, and once again drive the country in ruin. It happened like that in 1945. At that time there wasn’t put an end on the forces that betrayed Denmark and worked against the interests of the people. The result was, that speculators, collaborators, and cooperation politicians once again entered their old positions, began to split the people, and continued their pernicious policy, which once again brought the country into trouble.

If lasting prosperity is to be created for the Danish people, there must be a profound societal change. The power of the high finance must be broken. The real power in society must be laid into the hands of the people.

The people must actively defend their own interests. They must do away with the politicians who in the interest of the monopoly capital have deceived them and led them into misfortune.

They must secure a renewed people’s representation, a Rigsdag of parties and persons, who make the will of the people the law of the country.

Carried forward by the active support of the overwhelming majority of the people the people’s representation and the people’s government will take the measures which are necessary of primary importance to break the power of the big exploiters:

Nationalization – societal takeover – of big industry, banks, insurance companies, and the other monopolies of the business, whereby these are placed in the service of the people.

The foreign trade is placed in the service of the people through nationalization.

The ground of the landowners is seized and given to those, who cultivate it.

Democracy is ensured through the active employeeship of the people in all spheres of public life – in production, administration, public education, and press.

Thus the key centres of power would be put into the hands of the people, and the wealth and opportunities of Denmark will be utilized to create prosperity and happiness for the people.

These measures will result in the beginning to the transformation of the Danish society to a socialist society, where the exploitation of men by men is abolished, and where the people’s freedom and right to decide is guaranteed.

The unity of the people – the victory of the people.

The time has for a long time ago become ripe for the transforming of the Danish society.

The overwhelming majority of the people are interesting in that happening. In the long run it will therefore not be possible to withhold it. Not only the working class, but also the working agriculture, fishermen, officials, traders, mental workers, and even more are weighed down to their knees under the burdens from the ruling social order. The youth is being offered a future without prospect, and the old are being offered a hopeless old age. The whole people hate the war and want to live as Danish.

United the people form an immense force. That was what, we experienced in the country in the days of the resistance. As long as the working class was united, and the whole working people stood together, it went forward. The setback first came, when the people were successfully split again. But now, in the struggle against war policy and brutal cuts, the unity is again strengthened in people and in the working class. Old prejudices fade, when they in concord defend their immediate interests in struggle against external and internal enemies. From the shared vision of today’s problems grows a shared vision of the future.

Thus arises the unity in the people that gives them strength to form the future of Denmark.

The unity in the people can only happen on the basis of unity in the working class which is the largest and most closely knit part of the population. When the working class in unity actively sets in against any attack, against any cuts, against any violation of the people’s democratic rights, when it uses its trade unions and its other organizations in the struggle for its just demands, the result will not only be much needed improvements, but the working class will become the political force that at the head of the people paves the way for new times.

The enemies of the people fear the unity, above all in the working class. They bring into action both power and cunning to prevent it. The working class must in reply steadily continue its struggle and reject all attempts to create division in the ranks. This applies especially to the shameful acts of the right–social democrats, when they with poisonous gossip want to create artificial contradictions among the workers, or when they spread their propaganda about capitulating to the capital and the reaction. Unity and combat power in the working class can only be secured through incessantly work to break the influence of the false leaders and make their propaganda ineffective.

When the unity is obtained, when it is maintained and strengthened, so that it not goes into decline like in 1945, then the foundation is created to implement key changes to the Danish society and tread the path to socialism. An active, alert, and united working class will throng the large majority around itself and carry a people’s government to power.

That is the path that the communists urge to go on.

It will be the path to accomplishment of the historical struggle of the Danish people for peace and freedom, for democracy and independence. 

The people’s democracy – the path to socialism.

The people’s takeover of the power in the society means democracy for the people. Through the people’s democracy, the path of Denmark will go to socialism.

The Rigsdag will not as now be a tool for domestic financial cliques or a channel for foreign orders.

It will be renewed through free elections. The Rigsdag will be the true seat of popular sovereignty, such as the Danish people has fought for against absolutism and the provisory-dictatorship of Estrup[5]. Therefore the Landsting will also be abolished, the youth will get the right to vote from 18 years, and the electoral law will be made completely fair. The elected representatives of the people will be made accountable for violations on their programme and the obligations they have undertaken to the voters.

The democratic rights will not as now be restricted and conditional for the majority of the people.

People’s democracy means abolishment of all the privileges of the wealthy that make the democratic liberties to hollow words. The country’s legislative and executive organs will at any time be accountable to the people, and the people will be drawn into active participation in the administration and control in all spheres of public life.

The trade unions of the workers will play a significant role. They will come to serve the purpose, for which they were built: as direct defenders of the workers’ interests. The legalisms of the unions will be abolished, and the freedom of the trade-union movement will be secured. There will be democracy in the trade-union movement, and the power of trade-union careerists will be abolished.

The trade unions will, as representatives for the working class participate in the organization of the economic policy of the country, in the management of industry and other businesses, and in the shaping and administration of the labour- and social legislation.

Similarly the other organizations of the working people, small-holder unions, fishermen unions, the associations of the mental workers, the youth organizations, etc., will participate in the shaping and administration of the legislation, just as the cooperative movement with its experiences will come to play an important role in organizing the people’s supply of goods.

The securing of the principle of democracy: from the people – for the people – by the people, will be done by that on all responsible positions in the state apparatus will sit men and women, coming from the people, who take care, that the laws are observed in the spirit, in which they are enacted. All attempts to bureaucracy and sabotage, to police regime, will be broken with the participation of the people’s democratic control.

The democratic rights of the citizens will not only be enshrined in the constitution, but will be guaranteed, because the law provides the people the means to realize them. The freedom of press, speech, and assembly will not be limited by the fact, that a minority through property relations control printing houses and assembly rooms. Thus the monopoly of the money men on the press will be broken. The ownership of the papers will be handed over to the democratic organizations of the working class and the general population that on the basis of the law work for their interests.

Equality before the law will be guaranteed regardess of race, nationality or gender. Freedom of belief will be guaranteed. The legal rights will be assured by the democratization of the judicial system.

By these measures the people is secured real political power that enables the transformation of the society.

It cannot be expected, that the big capitalists and the landowners, that the united reaction will give up their robbed properties and privileges without further ado. On the contrary it must be assumed, that they will use all their influence and all their connections to by undermining and sabotage, coupled with open and violent opposition prevent the implementation of a democratic and socialist policy. Therefore the Danish people and its people’s government must be ready to resolutely strike such opposition down.

The Danish people’s path to peace, prosperity, and freedom can only be ensured by the power of the working people. 

What the people’s government will mean for the people.

The people’s government does not give empty promises. It fullfills the demands of the people.

It can do that because it breaks the power of the monopolies. It will do that because it stands in the service of the people and under the control of the people.

A people’s government will consolidate the victory of the peace policy by invariably be in favour of peace and national independence. It will and can do that, because it builds directly on the Danish people and their honest desire to live in peace and friendship with all other peoples, and because it is freed from any kind of dependence on the capitalistic spheres who are interested in armament and war.

Just as the people’s government will cherish the Danish people’s natural right to decide over the fate of their land and themselves, it recognizes the same right in all other peoples, and on this basis wants cooperation with them on the basis of friendship and equal rights. This also applies to the Faroese and Greenlandic peoples. A people’s government can never approve a policy that sacrifices these peoples and their countries to the war plans of the imperialistic great powers.

A people’s government will in accordance to its peace policy stop the militarization and lower the military spending to what is necessary to create a democratic defence in accordance with Denmark’s own interests.

Already this will lead to, that it gets substantial funds in its hands for improvement of the conditions of the people. Far more, however, it means that the nationalization of the monopolies in industry, banking, shipping, big trade, etc. places their enormous profits at the disposal of the state and thus of the people. At the same time it means, that the production can be organized and developed according to a plan which aims to meet the needs of the people.

This nationalization, which makes the key means of production to the property of society, i.e. of the people, should not be confused with what we have known up to now with regard to the takeover and operation of certain businesses by the state and the municipialities. These enterprises have still been operated as capitalistic enterprises in the interest of the capitalistic society and in a special bureaucratic manner. It has nothing to do with socialism.

Under a people’s government the nationalized companies will instead be democratically managed.

The management will consist of workers along with technicians and the representatives of society, just as the entire operation will continuously be subject to the participation and control of the trade unions. The production will no longer be dictated by the private profit hunger of the capitalists, but organized according to a common plan based on what benefits the society as well as the workers of the company’s workers. The working people, and no private capitalist, will benefit from improvements in methods of production and work. This will increase the pace of development in an unprecedented degree.

The production plan will be organized in such way that there will be a significant expansion of the Danish industry. Such an industrialization of Denmark is a necessity when the economic opportunities of the country are to be utilized to continuously raise the standard of life and to extend the employment opportunities, in order to ensure work for all.

The nationalization of banks and other financial institutions as well as of the insurance system will break the power of the interest capital, provide cheap capital at the disposal of production for the benefit of society, and will in general allow an effective societal control of the economic development.

The nationalization of the foreign trade is essential for the improvement of Denmark’s economic position. Only this way it will be possible to organize our trade policy purely in the interests of the whole people, according to where we are offered the best conditions for our exports, while the supplies of the country, particularly of necessary raw materials, are secured.

The import monopoly of the financially strong merchants will be broken, and the import goods will be distributed according to the interests of the production and the consumers.

A land reform will be implemented. First of all the landed estates, the aristocratic foundations, etc, which some time ago was robbed from the working peasants, will be given back to the people.

Thereby there will be created opportunities to create thousands of new farms through parcellation.

There will be created economic conditions so that the rural workers and the youth can get their own homes this way, and there will be additional land to the cramped smallholders.

The yoke of interest will be broken, the debt will be cancelled, and speculation in Danish soil will be made impossible. The economic policy of the people’s government will for ever abolish agricultural crises, and ensure the agriculture sale of its products at fair prices.

The further development of the cooperative movement, maintenance of machine pools, common stables, and other forms of rational utilization of the progress of technology, etc. will be supported.

Collective farming will be promoted to the extent that the farmers want. All this, combined with increased support for agronomical research work will form the foundation for a further rapid development of Danish agriculture.

At the same time the technical development will also be utilized to improve the conditions of the rural workers and the rural youth, so that their demands for equality with other workers with regards to wages, working hours, and holidays are finally realized. The rural youth will get access to education and cultural activities.

The fishery will be promoted and developed in accordance with our country’s natural conditions. State subsidy and credits for the improvement of the fishing boat fleet and the fishing gear will be provided. The sea fishing is organized and developed with the support of the people’s government. The release of fry is increased to the extent, the fishermen and science in cooperation consider appropriate.

Unloading centres, freeze centres, canned food factories, and similar, will be established on cooperative basis by state subsidy. Thereby remunerative sale of the catch is secured at any time. Intermediaries on the fish’s way from the fishermen to the consumers, who make it more expensive, will be abolished. The new trade policy will provide great opportunities for the sale of fish in foreign markets.

The middle class in trade, industry, and crafts will be liberated from the yoke of the interest capital, and will benefit from the social security. Small savers will get full compensation for the losses, they may suffer by the nationalization, but others may also get compensation to the extent they take a position of loyalty to the people’s power.

When the economic centres of power of the society are under control, the economy is no longer subject to blind laws. The planned expansion of the production will provide ample supplies to falling prices. The standard of life will be able to be continuously raised. The typical capitalistic crises with their so-called overproduction, with their unemployment, and with economic disasters for the peasants and for thousands of small traders will no longer be known. For all parts of the working people the life will be easier and happier.

Social security and cultural flourishing. 

When the profits of the monopolies are confiscated through nationalization, when the foreign plundering is stopped through a reorganization of the foreign trade, and when the armament is halted, then a people’s government will have the necessary means to realize the social progress that the labour movement through generations has fought for. And yet the taxes will be able to be reduced significantly for the working people. The social legislation of the people’s government will put an end to the fear of tomorrow, for illness, accident, unemployment, and old age which now often rides the people as a mare.

The right to work will be legally established and will by virtue of the economic basis be realized.

By introducing state pensions without dues the society will fulfil its duty towards the old and ensure them an evening of their life in comfort and good conditions. Invalids, the ill, and the injured will receive full compensation for lost earnings and will furthermore be secured a decent existence on equal footing with other citizens.

Through free medicine, medical care, and hospital treatment the public’s health is protected.

The preventive healthcare is expanded. The family will be secured. There will be implemented an up-to-date maternity allowance and a genuine child allowance. The preventive child care will be extended and the needed childcare institutions will be set up.

All condescension and bureaucracy in the administration of the social assistance will be done away with through direct participation of the representatives of the working people.

The housing question will finally be solved. The rents will be able to be significantly reduced through the confiscation of the interest. The nationalization of the credit and the buildings materials industry will make the initiation of an extensive construction of apartments to cheap prices possible.

Three weeks of vacation with full pay will be the minimum for all workers. Holiday houses and sanatoriums for the working people are established in appropriate and healthy buildings.

For the women a people’s government will mean, that they not only in words but also in fact achieve equality with the man in terms of politics, economics, and wage.

A new life will be opened up for the youth. There will be implemented a genuine youth legislation. The young workers will get shorter working time and longer vacation, and the apprentices will have day schools and a guarantee for an efficient utilization of the apprenticeship. In all spheres the youth will get huge expanded opportunities for development of its skills and interests.

Sports and the recreational pursuits of the youth will be encouraged through the necessary funding from state and municipalities, and through construction of the needed sports facilities, assembly houses, after-school recreation centres, cultural centres, etc. Money speculation in the sports will no longer be a question. Everyone will have equal right to education. Only abilities and aptitudes should be decisive for the opportunities of the individual. The necessary study grants are made available. The number of schools and higher education institutions are expanded, as the society will develop an extraordinary need for specialists and experts in all spheres.

There will be put an end to all pettiness towards the cultural life and on its dependence on private capital interests. The society requires a strong development of Danish science, art, and public education. Scientific institutions will be expanded or newly established. Under the leadership of research councils that will have extensive funding available, science will be developed and utilized for the good of the people. Ample resources will secure the work of the artist and the development of art. Through an extensive network of community centres, libraries, theatres, concert halls, exhibition rooms, etc., and by placing the press and publishing houses in the service of public education the conditions will be created to bring the cultural life into close and fruitful connection with the entire people.

Thus the cultural life will no longer be a matter for narrow circles. On the contrary, the entire people will participate in a further development of our rich cultural heritage, carried by faith in the future and concern for man. A genuine people’s government will ensure that the Danish society is transformed in order to take the necessary steps towards socialism. The wealth of the society and self-expression of man will flourish as never before. Only under such social conditions one can speak of freedom, of a genuine human existence. Without regard to the possibility of persecution by employers or money men can the citizens freely discuss how to make the life easier and more eventful for everyone in the best and fastest way. For the first time in our country’s history the opinions and decisions the working people arrives at will be made real by the help of the society. And the people will continue their march – still forward, towards new and higher goals. 

The communists and the path to socialism.

The communists present this programme to show, that there for the Danish people exists another perspective than the one of war policy, cuts, and national humiliation. There is a way forward and behind the strife and struggle of everyday life a great and achievable goal can be seen ahead.

The Communist Party of Denmark devotes all its efforts to the task of calling the Danish people to the struggle for peace, freedom, and their threatened interests of life, in order to achieve the great goal.

The Communist Party of Denmark is an organic part of the Danish people. It has grown out from our old socialist labour movement, born at the time the right-social democrats betrayed the banners of socialism. It has no interests which differ from the interests of Denmark and the Danish people.

In its ranks it gathers the most self-sacrificing and best fighters for the cause of the working class.

It has, even in the most difficult times, faithfully stood in the service of the Danish people.

The Communist Party of Denmark builds in all its work on the experiences of the working class and the liberation movements, as they are summarized in the doctrine of scientific socialism developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. The Marxist theory has historically proved its correctness as the doctrine of the victory of the working class and socialism. History has also established that the struggle for socialism can nowhere be won without a party that works on the basis of and in accordance with the socialist theory.

The Communist Party is in favor of the true and genuine democracy. It wants, that the majority of the people should be deciding. It seeks a socialistic democracy where all the riches of the society belongs to the society – the whole people – and are managed by the organs of the society under the participation and control of the people, a society where democracy prevails economically, politically, and culturally. Only with the support of the great majority of the people the communists will achieve this goal. The communists are opposed to a dictatorship of a minority. They will fight against all attempts to impose or maintain such a thing. The communists want that the majority of the people should decide in the interest of the vast majority of the people.

That is the foundation for the struggle of the communists for the interests of the people and for the revolution from capitalism to socialism. The victories of socialism in a number of countries have shown that different paths to socialism are given. Every country, every people must walk the path that follows from its own circumstances and conditions. But without the majority of the people and its struggle effort there is no path to socialism and thereby to lasting peace and freedom.

For Denmark the path goes in continuation of the rich-in-tradition battle of the Danish people throughout the ages that only will be accomplished in a free and happy, socialistic Denmark.

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[1] Erik Julius Christian Scavenius, social-liberal collaborator Prime Minister of Denmark, 9 November 1942 – 29 August 1943 (under the Occupation). He supported the policy of cooperation with Nazi Germany. Was forced from his post after he and his government didn’t want to introduce the death penality against saboteurs.

[2] Danish bicarmial legislature (1849-1953). Consisted of the Folketing (lower chamber) and Landsting (upper chamber). The Landsting was abolished in 1953.

[3] Danish liberal prime minister, 7. november 1945 – 13. november 1947.  He became prime minister after the first election after the Liberation. He was impeached because he wanted Southern Schleswig to be part of Denmark.

[4] The 29. August 1943 the Danish collaborator government abdicated after the Germans asked it to introduce death penalty for saboteurs after big strikes and unrest in August 1943, thus ending the period of collaboration.

[5] Jacob Brønnum Scavenius Estrup. Ultra-conservative prime minister of Denmark 11 June 1875 – 7 August 1894.

Under his time the Landsting was dominated by landowners and the big bourgeoisie, while the Folketing was dominated by pro-peasant politicians, who were more democratic. The more progressive Folketing tried to prevent Estrup from making his budget laws, with the result that he in 1877 dissolved the Rigsdag and made a “provisional budget law”. He did it all the years 1885-1894, the so called “provisory era”.  This together with restrictions on the freedom of press and speech and introduction of the “Blue Gendarmes” made Estrup basically a dictator.

The opponents of Estrup created rifle associations, and often peasants would deny paying taxes.

International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations: Resolution on the West African Region and Mali

Since 2010, the West African region and particularly the sub-Saharan zone has been marked by the armed interference and intervention of the imperialist powers. The objectives of those actions are:

* Political, geostrategic and military, related to the struggle for the redivision of the world and of the African continent.

* Economic (access to the petroleum of the Gulf of Guinea and the Ivory Coast; to the uranium of Niger and the precious metals that abound in the region; to solar energy; cacao, coffee, etc.

* The struggle of the Anglo-Saxon (U.S. and Great Britain) and French imperialists to prevent the penetration into the region by new actors such as China, India, Brazil, etc.

* The will of the imperialist powers to crush any type of protest by the popular masses, who are condemned to misery and lacking in political freedom, as well as the repression that they suffer carried out by the corrupt puppet powers, and their desire to crush any revolutionary insurrectionary movement.

The military-political crisis after the military coup d’état of the National Committee for the Defense and Restoration of the State (CNRDE) of March 22, 2012, as well as the military occupation of the North of Mali, begun January 22, 2012, which covers two thirds of the national territory, an occupation carried out by the National Movement for the Liberation of AZAWAD (MNLA) and the “jihadists” (AQMI, ANSAR, DINE, MUJAO, BOKO, HARAM…) must be put in this context

The military-political crisis in Mali has grave consequences for the neighboring countries, particularly Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, etc. and the group of the countries of the west African region (destabilization of States, proliferation of arms, massive displacement of populations towards the South of Mali, and thousands of refugees in other neighboring countries).

The military-political crisis in Mali is also a threat to the interests of imperialism, particularly French imperialism, in that country and the whole region. That is why there are preparatory maneuvers for an open military intervention that the troops provided by the members countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) can carry out, with the consent and logistical support of the great imperialist powers (France and U.S.A.) and of the UN under the pretext of “making a secure transition,” of “restoring constitutional life” and of “restoring Mali’s territorial integrity.” This is a reactionary plan by the imperialist powers and their allies in the region to maintain and reinforce their domination.

Faced with this serious situation, the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO):

* Denounces and condemns the puppet powers that have opened their territories (particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger, Mauritania and Senegal) to the troops of imperialist aggression.

* Denounces and condemns the proclamation of independence of the State of AZAWAD by the MNLA, instrument of French imperialism.

* Denounces and condemns the crimes perpetrated against the peoples of the North of Mali by terrorist group AQMI and the Islamist groups ANSAR-DINE, MUJAO and the MNLA.

* Supports the brave resistance of the peoples, particularly of the youth, against oppression and medieval and obscurantist practices.

* Denounces and condemns the reactionary plan of the ECOWAS in Mali.

* Calls on the proletariat and peoples of the imperialist countries, particularly France, to support the Malian people in their struggle for a revolutionary solution of the military-political crisis.

* Calls for solidarity and support for the struggle of the peoples of the West African region against imperialist domination and their African lackeys.

Tunisia, November of 2012.

Source

International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations: Resolution on the Situation in Syria

The plenary of the ICMLPO, held for the first time in Africa, reaffirms its support for the right of the Syrian people to live under a democratic regime: a regime that guarantees freedom, equality, social justice and dignity, as well as assures the unity and total independence of the country, including the recovery of the Golan Heights occupied by Zionism since 1967.

The ICMLPO:

1. Denounces the dangerous development of events in Syria. The popular movement of protest has been transformed into a destructive civil war. The bloodthirsty repression is striking the people, and since the beginning, the Assad regime has rejected any democratic reform that would satisfy the aspirations of the Syrian people. This situation is the consequence of the foreign reactionary, imperialist and Zionist intervention, through Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which masked by the so-called “Free Syrian Army” and under the pretext of “saving the Syria people”

2. We reaffirm that this war has nothing to do with the interests of the Syrian people and their aspirations. On the contrary, it serves the reactionary forces of the country, the region and internationally. Syria is at the moment the place of confrontation between, on the one side the U.S., France and Israel and Arab and Turkish reaction that are trying to subject Syria to Western rule and make it break its ties with Iran and Hezbollah. On the other side, Russia and China are supporting the regime to preserve their strategic interests in Syria and the region, after having lost their influence in Libya.

3. We reject all intervention by NATO in Syria under any pretext, given the dangers that this represents for the Syrian people, the peoples of the region and world peace in general. The Conference calls on the Turkish people to oppose Turkey’s intervention in Syria. It sends a call to the workers and peoples of the Western countries, in the first place of the United States, Great Britain and France, whose leaders are threatening military intervention in Syria, to pressure their governments to stop them from carrying out their criminal strategy that caused disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, etc. in the past

4. It is up to the Syrian people, in all cases, to determine their own future. The ICMLPO calls on the Syrian patriotic and democratic forces to unite to save their country from the claws of the Assad regime and the armed gangs and to prevent the foreign powers from mortgaging their future and making use of a part of their minorities to undermine their unity. The ICMLPO calls on those forces to strive to build a new, democratic, secular, independent and united Syria in which the different religions and nationalities live together in freedom and equality.

5. Calls on the patriotic, democratic and progressive forces of the region to urgently mobilize and to undertake the necessary measures of solidarity to support the patriotic and democratic forces of Syria, forces that must act to end the slaughters perpetrated against the Syrian people, to stop the destruction of the country and prevent the foreign intervention, to facilitate dialogue among its inhabitants to achieve their aspirations and break with the tyranny and foreign domination.

Organisation pour la construction d’un parti communiste ouvrier d’Allemagne

Parti Communiste des Ouvriers du Danemark – APK

Parti Communiste d’Espagne (marxiste – léniniste) – PCE(ml)

Plateforme Communiste d’Italie

Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de France – PCOF

Organisation Marxiste Léniniste Révolution de Norvège – Revolusjon !

Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Turquie – TDKP

Parti des Travailleurs de Tunisie – PT

Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Côte d’Ivoire – PCRCI

Source

Tunisia’s ‘unfinished revolution’ — interview with Workers’ Party militant

By Peter Boyle

November 16, 2012 – Green Left Weekly – Abdel Jabbar Madouri (pictured above) has been a militant in Tunisia since his early secondary school days. He was jailed three times (in 1987,1993 and 2002) because of his political activism. After every arrest, he was tortured and then sentenced to more then 12 years in jail. Madouri spent four years in hiding during the Ben Ali regime. He was also deprived of the right to work or to obtain a passport.

Madouri is also novelist and member of the League of Free Writers and some of his novels were banned by the dictatorship. Today he is member of the national committee of the Tunisian Worker’s Party and is editor of its newspaper Sawt Echaab(People’s Voice).

Green Left Weekly interviewed Madouri by internet with with the assistance of and translation from Arabic by Tunisian journalist Haithem Mahjoubi.

* * *

The sacrifice of the young Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi opened a new wave of popular revolt across the Arabic countries and beyond to Spain and eventually the whole world through the Occupy movement. But how much has been gained by the revolution in Tunisia? Is the democratic space still opening up?

We can say that this revolution has achieved certain aims such as the abolition of the ex-ruling party (though elements of it still operate freely but with little public support), freedom of expression and media and also the dissolution of the hated secret police, if only in a formal way.

The revolution also achieved for the first time a democratic election despite some failures and lack of transparency and equal opportunity in the election campaigns. The election of the constituent assembly was one of the goals that people fought to achieve, unfortunately, the Islamic Ennahdha coalition exploited the revolution win a majority in those elections.

Many of the tasks of the revolution remain unfinished because of the strength of the forces of counter revolution seeking to circumvent the revolution. Among these unfinished tasks are the enforcement of accountability; an investigation and end to corruption in government institutions; a purge state agencies, bringing those responsible to account for crimes against the people – especially putting on trial those who murdered the martyrs of the struggle – and redress for their victims.

What has been achieved by the one-year-old Constituent Assembly? And did the workers’ movement and the left have much input into its decisions?

More then a year after the election, the Constituent Assembly has still not drafted laws that reflecting the demands of the revolution. With the majority of assembly members, of representatives, Ennahdha is able to pass laws for its own benefit. This has made it clear to the people that this is no revolutionary government but a government of a new dictatorship working against the completion of the tasks of the revolution.

The people’s rejection of this government can be seen in the growing demonstrations and sit-ins in public squares and in the streets in front of government offices.

So the revolutionary process is moving slowly along with the transitional to equality.

Amnesty International says there have been some reversals of the democratisation. Protesters, activists and journalists have been attacked. What is the situation for freedom of political expression and organisation?

The Ennahda government has used the Islamic fundamentalist Salafist militias to attack independent journalists so that it dominate public media and put its loyal supporters and allies in charge of the main media institutions. It has refused to put to into practice laws guaranteeing media freedom and establishing an independent commission for information.

So, journalists are still fighting for independence and freedom.

What is the state of the trade union movement? How strong is your party in the trade union movement? Is there a problem with corruption and co-option of trade union leaders by the capitalist parties and the state?

The General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) is the biggest union in Tunisia. The UGTT has been organised since 1952 and is playing a very important role in fighting the government’s plans.

It is true that this union suffered from corruption during the Ben Ali regime, but after the revolution it has regained its integrity, energy and a leading role social and political struggles in cooperation all with other popular organisations.

The Worker’s Party is is very strong in the UGTT. The trade union movement is working with the newly formed Popular Front, which was launched in October by 12 political parties that are all active in the UGTT.

The constituent parties of the Popular Front are left-wing parties and progressive nationalists that participated in the revolution and suffered repression under former dictatorship.

The Popular Front is the now largest political force apart from the ruling Ennahda and the “Tunisia Appeal” party, which represents the remnants of the old regime.

How much danger does Tunisia face from the religious fundamentalists?

Islamic fundamentalism remains part of the political landscape of Tunisia and occasionally expresses itself through attacks on bars, artists and police. Some fundamentalists have been killed in clashes with the police.

But the popular resistance has led to the isolation and decline of the influence of the fundamentalists. The recent manifestations of Salafist violence is due to growing government complicity with these groups.

There have been some recent significant strikes in Tunisia. Can you explain what this was about?

We’ve been organising several workers’ campaigns to claim three main things. First, the passing and implementation of the laws to regulate working conditions which remain precarious for most workers. Second, wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living and better working conditions, especially working hours and occupational safety. Third, regulation of employment and dismissal of workers in public institutions.

Can you explain the recent protests about women’s rights in Tunisia?

Since it came to power the current government has tried to circumvent the demand for women’s rights, especially in relation to polygamy, the regulation of the minimum age of marriage and gender equality in rights and duties. But its attempts have failed because of the resistance from civil society, including the women’s associations which are very strongly engaged. Still the struggle women’s rights in Tunisia remains strong challenge.

Will the elections promised for June 2013 satisfy the popular will in Tunisia? How well do you expect the left to do in this elections? What are the prospects of a new revolutionary upsurge?

The revolutionary forces are aiming to be influential in next June’s election and to use these elections as an opportunity to achieve the demands for which the people revolted.

Our most important goal is providing employment, freedom and ending our country’s dependency on the great imperialist powers.

It is certain that the left led by the Popular Front will be active and influential in this election. According the last opinion poll, the Workers Party had 6% of the vote and is in the fourth place. But it is expected that the Popular Front would get more than 15% of the vote in the coming elections.

Because of the deterioration of the living conditions of the Tunisian people and the government’s inability to deal with these situations, a second revolution in Tunisia is also expected. The Popular Front is ready for this eventuality and prepared to lead such a revolution to achieve its goals.

What is your party’s view of the developments in Libya and Syria? Are the imperialist powers beginning to successfully manipulate the “Arab Spring”?

The imperialist powers are collaboration with reactionary regimes in the Arabic region especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia and they have succeeded in thwarting revolution in Syria by converting it from a popular uprising to a devastating and dirty civil war.

In Libya, the situation looks somewhat different, especially since the Libyans began rebuilding state institutions. But the Libyan revolution needs to make a lot more struggle to achieve Libyan people’s demands.

The imperialist powers are working hard to control the situation in the countries of the so-called “Arab spring” so they are aiming to find help customers in the area especially after the coming to power of Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt and their collaboration with the imperialist-Zionist agenda. In the other side, there are the ongoing revolutionary processes and the parties that lead them in both these countries.

Source

Video: CIA & Angolan Revolution

Happy 101st Birthday Comrade Võ Nguyên Giáp!

August 25, 2012: Happy 101st Birthday Comrade Võ Nguyên Giáp, architect of the Vietnamese people’s revolutionary military victory over U.S. imperialism!

French Government Exposed in Rwanda’s Genocide

The Imperialist government of France played a heinous role in the Genocide. The painting on wall says France = Killer

By Maryam

Newly evidence documents the role of the French regime in the 1994 Rwanda genocide — and has, once again, put the spotlight on this tragic event and the role of foreign imperialists in it.

In early August 2008, the Rwandan government released a report based on eyewitness accounts that the direct cooperation between the French state and the government of Rwandan Hutus that was in power during the 1994 genocide. This report is consistent with the results of investigations performed by various other organizations, including human rights groups.

According to the Rwandan government, 33 politicians and French army officers are implicated in the infamous genocide in Rwanda, either by giving orders or by their direct actions. The late president Francois Mitterrand, his son Jean Christophe, Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppe and his foreign minister at the time were among the indicated responsible parties.

The background for these events (which annihilated a generation) was the country’s severe economic crisis caused by actions of the International Money Fund and the World’s Bank. For example, in the name of economic reform, the value of the Rwandan currency was sharply devalued. This, in turn, caused changes in the world trade market that triggered a severe drop in Rwanda’s export of key crops like coffee.

On April 4,1994, the Tutsis forces of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), operating with direct US support, shot a missile at a plane, causing the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana. In the wake of this, the Rwandan regime, urged on by Hutu extremists, unleaded a campaign of vendetta.

The Interahamwe paramilitary force was mobilized to slaughter innocent Tutsi tribespeople and Hutus caught protecting Tutsis. Meanwhile, the French regime sent 2,550 air and ground forces to support the Rwandan state against the RPF. The Rwandan report cites numerous instances of the French forces involved in the killing or giving orders to those who did the killing.

Tutsis and the Hutus, who allegedly were suspected of hiding Tutsis, were executed and their wives raped. From the time of Rwandan occupation, raping women prisoners has been done routinely and systemically by the French soldiers.

Based on direct testimony, some of the atrocious crimes that occurred during the Rwandan genocide had French help. French forces made their bases in the Niaroshishi area. Those foreign bases were protected by Rwandan military forces and the local pro-government paramilitaries.

In one incident three unarmed youth were chased out of a local tea farm and ran toward a French camp. The police and paramilitaries followed the three youth into camp and arrested them with the help of French soldiers and they were never heard from again.

A former member of the Hutu pro-government paramilitaries testifies:

“We rounded up the Tutsis who had exited their camps to gather some wood (including Charles, the teenager who was son of Sambaba,) and killed them. We then buried them in mass graves near guard postings. The French companies came over to check out what we were doing and praised us, gave us meals to express their appreciation and sometimes went out with us during nightly patrolling.”

This genocide went on until over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates were slaughtered. Finally. Returning Tutsi forces caused over two million of the Hutu population to flee for their lives into adjacent countries.

After the publication of this Rwandan report, the French state has deceitfully denied its role and tries to ignore the report. Those French politicians named in it have counter-charged that the report authors falsified evidence. For example, Harry Maurine, (who was French Minister of Defence during the1994 genocide) declared that this report is unacceptable and that the soldiers of France have done nothing to be ashamed of.

Even after gathering the evidence and producing this report, the Rwandan state has been complacent in holding the French army accountable for their actions. Instead of making the main perpetrators liable for those crimes, the Rwandan state has busied itself arresting Tutsi villagers. Instead of highlighting the roles of imperialists in the mass killing, the country instead arrested over 50,000 people of the Tutsi tribe.

But, due to prison overcrowding, the state had to release about 40 thousand from their jails. The first group to be freed included the sick and the elderly in 2003. Though the government said that their freedom was temporary and conditional and that their final fate would be announced in their local courthouses (called GAKAKA.) Since March 2005, about 12,000 local courthouses were established in villages all over Rwanda to try the released. Most of them were declared innocent.

Historical discords among Tutsi and Hutu Tribes

Before imperialism’s encroachment, the Tutsi and Hutu were living alongside each other in villages and houses of Rwanda country. Tutsi pastoralists and Hutu agriculturalists were organized into small Bantu-speaking states. At the end of World War 1 the Belgium colonizers secured their domination over Rwanda’s people by dividing the two tribes from each other through the use of the eugenics movement in Europe and the United States. They declared the Hutus and Tutsis were two different “races” and issued them a racial identification card which defined each person legally as either Hutu or Tutsi.

By the end of the 1950s, growing political instability ensued rebellions that caused the deaths of between 20,000 and 100,000 Tutsis. By 1959, the royal regime of Tutsi tribe was overthrown and many of this tribe’s people escaped to neighboring states or were expelled to Uganda and the first Tutsi Refugee camps were established.

In 1962 Belgium let go of Rwanda, and that country supposedly became independent. But the civil wars between various imperialist-dependent groups and tribes continued for many years. These wars naturally caused citizens to flee and take refuge in neighboring countries. Uganda applied some of the most inhumane laws and regulations on those refugees. Refugees in Ugandan camps were confined in conditions with less than the basic means of survival. The status of “refugee” was bequeathed on the children that were born in Ugandan refugee camps and they were not recognized as any country’s citizens. Eventually the number of refugees in Ugandan camps had risen so much that the state was forced to let children out of the camps. And in some cases they were able to use opportunities under the United Nations refugee organization to leave Uganda and settle in other countries.

During the political crisis of the late 1960s, the Ugandan administration of Milton Obote passed a bill called the Control of Alien Refugees Act, which declared Rwandese to be a special class subject to arbitrary detention. In 1969 Obote deported all foreigners (this included the descendants of Hutus who had come as migrant laborers in the mid-1920s, and the more recent Tutsi refugees) from Uganda.

This article was originally published in Payam Fedaee #115. We Thank comrade Behrooz Navaii, for translating and telling us about this.

Source

Video: Free Syrian Army general admit U.S. and French assistance

“French and American assistance has reached and is with us … we now have weapons and anti-aircraft missiles.” –Free Syrian Army general

Hands off Syria: “Free Syrian Army” in Al-Qaeda’s lap – Brothers in Arms

[Photo: notice the Al-Qaeda banners coupled with the green, red and white flag of the "Free Syrian Army" in the front.]

As more photos depicting Syria’s so-called “Free Syrian Army” as fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda emerge, hiding Al Qaeda’s presence becomes more difficult for the Western press and the corporate-financier interests they represent. Therefore a simultaneous campaign is being waged to spin Al Qaeda’s presence as “recent” and “unexpected,” while attempts are made to repackage the militant group as “heroes.”

Free Libya is Green Libya: Supporting the Real Libyan Revolution

by W. Yusef Doucet

“Will they now stand up and assume the real leadership necessary to make themselves relevant, or is overcoming their class allegiance to the Western bourgeoisie just too much to fathom? That’s probably too much to expect from a class trained to protect the interests of its benefactors in order to protect its own narrow interests. I guess this great task is up to the world’s African workers and peasants.”

For eight months now, NATO has executed an open crime against a sovereign African state and called it a democratic revolution. Libya was a stable, prosperous, debt-free country in Africa until it came under attack in February. The United States and the European Union cynically seized the opportunity provided by the genuine people’s movements in Tunisia and Egypt where the Western backed administrations were forced to remove their heads of state in attempts to manage the popular democratic movements in the streets. The U.S. and E.U. rapidly exploited the monarchist and “Islamist” resentment long present in Benghazi. The democratic aspirations of this opposition in Libya was dubious from the beginning, and within days of the actual opposition demonstrations that were not unusual in Benghazi, the “peaceful demonstrators” attacked a police station and suddenly emerged as a full-fledged armed faction. That U.S. and E.U. country Special Forces and intelligence forces had been on the ground from the very beginning arming and guiding what has become the National Transitional Council has become clear, and who denies the fact?

Even now, as this coalition claims to be the true and legal representatives of the wishes of the Libyan people, they represent maybe 5 percent of Libyans. They are an illegitimate entity thrust upon Libya by the force of NATO military power, and still they have not defeated the Jamahiriyah, the People’s Government of Libya. Through their actions, NATO has declared once again that no country can impart upon an independent path of development and an indigenous, culturally specific experiment with democracy. The West claims a monopoly on the meaning, form and practice of democracy, and the intellectuals, journalists and pundits in the West have shown themselves unable to remove the prejudices that convince them that democracy must look like and smell like the elite bourgeois democracy of the imperial countries. These are the same liberal bourgeois republics and constitutional monarchies that have perpetrated more than two hundred years of slavery, colonialism, and genocide attendant to capitalist production over the centuries. That doesn’t smell very good!

Through mainstream media, these professional talkers and writers made and continue to make the ground and air war palatable. Mainstream capitalist media rarely break with the official story offered by government. However on Libya, they have aggressively disseminated misinformation about Libyan society and the character of the uprising. Not every rebellion is a revolution. The media’s uncritical representation of the factions that would become the NTC cast them as democratic freedom fighters rather than investigate their reactionary monarchism and fundamentalism. Moreover, the media all but ignore the aggressive genocide taking place against the native Black population and migrant worker population. Early in the conflict, media spread the lie of “African mercenaries,” thus facilitating attacks against dark skinned Libyans and other Africans. Again, mainstream media reproduce the official story as a matter of course.

Unfortunately, the mainstream, corporate, pentagon friendly media were joined in the demonization of Gaddafi and the misrepresentation of the Jamahiriyah by the standard of progressive and liberal media in the United States, Democracy Now! and the Pacifica Network. Progressive/liberal media characterized the rebellion that began in Benghazi as a revolution rather than the counter revolution that it is. They provided airtime for opposition spokespersons and their supportive progressive and liberal analysts and pundits, which betrayed an antipathy to African and Arab revolutionary nationalism. They offered little to no air to voices in support of the Jamahiriyah; neither did they report on its democratic processes, again reproducing the government narrative. Those voices that make it onto Pacifica stations are brought on by independent producers like Dedon Kimathi at KPFK in Los Angeles and J.R. Valrey of Block Reportin’ at KPFK in Berkeley. Progressive/liberal media has been consistent in its unity with the mainstream on the question of Libya, revolutionary nationalist governments like Zimbabwe, and war in Africa, assuming their place in the continuum of the hegemonic narrative of empire. Much of the establishment Black press was only slightly better, refusing to criticize Obama directly, or doing so only obtusely, even when covering the anti-black violence of the NTC brigades. Tied to the two-party system, and especially the Democratic Party, the imperative to re-elect the undeserving Obama supersedes the duty to defend what was the most advanced country in Africa in regard to the human development of the population and a government that reached out to African Americans as members of the Pan-African nation. The Nation of Islam’s The Final Call’s coverage has been, on the other hand, exemplary.

Libya is the northern front in the re-assault on Africa. NATO countries engage in proxy war in Somalia while French troops continue muscularly to prop up the imposed government of Alassane Ouattara in Cote Ivoire, and now with troops on the ground in Central Africa, the U.S and Europe through AFRICOM has increasingly militarized their activities on the continent. These powers cannot abide African independence, nor will they allow China to continue to pursue its agenda in Africa unchallenged. As during the Cold War of the Twentieth Century, the US and EU again show their willingness to use African and Asian bodies in hot war to frustrate the interests of their competitors, this time capitalist-communist China. Where ever the U.S. and Europe are present in Africa, the countries are destabilized and in debt, and the people suffer. Despite their democratic rhetoric, their humanitarian rationalizations, and promises of economic growth, the Western presence in Africa, whether through diplomacy, covert and overt military intervention, economic investment, or settler channels, remains toxic. Now the poison flows through Libya, literally, as NATO has bombed both land and water with depleted uranium.

During the 1960s and 1970s, socialist and progressive sectors around the world recognized the heroism and thecorrectness of the Vietnamese people in their struggle against the U.S. inheritors of the French colonial project in Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese fought the most powerful military in the world and won the victory. Their struggle inspired revolutionaries across the Global South and among internal colonies in the Global North. Today Vietnam is a sovereign country.

Despite a number of independent journalists’ (e.g. Lizzie Phelan, Webster Tarpley, Stephen Lendmen, Gerald Perreira, and Thierry Meyssan) challenges to the dominant narrative on Libya, easily accessible on the internet and sometimes on cable news outlets like RT News, Libya still suffers from gross misrepresentations of the experiment in direct democracy and socialism embodied in the People’s Committees of the Jamahiriyah. Western professional progressives rarely take the vision expressed in the Green Book seriously, routinely falling into the “eccentric, flamboyant” Gaddafi” lazy reporting trap. The failure of what passes for leftist analysis in much of the U.S. and Europe to recognize the progressive and genuinely popular character of the Jamahiriyah makes them complicit in the disaster called the NTC that has befallen Libya. Nonetheless, the Libyan people continue to fight against the most powerful military alliance in the world, NATO. The NTC is nothing without NATO. The Green Resistance continues to fight. Libya is Vietnam. Can the Green Resistance rely on international support?

Libya is also Spain in the 1930s. During that struggle, the capitalist governments of the West stood by and watched the fascists bleed Republican Spain, despite material support from the Soviet Union, because in fact, they cared more about capitalist social relations and profits than they cared about democracy and the will of the Spanish people who elected the popular government. Today, they have destroyed the infrastructure of the most stable African country outside of Southern Africa, bombing them incessantly in support of racist, fascist and monarchist forces in the NTC who would have been defeated months ago if not for NATO air war. This time Russia failed to veto the key vote in the UN Security Council and can’t offer the same kind of material support, despite their distrust and defensive position vis-à-vis NATO. Their criticism of NATO since then, even as it helps challenge NATO’s narrative, still rings somewhat hollow. During the Spanish Civil War, progressive forces around the world organized themselves into international brigades to support the Spanish Republican and Loyalists forces materially and as brothers and sisters in arms. Can the international brigades today fly to Libya’s aid? Can African revolutionaries fight in Libya, knowing that the fight for Libya is the fight for Africa, and not care if they’re called mercenaries? What national African military will join the Green Resistance in its battle against a virulently anti-black, racist force in the NATO/NTC and the mercenaries they are now flying into Libya, like Xe (formerly Blackwater)?

Of course, now it is not so easy to offer material support or even ideological support to revolutionary movements. In the world of the Patriot Act, heightened security measures and full spectrum surveillance, one can quite quickly be arrested and disappeared for aiding and abetting “terrorism” if the group or movement one supports has been classified as a terrorist organization. Power has been very careful to police the degree to which groups and movements engaged in anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle can be helped by exile and solidarity formations. The kind of fund raising and support that the ANC, the PAC, the PAIGC, the PLO, the IRA, the FMLN and similar movements enjoyed in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s into the ‘90s is mostly illegal now. The governments of the NATO countries will not likely look easily on activists among their own citizens and residents dedicated to restoring the people’s government they have spent so much money and time bombing. The formation of a group like C.I.S.P.E.S. (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) or Witnesses for Peace who worked to support citizens and revolutionary parties in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the 1980s grows increasingly difficult in the current surveillance climate. Even so, those of us committed to African sovereignty, African continental and diasporic integration, to socialism and people’s democracy, and to a brighter future for humanity need to find ways to support the Green Resistance in Libya. We need to find ways to be international brigades for Libya. Free Libya is Green Libya.

More than two hundred years of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is long enough. Liberation struggles and revolutionary governments must be supported despite differences on some ideological points. The fate of an individual is not what is at stake. Despite his defamation in the mainstream Western press, Gaddafi is being mourned by millions in Africa and around the world. This attack has short-circuited the move toward African continental integration that Gaddafi championed. He acted independently in the interests of Libya and Africa, and offered real material support for the integration of Africa under one, gold standard currency, one army, and continental governing institutions. He supported revolutionary and national liberation struggles around the world. He was a genuine anti-imperialist. For many of us, the opinions of Minister Louis Farrakhan, Ms. Cynthia KcKinney and Warrior Woman of the Dine Nation matter more than the opinions expressed by the U.S. State Department and 10 Downing Street and disseminated by the New York Times, Le Figaro, CNN, AL Jazeera, et al. The Jamahiriyah is a genuinely popular government that has come under attack by the most powerful and advanced militaries in the world, yet they continue to hold out despite the loss of the revolutionary leader. Who speaks out? Who can help restore Libya and a united Africa? NATO, the UN and the NTC trivialized the African Union during this debacle, rendering the body all but ceremonial. Will they now stand up and assume the real leadership necessary to make themselves relevant, or is overcoming their class allegiance to the Western bourgeoisie just too much to fathom? That’s probably too much to expect from a class trained to protect the interests of its benefactors in order to protect its own narrow interests. I guess this great task is up to the world’s African workers and peasants.

W. Yusef Doucet is a faculty member of the Santa Monica College English Department. He co-founded and facilitated the Dyamsay Writers’ Workshop in Santa Monica, CA, the Third Root Writers’ Workshop in Pomona, CA, and a poetry reading series at the Velocity Café in Santa Monica, CA. Yusef is currently working on a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University. His research interests include Fanonian analysis, the policing effect of integrationist/post-racialist ideology and anti-blackness in the modern symbolic order. Yusef keeps a blog at freeignace.wordpress.com.

Source

Forbidding the “G-Word”: Holocaust Denial as Judicial Doctrine in Canada by Ward Churchill

“Where scholars deny genocide, [they] contribute to the deadly psychohistorical dynamic in which unopposed genocide begets new genocides.”

—Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen and Robert Jay Lifton, “Professional Ethics and Denial of the Armenian Genocide” (1995)

Denial of genocide has become a matter of increasing concern in recent years, primarily as a result of efforts by a relative handful of neo-Nazi “scholars” to rehabilitate their ideological heritage by advancing arguments and “evidence” that the Hitlerian Holocaust of the early 1940s never occurred. (1) So insidious has Holocaust denial been considered by many governments that they have criminalized it, and prosecutions of deniers have occurred in France, Canada and elsewhere. (2) The United States bars known deniers from entering the country, and has supported civil litigation against individuals and institutions engaging in such activities. (3)

A related but far less noticed phenomenon has been the efforts of a significant number of ostensibly more reputable scholars to indulge in a sort of reverse denial. According to this group, the Holocaust undoubtedly occurred, but it was something experienced exclusively by Jews. (4) Here, the fates of the Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals and others at the hands of the Nazis are routinely minimized and consigned to the ambiguous category of “non-genocidal suffering.” (5)

In their more extreme formulations, proponents of Jewish exclusivism hold not only that the Holocaust was a uniquely Jewish experience, but that it is history’s sole instance of “true” genocide. Exclusivists have gone on record, explicitly and repeatedly, denying that everything from the extermination of the Pequots in 1637, to the Turkish slaughter of more than a million Armenians between 1915 and 1918, to the more recent genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo aren’t really examples of genocide at all. (6) Hence, while neo-Nazis deny a single genocide, exclusivists deny many.

There are of course other distinctions to be drawn between Holocaust deniers and those championing the exclusivity of suffering embodied in the Nazi Judeocide. Although their influence often exceeds their actual numbers, (7) the propagandists of neo-Nazism are by any definition a tiny fringe group. Those promoting ideas of Jewish exclusivism, on the other hand, comprise substantial majorities at the very hearts of the academic and media mainstreams. Moreover, their outlook has been adopted as official or quasi-official policy by numerous governments, including most prominently those taking the strongest stands against neo-Nazi deniers. (8) In sum, the Holocaust uniqueness postulations of Jewish exclusivism have assumed the status of an orthodoxy in historical/sociological interpretation, while those of neo-Nazism have not (and hopefully never will).

The reasons for this are not especially mysterious. The magnitude of their people’s catastrophe has generated among Jews an understandable need to find spiritual meaning in the experience, a matter which had led many to an unfortunate perversion of their own tradition in which they, a “chosen people,” were uniquely selected by God to endure the Holocaust. (9) More pragmatically—or cynically—others have realized that such suffering can be translated into a kind of “moral capital” and used to political advantage, particularly in garnering support for the Israeli state. (10) There is thus a clear, and often quite overtly expressed, desire among many Jews to claim an absolute monopoly in terms of genocidal suffering. (11)

For the elites of gentile societies, meanwhile, affirming the pretensions of Jewish Holocaust exclusivism carries with it an automatic absolution: If only the Nazi Judeocide can be qualified as genocide, it follows that only Nazis have ever been perpetrators or beneficiaries of the crime. The point is not insignificant. Genocide has been all but universally decried as a not merely “incomparable,” but an “unthinkable” offense, (12) one defying any possible redemption of those committing it (which is of course why neo-Nazis seek to “prove” their ideological forebears did not engage in it). As the Germans have long since discovered, the citizenry of no nation can take pride in a history besmirched by genocidal comportment. (13) Nor can any citizenry be counted upon to conveniently acquiesce in contemporary policies of genocide carried out in their name.

Far more than mere conceptions of “national honor” are at stake. Among those wishing to see themselves as “good people”—which is virtually everyone—the very term “genocide” provokes such deep and generalized revulsion that any official admission of its descriptive applicability to the national character, even historically, might threaten the hegemony upon which systemic stability largely depends.14 Genocide must therefore be denied at all costs, most often by explaining it away as being or having been something else altogether. For this purpose, constraining perceptions of genocide to the terms set forth by Jewish exclusivism serves non-Jewish interests as readily as Jewish.

Definitional Distortions

Genocide is not an old word, having “naturally” evolved over time to hold meanings contrary to its own. Nor was it meant to serve as a synonym for mass killing. When Raphaël Lemkin coined the term in 1944, he went to considerable lengths in explaining that it was intended to describe policies and processes designed to bring about the dissolution and disappearance of targeted human groups, as such. He wrote “Genocide has two phases, one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor.” (15) If these two conditions have been fulfilled, a genocide has occurred, even if every member of the targeted group has survived the process in a physical sense.

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be a disintegration of political and social institutions—of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed at the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed at individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group (emphasis added). (16)

In 1946, Lemkin was retained by the United Nations Secretariat to draft an international convention codifying the crime. Therein, genocide—that is, “policies aimed at eradicating targeted ethnical, racial, national, religious or political groups”—was defined in a twofold way: “(1) the destruction of a group,” and “(2) preventing its preservation and development.” (17) The offending policies were themselves grouped in three categories, all of equal gravity:

· Physical Genocide, meaning outright extermination as well as the imposition of “slow death measures (i.e., subjection to conditions of life which, owing to lack of proper housing, clothing, food, hygiene and medical care or excessive work or physical exertion are likely to result in the debilitation and death of individuals; mutilations and biological experiments imposed for other than curative purposes; and deprivation of livelihood by means of looting or confiscation of property).

· Biological Genocide, meaning the prevention of births among the target group (i.e., involuntary sterilization or abortion, as well as compulsory segregation of the sexes).

· Cultural Genocide, meaning destruction of the specific characteristics of the group (i.e., forced dispersal of the population; forced transfer of children to another group; suppression of religious practices or the national language; forced exile of writers, artists, religious and political leaders or other individuals representing the culture of the group; destruction of cultural/religious shrines or monuments, or their diversion to alien uses; destruction or dispersion of documents and objects of historical, artistic or religious value, and objects used in religious worship). (18)

The draft was then turned over to a committee composed of nation-state delegates to be “revised and condensed” before its submission to the U.N. General Assembly. During this process, the United States and Canada, acting in concert, were able to arrange deletion of almost the entire provision on cultural genocide, as well as all explicit references to slow death measures.19 As the matter was finally framed in international law on December 9, 1948, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:”

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on members of the group conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (20)

Strikingly, even in this greatly-truncated delineation, only one in five criteria pertain to direct killing. Eighty percent of the legal definition of genocide thus devolves upon nonlethal policies and activities. The responses of the U.S. and Canada to this are instructive. The United States simply refused for forty years to accept the result. Finally, in 1988, embarrassed at being the only country so openly rejecting the rule of law, it attempted a ratification in which it claimed a “right” to exempt itself from compliance whenever convenient. (22)

Canada also submitted an invalid ratification, but much earlier, in 1952. The subterfuge in this case was to write domestic implementing legislation in such a way as to excise from the country’s “legal understanding” those classifications of genocidal policy in which Canada was actually engaged, retaining only those involving “physical destruction… killing, or its substantial equivalents” (that is, Article II(a), (c) and (d) of the 1948 Convention).

For purposes of Canadian law, we believe that the definition of genocide should be drawn somewhat more narrowly than in the [already much narrowed] international Convention so as to include only killing and its substantial equivalents…The other components of the international definition, viz, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group and forcibly transferring children of one group to another group with intent to destroy the group we deem inadvisable for Canada. (23)

In 1985, the parliament went further, removing the prohibition on involuntary sterilization (1948 Convention, Article II(d)) from Canada’s genocide statute. (24) No country, of course, whether it be Canada or the U.S. or Nazi Germany, holds a legitimate prerogative to pick and choose among elements of international law, electing to abide by some and not others. It possess even less of a right to unilaterally “revise” the Laws of Nations in conformity with its own preferences. As the Nazis were informed at Nuremberg, the requirements of customary law are binding, irrespective of whether individual sovereignties wish to accept them. (25)

Nonetheless, taking the cue from their governments, a range of “responsible” scholars shortly set themselves to the task of deforming Lemkin’s concept even further. In 1959, Dutch law professor Pieter Drost published a massive two-volume study wherein he argued that usage of the term “genocide” should be restricted to its physical and biological dimensions, and that cultural genocide should be redesignated as “ethnocide,” a term he erroneously attributed to “post-war French scholars.” (26) Thereafter, biological genocide was also quietly dropped from discussion as writer after writer defined genocide exclusively in terms of killing. (27) Forty years of this continuous “genocide equals mass murder” distortion has yielded an altogether predictable effect, not only on the popular consciousness but on that of many otherwise critical activists and intellectuals. This last is readily evident in the recent release of a book by Native Hawaiian sovereigntist and professor Haunani-Kay Trask, wherein genocide is defined as simply the “systematic killing of a people identified by ethnic/racial characteristics.” (28)

Friends of the Lubicon

Questions arise as to whether, after all this, Lemkinesque understandings of genocide still prevail at all, and if so, whether they retain the capacity to galvanize public sentiment. The answers rest, to some extent, in a handful of examples. In 1968, as part of the Russell Tribunal’s verdict condemning U.S. aggression in Vietnam, Jean-Paul Sartre concluded not only that was the policy itself genocidal, but that colonialism as a system inherently produces genocidal results.29 Considerable support was lent to the latter of Sartre’s findings in 1980, when the Tribunal published a report on conditions imposed upon the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.30

Still further expansions on the theme have accrued through publications like Cultural Survival Quarterly, and in the Native resistance movements which emerged during the 1980s in places like Wollaston Lake, James Bay and Big Mountain, Arizona.31 Perhaps the most potent example, however, concerns the experience of a tiny Cree band at Lubicon Lake, in northern Alberta, who have been confronted with sociocultural eradication as the result of maneuverings on the parts of both the federal and provincial governments to allow the Daishowa Corporation, a transnational manufacturer of paper products, to “deforest” their traditional territory (within which government-sanctioned oil and gas exploration had already wrought a noticeable degree of havoc).32

After fruitlessly attempting to negotiate a resolution with both the corporation and participating governmental entities, the band, working through a non-native Toronto-based organization calling itself Friends of the Lubicon (FOL), announced a boycott of Daishowa products in 1991. The FOL made the genocidal impacts of the corporation’s planned clearcutting of Lubicon territory the centerpiece of its effort, developing a well-conceived media campaign to put its message across. As a Canadian court later put it, the “results of the Friends’ campaign against Daishowa…were, in a word, stunning.”33 Not only did typical Canadians prove quite capable of understanding nonlethal modes of genocide, they displayed a pronounced willingness to decline to trade with businesses complicit in such processes. On this basis:

Approximately fifty companies using paper products (mostly paper bags) from Daishowa were approached by the Friends. The list of these companies reads like a Who’s Who of the retail and fast food industries in Ontario—Pizza Pizza, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Cultures, Country Style Donuts, Mr. Submarine, Bootlegger, A&W, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Woolworth’s, Roots, Club Monaco, Movenpeck Restaurants and Holt Renfrew, to name but a few. Every one of the companies approached by the Friends joined the boycott of Daishowa products. All but two did so…before their stores were picketed…Pizza Pizza was subjected to picketing outside its store on two occasions; Woolworth’s had a single store picketed on two occasions…Both Pizza Pizza and Woolworth’s joined the boycott.34

By 1994, the boycott was costing Daishowa millions of dollars annually in lost sales.35 Under such circumstances, it stood to lose money rather than profiting by cutting timber on Lubicon land. One result was that, although Daishowa had indicated that it would commence logging operations “as soon as the ground freezes over” in the fall of 1991, not a tree was felled.36 As FOL leader Kevin Thomas observed in 1997, the success of the boycott demonstrated clearly that there are viable alternatives for those genuinely opposed to genocide. Rather than simply bearing “moral witness” to what is happening half-a-world away in Tibet or Kosovo, it is entirely possible “to actually make a difference by focusing attention mainly on what our own government is doing right here at home and undertaking direct action to stop it.”37

“This can have a precedential effect,” Thomas suggests. “Halting genocide in one place helps lay the groundwork for halting it in all places. But, for this to happen, it’s essential that people be made aware of what genocide actually is. We’ve all been pretty systematically misled on that score, but if we’re confused, if we can’t recognize genocide for what it is when it’s happening right in front of us, there’s no way in the world we can change anything for the better. That’s why there’s been so much effort expended on keeping everybody confused about it: business as usual pretty much depends on an ability to perpetrate genocide more-or-less continuously, without its being recognized as such and, as a result, without its encountering significant opposition from average citizens.”38

Judicial Repression in Canada

The lesson was lost on neither the corporate nor the governmental sectors of Canada’s status quo. Consequently, naming Thomas and two other key organizers as principle defendants, Daishowa filed a SLAPP suit against the FOL on January 11, 1995. Citing millions in lost revenues and a steady erosion in its client base as damages, the corporation contended that the three men had conspired to employ illegal tactics such as an illegal secondary boycott, and were guilty of defamation by using the word “genocide” in their public outreach efforts.39

Even before the defendants had an opportunity to file a response to the allegations against them, a temporary injunction was issued to prevent them from engaging in boycott activities of any sort for ninety days. By then, Daishowa’s attorneys had requested an interlocutory injunction to extend the prohibition for the duration of the suit. This motion was “substantially dismissed,” but the FOL was ordered not to describe Daishowa’s planned activities as genocidal until a final ruling had been made.40 The following trial ended with one of the more brilliantly obfuscatory rulings in Canadian history.

At one level, Judge J.C. MacPherson’s lengthy verdict was a study in liberal legal scholarship, rejecting in an almost contemptuous tone each of Daishowa’s claims that the FOL’s boycott techniques had been in themselves unlawful. On the contrary, he concluded, “the manner in which the Friends have performed their picketing and boycott activities is a model of how such activities should be conducted in a democratic society.”41 All of this progressive cant, however, was simply a gloss meant to disguise the unmistakably reactionary core of what the judge had to say: that the FOL’s characterization of Daishowa’s corporate policy as genocidal constituted “an enormous injustice…bordering on the grotesque…cavalier and grossly unfair to Daishowa.”42 Having thus found that the FOL had indeed defamed the corporation, he forbade them—and everyone else in Canada—from ever again employing such accurate terminology to describe what the corporation was doing.43

It was not that MacPherson was unaware of the “plight” in which Daishowa’s activities had placed the Lubicons. Indeed, he remarked upon it at some length.

The essential subject matter of everything the Friends say and do is the plight of the Lubicon Cree…There can be little doubt that their plight, especially in recent years, is a tragic, indeed a desperate one…The loss of a traditional economy of hunting, trapping and gathering, the negative effect of industrial development on a people spiritually anchored in nature, the disintegration of a social structure grounded in families led by successful hunters and trappers, alcoholism, serious community health problems such as tuberculosis, and poor relations with governments and corporations engaged in oil and gas and forest operations on land the Lubicon regard as theirs—all of these have contributed to a current state of affairs for the Lubicon Cree which deserves the adjectives tragic, desperate and intolerable.44

Nor was he unaware that imposition of such conditions by “governments and corporations engaged in oil and gas and forest operations” conforms quite precisely with both the etymological and legal definitions of the crime of genocide, even under Canadian law. In his verdict, the judge quoted Raphaël Lemkin, the 1948 Convention and the relevant Canadian statute all three, only to disregard them, along with testimonies of a whole series of expert witnesses,45 in favor of the “plain and ordinary meaning of the word ‘genocide’” contained in Webster’s Dictionary. This, he insisted—although the dictionary actually didn’t—was “the intentional killing of a group of people.”46

MacPherson never specified the point at which he believed the content of abridged dictionaries had come to outweigh black letter legal definition in Canadian jurisprudence.47 Less did he explain how, using his “common sense” approach, anyone is supposed to distinguish between the Nazi extermination of the Jews and such relatively trivial phenomena as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (both involve the “intentional killing of a group of people,” and would thus seem to be equally genocidal under the judge’s “plain, ordinary” and utterly absurd interpretation).48 Nevertheless, he went on to assert that characterizations of genocide deriving from other definitions—those found in international law, for example—do not constitute “fair comment” about perpetrators and their activities.49

It follows that organizations like the FOL, devoted not only to direct action but to what even the judge described as a broader “educational” purpose, are left with an ability to confront genocidal processes only by referring to them as something else (which is to say, in effect, by implicitly denying that they are genocide).50 In the alternative, should such groups—or, presumably, the victims themselves—insist upon calling things by their right names, perpetrators have been perfectly positioned by MacPherson’s judicial prevarications to claim “damages” and/or take other legal action against them.

The Wages of Denial

As prominent exclusivist Deborah Lipstadt has noted, the “general public tends to accord victims of genocide a certain moral authority. If you devictimize a people, you strip them of their moral authority,” and thus a substantial measure of their ability to attract public support.51 Lipstadt was writing from an explicitly Jewish perspective, of course, and of her own people’s natural desire to be compensated in various ways for the horrors of the Nazi Judeocide. Her point, however, is equally valid with respect to any genocidally victimized group. Moreover, where genocide is an ongoing process—as with the Lubicons—the need for public support goes not to securing compensation, but survival itself.

This is by no means an academic consideration. Cumulatively, one result of a half-century of “scholarship” by people like Lipstadt has been the functional devictimization of literally hundreds of indigenous peoples, even as their very existence has been systematically extinguished. Refused moral authority by those better stationed to monopolize it for themselves—and thus unable to command public attention, much less support—a truly staggering number of Native societies have been pushed into oblivion since 1950.52 It is in some ways a perverse testament to the effectiveness of exclusivist propaganda that most such passings—whether physical or “merely” cultural—have gone not only unprotested but unnoticed by the general populace.

In this, the convolutions of legalism have played their role. Arcane preoccupations with the standards of proof required in establishing perpetrator intent, and exactly what scale, mode, tempo or proportionality of killing should be necessary for instances of mass murder to be considered “genuinely” genocidal, have done far more to mask than to reveal the realities of genocide. (53) Small wonder that there has never been a concerted attempt by the international community to enforce the 1948 Convention. Now J.C. MacPherson places his personal capstone on the whole sordid situation, entering a ruling which by implication transforms law from its potential as a weapon against genocide into one with which those engaged in it can shield themselves from any sort of effective exposure and intervention.

Denial of genocide, insofar as it plainly facilitates continuation of the crime, amounts to complicity in it. This is true whether the deniers are neo-Nazis, Jewish exclusivists, renowned international jurists or provincial Canadian judges. Complicity in genocide is, under Article III of the 1948 Convention, tantamount to perpetration of genocide itself. It is formally designated a Crime Against Humanity, those who engage in it criminals of the worst sort. There is no difference in this sense between a J.C. MacPherson, a Deborah Lipstadt and an Adolf Eichmann. (54)

And what of the victims? Unquestionably, any group faced with the prospect of systemically-imposed extinction holds not only the right but the obligation to defend and preserve itself by the best means available to it. Afforded the moral currency attending its circumstance, it may well be able to undertake this task both nonviolently and successfully. This, surely, is a primary lesson of the recent collaboration between the Lubicons and the FOL. Denied such currency, however, the victims can hardly be expected to simply “lie down in a ditch and die.” (30) To paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., those who endeavor to make the success of peaceful resistance to genocide impossible only make violent resistance inevitable. They can have no complaint, morally, ethically or otherwise, when the chickens come home to roost.

____________________________________________

Endnotes:

1. Pierre Vidal-Niquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New York: Free Press, 1993).

2. In France, there was the 1981 trial of Robert Faurisson, the country’s leading denier, for defaming Holocaust witnesses and scholars. In Canada, the most notable cases have been the 1985 prosecutions of James Keegstra, an Alberta school teacher who’d spent fourteen years indoctrinating his students that the Holocaust was a “hoax,” and Ernst Zundel, a Toronto-based publisher who is one of the world’s leading purveyors of such tripe. See Nadine Fresco, “Denial of the Dead: On the Faurisson Affair,” Dissent, Fall 1981; Alan T. Davies, “A Tale of Two Trials: Antisemitism in Canada,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 4, 1989.

3. The primary case in the U.S. was Mel Mermelstein v. Institute for Historical Review, et al., Superior Court of California, Civ. No. 356542 (Feb. 1981); British “historian” David Irving is among those barred from entering the United States because of his record as a denier.

4. See, e.g., Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (New York: Henry Holt, 1985); Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of the European Jewry, 1932-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

5. This happens by way both directly and by way of omission. In Deborah Lipstadt’s Denying the Holocaust, for example, there is not so much as an index entry for Gypsies, despite the fact that this smaller people was subject to exactly the same Nazi racial decrees as Jews, were exterminated in precisely the same manner and in the same places as Jews, and, proportionately, suffered equivalent or greater population losses; Ian Hancock, “Responses to the Porrajmos: The Romani Holocaust,” in Alan S. Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives in Comparative Genocide (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). For direct assertions, see, e.g., Michael Berenbaum, ed., A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (New York: New York University Press, 1990).

6. Although there are literally hundreds of iterations of the notion available from other authors, the most comprehensive assertion that the Nazi Judeocide is “phenomenologically unique” has been that advanced by Steven T. Katz in his massive The Holocaust in Historical Context, Vol. 1: The Holocaust and Mass Death Before the Modern Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

7. A poll conducted in Italy during the fall of 1992, for example, revealed that nearly 10 percent of the country’s adult population have been convinced that the Holocaust never happened; Jewish Telegraph News Agency, Nov. 11, 1992.

8. Examples of official policy include the quid pro quo entered into between the governments of Israel and Turkey by which the Israelis ban public characterizations of the Armenian genocide as genocide. In exchange, the Turks pronounce the Nazi Judeocide as the “real” genocide. Working together, the two governments were able to prevent the Armenians from being listed as victims of genocide in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; Roger W. Smith, Eric Marusen and Robert Jay Lifton, “Professional Ethics and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, No. 9, 1995. Insofar as it has received not inconsiderable governmental support and endorsement, the Holocaust Memorial Museum itself, though nominally private, may be viewed as an example of quasi-official policy.

9. See, e.g., Arthur A. Cohen, The Tremendium: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981); John Roth and Michael Berenbaum, The Holocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications (New York: Paragon House, 1989). For critique, see John Murray Cuddahy, “The Holocaust: The Latent Issue in the Uniqueness Debate,” in Philip F. Gallagher, ed., Christians, Jews and Other Worlds: Patterns of Conflict and Accommodation (Landham, MS: University Press of America, 1988); Arno J. Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The Final Solution in History (New York: Pantheon, [2nd ed.] 1990).

10. The term “moral capital” is taken from exclusivist writer Edward Alexander, The Holocaust and the War of Ideas (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994) p. 195.

11. E.g., Yehuda Bauer, “Whose Holocaust?” and Edward Alexander, “Stealing the Holocaust,” both in Midstream, Vol. 26, No. 9, 1980.

12. Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, The Incomparable Crime; Mass Extermination in the 20th Century: The Legacy of Guilt (London: Hinemann, 1967); Israel W. Charney, How Can We Commit the Unthinkable? Genocide, the Human Cancer (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1982).

13. See generally, Richard Evans, In Hitler’s Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).

14. As the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci described it, hegemony functions by way of a master narrative designed to convince the great mass of people that the prevailing order is natural, right and thus inevitable. Any concession by ruling élites that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the order over which they preside would of course undermine the very belief system upon which their own ascendancy depends; Walter L. Adamson, Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci’s Political and Cultural Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980) esp. pp. 170-9.

15. Raphaël Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944) p. 79.

16. Ibid.

17. U.N. Doc. A/362, June 14, 1947.

18. Ibid. For further discussion, see Robert Davis and Mark Zannis, The Genocide Machine in Canada: The Pacification of the North (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1973) pp. 15-21.

19. On Canada’s role, see Canada and the United Nations (Ottawa: Dept. of External Affairs, 1948) p. 191. Overall, see M. Lippman, “The Drafting of the 1948 Convention and Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” Boston University International Law Journal, No. 3, 1984.

20. U.S.T. _______, T.I.A.S. _______, 78 U.N.T.S. 277 (1948), Article II. The Convention’s third article makes it a crime not only to perpetrate genocide, but to conspire or attempt to commit it, to incite it, or to be otherwise complicit in its perpetration; for text, see Ian Brownlie, ed., Basic Documents on Human Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [3rd ed.] 1992) pp. 31-4.

21. Lawrence LeBlanc, The United States and the Genocide Convention (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991) pp. 7-12.

22. There can be no question whether parliament was aware its Native residential school policy violated Article II(e) of the Genocide Convention, the prohibition on forced transfer of children. The issue was raised repeatedly during the debates on ratification; Canadian Civil Liberties Association, “Brief to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, “April 26, 1969, p. 6. Yet this is one of the provisions deleted from the Canadian genocide statute, ostensibly because it had “no essential relevance to Canada where mass transfers of children to another group are unknown”; Special Committee on Hate Propaganda in Canada (1948); quoted in Davis and Zannis, Genocide Machine, p. 23. For background, see J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

23. Special Committee on Hate Propaganda in Canada (1948); quoted in Davis and Zannis, Genocide Machine, p. 23.

24. Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46.

25. As the matter was put by a principle advisor to the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, many of the charges brought against the Nazis were based in upon their violation of “customary international law—a system [evolving] under the impact of common consent and the demands of world security. Acquiescence of all members of the Family of Nations is not necessary for this purpose. All that is needed is reasonable proof of the existence of widespread custom”; Sheldon Glueck, “The Nuremberg Trial and Aggressive War,” Harvard Law Review, No. 59, Feb. 1946, pp. 396-456. This rule was affirmed by the International Court of Justice with respect to the Genocide Convention in an Advisory Opinion issued on May 28, 1951: “The principles inherent in the Convention are acknowledged by civilized nations as binding on [any] country, even [those] without a conventional obligation.” In effect, “reservations” to the Convention like that attempted by the U.S., or attempts to limit its scope by deleting portions of it in domestic implementing statutes, as Canada has, have no legal validity at all; see generally, Robert K. Woetzel, “The Eichmann Case in International Law,” Criminal Law Review, Oct. 1962, pp. 671-82.

26. Pieter N. Drost, Genocide (Leyden: A.W. Sythoff, 1959); The Crime of State (Leyden: A.W. Sythoff, 1959). In actuality, Lemkin himself coined the term “ethnocide” in a footnote on page 79 of Axis Rule—the same page on which the neologism “genocide” itself was invented—explaining therein that the two words are synonyms. Interestingly, subsequent researchers have simply repeated without further investigation Drost’s false attribution of “ethnocide” to French scholarship, as well as his unfounded contention that it describes something other than genocide; see, e.g., Kurt Jonasohn and Frank Chalk, “A Typology of Genocide and Some Implications for the Human Rights Agenda,” in Isador Walliman and Michael Dobkowski, eds., Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987) pp. 7, 37.

27. Frank Chalk, “Definitions of Genocide and Their Implications for Prediction and Prevention,” in Yehuda Bauer, et al., eds., Remembering for the Future: Working Papers and Addenda, 2 vols. (Oxford: Pergammon Press, 1989) pp. 76-7.

28. Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai’i (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, [rev. ed.] 1999) p. 251.

29. Jean-Paul Sartre and Arlette El Kaim-Sartre, On Genocide and a Summary of the Evidence and Judgments of the International War Crimes Tribunal (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). Although he was highly critical of Sartre’s “overgeneralized” formulation, Leo Kuper, one of the more astute analysts of genocide, by-and-large incorporated it into his own books: Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Uses in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1981); International Action Against Genocide (London: Minority Rights Group, [rev. ed.] 1984); The Prevention of Genocide (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).

30. Russell Tribunal, Report of the Fourth Russell Tribunal on the Rights of the Indians of the Americas (Nottingham: Bertrand Russell Foundation, 1980).

31. Cultural Survival Quarterly is the journal of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Cultural Survival, Inc. On the resistance movements, see Miles Goldstick, Wollaston: People Resisting Genocide (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1987); Boyce Richardson, Strangers Devour the Land: The Cree Hunters of the James Bay area versus Premier Bourassa and the James Bay Development Corporation (Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green Publishers, [rev. ed.] 1991); Ward Churchill, “Genocide in Arizona: The ‘Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute’ in Perspective,” in my Struggle for the Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Colonization (Winnipeg: Arbiter Ring, [rev. ed.] 1999).

32. The story of the Lubicon is quite complex; see John Goddard, Last Stand of the Lubicon Cree (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntire, 1991).

33. Daishowa Inc. v. Friends of the Lubicon, Ontario Court of Justice (Gen. Div.), File No. 95-CQ-59707, Verdict of Judge J. MacPherson (Apr. 14, 1998) p. 21.

34. Ibid., pp. 21-2.

35. Thomas Claridge, “Judge to Rule May 19 on Lubicon boycott: Daishowa says $3-million annual sales lost,” Toronto Globe and Mail, May 1, 1995.

36. FOL briefing paper distributed by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, beginning in 1996 (copy on file).

37. Conversation with Kevin Thomas, June 14, 1997 (notes on file).

38. Ibid.

39. Christopher Genovali, “Multinational Pulp Company SLAPPs Suit Against Activist Group,” Alternatives Journal, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1996.

40. Daishowa Inc. v. Friends of the Lubicon (1995), 30 C.R.R. (2d) 26 (Gen. Div.). The corporation immediately filed an appeal which resulted in reinstatement of the injunction against the FOL’s boycott activities more generally. This higher court ruling was later expanded to prohibit the defendants, their attorneys, and even selected expert witnesses from publicly discussing the case; Christopher Genovali, “Daishowa Tries to Gag Critics,” Alternatives Journal, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1997.

41. Verdict, p. 50.

42. Ibid., pp. 72, 68, 76.

43. Ibid., p. 76.

44. Ibid., pp. 42-3. MacPherson’s description of the situation in which the Lubicon have been placed should be compared with the explanation offered by the Saudi delegate to the drafting committee of what was/is meant by the language contained in Article II(c) of the 1948. This includes not only the “planned disintegration of the political, social or economic structure of a group or nation,” but the “systematic debasement of a group, people or nation”; quoted in Davis and Zannis, Genocide Machine, p. 19.

45. Among the expert witness submissions MacPherson ignored were an article, “Modern Genocide,” prepared by the McGill University law faculty and published in Quid Novi on November 30, 1987 (submitted in evidence as Defense Exhibit 30; Thomas Affidavit); a 1990 letter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney prepared by the late James J.E. Smith, Curator of North American Ethnography for the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation, in which it is concluded that “social and cultural genocide” is being perpetrated against the Lubicons (Defense Exhibit 4; Ominiyak Affidavit); a 1995 affidavit prepared by Dr. Joan Ryan, an anthropologist who combined 15 years experience documenting the destruction of Lubicon society with the very dictionary definitions the judge relied upon in arriving at an diametrically opposing conclusion. Both Dr. Ryan and I presented direct testimony during the trial. None of this is so much as mentioned in the Verdict.

46. Verdict, p. 71. MacPherson in fact quotes three different dictionaries, none of which posits “intentional killing” as synonymous with genocide. Webster’s refers to “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group (emphasis added).”

47. MacPherson claims to have followed the dictum that “defamatory meaning must be one which would be understood by an ordinary and reasonable person”; Verdict, pp. 70-1. He neglects to mention, however, that the rule pertains only to instances where the terms at issue are not defined in law; R.E. Brown, The Law of Defamation in Canada (2nd ed., Vol. 1, p. 52).

48. Even MacPherson seems a bit uncomfortable with his definition. He suggests at one point that “physical destruction” rather than direct killing alone might add up to genocide. But then, apparently realizing that the sorts of conditions he’s already conceded the Lubicons are suffering would all too obviously fit this description, he simply drops the subject; Verdict, p. 71.

49. Ibid., p. 76.

50. Ibid., p. 39. This clearly goes to compelling the employment of euphemisms, the purpose of which is well-known. The Nazis, after all, referred to their Judeocide as the “Final Solution,” the transport of Jews to Auschwitz and other extermination centers as “Resettlement,” the literal killing therein as “Special Handling.” Such innocuous terminology was designed to obscure genocidal reality and thus constrain the probability of popular revulsion and unrest.

51. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, pp. 7-8.

52. In the United States alone, nearly a hundred such peoples have been declared “culturally extinct” by the federal government during this period; Raymond V. Butler, “The Bureau of Indian Affairs: Activities Since 1945,” Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, No. 435, 1978, pp. 50-60.

53. The implications were brought out clearly in March 1974, when, in one of the few instances where charges of genocide were filed with the U.N. Secretariat, the International League for the Rights of Man, the Inter-American Association for Democracy and Freedom and several other organizations accused the government of Paraguay of physically exterminating the Aché Indians. Paraguay’s formal response to these allegations was that, “Although there are victims and victimizer, there is not the third element necessary to establish the crime of genocide—that is ‘intent.’ As there is no ‘intent,’ one cannot speak of ‘genocide’”; Paraguayan Minister of Defense, quoted in Norman Lewis, “The Camp at Ceclio Baez,” in Richard Arens, ed., Genocide in Paraguay (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976) pp. 62-3.

54. Those who experience a visceral reaction to my “overstated” comparison should recall that Eichmann was not accused of actually killing anyone. Rather, he was convicted of having devoted his bureaucratic and technical expertise—that is, his intellect—to organizing the delivery of Jews and others to extermination centers; Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin, 1964).

55. Unidentified Lubicon, quoted in Thomas Affidavit, p. 24.

Liberal Holocaust: Imperialism and the Democratic Party

This is a good article from a website that is now down. I disagree with several parts, particularly the labeling of North Korea as a “Stalinist dictatorship,” referring to the Soviet Union as an “empire,” saying that Titoite Yugoslavia was a “Leninist revolution” and denying the genocidal actions of the Milošević government. Regardless, this article makes a very important point about the Democratic Party, and exposes their true imperialist warmongering nature.

 – Espresso Stalinist 

Many people involved in US anti-war movement(s) have this naive belief that Democrats are not imperialists, that US imperialist policies, such as those pursued by the Bush administration, are just a recent deviation or limited to Republican administrations. In fact, the Democratic Party has a long and bloody history of imperialism. Democrats are imperialists and mass murderers. Nor is this limited to the more conservative democrats; left-liberals have done the same. Liberal governments have slaughtered millions.

Starting shortly before the end of World War Two, Democrats began recruiting many Nazi war criminals and using them to help expand the American Empire. Hitler’s intelligence chief in East Europe Reinhard Gehlen was used by the US, after the war, to build an intelligence network against the Soviets in East Europe. They also dropped supplies to remnants of Hitler’s armies operating in Eastern Europe, to harass the Soviet bloc. Other Nazi war criminals employed by the US included Klaus Barbie, Otto von Bolschwing and Otto Skorzeny. Some of these Nazis later made their way to Latin America, where they advised and assisted US-backed dictatorships in the area.

Harry Truman kicked up anti-communist hysteria, which lead to McCarthyism (which occurred during his administration) and helped start the Cold War. He supported numerous dictatorships, including Saudi Arabia. US involvement in Vietnam started under Truman with the US providing support for the French invaders and the CIA carrying out covert actions. In 1950 his administration issued the ultra-hawkish NSC 68. The subversion of Italian democracy was done by his administration – fearing electoral victory in 1948 by the Italian Communist party, the CIA funded various leftover Mussolinite Brownshirt thugs and other former Nazi collaborators, successfully manipulating the results to ensure pro-US candidates won. A secret paramilitary army was formed to overthrow the government just in case the Communists managed to win anyway.

In the years after World War Two a rebellion against the British puppet government in Greece broke out. This client state was largely staffed by former Nazi collaborators who the British had put back in power. The UK was unable to defeat the left-wing insurgency (which had previously fought an insurgency against the Nazi occupation during World War Two) and asked the US for help. In 1947 Truman invaded Greece and proceeded to crush the revolutionaries, keeping the former Nazi collaborators in power. Truman attempted to justify this by portraying the guerillas as mere pawns of Moscow and therefore a form of covert aggression, but he had no real proof of this. The claim is also based on a double standard: when the USSR (allegedly) covertly supports revolutionaries in another country it constitutes “aggression” and is wrong, but when the US (or UK) send actual military forces to another country in order to prop up unpopular dictatorships this is somehow perfectly just.

At the end of World War Two Japan withdrew its forces from Korea, resulting in a brief period of self-rule. A provisional government was set up in Seoul, but it had little power. Across Korea, workers took over their factories and peasants took over their land. Self-managed collectives were organized. This did not last long, as the US and USSR quickly partitioned the country into a North and a South, under the occupation of each power. In the south Truman installed a brutal military dictatorship, run mainly by former Japanese collaborators, complete with death squads, torture chambers and suppression of all opposition. The United States and its client state suppressed an insurgency, leveled whole villages and massacred thousands of innocent Koreans. The Soviets followed a similar policy in the north, where a Stalinist dictatorship was imposed. Forces from each empire repeatedly clashed until war broke out in 1950. Truman & his propagandists tried to portray the war as an attempt to defend South Korea from Soviet/Northern aggression, but the very existence of South & North Korea was the result of aggression by the US & USSR. The Korean War was an inter-imperialist war between rival empires fighting for territory, rather like a turf war between rival mafia dons, in which lots of ordinary people (who had no real stake in the war) were sent to die for their elite.

These policies of mass murder continued in both the subsequent Eisenhower administration and the next democratic administration, Kennedy. Like every other president since World War Two (and many prior to that) he supported numerous puppet dictatorships that slaughtered thousands – Mobutu, the Shah, etc. Kennedy backed a coup against the democratically elected government in the Dominican Republic because it was too independent. And lets not forget the Bay of Pigs and the many terrorist campaigns against Cuba.

Kennedy also escalated US involvement in Vietnam. During Eisenhower’s term the Vietnamese defeated US-backed French invaders and the war with France was brought to an end. The country was partitioned in two, with the Vietnamese nationalists/Communists taking over the north and the French puppet government temporarily ruling the south. Elections were to be held to reunite the two, but the US intervened to prevent this (because the Communists would have won free elections) and put in power a right-wing dictatorship headed by Ngo Dinh Diem which relied on a reign of terror in order to stay in power. In the late ’50s popular rebellions erupted against this dictatorship. By the time Kennedy came to power the survival of Diem’s dictatorship was increasingly precarious and so Kennedy escalated the situation from state terror to outright aggression. The US military, mainly the air force, was sent to crush the resistance. This failed to defeat the resistance, so Johnson fabricated a bogus attack on US destroyers by North Vietnamese forces and used this as an excuse to escalate the war, launching a full-fledged ground invasion of the south and began bombing the north. US forces set up concentration camps (called “strategic hamlets”) and committed numerous atrocities during the war. Even John Kerry testified:

“Several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. … They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. … We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. … We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals. … We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater.”

Kerry has since claimed that Vietnam was an exception to the norm, but the evidence presented in this article shows otherwise. This testimony is corroborated by numerous other primary sources, including many Vietnam veterans. Colin Powell admitted these atrocities occurred and defended them, writing in his memoirs (My American Journey):

“If a helo [helicopter] spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM [military-aged male], the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen, Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong.”

In addition, Powell defends the torching of civilians’ huts in his memoirs. There are also many Vietnam veterans who strongly deny that the United States committed any kind of atrocities or wrongdoing in Vietnam at all, but they are not the first murderers to strongly deny murdering anyone. These are the kinds of atrocities the Democrat’s foreign policy leads to.

Democrats (and Republicans) tried to portray the war as a result of Chinese (or even Soviet) aggression that had to be stopped or else it would cause a “domino effect” leading to “Communist” conquest of the globe. This is shear fantasy.

Vietnam became independent in 1945 and for a brief period of time the whole country was united under the rule of Ho Chi Min and his fellow nationalists and Marxists. Then France invaded, with US support, leading to the creation of “South Vietnam,” which was a foreign puppet from day one. Attacks on it by Vietnamese were no more “aggression” than attacks on the Vichy government by the French resistance. Communists in China didn’t come to power until 1948, whereas Vietnam declared independence in 1945, so portraying the war as “Chinese aggression” is particularly absurd. Eventually, China did provide weapons, money and advisors to Vietnam (as did the USSR), but merely giving supplies to people fighting for independence hardly constitutes “aggression.” If China giving some weapons and supplies to a Vietnamese movement with substantial popular support constitutes “aggression” then what are we to make of the US, which went well beyond sending weapons and sent over 100,000 troops to keep in power a deeply unpopular puppet government? By this kind of logic, the American war for independence constituted French aggression because France gave the rebels support, just as China & Russia gave the Vietnamese support, except France went even further and sent warships to fight the British and help the US win the war. The Vietnam War was a brutal colonial war, started mainly by democrats, against a people struggling for national liberation.

Even if we ignore Vietnam, Johnson was still a murderous warmonger. In 1965 Johnson launched a secret war on Laos, which would eventually drop more bombs on it then were dropped during World War Two, in order to defeat the leftist Pathet Lao. When a popular rebellion erupted against the US-backed dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, LBJ invaded and defeated it, keeping a US puppet government in power. In Brazil LBJ supported and encouraged a fascist coup against the mildly reformist Goulart administration. Johnson also backed a right-wing coup in Indonesia. The previous ruler, Sukarno, committed the crime of trying to stay neutral in the cold war and desiring to build a strong Indonesia independent of foreign powers. So he was removed and general Suharto seized power. The US helped Suharto liquidate dissent and gave him lists of “subversives” to kill. Between 500,000 and a million people were massacred by Suharto in the period following the coup, with the covert help of the Johnson administration. When the Greek ambassador objected to the President’s plan for a resolving a dispute over Cyprus LBJ told him:

“Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good. … We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament and his Constitution may not last very long.”

In 1965 the Greek king, aided by the CIA, removed Prime Minister George Papandreou (who’s foreign policy was too independent for Washington) from power. In 1967 the Greek government was forced to finally hold elections again, but when it looked like George Papandreou was going to win again a military coup prevented him from coming to power. George Papadopoulos, leader of the coup and head of the new military dictatorship, had been on the CIA payroll for 15 years and was a Nazi collaborator during World War Two.

Carter, the so-called “human rights” president, was also an imperialist warmonger. He continued US support for brutal tyrants in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. Carter supported Pol Pot’s forces after they were thrown out of power due to a war with Vietnam. Under Ford Indonesia invaded East Timor and proceeded to slaughter 200,000 people. Although this invasion occurred under Ford, the worst atrocities happened under Carter’s reign. As atrocities increased, he increased the flow of weapons to the Indonesian government, insuring they wouldn’t run out and could continue massacring Timorese. Carter also backed the massacre in Kwangju by the South Korean military dictatorship. Many of the things which liberals like to blame Reagan for were actually started under Carter. Deregulation began under Carter, as did US support for the Contras in Nicaragua. Six months before the Soviets invaded he also initiated US support for the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists/”freedom fighters” in Afghanistan which would later include Bin Laden.

Bill Clinton was a mass murderer and war criminal, too. He backed numerous dictatorships, continued the proxy war against Marxist guerillas in Columbia and bombed more countries than any other peacetime president, including Iraq, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan.

Clinton laid siege to Iraq with sanctions, “no fly zones” and bombings, killing 1.5 to 3 million people. UN-approved sanctions on Iraq were originally imposed at the start of the Gulf War in response to the invasion of Kuwait, but continued after the end of the war at US (and UK) insistence. The United States used sanctions as a weapon against Iraq. One military intelligence document titled Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities noted:

“Iraq depends on importing-specialized equipment-and some chemicals to purify its water supply … With no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations sanctions to import these vital commodities. … Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease and to certain pure-water-dependent industries becoming incapacitated, including petrochemicals, fertilizers, petroleum refining, electronics, pharmaceuticals, food processing, textiles, concrete construction, and thermal power plants. Iraq’s overall water treatment capability will suffer a slow decline, rather than a precipitous halt … Unless water treatment supplies are exempted from the UN sanctions for humanitarian reasons, no adequate solution exists for Iraq’s water purification dilemma, since no suitable alternatives … sufficiently meet Iraqi needs. … Unless the water is purified with chlorine epidemics of such diseases as Cholera, Hepatitis, and Typhoid could occur … Iraq could try convincing the United Nations or individual countries to exempt water treatment supplies from sanctions for humanitarian reasons. It probably also is attempting to purchase supplies by using some sympathetic countries as fronts. If such attempts fail, Iraqi alternatives are not adequate for their national requirements. … Some affluent Iraqis could obtain their own minimally adequate supply of good quality water from northern Iraqi sources. If boiled, the water could be safely consumed. Poorer Iraqis and industries requiring large quantities of pure water would not be able to meet their needs. … Alternatives are not adequate for their national requirements.”

This and other documents show that the United States intentionally used sanctions to destroy Iraq’s water supply with full knowledge of the consequences. In addition to water problems, the sanctions also interfered with the importation of basic necessities like food and medicine. The UN itself, the organization that implemented the sanctions (due to US/UK insistence), reported that they resulted in mass death. UNICEF found that on average 5,000 children died every month as a result of sanctions. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported in 1995 that 567,000 children in Iraq had died as a result of the sanctions. Those sanctions continued until the invasion in 2003, killing even more. This began under the first Bush administration, but most of it occurred under Clinton’s administration.

In 1996, faced with mounting humanitarian concerns that threatened to end the sanctions, an “oil for food” program was implemented. Officially, this was supposed to allow Iraq to import a limited amount of food and supplies in exchange for limited amounts of oil but in practice it did little to alleviate the suffering of Iraqis caused by the sanctions. Everything imported by Iraq had to be approved by a UN sanctions committee that, due to US/UK influence, frequently stopped or delayed importation of needed supplies. All money Iraq made from the sale of oil was kept by the UN in an escrow account with the bank of Paris and was not at the discretion of the Iraqi government. Some of this was used to pay for administrative costs related to the sanctions and about a third were used to pay reparations to Kuwait, the remainder was inadequate for Iraq’s needs. In 1998 Dennis Halliday, the first head of the UN’s “oil for food” program resigned because the sanctions continued to result in a humanitarian catastrophe. In 2000 Hans Von Sponeck, the new head of the “oil for food” program, resigned for the same reason. On the May 12, 1996 edition of “60 minutes” journalist Lesly Stahl asked Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s secretary of state,

“We have heard that a half million children have died [from sanctions on Iraq]. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright’s response was, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

Clinton attacked and dismembered Yugoslavia, using a “divide and conquer” strategy to install US/NATO puppet governments ruling over its corpse. During and after World War Two Yugoslavia underwent its own Leninist revolution, independent of Soviet tanks, and eventually evolved a market socialist economy based on a limited form of worker self-management. Most of the economy was run by enterprises that were officially worker owned, with elected managers, and sold their products on the market. Yugoslavia was a federation of different nationalities in southeastern Europe, with six different republics united under a federal government.

As the Soviet empire declined and fell western financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank began pressuring Yugoslavia to implement neoliberal capitalist reforms such as privatization, austerity measures and so on.

Yugoslavia implemented these on a limited basis. These programs lead to a declining economy that opened the door for opportunistic politicians to whip up nationalism for their own benefit, scapegoating other nationalities for economic problems. They also stressed relations between the federal government and the republics because money that would have gone to the republics instead went to servicing Yugoslavia’s debt. The United States and Western Europe took advantage of this to encourage the breakup of Yugoslavia into NATO protectorates.

In 1990 separatists won elections in Slovenia, Bosnia and Croatia. The new Croatian government began to persecute the Serb minority living in Croatia, even bringing back the flag and other symbols from when it had been a World War Two Axis puppet government (run by a fascist organization called the Ustase) that attempted to exterminate the Serbs (who were regarded as “subhuman”). Croatian President Franjo Trudjman refused to condemn the Ustase and claimed, “the establishment of Hitler’s new European order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews.” Croatia and Slovenia declared independence in 1991. West Europe and then the US recognized Slovenia and Croatia as independent states despite warnings from the UN that this would encourage Bosnia to declare independence and bring about a civil war, which it did.

The Yugoslav federal government fought a small ten-day war with Slovenia, after which Slovenia was allowed to leave Yugoslavia. Croatia and Bosnia fought bloody civil wars with the Yugoslav government. In Bosnia the main forces fighting against the federal government were Croat fascists, supported by Croatia, and Islamic fundamentalists, led by Alija Izetbegovic, who aimed to turn Bosnia into a theocracy similar to Iran or the Taliban. Most of Bosnia’s Serb minority sided with the Yugoslav federal government. The US covertly backed the Islamists and fascists by secretly supplying them with weapons and even flying in Muslim ‘holy warriors’ from Afghanistan so they could join the Jihad. Initially the Islamists and fascists in Bosnia worked together against the Serbs and Yugoslav government. Later they started fighting each other, but US & West European pressure eventually put a stop to that. When the Yugoslav government started winning the war NATO sent in the air force to bomb them and support the separatists. Many atrocities were committed on both sides of the war, but Western governments and media emphasized and exaggerated Yugoslav and Serb atrocities while downplaying or ignoring atrocities committed by the separatists.

In 1995 the war came to an end, in a defeat for Yugoslavia. Under a UN fig leaf, NATO “peacekeeper” troops occupied much of the former Yugoslavia while Bosnia was made into a de-facto NATO colony, occupied by NATO troops and with a “high representative” responsible to foreign powers in charge of the country. Yugoslavia was dramatically shrunk, with only two out of six Republics, Serbia and Montenegro, remaining in the union (Macedonia had been allowed to peacefully leave the union in the early ’90s but at this time was still largely outside the Western sphere of influence).

The next phase of Clinton’s conquest of Yugoslavia began in the late ’90s when the CIA began covertly supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a terrorist organization that has been linked to Osama Bin Laden. The KLA launched a guerilla war in the Kosovo province of Serbia, advocating independence for Kosovo. In 1999, under the guise of “peace negotiations,” the US/NATO issued an ultimatum demanding Yugoslavia allow NATO troops to occupy the entire country. Yugoslavia obviously refused this unreasonable demand and Clinton used this refusal as an excuse to begin a major bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. After several months of bombing pulverized the country a peace deal was reached allowing NATO “peacekeeper” troops to occupy Kosovo (but not the rest of Yugoslavia), effectively turning the province into a NATO protectorate. A year later a revolt led by US-funded groups and politicians overthrew the Yugoslav government, putting pro-US/NATO leaders in charge. The new government abolished Yugoslavia and became a Western puppet. This conquest was completed shortly after Clinton left office, when KLA forces attacked Macedonia. Macedonia saw the writing on the wall and allowed NATO troops to occupy it. Clinton succeeded in not only ripping Yugoslavia apart, but in achieving US/NATO domination over the Balkans and in forcing an economic system favorable to Western investors on the region. A wave of privatization has swept over the former Yugoslavia, transforming it into a corporate capitalist economy colonized by Western capital.

The standard excuse Clinton used to justify the military interventions in Yugoslavia was that it was supposed to stop “ethnic cleansing”/”genocide” allegedly being perpetrated by the Serbs/Yugoslav government. This is obviously bogus because the US helped instigate the conflicts that lead to the various massacres in the war and also because Clinton largely turned a blind eye towards atrocities committed by separatist forces (like the massacres in Gospic and Krajina). It is also not credible because Clinton ignored other genocides (such as Rwanda) and even funded Turkey’s genocide against the Kurds, which occurred at roughly the same time and resulted in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Kurds.

The death toll of the democrats is quite large:

Greek Civil War: 160,000 (Truman)
Korean War: 3 million (Truman)
Assault on Indochina: 5 million (started under Truman, accelerated under Kennedy & LBJ)
Coup in Indonesia: 1 million (LBJ)
East Timor: 100,000 (Carter)
Kwangju Massacre: 2000 (Carter)
Argentine Dirty War: 30,000 (mostly Carter)
Iraq sanctions: 1.5 million (mostly Clinton)
Turkish Kurdistan: 40,000 (mostly Clinton)

That’s at least 10,8022,000 killed by democrats, 9,292,000 if one only counts the liberal governments (Clinton wasn’t really a liberal). For comparison, the Nazi holocaust killed roughly 6,000,000 Jews. And this is just the tip of the iceberg; these are only the most famous incidents over the last couple of decades. If you add up the total from periods preceding this and the less famous incidents the number get much, much higher. If you add in starvation (a direct result of capitalism) it gets even higher.

Democrats could have stopped the congressional authorization for the Iraq war (via filibustering) but instead lots of them defected to the warmongers’ side. They could have stopped many of the nasty things the Republicans are doing by filibuster but choose not to. Many democrats actively supported the war. Most of those who did oppose it offered little opposition, chickening out when the shooting started and either abstained or voted in favor of the pro-war “support our troops” resolution in March. Even Dennis Kucinich, leader of the “anti-war” opposition in the house, abstained from the vote instead of voting against it. It was only after Bush’s war started going sour that vocal criticism began to come from democrats, which is completely opportunistic. Bush’s lies and fabrications about the Niger Uranium had already been exposed prior to the war, but it wasn’t until after the invasion was completed and the democrats needed an issue to attack Bush with that they started whining about it.

The Democratic Party, the party of slavery, has a long history of mass murder and empire building. They are not an alternative to the American Empire. Especially on foreign policy, there is remarkable consistency between republican and democratic administrations. If the Nuremberg standards were applied every President since World War Two, both democrat and republican, would have to be hung. Both parties have the same basic goals; they just disagree on minor details. It would have been much harder for Bush to conquer Iraq (perhaps politically impossible) if Clinton hadn’t been waging war against it for his entire term. The policies implemented by the US government have more to do with the specific circumstances of the time period then with which particular individual happens to occupy the white house. If a democrat is elected he will inherit this Pax Americana and it is unlikely that he would dismantle it (or even be capable of dismantling it). A vote for the democrats is a vote for imperialism and war (as is a vote for the Republicans).

Enver Hoxha: On Palestine, Zionism and Arab Liberation

WEDNESDAY
JULY 29, 1970

We Have Sympathy & Respect for the Arab People of Palestine

A delegation of «Al-Fatah», Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine, is coming to our country these days for an official visit. Yasser Arafat personally asked our embassy in Cairo for permission to send a delegation.

We have sympathy and respect for the Arab people of Palestine, because they are a brave people who are suffering. At the moment they are the only Arab people who are fighting all round the borders of Israel, while some Arab leaders, from those of Egypt to those of Lebanon, are merely talking, holding conferences, preparing… for compromises, etc.

The Palestinians, expelled from their land by the British colonialist government and from UNO in favour of Israel, are living in tents, in great hardship, in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere. The latest Israeli aggression increased the number of Palestinian refugees, so the only road of salvation left to them was that of the partisan war. And they began it, attacking the Israeli aggressors from outside, from Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and from inside, in the territory occupied by Israel.

Thus, thanks to the struggle of the Palestinians, the Palestinian question has become an important national and international issue, which both the friends and the enemies of the Palestinian people are compelled to bear in mind and cannot fail to take into account.

Despite its nationalist tendencies, the «Al-Fatah» organization is progressive and democratic and the biggest and most powerful organization which, at the moment, has a correct line of struggle for the liberation of Palestine and the defeat of the anti-Arab, annexationist policy of the state of Israel, concocted by international Zionism and supported by the imperialists. This organization is not against the masses of the Jewish population whom, in its program, it accepts as citizens of the new Arab state of Palestine.

However, although the representatives of the feudal bourgeois cliques ruling in some Arab countries pose as pro the Palestinians’ struggle, they do not look kindly on this movement of resistance and, since they are unable to liquidate it, want to have it under control.

The resistance of the Palestinians has become a serious political and military obstacle, which these cliques are obliged to take into account. The King of Jordan, an agent of the British and the Americans, has made two or three attempts to liquidate the Palestinian partisans, who are stronger than this sold-out king. At these dangerous moments for the Palestinian guerrillas they ought to fight him to the end, to unite with the people of Jordan, in order to continue the war against Israel and American imperialism.

The Soviets and the Americans are making the law in the Middle East. The Egyptian leadership has fallen completely under the influence of the Soviets. Hussein of Jordan is a dyed-in-the-wool traitor, the Syrians are posing as somewhat «concerned», while the Lebanese trim their sails to the wind.

Nasser agreed in general to discuss the «Rogers Plan», which means to enter into negotiations and compromises and, in the end, «to make the peace» so greatly desired by Israel, in favour of that country and its American patron and in disfavour of the Arab peoples, especially the Palestinian people, against whom the savage attacks of the gendarmes of the ruling cliques sold out to foreigners, will commence later. With the signing of the «peace» the Soviets will turn this into a «colossal victory» for themselves. They will try to remain in Egypt and to dominate it. There is the danger that the Egyptian ports may become the ports of the Soviet Mediterranean fleet which emerged from the Black Sea. From the Mediterranean the Soviet revisionists intend to extend their colonies in Africa «in peaceful ways», in order to cross the seas and reach India. This is how they dream of achieving the empire of Alexander the Great, by conquering the peoples through the threat of arms from land and sea, through rubles and through their demagogy of a falsified socialism.

The «Soviet-American peace» in the Middle East will be a defeat for all the Arab peoples and an especially great obstacle for the Palestinian people. This kind of «peace» is a victory for the Soviet-American imperialists in general and for Israel in particular.

What will happen with the Palestinian people will be what happened with the Albanian people before the First World War. As is known, at that time large parts of Albania were divided by the imperialists of Europe among Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. And after they had thoroughly dismembered our Homeland at the Conference of London and through secret treaties, the Tzar’s Minister, Sazonov, in order to satisfy the appetite of Prince Nikola of Montenegro demanded that the city of Shkodra be handed over to the latter. On this occasion, one of the other wolves, the representative of French imperialism, said something which went down in history: «Sazonov wants to set fire to Europe to fry an omelette for Montenegro».

The enemies of the Arab peoples, the American imperialists and Soviet revisionists, will act and speak in a similar way when it comes to the question of the territorial rights of the heroic Palestinian people.

Only the armed struggle through to victory settles accounts with the wolves who attack peoples.

From “Reflections on the Middle East”

PCMLE: The Rebels and the National Transitional Council in Libya

En Marcha, September 13, 2011

When much of the Libyan territory has been taken by the rebels, with the help of a military coalition led by the United States, Britain, France and Spain and has established the so-called National Transitional Council, the question that people ask is, “Who are these rebels, who make up this National Transitional Council?” Now the rebels are, undoubtedly, a diverse group serving oligarchic and imperialist interests who achieved their political goals thanks to the military support of NATO.

These self-styled rebels in the process of armed struggle against Gaddafi, put aside the real opposition forces and remained isolated without the initial role of the popular rebellion in Libya. The next step to this phenomenon was to organize the National Transitional Council with deserting generals and officers of the armed forces, government ministers and politicians that left  Gaddafi alone and constituted in the city of Benghazi. The parallel government was soon recognized by the United States and most European countries with the clear aim of establishing the bid with the government of Muammar Gaddafi and control of oil wells, the reconstruction of the devastated Libya and the distribution of profits among countries of the coalition, following the military intervention.

The National Transitional Council is led by Mahmoud Jabril as Prime Minister, an economist close to the United States and Britain, and a PhD in political science and strategic planning at the University of Pittsburgh (USA). Responsible for the economic policy of Muammar Gaddafi during the last decade, a hardened  neo-liberal and negotiator of the Libyan contracts with imperialism. The cabinet includes former generals, government ministers and politicians who have abandoned Gaddafi. The interim government was led and promoted by the major imperialist forces under the strategy to ensure the business of big business and imperialist corporations. The Board Chairman is former justice minister, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who in recent years has enabled penetration of the economic interests of the imperialist powers into Libya. The National Transitional Council maintains the so-called Libyan People’s Army, 8,000 military professionals that control most of the oil wells and port terminals. The former interior minister, Abdul Fathah Younis, general repressor of opposition forces, declared himself Commander in Chief of the armed rebel forces, considered the number two of the government of Muammar Gaddafi, was killed in unclear circumstances.

Under the backdrop of real opposition is challenged to fight for the final release of the Libyan people from imperialism and internal enemies under the guidelines of scientific socialism.

Source

Joint Statement on the situation in the Middle East

January 16, 2012

Support the people who have risen up for their rights and their freedom! We condemn the imperialist conspiracies against Syria and Iran!

During 2011 the Arab people in North Africa and the Middle East stood up, one after the other. They did not want to be exposed to the consequences of monopolistic capitalist hegemony, as unemployment and poverty. They said no to oppression from the autocratic dictatorships that have watched this hegemony. But the 30-40 year-old despot regimes has been the main cause of the disorganization of the oppressed masses and has also prevented them from developing their awareness. The people who stood up have won some victories, but could not reap the real fruits of their struggle, to be able to form their own political power. At the same time, these bourgeois reactionary forces, supported by Western imperialists, preserved or try to preserve its hegemony by strengthening the power base with its new partners, although this hegemony has encountered certain difficulties.

The Arab people who stood up realizing their potential and tasted victory, and their struggle has not yet been turned down in any country, except in Libya. Despite the low consciousness and organization continues their people revolt and tries to overcome their weaknesses. They insist on resisting the reactionary forces that have reorganized themselves, especially through the advent of political Islam, which has been moderate and pro-American in almost every country.

“We oppose all imperialist interventions, whatever pretext”

We, the undersigned revolutionary communist and working parties that meet the Turkish Labor Party 6 Congress, expressing our pride and solidarity with the peoples’ mass struggles, not only in the Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East, but also in Europe, from Spain to Greece, and in Latin America, from Venezuela to Ecuador, who are fighting for their national and social rights and freedoms, and we declare our support for the Palestinian people’s just struggle against imperialism and Israeli Zionism.

However, we are also aware of the fact that our biggest weakness is the inadequate consciousness and organization level of the world’s people, whether to rebel or other fields. And the imperialists and their collaborators exploit this weakness in attempts to renew the decaying basis of its hegemony and suppress the fighting by infiltrating the ranks of the people they claim to support, by manipulating these games in their own interest and remove them from their popular content.

The western imperialists, who have world domination in their hands and trying to strengthen its positions in competition with the rising imperialist powers, has not only aims to strengthen its domination in the countries that traditionally have been under their influence by suppressing the people’s struggles but they are also trying to establish its hegemony by influencing people and their struggles and use them as lifting rods in countries like Syria and Iran, as they have not been able to force the knee.

We support either Assad or Khamenei regime. But we also underlines the fact that when Western imperialists intervene with support from the reactionary forces in the region, the Turkish and Saudi reactionary forces, under the pretext of “democracy” and “dictator’s repression” has such a policy has nothing to do with people’s right to self or with people’s social and democratic aspirations.

We oppose all imperialist interventions – economic, political and military – whatever pretext, whether they are invited by the cooperative lackeys or not, and we condemn such a policy, which only brings war, blood and tears.

We ask all people of the world, and particularly the peoples of Syria and Iran, to be on guard against the imperialist interventions and traps in the style of the Libyan example, to show solidarity with the struggles of the peoples of the region and to continue the struggle against imperialism and the reactionary forces .

Ankara, 20.12.2011

Albania’s communist party
Benin Communist Party
Belgium’s Labour
Cyprus’ new communist party
Ecuador’s Marxist-Leninist Communist Party
Spanish Communist Party (Marxist-Leninists)
Organization for the reconstruction of Greece’s Communist Party (Anasintaxi)
Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party (PCOT)
Turkey’s Workers’ Party (Emek Partisi)

Source

French Government Exposed in Rwanda’s Genocide

By Maryam

Newly evidence documents the role of the French regime in the 1994 Rwanda genocide — and has, once again, put the spotlight on this tragic event and the role of foreign imperialists in it.

In early August 2008, the Rwandan government released a report based on eyewitness accounts that the direct cooperation between the French state and the government of Rwandan Hutus that was in power during the 1994 genocide. This report is consistent with the results of investigations performed by various other organizations, including human rights groups.

According to the Rwandan government, 33 politicians and French army officers are implicated in the infamous genocide in Rwanda, either by giving orders or by their direct actions. The late president Francois Mitterrand, his son Jean Christophe, Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppe and his foreign minister at the time were among the indicated responsible parties.

The background for these events (which annihilated a generation) was the country’s severe economic crisis caused by actions of the International Money Fund and the World’s Bank. For example, in the name of economic reform, the value of the Rwandan currency was sharply devalued. This, in turn, caused changes in the world trade market that triggered a severe drop in Rwanda’s export of key crops like coffee.

On April 4,1994, the Tutsis forces of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), operating with direct US support, shot a missile at a plane, causing the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana. In the wake of this, the Rwandan regime, urged on by Hutu extremists, unleaded a campaign of vendetta.

The Interahamwe paramilitary force was mobilized to slaughter innocent Tutsi tribespeople and Hutus caught protecting Tutsis. Meanwhile, the French regime sent 2,550 air and ground forces to support the Rwandan state against the RPF. The Rwandan report cites numerous instances of the French forces involved in the killing or giving orders to those who did the killing.

Tutsis and the Hutus, who allegedly were suspected of hiding Tutsis, were executed and their wives raped. From the time of Rwandan occupation, raping women prisoners has been done routinely and systemically by the French soldiers.

Based on direct testimony, some of the atrocious crimes that occurred during the Rwandan genocide had French help. French forces made their bases in the Niaroshishi area. Those foreign bases were protected by Rwandan military forces and the local pro-government paramilitaries.

In one incident three unarmed youth were chased out of a local tea farm and ran toward a French camp. The police and paramilitaries followed the three youth into camp and arrested them with the help of French soldiers and they were never heard from again.

A former member of the Hutu pro-government paramilitaries testifies:

“We rounded up the Tutsis who had exited their camps to gather some wood (including Charles, the teenager who was son of Sambaba,) and killed them. We then buried them in mass graves near guard postings. The French companies came over to check out what we were doing and praised us, gave us meals to express their appreciation and sometimes went out with us during nightly patrolling.”

This genocide went on until over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates were slaughtered. Finally. Returning Tutsi forces caused over two million of the Hutu population to flee for their lives into adjacent countries.

After the publication of this Rwandan report, the French state has deceitfully denied its role and tries to ignore the report. Those French politicians named in it have counter-charged that the report authors falsified evidence. For example, Harry Maurine, (who was French Minister of Defence during the 1994 genocide) declared that this report is unacceptable and that the soldiers of France have done nothing to be ashamed of.

Even after gathering the evidence and producing this report, the Rwandan state has been complacent in holding the French army accountable for their actions. Instead of making the main perpetrators liable for those crimes, the Rwandan state has busied itself arresting Tutsi villagers. Instead of highlighting the roles of imperialists in the mass killing, the country instead arrested over 50,000 people of the Tutsi tribe.

But, due to prison overcrowding, the state had to release about 40 thousand from their jails. The first group to be freed included the sick and the elderly in 2003. Though the government said that their freedom was temporary and conditional and that their final fate would be announced in their local courthouses (called GAKAKA.) Since March 2005, about 12,000 local courthouses were established in villages all over Rwanda to try the released. Most of them were declared innocent.

Historical discords among Tutsi and Hutu Tribes

Before imperialism’s encroachment, the Tutsi and Hutu were living alongside each other in villages and houses of Rwanda country. Tutsi pastoralists and Hutu agriculturalists were organized into small Bantu-speaking states. At the end of World War 1 the Belgium colonizers secured their domination over Rwanda’s people by dividing the two tribes from each other through the use of the eugenics movement in Europe and the United States. They declared the Hutus and Tutsis were two different “races” and issued them a racial identification card which defined each person legally as either Hutu or Tutsi.

By the end of the 1950s, growing political instability ensued rebellions that caused the deaths of between 20,000 and 100,000 Tutsis. By 1959, the royal regime of Tutsi tribe was overthrown and many of this tribe’s people escaped to neighboring states or were expelled to Uganda and the first Tutsi Refugee camps were established.

In 1962 Belgium let go of Rwanda, and that country supposedly became independent. But the civil wars between various imperialist-dependent groups and tribes continued for many years. These wars naturally caused citizens to flee and take refuge in neighboring countries. Uganda applied some of the most inhumane laws and regulations on those refugees. Refugees in Ugandan camps were confined in conditions with less than the basic means of survival. The status of “refugee” was bequeathed on the children that were born in Ugandan refugee camps and they were not recognized as any country’s citizens. Eventually the number of refugees in Ugandan camps had risen so much that the state was forced to let children out of the camps. And in some cases they were able to use opportunities under the United Nations refugee organization to leave Uganda and settle in other countries.

During the political crisis of the late 1960s, the Ugandan administration of Milton Obote passed a bill called the Control of Alien Refugees Act, which declared Rwandese to be a special class subject to arbitrary detention. In 1969 Obote deported all foreigners (this included the descendants of Hutus who had come as migrant laborers in the mid-1920s, and the more recent Tutsi refugees) from Uganda.

This article was originally published in Payam Fedaee #115. We Thank comrade Behrooz Navaii, for translating and telling us about this.

Source

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” Part I: Albania at the Crossroads: Annihilation or Liberation

At dawn on April 7, 1939, Italian fascist troops invaded Albania. This act brought Albania to the brink of extinction. Italy’s goal was the subjugation and assimilation of the entire Albanian population and territory under its fascist flag. The Albanian nation, with the oldest indigenous population in the region, was to be destroyed. The desires and aspirations of the Albanian people who had fought empire after empire for their independence and for democracy, were to he drowned in Albanian blood.

Italy’s brutal aggression against Albania was the culmination of many decades of intrigues and schemes by the Great Powers of pre-war Europe. These schemes were hatched in the early 1900s when the Ottoman Turkish Empire began to disintegrate, after occupying Albania for over 500 years. Like vultures, the Great Powers (Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Russia) competed to benefit from the Ottornan Empire’s decay by dominating the newly emerginq states.

They sought to colonize and exploit the Balkan states, including Albania, because of their rich natural resources and strategic location. Balkan countries, such as Greece and Serbia, in alliance with one or another of these Powers, had designs of their own on Albanian land. Serbia had already annexed the Albanian region of Kosova in 1913. This success only whetted the appetite of the Serbian rulers, who wanted the northern half of remaining Albanian lands, while the Greek government laid claim to the southern half.

The conditions inside Albania in the early 1900s did not permit a strong independent state to emerge. Nonetheless in 1912 there was a general uprising; Albania declared its independence and a democratic government was formed headed by Ismail Qemali. The Qemali government was ousted by the Great Powers intrigues before the First World War.

Ismail Qemali

Albanian people defeated Italy’s attempt to annex Vlora and surrounding lands. In 1924, Albania’s efforts were crowned by the establishment of the democratic government of Fan Noli, which proclaimed an independent Albania and defied the annexationist aims of the Great Powers and their Balkan allies. However, the Albanian landowners and merchants, high clergy and their imperialist allies did not support a democratic government. Within 6 months, the Noli government was overthrown by a coup, carried out by Ahmet Zog and supported by Serbia, British and Italian capital. Zog came to power as the president of the Albanian republic, but shortly proclaimed himself King.

Zog’s government proceeded to sell Albanian resources, labor and territory to the highest foreign bidder in exchange for riches and political and military support. From his coup in 1924 until the mid-1930s, Zog pursued an “open door” policy with Britain and the U.S., as well as with Italy. These countries were given “favored nation” status, and permitted to export large quantities of manufactured goods to Albania while extracting natural resources at very low cost. U.S. and British corporations were granted oil and mineral concessions; the Italian capitalists invested in mines and built factories which were worked by peasants driven from their land. In order to support these concerns’ needs for roads, ports, electricity and other services, the Albanian people were heavily taxed and workers in these enterprises were paid extremely low wages.

King Zog

As the Depression gripping the imperialist world deepened in the mid-1930s, the U.S. and Britain were unable to maintain close economic ties with Albania. Italian capitalists took advantage of this to increase their control over Albania. King Zog signed agreements which opened Albania to economic plunder and gave the Italian government such privileges es the right to intervene militarily in Albania if it were attacked. To protect its investments and to assist Zog in quelling any resistance to its plunder of the Albanian people, Italy provided troops which were housed and fed at the expense of the Albanian population.

As World War II approached, Zog paved the way for the Italian fascist invasion of Albania. Under his direction, the national defense of Albania was stripped; increasingly, the governmental policies of Albania were dictated from Italy. On April 7th, 1939, Italy invaded Albania. The invasion and the brutal occupation which followed were the logical conclusion of the schemes of the Great Powers, the Jong-term designs by Italy on Albanian territory, and the pro-imperialist “open door” policy of Zog, which had robbed Albania of the ability to maintain its independence. The invasion was also a part of the plans of the fascist Axis powers to destroy the then-socialist Soviet Union and to establish world domination.

Italian troops invade Albania

Despite tremendous obstacles, the Albanian people rose to defend their country and to fight for liberation in the face of Italian invasion. From the earliest days of the occupation, the working people, peasants and patriotic intellectuals organized a war of national liberation in Albania. This was from birth an anti-fascist war, aimed at defeating the fascist occupation and establishing a democratic, independent Albanian republic. lt was, therefore, also an anti-imperialist war with the goal of achieving Albania’s permanent independence from domination by any foreign power and in support of the whole coalition of anti-fascist, anti-imperialist forces and governments.

Throughout 1939 and 1940, various groups were organized to fight the threatened destruction of the Albanian nation through assimilation into Italy. This broad resistance movement was initiated and led by small communist organizations which had formed shortly before the Italian occupation and by groups of patriotic and democratic Albanians opposed to foreign domination of their country. Under this leadership, armed units of fighters were formed in the cities and carried out sabotage and attacks on Italian posts. Secondary school students and teachers demonstrated against the Italianization of education and the suppression of the Albanian language and culture. Workers organized strikes and sabotage in the factories. Peasants hid or destroyed grain and animals rather than have them feed the Italian occupiers.

Albanian Partisans

The political views and philosophy of the Albanian communists found support among the working people and progressive intellectuals of the country from the beginning of the national liberation war. This was the case because the communists were the only organized political force in Albania actively fighting the fascist enemy. Through this fight, they were proving themselves to be outstanding leaders, able to show the people the steps and methods by which liberation could be achieved.

Enver Hoxha, leader of the Communist Party of Albania (the CPA), later the Party of Labor

In order to provide the necessary leadership and centralization of the anti-fascist struggle, in the fall of 1941 the communist groups and individuals joined to form the Communist Party of Albania (the CPA, now the Party of Labor of Albania). Representing the working class of Albania, this Party took up active battle against fascist occupation from its birth, in stark contrast to all other existing political groups. No other organization existed which was engaging in a war of national liberation, nor was any other group capable of leading such a war. Led by Enver Hoxha, the CPA was the only organization to call for the nation-wide war against fascism and the formation of an independent, democratic Albanian republic. In the face of severe repression, the CPA undertook to lead the Albanian people in the anti-fascist national liberation war. During the winter of 1941-42, men and women were recruited by this Party to form guerrilla units, based an the older armed groups in the cities. New units were established in the countryside, where they fought both offensive and defensive battles against the Italian army. In addition, these units broke into grain reserves to distribute food to the peasants, who were being forced to support the fascist occupiers while starving themselves. Together, the peasants and the armed guerrilla units defended villages from fascist attacks and reprisals, cared for wounded and gathered supplies. At the same time, the guerrilla units integrated with the population and helped to maintain the cohesion of Albanian society by planting crops, tending livestock and helping repair war damage to fields and homes. In the course of all these activities, the CPA showed the Albanian workers, peasants and revolutionary intellectuals that the Communist Party of Albania fought to rid Albania of occupation, that they undertook these battles for and with the working people and not for some personal benefit.

Albanian Partisans march in Tirana

At the same time, the CPA was also fighting tooth and nail to build and protect the political unity of all anti-fascist Albanians. Victory against a large, well-armed occupation force like the Italian army was possible only if every single able-bodied Albanian who was willing to fight was integrated into the struggle for freedom. Accordingly, the CPA worked with any individual regardless of religious or political differences.In order to further the unity being produced through common battle, the CPA organized the first national conference of anti-fascist fighters at Peza in May of 1942. The Conference of Peza included representatives of communists and revolutionary patriots from every part of the country and from every fighting group. Under the political leadership of the CPA, these individuals adopted a unified basic program of struggle against the Italian occupation, with which all participants agreed. The two goals of this program were to conduct the armed struggle against occupation forces until liberation, and to establish an independent, democratic republic of Albania.

Albanian Partisans

In order to achieve these goals, the Peza Conference also adopted the organizational structure of the national liberation councils. These councils acted as organs of war, through which the fighting was planned and carried out in particular regions, and civilians were organized to help the guerrilla units. The councils were also the embryonic organs of political power or government. They were empowered to pass laws, adjudicate disputes, form police and self-defense units for villages, and represent towns or regions at national conferences of anti-fascist fighters. These local councils were elected, and were directed by the Provisional National Liberation General Council, the first national, elected, representative body of proven anti-fascist fighters, who directed the overall war effort and formed the nucleus of the future democratic Albanian government.Following the Peza Conference, the liberation war made much progress, especially in the countryside. Partisan bands attacked fascist militia posts and government offices, driving the occupiers out of the villages and towns. They would then replace the puppet government with freely elected national liberation councils. The partisan units not only engaged in battles and skirmishes; they also protected the villages against reprisals, protected the people in liberated areas from thieves or spies, settled blood feuds and otherwise helped to establish a stable political and economic life for war-torn communities. From village to village the liberation battle democratic political system based on the national liberation councils was formed and protected.

In response to these successes, the Italian fascists went on the offensive in the winter of 1942-43. The Italian army conducted massive retaliatory actions, burning villages and murdering villagers. Politically, the fascists sought to derail the liberation movement by uniting with the feudal landlords, the bourgeoisie and other reactionary elements, by sponsoring a group called Balli Kombetar.

Balli Kombëtar

Balli Kombetar was specifically created to oppose the CPA’s leadership of the liberation war. It’s program was in collaboration with the fascist occupiers; it believed the national liberation war to be unnecessary and wrong. Because it claimed to stand for national unity, strength and independence, Balli was initially able to influence some people, particularly in the countryside. However, because its policy was not aimed at complete liberation and the establishment of a democratic Albanian republic, Balli refused to participate in armed actions against the Italian army, despite invitation from the CPA for joint actions.

In early 1943, the fascist puppet government in Albania fell. Its inability to defeat the national liberation forces and to govern Albania was reflective of the defeats fascism was suffering across Europe at the time. In February of 1943, the Red Army of the Soviet Union had defeated the Nazi Army at Stalingrad, and the tide of the second World War was turning in favor of the anti-fascist coalition.

During the early months of 1943, meetings of the Albanian national liberation councils were held to discuss how to take advantage of this improved situation. Plans for a general uprising against the Italian army were approved. In July of 1943 these meetings culminated in the formation of a General Staff which was charged with creating the Albanian National Liberation Army (ANLA) from the ranks of existing partisan units. The General Staff was placed under the command of the outstanding communist and fighter, Enver Hoxha. Under his leadership and that of the General Staff, the newly reorganized army engaged in larger and more frequent attacks on fascist targets. The formation of the General Staff reflected also the tremendous political growth and unification the Communist Party of Albania had been able to generate among the people by constant political education and involvement of the people in the democratic process of making political decisions.  

The Party had also paid great attention to keeping morale in the army high. lt raised the consciousness of the fighters to a high level so that they all knew what they were fighting for and had great faith in the triumph of their cause.

In addition to the military battles, the struggle was also carried out through large demonstrations against the fascist occupation, and various strikes and other battles. The partisans did tireless work to expose the fascists and local traitors and to organize cultural and educational activities among the people.

As the military and political conditions in Albania began to favor the victory of the national liberation forces, the Balli Kombetar began to show its true nature. Rather than taking up arms against the fascist occupiers who were slaughtering the Albanian people, Balli’s leadership agreed to place their organization in the service of the Italian army. They guaranteed they would prevent attacks on the Italian army by national liberation forces and agreed to undertake punitive actions against the ANLA in southern Albania. A member of Balli was appointed to the fascist puppet government. These actions clearly exposed to the Albanian population that Balli supported fascism rather than the liberation of Albania.

Enver Hoxha proclaiming the independence of democratic Albania

In the early summer of 1943, representatives of the Anglo-American Mediterranean command entered Albania uninvited to investigate the status of the Albanian national liberation war. Their findings alarmed the U.S. and British governments. Instead of a disorganized, demoralized, scattered resistance movement, they found a highly organized national army, led by a vigorous communist party, supported by fledgling governmental units on the local and national levels and enjoying the complete support of the Albanian population. Later in the summer, both the U.S. and British armies established military missions inside Albania, under the watchful eye of the Albanian National Liberation Army. From the moment they set foot on Albanian soil, these missions acted to support Italian fascism and King Zog. Their aim was to undermine the leadership of the national liberation war by the Communist Party and the Provisional General Council. They funneled money and weapons to Balli, which in turn used them against the ANLA, in support of the fascist occupiers. Britain and the U.S. demanded that the ANLA lay down its weapons, stop the national liberation war, and limit itself to supporting Allied military efforts to “liberate” Albania from outside. Almost in unison with these Allied demands, very similar pressure was exerted on the CPA and the Provisional General Council by leading members of the Yugoslav Communist Party and its national liberation front. These leaders visited Albania during this period to express the opinion that the Albanian national liberation war was being waged entirely improperly. They too demanded that Albania abandon its independent antifascist liberation war, and fight primarily as an arm of the Yugoslav national liberation army. At this crucial juncture, the CPA and the Albanian people rejected all pressures to stop their national liberation war, and to unite with forces such as Balli, who had openly supported the fascist occupation of Albania. The liberation war was broadened and continued and in the late summer of 1943, Italy was unable to hold Albania any longer. Italy capitulated to the Allies and some of its troops then joined with the Albanian partisans to fight the Nazis.

The German Nazi army had been making occasional forays into northern Albania for some time, in battles against the liberation forces. In late September, 1943, they invaded Albania full scale. The Nazi occupiers were determined to decimate the Albanian national liberation movement. But the movement could not be crushed. Bloody battles occurred throughout the fall. In October, less than a month after the Nazi invasion, the ANLA shelled the Parliament building of the fascist government in Tirana. In response, the Nazis unleashed a ferocious military effort called the Winter Campaign of 1943-44 in an all out effort to destroy the CPA and the ANLA and to force Albania into submission. They planned to reach these goals by encircling the ANLA and destroying it, while terrorizing the population into subjugation. A curfew was imposed and violators were shot on sight. The Nazis proclaimed that they would hang ten to thirty people for every German soldier killed in Albania.

Thousands of communists and anti-fascist fighters were sent to concentration and Labor camps inside Germany and imprisoned in Albania, where they were tortured, starved or worked to death. Anti-fascist fighters captured by the Nazis were publicly hung to deter others. The Nazis also tried to destroy the national liberation movement by coming to terms with Balli Kombetar and using it against the ANLA in military actions. In addition, the Nazis supported the formation of another collaborationist political group, Legaliteti, which played a role similar to Balli, but with less influence. Neither severe military repression nor political ploys could silence the Albanian national liberation movement. All through the terrible winter of 1943-44, the Albanian people grew closer to the CPA and the national liberation councils because it saw them continuing to fight for independence and democracy under the most difficult conditions. Outflanking the enemy deep behind their own lines, launching surprise attacks an supply lines to fortifications, undertaking long distance marches to attack at night where and when the enemy least expected it, the ANLA escaped destruction and undertook counter-offensive attacks against the Nazis forces. In April, having defeated the German offensive, the ANLA undertook one of its own, scoring major victories at Korca, Pogradec and Berat, among other locations.

The great unity between the Albanian people and the leadership of the national liberation war provided the political basis for holding the First Anti-Fascist National Liberation Congress at Permet in May of 1944. This Congress elected the Anti-Fascist Council which was responsible for laying the groundwork for the Albanian state of people’s democracy. In addition, the Permet Congress took decisions of great importance to the newly emerging Albanian state: to prevent King Zog from returning to power; to not recognize any other government set up inside or outside of Albania against the will of its people; to continue the liberation war until independence and the formation of the people’s democracy. Because it sanctioned the overthrow of the old ruling classes, the Permet Congress established a government in which the control and leadership of the workers and peasants, through the Communist Party, was ensured. Finally, the Congress agreed to launch a general offensive against the German occupiers.

Factors internal and external to Albania favored a general offensive at this time. Outside of Albania the Nazis were in retreat. The Red Army of the Soviet Union was already helping to free Romania from occupation. Inside of Albania, the failure of the Nazi Winter Campaign, the growing unity of the Albanian people, and the drafting of the new structure for the Albanian government all signaled that the time for a general offensive was at hand. In June of 1944, the offensive began.

Tirana, Albania: Taking part in ceremonies which was freed from Turkish rule about 32 years ago, Albanian partisans parade through the streets of Tirana, the country's capital, on November 28th. Albanians celebrated their liberation from German rule, as well, on this anniversary. Representatives of the U.S., Britain and Russia attended the ceremonies. December 20, 1944 Tirana, Albania

With the initiation of the general offensive, all of Albania joined in a massive effort to expel the Nazis from its territory. At the same time, some final steps were necessary to ensure that the new Albanian state would be a democratic people’s republic. Accordingly, one month before liberation, a meeting of the General Council in Berat proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Government of Albania. Its officials were elected and agreement was reached to organize the election of a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new Constitution for the democratic People’s Republic of Albania. The Berat meeting formalized the national liberation councils as organs of government and adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of Citizens” ensuring basic democratic rights to all individuals.

The new leadership of the Democratic Government faced immediate serious threats to Albania’s independence. In late October of 1944, ignoring the Government’s rejection of Allied armed Intervention in Albania, Allied troops landed in southwestern Albania with the goal of occupying the whole country. The new Government stood firm, refusing to permit these troops to remain in Albania; under the direction of the National Liberation Army, they were removed from Albanian soil. At the same time, British troops in Yugoslavia attempted to cross into Albania from the north, but were prevented by the Albanian Army and population. Rather than giving in to Anglo-U.S. pressures and influence, the new Democratic Government established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, recognizing in that then-socialist country a staunch ally.

Despite the threatened invasion of Albania by Allied troops and despite the vicious military blows by the retreating Nazi Army, the ANLA liberated all of Albania on November 29, 1944. By the force of their own arms, the Albanian people expelled the last Nazi troops and proclaimed the establishment of an independent, democratic people’s republic of ‘Albania. The first step in the people’s revolution in Albania — the country’s liberation had been taken. The Italian and German occupation of Albania from 1939 to 1944 took a great toll on the Albanian people. 7.3% of the population of 1,200,000 was killed or maimed and up to 3.9% were deported to Germany as slave labor or imprisoned in Albania during this five years. Thirty percent of all villages were destroyed. One-third of all farm animals were killed. All electric power was disrupted and all bridges had been blown up. The few factories which were not destroyed had no raw materials with which to operate.

Despite massive losses and damage, the anti-fascist national liberation war of the Albanian people had scored a decisive victory. It had expelled the fascist occupiers and established an independent Albanian government. Additionally, the national liberation war had swept away the rule of the old exploiting classes, by preventing the return of Zog or the foreign or Albanian capitalists and merchants. The new democratic government, elected by the Albanian people, was composed of tested leaders from the working class and peasantry, the same people who had made up the national liberation councils and led the partisan units, the same people who were leaders and members of the Communist Party of Albania, the political party of the Albanian working class. However, the victory of the national liberation war on November 29, 1944 was not the end of a history of struggle for independence. It was the beginning of a new history of struggle in Albania to protect the triumph of the people’s revolution and to initiate the uninterrupted construction of socialism.

Statue of "Mother Albania" to celebrate the liberation of the country

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” Introduction

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” is a 1984 pamphlet about socialist Albania by the Albania Friendship Society. It was published in the United States in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the liberation of Albania and the victory of the people’s revolution, November 29, 1944 – November 29, 1984. “New Albania” is a groundbreaking English language pamphlet about the accomplishments of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. It will appear here in its full and unabridged form.

 – Espresso Stalinist

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” Part I: Albania at the Crossroads: Annihilation or Liberation

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” Part II: Socialist Construction in Albania

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” Part III: Social and Cultural Development in the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania

“New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!” Part IV: International Relations and the Foreign Policy of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania 

“NEW ALBANIA” TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface…1
Introduction…1
I. Albania at the Crossroads: Annihilation or Liberation…3
II. Socialist Construction in Albania…10
— The People’s State Power…10
— The Socialist Economy…14
— The Revolutionization of Society…20
III. Social and Cultural Development in Albania…24
— The Albanian Educational System…24
— Health Care in Albania…27
— Women’s Emancipation…29
— The Greek National Minority…31
— Aspects of Albanian Culture, Past and Present…32
IV. International Relations and the Foreign Policy of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania…38
V. Conclusion…44

This pamphlet is dedicated to Ruth and Jack Shulman, whose friendship for the Albanian people and tireless defense of their post-liberation achievements have been instrumental in educating a new generation of working class and progressive people about the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania.

Preface

This pamphlet is presented in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Albania and the triumph of the people’s revolution.

It is the result of a collective effort by organizations in the U.S. who have been working to bring the message of the Albanian experience and successes to the U.S. people, and in particular, the U.S. working class. Some of the participants in this project have visited Albania on rnany occasions since liberation and have seen with their own eyes the remarkable successes which are recounted in this pamphlet. Valuable resource materials were found in a variety of Albanian publications, including Portrait of Albania, The History of the Party of Labor of Albania, New Albania and Albania Today magazines, and the Constitution of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania.

This year also marks the first time that organizations in several U.S. cities will be gathering together to hold joint celebrations of the anniversary of the liberation of Albania, on November 29, 1944. Wt urge you to join with us in celebrating this historic occasion and in building friendship between the peoples of the U.S. and Albania

Albania Friendship Society
of Southern California,
Los Angeles, California

Albania Information Project,
New Orleans, Louisiana

Albania Report,
New York, New York

Chicago Area Friends of Albania,
Chicago, Illinois

U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization,
Boston, Massachusetts

Introduction

Forty years ago an November 29, 1944, the people of Albania, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Albania (now the Party of Labor), liberated their country from the Nazi occupation and the local ruling classes.

After liberation, the country stood in ruins, ravaged by the fascists. Not a single working factory was left standing, agriculture was virtually destroyed, and the people were plagued with starvation, disease, high infant mortality rates and an average life span of 38 years.

Today Albania is an independent, self-reliant, modern industrial-agrarian society. There are no exploiting classes. The great advantages of the socialist system with its planned economy, can be seen in the fact that there is no economic crisis in Albania, no unemployment and no inflation. There are also no taxes, while medical care, child care, paid vacations and paid maternity leave are provided at little or no cost to individuals. Albania has no foreign debts or credits and is free from domination by the imperialist powers. All these conditions result from the socialist system which now exists in Albania.

Today, Albania is the only socialist country in the world. It stands in firm Opposition to the two superpowers — the U.S. and U.S.S.R. — and their preparations for imperialist war.

The lessons of how Albania achieved these remarkable successes in only 40 years have great importance to the people of the world and the United States. The imperialists and reactionaries have tried to hide the truth about Albania’s liberation and the successes of the revolution because they know these victories are a tremendous inspiration and example for all oppressed people.

Communist Party of the Workers of France (PCOF): No to nationalist outbidding, Yes to solidarity among peoples

The law against “denial of genocide recognized by law” causes great tension with the authorities in Turkey, which refer, not without relevance, Sarkozy and Co. for past massacres (Algeria) and later (in several countries of Africa) committed by the French army.

The tension that developed between our two countries and the bidding nationalists who meet, have nothing progressive. We deny to Sarkozy, and the French bourgeoisie in general, the right to speak for the victims of genocide.

The crude maneuver that would seek election to win the votes of the Armenians living in France, and does not serve the cause of the Armenian people who suffered a genocide by the Ottoman Empire.

The answer to this reactionary campaign is to develop solidarity between peoples and the common struggle against imperialism and reaction.

Paris, December 23, 2011

Communist Workers Party of France

Source

Communist Party of the Workers of France: Death of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Benin

We learned of the death, on April 5, Comrade Fantodji Pascal, a founding member and first secretary of the Communist Party of Benin (PCB). Such a loss is a blow comrades in Benin. We insist on showing them our communist solidarity by sending them the message below:

Communist Party of Benin

The Central Committee

To all militants

Dear comrades,

We would like to express to all the militants of PCBs our sincere condolences for the sudden death of your former secretary, Comrade Pascal Fantodji.

We did not know he was sick, and the announcement of his death surprised us. We measure the demise of this mean for your party comrade and the communist and revolutionary movement of your country. We also drove our condolences to his family, leaders and activists of the International Institute for Research and Information (In.I.RE.F), of which he was president.

We joined the call for you to release all communists, revolutionaries and patriots of Benin in order to redouble efforts to achieve the purpose for which the revolutionary comrade Fantodji fought. The people of Benin and the PCB can count on our commitment to overthrow French imperialism, our common enemy.

With fraternal greetings,

Central Committee of the Communist Workers Party of France

Source

The lynching of Gaddafi: Image of human sacrifice and return to barbarism

December 11, 2011

The war for “democracy” is the postmodern version of “holy war”, naturally sacred democratic character of its U.S. sponsor

By: Jean-Claude Paye (pink-blindada.info)

At the time of the dissemination of images of the lynching of Muammar Gaddafi, our leaders showed signs of a strange pleasure. “Strange Fruit” [1], such images immediately bring to mind the memory of others, the hanging of Saddam Hussein, executed on the very day of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice. Both cases we are immersed in a religious structure, replacing the sacrifice of the ram [2] for human sacrifice, restores the original image of the Goddess-Mother. Invest in addition to the Old Testament and nullifies the act of speaking. This reduces religion without the fetish book [3].

Another has no law and is a simple invitation to the enjoyment of death as a spectacle.

Thanks to the image, the will to power is unlimited. The transgression ceases to have limits, as in the rite of sacrifice, in space and time and becomes constant. It echoes the ongoing violation of the right order from the founding act of the attacks of September 11, 2011.

Locked away in the tragedy

The way he was treated the body of Muammar el-Qaddafi reveals the tragedy experienced by the Libyan people. His body was subject of two special treatment, a double violation of the symbolic order that was inserted in that society. Instead of being buried on the day of his death, as required by Muslim rites, his body remained exposed to the gaze of the curious for 4 days in a refrigerator. This exhibition was followed by burial in a secret place, despite the request that his wife had sent to the UN that will be handed over the body.

This double decision of the new “power” Libyan people put in a situation that already known in Greek tragedy. By preventing the family buried the body, the new political power takes over the space of the symbolic order. By the removal of any link between the “law of men” and the “law of the gods”, the National Transitional Council mergers and claims the monopoly of the sacred, thereby putting politics above.

The decision of the NTC family to prevent the realization of the funeral and the corpse exhibit aims to suppress the significance of the body to keep in view only the meaning of death. The order to enjoy the image of murder should not find any limit. The fetish perpetuates repetition compulsion. The drive then becomes independent and goes, regardless of one image to another image of the dead in the image of the execution of death. Its function is to increase the will to power.

Owning what should be

The desecration of the body is therefore one element of your fetish. The essential thing is the pictures of the lynching of Gaddafi. Captured through a cell phone, these images occupy the media space and are constantly reproduced. Real-time break in our daily lives. We capture in spite of ourselves. We then we ourselves become part of the stage and that in film drive, lynching only becomes an act of sacrifice by the gaze-object. The images show people that take pictures and enjoy the show filmed. These people exhibit the instant of the gaze. What is presented as an offering is not the object but the sense that it offers to the eye, to own what should be seen.

The lynching as an image is a Western tradition. When shooting his victims, members of the Ku Klux Klan and human sacrifice exhibited as a spectacle. The treatment given to Gaddafi is part of that ‘culture’. It differs, however, one aspect of it. The erection of the actions of the KKK had a strong ritual, transmitted the image of an underground social order.

In the case of the lynching of Gaddafi, the captured images via cell phones are free of any significant, become more real than reality, they colonize reality that actually exists, then only annihilation. These images show the fragmentation of society and thus, the omnipotence of imperial action. They show a world that is invested permanently. We face the horror and we inject the psychosis. Destroy any relationship with the other and only appeal to Interior, monads whose consent to seek.

Unlike a language that we join a “we”, the image goes to each individual separately. Prevents any social bond, all forms of symbolization. Is the paradigm of a society governed by the monads. These images reveal so much about the conflict itself not only on the state of our societies, as well as future plans for Libya: a permanent war.

The sacrifice of a scapegoat

These images show the execution of a scapegoat. Update the notion of mimetic violence that Girard developed in his interpretation of the New Testament [4]. Through repetition of the sacrifice, the images we impose a purposeless violence. This becomes compulsive. While the scapegoat serves as a catalyst to violence, the truth is that, contrary to what Girard says, can not stop it. Peace will only be temporary and not more than the preparation of a new war. Every sacrifice is a call to the completion of another. After the destruction of Libya must come that of Syria, then Iran … Violence becomes infinite and founder.

As Christians in the statements, comments on media images of the lynching of Gaddafi become the scapegoat scapegoat. If Gaddafi is the victim of a lynching because “they wanted.” Not a victim of external aggression but supposedly resulted from a domestic law. His execution is not the result of his will to resist but the fulfillment of personal destiny. René Girard also enunciated this procedure to refer to Christ. The figure of Christ leads to a shift in the notion of scapegoat to the sacrificial victim offered to “purge” the original sin.

That way, free of any debt symbolic of all the social body, these images and comments on them participating in systematic investment of symbolic Law, and the permanent state of exception, which was established after the attacks of 11 in September 2001. Sacralized political power supplants the symbolic order.

Regression: the language of unification image of the goddess-Mother

These images make us return to a stage where human sacrifice was central in the social organization. Constitute a return to the main obsession of unification with the mother [5]. Ethnological work, and psychoanalysis, we have shown that human sacrifice is a return to a maternal structure. Love and sacrifice are the attributes of a social organization that does not distinguish between order and political and symbolic order. Paradigms are a matriarchal society that operates here the fusion of the individual with maternal power.

These images are part of a long Christian tradition of investment that serves as the foundation of the Old Testament. The story of Abraham is the moment that establishes the prohibition of human sacrifice. The death of Christ, however, is the investment of the sacrifice of Isaac. Instead of replacing the animal child-Messiah is the son who becomes a ram [6].

In the Old Testament, the sacrificial animal’s death is the death of primitive god. It symbolizes the sacrifice and a real shift toward language: “If there is a god, this is in the words of alliance (language)” [7]. This movement opens the existence of a producer of metaphor, transformation of reality. The Shift and metaphor, which are at the core of this story, are the procedures for establishing the law of language [8]. The law’s language is no registration of the identity of the word and object. In the conflict of Libya, we are situated, from the beginning, outside of language. Gaddafi is a tyrant, because they qualify. The massacres of his regime need not be verified, simply affirming that happen. The image of the dictator is sufficient. It integrates faces no contradiction or anything real. It’s more real than reality.

The aim of any symbolic order

The law of language is the recognition that language is above all the other. It is the acknowledgment by man of his own incompleteness. Once the concrete is symbolization, instilling individual’s dependence upon the other, they start a process of mutual recognition and, in this way, the formation of a humane society [9]. This introduces a symbolic debt [10], a system of relationships in which the individual finds his place and where it’s not your own father. This debt, as opposed to original sin, has a unifying character as it places man in relation to the other from becoming.

Gaddafi was imperfectly inserted into the global capitalist system. Still worked in accordance with values ​​from the traditional society, especially the gift as a creator of social ties. He was badly affected by the abandonment of his “friends” Sarkozy, Berlusconi and Tony Blair … [11]. Probably thought that the gifts had made them had established a mutual recognition system that guaranteed some protection. This shows that he had not understood the nature of capitalism. In this system, every social relationship is abolished. While in ancient societies the exchange of objects serves as foundation to the relationship between men, in capitalism the commodity and money are subjects. Those who received the gifts of Gaddafi could only see them as advances for something that by right. The dark gods of this society can not be other than the markets.

Images of enjoyment

By the law of language, man is distinguished from the nature of the goddess-mother who has no inside or outside. The murder, instead of being founder, is abolished and give access to the word. Is then established human order which differs from the divine order. The individual ceases to be an all-powerful son. It is separated from the maternal power.

The images of the lynching of Gaddafi us back, by contrast, the original and omnipotence. We enrolled in a religious structure before the achievement was the ban on slaughter. These clichés again plunge into violence incestuous, in the enjoyment of the drive haptic consuming [12]. The imperative of enjoyment overrides policy here. The most significant example is provided by the Hillary Clinton interview, those who accept these images as an offering. Full of joy, proclaim his own omnipotence and expressed his joy at the lynching: “We came, we saw and he [Gaddafi] died!” Before the cameras and microphones of the CBS [13].

The violence done to the “Roadmap” Libya is also for other Western leaders, a propitious moment to express the satisfaction that they invade and enjoy the success of your initiative. “We will not shed tears for Gaddafi,” said Alain Juppe, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs [14].

The tortured body as an icon of violence

The positions made by our leaders after the release of these images confirm that the real target of this war was not the protection of the population but the elimination of Gaddafi. The platform of Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, jointly published April 15 in The Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Figaro, we had announced however that “It is not Gaddafi expelled by force. But it is impossible to imagine that Libya may have a future with Gaddafi “[15]. Their violence [Gaddafi] would then be essentially the failure to relinquish power, though inconceivable to remain in it. His image supposedly symbolizes the tyranny because he could not get Western leaders love the Libyan population. “He (Gaddafi) behaved very aggressively. He was offered good conditions for surrender, and rejected, “Juppé said.

The media tell us that “dictators always end well.” The marks of violence make it appear invisible. The lynching becomes proof that the victim was indeed a dictator. These stigmas show us what we never saw: the evidence of the massacres that Gaddafi was going to commit. Are an indication of their intentions to do what NATO used as an argument to justify its intervention.

This would link the massacres perpetrated by the Colonel with the image of his bloodied body. The marks of violence on the living body, and later on the corpse, then would not the result of the violence of the ‘liberators’ but the fruit of the blood shed by Gaddafi.

The violence of the crime shows that it is indeed a vengeance. It also shows us that the perpetrators of this violence are in fact victims and that this murder has a sacred character.

The display of unlimited power

The images of slaughter display allow our leaders limitless power. The French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet, French aviation revealed that, at the request of Staff of NATO, was “arrested” or be bombed, the caravan in which the fugitive was Gaddafi [16]. The French minister claims and a flagrant violation of Security Council resolution of the UN. For his part, Alain Juppe had the luxury of recognizing that the objective of the invasion was none other than put in power by CNT: “The operation must end now since our objective, that is to accompany the forces of CNT in the liberation of its territory, has already been reached “[17].

The success of the NATO offensive was accompanied, by the victors, increasingly numerous statements in which recognized systematic rape, although justified, the decision of the Security Council of the UN. The philosopher, writer, director, strategist and diplomat Bernard-Henri Levy even acknowledged, in his book La guerre sans l’aimer [In Spanish: "War without desiring." Translator's Note.] “France directly or indirectly provided significant amounts of weapons to the Libyan rebels fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi” [18]. These statements illustrate the child’s psychic structure almighty State phallic maternal figure, a power without limits is beyond the word and, therefore, does not feel compelled to even respect their own commitments.

These positions recall the statements of Tony Blair when he acknowledged that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but the war was justified because Saddam Hussein ended the reign of a dictator.

The victim and the sacrifice: the values ​​of a return to barbarism

The murder committed against Gaddafi, as an act of “revenge of the victims”, results will not be judged Gaddafi. This result coincides with the interests of oil companies and Western governments, whose close ties to the regime of Colonel will not therefore to light before the public. The main result of the substitution of the organization of a trial against [Qaddafi] International Criminal Court by the images of lynching is that instead of being arrested by the word, violence becomes infinite. Libya, like Iraq and Afghanistan, will become a scene of perpetual war. With regard to our own political systems, they are immersed in a state of emergency. This is accompanied by the appearance of absolute power, whose political action beyond any order related to the right.

A military intervention undertaken in the name of the love of Western leaders by the people victims of a “tyrant” [19] and display magnified by the slaughter of the latter is a symptom of our society regressing into barbarism.

Treatment of the sacrifice of Gaddafi as iconic image confirms the Christian character of a war waged in the name of love for the victims. The destruction of Libya by NATO forces is inserted into the long tradition of the Crusades, the wars against the symbolic law undertaken in the name of the God-man [20]. These have already resulted from a reorganization of Europe under papal authority [21]. Today, this conflict, even more than the Iraq war, it implies total submission of the European countries to the American Empire.

The war for democracy is the postmodern version of the “holy war” sacred not because the enemy were the “infidels” but because the Pope ordered, as infallible representative of God-man. Today, the sacred character of the aggression comes naturally democratic character of its U.S. sponsor, whose president received the Nobel Peace Prize before he made the slightest political act. This award establishes the President of the United States as a Christian icon, as the very embodiment of peace and democracy. It is not in this version of the sacredness of man created in the image and likeness of God, but the image of himself and his peaceful and democratic nature.

Notes:

[1] Title of a song composed in 1946 Abel Meeropol Abel Meeropol couple in denouncing the Necktie Party (hanging) that were organized in the southern United States and attended the white dress to a party. Performed by Billie Holiday, the spread of this song was a huge success.

[2] By brandishing a knife to slay his son, Abraham found a ram in place of the child. He who must die is the goat, the animal-father, the primal father, that is a ghostly line of ancestors, while an archaic divinity, a ferocious form of God who constantly demands sacrifice. in Jean-Daniel Causse, “Le christianisme et la violence des dieux obscurs, liens et écarts” AIEMPR, XVIIe violences et congrès international Religions, Strasbourg, 10-14 July 2006.

[3] Paul Laurent Assoun, Le fétichisme, Que sais-je?, PUF, 1994. “I ou l’objet Fétiche au pied de la lettre” in Éclat du fetish, Revue du Littoral 42.

[4] Rene Girard, Violence et le sacre The, Le Seuil, 1972.

[5] The primary significance of the desire of the mother is usually rejected by the replacement of the meaning of the name of the Father who enroll in language. Sacrifice is a return to that natural state of unification with the mother. In Alcouloumbré Catherine, “The metaphore paternelle” Espaces Lacan, Seminar 1998-1999.

[6] Bible Chrétienne, II, Commentaires, Anne Sigi Editions, 1990, p. 318, in Nicolas Buttet, L’école à l’Eucharistie des saints, Éditions de l’Emmanuel, Paris 2000, p. 38.

[7] Jean-Daniel Causse, “Le christianisme et la violence des dieux obscurs, liens et écarts” AIEMPR, XVIIe Religions et Congrès International Violence, Strasbourg 2006, p. 4.

[8] They reflect two fundamental operations of language replacement and combination-which are the paradigmatic axis and the syntagmatic axis. See: Vincent Calais, La theorie du langage dans l’enseignement of Jacques Lacan, L’Harmattan, Paris 2008, p. 59.

[9] Linard of Guertechin Hervé, “From d’une lecture du sacrifice d’Isaac (Genèse 22)” 38 51 987 Lumen Vito), p. 302-322.

[10] Contrary to original sin, that debt has a unifying character as it places man in relation to the other, from an evolution, not a native. The original sin, by contrast, contains an image of a superego.

[11] “Gaddafi préférait” juge qu’être mourir in Libya “even the ICC” [In Spanish, "Kadafhi preferred to" die in Libya to be tried "by the ICC." NDT.], La Libre Belgique and AFP, November 31, 2011.

[12] “We sacrifice sur le noyau focus sacrificiel Originel: l’endocannibalisme” Soli in Pierre, Le sacrifice et d’civilization fondateur of individuation, abstract.

[13] “Hillary Clinton welcomed Muammar Gaddafi of la mort”, Voltaire Network, October 22, 2011.

[14] “The Death of Gaddafi to check the l’engagement de l’NATO Libye” LeMonde.fr with AFP, 21/10/2011.

[15] “Tribune of Barack Obama, David Cameron et Nicolas Sarkozy sur la Libye” Réseau Voltaire, April 15, 2011.

[16] “L’aviation française convoy him to Stopped Gaddafi affirmer Longuet”, TF1, October 20, 2011.

[17] “The Death of Gaddafi to check the l’engagement de l’NATO Libye” LeMonde.fr, op ..

[18] “Les coulisses of BHL selon la guerre,” La Libre Belgique, November 7, 2011.

[19] Jean-Claude Paye, Tülay Umay, “Faire la guerre au nom des victimes” Réseau Voltaire, May 9, 2011.

[20] Maurice Bellet, Le Dieu pervers, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1979, pp. 16-17.

[21] Paul Rousset, Les origins et les Croisade characters in the premiere, the Baconnière, Neuchâte11945

Source

Alliance (Marxist-Leninist): Where We Stand – Beria and the Berlin Rising of 1953

Laverenti Beria

Flag GDR -Bust Lenin

Walter Ulbricht

Fifty years after, the risings and riots, of the working class in June 1953, across the German Democratic republic (GDR) – notably in Berlin, remain controversial amongst Marxist-Leninists. Some argue this was a genuine revolt of the German working class. Others, supporters of post-Stalin USSR, argue they were imperialist provocations. Alliance Marxist-Leninist will argue that:

i) They were a genuine resistance by the German working class against a revisionist bureaucracy; that the revolt was precipitated by a criminally ultra-leftist policy of Walter Ulbricht;

ii) Lavrenti Beria representing the Marxist-Leninist wing of the Politburo, urged a sectarian Ulbricht back towards a path described by J.V.Stalin;

iii) Beria agreed with Stalin that the German state was in the special circumstances of post-war Europe, a buffer against imperialism.

The Charges Against Beria

When the revisionists led by Khrushchev, took control of the USSR state, they were hampered by waverers (Malenkov and Molotov), but actively resisted by staunch Marxist-Leninists (Beria). Unless Beria was eliminated, the state would return towards its Marxist-Leninism. Charges against Beria, were laid out in secret sessions of the full Central Committee of the CPSU(B) from 2-7 July 1953, some four months after the death of Stalin, but only two weeks after the June 16-17 anti-communist uprising in East Berlin.

The leading charge concerned the establishment of a secure intelligence base for Marxist-Leninist vigilance. Another series of charges alleged traitorous relations with Tito and attempts to normalize relations with Yugoslavia (Amy Knight: Beria Stalin’s First Lieutenant; Princeton 1993; p.206). But a prominent charge regarded Beria’s advocacy of a “unified Germany”. Leading the charge against Ulbricht’s sectarian polices was Beria, who was “indignant when I (Ulbricht) opposed the policy concerning the German question in 1953”: Knight Ibid; p. 192). Several sources point to the significance of this charge:

“The Soviet leadership offers the following reasons for the charges against Beria. . . . ‘ that he advocated the creation of a unified Germany as a “bourgeois, peace-loving nation” (1:162) and the abandonment of East Germany’s status as a separate, socialist state;” [On the Crimes and Anti-Party, Anti-Government Activities of Beria.] Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 2-7 July 1953, from Izvestia CC – CPSU:1991, 1:140-214 & 2:141-208. New Evidence on Beria’s Downfall, by Rachel A. Connell.

“New accounts confirm that Beria did want to trade German reunification for neutralization.” ‘New Evidence on the East German Uprising of 1953; ”Paper #3: Reexamining Soviet Policy Towards Germany During the Beria Interregnum, “Cold War History Project” by James Richter.

What were Stalin’s views on East Germany and West Germany? We trace this through the famous wartime Allied Heads meetings of Tehran (November 1943); Yalta (February 1944), to the post-war Potsdam meeting (July 1945). Here, Stalin was face to face with Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt, and at Potsdam, President Truman.

Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin at Yalta Conference

The Potsdam Conference

Churchill, Truman, and Stalin at Potsdam

Stalin’s German Policy

It is alleged that Stalin held barbarous views on Germany. For example, it is said that during a dinner conversation at the Tehran Conference, the conversation turned to Germany. Stalin, concerned that the future Germany might once more attack Eastern Europe and Russia, joked that German officers be liquidated:

“To prevent this catastrophe…. from 50,000 to 100,000 German officers must be liquidated, and the Allies must retain control of strategic points around the world in order to stop German operations. Was Stalin joking about shooting 100,000 officers?… Churchill took Stalin seriously…..Roosevelt thinking that he could smooth things over with a joke of his own, proposed that instead of 50,000 officers being shot, they should shoot only 49,000. By now Eden, sensing that in his anger Churchill would make remarks he would later regret, tried to signal that it was just a joke.” Eubank K; Summit at Tehran – The Untold Story; New York, 1985; p. 314-5.

Charles Bohlen, the USA diplomat and interpreter, corroborates that Stalin’s remark was a joke. Nonetheless, this “joke” has been converted into the “fact” that Stalin demanded the heads of 100,000 soldiers. Furthermore, that he was responsible for the subsequent division of Germany into East and West. British and USA imperial inspired histories, take as a given that at the end of the Second World War, Stalin was intent upon destroying Germany:

“Stalin and Roosevelt were both strongly in favor of splitting up Germany in order to render here helplessly weak. Churchill did not think that this was an important issue”.Martin Kitchen: British Policy towards the Soviet Union During the Second World War; London 1986; p. 175.

But the reality is not quite so clear. Firstly, even shrewd enemies of the USSR, recognized the situation that Russia had found itself over the war years. As Averell Harriman, the USA Ambassador to Russia, warned:

”Our difficulties with the Russians if any, will be that their present intent towards Germany is tougher than we have in mind, particularly in regard to the magnitude of reparations. Their measure of Germany’s capacity to pay reparations in goods and services appears to be based on the concept that the Germans are not entitled to a post-war standard of living higher than that of the Russians”. W.A. Harriman, and E. Abel. Special Envoy to Churchill & Stalin 1941-1946: New York; 1975; p. 249.

Harriman had no difficulty in believing the sincerity of Stalin’s views, and from where they arose:

“Harriman felt that Stalin’s fear of a resurgent Germany was entirely genuine.. “I am satisfied that his concern was real..“
Harriman & Abel; Ibid; p. 273.

At Tehran, Stalin did not push the agenda of a division of Germany. Instead he “did not think much of either” of the leaders’ plans, preferring that of Roosevelt – over Churchill’s Danubian Confederation; if he had to choose between the two:

“Roosevelt talked of dividing Germany into five separate states . . . Churchill’s .. plan was less sweeping. He agreed that Prussia should be detached from Germany. . .. Stalin. . . did not think much of either idea, though he said that of the two he preferred Roosevelt’s. The trouble with fitting any part of Germany into a larger confederation, was that this would merely encourage…. And recreate a great national state”; Harriman & Abel Ibid; p. 280-281.

At Yalta, Roosevelt revealed that the British insisted upon a French role in Germany:

“The British were attempting to build France up into a strong power to hold the eastern frontier while the British assembled a large force.”….Stalin asked if Roosevelt thought that France should have a zone of occupation in Germany, The president dmitted that it was “not a bad idea, but he added that it was only out of kindness”; Stalin & Molotov agreed”; Eubank K; Summit at Tehran; NY 1985; p. 475.

Roosevelt’s dismemberment of Germany became accepted. Again, the “given version” that Stalin pushed for dismemberment of Germany, is false:

“The myth that Europe was divided up in the Crimea (Yalta). Is totally inaccurate… The Soviet side expressed its doubts that dismemberment was realistic. As a result it was decided in Yalta to refer that question to the European Consultative Commission.” Berezhkov, V.M., At Stalin’s Side. His Interpreters Memoirs; New York; 1994; p.275

The crux of the Yalta discussions was on reparations. Both the USA and the UK imperialists tried to deny significant reparations to the USSR. The USSR was devastated by the fascist invasion, contrary to either of the other two allies. The imperialists wanted the post-war poverty of the USSR. Therefore, Stalin explicitly linked the division of Germany to the question of war reparation.

The Famous Raising of the Hammer and Sickle over the Reichstag photographed by Yevgeny Khaldei ; May 2 1945

Race to the Elbe –Anglo-American Attempts at a Separate Peace

Between the Yalta and Potsdam meetings, with the end of the European war, only two major things had changed in the relationship of the Three Big Powers to each other.

The first was the territorial control of the European theater.

Russian insistence on a Second Front had long been resisted, but when the imperial Allies saw that the Russians were sweeping across Europe towards Germany, they agreed to set up a Second Front, which radically changed the situation. Initially:

“The European Advisory Commission (EAC) had negotiated the zonal agreements anticipating that the Red Army might control much of Germany”; Eisenberg, Carolyn; The American Decision to Divide Germany 1944-1949; Cambridge 1997; p.72.

However after the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 (In Ardennes against the USA and British) – the German High Command started to move forces away from confronting the USA:

“The Nazi leadership unexpectedly shifted strategy. In a dramatic attempt to check the Russian advance, they began moving their armies from the Western Front and reducing their resistance to SHAEF (the Allies). By the end of March less than 30 German divisions were facing the Americans, and British, while more than 150 divisions were battling the Soviets in the East”;
Eisenberg Ibid; p.72.

Moreover, the Germans began making overtures of a separate peace with the Americans & British. Although this was quite against the protocols of Yalta, the Americans and British responded positively:

“Ambassador Harriman has communicated to me a letter … from Mr. Molotov regarding an investigation being made by Field Marshall Alexander into a reported possibility of obtaining the surrender of part or all of the German army in Italy. In this letter Mr. Molotov demands that, because of the non-participation therein of Soviet officers that this investigation to be undertaken in Switzerland should be stopped”;
March 25 1945; President Roosevelt to Marshall Stalin; In Correspondence Between the Chairman of the Council of Ministries of the USSR, and the Presidents of the USA, and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45; Moscow; 1957; Volume 2: p. 188.

Against American protestation, Stalin was explicit about violations to the Yalta Agreement, and danger to the Russian troops. He charged this “engendered distrust”:“

”I must tell you … that the Germans have already taken advantage of the talks with the Allied Commanders to move three divisions from Northern Italy to the Soviet front. The task of coordinated operations involving a blow at the Germans from the West, South and East, proclaimed at the Crimean Conference (Yalta –Ed) is to hold the enemy on the spot and prevent him from maneuvering, from moving his forces to the points where he needs them most. The Soviet Command is doing this. However, Field Marshall Alexander is not. This circumstance irritates the High Command and engenders distrust”; Premier J.V.Stalin to President Mr. F. Roosevelt; p. 190.

As President Roosevelt prevaricated, Stalin became ever more explicit:

“You are quite right … that “the matter now stands in an atmosphere of regrettable apprehension and mistrust”. I realize that there are certain advantages resulting to the Anglo-American troops from these separate negotiations in Berne .., seeing that the Anglo-Americans troops are enabled to advance into the heart of Germany almost without resistance, but why conceal this from the Russians, and why have the Russians, their allies not been forewarned? And so what we have at the moment is that the Germans on the Western Front have in fact ceased the war against Britain and America. At the same time they continue the war against Russia, the Ally of Britain and the USA”; Marshall Stalin to the President Mr. Roosevelt; April 3 1945.

Stalin understood that the game was about control of key industrial parts of Germany:

“It is hard to agree that the absence of German resistance on the Western Front is due solely to the fact that they have been beaten. The Germans have 147 divisions on the Eastern Front. … They are fighting desperately against the Russians for Zemlenice, an obscure station in Czechoslovakia, which they need just as much as a dead man needs a poultice, but they surrender without any resistance such important towns in the heart of Germany as Osnabruck, Mannheim and Kassel”; Premier Stalin to President Roosevelt April 7 1945; p. 198.

Churchill, Truman and Stalin at Potsdam 1945

The Atomic Bomb Changes the Geopolitical Reality

The second major change, between Yalta and Potsdam, was the atomic bomb.
Prior to this, the USA and the British relied upon the USSR to destroy fascism. Will Thorp, Deputy Assistant Sec. State Econmics had said:

“It is by now a commonplace, that Germany cannot commit another aggression so long as the Big Three remain united”;
The essence of the US pre-atomic security policy for Europe was just that – an agreement sealed at Yalta for joint control of Germany by the US, and the USSR (together of course with the lesser great powers retain, and with the still lesser power France).”
Alperowtiz, Gar; The Decision to Use the Atomic bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth; New York; 1995; p. 278.

By the time of Potsdam, the maneuvering of the imperialists changed. The USA and the British were aware of what had happened, and why the USSR needed help in re-building. As President H. Truman said:

“What you have to remember about Russia and its fear of another war is that the Germans slaughtered 25,000,000 people not connected in any way with the military. They ruthlessly wiped out everybody from the Polish border to Leningrad and Moscow”; President Truman April 1946; cited; Alperowtiz; G; Ibid; p.289.

Now, with the Russians forced to fight arduously into Berlin, the USSR was no longer indispensable for the ruthless Allies. Having made commitments at Yalta, for reparations to the USSR, the USA tried to renege on their promises:

“The fundamental question in dispute at Potsdam was … whether to fulfill Roosevelt’s Yalta understandings whereby the Soviet Union was to receive reparations of roughly ten billion dollars from Germany. . . . The position the US delegation now took was “No”. The basic Roosevelt position was simply abandoned… Indeed, although Red Army help to control Germany had once seemed essential, the US now became quite cavalier in its negotiations… Nor is there any doubt about what produced this revolution. At Potsdam, US leaders explicitly stated their private judgment that the atomic bomb had given them power to control all security problems – including the once central German threat”; Alperowtiz, G; Ibid; p. 281.

In fact, at Potsdam, despite the pressures put on by the imperialists, Marshall Zhukov notes that Stalin had resisted pressures to divide Germany:

“The question of the Germany into three states: Southern Germany, Northern Germany, Western Germany raised for the second time by the US and British delegations came in for serious debate. The first time they brought this up at the Yalta Conference it was rejected by the Soviet delegation.. . . At Potsdam, Stalin again rejected this: “We reject this proposal, it is contrary to nature: Germany should not be dismembered, it should be made into a democratic, peace loving state. . . I must say that Stalin was extremely scrupulous with regard to the slightest attempt by the US and British delegation to take decisions to the detriment of the Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the German people. He had particularly sharp controversy with Churchill…”
Zhukov G: Marshall of the Soviet Union; Reminiscences and Reflections” Moscow 1984; vol. II, pp. 447; 449-50.

By the end of the Potsdam Conference, it was clear that the Americans were determined to place an imperialist presence in West Germany. This meant that the German state was inevitably to be divided. One aim of the imperialist was to limit the amount of reparations to the USSR, so they insisted that all reparations were to be made from the Zones of occupation. Thus, the USSR was excluded from the Saar and the Ruhr industrial belts. Molotov pointed out that the bulk of the wealth of Germany was in the zones to be occupied by the imperialists, but to no avail. The implication of ‘separate’ reparations was the division of Germany:

“In view of the American aims, the gravest flaw in the reparations scheme was its threat to German unity. …. both Molotov and Ernest Bevin (British Foreign Secretary -Ed) had pointed out the incompatibility of Byrnes’ (James Byrnes, US Secretary State -Ed) proposal with the plans for economic integration”;
Eisenberg, C Ibid; p. 114.

Despite the devious tactics of the imperialists, the Russians led by Stalin and Molotov were determined to try to achieve a unified Germany. To this end, they “gave ground”. So much so that the Americans found themselves in a difficult diplomatic position:

“In a personal letter to General Eisenhower, Ambassador Walter Bedell-Smith described the US delegation’s discomfort. Observing that Molotov had begun to make concessions, Smith reflected that “the difficulty under which we labour is that in spite of our announced positions, we really do not want nor intend to accept German unification in any terms that the Russians might agree to, even though they seemed to meet most of our requirements”. The real problem was the Soviets would interfere with the German contribution to the Marshall Plan. However the US was in an exposed position, and it would “require careful maneuvering to avoid the appearance of inconsistency if not hypocrisy”;
Eisenberg ibid; p. 359.

Molotov pointed out that that the US and Britain were retarding the recovery of the Western controlled Germany. He openly stated that:

“The question of the creation of a Government for the Western zones has already been decided by the USA”;
Eisenberg Ibid; p. 357.

By 1948, the:

“Americans and British were resolved: There would be two Germanys. For the foreseeable future eastern zone would be left to the Russians, while the western zones would become a separate state. Together the two powers devised concrete plans for making West Germany a reality”; Eisenberg; Ibid; p. 363.

The imperialists began to further sabotage the plans made together with the Russians for a peaceful and united Germany. They attacked the joint quadripartite currency reform plans. In this tense climate, the Russian representatives in the city of Berlin and the Russian zone, created an opening for the Americans. Marshall Sokolovsky for the Russians on the Allied Control Commissions adjourned the Commission, in effect walking out. This gave the USA General Clay a reason not to submit to Russian approval for currency reforms.

The tension rose still further when USSR General Dratvin imposed on April 1 1948, a traffic blockade from the western zones to the eastern zones. Again, provoking this rupture played into Americans hands. Therefore, the Americans refused to call the Allied Control Commission to discuss matters. This bluff became the propaganda coup of the Berlin airlift. Meanwhile, Clay charged that the Russian were creating a separate East German Government, a false charge that Assistant Sec. State Lovett relished to:

“Clearly shift responsibility to Soviets for splitting Germany”; Eisenberg Ibid; p. 396.

Yet, even now, Stalin continued to work for unification, as witnessed by his famous letter to Senator Henry Wallace, who had argued for unification of Germany. Stalin:

“Despite the differences in economic systems and ideologies the coexistence of these systems and the peaceful settlement of differences between the USSR and the USA are not only possible but absolutely necessary”; Eisenberg Ibid; p. 405-6.

On July 14, 1948, a Russian governmental note asking for restoration of unity discussion while easing travel restrictions to and from Berlin was dismissed. Even then, Stalin met with the three Western ambassadors Walter Bedell Smith (USA) Frank Roberts (Britain); and M.Yves Chataigneau (France). He offered them an immediate removal of the blockade, with currency agreements, if immediate discussions re-started on German unity (Eisenberg Ibid; p. 429-30). All to no avail, because again rather conveniently, the Russian representative in Berlin, General Sokolovsky:

“Assumed the initial role of saboteur by reversing concessions that had been offered in Moscow…. The Russians performance disappointed General Robertson who though it so “fantastic” that he had so altered Stalin’s commitment”. Eisenberg Ibid; p. 437.

The division into two German states achieved the imperialist aim of forming a buffer zone for Cold War propaganda. This emphasized the “divisiveness of communist intent”. Stalin had sought to frustrate this goal. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was formally established. However, we argue that until his death, Stalin was anxious to re-establish a unified German state. We move to the situation in 1952.

Stalin’s Meeting With the Politburo of the SED

German communists of the former KPD, returned to Germany as the Soviet troops battled in. Under Soviet advice, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the KPD merged to form one party – the German Socialist Unity Party (SED), in April 1946. Stalin had several meetings with its’ leaders. By 1951‑52, thousands of inhabitants of the GDR were leaving across the open inner‑German borderlines in Berlin. The East Berlin government turned the freely passable East‑West German border into a guarded border in May 1952. During 1952, more than 232,000 GDR residents went West.

Stalin clearly disapproved of the policies of the GDR leaders. He warned them that they were undergoing a rapid rate of collectivization, and alienating all the layers of society from peasants, to workers to intellectuals. He also advised them that it was incorrect not to continue to work for a unified German state. Finally, he specifically advised that the GDR was not to be considered a socialist state. He used the formulation “beginning of socialism”. [All these references are cited in full at the Alliance web site http://www.allianceml.com/STALIN-TXT/STALINTOULBRICHT.htm%5D

“Comrade Stalin says that you should say to your workers:

“We have just entered socialism. This is not full socialism yet, because you have many private capitalists. However, this is the beginning of socialism, a little piece of socialism, and a road to socialism. You should show that you are closer to the workers than Adenauer’s government“.

http://www.allianceml.com/STALIN-TXT/STALINTOULBRICHT.htm

Stalin fought for differentials to reflect that there was a ‘lot of private capitalism’:

“Comrade Stalin …Last time it was found that in the GDR, the ratio of workers’ salary to the salary of engineering and technical personnel was 1: 1.7. That is absolutely incorrect. It will doom your entire industry. . . The engineer is engaged in intellectual work. He must have an apartment, decent furniture; he should not be chasing a piece of bread. He should enjoy a standard of living appropriate for a person who is engaged in intellectual work. “Ibid.

Stalin insisted on voluntary collectivization:

“Comrade Stalin …The kulaks should be encircled, and you should create collective farms around them. In our country, organization of collective farms was going on simultaneously with expropriation of the kulaks. You will not need to do it this way. Let your kulaks sit tight, leave them alone. In addition to the kulaks, you have poor peasants in your villages that live right next to the kulaks. They should be pulled into production cooperatives. … You will see for yourself that peasants will visit those collective farms and watch how life will unfold in a new way. I noticed, said Comrade Stalin, that you do not value peasants in your policy…… Do not force anybody to join; if they want to, good. If they do not, do not force them.” Ibid.

Stalin staunchly advocated German unity:

“You should continue propaganda for German unity in the future. It has a great importance for the education of the people in Western Germany. Now it is a weapon in your hands, and you should always hold it in your hands. We should also continue to make proposals regarding German unity in order to expose the Americans.” Ibid.

These stipulations are pretty concrete and clear. Yet within 3 months of Stalin’s death, Ulbricht turned ultra-left-wards, as noted by US Diplomat N. Spencer Barnes to the State Department on 30 April 1953 (Uprising in East Germany 1953; Compiled by C.Ostermann; Budapest; 2001; p.75)

And criminally so.

Ulbricht launched what has been called the “socialization“ of East Germany. In the way this was carried out, it resulted in the total alienation of all sectors of the population- including the working class and peasantry. There was a clear reversal away from Stalin’s advice, in the polices being adopted in the GDR under the SED:

“In a 2 May 1953 memorandum, Semyonov, …within the Soviet establishment, advised Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov that because “The Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the democratic forces in the GDR have already strengthened and matured enough to manage independently the leadership of the country,” the maintenance of overt political control by the Soviets could be sharply reduced. . . . Thus, in Semyonov’s opinion, there was no need to do anything but “to create more favorable conditions for socialist construction in the GDR.”;
Working Paper #11: The United States, the East German Uprising of 1953, and the Limits of Rollback, by Christian Ostermann http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=441

Ulbricht ensured that a Central Committee resolution on higher quotas for workers was passed, instructing that:

“All necessary steps to remedy the abuse in the sphere of work quotas … and to raise those of importance… by an average of at least 10% by June 1, 1953”;
A. Baring Uprising in East Germany June 17 1953; Cornell 1972; p.21-22

This overall leftist strategy was resisted by Beria. The ground was laid for a revolt, which would play into the hands of the imperialists. Since the death of Stalin, Khrushchev was determined to move the state of the USSR into a position subordinate to USA imperialism. Ulbricht’s policies played into this overall strategy.

The “Beria Plan” to reverse Ulbricht’s Ultra-leftist Policies

Beria tried to reassert Marxist-Leninist control after the death of Stalin. He was aware of the dangerous situation in Germany. On May 27 1953, the Presidium of the Soviet Council of Ministers met to discuss the situation in East Germany. The Council of Ministers, warned of an imminent crisis, and blamed the incorrect polices of the SED. The document is known as the “Beria Document”. It was dated prior to the June 11 rising. [See Council of Ministers of the USSR Order; “On Measures to Improve the Health of the Political Situation in the GDR”; 2 June 1953. No. 7576-rs; Moscow, signed by Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkov. Hereafter: USSR Order 7576-rs. http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=26760

The “Beria Document”, as Ulbricht and the SED called it, was a retreat from ultra-leftist “socialization”, and was forced upon the SED. However, it did not go as far as Beria had wanted. Mainly this was in regards to Beria’s fight to unify Germany:

“Divisions in the Presidium prevented the leaders from making a decision … Molotov reports that Beria tried once more to get him to accept reunification, but when this failed withdrew the proposal…. “Malenkov favored reunification as a neutral country because he considered the division of Germany artificial and contrary to the historical development of that country. . .. Molotov, by contrast, focused on the traitorous character of Beria's proposal ….” Richter, Ibid.

Albeit that USSR Order 7576-rs was not, in its final form, exactly as Beria had hoped, the document was scathing about the SED policies. It bluntly stated that the situation had been created by the serious alienation of the German workers, peasants and intelligentsia, by the “incorrect political line”. This had resulted in a “very unsatisfactory political and economic situation”:

“As a result of the incorrect political line. . . There is serious dissatisfaction with the political and economic measures carried out by the GDR among the broad mass of the population, including the workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia. This finds its clearest expression in the mass flight of the residents of the GDR to West Germany. ..over the course of four months in 1953 alone over 120,000. Many refugees are workers. .. It is remarkable that among those who have fled to West Germany in the course of [the first] four months of 1953, there are 2,718 members and candidates of the SED and 2,610 members of the Free German Youth League. “USSR Order 7576-rs.

It was emphasized that the SED was following ultra-leftist decisions following the Second Conference. The polices flagged as incorrect, included a forcing of the pace of industrialization, and the forced collectivization, as well as simple abuses of restriction of ration cards to “person in the free professions”:

“The social-economic measures which have been carried out … include: the forcible development of heavy industry, which also lacked raw materials; the sharp restriction of private initiative, which harmed the interests of a broad circle of small proprietors both in the city and in the country; and the revocation of food ration cards from all private entrepreneurs and persons in the free professions. In particular, the hasty creation of agricultural cooperatives in the absence of the foundations [necessary] for them in the countryside led to: serious difficulties in the area of supplying the population with manufactured goods and foodstuffs; a sharp fall in the mark’s exchange rate; the ruin of a large number of small entrepreneurs-artisans, workers in domestic industries, and others. It also set a significant stratum of the populace against the existing authorities. The matter has gone so far that at present more than 500,000 hectares of land have been abandoned and neglected, and the thrifty German peasants, usually strongly tied to their plots, have begun to abandon their land and move to West Germany en masse.”
USSR Order 7576-rs.

In addition, serious errors were made in ideological work, especially in regards to the clergy and to the intelligentsia:

“Serious errors have been committed with regard to the clergy, evident in the underestimation of the influence of the church amongst the broad masses of the population and in their crude administrative methods and repression. The underestimation of political work amongst the intelligentsia should also be admitted as a serious mistake…”
USSR Order 7576-rs.

The Order bluntly insists that the SED must acknowledge error, and prescribes remedies:

“All of this creates a serious threat to the political stability of the German Democratic Republic. In order to correct the situation that has been created, it is necessary:
To recognize the course of forced construction of socialism in the GDR, which was decided upon by the SED. as mistaken under current conditions.“
USSR Order 7576-rs.

Largely, the proposed remedies fell into two main categories – either they reversed the ultra-left attacks on the peasantry; or they condemned repressive measures aimed at either the clergy or intelligentsia:“

2. .. to halt the artificial establishment of agricultural production cooperatives, which have proven not to be justified on a practical basis and which have caused discontent among the peasantry; To check carefully all existing agricultural production cooperatives and to dissolve both those which were created on an involuntary basis as well as those which show themselves to be non-viable. . . c) to renounce the policy of limiting and squeezing middle and small private capitalas a premature measure. . . . . To restore food ration cards to private entrepreneurs and. . persons of the free professions.
d) to re-examine the five-year plan for the development of the national economy ofthe GDR with a view to curtailing the extraordinarily intense pace of development of heavy industry and sharply increasing the production of mass consumption goods, as well as fully guaranteeing food for the population in order to liquidate the ration card system of providing foodstuffs in the near future;
f) to take measures to strengthen legality and guarantee the rights of democratic citizens; to abstain from the use of severe punitive measures which are not strictly necessary. To re-examine the files of repressed citizens with the intent of freeing persons who were put on trial on insufficient grounds. To introduce, from this point of view, the appropriate changes in the existing criminal code;
g) . . . To assign special attention to political work among the intelligentsia in order to secure a turnabout by the core mass of the intelligentsia in the direction of active participation in the implementation of measures to strengthen the existing order. At the present and in the near future it is necessary to put the tasks of the political struggle to reestablish the national unity of Germany and to conclude a peace treaty at the center of attention of the broad mass of the German people both in the GDR and in West Germany. At the same time, it is crucial to correct and strengthen the political and economic situation in the GDR and to strengthen significantly the influence of the SED in the broad masses of workers and in other democratic strata of the city and the country. To consider the propaganda carried out lately about the necessity of the GDR’s transition to socialism, which is pushing the party organizations of the SED to unacceptably simplified and hasty steps both in the political and in the economic arenas, to be incorrect. …
h) To put a decisive end to [the use of] naked administrative methods in relation to the clergy…To end the oppression of rank-and-file participants in the religious youth organization “Junge Gemeinde,” moving the emphasis of gravity to political work among them..”
USSR Order 7576-rs.

Finally, there remained lip-service towards German unification:

6. Taking into account the fact that at present the main task is the struggle for the unification of Germany on a democratic and peace-loving basis, the SED and KPD, as the standard-bearers of the struggle for the aspirations and interests of the entire German nation, should ensure the use of flexible tactics directed at the maximum division of their opponents’ forces and the use of any opposition tendencies against Adenauer’s venal clique. For this reason, inasmuch as the Social Democratic Party [SPD] of West Germany, which a significant mass of workers continues to follow, speaks out, albeit with insufficient consistency, against the Bonn agreements, a wholly adversarial position in relation to this party should be rejected in the present period. Instead, it should be attempted, where possible, to organize joint statements against Adenauer’s policy of the division and imperialist enslavement of Germany. “
USSR Order 7576-rs.

The Rising

Although the Ulbricht leadership of the SED resisted, it had to make some retreat. However, it refused to make any retreat on the 10% work increase in norms for the working class. In fact, they were confirmed on June 13. Yet it did make massive improvements in the conditions of the intelligentsia and middle classes – that of itself icreated suspicions. It was called the “New Course”.

“To make matters worse, the only segment of the population which seemed to have been excluded from the concessions of the “New Course” were the workers: the arbitrarily-imposed higher work norms remained in force.“
[Study of the Instigation, Outbreak and Crushing of the Fascist Adventure of 16-22 June 1953], 20 July 1953, Ostermann, Paper 11; Ibid.

Signs were evident from even the 2 June of worker unrest (Report of Sokolovskii, Semyonov & Yudin: In “Uprising in East Germany 1953”; Ostermann ibid; p.258].

The confused sudden retreat, yet with no amelioration of the workers work norms soon triggered worse. On 16 June 1953, hundreds of East Berlin construction workers staged a demonstration, calling for a general strike the next day. Only now did the SED retreat question of work norms. Too late. On 17 June 1953, huge riots (up to 300,000 strong) and protests broke out. Soviet military force was required, to suppress them.

American aims at undermining German unity were enhanced. The Americans carefully refrained from military steps. The provocative Ulbricht strategy, both anti-working class and peasantry – ensured the failure of any attempts at a united German state for the foreseeable period.

“The Eisenhower Administration came to devise a psychological warfare strategy which effectively capitalized on the instability in the GDR. … while undermining any potential Soviet initiative for German unity as well as the new leadership’s “peace offensive,” …, the American response to the East German uprising could best be characterized as a superb exercise in “double-containment.” . . . It undermined Soviet exploitation of German nationalism by squarely keeping Moscow and East Berlin on the defensive while, at the same time, containing German nationalism by boosting the election success of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his policy of “Westintegration.””

http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=441

In the process some 40 were killed (Report of Sokolovskii, Semyonov & Yudin: In Uprising in East Germany 1953; Ed Ostermann ibid; p.284].

The Arrest of Beria

As Andrei Gromyko expressed it:

“Beria’s dismissive judgment of the GDR was enough to get him kicked out of the leadership.”
Gromyko, Memories; p. 317; Cited Amy Knight: Beria Stalin’s First Lieutenant; Princeton; 1993; p. 274.

Molotov later denied the most serious charges against Beria:

“As far as the accusations that Beria was an agent of a foreign country are concerned, they are untrue. He was loyal to the Soviet Union to a fault”. “
An Interview with Molotov “ Literaturuloi Sakartvelo, 27 October 1989; Cited in Knight, Ibid; p. 274.

From 2-7 July the full Central Committee endorsed the arrests of Beria and his supporters.

The fall of Beria, naturally had repercussions in East Germany:
“In East Germany, according to the communist official Heinz Brandt, the news of Beria’s arrest was hailed with satisfaction: ‘With Beria’s fall the scales had been tipped against Hernstadt and Jendretzky and the New Course, and for Walter Ulbricht. .. Beria along with Malenkov, had been the principal initiator of the new course as a policy… the German reformers were now doomed along”: A..Knight, Ibid; p. 216.

Zaisser and Hernstasdt were expelled from the Politburo and the Central Committee, leaving Ulbricht with essentially no rivals. The victory of the revisionist in the East German party was assured.

CONCLUSIONS

The German rising of 1953 was precipitated by the criminal ultra-left policies of the East German SED party. It played right into the hands of the USA imperialists. It achieved the ends of ensuring a divided Germany, and a militarized Western Germany under Adenauer – on behalf of the USA imperialists. Beria tried to stem the tide, but was unable to turn the policies back sufficiently towards the path outlined by Stalin, in his discussion with the SED party leadership. It is difficult not to see Ulbricht as a conscious enemy of the working class of Germany. We will pursue this analysis in further detail in the next issue of Alliance theoretical journal.

Source

Communist Ghadar Party of India: Condemn the murder of Gaddafi and the re-colonisation of Libya!

Statement of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India, 6th November, 2011

The Communist Ghadar Party of India condemns the cold blooded murder of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi by the US-led NATO forces, as part of their unjust and criminal aggression and re-colonisation of that country.

The right to judge, reward or punish a political leader belongs to the people of that country and not to any foreign power. The murder of Gaddafi is an act of blatant violation of the right of Libyans to determine their own destiny.

The NATO forces rained death and destruction on Libya and its people from the air for over seven months. They have ruthlessly destroyed the economic infrastructure of Libya, — the schools, hospitals, highways, telecommunication networks, the irrigation and drinking water network. Countless people have been killed in these seven months. The imperialists of NATO armed their agents in Benghazi. They guided mercenary forces through their intelligence agents on the ground and bombings from the air to crush the people’s resistance to the capture of Libya. The final act of the murder of Gaddafi was also masterminded by the NATO forces. They bombed with sophisticated drones and fighters a cavalcade of vehicles of Colonel Gaddafi, which was leaving his home town of Serte. The NATO forces ensured the capture of Colonel Gaddafi followed by his brutal execution by their agents, without any trial of any kind.

For over seven months, Obama of the United States, Cameron of Britain, Sarkozy of France and Merkel of Germany have been calling for the blood of Gaddafi. They arrogantly rejected the proposals of the African Union and various Latin American governments to assist in a negotiated settlement of the Libyan crisis. They have now declared that the murder of Gaddafi marks a “new beginning” for a “democratic” Libya. The peoples of the world can have no illusions on this score.

The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq have direct experience of the “regime changes” carried out in their countries in the name of promoting “democracy”, through brutal aggression, assassinations and wars of occupation. They have seen the rape and plunder of their land, labour and resources, and the murder of countless patriots in the course of the aggression and occupation. What has happened to Iraq and Afghanistan is what is being promised to the Libyan people under the signboard of democracy. What is going to be implemented is the cold-blooded colonial and imperialist plan to recolonise Libya and establish foreign imperialist control over its rich natural resources, particularly oil. This recolonisation will be carried out through the offices of a puppet regime that is being put into place.

The actions of the US-led NATO coalition in Libya confirm that these imperialist powers do not respect the fundamental premise of the foundation of the UN in the course of the Second World War in which the fascist aggressors were defeated — that the sovereignty of each people and country is inviolable, and each country has the right to follow its own economic and political system, free from outside dictate. The US-led imperialist coalition of NATO has arrogated to itself the right to refashion a new global order in which all countries and peoples must accept their unquestioned dictate.

The imperialist powers are trying to make people accept that the right of nations to self-determination, a principle established and agreed upon internationally in the 20th century, can be violated for “humanitarian” reasons. They use their control over the media to paint whosoever they select as being the biggest threat to humanity, so as to justify blatant aggression and violation of national sovereignty. All political parties and organisations of the working class and peoples must unite in defence of the right of nations and peoples to self-determination. We cannot and must not accept any violation of this right under any pretext.

The murder of Gaddafi and the recolonisation of Libya are a message to the African peoples that the Anglo-American imperialists and other European powers are initiating a new scramble for the recolonisation and redivision of Africa. It poses a grave threat to the freedom and independence of all the African countries.

The peoples and governments in our subcontinent must wake up to the reality and threats to peace and independence in our region, where US imperialism has violated the sovereignty of Iraq and Afghanistan, and is openly threatening Iran and Pakistan.

We must resolutely defend the sovereignty of every state, nation and people, and contribute to the struggle to stay the hands of all imperialist aggressors. An attack on one is an attack on all!

Let us demand that the Government of India must not give legitimacy to the re-colonisation of Libya by western imperialist powers in the guise of building democracy.

Source

Revolutionary Communist Party of Côte d’Ivoire: The PCRCI denounces the attack against the Libyan People and the Assassination of Qaddafi by NATO

The intervention of the hawkish coalition led by France, Britain and the United States of America has just led to the assassination of Qaddafi October 20, 2011 after the overthrow of his regime. Following this plan, the authors pretend to be embarrassed. Neither the NATO command, nor the French, English, American, or their creation, the National Transitional Council (CNT) dare take on the assassination. After Jubilee October 20, 2011 with the announcement of the death of the former Libyan leader, French President Sarkozy made ​​step back in October 21, 2011 stating that no one can rejoice in the death of another . The Secretary General of the UN, meanwhile, hailed a “historic transition for Libya,” October 20, 2011. The story will assess the “history” of such an act of aggression.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, the October 21 request for an investigation. Why this seeming embarrassment? The imperialist powers want to reduce the general feeling of disgust widespread among African people, shedding crocodile tears. Yet it is impossible to hide the fact that a mission intended to protect human lives ended in a flood of blood with a bonus, an act against the person of Gaddafi akin to a war crime. Every reason to believe that Gaddafi was captured and then coldly shot. Although people were afraid of compromising revelations certainly Gaddafi court. The Libyan people he had undertaken to get rid of its dictator, Qadhafi? This is possible, but the seizure of power by the CNT focused at arm’s length by NATO that led from start to finish the battle for the Libyan regime change is far from embodying the interests of the Libyan people who will soon not realizing it.

It is clear that the NATO intervention aimed to prevent the contagion of revolution Tunisia to Libya. If the Libyan people had really begun to take steps to make the revolution, it comes from him being stolen. The revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people is just beginning because it is misleading to call the coup revolution of NATO and the CNT, which has served as an alibi. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Côte d’Ivoire is engaged with the Ivorian people for the democratic revolution against imperialism and is ready to provide support to similar initiatives elsewhere in Africa and the world. He denounces so this imperialist aggression against the Libyan people and condemns the cowardly assassination of Muammar Gaddafi.

Abidjan
October 23, 2011
The Central Committee

PCMLV: The Bolshevik Revolution: 94 years, Present & Necessary

At 94 years of the October revolution, the proletarians of all countries should follow the glorious example of those days where workers “took heaven by assault.”

Introduction

This article is a chronological description of the events of the October Revolution, as we believe that there is already enough material in publications such fraternal parties. What we propose is to mark the importance, relevance of the Bolshevik Revolution and the term with Marxist-Leninist ideas in our time. Our days are marked by the intensification of the contradictions between capital and labor, for the inter-imperialist contradictions and contradictions between imperialist countries and dependent countries.

Such a situation is posed by Stalin in Foundations of Leninism, which leads us to conclude without doubt that the origin of the revolutionary processes of popular democracy that lived in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world is more relevant than ever. Imperialism is a dead end, the objective conditions for revolution are at a historic high larger because of the incredible growth of productive forces in the last decades of last century and early today.

The media (mass media) as ideological agents of the ruling classes, made desperate efforts to attack and pronounced dead the ideas of Marxism as fascist governments Putin-Medvedev duo in the current Russian imperialist struggle so cross a murderer desperate to Comrade Stalin, even falsifying historical documents, capturing with Stalin’s signature stamp on alleged murder warrants that never existed. This, without doubt, do not try to attack the personality of Joseph Stalin alone, but also goes far beyond the ideology of Marxism and Leninism flags raised with such dignity that Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich.

We know all the importance that the work of Stalin in Russia’s industrial development in the construction of socialism, under his leadership and the party and Soviet power in general, laid the groundwork for what is industrially today’s Russia ( considering that the industrial level of Russia today, is nowhere close to that of the 80′s). Along with all the development that was achieved in these important decades of socialism, are the immense social achievements. The claim for these benefits won in the Stalin era and today limited abrogated and violated by capitalist-state agencies, is what causes terror to the bourgeois democrats who rule Russia. They know that not to attack the Soviet social gesture would be in serious trouble with the Russian workers. This working class maintained an extraordinary potential, therefore, the Russian working class is a time bomb that has the capitalists running from one place to another alarm, knowing the history more militant workers who established the first socialist state, the the Soviet state and were (obviously still are) a great example for humanity.

But the revolutionary situation not only lived in Russia but in many countries hit by the effects of bourgeois crisis. The weakest links in the imperialist chain are in a really agitated political situation, especially the most vulnerable economies in Europe.

…

Past events, often as a reminder chronological study, at best, as general knowledge, the certainty of not relive similar situations is a daily occurrence in the history as we know it. Who could think of a new Napoleon or a Robertspierre restoring greatness to the bourgeoisie, along with a new and enriched edition of “social contract” of Rousseau, I thought it would be unreasonable and backward due to the fact that the bourgeoisie is exhausted as a class. However, something very different happens when we look at the Russian Revolution, its context and its relevance to modern times and most importantly, with the scientific method of historical materialism, where there are individuals who make history but the masses.

That said, we can analyze the existing bourgeois mode of production, which at the time of the Russian Revolution (and long before), had entered a new stage called imperialism that Lenin aptly called “highest and final stage of capitalism.” The nature of imperialism in our time is the same as in 1917, rests on the exploitation of the working class and represents the world dictatorship of the monopolies. For this reason, the workers’ revolutionary struggle against capitalism is not a dream but a necessity than a continuation of the epic scale of the Russian workers, and this is due to the evils of the past century Russia are same as those of any country today. Imperialism is a worldwide chain of oppression and how to kill it is by way of revolutionary violence by the method of Marxism-Leninism.

Little more than 20 years since the Soviet Union collapsed, the bourgeoisie angry celebrated with joy. In the north, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the end of ideology and history. Communism was declared dead and from now on only be determined by the progress of the world were the technologies, the free market. A “new world order” decreed that communism was an evil overcome and not repeat such a phenomenon.

The overflowing of the bourgeois idealism, soon dropped from the clouds and stepped ashore. In East Germany, social enterprises were absorbed and carried into bankruptcy by private monopolies West Germany, while health, education and all services during the Soviet era were for the benefit of the people were now privatized, in Russia was the same. This short period gave a sense of relative rise of capitalism since the great Russian market was opening up to capital investment, but the wave of immigration began to be felt, the former Soviet republics were broken up, the economic and industrial as tenth world power of the mighty East Germany (GDR) is rapidly transformed into that of an underdeveloped country.

Unemployment, poverty, hunger and other phenomena previously unknown in Eastern Europe begin to intertwine with the heinous vices, moral and social ills deviations of the West (drugs, alcohol, prostitution, organized mafias, speculation, Christianity, etc). The result is we live in today. The severe economic recession in Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America and Africa, which threatens to become depressed and that is an expression of the general crisis of capitalism, is part of a time bomb about to explode, the rivalries between the imperialist powers are sharpened and powerful new imperialist economies like China are profiled. The winds of war are rising worldwide.

The general crisis of capitalism that afflicts different countries in all continents tends to flare up, in a framework of imperialist aggression against sovereign peoples. The workers seem to have come from the lethargy experienced after the fall of the USSR and now, with the inability of the capitalist system to improve the living conditions of the masses, they seek alternatives. Social movements currently rising in many countries of Europe and even in the United States, (angry) despite fight poverty and poor living conditions they are forced to endure capitalism, have no political compass tells them how to get out of the bourgeois system operator. Rather, show spontaneity and disorganization, however, is this a sign of the decay of the system.

One can only ask: Is this coincidence? No similar situation was experienced between 1910 and 1914 which brought the world to the slaughter of the First World War. The same situation was experienced in the 1930s before the second world imperialist war with the “Great Depression” of 1928. It is here where we can find a scientific way today and the need for a proletarian revolution dialectically, repeat the events of Russia 94 years ago, but on a larger scale, on a planetary scale starting with the weakest links capitalism are in Latin America and Europe.

A little history

On November 7 (October 25 on the Julian calendar), 1917, decreed “all power to the Soviets,” the Bolshevik Party led by the great Lenin led the Russian working class to seize political power, began the first socialist revolution in the history of mankind. Nationalization of the banks and industry, expropriation of the bourgeoisie, rights as never before seen in human history: legalization of abortion, free education, equality between legitimate and illegitimate children, separation of church and state, etc. ., Russia’s economic base was removed and destroyed, so sweeping, radical social superstructure hitherto known.

The imperialist powers, stunned and exhausted they could not stand idly by and, despite having left a devastating war between them (World War), were not willing to tolerate a revolution that threatened the foundations of the capitalist system. Cease fighting between the great powers, and now all joined their guns silhouetted against Soviet Russia. The First World War changed contenders, now all against the state of the workers.

The direct foreign military intervention (armies of 14 countries including the U.S. Britain and France), assaulted the young workers’ republic in order to overthrow the Soviet power. The ultra-reactionary White armies plunged the country into a bloody civil war led by fascist Aleksandr Kolchak, Anatoly Pepelyayev, Anton Denikin, Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, among others. But the Red Army overcame the difficulties one by one internal and external armies were defeated by Soviet forces. The death toll caused by the imperialist intervention in the USSR is unknown, it is estimated that the figures exceeded ten million. Despite the victory of the Red Army that remained was a country in ruins, with no means of production and without wheat, a famine caused by the fascists threatened to undo the Soviet state coupled with icy winters in the history of that country. All this, together with the early death of the great Lenin did not prevent the continuation of the great advance of the proletariat.

After Lenin’s death, began squabbling factions that had formed within the party. Bukharin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Radek and traitors among other reformers fought the lead, tried by all means to divide the Party of Lenin and maintain the old relations of production and obsolete military-feudal, but the party decided overwhelmingly address Joseph Stalin on October 27, 1926. Since that time, the Soviet Union played, or industrializing or be destroyed by imperialism, Russia was half a century of lagging behind other developed countries, they needed a plan, and the plan was carried out magnificently.

Commissioned to continue the work of Comrade Stalin was Lenin, who in an incredibly short, managed to build together the party and workers, scientific socialism. Was developed heavy and light industry, became industrialized, collectivized Tecnifar and the field, the former exploiting classes (bourgeoisie and landlords) were exterminated by the working people. This enabled the country to achieve development by leaps and bounds without the obstacle that represents the parasitism and obsolete bourgeois private property in land and the means of production.

On the social side, the workers won important victories, now all the people had the right to own private property that had been denied individual, abused and raped by capitalism, the right to have houses, cars, and all the amenities that allow to be develop human creative potential to the fullest. The workers were struggling in their job tasks and work voluntary overtime (Saturday communists) with the greatest enthusiasm, knowing that now was for the development of their homeland and not to the pocket of a handful of bourgeois parasites.

The first step was to purge the party of reform and right-wing elements in order to have a solid foundation for future action. Thus was fought as Trotskyism, an arm of the intelligence services Germano-Japanese to finally defeat him in the clearance of so-called Moscow Trials in 1936. With the certainty of keeping the enemy at bay internal anti (Trotskyism), and after having destroyed the organized workers at the forefront with the powerful Communist and Soviet apparatus executed five-year plans, put them into practice.

…

Russia in the early twentieth century, was a semi-feudal country, backward, and with 94% of the population in a state of illiteracy. The tools used in the field were the most rudimentary of Europe, agriculture techniques were the same as the seventeenth century, only some cities and towns had electricity, not for nothing, said Lenin, “Socialism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country. ” To this we add the ravages of war and the blockade imposed on them by the imperialists.

The country lost in time, contrasts, and in 1950 had a solid industry, with a surprising development in the sciences (genetics, chemistry, biology, etc..), Science (the first country to put a satellite into orbit and the first man in space), in the military area, reached almost invincible defeat the German Wermarch (Hitler’s army), the industry of a medieval level went on to become one of the largest in the world, the field is Tecnifar and collectivized the land, the improvements in living standards were amazing. (Read “Balance of the first Five Year Plan” of Joseph Stalin).

The capitalists were stunned, what they had taken 300 or 400 years to build, the USSR succeeded in less than 30 and more surprisingly, no need to exploit and plunder other nations as did the Western powers. They spoke of “a miracle”, the Soviet miracle.

We should not be a miracle or anything like that, but a successful socialist plan. Capitalism can never match that task, but a strong party supported the working class and in the extermination of the bourgeoisie and the landlords as a class, the centralization of credit and the absolute monopoly of industry, commerce and banking may well achieve that development. Only under scientific socialism is possible in improving the living conditions of mankind, no middle class in power has been able to carry out such a feat, only the working class in power, only under the dictatorship of the proletariat can . The working class has been so outraged and have been labeled as uneducated, we show that in a few decades we can do more than any bourgeois democratic government “cult.”

In that sense, not the bourgeoisie and imperialists were able to deny such a degree of development of the proletariat organized bourgeois newspaper Le Temps de France published in summer 1932 in an article “Communism huge rate peaks at the stage of restructuring, in the capitalist system must go slowly … In France, where land ownership is divided into infinity between private owners, it is impossible to mechanize agriculture, the soviets (workers councils), the industrialization of agriculture, have been able to solve this problem … The Bolsheviks won the game we have. ” (Quoted by Stalin in “Balance of the first Five Year Plan”)

At that time, the bourgeoisie had no choice but to accept the superiority of socialism over capitalism. The expropriation and collectivization of land, the mechanization and industrialization of the countryside and thereby phasing out the differences between this and the city, are the most successful actions if we leave the technical backwardness and get the much needed food sovereignty. Under the bourgeois framework, all these hopes will be only a fiction for the simple fact that they do not see private agricultural production as a way of contributing to the community, but as a means for profit.

It is shown that the industrialization of the USSR, the development of the country in every sense is that since the state was not the same, the economic base and not controlling them, all that was achieved because those who were ruled workers and the bourgeoisie, otherwise would have been objectively impossible.

The collapse of the USSR

In 1953, the leader dies conducted by the party and the working people to build socialism, Joseph Stalin, who only months before his death, spoke of a deviation within the Communist Party of the USSR, and that such diversion His plan would consolidate the Soviet Union by way of the restoration of capitalism. Stalin could not carry out its plan to purge the party again deviant elements, since his death prevented it.

That was how the theories of Leninism nourished by the valuable contributions of Comrade Stalin, the class struggle, expropriation without compensation to the landowners and the bourgeoisie, industrialization, the single line in the match squad for the traitors to the proletarian cause, planning of the economy, were declared by Nikita Jhrushov as an aberration. The current pro-capitalist opportunist and to which Stalin wanted to eliminate, triumphed and established himself in power. It was the beginning of the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Jhruschov developed its coup plan stating that criticized Stalin’s mistakes in order to “restore Leninism.” Gorbachev made the same demagogic promises to mislead the leftist forces, the result has been that we have today, under the pretext of restoring Leninism, has come to tsarism, under the pretext of “improving the community” has risen to capitalism.

In 1956, Jhrushov, leader of the anti-presented to the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the U.S. His infamous “secret report”, which would lay the foundations of capitalist restoration in the country in which organized workers exercised power in times of Lenin and Stalin.

Thus, in the late 1980′s and early 1990, revisionism Jhrushov planted in 1956 and other traitors, had germinated in all spheres of political life of the organ of the Soviet state. The representative of this opportunism was Mikhail Gorbachev, who, during the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution gave a speech rejecting the anti-imperialist struggle and asserted that imperialism had renounced his violent character in a globalized world in which the Soviet Union, the USA and other countries could cooperate for the common interest of the survival of humanity. XXVIII Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR broke with all the basic principles of Marxism and Leninism, the way was cleared for the final blow.

Yeltsin Yananiev and representatives of capitalism in the Soviet Union, showing the most rancid proclaimed a Russian chauvinism and capitalism only detached from the other Soviet republics, quickly, after this, the attack was general, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, Ukraine and proclamations made other separatist republics. In 1989 the retaining wall fell in Berlin anti-fascist and next to him, all hope of the proletariat in these countries.

Indeed, despite the deviant nature and totally reform of these regimes, much of the working class and people in general still believed in them. There is a myth spread among the bourgeois liberals, neo-revolutionaries, and other species sigloventiuneros anti-Marxist, that the Soviet government was not defended by anyone, that the workers did not come to defend their conquests and reaction and fascism obstacles had to retake power in the end “as Peter came by his house.”

This argument does not correspond at all with reality and does nothing but flirt with the anti-bourgeois propaganda. It is one thing not to leave the working people to defend their conquests and quite another is that the means of the bourgeoisie in the midst of his ecstasy reactionary not transmit any of it, or did we forget the events of 2002 in Venezuela and role of the media?, the difference is that our country could not move right and it came out to defend the government by the masses, otherwise, have won the right in our country, in many countries around the world think about Venezuela as well as you think the role of the masses in the fall of the USSR.

In eastern Germany, the masses took to the streets and were crushed by the reactionaries with unprecedented brutality, massacres that went unpunished and forgetting the complacency of the UN and love the look of the bourgeois media. In Russia, we remember the episode known as the “black October”, where workers were defending the last bastion of workers’ power, the Supreme Soviet and the Council of People’s Commissars.

Boris Yeltsin tried to consolidate power, capitalism could not move as desired for the imperialist powers to the coup leaders who demanded the application of neoliberal policies, the main obstacles were the Congress of People’s Commissars and the Supreme Soviet. Yeltsin’s neoliberal decrees were illegitimate and illegal, it went against Soviet constitution in force until then, what Yeltsin proceeded to complete its coup of shamelessly, ordered the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the Board of Commissioners People and illegally proclaimed a new constitution.

The conference as stipulated in the Soviet laws were not repealed, rejected the presidential decree and ordered the immediate dismissal of Yeltsin as president, who refused and ignored the Soviet and the Council. Public protests against Yeltsin’s government took to the streets in Moscow. In the repression of these there were several deaths, the blood flowed in the streets as a sign that democracy does not allow “troublemakers.”

The army, under the control of Yeltsin, determined the end of the crisis. Deputies and hundreds of workers locked themselves in the building of the Supreme Soviet, and prepared to resist the siege of the forces under control of the deposed president. The week after popular protests against Yeltsin and Soviet support was growing. Peaked on October 2, 1993. Russia was on the verge of a civil war that threatened the capitalist restore Soviet power. At that point, the military leadership showed their support for the deposed president and he ordered the evacuation of Soviet force. Yeltsin’s order to materialize by bombardment by tanks and artillery of the headquarters building of popular sovereignty. The Supreme Soviet was destroyed and many of its occupants, workers and representatives of popular sovereignty, were killed in the attack.

For the October 5 Yeltsin resistance had been destroyed, a slaughter of unknown proportions occurred in many cities of Russia. The conflict, the conflict was the most serious happened in Moscow since the Russian Revolution of October 1917. The number of dead and missing remains a mystery.

This is to name the most emblematic cases, but they were the only ones in Romania, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia) and all countries of the former USSR, the masses came out to defend the October Revolution, which they considered the Lenin’s legacy. This shatters the malicious words of some modern intellectuals about the revolutionary consciousness of the working class. Although these schemes were diverted to mid-twentieth century, the masses were convinced that capitalism would mean the destruction of working class interests.

Conclusion

The capitalists and the bourgeoisie all over the world celebrated to the utmost the fall of fascism retaining wall and the Soviet Union. The ideas of Marxism-Leninism are currently under attack in the media and in all spheres of bourgeois life as churches and university classrooms, are rated as worthless and unworkable putting in evidence the collapse of the USSR.

We must make clear that the fall of the anti-fascist resistance and the USSR is not the failure of Marxism-Leninism, but the review, a plan devised by imperialism to destroy the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat away from Leninism and Marxism to give way to capitalism. The collapse of the statues of Stalin in 1956, was justified with the excuse to return to Leninism in 1991, the collapse of the statues of Lenin was the result of this “return to Leninism.”

The dictatorship of the proletariat is a fundamental requirement for the construction of socialism. Without this power, you can not take a socialist revolution. With this power, Lenin was able to decree the nationalization of land and property of the exploiting classes, and take control of the economy. We can not conceive that we want to fool with a socialist course built at the base of the bourgeois framework.

In that sense, we must remember the attitude of Lenin and the Bolsheviks to the bourgeois framework of development. Exercising the proletarian dictatorship, the Bolsheviks dissolved in January 1918 the Constituent Assembly, who had been elected after the October Revolution but was dominated by the Social-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, because the assembly refused to ratify the Bill of Rights and exploited working people. Later, the Bolsheviks banned the bourgeois parties because they were parties committed to counter-violence and civil war, and because they collaborated with foreign interventionists. Examples like these should have them very much present at the time of the construction of socialism, the class enemy must be destroyed, the two antagonistic classes can not converge on a single system of government.

The class dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing more than an expression of state power necessary to destroy and replace the power of state or class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and thus carry out the socialist revolution and prevent recovery of control over society by the counter. The dictatorship of the proletariat, is both a democracy and proletarian democracy for the working people, the masses of workers and peasants. Without the exercise of the proletarian dictatorship against their class enemies, the proletariat and working people can not enjoy democracy for themselves. The proletarian dictatorship is the result of the highest form of democracy within a society divided into classes, is in short account, the revolutionary process that overthrew the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It is the guarantee of genuine democracy to the oppressed and exploited class against enemies internal and external, local exploiting classes and the imperialists. These principles were abandoned by the Soviet clique from Jhrushov to Gorbachev and replaced by a cartoon called by them “state of all the people or popular”, that is the reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Today more than ever, the ideas of Marxism-Leninism are being studied by workers around the world, the misery of the masses, relative overproduction crises in general, the failure of capitalism, the infeasibility of the system of imperialism bring the world down the path of progress. All this is proof today of the ideas of Leninism. The Soviet experience of the Bolsheviks should serve as an example for future battles for the construction of socialism and communism.

When the bourgeoisie speaks of the end of communism, in fact we are talking about the failure of revisionism to assert their hatred of the great work done by Lenin, the Bolsheviks and the Russian proletariat in October 1917. By doing this, they think more in the future than in the past. The bourgeoisie wants to deceive us by telling us that Marxism-Leninism is dead forever, but he does because he knows perfectly that this is a great vitality and topicality.

After 22 years since the fall of the USSR, all the contradictions of capitalism are more heightened than ever. A window dreadful hunger, poverty, unemployment, war, economic recession, it opens in the face of workers in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia and bows on their shoulders, only Marxism-Leninism is able to show what is the only way out. Only Marxism-Leninism can bring the working masses in the capitalist world and the oppressed and dependent weapons for their release. All the fuss about the end of communism, which is to disarm attempt (with the vision set in the great struggles to come) to the oppressed masses worldwide.

The workers and proletarians should be aware that now is the time that we must raise the banner of Marxism-Leninism, the flags of the Bolsheviks, follow the example of the October Revolution of 1917 where the proletariat organized as a communist vanguard under the direction of Lenin and Stalin conquered political power, to build socialism, establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat against the exploiters, landlords and landowners. That’s the only way to build socialism, no other.