The victory of the Great October Revolution and the successful construction of socialism

Article scheduled to be published in "Unity & Struggle" issue 15

The victory of the Great October Revolution and the successful construction of socialism
– The greatest historical validation and confirmation of Marx’s scientific theory.

November of this year will mark the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the greatest event of the 20th century that resulted, for the first time, in the rise of the workers, peasants and soldiers and the establishment of the first proletarian state in human history. All generations in the 20th century solemnly honour the Great October Socialist Revolution.

The victorious outcome of the Proletarian Revolution in Russia marked the beginning of a new era in human history and constituted the greatest historical validation and confirmation of Marx’s scientific theory regarding three fundamental questions.

First, regarding the historical necessity and inevitability of the proletarian revolution and socialism; that “the class struggle leads to the communist Revolution (Marx). The historical necessity and inevitability of the proletarian revolution are rooted in the laws underlying the development of the material forces of production and their conflict with the obsolete relations of production of the last antagonistic socio-economic formation, capitalism. As Marx wrote: “Precisely as capitalism succeeded feudalism, socialism likewise will inevitably succeed capitalism”.

Second, regarding the possibility of the practical application of socialism, considered by the bourgeois theorists a utopia and impossible. Until the victory of the October Socialist Revolution, socialism was a scientific theory that hadn’t been applied yet. Through the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of Lenin-Stalin, it was proved for the first time that socialism does not constitute merely a scientific theory but a social system that can be established and demonstrate its superiority over capitalism.

In this way, all claims made by the bourgeois theorists and economists that the socialist economy is allegedly an “irrational” one (due to the absence of private property, market and competition) and, therefore, unable to prevail and operate, are refuted. (N.G. Pierson, L.v. Mises, M. Weber, A. Weber, and others).

Third, regarding the fact that the construction of socialism-communism is possible only on the condition that the principles of revolutionary Marxism are steadfastly upheld and followed. The incorrect conduct of the class struggle against the counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist forces after Stalin’s murder resulted in the prevalence of the Khruschevian revisionist counter-revolution.

The victory of the October Socialist Revolution also confirmed all the tenants of the Leninist-Stalinist theory of Proletarian Revolution

Firstly, it confirmed that the revolutionary proletariat, being in close alliance with the poor peasantry, is the main, decisive and leading force of the Proletarian Revolution.

Secondly, it confirmed the necessity for a revolutionary party which is equipped with the theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin in the role of organiser and leader of the revolution which doesn’t share its leadership with other parties.

Thirdly, it confirmed that the path of armed insurrection is the only path to the overthrow of capitalism.

Fourthly, it confirmed the necessity for the smashing of the bourgeois state machinery as an essential condition for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, “that will be led by a single party, the party of communists, which will not and should not share its leadership with other parties” (Stalin).

Fifthly, it confirmed that the dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary for the whole transitional period from capitalism to communism.
The legendary events that took place in Russia during the “10 days that shook the world”, in October of 1917, did not come out of the blue. After three years of engagement in the imperialist First World War, the situation in the Eastern Front was desperate. The ill-led, wretchedly equipped Russian Army had been cut to pieces by the Germans. Shaken by the impact of the war and rotted from within the feudal Tsarist regime tottered and fell. In March, thousands of exasperated soldiers poured from the front to the cities and together with workers forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. A Provisional Government was established with Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. But even after the collapse of the autocracy, the Revolution was only beginning.

The Provisional Government didn’t heed the cry for Peace, Bread and Land! that swept across the vast country summing up the immediate longings and the ancient aspirations of the war-weary, starved and dispossessed Russian millions. This brought the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries in difficult position because while, Kerensky’s partners in the Provisional Government, they were at the same time the dominating forces in the Soviets; the elected bodies of the revolutionary workers, peasants and soldiers. On the other hand, the influence of the Bolsheviks in the Soviets and among the workers in general was constantly rising. Contrary to the bourgeois and socialist parties, the Bolsheviks were adhered to the unfulfilled aims of the February revolution. Moreover, at a time when the reactionary forces and the Provisional Government kept postponing the convention of the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks went a step further demanding the transfer of all state power to the Soviets.

In September 1917 matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming sentiment of the country, Kerensky formed a Coalition Government with the propertied classes. As a result the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever. Around the same time the Tsarist General Kornilov, organised a revolt with the object of crushing the revolution and of restoring czarism. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party called upon the workers, soldiers and sailors to rise in defence of the revolution. All this speeded up the Revolution even more and put the armed insurrection on the order of the day. On Lenin’s proposal a Party Centre headed by Stalin was set up to direct the insurrection.

By the morning of 7th of November (25 October, Old Style), the telephone exchange, the chief telegraph office, the radio station, the bridges across the Neva, the railway stations and the most important government offices were in the hands of the insurgent proletariat. The Winter Palace, the seat of the Provisional Government, had also been captured. The signal for the storming of the Palace by detachments of Red Guards and sailors was a blank shot from the guns of the cruiser “Aurora”. The insurrection had succeeded. At 10 a.m. the Military Revolutionary Committee issued its historic manifesto drawn up by Lenin, addressed “To the Citizens of all Russia” proclaiming to the masses of the people the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of the state power to the Soviets. In the evening, the Second Congress of Soviets was opened in Smolny. The transfer of all power, central and local, to the Soviets was officially proclaimed.

Thanks to the heroism, faith and self-denial of the advanced working masses and the ardent guidance of the Bolsheviks, the flame of the October Revolution spread in almost a month to all cities and regions of Central Russia. In Moscow, Novgorod, Ekaterinenburg the bourgeois-capitalist rule was overthrown and the new proletarian rule was founded.

The great thinker Lenin, by creatively applying and further developing the Marxist theory in accordance to the conditions of his time, showed the way to the October Revolution that eliminated the vestiges of serfdom, liberated the people of tens of nationalities from the bondage of the bestial tsarist regime, socialised all the means of production and the natural resources of the country and established the workers-peasants power. The October Revolution, by far the most significant event of the 20th century, literally changed the course of human history. For the first time since the dawn of civilisation, the ancient dream of the exploited toiling masses came true; the exploitation of man by man was abolished. What’s more, the oppressed masses became masters of their own land, of their own destiny.

The October Revolution awakened millions of working masses all around the world and shook the foundations of the barbaric and brutal imperialism. It helped the people of the capitalist countries, primarily Britain, France and Germany, become even more aware of the utter futility of the imperialist war that served only the interests of the European ruling circles. In one country after another, communist parties were founded adhering to the Bolshevik revolutionary principles and tactics. The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat become bitter. In some cases, socialist revolutions broke out like in Germany and Hungary where resulted in short lived Soviet Republics. The people in countries under colonial rule, China, India, Persia and elsewhere also rose against their rulers. The world colonial system entered a period of prolonged and deep crisis that would eventually bring its end after the Second World War.

The October Revolution proclaimed the advent of a new era in the history of all mankind, the era of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship, the era of transition from capitalism to communism. The Russian workers by making their “leap to heavens” paved the way for their brothers in other countries to follow suit. As Lenin wrote: “We started this work. How long it will take and whose country’s proletarians are going to finish is not the main issue. The main issue is that the ice is broken, the road is open, and the course is set”. The October Revolution gave birth to the International Communist Movement and favoured its gradual development. It led to the establishment of the Third International (1919-1943) which replaced the bankrupt and treacherous Second International. Henceforth, the Third International became a force that imperialism had to reckon with in all its future plans. It was the headquarters of the International Proletarian Revolution. Being members of the Third International, the Communist Parties were able to draw from the long revolutionary experience of the Bolsheviks and play a leading role in the struggle of the workers in their own countries.
Leaders like Lenin and Stalin who perform such feats are born perhaps once in a millennium. “Leaders” are not the ones named by all kinds of adventurists, exploiters and mobsters. Leaders are those who have unshakable devotion to ideals that fully express the true interests and the wishes of the masses, wretched by the exploitation and oppression of the world tyrants. Together Lenin and Stalin annihilated the remnants of the tsarist armies and the hordes of intervention sent to the land of Soviets by the imperialist and other European countries, including Greece, in order to overthrow the proletarian power. After Lenin’s death, Stalin solemnly swore before the great leader’s coffin to continue his work. He kept this oath up to the last letter.

As the leader of CPSU and the people of the Soviet Union, Stalin successfully carried out the Leninist policy of industrialisation, and collectivisation of the country through the launch of the five-year plans and surpassing enormous difficulties and problems. But nothing would be possible without the monolithic unity of the Bolshevik Party. And this Stalin maintained, like “the apple of his eye”, by crushing ideologically and politically all the opportunistic factions that opposed the socialist construction; the groups of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin. All those who turned out to be nothing more than common criminals, saboteurs and murderers, paid agents of fascism and imperialism. Stalin led the party and the people of the Soviet Union in all fields scoring huge successes in economy, defence, education, health, culture, sciences, research, technology and generally, in social and cultural development. In a slightly more than a decade, the country was transformed into an industrial and military superpower. Stalin, CPSU and the Soviet Union became a legend and humanity’s star of hope and pride.

The industrial and military might acquired with the first second and third five plan allowed the Soviet people to achieve the greatest triumph of all centuries: the victory over the German Nazism, the Italian and Japanese fascism in the Great Patriotic War. Compared to its allies, the Soviet Union bore the greatest weight of the war and paid an extremely high price for it. This, historically well-established, fact is evident not only from the sheer size of the human losses – more than 20 million dead – but also from the devastation of the Soviet homeland which was of shocking scale.
Soon after the Great Victory, the heroic and proud people of the Soviet Union accomplished new feats of labour by almost completing the reconstruction of their vast country from 1945 to 1952. Alas, the internal class enemies, though defeated, had not been totally eliminated. As a matter of fact, throughout the whole period of the Great Patriotic War and the reconstruction of the devastated homeland, the dark reaction, the crypto-fascists and the revisionists in the ranks of the mass organisations, and especially CPSU, were undermining the work of CPSU and the Soviet state using all possible means, not excluding terrorist methods. They murdered Zhdanov, Schernbakov in 1948 and in 1953 I. V. Stalin himself. For this purpose, they employed a group of doctors that had been recruited in a US-based secret organisation whose mission was to eliminate the People’s Republics leaders, eminent scientists and state officials from all progressive countries. The victims of the doctor’s gang, that numbered about 70 members in the Soviet Union, were many. Although they were all arrested, they were acquitted and released later by Khrushchev apart from nine of them who had been already executed for the murder of Zhdanov and Stalin.

The murder of Stalin was followed by the murder of a whole series of party and state officials such as the Moscow and Kremlin Garrison Commanders, 29 top ranking cadres of State Security, many cadres from the Soviet Republics, and the leaders of almost all the People’s Republics; Wilhelm Pieck from Germany, Klement Gotvald from Czechoslovakia, Boleslaw Beirut from Poland, Ana Pauker from Romania, Vulko Chervenkov from Bulgaria, Matias Rakosi from Hungary and Nikos Zachariades from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

Behind all these crimes they were the counter-revolutionary group of N. Khrushchev, A. Mikoyan, L. Beria, Mikhail Suslov and others plotting against the Soviet power, socialism and aiming at the restoration of capitalism. But coming out openly with these goals, as early as 1953, would only amount to their suicide. They were compelled to proceed gradually, being cautious in every step. Most importantly, they had to find another target that would serve their sinister purpose indirectly. Of course that target was Stalin and his world-historical work. By condemning (that is slandering) Stalin and his alleged excesses and mistakes, the crypto-fascists revisionists condemned the man who incarnated the very triumph of socialism not only in USSR but in one-third of the world.

The next step was the official revision of Marxism-Leninism that started with the 20th Congress (“peaceful transition” etc.) and continued with the decisions of the 22nd Congress of CPSU (“state of all people” etc). Once revisionism seized political power, it moved on with its economical programme; a series of individual reforms carried out immediately after the 20th Congress (simultaneously with the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat) that culminated in the so-called Kosygin reforms in 1964-65 resulting in the gradual but complete restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and transforming it from the centre of world revolution into the centre of revisionist counter-revolution.

Some of Khrushchev’s other despicable political actions include the following: 1) The purge of almost all CPSU cadres (c.a. 98%) 2) The discharge and replacement of elite officers of all ranks and fighting services 3) The replacement of the administrative machinery (c.a. 94%) in all branches of production, in educational and research institutes, in hospitals and cliniques 4) The liquidation of the World Peace Movement 5) The violent intervention and liquidation of the communist movement throughout the world 6) The establishment of a system of corruption, bribery, and embezzlement. 7) The encouragement of unlimited consumption of alcohol and the emergence of an increasing criminality in all socialist countries. 8) The formation of a capitalist caste of privileged officials – the “nomenclature” – in all fields. 9) The introduction of cosmopolitanism and the exhibition of the capitalist way of life and culture in socialist societies. 10) The blemish, the vulgar slandering of the work and history of CPSU, its leadership and the Soviet people. 11) The extortion of recantations (about 1000 a day published in Pravda) from party, science economy cadres. All this turned the country into a vast breeding-ground for the final figures of the treason, such that has never been witnessed by humanity throughout the centuries: M. Gorbachev, B.Yeltsin, A. Yakovlev, E. Sevardnadze and Co.

The prevalence of the Khruschevites in CPSU resulted in a new status quo in the communist movement and in the socialist camp. They tried to impose the new counter-revolutionary line adopted in the infamous 20th Congress to all communist parties in the world. In order to achieve this, they employed every possible means of intervention in the internal affairs of the fraternal parties, every kind of pressure and threat, political and economical blackmail. All the communist parties that adopted the ideological-political line of the 20th Congress degenerated into bourgeois, socialdemocratic parties. The case of our party, KKE, is worth mentioning briefly because it was the first party in the world that experienced a violent revisionist attack. The peculiar circumstances under which our party was working during that period were favourable to this intervention. In 1949, after the end of a heroic three-year armed struggle against the Greek royal-fascism and Anglo-American imperialism, the majority of the KKE members and cadres were forced to leave their country and settle in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.

Even before the 20th Congress, when the Khrushchevites realised that the KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades is not going heed their calls to abandon the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist course and follow the anti-Stalinist revisionist course, they made a further step. They proceeded to form a right opportunist faction in the Tashkent Party Organisation (KOT), and to promote this faction right up to the Organisation’s leadership. KOT was the largest KKE Party Organisation in the socialist countries and the Khrushchevites knew that if they managed to subjugate it then it would be much easier to subjugate the whole Party. However, the revolutionary KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades immediately took measures and removed fraction’s cadres from the leadership of KOT. This was just the pretext for the pre-planned open provocation that followed. On the 9th of September 1955, around 400 factionists, armed with knives and sticks, attempted to capture by force the offices of KOT, serving at that time as a temporary seat of some visiting members of the CC of KKE. This bloody pogrom failed thanks to the overwhelming resistance of the Greek communists in Tashkent many of whom suffered knife injuries in the clash with the factionists. The whole operation was under the guidance of Saakov, KGB Colonel Saakov who, in turn, was employed by Boris Panomariov, the member of the CC of CPSU entrusted with the KKE affairs.

The overwhelming majority of the Greek communists in Tashkent and other Party organisations wholeheartedly condemned this despicable act of violence and provocation and supported the lawful leadership of KKE headed by Nikos Zachariades. The Party’s unity was evidently expressed in the elections of representatives for the KOT Conference which would appoint a new KOT Bureau; the majority of the elected representatives were loyal to the lawful KKE leadership. It was evident that the KOT Conference would amount to the political death of the faction but following an order from CC of CPSU the Conference was cancelled.

In the 20th Congress of CPSU, the Khruschevites formed the so-called “International Committee of Fraternal Parties” consisting of cadres from the Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Czechoslovak and Bulgarian parties. However, their behaviour towards KKE was anything but fraternal. The International Committee openly and without pretexts intervened in KKE by arbitrarily summoning the infamous 6th Plenum (March 1956). This illicit body was convened by summoning a whole bunch of former, i.e. removed, KKE cadres but not the General Secretary of the Party Nikos Zachariades. The report was read by the Romanian opportunist Georgiu Dez. The 6th Plenum illegally and forcibly removed the lawfully elected revolutionary leadership of KKE, including the Party’s General Secretary Nikos Zachariades, who was arrested and isolated, and appointed a right opportunistic puppet leadership that consisted of individuals like K. Koligianis, K. Tsolakis (who participated in the bloody pogrom in Tashkent aiming at the murder of Zachariades), M. Partsalidis and others. The 6th Plenum adopted the counter-revolutionary social-democratic line promulgated in the 20th Congress of CPSU. What followed was the expulsion from the party of thousands of communists who were staunch Marixst-Leninists and loyal to the lawful KKE leadership.

The years that followed 1956 were years of fascist persecutions of all the Greek communists, who remained faithful to Stalin and Zachariades by the Soviet and Greek Khrushchevian revisionists. These persecutions took various forms: surveillance, spying, arrests, imprisonments, exile to Siberia, etc. Thousands party cadres were exiled to Siberia and among them the Party’s General Secretary, Nikos Zachariades, who, after 17 years of exile, was murdered in Sorgut by the treacherous Brezhnev-Florakis clique so that he wouldn’t return alive to Greece and upset their plans.

Essentially a new party emerged out of 6th Plenum. This new party shamelessly usurped the name “K”KE although it has been, from the very beginning, a bourgeois social democratic party which bears no political, ideological or organizational relation with the revolutionary KKE. The anti-Stalinism of this 6th Plenum abortion is evident even today not only from its everyday political tactics but also from its hypocritical statement for the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution.

We mention only a few: a) No reference is made to the vital and irreplaceable role of Stalin in the October Revolution, in the Civil War and, above all, in the construction of socialism during the whole period 1924-1953. b) The line promulgated by the 7th Congress of the Third International in 1935 that set as primary task for the Communist parties the anti-fascist struggle is considered mistaken. c) The absolutely right decision on the self-dissolution of the Third International in 1943 is said to have deprived the Communist Movement of the decision centre needed to devise a strategy against imperialism. At the same time, it is held that Comniform didn’t manage to fulfil this role after the war. d) The Stalinist leadership of CPSU is actually blamed for underestimating the intra-imperialist antagonisms and entertaining pacifistic illusions. e) Of course, the 20th Congress of CPSU and Khruschevian revisionism didn’t amount to the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the restoration of capitalism. f) The line of peaceful co-existence is shamelessly attributed to Stalin and the 19th Congress of CPSU g) The anti-revisionist attitude of the Communist Parties of Albania and China is bluntly called “antisovietism”.

The perception of the 20th Congress, Khruschevian revisionism and the anti-stalinist slandering as the gravediggers of the great October Revolution is the dividing line between communism and anti-communism. The question that should be asked is then: How did the class enemy manage to commit treason of such scale and such dimensions? It is a fact that after the glorious victory over Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese militarism, the peace finally prevailed around the world. The Soviet Union was seething with fruitful productive work. The living standards were constantly rising. Life was becoming again pleasant, happy and much comfortable. The public respect and esteem for the leaders of the country were beyond doubt and this is the reason why it was so difficult for the soviet citizen to perceive the treacherous and subversive intentions of some of the leaders who were in the spotlight? Who could think that somebody like Nikita Khruchev was working to sell out their country to the imperialists, to overthrow the social system??

Later, the treason was been fully completed by the all those “worthy” successors of crypto-fascist revisionism, the agents of imperialism that bear the names of M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin, A. Yakovlev, D. Medvedev, E. Sevardnadze and Co. These agents of the class enemy within the CPSU ranks, seized offices, offended against the toiling masses in every step they take, and they transformed the heavenly society of their country into the dark hell of Dante. The outcome of this despicable treason is wretchedness in every part of the country, terror and crime reaching their climax, despair and isolation for the majority of the citizens. This was the upshot of the capitalist restoration and the New Order. We believe that history, humanity as a whole will condemn and severely punish the unprecedented treachery of working people not only of the socialist camp but also of the whole world.
We believe that all proletarians, toilers, the socialist intellectuals and fighters will always honour the Great October Revolution, focus attention on the society created by the October Revolution and that the temporary prevalence of the counter-revolution cannot delay the society’s necessary progression to communism.

There are, of course, nowadays well-meaning people who shout and yell that we have reached the end of our dreams, that we have entered an era that marks the defeat of the worker’s and communist movement, an era of despair and disappointment, of demobilisation of the proletarian classes. But the communists, as all progressive people, are well aware that capitalism is a system plagued with unresolved class contradictions, a system that gives rise to phenomena of permanent crisis and instability and shows clear signs of decay and collapse. They realise the downfall and total annihilation of capitalism is inescapable and it will be facilitated by the working class. After the Great October Revolution, this change is not any more a mere vision but a historical necessity.

Movement for the Reorganization of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55

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The three versions of Nikos Zachariadis' death

This article was published for the first time in the newspaper "Anasintaxi" issue 232 (August 2006), in Greek, as addendum to an article of c. Nikandros Kepesis entitled "The murder of Nikos Zachariadis"

The three versions of Nikos Zachariadis' death

A. The first two versions

In the first days of August 1973, when the Soviet authorities and the Khruschevian Florakis leadership announced that Nikos Zachariadis died, two different versions of his death were immediately formulated. The first and the official one was presented by his executioners, the social-democratic Brezhnev-Florakis leadership: “On the 1st of August Nikos Zachariadis died from heart attack at the age of 70” (Announcement from the CC of “K”KE). The second one was supported by the overwhelming majority of Greek communists (more than 95%) who rejected at once the version according to which Nikos Zachariadis died from “heart attack”, regarding it as a KGB fabrication, and believed that he was murdered by the Khruschevian revisionists (Soviet and Greek) in Sorgut, Siberia, his place of exile.

B. The third version, of “suicide”, or how the soviet revisionists and the social-democratic clique of Florakis-Tsolakis-Koukoulou et al. contradict themselves

Seventeen years after the initial “announcement” of the Soviet authorities, Alexander Petrushin, a KGB Colonel, sent a note to the newspaper “Tiumenski Izvestia” in which he contradicted the original version and presented a third one, that of “suicide”: “the General Secretary of the CC of KKE, Nikos Zachariadis, did not die from heart attack, as it has been known until now, but he committed suicide by hanging himself on the 1st of August of 1973 in Sorgut, Siberia, where he was in exile under the name of Nikolai Nikolayevich Nikolayev” (“Rizospastis”, 9/12/1990).

It is obvious that these two versions of Nikos Zachariadis’s death, the one of “heart attack” and the other of “suicide”, are mutually exclusive and, therefore, false.

The treacherous social-democratic cliques of Brezhnev-Florakis, the actual executioners of Nikos Zachariadis, flatly contradict themselves. When were they telling the truth, in 1973 or in 1990? In both cases they were, obviously, lying in order to cover the crime they committed, that is, the murder of Nikos Zachariadis, a crime that even the Nazis did not dare to commit.

The Khruschevian revisionists’ second version, the one of “suicide”, is anyway without a basis because: a) communists do not commit suicide and under no circumstances would Nikos Zachariadis, as a communist leader, do such a thing because his philosophical outlook was that of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, i.e. the militant philosophy of revolutionary class struggle and, moreover, he had never advised any communist to kill himself but to fight until the end sacrificing their very life for the interests of the working class, the cause of the proletarian revolution and socialism-communism; b) Nikos Zachariadis “committed suicide” exactly like our people’s hero, the leader of the trade-union association, Dimitris Paparigas whose own murder was presented by the Greek State Security as a suicide committed allegedly using his pyjamas’ cord.

C. The murder of Nikos Zachariadis

The overwhelming majority of Greek communists correctly reckoned, and still reckons, that the Soviet revisionists were the ones who murdered Nikos Zachariadis following an agreement with and a demand from the treacherous clique of Florakis-Loules-Tsolakis-Koukoulou et al. in order to maintain the existence of the social-democratic “K”KE whose presence and action served, on one hand, the foreign policy of the revisionist-capitalist Soviet Union and, on the other, the interests of the indigenous reactionary bourgeois class acting as its agency in the ranks of the Greek working class movement.

It was not a coincidence at all that the heinous crime of Nikos Zachariadis murder was committed on the eve of political “change” in Greece. The Soviet revisionists, due to their collaboration with the American imperialists, were aware that a political “change” is imminent in Greece, namely the replacement of the military-fascist dictatorship by a bourgeois “democratic” government. If the new government wanted to maintain its democratic faηade, it had not only to legalise the revisionist “K”KE but, also, to allow the repatriation of the communist political refugees, the former DAG partisans, from the revisionist countries. However, it was known to both the Greek and Soviet revisionists that the great majority (about 85%-95%) of the Greek communists were staunch supporters of Zachariadis and, upon their return to Greece, would immediately raise the issue of his liberation from exile employing all possible means including daily demonstrations in front of the Soviet embassy and an international campaign. Under such pressure, the Soviet revisionists would be compelled to set him free and let him return to his homeland.

Consequently, under these circumstances that were beyond their control, and aware of the great authority Nikos Zachariadis enjoyed among the Greek communists, the Soviet revisionists of the Brezhnev anticommunist clique decided to murder the great communist leader and former member of the EC of the Third International in accordance with the agreeable opinion and demand of the social-democratic Florakis leadership. The reasons behind this decision were directly linked with the consequences the return of Nikos Zachariadis to Greece would have: a) the inevitable downfall of their instruments in the country, that is the liquidation of the two social-democratic parties “K”KE and “K”KE-in due to great influence he had on Greek communists b) the reorganisation of the communists and the formation of the revolutionary massive KKE, guided by revolutionary Marxism, that is of Leninism-Stalinism, and the concomitant preservation of the antifascist, anti-imperialist EDA party (that was liquidated by the revisionists and replaced by, the harmless to the interests of the bourgeois and the imperialists, PASOK) c) the prospect of a revolutionary KKE in alliance with the socialist Albania would be very dangerous, at that time, to the fate of Kruschevian revisionism in Europe, to the existence and activity of the Soviet and European revisionists.

In addition to the above, what shows that the third version of Nikos Zachariadis death, i.e. the one of his murder, is correct and convincing are the following:

First, the statement-confession made by Stavros Zorbalas, the director of the Centre of Marxist Studies, in 1980: “How could there be a Party (meaning the revisionist “K”KE) if Zachariadis would come to Greece?” (D. Vyssios: “Open letter to Boris Nikolayevich Panomariov, former head of the Department of International Relations of the CC of CPSU) but, also, by Panos Demetriou: “at any rate, only a KGB report can solve the riddle concerning his death” (“Ethnos”, 29/12/1990).

Second, the very important testimony of the journalist Vera Kuznechova in her interview: “I brought G. Mauros (Greek journalist) in contact with competent persons like Zachariadis’s guard and the forensic doctor who, under pressure, wrote falsely in his report that Nikos Zachariadis died from heart attack. When I talked to him, he admitted that he had diagnosed assassination, no heart attack”

Third, the statement made by Natalia Tomilina, the director of the Russian State Archives, in the spring of 2000: “Not all evidence pertaining Nikos Zachariadis has been published and, especially, the documents related to the circumstances of his death. These documents have been classified as top secret and no access to them is allowed until they are declassified.” (Lefteris Apostolou “Nikos Zachariades”, p. 15, Filistor, 2000).

But the fundamental question arises here: if the case of Nikos Zachariadis death was drawn to definite close with the establishment of the “suicide” version, why, then, the part of the Archives related to the circumstances of his death is not published? Why the documents about the circumstances of his death are, still, classified as top secret and no access to them is allowed?


It is evident that the anticommunist Khruschevian revisionists and their fascist secret services, even after more than three decades (1973-2006) and despite continuous “editing”, cannot render their Archives plausible as to the second false version of Nikos Zachariadis death, the one of “suicide”.

The above statement of the director of the Russian Archives makes the version of adopted by the exiled Greek communists even more convincing. According to this version Nikos Zachariadis was murdered by the Kruschevian-Brezhnevic leadership having secured the consensus of H. Florakis who “even if he did not ask for this himself”, as the veteran communist Nikandros Kepesis wrote: “at any rate, H. Florakis was the instigator of Nikos Zachariadis’s murder”.

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TASHKENT September `55 – the beginning of the struggle of all the world communists against Krushchevian revisionism

Nobody could have ever imagined that in the middle of the `50s of the previous century, a small and unknown city was destined to go down in history of the world communist movement as the birthplace of resistance against the Krushchevian revisionism and the beginning of international struggle against this treacherous counter-revolutionary trend; this small city is Tashkent, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan, “lost” in the depths of Asia, alien for the Greek and world proletariat.

Nobody could have ever imagined that a handful of revolutionaries - members of a Communist Party of a small country - would be the first ones to stand up against Krushchevian revisionism. The party of this small country is the revolutionary KKE and the handful of revolutionaries were the heroic, battle-hardened partisans of the Democratic Army of Greece (DA), members of the Tashkent Party Organisation (KOT) living then in the faraway Asian city as guests of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Their struggle against Krushchevian revisionism passed into the history of the Greek and world communist movement as the “Tashkent events” (September 1955).

Earlier - shortly after the prevalence and strengthening of his treacherous faction in CPSU – as the renegade and agent of imperialism, Nikita Hruchev, was making approaches to the secretaries of the Communist Parties, he found out that the Secretary of KKE, Nikos Zachariades was not willing to abandon the revolutionary Stalinist line. He requested that he revise his attitude in three fundamental questions of the world communist movement: 1) to consider the capitalist Yugoslavia a “socialist” country, 2) to turn against Stalin by writing articles in Pravda on the “cult of personality” - the infamous, Krushchevian myth of idealist origin, and 3) to assent to the liquidation of Comniform. The reply given by the great and unwavering communist leader on all the above requests was negative.

When later the Krushchevian revisionist clique became sure that this kind of pressure will not have any effect, it proceeded with the formation of a faction in the Tashkent Party Organisation, but there a was a lack of support for it save for a few opportunists. The Party leadership unmasked the faction and removed the factionists.

Nikos Zachariades, delivering a speech in a Party cadres meeting in the theatre Mu Ki Mi in Tashkent, said the following among other things: “comrades, several speakers launched an attack on Demetriou and more or less they consider him the head of the revisionists. Demetriou, comrades, is only the end of the tail of a very clumsily camouflaged elephant. The serious and historic duty allotted to all of us is to pull this tail so that the whole world will see the elephant, that is, Hruchev” (K. Karanikola, Mia lefki selida tou KKE, p. 59).

When even the formation of a sizeable faction failed, the Krushchevian revisionist group, employing a few Greek opportunists, organised on the 9^th of September 1955 “the open provocation against the delegation of the CC of KKE: the violent and gangster assault on the offices where the delegation was based and injury of three of its members” (5^th Plenum, December 1955). On the 9^th of September, about 200 opportunists, under the direct guidance of the soviet revisionists, headed by Ipsilantis, Demetriou, Barbalias and others, carried out an assault on the offices of the Tashkent Party Organisation, but they failed to capture them. This act raised an outcry among the thousands of party members who rushed immediately to defend the KOT offices. What followed were violent clashes with the factionists, the police and the army. Many hundreds of Greek communists were arrested and thrown into jail.

At the end of December of `55 (26-28.12 1955) the 5^th historic Plenum of the CC of the KKE was convened. It was historic because: 1) it condemned the anti-communist Krushchevian revisionist intervention in KKE and 2) it was the last convened body of our heroic party before its final liquidation.

Next year, in the middle of February 1956, during the 20^th Congress of the CPSU, the show trials of the Greek communists began in Tashkent. In this travesty of justice, battle-hardened DA veterans, like Giorgos Kalianesis (general), Demetres Vyssios (lieutenant-kernel) and others, were tried for hooliganism and vagrancy. Following their convictions, they were exiled to Siberia and, in fact, into concentration camps “that were intentionally adjacent to concentration camps of German war criminals sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment, the maximum period according to the Soviet criminal law. The Germans didn’t work because of their ‘prisoner of war’ status, and, apart from having the meals of a Soviet soldier, they received parcels of medicine and foodstuffs by the West German Red Cross every ten days. The sentenced refugees were fed with rotten potatoes and mouldy crushed grain. This “diet” was followed under conditions of heavy and exhausting labour” (D. Vyssios: “Open letter to M. N. Panomariof, former Head of the Department of International Relations of the CC of CPSU, January 1991).

The opposition of the Greek communists to Krushchevian revisionism was expressed en masse. The overwhelming majority (95%) of the members of the Tashkent Party Organisation came out against the Krushchevian intervention in KKE and defended the revolutionary party line and the CC headed by Nikos Zachariades showing a stunning decisiveness and unparallel courage. The opposition of the captive communists in jails and concentration camps was similar.

It was exactly this overwhelming opposition by the Greek communists (ranging from 85% to 95% in Tashkent and in the People’s Republics) that prevented KKE from being transformed into a bourgeois party of social democratic type.

When, a few months later, the renegade Hruchev set up the infamous “International Committee”, Nikos Zachariades, addressing its “president” Georgiu Dez, said the following regarding his interference in KKE internal affairs: “who granted the right to examine the problems of heroic KKE to you, who slept in August of 1944 under fascism and woke up next day under People’s Republic, brought by the Red tankists from Stalingrad when they crashed the fascist Romanian Division and offered it to you as a present. What experience do you have to judge the struggle of Greek communists who, to their credit, through their struggle, did not allow not even a single Greek citizen to fight in the Eastern Front against USSR” (K.Karanikola, p. 70-71).

The revolutionary KKE is the only communist party of a capitalist country that was never transformed into a counter-revolutionary, bourgeois, social democratic party. This fact compelled the Krushchevian revisionists to create a completely new party that replaced the old liquidated one. They summoned an illicit party body, the so-called “6^th Plenum”, that decreed the arbitrary removal of the lawfully elected Party’s leadership, the arrest of Nikos Zachariades and massive expulsions of dissident members. In ideological-political level, the 6^th Plenum adopted the counter revolutionary, social democratic line of the 20^th Congress (“peaceful” transition to socialism, etc). The new party took the false name of “K”KE (shamelessly usurping the name of the revolutionary KKE) and it has been, from the very beginning, a bourgeois social democratic party that bears no relation whatsoever with the revolutionary KKE because the latter was guided by the revolutionary Marxism, i.e. Leninism-Stalinism, while the former - by the counter-revolutionary trend of Krushchevian revisionism, a variant of bourgeois ideology.

The overwhelming and militant opposition of the Greek communist political refugees, headed by Nikos Zachariades against the Krushchevian clique in September 1955 in Tashkent, was chronologically the first in the history of the international communist movement’s struggle against Krushchevian revisionism, and, also, a culmination of the revolutionary KKE (1918-1955) heroic struggle. If one takes into account the unheard-of disaster that inevitably followed the enforcement of Krushchevian revisionism to the communist parties (destruction of socialism and restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, breaking-up of the capitalist Soviet Union, liquidation of the communist parties), it can be said that it was not just a culmination of the long struggle of the stalinist-zachariadist KKE, but was at the same time a great and unique moment in the struggle of the international communist movement (Komintern-Komniform) against the new counter-revolutionary treacherous trend of Krushchevian revisionism which emerged in its lines in the mid-1950s: it was precisely this moment that marked the beginning of the most fierce ideological-political struggle against Krushchevian revisionism in international level, a struggle that has been going on for half a century now, is still going on and it will be going on in the future until its final victory.

From the above, it becomes obvious that the “Tashkent events” of 1955 assume a triple historical importance:

First, they constituted the first open and brutal intervention of the Krushchevian revisionists in KKE internal affairs aiming at its liquidation.

Second, they marked the beginning of the resistance and struggle of the Greek communists against Krushchevian revisionism before its emergence as a complete ideological-political trend in the 20^th Congress of CPSU (February 1956).

Third, they raised the banner of struggle of the communists of all countries against this counter-revolutionary trend. The rising and battle of the Greek communists in Tashkent, in September of 1955, ushers in the period of struggle against Krushchevian revisionism on international level.

But what is the reason for the resolute opposition of the Greek communist political refugees (95% in Tashkent and 85-90% in the other People’s Republics) against Krushchevian revisionism, of people who had been brought up in a spirit of deep trust and devotion to the Socialist Soviet Union?

First of all, it is the guiding and decisive role played, in this extremely difficult struggle, by the courageous, unyielding and uncompromising revolutionary Nikos Zachariades, in order KKE not to abandon its revolutionary line. Besides his opposition to the Krushchevian group, in the beginning of 1956, he replied thus to some Greek revisionists, members of the CC of KKE, when they asked him to resign: “I won’t grant you this favour now, I won’t allow you to convert KKE into a bourgeois party” (D. Votsika: Portreta koryfeon stelexon tou KKE”, Athens 1999, p.21)

Secondly, it is the fact that the members of KKE were battle-hardened partisans who had given everything to the armed revolutionary struggle against the indigenous monarchist-fascist reactionary forces and the imperialism, having almost a decade (1940-1950) of armed struggle to their credit. This long revolutionary experience helped them to show the necessary political-ideological maturity, firmness, consistency and decisiveness in this critical moment.

Comrade Nikos Zachariades had predicted the disaster that would come in case Krushchevian revisionism dominated, and it is this prediction that allows for his historical eminence as a great communist revolutionary leader to be assessed: “watch out comrades, these are international provocateurs, they are going to cause a great damage to the world’s communist movement and their Greek collaborators will cause great damage to our country” (Tashkent, September 1955).

Not only did he predict the disaster, but he was the first in the world’s communist movement who stood up and fought against the counter-revolutionary trend of Krushchevian revisionism, a fight for which he paid with 17 years of exile and finally with his own life: he was murdered by the treacherous social-democratic clique of Brezhnev-Florakis in August of 1973 in Sorgut, Siberia, the place of his exile.

Thus, without a doubt, Nikos Zachariades, through his revolutionary struggle, rises to eminence as a giant revolutionary, Bolshevik and great communist leader, as “one of the most important figures of the world’s communist movement” (Niyazof, Tashkent 1955) and remains until the end of his life a devoted disciple of Joseph Stalin who, during the proceedings of the 19^th Congress of CPSU (1952), had said about him: “Do you see this one? He is a great leader. He will start the revolution not only in Greece but also in Europe” (P. Demetriou, “Ek vatheon”, Athens 1997, p. 202-203).

The revisionist group of Hruchev-Brezhnev quite naturally saw him as a serious, capable, powerful and very dangerous ideological-political opponent whom therefore they had to forcefully remove from the leadership of KKE at all costs, and to destroy politically and physically; so dangerous was he considered, that one of Hruchev’s fervent supporters, the French poet Louis Aragon, saw fit to mention him in his two-volume “History of the Soviet Union”: “The charge for personality cult resulted in the removal of Nikos Zachariades from his post as General Secretary of KKE” (L. Aragon, “History of the Soviet Union”, v. 2, p. 268, Athens 1963).

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Incendies : qui est responsable ?

Grèce
Incendies : qui est responsable ?

L’Organisation pour la Reconstructrion du Parti Communiste de Grèce nous livre son analyse.

“Cet été, la Grèce a connu le plus grand désastre écologique de son histoire moderne. Depuis juin, plus de 3 000 incendies ont eu lieu, avec comme résultat des milliers d'hectares de forêts brûlés et la mort de 78 personnes.

Les feux qui ont pris dans tous les coins du pays durant les dix derniers jours d’août furent le point culminant de cette tragédie écologique : pour ces seuls dix jours, ce sont 300 000 hectares de forêt et de terres agricoles qui ont brûlé.

Les conséquences de ces incendies désastreux ne sont pas seulement écologiques. Le nombre de morts durant les derniers incendies s’élève à 67. En tout, plus de 120 villages ont été entièrement détruits, et beaucoup de personnes sont aujourd’hui à la rue. Cela donne une idée du bilan du désastre qui, selon les estimations, s’élève à 350 000 hectares de terres arables brûlés et 80 000 animaux morts. Des milliers de familles vont avoir de grandes difficultés à survivre, car la majorité de la population des zones sinistrées vivent de l’agriculture.

Le gouvernement, terrifié par l’extension des destructions et sa propre incapacité à gérer la crise, a tenté de masquer sa responsabilité en répandant la rumeur attribuant les incendies à des terroristes. Cette hideuse affirmation devint plus tard une partie de la thèse officielle sur les causes des incendies. Le gouvernement a dit que le pays était actuellement face à une “assymetric threat” (menace inégale), usant volontairement de l’expression utilisée par l’impérialisme américain pour se référer à un acte terroriste. Les militants se réclamant de certaines idéologies comme l’anarchisme, ou affiliés à certains partis politiques, ont été désignés comme les principaux suspects. Tout cela montre l’objectif du gouvernement qui est de démarrer une chasse aux sorcières et de procéder à une série de persécutions fascistes. Cependant, toutes leurs tentatives pour créer une situation de terreur hystérique n’aboutirent pas du fait d’un total manque de preuves pour accréditer leurs affirmations.

L’attitude des révisionnistes du Parti communiste de Grèce est tout à fait révélatrice de sa réticence à pointer la part de responsabilité du gouvernement, tout en parlant en même temps des “responsabilités historiques” prises par les précédents gouvernements et en adoptant la thèse selon que les incendies font partie d’un plan organisé, malgré l’absence de preuves. De fait, le PCG essaie, un fois de plus, de couvrir la responsabilité de l’aile droite du gouvernement, comme cela a déjà été le cas par le passé.

Le Mouvement pour la Reconstruction du Parti Communiste de Grèce 1918-1955 est convaincu que le gouvernement est seul responsable de l’ampleur des destructions.

C’est un gouvernement qui n’a pris aucune mesure pour la prévention des incendies et la protection des forêts. Bien plus, le manque d’équipement et de personnel dans les brigades de pompiers ont joué un rôle décisif. Malgré l’énorme taux de chômage dans notre pays, il manque près de 3 000 postes dans ces brigades. Mais ce qui a encore augmenté l’ampleur du désastre, c’est l’absence totale de coordination entre les unités et les services civils en charge d’éteindre les feux. Pour toutes ces raisons, le gouvernement est le premier responsable.

L’irresponsabilité de l’Etat bourgeois qui encourage les incendiaires est aussi à blâmer. L’absence d’une politique planifiée de prévention des incendies, ainsi que les changements répétés du statut des forêts et des tentatives de réviser l’article 24 de la constitution réglementant la protection des forêts, ont aiguisé les appétits du capital. L’Etat bourgeois place les profits au-dessus des hommes et de la nature… stoppons-le !” H

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Wer ist verantwortlich für die Waldbrandkatastrophe in Griechenland?

Eine Erklärung der Bewegung für die Wiedergründung der KP Griechenlands 1918-1955 (Anasintaxi)

In diesem Sommer hat Griechenland das größte ökologische Desaster in seiner modernen Geschichte erlebt. Seit Juni sind über 3.000 Waldbrände ausgebrochen, tausende Hektar fruchtbares Land wurden verbrannt, 78 Menschen starben.

Die Waldbrände, die in fast jedem Winkel des Landes in den letzten zehn Tagen des August ausbrachen, waren der Höhepunkt dieser Umwelttragödie. Danach waren 3.000.000 Hektar Wald und fruchtbares Land verbrannt, jungfräulicher Forst zerstört.

Die Folgen der verheerenden Brände sind nicht nur ökologischer Art. 67 Menschen wurden allein in den letzten Waldbränden getötet. Außerdem wurden über 120 Dörfer vollkommen zerstört. Die Menschen standen buchstäblich auf der Strasse. Es ist bezeichnend für das Ausmass der Katastrophe, dass schätzungsweise 350.000 Hektar fruchtbares Land verbrannt wurden und 80.000 Tiere verschwanden. Tausende von Familien werden hart um ihr Überleben kämpfen müssen, denn in den betroffenen Gebieten lebt die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung von der Landwirtschaft und Viehzucht.

Erschreckt durch das Ausmass der Zerstörung und ihre eigene Unfähigkeit, die Krise zu meistern, hat die Regierung das Gerücht verbreitet, dass die Brände von Terroristen gelegt worden seien. Sie hat so versucht, von ihrer eigenen Verantwortung abzulenken. Diese widerliche Behauptung wurde später Bestandteil der offiziellen Regierungserklärungen über die Gründe für die verheerenden Brände. Hohe Regierungsbeamte erklärten, das Land stehe vor einer akuten „asymmetrischen Bedrohung“. Sie benutzten damit absichtlich den Begriff, den die amerikanischen Imperialisten benutzen, wenn sie sich auf einen terroristischen Akt beziehen. Menschen und politische Parteien, die bestimmten Ideologien wie z.B. dem Anarchismus nahe stehen, wurden als Hauptverdächtige für die behaupteten terroristischen Akte benannt. All das zeigt, dass die Regierung mit einer Hexenjagd beginnen will um dann zu einer Reihe von faschistischen Verfolgungen überzugehen. Aber alle ihre Versuche, eine Terror-Hysterie zu erzeugen, scheiterten, weil es auch nicht den Schimmer eines Beweises für ihre Behauptungen gab.

Die Haltung der revisionistischen so genannten Kommunistischen Partei Griechenlands ist ziemlich entlarvend, weil sie zögert, die Verantwortung der Regierung anzuerkennen und gleichzeitig über die „lange Jahre zurückliegenden Verantwortlichkeiten“ aller früheren Regierungen redet. Außerdem sympathisiert sie mit der Meinung, dass die Brände nach einem organisierten Plan gelegt worden seien, obwohl es dafür keinerlei Beweis gibt. Auf diese Weise versucht die sogenannte KP Griechenlands die Verantwortlichkeiten der rechten Regierung zu vertuschen – so, wie sie es in der Vergangenheit schon häufiger getan hat.

Die Bewegung für die Wiedergründung der KP Griechenlands 1918-1955 meint, dass die Regierung allein für das Ausmass der Zerstörung verantwortlich ist. Sie ist eine Regierung, die überhaupt keine vorbeugenden Massnahmen gegen die Brände und für den Schutz der Wälder ergriffen hat. Mehr noch. Für das Ausmass der Zerstörungen spielten die Kürzungen an Ausrüstungen und Fachkräften bei den Feuerwehren eine entscheidende Rolle. Trotz der immer weiter anwachsenden Arbeitslosigkeit in unserem Land, wurde das Personal der Feuerwehren um fast 3.000 Personen gekürzt. Aber was das Ausmass des Desasters noch vergrößert hat, war das totale Fehlen jeder Koordination zwischen den verschiedenen Einsatzkräften. Für all das trägt die Regierung die Hauptverantwortung.

Getadelt werden muss auch die unverantwortliche Haltung des bürgerlichen Staates, die die Brandstifter ermutigt hat. Das Fehlen einer planmäßigen Politik der Brandprävention, die wiederholten Veränderungen des Rechtsstatus bewaldeten Landes und der Versuch, den Artikel 24 der Verfassung zu ändern, der den Schutz der Wälder vorsieht – all das hat den Appetit des Kapitals angeregt. Der bürgerliche Staat stellt den Profit über die Menschen und die Natur – lasst ihn uns stoppen!

September 2007

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About the fires in Greece

This summer Greece went through the greatest ecological disaster in its modern history. Since June, more than 3000 fires have broken out and as a result thousands of hectares of green land were scorched and 78 people died.

The fires that broke out in almost every corner of the country during the last 10 days of August were the culmination of this environmental tragedy. The aftermath was the scorching of 3,000,000 hectares of forest and arable land and the destruction of virgin forests.

The consequences of the disastrous fires are not only ecological. The number of dead from the last fires has reached 67. In addition, more than 120 villages have been totally devastated leaving many people on the streets. It is indicative of the scale of the disaster that, according to estimates, 350,000 hectares of arable land were scorched and 80,000 animals perished. As a result, thousands of families will have to fight hard for their survival since the majority of the population in the afflicted areas lived from agriculture and husbandry.

The government, terrified by the extent of the devastation and its own inability to handle the crisis, made an attempt to cover up its responsibility by spreading the rumour that the fires had been the work of terrorists. This hideous claim later became part of the official governmental statements on the causes of the disastrous fires. Top government officials said that the country is actually facing an “asymmetric threat”, not accidentally adopting the term which the American imperialists use when they refer to a terrorist act. People affiliated with certain ideologies, such as anarchism, as well as political parties were pointed as primary suspects for these alleged terrorist acts. All this shows the government’s aim to start a witch hunt and to proceed to a series of fascist persecutions. However, all their attempts to create a situation of terror-hysteria came to nothing due to the complete lack of any evidence that could back up their claims.

The attitude of the revisionist so called “C”P of Greece, is quite revealing because of its reluctance to acknowledge the government’s share of responsibility while talking, at the same time, about the “perennial responsibilities” held by all the previous governments and embracing the opinion that the fires broke out on the basis of an organised plan despite the lack of evidence. In this way, “C”PG is trying, once more, to cover up the responsibilities of the right-wing government, as it has done in many cases in the past.

The Movement for the Reorganisation of the CP of Greece 1918-1955 believes that the government itself is solely responsible for the size of the destruction. It is a government that has not taken any measure for the prevention of fires and the protection of forests. Moreover, the shortages of equipment and staff in the fire brigade played a decisive role. Despite the ever increasing unemployment in our country, the fire brigade’s shortages in personnel reach almost 3000. But what augmented the scale of the disaster, was the total absence of coordination between the units and civil services in charge of putting out the fires. For all this, the government bears the prime responsibility.

The irresponsibility of the bourgeois state that essentially encourages the arsonists is also to blame. The want of a planned policy of fire prevention accompanied by the repeated changes of status of forest land and the attempt to revise the article 24 of the Constitution that provides for the protection of the forests, have whetted the capital’s appetite. The bourgeois state places profits above men and nature…let’s stop it!

September 2007

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50 years since the massive rebellion of the Greek communists in Tashkent against the Khrushchevite revisionism

The open intervention of the Khrushchevite revisionists in KKE and the rebellion of the Greek communists against Khrushchevite revisionism

The “Tashkent events” and the pogrom against the communists

September of this year marked the 50th year since the open, barbarous intervention by the treacherous Khrushchevite clique in the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the massive rebellion of the Greek communists, political refuges in Tashkent against Khrushchevite revisionism. These events - the so called “Tashkent events” - are virtually unknown to the communists, the working class and the people of our country and mark the beginning of the liquidation of the revolutionary KKE 1918-1955, the heroic party of the proletariat.

At the end of August 1949, after a three-and-a-half-year armed struggle against the indigenous monarchist-fascist reaction and the Anglo-American imperialism, when there were no any prospects of victory because of the titoist treason (Tito’s joining the imperialist camp) that disrupted the balance of power at the expense of our struggle, following a decision by the Central Committee of the KKE headed by Nikos Zachariades, the partisans of the Democratic Army of Greece (DA) left behind the glorified and legendary heights of Grammos, Vitsi and the other mountains of our country to pass to Albania and from there, in their majority, to the faraway Tashkent, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan, then part of Stalin’s socialist Soviet Union.

The Greek communists spent their first years in exile trying to adjust to the new life conditions with all the expected problems, but they were living in peace and were also, with great enthusiasm, actively participating in the socialist construction and party life supporting the revolutionary line of KKE, headed by Nikos Zacahriades, and the line of the international communist movement, guided by the great communist leader and Marxist [classic], Joseph Stalin.

In October (10-14.10) 1950, the 3rd Conference of KKE took place. This body almost completely purged the opportunists from the party. For the first time in the decade of 1940-1950, a heavy blow was dealt to the right opportunism, to all opportunists who had betrayed the popular movement during the time of the Nazi occupation by signining the agreements in Lebanon (20.5.1944), Gazerta (26.9.1944) and Varkiza (12.2.1945) and who, moreover, had sabotaged the development and enlargement of the DA during the Civil War.

The DA partisans had, on one hand, the luck to witness for a few years the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union in Stalin’s time but, on the other hand, for many decades following his murder in March 1953, they had also the great misfortune to experience the abolition of socialism and the gradual restoration of capitalism. The latter process started in the Hruchev-Brezhnev period in the mid 1950’s after the prevalence of the Khrushchevite revisionist counter-revolution, and finished with the collapse of the restored capitalism, and finally, with the break-up of the capitalist Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, in Gorbachev’s time.
The socialist society in the Soviet Union was a class society – consisting of workers, farmers and intellectuals – but without exploitation. Nevertheless, the construction of socialism was advancing in the midst of fierce class struggle since the counter-revolutionary forces never ceased to exist and act against the Soviet power. Despite the establishment of proletarian dictatorship these forces attempted from early on, through various means to undermine the unity of the Greek communist political refugees. However, after the death/murder of Stalin and the prevalence of the revisionist group of Hruchev-Mikoyan-Brezhnev et al. when the latter found out that the KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades is not going to abandon the revolutionary marxist-leninist-stalinist course and to follow the anti-stalinist revisionist course, it sought to form a right opportunist faction in the largest KKE Party Organisation abroad, the Tashkent Party Organisation (KOT), and to push this faction right up to the Organisation’s leadership. However, the revolutionary KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades immediately took measures removing fraction’s cadres from the leadership of KOT.
After the removal of the faction from the KOT leadership, high-ranking members of the Khrushchevite group in the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, following Hruchev’s orders, organised and guided an assault on the Organisation’s offices. They assembled around 200 opportunists headed by Ypsilantis, Himaros, Barbalias and others who, under the guidance of Saakof, attacked the offices with the intention to capture them: “at 4 pm, on the 9th of September, around 200 people gathered in the courtyard of 7th Politeia together with the faction leaders who were bracing their followers with vodka, beer and wine” (K.D. Karanikola: “Mia lefki selida tou KKE”, p. 53).
The assault on the KOT offices was preceded by faction’s provocations in various Politeies: “In those Politeies where the factionists had some support, like in the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 9th and 11th, they started looting the local libraries and burning books, especially those written by Zachariades, Bartziotas and those about the struggle of the DA” (ibid, p. 46). Now the social-democratic leadership of Aleka Papariga pretends to support the struggle of the DA.
The assault on the KOT offices did not have the expected result - the opportunists did not manage to capture them. Vagelis Zoulis, former DA partisan, made the following ironic comment on their failure: “Now I realised why we didn’t seize Konitsa with at least a thousand houses since our leaders with 200 men didn’t manage to seize a single house!!” (Ibid, p. 54).
When the assault on the KOT offices was made known, thousands of enraged communists rushed into their defence. Clashes and beatings followed with the factionists until police and cadet detachments came to their rescue. Many of the injured had to be transported to the hospital while hundreds of Greek communists were arrested, mainly high-ranking DA officers, thrown in jail and tried for “hooliganism”(!).
Despite this open provocation by the Khrushchevite clique against KKE, Saakof and Safayef, the principal perpetrators of the pogrom, circulated the rumour that “the KKE leadership and Nikos Zachariades unleashed a bloody terror without a precedent”!!! (Ibid, p. 55).
All the political refuges in Tashkent knew that the instigators of the provocative “Tashkent events” were the Khrushchevite revisionists who aimed at the liquidation of KKE. Everybody knew that the handful of Greek opportunists were in permanent contact with and under the direct guidance of the treacherous Khrushchevite revisionist group. One of the noted opportunists, Kostas Gritzonas, confesses: “One evening, during the time when the Tashkent events reached their climax, as I was on my way from the 7th to the 9th Politeia together with the secretary of KOT, Aristotelis Hatouras, he confided to me that the anti-zachariadist movemement enjoyed the support from the Soviets. He left me with the understanding that they were having private talks with the Khrushchevites from the CC of the CP of Uzbekistan” (K.Gritzonas: “Meta to Grammo”, p.18-19).
The overwhelming majority of the Greek communists, 95% of the KOT members, condemned the Khrushchevite revisionists’ intervention in KKE and they rallied around their Party headed by Nikos Zachariades. This attitude was most clearly expressed in the historic 5th Plenum of the CC of KKE convened at the end of December 1955. In the Plenum’s decision, among other things, it is mentioned that: “the faction would have achieved nothing at all had it not received the support by certain soviet comrades, who were convinced that the faction is the strongest and the most pro-soviet part of KOT which they must support and help”.
The “Tashkent events”, the open and anti-communist intervention of Khrushchevites in KKE, has been concealed by every right opportunist leadership of the social-democratic “K”KE since 1956 and they are still concealed by the A. Papariga leadership. The decision of the 5th Plenum (December 1955) concerning the situation in KOT was published for the first time in 1995, after 40 years.
In February of 1956, during the counter-revolutionary 20th Congress of CPSU, the show trials of the Greek communists, political refugees, started. In these trials they were sentenced under “hooligan” laws and exiled to prison camps (Giorgos Kalianesis, general of DA, Dimitris Vyssios, lieutenant-kernel, commissar of the 103rd Brigade, Nikos Fragos, major of DAG, Giorgos Makris captain of DA and others).
In the 20th Congress of CPSU, the Khrushchevites formed the infamous “International Committee” consisting of cadres from the Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Czechoslovak and Bulgarian parties. The president of the International Committee was, formally, Georgiu Dez – Khrushchev’s puppet – but essentially Otto Kuusinen, well-known social democrat, and member of the Politburo of CPSU. The International Committee openly and without pretexts intervened in KKE by arbitrarily summoning the infamous 6th Plenum (March 1956). In this illicit meeting the report was read not by a Greek, but by the Romanian opportunist Dez. Former cadres and expelled members participated, but not the lawfully elected General Secretary of the Party Nikos Zachariades.
The 6th Plenum illegally and forcibly removed the elected revolutionary leadership of KKE, including the Party’s General Secretary Nikos Zachariades, who was arrested and isolated, and appointed a right opportunistic puppet leadership. The 6th Plenum adopted the counter-revolutionary social-democratic line promulgated in the 20th Congress of CPSU (peaceful transition to socialism, etc).
The great majority of the Greek communists (85-95%) rejected and vehemently opposed the treacherous social-democratic anti-Stalinist line of the 20th Congress/6th Plenum and defended marxism-leninism-stalinism as well as Stalin-Zachariades.
In the following years, thousands of communists were expelled by the appointed right opportunist Kolligianis-Partsalidis-Vafiades leadership, while others broke away from the new opportunist bourgeois party that shamelessly usurped the title-name “K”KE – a title that bears until nowadays - while it is guided by the counter-revolutionary trend of Khrushchevite revisionism.
The decades after 1956 was a time of fascist persecutions of all the Greek communists, who remained faithful to Stalin and Zachariades by the Soviet and Greek Khrushchevite revisionists. These persecutions took various forms: surveillance, spying, arrests, imprisonments, exiles to Siberia, etc. Many party cadres were exiled to Siberia and among them the Party’s General Secretary, Nikos Zachariades, who, after 17 years of exile, was murdered in Sorgut by the treacherous Brezhnev-Florakis clique so that he wouldn’t return alive to Greece and upset their plans.
Every single right opportunist leadership of the social democratic “K”KE, including the Florakis-Tsolakis and the contemporary Papariga leadership, have passed over the fascist persecutions against the Greek communists in silence. Moreover, they have made no reference to the intervention in the KKE internal affairs carried out by the infamous “International Committee” for 40 years. They published the relevant documents just in 1997.

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The Life of the Labour Activist Mahmoud Salehi is in Danger!

Dear Comrades,

The criminal regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran is continuing its repression of the labour activists, women and the students. The Islamic Republic sees its survival in blood shedding, despotism, and imprisonment of its opponents. In the past few weeks, many freedom fighting students are arrested and imprisoned in the dark dungeons of the Islamic Republic. Extensive mental and physical torture is carried out in prisons of this medieval regime.

It is more than three months now that Mahmoud Salehi has been imprisoned because he had organized a May Day rally in the city of Saqez (Kurdistan Province) in 2004. Mahmoud is a well known labour activist who has defended the rights of the workers and the right to form independent labour organizations. He is a member of the Bakery Workers' Association of the city of Saqez. Mr. Salehi has been put under extremely harsh physical conditions.

According to the confirmed reports, he has been transferred to a hospital due to developing kidney problems. He is told that he will be returned to his prison cell in a few days. Mr. Salehi lost one kidney in previous years of imprisonment in the regime of the Islamic Republic. The life of this worker
activist is in danger.

In order to intimidate the labour activists and to create an atmosphere of fear, the authorities in Iran has decided to barbarically and physically eliminate several labour activists, students, and women. In doing this, the Islamic Republic hopes to set back the progressive and revolutionary movement of the Iranian masses.
The campaign to free Mahmoud Salehi has gained momentum. The progressive organizations in many countries are raising their voices against the Islamic Republic's treatments of the labour activists and are demanding the freedom of Mahmoud Salehi.

Our Party believes that repression of the workers and toilers by the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran serves the interests of imperialism and the world reaction. We strongly condemn the repressive actions of the Iranian regime.

Our Party calls on all fraternal Parties and the Marxist-Leninist Organizations to express outrage over the imprisonment and treatment of the labour activist Mahmoud Salehi and to demand the regime of Islamic Republic to free all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally. Only the intensification of the just struggle of the Iranian labourers and of the genuine international support for masses can force the Islamic regime to retreat and to stop the repression of the Iranian people.

Long Live International Solidarity!

The Foreign Office of the Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan)
July 18, 2007
WWW.Toufan.org

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“Independent Candidates”, Supported by Democracy Forces Entered the Parliament

26th July 2007

The general elections in Turkey, which were brought forward because of the crisis in Presidency elections, were held in 22th July.

Because of the 10 percent national threshold, our Party (EMEP) and its allies participated in the elections with “independent candidates”.

The allience of DTP (Democratic Society Party), EMEP (Labour Party), SDP (Socialist Democracy Party), some left-wing groups and organisations, intellectiuals and trade unionists supported 60 independent candidates.

Elections were done under antidemocratic and unequal conditions. While the media propagandised the neoliberal bourgeois parties, they ignored the independent candidates. Also, armed forces prevented the election campaigns of independent candidates. But despite these, 23 independent candidates entered the Parliament. This number is enough to make a group in the Parliament. Our General President Levent Tuzel was also “independent candidate” from Izmir, he got 37 thousand votes but it wasn't enough to enter the Parliament.

After the elections, the three parties those entered the Parliament are: AKP (Justice and Development Party, a liberal party which is collaborator of imperialists) with 340 seats, CHP (Republican People's Party, this party edged towards right gradually, cooperate with putschist generals) wih 112 seats and MHP (Nationalist Movement Party, a fascist party) with 70 seats. All these three parties support the neoliberal economical policies. But AKP follows a moderate Islamic line and the other two follow a nationalist line.

Also an other important point of these elections is the entrance of the “independent candidates” who were supported by Labour, Peace and Democracy Forces. It can be evaluated as an important change at the Parliament. Of course it's important to enter the Parliament again, after 15 deputies of TIP (Workers Party of Turkey) in 1965 and deputies from DEP (Democratic Labour Party) who entered the Parliament 13 years ago and arrested because of taking oath in Kurdish.

The “independent candidates” will have a group in the Parliament and they will defense the human rights such as the democratic solution for Kurdish problem, and the freedom of expression and organisation and the rights of workers and labourers. Also they will struggle with the neoliberal policies of AKP.



Labour Party (EMEP)
International Relations Bureau

International Relations Bureau:
Kocamustafapasa Cd. S. Turan Topal Sk. No:2/2 Fatih/ISTANBUL - TURKEY Tel: +90 212 5884332 Fax: +90 212 5884341
Web: http://www.emep.org

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Letter of the Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan)

Dear Comrades,

The regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran has intensified the repression and arrest of the worker-activists, women, youths, and of university students. Using the pretext of US imperialists' military threats and of the repeated adoption of the UN resolutions to impose economic sanctions, the capitalist regime of the Islamic Republic has put tremendous pressure on the Iranian masses and is responding to the just demands of the people by bullets and terror. On July 10, Mansour Ossanlou the head of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburb Bus Company (Sherkat e Vahed) was kidnapped by a group (in civilian clothes) related to the Islamic Republic's security forces. According to the reports given by his family, Mansour is now imprisoned in section 209 of notorious Evin prison in Tehran. The infamous Evin prison is known as a torture chamber of the opponents of the Shah and the Sheikh. The life of Mr. Ossanlou is in danger in the prison.

Mr. Ossanlou has fearlessly defended democratic rights of the employees of Sherkt e Vahed Bus Company and has formed an independent union for them. This brave activist has mocked the Islamic Republic's torture and imprisonment. These are Mr. Ossanlou's only guilt!

Mansour Ossanlou is a labour activist who strongly opposes any economic sanction or imperialist military invasion of Iran. For several years, Ossanlou has struggled to achieve the workers' rights, the right to strike, and the right to form organisation. He is respected by the workers and freedom-seeking people of Iran.

Our Party, the Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan), calls on each of the fraternal Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations to send protest letters to Iranian Consulates and to take other appropriate actions condemning the kidnapping of Mr. Ossanlou and demanding his immediate and unconditional release. We must demand the immediate release of all imprisoned worker-activists, women, youths, students, and dissidents.

Our Party strongly and resolutely opposes any UN economic sanction or any imperialist-Zionist military action against Iran. We believe that the barbaric and suppressive policies of the Islamic Republic against workers, students, women and the freedom-seeking patriots only serve the interests of imperialists and Zionists. We strongly condemn these policies.

The Foreign Office of the Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan)
July 13, 2007
www.Toufan.org

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Interview with Francisco Caraballo

From A Verdade, Brazil, January 2004

A Verdade: Why are you in prison?

F.C.: I have been involved in revolutionary activity continuously for 43 years. I participated in the foundation of the Communist Party of Colombia (M-L) and of the Popular Army of Liberation. I have fought consistently for profound transformations in the political and social reality of the country. That is why I took part in various forms of revolutionary activity. As a rebel I have expressed in theory and practice the contradiction with the established social system and the State that defends it. For many years I was subjected to rabid persecution by the State’s repressive apparatus. On several occasions news of my death was published and rewards were offered for capture, dead or alive, in the manner of the Wild West. For 10 years I have been in prison, first in the installations of the Army Artillery School, then in the Military Police Battalion in Bogotá, and finally I was transferred to the Maximum Security Penitentiary in Itagüi-Antioquia. According to the norms of the Penal Code, I have already completed my sentence; however, I have been condemned to 40 years in prison. This shows that the State is violating its own laws and that justice is subordinate to the interests of the struggle between those who defend the status quo and those who seek to change it radically.

A Verdade: Colombia has vast riches, but its people live in misery. What are the causes of the poverty in Colombia?

F.C.: Colombia is inhabited by 44 million people, of whom 67% are less than 30 years old. It has an area of 1,338,000 sq. km. [514,000 sq. mi], with a very varied topography and climate. The agricultural and livestock sectors are the bases of the economy, with coffee as the main export product. It produces a variety of products in all climates and has favorable conditions for raising livestock and fishing, although these have been downplayed in favor of imports. The subsoil contains oil, which makes up 30% of exports, coal, which represents 40% of the reserves of Latin America, natural gas, emeralds, gold, silver, platinum, iron, nickel, uranium and cobalt. Its territory has an important biological heritage. Industry, which contributes 20% of the GNP, produces textiles, food, chemicals and metallurgy among other things.

Despite such a promising reality, while a narrow elite enjoys all the privileges and benefits, the immense majority of Colombians are forced into misery and are marginalized. The oligarchy, tied to big transnational capital, is responsible for the most serious problems of the country, the backwardness and poverty, because those in power have persisted in fulfilling the dictates of the IMF and World Bank, in applying the neo-liberal model and "economic opening" that has reduced agricultural, livestock and industrial production, besides promoting the increased exploitation of labor and the privatization of public enterprises at the cost of the living and working conditions of the workers.

Imperialist domination, the advances in the concentration and centralization of production and capital, the application of neo-liberal policies, the strengthening of the financial sector, have widened the chasm between broad sectors of society and a small group of large capitalists. It is this group which is the most responsible for the backwardness, misery and violence from which the majority of Colombians suffers.

A Verdade: What are the changes that your Party calls for in Colombia?

F.C.: The Communist Party of Colombia Marxist-Leninist proposes, as its strategic objective, the realization of a process of democratic, anti-imperialist revolution oriented towards socialism. Socialist construction is understood as a complex and long task that logically requires fundamental changes in political consciousness, in the correlation of forces confronting each other and in the accumulation of experiences in the various forms of class confrontation. It is necessary to remove the obstacles which are opposed to social progress, to the exercise of a genuine democracy and to the improvement of the conditions of life of the majorities who have been excluded.

On the level of tactics, the Party demands:

• To struggle for the defense of national sovereignty, to contribute to the unity of the Latin American peoples and to internationalism among the workers; all this has to be seen as related to the mobilizations against the interference of the United States government in the affairs that are only the concern of our people.

• To reject the neo-liberal policies and, of course, to contribute to defending and improving the conditions of life of the workers.

• To promote actions for a genuine democracy, the right to life, liberty, dignity and human rights; against State terrorism, paramilitaries and all kinds of repression against the people’s fighters.

• To promote unity on different social levels, as an indispensable condition to carry out the great transformations that Colombia needs.

All the political or social actions that the Party promotes are oriented towards creating conditions for the changes that conform to the character of the revolution.

A Verdade: Recently the Uribe government suffered a big defeat in the referendum. Why did the Colombian people say No to Uribe and the policies of the IMF?

F.C.: It is useful to remember that after his victory in the presidential elections of 2002, the big media, the most important economic groups and some political and social sectors spread the idea that Colombians unanimously supported all the policies of President Alvaro Uribe, and he certainly believed that. But the majority of Colombians are not in favor of the violence that the State is increasingly using against the people, nor in supporting further intervention of the Bush government in the internal affairs of Colombia, nor do they agree to be subordinated to the demands of the IMF. The Colombian people reject the policy of hunger and repression of the present government. That explains why, after fourteen months in the government, President Uribe has suffered successive failures, including the rejection of the referendum. It was a matter of the militarization of national life and the policy of "democratic security," which has given free reign to all forms of arbitrariness. President Uribe showed his bankruptcy on important matters: he failed to organize a pro-Uribe party and did not receive support for his proposal for presidential reelection, by means of which he intended to prolong his term; he has lost his unanimous support in the big media; he failed to revive the idea of a referendum by means of political maneuvers; he did not receive endorsement for the Special Treaty of Protection for Colombian immigrants in the United States. As consequence of all these factors, the dissatisfaction with and criticism of the main policies of the Uribe government has grown, opening enormous possibilities for the people’s struggles, keeping in mind that this year new measures have been announced that will affect large groups of the population.

A Verdade: What is the Plan Colombia? What is the Andean Regional Initiative?

F.C.: Plan Colombia is part of the strategy of the United States to strengthen its domination in the Americas. This imperialist policy has its precedents in the strategy of the cold war and the doctrine of "national security," which influences determining factors of the reality of Latin America and of Colombia in particular, given its importance from a geopolitical point of view. In December of 1998, President Andres Pastrana presented Plan Colombia under the guise of a "Change to Build Peace," which tried to disguise its true intentions. Initially the emphasis was put, formally, on the fight against drug trafficking, but a year later its military content was made clear, that it was to justify the restructuring, strengthening and modernization of the military forces. Together with these measures, the presence of military troops has increased, and intelligence and technical personnel as well as elite Pentagon troops are operating on Colombian territory. The United States government has reinforced its "air interdiction" and has installed radar at various sites in the country. After September 11, under the guise of the fight against terrorism declared by Mr. Bush, that activity has noticeably increased.

Besides the military element, which is the primary element in their plans, Plan Colombia has other components: on the economic plane it is connected to the interests of important oil companies in the United States and Great Britain to take over the energy resources of the country; they took part in drawing up the documents of the Plan and made huge investments in the protection of these resources through agreements with the paramilitary groups. On the political level, repressive measures have been put in place aimed at striking against the forces opposed to or fighting against the government. Recently the Congress approved the Anti-Terrorist Law, which will undoubtedly increase the arbitrary measures against the population. Today the balance is negative and these are dangerous tendencies not only for Colombia but for the whole region.

It is clear that the United States and the transnational companies have increased their efforts to control the resources of the Andean region, not only in relation to the exploitation of oil. As an example, consider the plan for an inter-oceanic corridor between Tumaco, Manaos and Belem do Para, the plan for an inter-oceanic canal between Atrato and Truando and the control of the Amazon River. Their primary interest is in the control of the Amazon region, which is vital for the future of humanity; it produces 40% of the world’s oxygen supply, contains the greatest biodiversity on the planet and is also a huge source of fresh water. But above all, one must consider the extraordinary oil reserves in this region. For oil is linked with the wars that the United States is carrying out.

The Andean Regional Initiative is the second phase of Plan Colombia. It was initially presented as a strategy for Colombia, but subsequently it was presented in its true dimensions. This shows to a certain extent the reality and objectives of the United States government. What began under the guise of the fight against drug trafficking has been transformed into a fight against the peoples and against those who are opposed to the intervention and domination of the United States in these countries. President Bus h is taking advantage of any pretext for aggression and war. In relation to the military component of Plan Colombia one must remember that President Uribe, as a faithful agent of the United States government, is justifying and supporting Bush’s policies; thus he has said that Colombia’s problem is a common enemy for the democracies of the continent and that the Colombian violent groups have a destabilizing potential for all the democracies in the region.

For us this is a warning of the Pentagon’s intention to convert the military base at Alcántara, in the North East of Brazil, into a center of military operations at the service of the United States; the stationing of U.S. troops at the military base of Manta in Ecuador; the reinforcement of the land, air, and sea points of control in the region; the intention of the Southern Command to involve the states bordering Colombia in its plan for a counter-insurgency war, violating the national sovereignty and the self-determination of the peoples.

In response to the policies that the United States government is applying in Latin America, in the first place it is necessary to unite the forces and struggles of the Latin-American peoples for sovereignty, genuine democracy and human dignity.

A Verdade: The E.P.L. [People’s Liberation Army], E.L.N. [Army of National Liberation] and the F.A.R.C. [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] are the main guerrilla forces in Colombia. Is it possible to unite these forces around a program?

F.C.: I think that it is not only possible but indispensable, since it is necessary for the progress of the revolutionary movement. Only by means of unity will there be a greater strength in the forces fighting for the revolutionary transformation of the reality of the country towards a better future for the Colombians. I am convinced that all the organizations wish to advance towards greater levels of unity, keeping in mind that we face the same enemies and we have common strategic objectives, basically oriented by the same ideals. But one must recognize that there is a difference between wishes and practice; that is the truth....

A Verdade: How can you fight for freedom as a prisoner condemned to more than forty years in prison?

F.C.: I think it is possible to fight for freedom, to a greater or lesser degree, whatever the difficulties that one faces. The main thing is the will to do it.... The sentence that the Colombian State has imposed on me is an expression of its revenge; for that reason in my case the State has violated its own norms; in my case, it is not a legal but a political situation; the judges have understood it this way and it has been clear from the moment when they refused to subject me to this farce and I have denounce the immorality of the State and the incapacity of the courts to judge my conduct and my revolutionary activity. Understanding this has helped me face the situation and learn to act in accordance with my circumstances. My main interest has been not to remain on the sidelines of political reality or of my activity as a revolutionary. This requires continuous efforts to overcome the many and permanent obstacles. I am clear that the fight for my freedom is linked to the struggle that is being carried out outside of these bars by large numbers of men and women for their real freedom....

A Verdade: In November we will be commemorating 86 years since the Great Russian Socialist Revolution. In your opinion, is socialism the future of humanity?

F.C.: A Verdade has given me the opportunity to refer to two aspects of this question:

1) The disaster that took place in the Soviet Union was a very important historical fact, which some theoreticians and historians have jubilantly proclaimed as the "end of history," as the final victory of the capitalist system over socialism. In fact, what we have seen is the complete failure of a model of society and State whose decadence was foreseeable, that it has had nothing to do with socialism for a long time. Since before the sixties, when new Marxist-Leninists organizations began to form and the division of the International Communist Movement became evident, the deviations into which the Soviet leaders had fallen were denounced, and the irreversible process of degeneration of the so-called Soviet model, as actually happened, was noted. From the moment when the end of contradictions and of the class struggle was proclaimed; when the "State of the whole people" was established; when the exercise of liberal democracy was affirmed, which drowned genuine democracy with workers’ participation; when a leading clique was installed in State power on the backs of the interests of the people; when impositions and abuses were carried out against the Communist Movement, in contradiction to proletarian internationalism, the road to the decay of the socialist system and the Soviet State was opened. The rest came as a logical consequence and did not take place from one moment to another, but over a prolonged period. The present reality shows the deep crisis of the capitalist system, the aggravation of the economic situation which continues to worsen the situation of the "developing" countries; the deepening of the social problems including more hunger, unemployment, marginalization, etc.; the proliferation of wars and armed conflicts in various regions of the planet.

2) Marxist-Leninist theory, as a scientific theory, continues its relevance, despite those who have tried and are trying to deny it or distort it, which amount to the same thing. I believe without any doubt in Marxism to orient revolutionary actions that transform society; that is to say in Marxism as guide or reference point for our actions, not as a formula or prescription. I am convinced that socialism signals a definite perspective for revolutionary changes in society. Socialism is the future of humanity, without a doubt.

Many thanks.

Francisco Caraballo

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