Greece's two main unions GSEE (the General Confederation of Greek Workers) - ADEDY (the Civil Servants' Confederation)announced a new general strike on June 29.
The Movement for the Reorganisation of the KKE 1918-55 supports the strikes and has released posters, flyers, etc. to support the struggle.
From BBC
Stalin statue taken away
Authorities in Georgia have taken down a statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that stood in the central square of Gori, his hometown.
The six metre (20ft) bronze statue was removed unannounced from its plinth in the middle of the night.
The statue will be moved to a museum in Gori dedicated to Stalin, said the head of the city council, Zviad Khmaladze.
It will be replaced by a monument for the victims of Georgia's 2008 war with Russia.
Gori was bombed by Russian forces during the brief conflict in August 2008.
A journalist told Reuters news agency that police had tried to prevent reporters from filming the removal of the statue.
"A new monument dedicated to victims of the Russian aggression will be erected" in the central square, said Mr Khmaladze.
Subject of debate
The statue of Stalin had stood in central Gori since the early 1950s, and many of the town's residents have remained proud of the former Soviet leader.
In pictures: Stalin taken down
It is thought to have been the sole large-scale statue of Stalin still standing in its original position in the former Soviet Union.
But there are several smaller busts on display, some unveiled as recently as May amid celebrations for the 65th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany.
After Georgia gained independence in 1991, crowds tore down statues of Stalin and Lenin across the country, but hundreds of people gathered in Gori and refused to let the statue there be touched.
Recently, the fate of the statue has been a subject of debate in Georgia, with supporters of the pro-Western "Rose Revolution" that brought President Mikhail Saakashvili to power in 2004 arguing for its removal.
Joseph Stalin was born to a modest family in Gori in 1879.
Though he was not a decisive figure in the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, he quickly rose through the ranks of the Communist Party after the revolution, securing his position as undisputed leader in the years after Lenin's death in 1924.
His forced collectivisation of agriculture cost millions of lives, while thousands were executed and millions sent into exile during purges in the 1930s.
Soviet authorities moved to dismantle the cult around Stalin in the period of "de-Stalinisation" that followed his death.
There are still many statues of Lenin across the former Soviet Union, as well as a mausoleum to the former leader in Moscow.
CLASS UNITY OF ALL PROLETARIANS AGAINST ABJECTION
BROAD ANTIFASCIST FRONT AGAINST RACIST ATTACKS
The great deception
According to the results of the 2001 census, the number of immigrants in Greece amounted to 762.191 people, the 391.764 of which were employed, in their majority hired (88,9% in the total of employed foreigners).
The Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) claims in a 2004 research on the issue: “According to our estimations, the actual number of immigrants and repatriates is over 1 million (850.000 legal and approximately 200.000 “irregular” immigrants), corresponding to 9% of the overall population, and above 12% of Greece’s labour force.”
“Foreigners take our jobs” – they “increase” unemployment! This is one, among others, and great LIE, for foreign workers neither “take” the jobs, nor increase UNEMPLOYMENT: The local CAPITAL is the one that “takes the jobs,”, that is, it destroys “employment places” by closing down businesses because of: a) the antagonism between businesses leading many of them to bankruptcy and workers to UNEMPLOYMENT, b) the deep economic crisis – inevitable within capitalism – which, in its turn, leads to massive bankruptcies of business and as a consequence to massive UNEMPLOYMENT, C) the closing down of businesses for speculative reasons (loans, etc.) or their transfer to our countries with cheap labour, with both developments “generating” unemployment.
Therefore, it is local (as well as foreign) CAPITAL the one that exclusively and solely “takes” the jobs from local and foreign workers: the one that destroys hundreds of thousands of employment positions with the closing down of businesses, thus increasing massive UNEMPLOYMENT with many hundreds of thousands young unemployed people.
Our class brothers and sisters, who supposedly “take” the jobs of the locals and supposedly increase unemployment, in reality:
Contribute to GDP increase, in levels that during the period of Olympic works, of the great “growth”-looting by the capitalist, reached an increase owing exclusively to their own work, in levels of 2,3% (!), according to data by EKKE.
1/3 of those working to Olympic construction works were foreign. In the construction industry, in particular, they represent 4/10 of working people, with salaries and working conditions of unskilled workers, overtime not paid, despite the fact that in certain specialties (stockade, ironmongery) they are particularly skilled and experienced. They are paid cheap – with the current abjection of the proletariat as a result of the bankruptcy of capitalist-dependent Greece – they reach levels of servitude (below 30 Euros) – they do not get pension credits, their need forces them to generate additional absolute surplus value with flexible work schedules, they work without basic observance even of those rotten capitalist measures concerning work safety and hygiene.
At worksites, they are forced not to wear even means of individual protection, that is, helmets, gloves, anti-slippery shoes, etc. The result of non-providing protective equipments, the non-observance of any security measures, and exhaustion due to the extension of work schedules is the heavy toll they are taking. 70% of deadly accidents at Olympic works were immigrants, and only in 2002, 40 immigrants lost their lives at the construction field. During the period of the great looting of the Olympiad, big contractors were seeking much and cheap labour force, and they were finding, by squeezing and wiping out immigrant workers. It can be easily understood that the devaluation of work, that now is a rule for the entire working class, was initially tested and applied upon immigrant workers, as if they were guinea-pigs. Their cheap labour is certainly the result of capitalists blackmailing workers who cannot afford to live, with the joint responsibility of ALL workers’ patrons who do not accept immigrants as equivalents into the trade-union movement. Today, in the vortex of bankrupt capitalist Greece this time, immigrants “do not take the jobs of local workers.”
On the one hand, the number of so-called “illegal” workers has gradually and dramatically reduced mainly in the last two years, not so much because of their incomplete “legalization,” but mainly due to the inexistence of jobs, which forces them to leave the country. According to the research “Estimation of the mass of foreigners residing illegally in Greece,” carried out on behalf of the Institute of Immigration Policy, with professor Theodoros Lianos as scientific supervisor, in April 2008 the number of illegal immigrants ranges from 172.259 to 209.402. This number, being that of undocumented immigrants had decreased significantly in respect to the approximately 700.000 of the past decade, and has gained bursting proportions in the last two years. (This is one more answer to fascist and crypto-fascist voices that are trembling at the thought of the country’s “dehellenization”). As for those immigrants who are staying behind, capitalists push sultrily downwards their already low day’s wages (unpensioned day’s wages of even 20 Euros), leading them against their “old” comrades from Albania, former USSR, etc.
The immigrants, who supposedly “take our jobs,” are occupied at about 31% in agriculture, according to data of the reactionary 1996 research “The Political Economy of Illegal Immigration,” by L. Katseli, G. Lianos, and A. Sarris. And this is the general rule for any menial job, of intensive labour, where Greeks are not willing to do it. In the primary sector in particular, immigrants not only do not take the jobs of Greeks, but in the contrary and according to facts, their presence rescues whole backward areas from the further decrease of production, hunger and eventually the definitive standstill, and this keeps “open” the employment positions of Greek workers as well. In some cases, their work in the agricultural field generates “employment positions,” as, for example, in agricultural products light processing, regardless of the fact that the widespread capitalist crisis does not provide such prospects at the moment. At the same time, the generation of employment positions in rural areas led not only to the revival of these areas’ financial activity, but also to the increase of the income of many Greeks who exploited wildly the immigrants’ labour forces. Furthermore, in some of those areas, such as the strawberry fields of Manolada, immigrants were subjected to violent racist attacks when they demanded humane working conditions. In any case, and according to data of the last census, the economic productive position of rural areas is directly proportional to the number of immigrants being occupied in those areas. And this is happening during a period that, with the responsibility of EU imperialists and their Greek servants, “between 1996 and 2007, the agricultural income in Greece dropped at 24%, while the respective average of EU-27 is on a stable increase, and in the period 2001-2007 it increased at 5%,” as stated by the EU Agriculture Commissioner mrs. Boel.
In general, our class brothers and sisters are occupied in positions where no job offer, and consequently no antagonism with Greek workers, exists, such as in cleaning services, where the case of the fighter Kouneva illuminated the sordid/mafia-like working conditions (medieval “worker hiring”), and also in watching the elderly and the sick, filling gaps that the average working family could not have handled without help, in the current and ever-worsening “healthcare” of the insurance funds that are deep in debt due to capitalist looting (again with unpensioned work, without insurance and 14 salaries). It is still relevant to mention what even reactionary technocrats-lackeys of capital admit regarding the positive effect of immigrants on the insurance system, not only because of their numbers, but also with the fact of their small average age, since they contribute financially, without still taking advantage of it in the least.
The importance of the immigrants’ young age in relation to the aforementioned appears also in researches proving how much they―young people―contribute to an aged country by providing age “oxygenation”:
NATIONAL STATISTICAL SERVICE OF GREECE 2008: CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS, PERSONS OF FOREIGN NATIVITY 540.345 PERSONS (6.5% OF GREEK POPULATION), EARLIER RESEARCH OF THE INSTITUTE OF GREEK DIASPORA EDUCATION AND INTERCULTURAL STUDIED (IPODE) 123.839 FOREIGN STUDENTS IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Regarding so-called “illegal immigration,” on the one hand the fact that first and foremost immigrants are political refugees uprooted by the imperialists’ “rush to war” in the conditions of the decay of capitalism, and certainly that our particular class brothers and sisters certainly do not increase unemployment by selling CDs and handkerchiefs in corners and traffic lights. The Greek state’s participation in the imperialist slaughters of NATO and the Americans, by sending troops to Afghanistan and former Yugoslavian regions ought to be mentioned here. This participation makes the Greek state responsible as well for forcing human beings to become refugees (“illegal immigrants), and compels it, due to its real aid to the imperialists’ atrocities, to legalize all humans who were forced to be uprooted from their homelands.
Fascists, who accuse untruly immigrants of the criminality characteristic of themselves, force people to live without water, toilets, basic healthcare, and along with the fascist persecutions, they “forget” one detail revealed by the UN High Commission and UNESCO – compelled to do so by the self-evident case and macabre findinds – the sudden disappearance of “traffic light kids” shortly before the atrocious fiesta of the Olympics. The massacres in Epirus and Albania were discovered along with warehouses of children’s organs in Italy. What happened to this crime? Did an investigation ever take place for this 21st century Dachau?
Regarding the criminality of all those that force immigrants to that direction, the truth has an objection concerning fascist psychoses. Data according to a recent research entitled “Immigration and criminality: Myths and reality” by the Institute of Political Sociology of the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) (2007, supervised by Ioanna Tsinganou) shows that in 2007, 80.2% of crimes of every nature were committed by Greeks and 19.8% by foreigners, and actually mentions word for word that “the general rule, however, is that [immigrants] are being arrested for crimes such as thefts or robberies, the impact of which is strong in civilians’ every day life, reinforcing the sense of insecurity.”
The immigration bill and the nationalist atrocities of the social democratic “Communist” Party of Greece (“K”KE) – The necessity for the unity of the working class
The working class is uniform. When you want to confront the drop of day’s wages constantly sought by the capitalists, when you want to confront the new measures of the absolute abjection of the whole working class, you do not separate and, most of all, suppress the weakest part of the working class that can become the victim of capitalists and work for a slice of bread. On the contrary, you unite the class, Greek and foreign workers, as well as the unemployed, who are remembered by social democrats of any kind only in order to get involved in politics, you accept them in united trade unions, so that the attack against the whole of the class in confronted commonly, militantly and decisively.
The very imperfect and completely “dismembered,” relating to the solution of certain problems of proletarian immigrants, immigration bill was eventually passed: “the bill was approved by PASOK and SYRIZA, while it was killed by ND and LAOS” (“R” 11/3/2010) and “K”KE stated its “presence” (!!!), which means that the bill was approved ONLY by the MPs of PASOK and SYRIZA.
Thus, the social democratic leadership of “K”KE, despite any of its unsuccessful, but also ridiculous, manoeuvres it attempted mainly during the period from the first “Statement” of the Politburo onwards (“R” 24/1/2010, p. 2-3), appearing to the immigrants with a “pro-immigrant” mask, eventually threw this mask, did what had been expected by revolutionary Marxists, that is Leninist-Stalinists, and what the leadership had already pre-concluded and projected in the front page of “Rizospastis”: “KKE” will not approve the government’s immigration bill” (R” 9/2/2010, p. 1), revoking itself with this action, which was justified through a nationalist-racist oration, the unrestrained and most base demagogy against our class brothers and sisters, the proletarian immigrants who live and work in our country.
“K”KE did not approve this bill on the “issue of immigration” not because it is “imperfect and deficient,” incomplete and completely “curtailed,” but on the contrary because this very imperfect and curtailed bill creates “an issue of minority for immigrants as well” (“R” 9/2/2010, p. 15), as stated – twice – by the head of the nationalist-racist leadership, social democrat A. Papariga, during her speech in the Parliament, also put forward for a third time in the full-page “Statement,” due to the danger “of creating stirring minority and nationalist issues, leading as far as the change of borders” (“R” 7/3/2010, p/ 7).
These are the traitors of the proletariat, who are constantly camouflaging and help the frontline of nationalism, racist, and obscurantism, ND and LAOS, who are being congratulated by Chrysi Avgi and nazi blogs for this policy for years now and are pretending to not listening, who surpassed even monarch-fascists, since they were the only ones daring to link the granting of some basic rights to immigrants, in fear of a future dispute of national sovereignty!
The struggle continues beyond the incomplete law, for the FULL and without nationalist ostensible screams granting of complete rights to the proletarian immigrants who wish for it, and certainly with the immediate granting of nativity to their children, who are a part of this country. Against reformist workers’ patrons, the workers’ movement ought to be with the immediate, equivalent and unconditional acceptance of immigrants, the first de facto “CLASS LEGALIZATION,” of all our class brothers, without exceptions.
We, Communists, Marxist-Leninist-Stalinists, in co-operation with every antifascist co-militant, struggle in the context of a broad Antifascist Front, for the class unity of the proletariat. We believe that today the immigrants are our class brothers and sisters who experience just first and more cruelly the “collective pain” of the class, and fight together with them, both in today’s defensive struggles against fascisticization, racist and nationalism, and “tomorrow’s” revolutionary struggles for the proletarian revolution. The inevitable social evolution which will sound again the passage of humanity from its prehistory to History.
June 2010
Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-15
In the last five years, a steep deterioration in the condition of the Greek economy has been observed – a destructive course that has eventually led to bankruptcy, contrary to the completely unsubstantiated claims of both the big bourgeois and the Khruschevite parties.
Side by side with the objective economic laws, the implementation of the most extreme neoliberal financial policy by the reactionary government of Karamanlis intensified even further the already existing problems of the Greek economy, aggravating basic economic indicators.
In 2009, the condition of the Greek economy became aggravated to the very extreme point that the government of Karamanlis was not able to work out the state budget – an economic situation characterized by very high inflation and successive waves of high prices, rise in mass unemployment to around 15% and rising rapidly, a drop in industrial and agricultural production, a tremendous deficit increase to over 14% of GDP (more than 30 billion Euros), an increase of the external debt to an overwhelming level, around 120% of GDP (more than 300 billion Euros).
The problems of the Greek economy have deepened even more with the outbreak of the global financial crisis. However, it has to be noted that the crisis of the Greek economy preceded the global financial crisis, since it had already hit, first and foremost, the construction sector, which, as it is known, is linked to a series of industrial branches.
The overwhelming external debt and the very large deficit led the Greek economy to bankruptcy, resulting in the country becoming the “weak link” of the imperialist European Union (EU) and the object of concerted attacks of international speculative and usurious capital – attacks related not only to the Greek economy, but also to the Euro, in the context of the Euro-Dollar antagonism.
In 2009, the terrible financial condition and bankruptcy of the Greek economy led to the “changing of the guard,” initially the removal of Karamanlis’s government and subsequently the defeat of his party in the elections as well as the entry of the country into supervision, initially by the organs of the imperialist EU, and subsequently by the triple austerity plan of the Commission-European Central Bank (ECB)-International Monetary Fund (IMF), that is, it led the country to a new occupation, without military presence.
The new measures consisted in unprecedented decrease in wages and pensions, increase in indirect taxes, etc. and attack on social security rights (an increase in retirement age limits, low pensions, etc.) by the “troika” of the Commission-ECB-IMF, in agreement with the new social-liberal Papandreou government, which deepened the proletariat’s absolute degradation to the extreme and annihilated in one night all the gains of the working class. In response, the working people participated in strikes and massive demonstrations, even though the reformist leaders of GSEE-ADEDY (General Confederation of Greek Workers-Civil Servants’ Confederation) declared the first general strike very belatedly, the first on May 5, and the second one on May 20.
Yet, despite the massive participation of working people in the strikes, there has not been UNITY on the level of gatherings and demonstrations during strikes, resulting in the obstruction of their MASSIVENESS and the undermining beforehand of the working people’s struggle against these unprecedented measures. The UNITY of strike rallies is a presupposition of MASSIVENESS. MASSIVENESS cannot be achieved without UNITY, an issue directly connected to the strikebreaking role of the reformist leaders of PAME (the trade union controlled by the “Communist” Party of Greece-“K”KE).
The strike-breakers-reformist leaders of PAME – through the permanent fragmentation of strike rallies with their separate gatherings – in the past helped the government of the monarcho-fascist party of Nea Dimokratia, with C. Karamanlis as prime minister, to promote and implement all the anti-popular and anti-worker measures; today, by continuing the same disruptive tactic in strike rallies, they are in the service of the government of the big bourgeois PASOK, and they are helping-enabling it to pass the present annihilating measures. For it is not possible for the reformist leaders of PAME to not understand that with their disruptive tactic they immediately break the UNITY of strike rallies, obstruct their MASSIVENESS and thus render the strike rallies INEFFICIENT beforehand.
The new, even more annihilating measures, that were taken and “sucked dry” the poor, that it are being planned to be passed for the social security slaughter of workers’ rights with the further looting of THEIR OWN MONEY, with the elimination of provisions in health and pensions (the class callousness of cutting two pensions per year had already preceded this), those that the extortions of the imperialists will continually demand, cannot be repelled by the working people if there is no MASSIVE UNITY, which are the qualities that can make strike rallies EFFICIENT, that is, capable of defeating or holding back the attacks of capital. This was evident in the case of the great strike rally of the reformist GSEE-ADEDY, which was the only efficient one, forcing Simitis’s government to withdraw the draft of the bill for Social Security in 2001. Now, the messages of the spontaneous worker and popular response are the same. The great strike of May 5, with a gathering of 250.000 people in Athens alone, smashed in practice the rationale of isolationism, disruption of unity and strike-breaking. The participation en masse of working people within the union blocs, the gathering was UNIFIED and showed the way for the working class to win demands: the way of militant unity. The militant voice and action of the working people, the unemployed, the youth, the pensioners, was overshadowed by the throwing of a Molotov cocktail into a Marfin Bank branch office, which, regardless of the intentions of those who threw it, caused the death of three young working people: this is a reactionary criminal act, completely alien and hostile to the workers’ movement. The responsibilities of the banker Vgenopoulos and Marfin Bank, who must be brought to court, are also tremendous (since they blackmailed the workers to go to work, they “locked” the door of the bank while the workers were inside, etc.).
The working people showed once more the way to confront the crisis:
We demand unilateral suspension of usurious debt payments – Withdrawal from the EMU-EURO with an immediate prospect of withdrawing from the EU
In contrast to the fabrications of the government and bourgeois politicians that “the country has not gone bankrupt, along with the Khruschevite social-democrats “K”KE (Khruschevite-Brezhnevites) and SYN (Coalition of the Left of Movements and Ecology – Euro“communists”), who are also disputing the existence of bankruptcy (Papariga – “K”KE: “they are bringing back the scarecrow of bankruptcy,” “Rizospastis” April 23, 2010, p. 6, Tsipras – SYN: “the tale about the dragon of bankruptcy is nice,” “Eleftherotypia” March 14, 2010), bankruptcy is a concrete and painful fact.
An analysis of the relevant economic data can only reach the conclusion that the figures show indisputably the bankruptcy of Greek economy:
The ND was the party that had been leading and led the country’s economy to bankruptcy with mathematical precision, by doubling the external debt (more than 300 billion Euros) and multiplying the deficit by five (more than 30 billion Euros), leading to the country’s triple supervision by the Commission-ECB-IMF, and has the first and major responsibility for this reason. But the then-opposition parties, the big bourgeois PASOK, and “K”KE and SYN (the Nazi-fascist LAOS had identified with the politics of ND), are tremendously responsible as well for not revealing to the Greek people this destructive financial course, which, for at least the final two years of ND’s governing, was completely clear to the naked eye.
The condition of the bankrupt Greek economy of today is bleak, and its prospect within the framework of EMU-EURO is at an impasse. The current bleak condition of the Greek economy has obviously led to the exposure of a series of bourgeois and revisionist myths (old and new) about the relationship between Greece and the EU, regarding 1) “equal participation in the EU,” 2) “permanent growth within the EU,” 3) “convergence of the EU member states’ economies,” 4) “permanent prosperity,” 5) “decrease in interest rates,” 6) “safeguard from bankruptcy,” etc.
With these negative developments in the Greece-EU relationship, the current complete deadlock of the bankrupt Greek economy, along with the fact that the big bourgeois PASOK government will not only multiply the annihilating anti-popular and anti-worker measures, but with the “gospel” of neoliberal financial politics in its hands, it intends to satisfy even more the lust of the speculators and loan-sharks and the IMF for the total looting of any remaining profitable sectors and savage looting of the country’s overall wealth with the proportional destructive consequences, known to tens of other countries that fell into their clutches. The working class and the people must fight for the country’s withdrawal from the EMU-EURO and the declaration of unilateral suspension of external debt payments (an issue discussed in “ANASYNTAXI” No. 313, January 1-15, 2010), in combination with the general struggle for Greece’s withdrawal from the imperialist EU, a withdrawal that for the social-democrat Papariga (general secretary of “K”KE), at this moment “is not a solution in itself” (“Rizospastis” March 5, 2010, p. 10) (it is the first “unwary”(?), but delightful and characteristic strip-tease by Papariga in favor of Greece staying in the EU, since the leadership of “K”KE claimed until now, of course for reasons of demagoguery, that they were in favor of the country withdrawing from it).
The working class, the youth, the city and village poor, must fight everywhere, in each workplace, each space of education, residential area, and gathering place against the awkward Khruschevite social-democrats “K”KE-SYN, who deny the existence of bankruptcy and say not even one word about the tasks that derive from it, for the creation of a broad antifascist and anti-imperialist front, which will unite in the aforementioned goals of confronting the anti-worker whirlwind and in the struggle against suppression, the curtailment of democratic gains, the fascistization of public life, which are the necessary “tools” of capitalists and their political representatives in order to pass the measures of sordidness.
June 2010
Movement for the Reorganization of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55
In February 1956 – fifty years ago – the Communist party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) convened its first congress after the death of Stalin. This ill-famed 20th congress has since been deemed the symbol of the victory of the peaceful counter-revolution in the USSR.
To this very day, the international communist movement, the working class and the peoples in the former socialist countries are suffering from the disastrous consequences. This victory of revisionism in the fifties systematically prepared the ground for the unveiled and complete counter-revolution that took place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe around 1989-91.
In his memoirs The Khrushchevites, Enver Hoxha summarized as follows: “All the distortions of the major issues of principle, such as those about the character of our epoch, the roads of transition to socialism, peaceful coexistence, war and peace, the stand towards modern revisionism and towards imperialism, etc., etc., which later became the basis of the great, open polemic with modern revisionism, have their official beginning in Khrushchev's report to the 20th Congress.” (1)
This congress was to impel the split within the international communist movement. The fierce ideological polemic became quite open when the Party of Labour of Albania helmed the criticism of Khrushchev & Co. at the Moscow meeting of 81 communist parties in 1960. Reidar T. Larsen, who later became chairman of the Norwegian communist party (NKP), was present at the time. In his memoirs ‘Directed from Moscow?’ he confirms that Enver Hoxha spoke out against Khrushchev “so the sparks went flying”. The leaders of the Communist Party of China restrained themselves, according to Larsen: “In the plenary proceedings they left it to the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha to launch fiery attacks aimed at the Soviet leadership.” (2) The CPC did not enter into its “great polemic” until 1963.
Meanwhile, the old bolsheviks in the leadership of the CPSU, like Molotov and Kaganovich, had woken up from their daze and attempted to defeat Khrushchev from within the presidium of the CPSU. Khrushchev fell in minority, and was in fact removed in 1957. However, he mobilized his lojal marshals and used the majority he had ensured in the CC to topple the meeting of the presidium and to confront the ‘anti-party group’ with Molotov at the head.
A mechanical and leftist dogmatic tendency argues that the 20th congress made the Soviet Union change colour more or less overnight. This is a subjectivist approach, reducing the counter-revolutionary process to a matter of rotten personalities and traitors. Khrushchev, originally a Trotskyite, was no doubt a rotten element, as can also be said about Mikoyan and other personalities in the leadership. But this does not explain how these elements could obtain support from the congress delegates and within few years put into effect a number of capitalist reforms that step by step undermined the economy and the socialist order in the USSR.
It is clear that these forces could count on a social base for their power, that they could exploit several unhealthy tendencies. Such tendencies would include the idea that “the leadership is always correct” and a self-satisfaction that grew strong in the aftermath of the victory over fascism in World War II. Adding to this were tendencies of reconciliation towards social democracy and initiatives to merge communist and social democratic parties in several countries, something that undoubtedly gave rise to different reformist ideas on “peaceful transition to socialism” even before Khrushchev laid this down as a general line at the 20th Congress. In East (Soviet occupied) Germany the Communist party of Germany after the war was amalgamated with the Social Democratic party under the name of the United Socialist Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – SED). Both the Communist Party of Norway (which immediately after the anti-fascist war entered into negotiations with the Norwegian Labour Party) as well as the Communist Party of Britain laid down the thesis of peaceful transition to socialism in their programmes in 1953, that is to say three years prior to the 20th Congress of the CPSU. The efforts for economical reconstruction after the war gave room for different types of “productivity theories” in the economic area, to a certain degree in the USSR, and even more so in post-war Norway, theories that in practice had the effect that they underestimated and dwindled the importance of the ideological and political struggle.
The 19th Congress of the CPSU, the last Congress attended by Stalin, strongly warned against a number of these inclinations. Several precautions and motions in order to prevent bureaucratism were projected by the 19th Congress, but few, if any, of these were to be put into effect. It was in this unsound situation that the Khrushchev clique was able to mobilize and exploit these weaknesses, while they for a while pretended to cuddle for Stalin and shed crocodile tears when he died. When the 20th Congress was due, they had gained sufficient strength to consolidate the victory of revisionism.
Enver Hoxha was present at the congress representing the PLA, together with Mehmet Shehu and Gogo Nushi. Below, he describes what came to pass on the final day of the Congress proceedings, where among other things the elections of the leading bodies took place, and the foreign delegations were not present. On this occasion a second report was presented by Khrushchev.
“It was the notorious, so-called secret report against Stalin, but which had been sent in advance to the Yugoslav leaders [who had been condemned by the Cominform in 1948 – note by Revolusjon], and a few days later it fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie and reaction as a new ‘gift’ from Khrushchev and the Khrushchevites. After it was discussed by the delegates to the congress, this report was given to us and all the other foreign delegations to read. […] After we had read it we immediately returned the terrible report to its owners. We had no need for that package of filthy accusations which Khrushchev had concocted. It was other ‘communists’ who took it away to give to reaction and to sell by the ton in their book-stalls as a profitable business. […] Only a few days later the black smoke of the ideas of the 20th Congress began to spread everywhere.” (The Khrushchevites, p 183)
First published in Revolusjon no 32 , April 2006
Published in Unity & Struggle, no 15, October 2007
International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO)
The brutal aggression carried out by the Nazi-Zionist army against the so-called "freedom flotilla" deserves the merciless condemnation, rejection, and general denunciation. The State of Israel, which has carried out a systematic genocide against the Palestinians, with the complicit silence of the misnamed democracies, has subjected the people of Gaza to famine and has prevented any kind of humanitarian aid, food, medicine, material to rebuild houses destroyed by Israeli bombing, school supplies, etc. from reaching the suffering population (more than a million and a half people in a strip that is 40 kilometers long by 6 kilometers wide).
The "freedom flotilla" was carrying tons of aid, but the State of Israel stopped it by the bestial force of its troops. That State does not respect any of the resolutions of the United Nations Organization, nor any international agreements; it knows no reason other than brute-force and the support of U.S. imperialism and others.
The ship "Mavi Marmara" of Turkish nationality and flag was attacked by military speedboats, by special commandos in helicopters who fired on people of different nationalities who were bringing aid to the Palestinian people. It was a military operation against unarmed civilians, soldiers trained to kill people who fight with words and solidarity, for peace and justice. With total impudence, the Tel Aviv Government declared that its soldiers "acted in self-defense" against the arms of the civilian activists. The confiscated weapons were screwdrivers, a multi-purpose knife, tools appropriate for a boat, hammers, a pair of tires, etc. This action was carried out in international waters, that is, it was an act of pure and simple piracy with total contempt for international law. But NATO, to which Turkey belongs, has just spoken words "regretting the incident", just like the United Nations Organization in which the United States vetoed an explicit condemnation of Israel by the Security Council. Once again, U.S. imperialism is preventing the condemnation of this fascist State, of which Washington is the principal supporter and protector.
The indignation of the peoples of the world has broken out in many demonstrations in major cities, particularly in Europe, in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and, with particular combativeness, in Turkey. Faced with this popular indignation there was the cool hypocrisy of the governments, which merely "condemned and asked for explanations", when the Zionist State should be expelled from international agencies and have its preferential agreements with the European Union cancelled for its criminal activity.
Even today, June 2, it is not known exactly how many people were killed (assassinated) or how many were wounded in the operation. With the greatest cynicism, the Israeli Ambassador to Spain stated to the media, besides the refrain of self-defense, that there were only a dozen dead among more than 700 people on board, which "is a very low proportion".
President Obama, the "democrat" who is sounding war drums against Iran and North Korea, who is maintaining the criminal embargo against Cuba, who is continuing the attack on Afghanistan, and Iraq, has limited himself to regret for what happened, nothing more.
The passiveness towards the continuous aggressions and crimes of the State of Israel has allowed it to enjoy total impunity so far. It is time to put an end to that situation. This fascist, reactionary, racist State must be condemned and fought. The Palestinian people have the right to form their own State within secure borders, to recover the territories occupied by the Zionists and to be compensated for all the barbarities of all kinds that they face.
We must increase solidarity with the Palestinian people and, at the same time, denounce and fight Zionism and all that protect it. Israel has the fourth most powerful army in the world, it has an atomic arsenal and weapons of mass destruction which is a real powder keg, not only for the Middle East.
The International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations expresses its total solidarity with the Palestinian people and their just struggle, which must be expressed in concrete actions. Our solidarity with the victims of Israeli piracy.
Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people. Against imperialism and reaction, a fight to the finish!
Public opinion of our country is now in a "puzzle" and anger with the attack, which was made to the aid ship for Palestine by Israel.
According to the first news, 10 people from Turkey died. This shows the dimension of the banditry of Israel. Who does Israel, who conducted this lawless treachery against an humanely aid, pluck up this courage from? It is clear that Israel State is responsible for the deads. On the other hand, what kind of measures did Turkish Government take, although the attack was guessed? To tell the truth, it just passed over and observed the anticipated events passively.
The Israel tyranny on the Palestinian people headed for the solidarity forces, who are not unlooker to the Israel brutality. Not only USA, who is the shield of Israeli occupier politics, but also the government in our country who has agreements with Israel is responsible for this attack. So, now, the responsibility of the government in this issue is evident: It should carry out what is needed avoiding the abuse of internal politics by the show "One minute".
Turkey has been pulled into the Middle East questions and imperialist plans and policies. Unfortunately, the government is willing to take a part in these plans with the profound strategies like "regional power", "active foreign policy". Acting in a competition with Israel, with the ambitions to become a big power is not a policy which is responsible and serves for the peace. What happened so far dreadfully prove this.
People of Turkey will be by the side of the Palestinian people in this day as they were before and will response to this attack which was directed to the aid ship, from all points of our country. AKP government should immediately draw away from the imperialist plans and ambitions, quit the agreements which will bog down our country and put an end to the bases and nuclear arms of the USA in our land.
LEVENT TUZEL
PRESIDENT
Labour Party (EMEP), Turkey
www.emep.org
international@emep.org
