Archive for the ‘Josef Stalin’ Category
Learn to Think About Aiding the Ukrainian Resistance in 2022 – Russian Troops Out Now
Revolutionary Socialists in Ukraine (Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) Ukraine) are thinking for themselves – making proposals which comrades in Ireland and elsewhere should examine very sympathetically.
Confiscate the property of Russian AND Ukrainian oligarchs, for the benefit of the people of Ukraine!
Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, many European parties and organizations, including many people on the left, have demanded the confiscation of Russian oligarchs’ property abroad. Indeed, the yachts and real estate of Russian rich people have already been confiscated in Great Britain and France.
Nevertheless, this and all the other sanctions are half-measures against the economy of the Russian Federation, its dictatorship and the parasites that constantly enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary Russians.
In the context of this all-out war against the aggressor, we, Social Movement (Ukraine) insist that Ukraine needs the funds obtained rom the confiscation and sale of Russian capitalists’ property abroad. Only this would be genuine aid, since, at the moment, the proceeds from confiscation of assets of Putin’s henchmen does not benefit the common people of Ukraine.
In this context, it should be noted that our comrades from the Razem party (Poland) made a correct proposal: “Confiscate the property of Russian oligarchs: yachts, apartments in London, cottages in the Alps and villas on the Cote d’Azur. Profit from this will be given to Ukraine so that it can defend itself from the aggressor”
As Social Movement (Ukraine), we also believes that the realisation of Ukraine’s strategic interests and increasing economic stability is impossible without the nationalization of the Ukrainian oligarchs and the prohibition of any offshore operations by Ukrainian businesspeople. The implementation of such measures becomes more likely after the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament passed Bill 7122, which created a legal basis for the forcible seizure of Russian property in Ukraine on grounds of public necessity.
Turn the capital of Russian oligarchs against their state! Let’s restore justice!
Source : http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article61445
Let’s learn a little history, and learn to think a bit more :
April 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland
Arms are supplied to the rebels by German Imperialism. James Connolly’s Irish Citizens’ Army Slogan “We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland”
February 1917 Russian Revolution begins in St. Petersburg
Women march demanding Bread and Peace – Cossacks mutiny. Russians start to desert the Czar’s World War 1 army. Exiled Bolsheviks in Zürich including VI Lenin strike a deal with German Imperialists, who provide a “sealed train” that travels through German occupied Eastern Europe to St. Petersburg’s Finland Station. October 1917 – Soviets, Workers’ Councils, establish a new revolutionary state in Russia.
Reviewing these events later – with the benefit of a historians’s 20-20 vision – British imperialist Winston Churchill observed that the Bolsheviks’s sealed train injected a “bacillus plague” into the heart ❤️ of the global capitalist system. A leader of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, addressed similar problems in 1938 :
“Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democraticimperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascistimperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/05/think.htm
Leon Trotsky, ‘Learn To Think’ (1938).
“No to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine! Support to the Ukrainian resistance! Solidarity with the Russian opposition to the war!”
Statement of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International
Source : https://fourth.international/en/566/europe/426.
Ukrainian volunteers sorting humanitarian aid at a refugee station – Aliona N. (fb)
1. Before dawn on 24 February 2022 the Russian army began its invasion of Ukraine, bombing the interior of the country and crossing the northern, eastern and southern borders of the country, heading for the capital Kiev. This aggression has already resulted in many deaths, both civilian and military. The Ukrainian army and population are defending themselves, several cities are holding out against the aggressor. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have gone into exile, but the resistance continues. The Ukrainan people are resisting, with and without arms.
The Kremlin’s recognition three days earlier of the “independence” of the so-called “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk and the official entry of the Russian army into their territory was only the prelude to the invasion aimed at the total submission of the neighbouring country.
Read the rest of this entry »It is a military invasion of the territory of a former oppressed nation by a capitalist oligarchic, autocratic and imperialist regime whose aim is the reconstruction of the Russian empire.
Protest Outside Russian Embassy in Dublin – Monday February 28, 5pm, Orwell Road, Rathmines – Solidarity With Russian Anti-War Protesters
Statement Issued by Paul Murphy TD :
Thousands of anti-war protesters have taken to the streets of Russia opposing the invasion of Ukraine. They have faced repression and arrest, and they need our solidarity.
The real hope for stopping the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and future conflicts between NATO and Russia, lies in an anti-war movement that crosses the border of East and West and opposes both Putin and NATO.
Join PBP for this solidarity protest outside the Russian Embassy on Orwell road in Rathmines on Monday 28 February at 5pm in solidarity with the Russian anti-war movement.
The best way to stop war is by an international movement of ordinary people to force their own governments to end the warmongering.
Sinn Féin President Mary-Lou McDonald calls for expulsion of Russian Ambassador Yuri Filatov from Ireland https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2022/02/25/another-response-to-the-russian-attack/
Against Russian Imperialism, Hands Off Ukraine – Statement from the RSD (Russian Socialist Movement)
Statement from the RSD – Russian Socialist Movement. (Thanks to Peter Saxtrup Nielsen). The Russian Socialist movement was founded in March 2011 by two organizations, the Socialist Movement Vperiod (“Forward”), Russian section of the Fourth International, and Socialist Resistance. It is part of the Left Front, an alliance formed during the protests against the falsification of the elections in 2011 and 2012.
Against Russian imperialism, hands off Ukraine!
Putin’s address to the Russians has just ended. The man who calls himself president began his speech with an anti-communist panegyric and said that the creator of Ukraine is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and its existence in its current form is the result of the national policy of the Bolsheviks. By accusing the Bolsheviks of “cultivating nationalists,” Putin is covering up the most terrible and disgusting kind of nationalism – Great Russian chauvinism. Against this background, Putin threatened the Ukrainians to show what “decommunization” is. Given the context of his speech, one can perceive these words only as a threat of direct intervention on the territory of Ukraine. Not surprisingly, in criticizing the Leninist nationality policy, Putin threw stones at the planned economy, nationalization and complimented Stalinism.
Tomás Ó Flatharta
Tomás Ó Flatharta was the first known Irish supporter of the Left Opposition to the Stalin-led Bolshevik Government in Russia, in the 1920’s. He is pictured here with comrades
William F. Dunne, T.J. O’Flaherty (Tomás Ó Flatharta), William (Big Bill) Haywood, and James P. Cannon together in Moscow from Labor Defender. Vol. 1 No. 8. August, 1926. Frank Little Memorial Number.
Thanks to Des Derwin for the information.
How the Russian Left Survived in a Post‑Soviet World. : Ilya Budraitskis, Translation : Giuliano Vivaldi
This fascinating history of the fighting left in Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is recommended to readers of this blog.
The author, Ilya Budraitskis, is a leader of the “Vpered” (“Forward”), Russian section of the Fourth International, which participated in the founding of the Russian Socialist Movement (RSD) in 2011. This article was spotted on this blog : https://anticapitalistresistance.org/how-the-russian-left-survived-in-a-post-soviet-world/
This article originally appeared on the global dialogue website and can be located here.
Long Read
After the demise of the USSR on December 26, 1991, the Russian left had to find its place in a society transformed beyond recognition. In the face of huge challenges, its activists have led important struggles against the system established by Yeltsin and Putin.
The story of the modern left movement in Russia begins in the late 1980s, during the era of perestroika. From the very beginning it carried a contradictory combination of two political tendencies of the late Soviet period: popular (anti-market, statist) Stalinism and democratic socialism; nostalgic idealization of the USSR and criticism of it from the left. These political tendencies entered the public political arena in the late 1980s, and immediately found themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield dividing supporters and opponents of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika.
Read the rest of this entry »Connolly Youth Movement Disaffiliates from the Communist Party of Ireland
Rumours about sharp disagreements between the Connolly Youth Movement (CYM) and the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) circulated publicly on various platforms, notably the Cedar Lounge Revolution. https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/what-you-want-to-say-2-december-2020/
The CYM has disaffiliated from the CPI – a public statement is here : https://cym.ie/2021/01/18/cym-statement-on-disaffiliation/?fbclid=IwAR2rMRnPz2RhVRn8x6Q3GPBTmysFeX26swCJKaVpsOyvWpyupMsLloOSQmk
One correspondent observes :
An interesting political development. Whilst I would not overstate it in any sense, it is true that the CYM has presented itself as a generally vibrant group and has garnered a lot of recruits particularly (though not exclusively) through leaning into a particular online aesthetic and social circles.
Read the rest of this entry »Their attachment to the Communist Party and, partly, its selection of recruits, has resulted in it inheriting a framework of analysis which led to a fundamentally left-sectarian approach (“anti-Trotskyism”) and self-imposed isolation from a significant section of the socialist left. It is no joke to say that some in the CYM spend almost as much (if not more) time attacking other socialist groups than they do attacking our common enemy.
Apologies and Recantations – The Strange Cases of two Elected Representatives from Ireland and England – Brian Stanley TD (Sinn Féin, Ireland) and Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour Party, England)
We start with a tip, and two savage cartoons.
All political apologisers – such as the Sinn Féin Laois-Offaly TD Brian Stanley – forced to swallow and spit out his words of praise for IRA ambushes in 1920 and 1979 – do not believe any of the sentences they are forced to utter in humiliating public recantations!
Nobody ever believes the recantation :
The same applies to apologies uttered under duress by former British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Nobody believes the apologies. The effect is to censor debate on issues which ought to be publicly aired.
Every honest person knows Brian Stanley’s Kilmichael/Narrow Water Tweet about British soldiers successfully ambushed by the IRA in Ireland – Black-and-Tans (1920) and Parachute Regiment (1979) – is a public picture of his own personal opinion and the opinions of many members of his own party.
Read the rest of this entry »Fascinating Extracts from a Stalin Biography – Mao got a lucky break – he was almost selected for a part in one of the infamous 1930’s Moscow Show Trials
Victor Osprey reports :
Interesting passage from the second volume of the Stalin biography by Kotkin.
Especially notable here: after Hitler came to power, 41 of the 68 German Communists who fled to the Soviet Union would be put to death there.
When plans were made for a public trial of “Trotskyite-fascists” in the Comintern, it appears Mao was put on this tentative list of “Trotskyites”.
Donald Trump’s Anti-China “Cold War” – Capitalist China’s Hot War against Muslim Uighurs and the people of Hong Kong – Trump’s Hot War against the “Black Lives Matter” Movement
A lot of tit-for-tat politicking is on the international political agenda. Shooting the messenger is a big temptation. Donald Trump is a hypocrite because he condemns China’s terrible human rights assaults on the Muslim Uighurs – while organising military tear-gassing assaults on “Black Lives Matter” street protests in his own country, the USA.
A correspondent notes the big problem with “shoot the messenger” politics (promoted by nocoldwar.org) :
Oppose all imperialist wars, hot or cold, but I think we can be safe in assuming that nothing will be said at this in solidarity with the Uighurs or independence movement in Hong Kong, unless they are denounced as agents of imperialism that is.
What is a good collective noun to describe this sort of 21st Century politics? Pierre Rousset offers “Campism” and presents a clear example :
“campism” remains present in this field, like a Pavlovian reflex: satisfied for example to condemn imperialist intervention in Iraq and Syria (which it is certainly necessary to do), but without saying what Islamic State represents or calling to resist it. http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3669
“Stalinism”is out of date – the decrepit megalomaniac dictator of the Soviet Union, Stalin, died in 1953. Stalin’s leftwing fan club loyally defended every anti-worker crime performed by the Moscow Régime – “Socialism in One Country” in action.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, and no serious person on the revolutionary left bickers today about the class character of Putin’s Russia and Xe Jinping’s China – both are capitalist world powers. The fan club listed in the attached notice is of interest to trainspotters since it includes ex-Trotskyist renegades – a name which jumps out is the British China-based academic John Ross.
Let’s work on a positive alternative. We can take inspiration in Ireland from Easter 1916 Rising Rebel Roger Casement’s exemplary 19th and early 20th century campaign against Belgian imperialist brutality in the Congo. Similarly, the 21st century radical left needs to make principled alliances in support of the oppressed Uighur Muslims and the mass pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, oppressed by capitalist China.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 