India : Ludhiana - Punjab Convention Against Communalism - ANTI COMMUNAL RIOTS AND THEIR SOLUTION BY BHAGAT SINGH

The forming of a right-wing BJP government at the centre has multiplied the threat to communal harmony in India. Various right-wing outfits ( RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Hindu Yuva Vahini etc. ) with direct political support at their helm, have increased their activities manifold. From organising 'Ghar Vapsi' programs to inciting direct riots, these outfits have spared no tactic to divide people along religious-caste lines.

Such things do manage to turn the focus of people away from their real economic-social issues, even if for a small period.

The need of the hour today is to build a strong democratic, secular unity of all the progressive forces.

The need today is to expose these right-wing, communal forces and to organize the masses on their real economic-social issues.

With exactly this aim in mind, various democratic organizations of Punjab have undertaken a vigorous month-long campaign to reach out to the masses and build a strong democratic force.

These organizations are holding a Punjab-level conference on March 22, 2015 at Ludhiana to provide a platform for all the peace-loving people of state to join hands together, against the communal elements.

Coinciding with the 84th anniversary of great revolutionary martyrs ( Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru ), this event aims to provide a befitting tribute to the legacy of these great martyrs.

A compaign against cummunalism is going on in various parts of Punjab. Two leaflets have been published for this compaign. Link of feaflet of Convention Against Communalism - https://leafletldh.wordpress.com/convention-against-commun…/

Article ‘Communal Riots and their Solutions’ written by great revolution martyr Bhagat Singh is also published as leaflet. Link of this leaflet- https://leafletldh.wordpress.com/communal-riots-and-their-…/
 

ANTI COMMUNAL RIOTS AND THEIR SOLUTION BY BHAGAT SINGH

The condition of India has now become pathetic. The followers of one religion have become bitter enemies of the followers of the other religion. The enmity between the people of religious groups have increased so much so, that to belong to one particular religion is reason enough for becoming enemy of the other religion. If someone has any doubts about the seriousness of the situation, they should look at the recent riots of Lahore. How Muslims killed innocent Hindus and Sikhs and how Sikhs have been unsparing in their killings. These mutual killings have not been resorted by the killers to award punishment to someone found guilty of some crime, but for the simple reason that someone was either Hindu, Sikh or Muslim. For Muslims, it has been enough to kill if someone was either Hindu or Sikh and likewise to be a Muslim was sufficient argument for him to be killed. In this situation, God alone knows what will happen to India.

 

Today India’s future seems extremely bleak. These religions have screwed India and one does not know when India will be freed from these communal riots. These riots have shamed India at the world stage and we have seen that in the deluge of superstitions, everyone gets swept away. During these riots, hardly do you see examples of a Hindu, Muslim or a Sikh who keeps his head cool while the rest pick up rods, sticks, swords and knives to maintain their dominance and eventually kill each other in this pursuit of dominance. Then there are some who get hanged and others who are thrown in prison. After all this bloodshed, the English Government shines its rod on these “defenders of religion” which seem to cure their mental illness.

 

During these times, the role of communal leaders and newspapers have also been observed in instigating these riots. In these times of communal hatred, the leaders of India have decided to remain quiet. These are the same leaders who claim to pioneer the great responsibility of liberating the country and these are the very same leaders who had been talking about “common nationality” and had been vociferously demanding “Swaraj” (self-rule), and these are the same leaders who have decided to remain mum with their heads bowed down in shame. Some of them are even getting swayed by the rage of religious bigotry. There are many leaders who are hiding their faces during these times, but you can find numerous other leaders who have openly become communal. There are very few leaders who sincerely worry and think about everyone. Even these sincere leaders are unable to stop the strong influx of communality. It appears that Indian leadership has become completely bankrupt!

 

The other instrument of fomenting and inciting communal violence are the people writing for the newspapers. The profession of journalism was once considered to be respectable but today it is in a dirty mess. These people write against another community with big bold headlines which provoke the constant feeling of hatred and enmity among communities. It is not a stray accusation, one can look at numerous examples where communal riots have taken place as provocations from writings in these newspapers. There were very few reporters who could boast of a balanced poise in their minds and hearts during these turbulent times.

 

The real duty of the newspapers was to educate, to cleanse the minds of people, take them out of the rut of narrow sectarian grooves of thought and perception, and to wash and scrap out communal feelings in order to invest them with feelings of amity and communal harmony, to bridge the gap and build mutual trust, bring about real rapprochement for advancing the cause of “common nationalism” but they have been doing exactly opposite, leading to the division in the objective of “common nationalism”. This is the very reason that makes me cry tears of blood when I think of present India and wonder “What will happen to India?”

 

During the time of Non-cooperation movement, the people who were known and respected for their zealousness have become pitiable. Where are those days when we glimpsed of independence right in-front of our eyes? And look at the times today where independence has again become a distant dream! This is the third and final benefit that these riots have given to its perpetrators! During the Non-cooperation days, the bureaucracy whose existence was under threat has now deepened its roots which has become unshakable in the present circumstances.

 

The root cause of communal violence is probably economic. During the time of non-cooperation movement, leaders and reporters made huge sacrifices for the cause of the movement. As a result of these sacrifices, their economic conditions deteriorated considerably. When non-cooperation movement lost its steam, people lost trust on its leaders, as many of the present “communal leaders” had become economically bankrupt. Whatever happens in the world, money can easily be traced as the reason for that event. This is one of the three key principles of Marxian theories. The rise of “Tablighi” and “Shudhi” organization can be attributed to this principle of Marx and this also happens to be the main reason why we have become so indescribably pathetic.

 

So, if there is any solution to communal riots, it can only be achieved through improvement of economic condition in India. Actually, the economic condition of a common man in India is so bad that anyone can give quarter of a rupee to other person and offend a third person. Struggling through hunger and suffering and given an option between do or die, people often keep their principles aside and why wouldn’t they? But in present circumstances, changes in economic condition is extremely difficult because the government is foreign who is least interested in the betterment of economic conditions of people. This is the very reason why people should target and protest against the foreign government until this government changes.

 

To prevent people from fighting each other, “class consciousness” is the need of the day. The poor labourers and the farmers must be clearly taught that their real enemies are the capitalists. So, you should be careful of their tricks and should not follow them blindly. The poor of the world, regardless of race, colour, religion or nation have the same rights. Your well-being is in erasing the discrimination based on colour, creed, race, religion, regionalism and unite together to try and take the power of government into your hands. By trying so, you are not going to lose anything but one day your shackles will break freeing you from economic despondency.

 

Those who know about the history of Russia, will tell you that during the time of Tsar the situation there was quite similar with communities spreading lies against each other. But the day Bolsheviks came into power in Russia, their whole situation changed. Since then there have been no reports of riots from Russia. Now, every person is considered as human and they are not limited by their religious identities. During the time of Tsar, the economic situation of people was miserable which gave rise to riots and communal violence but today the economic conditions of the Russians have improved considerably with increased awareness about economic classes. Since this change, there has been no reports of communal violence and riots from Russia.

 

Usually, riots bring about extremely depressing news, but during one of these riots in Calcutta there was an extremely pleasing report. The workers of trade union didn’t play any part in those riots and neither did they participate in the communal skirmishes but the Hindus and Muslims would work in factories showing remarkable amity and they also participated in diffusing the situation. This happened because the workers were class-conscious and they understood their interests as a group. This beautiful example of class consciousness is a way with which we can stop communal violence.

We have heard this joyous news that the youth of India are now fleeing away from those religions which teach hatred and communal violence. They have become so open in their outlook that they don’t look at people as Hindus, Muslims or Sikh but first as a human being and then as Indians. With the rise of these thoughts in the youth of India, I see hope for the future of India. Indians should not get upset at the news of these riots, but they should seek to not built a communal environment which results in riots.

 

The martyrs of 1914-15 had separated religion from politics. They understood that religion is the personal matter of an individual which needed no interference from other. But they all agreed that religion should not enter politics because it does not allow people to work together for a common cause. This was the reason why during the revolution called by ‘Gadar Party’, people remained united. Here Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were put on gallows for the cause of revolution.
 

Today there are new politicians who have entered the fight for freedom, who want to separate religion from politics. This is a beautiful way to cure the malaise of communal violence.

Even though we have different religious beliefs, if we separate religion from politics we all can stand together in the matter of politics and national cause.

 

We hope that the true sympathizers of India will think over our solutions and will save India from following the path of self-destruction.

 

Venezuela Military Drills begin amid rising tensions with USA

                                                              Vladimir Padrino Lopez


Nearly 100,000 soldiers are taking part in massive 10-day military exercises across Venezuela, which were staged to counter an alleged US threat. It follows Washington’s decision to impose new sanctions against Venezuelan officials last week.

Venezuelan Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino Lopez announced that the military exercises began on Saturday and were designed to get the troops ready for “their mission, their goal, and with the will to be victorious.”

Lopez added that the US sanctions are an “imminent danger for us,” which is why the nation’s army must be ready to fight for its independence.

“Venezuela is not a threat to any country,” refutes United States declaration that Venezuela constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security by Jesus Rojas.

Democracy and Class Struggle says the country that is a threat to peace and security is the United States.

It flips the script in good old Ronald Reagan style and accuses others of the evil that they do themselves

The new threats by the U.S. against Venezuela have galvanized support for the democratically-elected government of Nicolas Maduro.

Speaking at an anti-imperialist rally in Caracas Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suggested that he would be willing to travel to the United States to confront President Barack Obama directly over his declaration that Venezuela constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security.

"Maybe I'll appear in Washington at that exhibition, to show my face for my country and tell the government in Washington they are committing grave mistakes," President Maduro said.

Venezuela is preparing to put on an expo in Washington designed to counter the misconceptions about Venezuela put forward by hostile media outlets.

The expo recently finished a successful run in Madrid, Spain.

Obama issued an executive order Monday declaring a “national emergency” over the alleged threat Venezuela presents to the United States, prompting fears that the U.S. is laying the foundation for military aggression against the country.

U.S. officials insist that the Obama government is not working to unconstitutionally oust Maduro from power.

However, a high-ranking official from the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy was caught secretly meeting with opposition figures in Venezuela.

Reporters also reacted incredulously when U.S. Department of State spokesperson Jen Psaki stated at a press briefing on Wednesday, "As a matter of long-standing policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means."

The U.S. government backed a 2002 coup against Maduro's predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.

It also backed unconstitutional transitions of power in Honduras in 2009 and in Paraguay in 2012.

The new threats against Venezuela by the United States have served to galvanize support both within and outside Venezuela for the democratically-elected government.

“A tide of anti-imperialism is rising,” said Maduro during his speech in Caracas.

A wide-range of world leaders have called on the U.S. government not to interfere in Venezuela's domestic affairs.

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first published documents leaked by former U.S. contractor Edward Snowden, said, "Venezuela is one of the very few countries with significant oil reserves which does not submit to U.S. dictates,” adding, "Such countries are always at the top of the U.S. government and media list of 'Countries To Be Demonized'."

Venezuelan Opposition Rejects U.S. Interference

Even the right-wing opposition in Venezuela is working to distance itself from Obama's interference.

Opposition lawmaker Ricardo Sanchez spoke in favour of a request by President Maduro for the National Assembly to pass an enabling law that will allow the country's president to act to protect the peace against recent threats made by the U.S.

“Whenever the government of the United States declares a country to be a threat to its national security, it is a preamble to military interventions in the future,” said Sanchez during an impassioned speech from the floor of the National Assembly.

Adding, “It is important to take a position during historic moments such as this one.”

The opposition coalition known as the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) released a tepid statement rejecting the U.S. government's interference and unilateral sanctions.

“Venezuela is not a threat to any country,” the statement also affirmed.

USA: Inside the Mind of the Evil Empire : Former US Ambassador Jack Matlock: The Mistakes We Made with Russia and How to Stop Making Them

U.S. diplomat Jack F. Matlock was U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union during the crucial years 1987-1991 that saw the end of the Cold War.

Matlock witnessed the tumultuous final years of the Soviet Union first hand as US Imperialism's  Ambassador in Moscow and provides a unique US Imperialist inside view..

Jack F. Matlock represents the "intelligent wing" of US Imperialism which is currently in a minority and like bourgeois Russian scholar Stephen Cohen are ignored by US State Department.

Dangerous ignorance is at premium in United States  when it comes to Foreign Policy as the neo conservative ideologues which are leading to a war with Russia seem to have no real opposition within the US Evil Empire.

USA: Inside the Mind of the Evil Empire - George Friedman of Stratfor at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

George Friedman of Stratfor discusses Ronald Reagan ,the author of the Evil Empire quote,  who cynically funded both sides during Iran and Iraq War in the video below..

Reagan being an actor was a master at flippin the script accusing others of what he was doing himself.

This Reaganite strategy today is the Global Strategy of Tension pursued by US Imperialism - a truly morally evil strategy to retain its global full spectrum dominance.

For those still immersed in Anglophone propaganda about the evil Russia and the Ukraine this video makes no pretence about US intentions and the danger that poses to Europeans and the security threat the US poses to the rest of the world.

The Pilsudski Intermarium is the solution of US Imperialism for Europe - a gift of another 100 years war of Europeans fighting Europeans for the US Empire just like the gift to Iraq and the Middle East of 100 Years war been Sunni and Shia of Middle East for the US Empire.

In Asia it is probably Korean Fighting Korean.

The US Empire must end before it ends us.

For more on the strategy of US Imperialism visit here :

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=strategy+of+tension

SEE ALSO:

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/wikileaks-otpor-canvas-collaboration.html

Wikipedia on Intermarium and Prometheism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Międzymorze (Polish pronunciation: [mjɛnd͡zɨˈmɔʐɛ]), known in English as Intermarium, was a plan, pursued after World War I by Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, for a federation, under Poland's aegis,^{[1][2][3][4][5]} of Central and Eastern European countries. Invited to join the proposed federation were the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia),^[6] Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.^[7][8]

 

The Polish name Międzymorze, which means "Intersea" or "Between-seas," was rendered into Latin as "Intermarium." ^[9]

The proposed federation was meant to emulate the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, that, from the end of the 16th century to the end of the 18th, had united the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Intermarium complemented Piłsudski's other geopolitical vision—Prometheism, whose goal was the dismemberment of the Russian Empire and that Empire's divestment of its territorial conquests.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Intermarium was, however, perceived by some Lithuanians as a threat to their newly established independence, and by some Ukrainians as a threat to their aspirations for independence,^[14][15][16] and was opposed by Russia and by most Western powers, except France.^[17][18]

Within two decades of the failure of Piłsudski's grand scheme, all the countries that he had viewed as candidates for membership in the Intermarium federation had fallen to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, except for Finland (which nonetheless suffered some territorial losses in the Winter War).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermarium

Prometheism or Prometheanism (Polish: "Prometeizm") was a political project initiated by Poland's Józef Piłsudski. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union.^[1]

Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept of an "Intermarum federation" constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and some of his political heirs.^[2]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism

Iceland shows the Independent way ahead by rejecting the European Union - Will Icelandic good sense be emulated by other European countries

 

 

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr admired the good sense of the Icelanders when they let their own people decide on whether or not to take on the debt created by the fraudulent activities of Icelandic banks.

 

Being outside the European Union unlike Greece and Italy and Spain they could pursue economic policies that were to the benefit of their people rather than of the bankers and oligarchs  and recovered from the 2008 crash faster and better than most other countries..

 

Therefore taking  the decision to drop its bid to join the European Union makes a lot of good sense - which what we have come to expect from Iceland and its People rather the nonsense of the European Union highlighted so well in the current stand off with Greece where the European Union are trying to force the Greeks to continue with privatisations or face a banking liquidity crisis.

 

It is time to emulate The Icelanders and reject the current European Union of Finance Capitalists and Oligarchs and build a Union Of European fighting People against this parasitic elite.

 

Wales  must catch up with the reality of the current European Union and its Institutions like the European Central Bank and not mistake  this bitter enemy for a friend.

 

12.03.2015

 

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr

 

 

 

 

Iceland has dropped its bid to join the European Union, the Foreign Ministry in Reykjavik says. The announcement follows pledges made by the country’s euro-skeptic government since winning the 2013 election.

Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, the Icelandic foreign minister, said in a statement that he had informed Latvia, the current EU president, and the European Commission that his center-right government had decided to withdraw its application, which was submitted six years ago.

“The EU and Iceland have discussed the country’s position on the status of its bid to join the European Union,” the statement reads. “The government does not intend to resume preparing for EU membership.” #

Prime Minister Sigmundur Davið Gunnlaugsson talked of formally withdrawing the bid in January.

 

“Participating in EU talks isn’t really valid anymore,” PM Gunnlaugsson told Reykjavík Grapevine at the time. “Both due to changes in the European Union and because it’s not in line with the policies of the ruling government to accept everything that the last government was willing to accept. Because of that, we’re back at square one.”

Iceland applied for EU membership in July 2009, at a time when the global economic crisis was unravelling. By February 2010, the European Commission produced a favourable answer and accession negotiations began in July the same year.

The negotiations came to a stalemate in April 2013, when the election in Iceland was won by the centrist Progress Party, and the conservative Independence Party. When Progress Party’s Gunnlaugsson became prime minister, he froze negotiations with the EU in May 2013.

One of the major issues stalling an agreement was fish catch quotas insisted on by Brussels, something the Icelandic Fishing industry would never have agreed to.

The small island nation, with a population of 325,000, is and will still be a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the Schengen area and is an EU partner promoting cooperation in northern Europe – meaning it gets many of the advantages of being a full member without many of the negative aspects of centralized EU laws and planning.

If in the future Iceland decides to join the EU, this will be decided only by a referendum, the government said. Iceland will continue to comply with the terms of the EEA and to cooperate with the EU as it has done previously.

Source: RT

Wales : Plaid Cymru and Learning the Lessons of History - Home Rule and Political Backwardness

We at Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr publish the following article by James Connolly below on the importance of the Land Acts in Ireland in its struggle for national and social liberation.

 

It follows on from the St David's Day Statement of the strategic importance of the Land Question in Wales for National and Social Liberation.

 

James Connolly continually combated the Irish Home Rulers, upholding against the idea of Home Rule, the idea of an Irish Workers Republic. For James Connolly the Home Rulers would only facilitate  governmentalism degenerating into despotic paternalism.

Liam Mellows offered the same critique as James Connolly when he saw the Home Rulers transmute into the Irish Free State and said it was  a buffer erected between British Capitalism  and the Irish Republic.

 

A Workers Republic can only be erected on the ruins of the Irish Free State Liam Mellows correctly surmised.

 

We should remember that in 2016 as we recall 1916.

Therefore when the Plaid Cymru  backed - Yes Campaign in Wales issued the call for Home Rule expressing the desire for Wales not to left behind - we wondered what had happened to the lessons of history.

 

As Marx said the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

It is a nightmare, it is the thinking of Plaid Cymru in the 21st Century repackaging the shoddy goods of the Home Rulers has something "new" terrified of calling for a Welsh Socialist Republic which would strike chord with the working class in Labour strongholds - terrified of calling for real Independence and striking a chord with its nationalist base and beyond.

Plaid Cymru defends the indefensible European Union has it demonstrates its brutal vindictiveness against the national and social rights of the Greek people - with the terrifying consequence of allowing the British Nationalist - United Kingdom Independence Party to ravage the Welsh heartlands rather then being kept the other side of Offa's Dyke.

 

Marx was right a nightmare weighing on the brains of the living.

 

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr  call for :
 

A truly  Independent Wales - A Welsh Socialist Republic

 

International Solidarity to defend the national and social rights of the Greek People

 

No to  the Neo Liberal European Union and ECB  and its free market Treaty of Rome established to prevent the rise of Socialist Republics in Europe.

Socialism in Ireland (1908) by James Connolly
 

---

From The Harp, March, 1908 and Forward, August 16, 1913, respectively.
Transcribed by The James Connolly Society in 1997.

---

I

We find that amongst a large section of the Irish in this country (the U.S.A.) and Irish Socialists here are included, it is tacitly assumed that Socialism cannot take root in Ireland, that the Home Rule press, the supposed conservative habits of thought of the people and, above all, the hostility of the clergy, make it impossible for Socialist thought to make headway amongst the Irish working class.

 

This assumption is, of course, not to be reasoned with – you cannot reason with a thing that ignores facts – but is only to be combatted with a quiet presentation of facts to prove that which is assumed as impossible of existence, is already existent, and not only existent, but lusty, aggressive and powerful.

The influence of the Home Rule Press is in reality nil amongst the intelligent working-class of Ireland: the conservative habits of thought supposed to be characteristically Irish are in reality the reflex of agricultural conditions in Ireland, as elsewhere, and do not prevail where the Irish worker lives and suffers in the industrial environment of a city and the hostility of the clergy has worn off its own edge by too frequent and indiscriminate use.

 

The Irish Socialist Republican Party – founded in May 1896, in Dublin, and now represented by the Socialist Party of Ireland – has had to suffer under the boycott of the entire Irish press, with the single honourable exception of the United Irishman, in the early days of that journal (now rechristened, Sinn Fein).

Of the weekly newspapers was this more particularly true, and it is from the weekly Irish newspapers that the Irish in America and the agricultural Irish, derived and derive their impressions of political life in Ireland.

Yet, despite this attempt to destroy the influence of this working-class party and to circumscribe the scope of its activities, it has to its record and to its honour, the credit of having initiated and carried to a successful conclusion – unaided – the most striking protest against British tyranny in Ireland in this generation, viz., the Anti-Jubilee Protest of Dublin in 1897, of having been the moving spirit in rendering nugatory the visit of the late Queen Victoria on a recruiting mission to Dublin during the Boer War (a fact recorded by the French newspapers of the time, which spoke of the Socialist Republicans as the only centre from which the British authorities expected trouble) of having originated and popularised an anti-enlisting crusade at a time when even some well-intentioned ‘physical-force men’ favoured the idea of Irish youths entering the British army, “in order to learn the use of the rifle” – one of the most disastrous ideas ever current in Ireland; of having emphasised the fact that there have ever been two currents in modern Irish history, viz., the revolutionary and the compromising or constitutional, and that their ideas can no more mix or their ideals be compounded, than may blend oil and water, and finally, of having conducted the first political campaigns of the Irish working-class on the basis of revolutionary Socialism.

Let those who tell us that the Irish will never respond to the call of Socialism remember that five years ago the candidate of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, in contests against the nominees of the Home Rule and Unionist Parties, polled a vote which represented a third of the total electorate; let them remember this, and then, thinking of the frantic joy of the Socialist Parties of America when they succeed in polling the necessary three or five per cent to get on the official ballot let them stop trying to discourage the Irish in America by their foolish declarations that Socialism will never take root amongst the Irish.

Socialism in Ireland is now a force, influencing alike the political, economic and literary thought of the island.

II

It is interesting to observe how Ireland has been and is being made the scene of many radical experiments in legislation which, in any other country, would be only looked for as the result of a great Socialist upheaval.

 

The Land Acts or rather the Purchase Clauses of the Land Acts upon which so many of our doctrinaires waste so much good ink in reckless denunciations are, despite their many drawbacks, an assertion of the right of the original community not only to establish new property relations to suit new ideas, but also to establish tribunals by means of which the working of these relations may be supervised and controlled.

Of course it is not the Land Nationalisation many of us would like to see, but it is nevertheless the germ out of which a socialisation of the land may ultimately develop.

In Ireland the propaganda of Land Nationalisation was doomed to sterility in the past by virtue of the fact that the most earnestly radical and truly revolutionary people in the country, and hence the people most sincerely democratic, looked upon the government as a foreign government and, therefore, upon the proposal to nationlise the land as a proposal to hand over the soil of their country to a foreign government and thus to increase the powers of that government over the economic as well as over the political life of the Irish.

In their phraseology, Land Nationalisation meant making the land the property of the government, and they would inquire:

“What government? The English Government! We have no other government here. Oh, no! It is too much power that government has already.”

Hence, not even Michael Davitt could popularise Land Nationalisation in Ireland in his day.

The political groundwork was wanting, the necessary basis of a government directly under the control of the people concerned.

With the Nationalist masses the same difficulty was encountered in the propagation of Socialism, until the uncompromising attitude of the Dublin Socialists on the national question made it clear that Socialism meant on the political side of Ireland an absolute revolutionary change which would make the people of Ireland complete rulers of their own country, as the economic change would thus logically make them owners of the country they would politically rule.

 

In other words, the Socialists of Ireland had to recognise that the world for the workers can only be realised by the people of each country seizing upon their own country and wresting it by one means or another from the hands of the present rulers or proprietors and restoring it with all its powers and potentialities to the people who inhabit it and labour upon it.

With the advent of self-government in any shape in Ireland, the question of the ownership and administration of the soil can, and will, be approached in a new spirit.

One change I foresee, and hope for, exists already in embryo in the labourers’ cottages Acts. Under these Acts, the local authority has the power to acquire land and build cottages for the labourers. These latter become the tenants of the local authority.

Now, I foresee that there may be a change in the spirit of future Land Acts, and that the local County Councils may be authorised to acquire the lands now being purchased by the farmer, and that the purchase price being paid by the present tenants may be changed into a rent payable to the democratically elected County Councils.

If this were done and a reduction in the yearly payment, coupled with a guarantee of fixity of tenancy and right to a selling interest in the farm (goodwill) given to the farmers in return for their surrender of their future rights of ownership, it is quite conceivable that such a change might be effected without any more opposition than would be offered to any other legislative change.

But the result of this change would be that the local County Councils would become the owners of the soil under the national government, that all questions affecting the administration of the soil would be as keenly under the supervision of the democracy immediately interested as questions affecting the occupancy of labourers’ cottages are now, and that thus the gradual democratisation of the agriculture interests would become the vital question in rural politics, as the spread of the same political principle and method of administration would similarly affect industrial interests in urban and national politics.

The squabbles over the occupancy of a labourer’s cottage which, at present, make such piquant reading in our Irish newspapers have a sordid side, but this that I have glanced at shows that they have a practical, illuminating side also.

When the principal deliberations of an Urban or County Council perforce turn on the question of the administration of the farms and other lands of the County, as the deliberations of Boards of Guardians now turn upon the occupancy of labourers’ cottages, we will begin to have a vivid understanding of the Marxian phrase about “the government of men being replaced by the administration of things.”

The Land Acts dispossessed the landlords and thus ended the economic influence upon which their political power is based. Hence, outside of North-East Ulster, the landed aristocracy have ceased to be a power in politics. An agricultural labourer would have a greater chance to be elected than a landlord in the south-west or east of Ireland would have by his former tenants.

The genius of peasant proprietorship is essentially individualistic, and therefore exercises a disintegrating influence upon the political strength and influence of the peasant proprietor.

The Land Acts, therefore, have, despite their faults, destroyed the slavery of the Irish tenantry, taken from agricultural questions their exclusive power over Irish affairs, and opened a way for the fundamental reorganisation of the social life of the community.

Then, two years ago, another Royal Commission investigating the question of Irish railways, reported in favour of Nationalisation.

With the coming of self-government the almost unanimous expression of approval with which this was received in Ireland is likely to take concrete form in an legislative enactment.

And now another Commission reports, likewise, in favour of a State Medical Service. And this, also, is received with a chorus of approval.

Said I not that although the Irish have little regard for Socialist theories they have a strong bias in favour of action on lines that are in essence lines of Socialist activity?

Side by side with all this development of mere Government Socialism, those who know Ireland best know that there is also developing that strong and active spirit of industrial rebellion, that aggressive challenging of the rights and powers of the master class that is absolutely necessary to prevent such governmentalism degenerating into despotic paternalism.

I do not believe it to be possible to prevent a continual extension of the powers of government, even if it were desirable, but I look to the cultivation of the rebel spirit to secure that that extension of the functions of government shall connote a conquest of powers by the working-class instead of an invasion of our rights by the master class.

It is because of that defiant, rebel spirit in Ireland today, ever keeping step with, indeed outmarching, the trend of legislative experimenting with social problems that we Irish Socialists feel at last that we are leaving the stage of theorising and are seeing our principles becoming the faith that moves our class to action.

It is an inspiration to know the working-class of Ireland in their times of conflict. To see that class resolute, erect, defiant, day by day battling with its Nationalist masters, and in starvation and suffering winning its way to victory, which, at the same time as it closes in grappling with the Irish exploiter, it holds itself uncompromisingly aloof from and hostile to its British rulers and their Irish allies. To know that class is to love it.

And I pity those in whom the narrow prejudices of a colony are still, after 300 years of plantation, too strong to permit them to identify themselves with such a nation.

SEE ALSO : Liam Mellows Speech on 4th January 1922 here :

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/four-martyrs-commemoration-wexford-8.html

 

Frontline Ukraine by Richard Sakwa - Reviews and Commentary

The Welsh Historian John Davies has recently died, but one of the last speeches he made last year in Scotland he congratulated the Scots for developing the notion of civic inclusive nationalism as opposed to an ethnic nationalism.

He correctly said that Wales still needed to develop further such an all inclusive concept.

At that time whilst we thought of Wales, we also thought of the Ukraine and how the nationalist movement there had taken a particularly ugly ethnic turn.

Therefore we were pleased to hear of the work of  the academic Richard Sakwa who has studied the internal and external contradictions in the Ukraine, albeit from a bourgeois perspective, rather than just seeing the conflict in terms of proxy forces with its consequent demonization of Russia and Putin.

Our own analysis of Ukraine owes much to the comrades of Borotba who are developing a revolutionary communist view, Richard Sakwa offers the best of the bourgeois rationalist view and is hence worthy of study.

Democracy and Class Struggle



Ukraine’s history is inextricably linked to Russia’s. In the east of the country especially, cultural, ethnic, economic, and historical links with Russia are deeply entrenched. It describes a fissure between east and west in which one half of Ukraine favours close and fraternal ties to Russia on the basis of those links, while in western Ukraine the dominant political current is anti-Russian and pro-West.

Professor of Russian and European Politics, Richard Sakwa, explores the two competing models of statehood that have arisen on the basis of this fissure in his recent book, Frontline Ukraine (IB Taurus 2015).

He describes the first of these as monist nationalism, involving the assertion of an ethnocentric identity that underpins a regeneration of the nation’s culture and social values along rigid and exclusionary nationalist lines.

The second he refers to as a pluralist model, denoting an inclusive Ukrainian identity that embraces the disparate and diverse peoples and ethnic groups who make up the country, a consequence of its “long history of fragmented statehood.”

These two contested models of statehood are being played out in the current Ukrainian conflict, which has been ramped up by the geopolitical stakes involved as Washington and its allies seeks to ‘contain’ Russia in a struggle over the continuation of the unipolarity enjoyed by the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, or the multipolar alternative which Russia’s re-emergence as a global power demands.

Source: Counterpunch review of Frontline Ukraine

Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands by Richard Sakwa review – an unrivalled account by Jonathan Steele

 

At last, a balanced assessment of the Ukrainian conflict – the problems go far beyond Vladimir Putin
 

When Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine’s prime minister, told a German TV station recently that the Soviet Union invaded Germany, was this just blind ignorance? Or a kind of perverted wishful thinking? If the USSR really was the aggressor in 1941, it would suit Yatsenyuk’s narrative of current geopolitics in which Russia is once again the only side that merits blame.

When Grzegorz Schetyna, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, said Ukrainians liberated Auschwitz, did he not know that the Red Army was a multinational force in which Ukrainians certainly played a role but the bulk of the troops were Russian? Or was he looking for a new way to provoke the Kremlin?

Faced with these irresponsible distortions, and they are replicated in a hundred other prejudiced comments about Russian behaviour from western politicians as well as their eastern European colleagues, it is a relief to find a book on the Ukrainian conflict that is cool, balanced, and well sourced.

Richard Sakwa makes repeated criticisms of Russian tactics and strategy, but he avoids lazy Putin-bashing and locates the origins of the Ukrainian conflict in a quarter-century of mistakes since the cold war ended.

In his view, three long-simmering crises have boiled over to produce the violence that is engulfing eastern Ukraine.

The first is the tension between two different models of Ukrainian statehood.

 One is what he calls the “monist” view, which asserts that the country is an autochthonous cultural and political unity and that the challenge of independence since 1991 has been to strengthen the Ukrainian language, repudiate the tsarist and Soviet imperial legacies, reduce the political weight of Russian-speakers and move the country away from Russia towards “Europe”.

The alternative “pluralist” view emphasises the different historical and cultural experiences of Ukraine’s various regions and argues that building a modern democratic post-Soviet Ukrainian state is not just a matter of good governance and rule of law at the centre.

It also requires an acceptance of bilingualism, mutual tolerance of different traditions, and devolution of power to the regions.

 

More than any other change of government in Kiev since 1991, the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych last year brought the triumph of the monist view, held most strongly in western Ukraine, whose leaders were determined this time to ensure the winner takes all.

The second crisis arises from the internationalisation of the struggle inside Ukraine which turned it into a geopolitical tug of war. Sakwa argues that this stems from the asymmetrical end of the cold war which shut Russia out of the European alliance system.

While Mikhail Gorbachev and millions of other Russians saw the end of the cold war as a shared victory which might lead to the building of a “common European home”, most western leaders saw Russia as a defeated nation whose interests could be brushed aside, and which must accept US hegemony in the new single-superpower world order or face isolation.

Instead of dismantling Nato, the cold-war alliance was strengthened and expanded in spite of repeated warnings from western experts on Russia that this would create new tensions. Long before Putin came to power, Yeltsin had urged the west not to move Nato eastwards.

Even today at this late stage, a declaration of Ukrainian non-alignment as part of an internationally negotiated settlement, and UN Security Council guarantees of that status, would bring instant de-escalation and make a lasting ceasefire possible in eastern Ukraine.

The hawks in the Clinton administration ignored all this, Bush abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty and put rockets close to Russia’s borders, and now a decade later, after Russia’s angry reaction to provocations in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine today, we have what Sakwa rightly calls a “fateful geographical paradox: that Nato exists to manage the risks created by its existence”.

The third crisis, also linked to the Nato issue, is the European Union’s failure to stay true to the conflict resolution imperative that had been its original impetus. After 1989 there was much talk of the arrival of the “hour of Europe”.

Just as the need for Franco-German reconciliation inspired the EU’s foundation, many hoped the cold war’s end would lead to a broader east-west reconciliation across the old Iron Curtain.

But the prospect of greater European independence worried key decision-makers in Washington, and Nato’s role has been, in part, to maintain US primacy over Europe’s foreign policy.

From Bosnia in 1992 to Ukraine today, the last two decades have seen repeated occasions where US officials pleaded, half-sincerely, for a greater European role in handling geopolitical crises in Europe while simultaneously denigrating and sidelining Europe’s efforts.

Last year’s “Fuck the EU” comment by Victoria Nuland, Obama’s neocon assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, was the pithiest expression of this.

Sakwa writes with barely suppressed anger of Europe’s failure, arguing that instead of a vision embracing the whole continent, the EU has become little more than the civilian wing of the Atlantic alliance.

Within the framework of these three crises, Sakwa gives the best analysis yet in book form of events on the ground in eastern Ukraine as well as in Kiev, Washington, Brussels and Moscow. He covers the disputes between the “resolvers” (who want a negotiated solution) and the “war party” in each capital.

He describes the rows over sanctions that have split European leaders, and points out how Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, is under constant pressure from Nuland’s favourite Ukrainian, the more militant Yatsenyuk, to rely on military force.

As for Putin, Sakwa sees him not so much as the driver of the crisis but as a regulator of factional interests and a temporiser who has to balance pressure from more rightwing Russian nationalists as well as from the insurgents in Ukraine, who get weapons and help from Russia but are not the Kremlin’s puppets.

Frontline Ukraine highlights several points that have become almost taboo in western accounts: the civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine caused by Ukrainian army shelling, the physical assaults on leftwing candidates in last year’s election and the failure to complete investigations of last February’s sniper activity in Kiev (much of it thought to have been by anti-Yanukovych fighters) or of the Odessa massacre in which dozens of anti-Kiev protesters were burnt alive in a building set on fire by nationalists or clubbed to death when they jumped from windows.

The most disturbing novelty of the Ukrainian crisis is the way Putin and other Russian leaders are routinely demonised.

At the height of the cold war when the dispute between Moscow and the west was far more dangerous, backed as it was by the danger of nuclear catastrophe, Brezhnev and Andropov were never treated to such public insults by western commentators and politicians.

Equally alarming, though not new, is the one-sided nature of western political, media and think tank coverage.

The spectre of senator Joseph McCarthy stalks the stage, marginalising those who offer a balanced analysis of why we have got to where we are and what compromises could save us.

I hope Sakwa’s book does not itself become a victim, condemned as insufficiently anti-Russian to be reviewed.

• Jonathan Steele is a former Guardian Moscow correspondent, and author of Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy. To order Frontline Ukraine for £15.19 (RRP £18.99), go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.

Maoist Comrade Anuradha Ghandy on International Womens Day

8 March 2001 is the 91st anniversary of the International Women's Day (IWD), which was first declared in 1910. In that year, Clara Zetkin, inspired by the working class women's movement in America, proposed to the Second International Conference of the Socialist Working Women that an annual celebration of women's day be held. The Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's right and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
 

As a result of this decision, the first International Women's Day was held on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and an end to discrimination on the job. The date was chosen by Germany women as 19 March, because, on that date in 1848, the Prussian king, faced with an armed uprising, had promised many reforms, including an unfulfilled one of votes for women.
 

In 1913, the date for the IWD was changed to 8 March. This was to commemorate two important events which occurred on that day. On 8 March 1857, women garment and textile workers in New York City had staged, for the first time, a protest against in-human working conditions, the 12-hour work day and low wages. The marchers were attacked and dispersed by the police. Two years later, again in March, these women formed their first union. Again on 8 March 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay, voting rights and an end to child labour. They adopted the slogan 'Bread and Roses'; with bread symbolizing economic security and roses, a better quality of life. In May of that year, the Socialist Party of America designated the last Sunday in February for the observance of the National Women's Day.
 

The first National Women's Day was observed across the USA on 28 February 1909. Soon, women in Europe began celebrating Women's Day on the last Sunday of February. It was in this background that Clara Zetkin put forward the proposal for an International Women's Day at the 1910 Conference of the Women's Socialist International. Within a week of the first celebrations in 1911, on 25 March 1911, over 140 working girls were killed in the tragic Triangle Fire in the USA. This event had a far reaching effect on labour legislation in the USA and gave the IWD a further impetus.
 

On the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day in 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest against the war or to express solidarity with oppressed women. The most famous International Working Women's Day was the 8 March 1917 (24 February in the Russian style calendar) strike for 'bread and peace' led by the Russian women of St. Petersburg. Both Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai took part in this event. The IWD strike merges with the riots that had spread throughout the city between 8-12 March. The February Revolution, as it came to be known, forced the Czar to abdicate.
 

In the Soviet Union, 8 March was declared a national holiday and accompanied by a celebration of 'the heroic women workers'. Since then, 8 March has grown in significance, and its celebrations throughout the world have marked a growing awareness of women's rights. The great advances achieved in women's rights in the Soviet Union, after the socialist revolution, were an inspiration to women throughout the world. The Chinese revolution in 1949 showed how, even in one of the most backward countries of the world, seeped in feudal values and patriarchal thinking, women can be aroused for change. The gigantic strides made by women in socialist China were a living example for women throughout the Third World. Particularly, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and its consistent attack on feudal Confucian thinking, acted as a great source for the further emancipation of women in China. Comrade Chiang Chiang was its living symbol.
 

The 1960s and early 1970s, which saw a strong democratic upsurge in the capitalist countries and powerful national liberation movements in the Third World, also witnessed a rejuvenation of the women's liberation movement. The movement had such an enormous impact throughout the world that the imperialists sought to destroy it through co-option and diversion into acceptable channels. This resulted in large, corporate or state-funded NGOs vehemently attacking socialism, and putting for-ward a bourgeois form of feminism. The process of co-option culminated in the United Nations officially recognizing 8 March as the International Women's Day in 1977. Since then, the most bourgeois and reactionary organizations have also come to 'celebrate' 8 March, depriving it of its revolutionary content and great history of struggle, through which it originated. This process was further catalysed with the reversal of socialism, first in the Soviet Union, and, later, in China. The first casualty of these reversals was the denial of some of the rights achieved by women under socialism.
 

Yet, the International Women's Day continues to live on amongst the oppressed women of the world. The temporary setback of the communist movement and socialism, and the re-assertion of capitalism/imperialism, has hit women hard. Globalizations, and the crass consumerism associated with it, have witnessed the mass commodification of women, on a scale unheard of before. The cosmetic industry, tourism and bourgeois media have degraded the women's body as never before, without any respect for their individuality. This, coupled with mass poverty, has led to entire populations turning to prostitution as witnessed in East Europe, East Asia, Nepal, etc.

Coupled with this, the rise of religious fundamentalism and various sects throughout the world is pushing another section of women back to a status of the Dark Ages. Squeezed between these two extremes, women, today, more than ever before, feel the need for assertion, for self-respect and equality with their male counterparts. 8 March has, therefore, an even greater significance today.
 

The revisionists and bourgeois liberals seek to dampen the women's spirit of freedom, displaying mock 'concern,' acting as condescending saviors, confining women to their home. They compromise with patriarchal values, feudal traditions and fear women's emancipation and assertion. They, of course, also 'celebrate' women's day, as a routine, issuing out the regular hypocritical statements.
 

It is the revolutionary forces throughout the world, and, more particularly, the Maoists, who have brought back a living vibrancy to the IWD, making it, once again, a day symbolizing the struggle of women for freedom, self-respect, equality and emancipation from all patriarchal values and exploitative practices. It is this revolutionary spirit that kindles a new hope in the future for the oppressed women of India, and the world.
 

From: Scripting the Change- Selected writings of Anuradha Ghandy- DAANISH BOOKS
 

Anuradha Ghandy was an Indian communist and Maoist leader. She was a member of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist. Among the policy papers drafted by the Marxist movement, Anuradha had contributed significantly to the ones on castes and 'Feminism and Marxism'. Anuradha died of causes related to falciparum malaria on April 12, 2008.

SEE ALSO:

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/arundhati-roy-foreword-to-scripting.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/april-12th-2008-remembering-life-of.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/marxism-and-caste-question-review-of.html

Maoist Communist Party Manipur holds solidarity evening for Philippine Revolution

Leaflet distributed by the Maoist Communist Party Manipur
As part of Solidarity Program "A Solidarity Evening with Filipino Comrades"

Published by Department of Publicity and Propaganda
Maoist Communist Party Manipur

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was founded on the 26th December 1968 and the New People's Army (NPA) was established by the CPP on the 29th March 1969.

The CPP is the political Vanguard of the Filipino Proletariat and it is going to raise the level of the people's war from the stage of strategic defensive to the stage of strategic stalemate.

After 46 years of fierce revolutionary struggle for national liberation and democracy against US imperialism and the domestic reactionaries of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists, the CPP, NPA and National Democratic Front of the Philippines, with the revolutionary masses of workers, peasants, women, youth, indigenous peoples, urban poor and other progressive sectors, have set up more than 110 guerrilla fronts and organs of political power in substantial portions of 71 out of a total of 81 provinces.

The Communist Party of Philippines carries out programs of land reform, health, revolutionary education, literacy and numeracy, culture and self-defense. They are determined to achieve the National and class liberation of Filipino People. It is clear that advancing the People’s War is the only path to achieve the goal of revolution.

The Communist Party of Philippines took up the following tasks to reach its goal – the party must be prepared ideologically, politically and organizationally. We must learn from the CPP that the New Democratic Revolution has to develop efficiency to advance the People’s War from the present stage to a new stage.

It is clear that following Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the party, NPA, NDF and other people’s revolutionary forces will fulfill great tasks and achieve great successes. The party has taken up the task of enhancing its membership from tens of thousands to a minimum of two and a half lakhs. In order to reach this target, they are developing people’s movements in the towns and rural areas.

It has planned to send party members among workers and educated youth to the People’s Army, mass work and organizational work of party branches, mass organizations and organs of state power in the rural areas. The people are being roused with the politics of socialist Revolution. The anger of the masses towards the exploitative rule is being organized into a revolutionary upsurge.

CPP also emphasizes to expand the patriotic and progressive mass organizations and train them to work as militant organizations in order to take up the acute problems afflicting the people’s lives, to enhance the militancy of the masses and to bring pressure on the exploitative government. Similarly, efforts are being made to strengthen the urban people’s movement. The CPP has concretely grasped the contradictions from the local issues up to the national issues and mobilized into political struggles. The mass movements in the towns are working with the aim of bringing the broad urban masses into the struggles. These are the reasons which make Philippines conditions very much favorable for the advancement of the revolution.

The NPA is the principal form of organization of the Party to mobilize and consolidate the people with the intensification of the war. It’s allowed the People’s Army to concentrate more on political and military training and combat tasks. The NPA is striving to enhance higher-level of fighting capacity to advance from the stage of strategic defensive to the stage of strategic stalemate in coming years.

The Communist Party of Philippines (CPP) is advancing with tremendous victory and we hope the Victory of Filipino People is not far away. CPP has already a victorious party by winning the heart of the millions of Filipino people. The imperialists, particularly the US imperialists, have been increasing their stranglehold and military involvement in the internal affairs of Philippine. The Filipino peoples come to realize that the more influence and control the US military exercises over the Philippine police and military, the more Philippine sovereignty is degraded as this weakens the capacity of the puppet state to independently exercise its coercive power and wield political authority. It’s a clear indication of the Victory of CPP.

We feel warm to know that the New People’s Army is fighting such reactionary forces with enthusiasm. We are learning from the experience of such heroic struggle and generate courage from such victory of the people’s war led by our Maoist around the globe. The growing and advancement of people’s War in Philippines have created favorable aspiration of Maoist Parties to fight in their respective countries. We salute our comrades-in-arms waging People’s War in Philippines, and our comrades in Philippines inspire us and other revolutionary forces in the world.

Long Live the Solidarity Between the Manipur and Filipino Peoples!

Long Live Communist Party of Philippines!

Long Live New Peoples Army!

Long Live National Democratic Front of the Philippines!

Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Workers of all countries, Unite!

Down with Imperialism!

Long Live World Proletarian Revolution!

Long Live Proletarian Internationalism!

Comradely greetings to the Maoist Communist Party Manipur