Friday, May 28, 2010

INSTEAD OF EXPRESSING GRIEF, PRESIDENT SHOULD SACK MAMATA BANERJEE IMMEDIATELY FOR DEFENDING THE INSANE MAOIST BUTCHERS

PRESIDENT PRATIBHA PATIL ON FRIDAY EXPRESSED GRIEF OVER THE LOSS OF LIVES IN THE TRAIN DERAILMENT IN WEST BENGAL THAT KILLED AT LEAST 65 PEOPLE.
Patil, who is in Beijing on a state visit, sent her heart felt condolences to the families of the deceased.Meanwhile, a "grieved" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday announced monetary assistance of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased and Rs.50,000 each to the seriously injured in the train accident in West Bengal.
"The prime minister is grieved to learn of the tragedy today (Friday) morning," a statement from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said.
He has "announced an ex-gratia assistance of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased and Rs.50,000 each to the seriously injured", the statement said.
Manmohan Singh asked the railways and other authorities to ensure that all assistance was provided to the bereaved families, the injured and other passengers of the Gyaneshwari Express that met with the accident early on Friday.
At least 65 passengers were killed and over 200 injured when 13 coaches were derailed and five of them were hit by a goods train coming from the opposite direction at Jhargram about 150 km from Kolkata.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE - HO CHI MINH AND HIS LEGACY

Ho Chi Minh: National Independence and Socialism - Sitaram Yechury
The following is the abridged text of the speech delivered by Sitaram Yechury at the international conference on Ho Chi Minh: National Independence and Socialism.

AT the very outset let me thank the organisers on behalf of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for inviting us to be part of the 120 birth anniversary celebrations of the renowned Communist, Comrade Ho Chi Minh. It is indeed an honour for me to be here and share my thoughts on 'Ho Chi Minh: National Independence and Socialism'.

The victory of the Vietnamese anti-colonial struggle led by Comrade Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Party of Vietnam against France, Japan and lastly against the United States is not only an inspiring movement in world history but also one of the most defining moments in the last century. It had proved once again that no power can stand against the might of the people, united in their struggle for freedom and emancipation from exploitation. The Vietnamese struggle and Ho Chi Minh have inspired millions of youngsters like me in the decades of 60's and 70's to join the anti-imperialist struggle and turn to communism.
Coming from a country that was subjected to colonial rule of the British for nearly 150 years, we understand the exploitation of the colonies and oppression of the colonial masters. While we could complete only the anti-colonial phase of our revolution, Comrade Ho Chi Minh who had played a pivotal role in founding the Communist Party of Vietnam, was able to successfully lead the anti-colonial struggle to its logical conclusion – the struggle for ending the exploitation of man by man, the struggle for socialism. He is one of the first among the communist leaders from the colonised countries to seriously engage with the colonial question and link the real path of their emancipation with the struggle for socialism.
As it is true for all the founders of the communist movement in the early decades of the 20th century, Comrade Ho Chi Minh too was groping to find the correct ideological direction for the anti-colonial struggle in their colonised lands before acquainting with Marxism-Leninism. Comrade Ho exclaimed after reading Lenin's thesis on colonial question, “What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in the room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: 'Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation’...At first, it was patriotism, not yet communism which led me to have confidence in Lenin, in the Third International. Step by step, during the course of the struggle, by studying Marxism-Leninism while engaging in practical activities, I gradually understood that only socialism and communism can liberate the oppressed nations and the working people throughout the world from slavery”. Armed with this thorough understanding of Marxism-Leninism, Comrade Ho correctly applied the Leninist principle of studying concrete conditions in Vietnam and formulated the strategy and tactics of the anti-colonial struggle accordingly. This application of theory to the concrete conditions is one of the most important aspects of the legacy of Comrade Ho Chi Minh.
Another important aspect that constitutes his legacy is his tireless efforts in building the revolutionary Communist party and uniting vast sections of the masses under its banner. He not only explained the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism in simple terms to people who were living under the most backward conditions, but also built up the organisation with sound revolutionary principles. He underlined the unity of the party. “Unity is an extremely precious tradition of our Party and people. All comrades, from Central Committee down to the cell, must preserve the unity and oneness of mind in the Party like the apple of their eye”. It is this single-minded unity of the whole nation that ensured the victory of the revolution. In his efforts to safeguard the unity of the party, he did not flinch in fighting both the right and left wing deviations that had risen in the party during various phases. Ho Chi Minh was against dogmatism and he further enriched theory through practice and tempered practice with theory.

A distinguishing feature of Uncle Ho, as he is popularly called is the intrinsic links he had maintained with the masses. He always used to advocate all cadre including leaders to be among the people, learn from them, serve them and also lead them by developing their consciousness. “Cadre must go to the base to see and hear for themselves, talk to the people, ponder over things and act accordingly. They must conduct practical investigations, give assistance, exercise control, draw lessons and exchange experiences, with a view to helping the peasants and learning from them”. It is this unwavering faith on the masses that ensured success in all the four important stages in the revolutionary struggle – the underground activity, in the victory of the August revolution, in the victory in the war of resistance and in the struggle for reunifying the country and completing the national democratic revolution throughout the land. Of course, he was not alive to witness the last event as he had joined “Karl Marx, Lenin and other revolutionary elders”.

Comrade Ho Chi Minh through out his lifetime has never wavered from the principles he had exhorted the cadre to follow. He set himself as an example to build the Party. In spite of his frailty, he showed indomitable spirit and led the party and the country in all the struggles. All through his life he had “served the country, the revolution and the people” with all his “heart and strength”. And as a true communist his only regret was “not able to serve longer and more”. Comrade Ho Chi Minh laid great emphasis on revolutionary morality and revolutionary ethics for the cadre. He said “The people love and respect those with good conduct and morality”. He identified three kinds of enemies. “Capitalism and imperialism are very dangerous ones...The third enemy is individualism...It is an ally of the two above mentioned categories”. For Comrade Ho “revolutionary morality consists in resolutely struggling against all these enemies”.

Remembering Comrade Ho, in essence thus means re-dedicating ourselves to the ideas that he had cherished and struggled for all through his life. Recalling the legacy of Ho Chi Minh acquires added relevance today in the background of the current global capitalist crisis, wherein finance capital and imperialism, whom he had identified as enemies-in-chief, are trying to come out of this crisis by shifting the burdens on the people of the third world developing countries.

Lenin in his Colonial Thesis stated, “In conformity with its fundamental task of combating bourgeois democracy and exposing its falseness and hypocrisy, the Communist Party, as the avowed champion of the proletarian struggle to overthrow the bourgeois yoke, must base its policy, in the national question too, not on abstract and formal principles but, first, on a precise appraisal of the specific historical situation and, primarily, of economic conditions; second, on a clear distinction between the interests of the oppressed classes, of working and exploited people, and the general concept of national interests as a whole, which implies the interests of the ruling class; third, on an equally clear distinction between the oppressed, dependent and subject nations and the oppressing, exploiting and sovereign nations, in order to counter the bourgeois-democratic lies that play down this colonial and financial enslavement of the vast majority of the world’s population by an insignificant minority of the richest and advanced capitalist countries, a feature characteristic of the era of finance capital and imperialism”. Based on this understanding we should attempt to undertake a concrete analysis of the concrete conditions today.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and East European countries constituted a big reversal for the forces of world socialism. Imperialism, buoyed by this development, launched an offensive in political, economic and social changes on a world scale. Imperialism tries to entrench its hold over post-Soviet world mainly using three means: (a) its economic might (b) its military power (c) its ideological offensive. Imperialism, during these two decades, has, indeed, consolidated its hegemony in all spheres, though not to its desired levels due to growing resistance developing in certain parts of the world. The present global capitalist crisis thus is a setback to imperialism as it severely dented its claim that there is no alternative to capitalism. It had once again ignited the urge among the people to look out for social systems that provide an alternative to capitalism. Karl Marx and his writings are once again being widely read.

While imperialism wants to come out of this crisis if not unscathed, with as little wounds as possible, the crisis also provides opportunities for the revolutionary forces world over to mount an offensive against capital with renewed vigour. This significant change in the objective conditions is a positive development in the recent period though it does not mean that there is a shift in the international correlation of forces.

Playing the threat of its military might, imperialism seeks to emerge from its current crisis by seeking to shift the burden on to the developing countries. Already, during the last two decades, neo-liberalism has led to grave agrarian crises in all these countries. The destruction of petty production and de-industrialisation added to the rising unemployment and brought about the sharp divide between the rich and poor. On top of this will now come the efforts to try to overcome the present economic recession by prising open the markets of the developing countries even further.

In this scenario the words of Ho Chi Minh once again attain added significance. Correctly applying Lenin's understanding of the colonial question, he advocated the unity of the peasantry and the working class as the bulwark of revolution. He states, “The Party's revolutionary experience shows that in every case when its cadres took correct decisions which satisfied the deep aspirations of the peasants and confirmed to the principle of alliance between the working class and the peasantry, the revolution made vigorous progress”. This is the path that we need to pursue to advance, specially in the third world countries, on whom the burdens of the crisis are being shifted.

Marx had once remarked that the stability of a ruling class is ensured only by the extent to which it presses the best minds of the subordinate and exploited classes in its service. As both Marx and Engels have pointed out, the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling classes. The ideological war to establish the intellectual hegemony of imperialism and neo-liberalism has been on the offensive during this period. Aided by this very process of globalisation and the vastly elevated levels of technologies, there is convergence of information, communications and entertainment (ICE) into mega corporations. The cultural products that are universally created are bombarded across the world garnering phenomenal profits. This monopolisation of the sphere of human intellectual activity and the control over dissemination of information through the corporate media is a salient feature of this period that seeks to continuously mount an ideological offensive against any critique or alternative to capitalism.

The giant ICE industry is also consciously used to spread canards in order to malign the forces that are leading the fight against imperialist exploitation. They are also used as vehicles to 'manufacture consent' to the rule of those classes that act as lackeys to imperialism. These functions of the media become all the more important in the times of crisis as they help divert the attention of the masses from understanding the real reasons of the crisis and channelise their discontent in the correct direction.

A section among the American ruling classes believed that they lost the Vietnamese war due to the adverse media reportage that led to huge popular mobilisations against the US and in solidarity with the fighting Vietnamese. Imperialism, wise from experience now wants to ensure that though there would be occasional criticism of its policies, media does not reprimand its acts in severe terms. The consolidation of ICE eases its efforts in achieving this aim.

Though imperialism has strengthened its hegemony and heightened its multifaceted offensive all across the globe, it is on the brink of a systemic crisis which could prove far graver and more encompassing than the current global recession. However, irrespective of the intensity of the crisis, capitalism does not automatically collapse. It needs to be overthrown. An erroneous understanding only blunts the need to constantly sharpen and strengthen the revolutionary ideological struggle of the working class and its decisive intervention under the leadership of a party wedded to Marxism-Leninism – the subjective factor without which no revolutionary transformation is possible.

It is in this struggle for strengthening the subjective factor and the revolutionary transformation that the life and ideas of Comrade Ho Chi Minh would help us as the guiding lights. His appeal to every Vietnamese then to become “a fighter struggling on the military, economic, political or cultural front”, is now relevant not only to the entire third world but to all those reeling under the attacks of imperialism. Of course, this task is neither easy nor the path bereft of difficulties. As Comrade Ho Chi Minh stated, “There is nothing easy, nor anything difficult”. It is his unshakable faith in his ideological beliefs and an iron will to fight and to win that should guide our struggle for a classless society, “We have to win for the enemy to be defeated”.
Source: People’s Democracy dated 23-05-2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

65TH ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY OVER FASCISM

EDITORIAL OF PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY DATED 09-05-2010

DISTORTION OF HISTORY CANNOT ERASE RED FLAG'S DECISIVE ROLE

THIS year, People’s Democracy dedicates its May Day issue to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in the WW II.

The victory over fascism represents an important milestone that shaped the future of human civilisation and its advances. Along with the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and the Chinese Revolution in 1949, the defeat of fascism marks one of three seminal events in the first half of the 20th century. This indeed unleashed a new correlation of political forces globally that led to hitherto unknown gains for the working people the world over.

The process of decolonisation that this victory set in motion gave deliverance to millions of people the world over from the yoke of colonial domination. The popular struggles and the freedom movements in the former colonies unleashed peoples energies which resulted in a paradigm shift in the concepts of democracy and people’s rights. This process provided many political and economic gains to the peoples in these countries.

This victory over fascism prevented the fascist designs that sought to control the whole world. This would have meant not only the installation of open terroristic dictatorships in large parts of the world but also the complete erosion of democratic rights and civil liberties. The defeat of Hitlerite Nazism and Japanese and Italian fascism in WW II prevented such a regression in the evolution of human civilisation.

It was only in the post WW II period that human civilisation legalised many a fundamental right and civil liberties that are today considered inalienable in any civilized society. The rights of the working people that have been earned through heroic struggles in the past were legally enshrined. The very concept of the “Welfare State” arose in the aftermath of this victory.

With the dismantling of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the last decade of the twentieth century, many of these rights earned by the working people are being systematically eroded. Many of these rights were conceded by capitalism, in the first place, under force of the rise of socialism and socialist alternatives. With this threat now appearing to recede following the demise of the USSR, capitalism has resurfaced with a greater savage expression of its predatory character. The last two decades of imperialist globalisation is witness to the most barbaric forms of primitive accumulation that is heaping unprecedented miseries on vast chunks of the world’s population while benefiting the exploiters through huge super profits.

In order to sustain this predatory order, world capitalism had also unleashed a new ideological offensive against socialism. The ‘eternality’ of capitalism was proclaimed as universal truth and any alternative to it was decried. This multifaceted ideological offensive was accompanied by a serious erosion in the rights of the working people. Such intensified exploitation both globally and domestically in individual countries set in motion a very fundamental contradiction that renders this process of imperialist globalisation as being simply unsustainable. This contradiction lies in the fact that with huge accumulation of profits the economic inequalities have sharply widened. This led to declining purchasing power in the hands of the vast mass of people. This in itself limits the possibilities of capitalist expansion and profit generation because unless the goods produced are sold the capitalist cycle cannot be completed. In order to sell what is produced, people need to have the resources to buy. With this declining sharply, the system is itself rendered unsustainable.

Globalisation sought to overcome this problem by providing cheap credit to vast sections of the people and hoped that the consequent spending would sustain their profits. In the process, fancy financial instruments were created that helped global finance, which dominates the globalisation process, reap super profits. The crunch however came when these cheap loans had to be returned. The unsustainability chillingly expressed itself in the current global recession, which may well turn out to be more devastating than the Great Depression of the 1930s. The capitalist solutions to get out of the crisis through billions of dollars of bailout packages at the expense of growing unemployment and misery for the vast mass of people is generating, naturally, popular discontent and protests as currently seen in Greece.

In this background, in order to prevent the rise of socialist alternatives to the capitalist order, imperialism has intensified its anti-communist propaganda. An important element of this has been the falsification of history and attempts to try and discredit any socialist alternative by equating fascism with communism. On July 3, 2009 at a regular parliamentary assembly session of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a resolution was adopted equating fascism with communism. An important corollary of such an ahistorical anti-communist ideological campaign was to decry the role of communism and the Soviet Union in defeating fascism. Thus began the effort to rewrite the history of the WW II. The epic saga of courage, valour and sacrifice shown by the Red Army and the Soviet people in defeating fascism is sought to be erased. The Soviet Union alone lost over 20 million lives – 40 times more that all the allied forces put together – in this war.

With this special issue, People’s Democracy joins this ideological battle and makes its humble contribution against such anti-communist rewriting of history.
(May 05, 2010)

Courtesy: People’s Democracy dated 09-05-2010 (www.pd.cpim.org)

65TH ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY OVER FASCISM

EDITORIAL OF PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY DATED 09-05-2010

DISTORTION OF HISTORY CANNOT ERASE RED FLAG'S DECISIVE ROLE

THIS year, People’s Democracy dedicates its May Day issue to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in the WW II.

The victory over fascism represents an important milestone that shaped the future of human civilisation and its advances. Along with the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and the Chinese Revolution in 1949, the defeat of fascism marks one of three seminal events in the first half of the 20th century. This indeed unleashed a new correlation of political forces globally that led to hitherto unknown gains for the working people the world over.

The process of decolonisation that this victory set in motion gave deliverance to millions of people the world over from the yoke of colonial domination. The popular struggles and the freedom movements in the former colonies unleashed peoples energies which resulted in a paradigm shift in the concepts of democracy and people’s rights. This process provided many political and economic gains to the peoples in these countries.

This victory over fascism prevented the fascist designs that sought to control the whole world. This would have meant not only the installation of open terroristic dictatorships in large parts of the world but also the complete erosion of democratic rights and civil liberties. The defeat of Hitlerite Nazism and Japanese and Italian fascism in WW II prevented such a regression in the evolution of human civilisation.

It was only in the post WW II period that human civilisation legalised many a fundamental right and civil liberties that are today considered inalienable in any civilized society. The rights of the working people that have been earned through heroic struggles in the past were legally enshrined. The very concept of the “Welfare State” arose in the aftermath of this victory.

With the dismantling of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the last decade of the twentieth century, many of these rights earned by the working people are being systematically eroded. Many of these rights were conceded by capitalism, in the first place, under force of the rise of socialism and socialist alternatives. With this threat now appearing to recede following the demise of the USSR, capitalism has resurfaced with a greater savage expression of its predatory character. The last two decades of imperialist globalisation is witness to the most barbaric forms of primitive accumulation that is heaping unprecedented miseries on vast chunks of the world’s population while benefiting the exploiters through huge super profits.

In order to sustain this predatory order, world capitalism had also unleashed a new ideological offensive against socialism. The ‘eternality’ of capitalism was proclaimed as universal truth and any alternative to it was decried. This multifaceted ideological offensive was accompanied by a serious erosion in the rights of the working people. Such intensified exploitation both globally and domestically in individual countries set in motion a very fundamental contradiction that renders this process of imperialist globalisation as being simply unsustainable. This contradiction lies in the fact that with huge accumulation of profits the economic inequalities have sharply widened. This led to declining purchasing power in the hands of the vast mass of people. This in itself limits the possibilities of capitalist expansion and profit generation because unless the goods produced are sold the capitalist cycle cannot be completed. In order to sell what is produced, people need to have the resources to buy. With this declining sharply, the system is itself rendered unsustainable.

Globalisation sought to overcome this problem by providing cheap credit to vast sections of the people and hoped that the consequent spending would sustain their profits. In the process, fancy financial instruments were created that helped global finance, which dominates the globalisation process, reap super profits. The crunch however came when these cheap loans had to be returned. The unsustainability chillingly expressed itself in the current global recession, which may well turn out to be more devastating than the Great Depression of the 1930s. The capitalist solutions to get out of the crisis through billions of dollars of bailout packages at the expense of growing unemployment and misery for the vast mass of people is generating, naturally, popular discontent and protests as currently seen in Greece.

In this background, in order to prevent the rise of socialist alternatives to the capitalist order, imperialism has intensified its anti-communist propaganda. An important element of this has been the falsification of history and attempts to try and discredit any socialist alternative by equating fascism with communism. On July 3, 2009 at a regular parliamentary assembly session of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a resolution was adopted equating fascism with communism. An important corollary of such an ahistorical anti-communist ideological campaign was to decry the role of communism and the Soviet Union in defeating fascism. Thus began the effort to rewrite the history of the WW II. The epic saga of courage, valour and sacrifice shown by the Red Army and the Soviet people in defeating fascism is sought to be erased. The Soviet Union alone lost over 20 million lives – 40 times more that all the allied forces put together – in this war.

With this special issue, People’s Democracy joins this ideological battle and makes its humble contribution against such anti-communist rewriting of history.
(May 05, 2010)

Courtesy: People’s Democracy dated 09-05-2010 (www.pd.cpim.org)

Friday, May 7, 2010

MAOIST BUTCHERS OF RAILWAY MINISTER SLAIN INNOCENT VILLAGER ORPHANING HIS WIFE & DAUGHTER IN THE NAME OF REVOLUTION

WIFE AND DAUGHTER BESIDE THE DEAD-BODY OF HARIPADA SINGHA ON BASANTPUR ROAD IN DAHIJURI VILLAGE OF JHARGRAM, WEST BENGAL ON 05-05-2010. HARIPADA SINGHA WAS BRUTALLY MURDERED BY THE PERVERTED AND INSANE MAOIST COMRADES OF ARUNDHATI ROY, MAHASWETA DEVI, MEDHA PATKAR, “PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES” (PUCL), “PEOPLE’S UNION FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS”(PUDR), ASSOCIATION FOR PROTECTION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS (APDR) AND OTHER SO-CALLED INTELLECTUALS AND HUMAN RIGHT ORGANISATIONS AND CORPORATE MEDIA

Monday, May 3, 2010