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Satyam: Biggest Scam in Indian Corporate
History
SATYAM, the fourth biggest IT company in India, has fallen as a result of Rs. 8000 crore fraud
through manipulation of accounts by none other than its chairman B. Ramalinga Raju. He was
pampered by earlier chief minister Chandrababu Naidu of Telugu Desham as well as the
present Congress chief minister, and by the whole state machinery. It helped Raju to
manipulate the company’s funds diverting this huge sum to Maytas, a real estate company
owned by his family, to engage in large scale speculative business.
Though the chairman claims that he alone is responsible, after he was compelled to talk
as the manipulation could not be kept secret and he was about to get exposed, it is damn
clear that the top executives, those dealing with the accounts, the auditors, his close relatives
and political associates are all involved in it. How can one believe that such a big fraud did not
show up somewhere and could not be spotted by the numerous investment analysts or the
several investment banks and institutional investors holding huge shares in the company?
Satyam’s collapse exposed how the corporate governance is run in India.
If the imperialist meltdown had not started exerting pressure on Indian economy and the
real estate business, the Satyam chairman’s fraud may not have come out at all. In all senses,
Satyam is like India’s Enron. That the central and state governments thought of bailing out this
company even after such huge swindling, in the name of rescuing its 53,000 employees,
shows where the loyalty of the ruling establishment lies.
People should raise their voice against any form of bailing out of such companies.
Stringent action should be taken against all those who are responsible after thorough
investigation in to all aspects of it. All the properties of those who benefited from this huge
fraud should be confiscated. The company should be reconstituted in a transparent manner
under public sector to help the employees and strengthen the IT sector. As the imperialist
meltdown is going to sweep across the country more such companies are going to become
bankrupt and many more such frauds are going to come out. Instead of bailing out exercises
which will only benefit the sharks responsible for their collapse, pressure should be put on the
central and state governments to take stringent action against all scamsters, and to reverse
the neo-liberal policies of liberalisation-privatisation. When the enormous crimes committed by
the MNCs and the corporate houses are becoming clearer day by day, the slogan Kick out
MNCs and Corporate Houses has become more relevant. Not privatisation, only social control
of the fields of production and services can reverse the present trend of scams, frauds,
swindlings and speculation leading to unprecedented stagnation and crises.
Article
Significance of the Ideological-Political Struggle
in Combating Alien Thoughts and Throwing Out
the Barbarous Imperialist System
KN Ramachandran
THAT THE OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS around the world are becoming once again more and more
favourable for the working class and other toiling masses to overthrow the imperialist system
and its lackeys and to lead the people’s democratic and socialist revolutions to victory is the
concrete reality today. With the unprecedented outbreak of the meltdown sweeping across
US, the talks of making 21st century a century of US hegemony, often repeated in recent past
by the neo-conservatives (neocons), are no longer heard. Imperialist economies of Japan and
Western Europe are also in turmoil. This global financial crisis has started creating havoc in all
the vast number of countries at various stages of neo-colonisation, who had opted for
imperialist globalisation and were integrating fast the economies of their countries to the
imperialist capital-market system. At international level these developments have intensified
the contradictions between imperialism and oppressed nations and peoples of the world,
between capital and labour and among the imperialist countries and among the monopoly
groups, paving the way for the contradiction between imperialism and socialism coming to the
foreground.
This is a qualitative change in the international situation compared to two decades back
when the imperialists and their lackeys had launched a frenzied attack on the international
working class movement, repeating socialism has become obsolete, in the context of the
disintegration of Soviet Union which had started degenerating to capitalist path long back.
This transformation in the objective conditions has created a favourable objective situation for
the all round advance of the revolutionary communist parties all over the world. But such a
qualitative transformation is still not visible to any significant extent anywhere, even after the
anti-imperialist movement is gaining momentum in numerous forms in many regions. Why? It
is vital question to be raised and an answer sought by the communist forces in our country,
and internationally.
IDEOLOGICAL POLITICAL LINE DECIDES EVERYTHING
Marxist-Leninist teachers have repeatedly stressed that just because an excellent
objective situation exists, no social revolution creating qualitative changes is going to take
place. Referring to the uncompromising and bitter struggle the Bolshevik Party under his
leadership had unleashed against all alien thoughts, against the Mensheviks, the Narodniks
and others, Lenin repeatedly stressed that without a revolutionary theory no strong communist
party can be built up. Continuing on his footsteps Mao stressed: “The correctness or
incorrectness of the ideological and political line decides everything”. Without a revolutionary
theory at its helm there can be no revolution. The correctness of this Marxist-Leninist teaching
is substantiated by the hitherto history of the international communist movement.
When capitalist system emerged and started growing in to a dominating force about three
centuries back, it had created a new situation. The contradiction between emerging barbarous
capitalist system and the toilers took unprecedented ugly forms. Wage slavery intensified the
miseries of the working class in Western Europe and North America. This situation led to
various reactions, to resistance, to upsurges of the wage slaves against capital in numerous
forms. The barbarous character of capitalism provoked the emergence of utopian socialist
ideas and resistances based on them also. But only when a scientific socialist analysis of the
capitalist system was put forward by Marx and Engels, and the Communist Manifesto gave a
revolutionary orientation, the First International came in to existence giving leadership to the
working class organisations, Paris Commune took place and taking lessons from it the
Second International was initiated providing new orientation and encouragement to the
revolutionary working class movement. Thus the history of the 19th century became the
history of emergence of the communist movement and the history of it pausing mighty
challenge against the marauding capitalist system.
Along with the inherent contradiction within the capitalist system, it was also the
emergence and development of the working class movement which speeded up the
transformation of capitalism to its monopoly, highest stage, the imperialism. Analysing the
imperialism and developing the Marxist theory to combat it became a challenge before the
Second International. But its leaders totally failed in this and they were reduced to class
collaborationist positions, to apologists of the imperialist forces and their colonisation policy.
Once again the working class movement was in a crisis.
It was Lenin who took up this challenge, scientifically analysed imperialism and the
qualitative changes it has brought about. Based on this analysis he developed the theory and
practice of Marxism to a new stage. It led to momentus developments like the historic victory
of the October Revolution, coming in to existence of Soviet Union, the reorganisation of the
international communist movement by organising the Third International or Communist
International, and along with the mighty advance of socialist construction in the Soviet Union,
the great upsurge of national liberation movements in the colonial, semi-colonial, dependent
countries. It unfolded a new era of imperialism and proletarian revolution.
The great world-wide significance of the October Revolution was analysed by Stalin in the
following words: “The great world-wide significance of the October Revolution chiefly consists
in the fact that:
1. It has widened the scope of the national question and converted it from the particular
question of combating national oppression in Europe into the general question of
emancipating the oppressed peoples, colonies and semi-colonies from imperialism;
2. It has opened up wide possibilities for their emancipation and the right paths towards it,
has thereby greatly facilitated the cause of the emancipation of the oppressed peoples of the
West and the East, and has drawn them into the common current of the victorious struggles
against imperialism;
3. It has thereby erected a bridge between the socialist West and the enslaved East,
having created a new front of revolutions against world imperialism, extending from the
proletarians of the West, through the Russian revolution, to the oppressed peoples of the
East.”
Explaining the new situation following the victory of the October Revolution Mao Tsetung
said: “It is an era in which the world capitalist front has collapsed in one part of the globe (one-
sixth of the world) and has fully revealed its decadence everywhere else, in which the
remaining capitalist parts cannot survive without relying more than ever on the colonies and
semi-colonies, in which a socialist state has been established and has proclaimed its
readiness to give active support to the liberation movement of all colonies and semi-colonies,
and in which the proletariat of the capitalist countries is steadily freeing itself from the social-
imperialist influence of the social-democratic parties and has proclaimed its support for the
liberation movement in the colonies and semi-colonies. In this era, any revolution in a colony
or semi-colony that is directed against imperialism, i.e., against the international bourgeoisie
or international capitalism, no longer comes within the old category of the bourgeois-
democratic world revolution, but within the new category. It is no longer part of the old
bourgeois, or capitalist, world revolution, but is part of the new world revolution, the
proletarian-socialist world revolution. Such revolutionary colonies and semi-colonies can no
longer be regarded as allies of the counter revolutionary front of world capitalism; they have
become allies of the revolutionary front of world socialism.
“Although such a revolution in a colonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally
bourgeois-democratic in its social character during its first stage or first step, and although its
objective mission is to clear the path for the development of capitalism, it is no longer a
revolution of the old type led by the bourgeoisie with the aim of establishing a capitalist society
and a state under bourgeois dictatorship. It belongs to the new type of revolution led by the
proletariat with the aim, in the first stage, of establishing a new-democratic society and a state
under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes. Thus this revolution actually serves
the purpose of dearing a still wider path for the development of socialism. In the course of its
progress, there may be a number of further sub-stages, because of changes on the enemy’s
side and within the ranks of our allies, but the fundamental character of the revolution remains
unchanged.
“Such a revolution attacks imperialism at its very roots, and is therefore not tolerated but
opposed by imperialism.”
As the working class led numerous struggles in the imperialist countries, and combining
the tasks of national liberation and democratic revolution, as the national liberation
movements advanced in the countries under colonisation, as the East European countries
became part of the socialist camp and China, North Korea and North Vietnam were advancing
to successfully complete their democratic revolution, a new world situation was emerging. The
east wind of socialist forces looked like going to overwhelm the west wind of imperialism. The
last years of World War II and the post-War years was a critical period. The US imperialism
taking over the mantle of the leader of the imperialist camp dropped nuclear bombs in Japan
more as a challenge to the socialist forces, built up various military blocs and let loose a fierce
counter attack against the communist revolutionary forces in a number of countries including
the Cold War against Soviet Union on the one hand, and initiated ‘de-colonisation’ process
under its control to replace the colonial plunder with the neo-colonial forms of plunder.
NEO-COLONIAL OFFENSIVE BY US-LED IMPERIALIST FORCES
What happened following the World War II was the old colonialists changing in to neo-
colonialists led by US imperialism. Old colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries were
turned in to countries under various stages of neo-colonisation. For this purpose along with
the Brettonwood twins (IMF and World Bank), and launching of GATT, military blocs were
organised, military bases were established and the control over the neo-colonial countries
were retained through the comprador classes. It was an all out neo-colonial offensive by US-
led forces in the economic, political, military and cultural fields to perpetuate imperialist
hegemony in a new form.
In the post-Stalin years the CPSU leadership came under the sway of revisionism and
later capitalist path started getting consolidating there as it failed to grasp the phenomenal
changes taking place at the international level. As a result, the Krushchovite leadership
argued that the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations and peoples and
between capital and labour has got diluted. It replaced the contradiction between imperialism
and socialism with that between the US imperialism and Soviet Union. It argued that
imperialism has weakened and advocated for peaceful competition and peaceful co-existence
with imperialism and peaceful transition to socialism. It amounted to the class collaborationist
theory of dying out of class struggle. What happened was similar to the revisionist Kautsky-
Bernstain gang usurping the leadership of the Second International. Krushchovites tried to
land the international communist movement in to the mire of revisionism, after becoming
apologists of neo-colonialism.
It was Mao and the CPC under his leadership which waged an uncompromising struggle
against these capitalist roaders by putting forward A Proposal Concerning the General Line of
the International Communist Movement in 1963 in reply to CPSU’s revisionist positions and by
launching the Cultural Revolution in China to overthrow the capitalist roaders. This historic
struggle raised hopes of an all out attack on the capitalist roaders, development of Marxist-
Leninist theory and practice according to the new concrete conditions, and polarisation of the
Marxist-Leninist forces at international level based on the General Line for a new world-wide
offensive against imperialism and its lackeys. The advancement of the revolutionary struggles
in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries and a new upsurge of people’s movement
around the world in 1970s created hopes of a new leap forward in spite of degeneration of
Soviet Union and East European countries to the capitalist path.
NEW DEVIATIONS
But before long it was proved that the above revolutionary initiatives under the leadership
of Mao Tsetung and the revolutionary advances of early 1970s could not block a whole brand
of new deviations coming up in the international communist movement (ICM). The two line
struggle within the CPC was so intense that in 1960s it came under the domination of first the
capitalist roaders and then the Lin Piaoist ‘left’ sectarian positions. Though the 10th Congress
in 1973 could restore the party to some extent to the Marxist-Leninist line, soon the capitalist
roaders started gaining strength and after Mao usurped power degenerating China also to
capitalist path. The Albanian leadership also deviated, first took an anti-Mao line and soon
collapsed to capitalist degeneration. The South Asian liberations soon lost their momentum
and they once again came under imperialist domination in the new forms. With the
presentation of glassnost-peretroika by Gorbachev and later disintegration of Soviet Union the
setbacks suffered by the ICM have reached extremely dangerous levels. Today the
international communist movement is divided in to multitude of alien trends creating difficulties
to identify the Marxist-Leninist streams among them. Compared to the height of the
ideological-political clarity provided by Lenin through his historic analysis of the imperialist
system developing Marxist theory to a new stage, today what we are witnessing is an entirely
different picture.
If one goes through the contents of the various shades of alien trends and goes through
the history of their emergence, whether it is Krushchovite revisionism, the neo-Trotskyist
trends, the Dengist line, the Lin Piaoist aberration, the Albanian line or any others like them, it
can be seen that all of them have originated from an erroneous understanding of the
imperialist system today. Starting with this erroneous understanding all of them have
degenerated first to apologists of neo-colonialism, and later to pursuing neo-colonial policies
wherever they are in power. All of them have drifted away from Marxist-Leninist theories on
class struggle, state and revolution. From Kautsky to these modern day alien trends, their
basic formulation is the theory of class collaboration.
So re-establishing of the hegemony of the revolutionary theory is possible only by starting
with an all out effort to understand imperialism in its neo-colonial phase and to develop the
Marxist-Leninist understanding and practice to combat it un-compromisingly.
DEVELOP THE THEORY AND PRACTICE GUIDED BY MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT
ACCORDING TO CONCRETE CONDITIONS OF THE NEO-COLONIAL PHASE OF IMPERIALISM
After World War II, under the twin blows of the socialist revolutions and the national
liberation movements, the imperialists were forced to recognise that if they had attempted to
perpetuate the status quo of colonialism, it would have made violent revolutions inevitable and
defeat inevitable. So for them it became necessary to change the form and practice to neo-
colonialism.
But even after embracing the neo-colonial phase of plunder, the imperialist system could
not escape from a severe crisis in the 1970s and 1980s compelling them to replace hitherto
Keynesian economics with neo-liberal policies. Through it whatever competitive powers the
neo-colonial countries had were systematically liquidated and their economies were
progressively integrated to the international production and distribution of the MNCs, to the
imperialist capital-market system.
But with the imperialist meltdown surfacing in the last months of 2008 taking
unprecedentedly menacing forms, the imperialist countries are searching for newer theories to
transfer the burden to the neo-colonial countries to save themselves. It shows that resorting to
neo-colonial forms of plunder has not saved the imperialist system from its inherent crises.
Instead the crisis is only intensifying. So more barbarous methods are being searched for by
the imperialists to escape from it. As a result, as noted in the beginning, all major
contradictions at international level have intensified and they are going to intensify further in
coming days. The basic contradiction between imperialism and socialism has come forward
more glaringly than ever.
So, as Lenin fought against Kautsky, Bernstain and all other apologists of colonialism in
the colonial phase of imperialist plunder, today the Marxist-Leninists should sharpen their
theoretical understanding to uncompromisingly struggle against all brands of apologists and
practitioners of neo-colonialism, and to develop the revolutionary practice according to the
concrete conditions of this present neo-colonial phase of imperialism. In this way the
ideological-political line should be developed and the importance of the revolutionary theory
should be re-established according to the needs of the neo-colonial phase of imperialism.
National Scene
CPI(ML) Launches Campaign for 15th Lok Sabha
Elections
[We are reproducing below the concluding part of the Election Manifesto presented by the
Central Committee of the CPI(ML) for the 15th Lok Sabha elections and the slogans. This
Election Manifesto approved by the CC of CPI(ML) on 22nd January, 2009 will be published
by 15 February - Red Star]
CPI (ML)’S APPEAL
It was at an important juncture in the history of our country when two decades of
Congress rule had intensified the contradictions between the ruling system and the people,
and when CPI and CPI(M) leaderships had degenerated to reformist, opportunist positions,
the Naxalbari struggle putting forward the agrarian revolution with land to the tiller slogan
broke out, the Communist Revolutionaries started uniting, and CPI (ML) was formed in 1969
to carry forward the tasks of people’s democracy and socialism.
Though the movements was influenced by sectarian tendencies for some time in the
beginning, it has played a historic role in radicalizing the socio-economic-political-cultural
scene, struggling against all reactionary and reformist positions. It has a consistent legacy of
many great struggles and sacrifices, a legacy of thousands of martyr comrades and cadres
who inspired the toiling millions and continued the fight for a people’s democratic India.
When the imperialist globaliza-tion policies were imposed and the country was being
opened to IMF-WB-WTO-MNCs and capital-market system, and when almost all prominent
political parties from Congress and BJP became its executioners, and even CPI (M) led LF
surrendered to it stating ‘there is no alternative’ to it, the CPI(ML) along with communist
revolutionary forces went on opposing and struggling against it from the beginning. While
launching anti-imperialist movements, it took up struggles against all reactionary policies of
consecutive governments. In some states it developed agrarian movements with land to the
tiller slogan besides struggling for the rights of all oppressed classes and sections.
Vijayavada Unity Conference of 2005 January became a landmark when
uncompromisingly struggling against the degeneration of CPI (M) –led LF’s to ruling class
positions and the CPI(Maoist) continuing the sectarian and anarchist line, the CR forces
united under the banner of CPI (ML), developing their activities all over India, pursuing
revolutionary mass line. During the present UPA government’s tenure it has led numerous
struggles against its anti-national and anti-people policies, fighting bitterly against
surrendering the country to strategic subservience to US imperialism. Along with its efforts to
develop anti-imperialist movements uniting the Marxist-Leninist parties at International level
against US imperialism and its allies in solidarity with the Iraqi, Afghan, Palestinian and other
peoples, CPI (ML) was always in the forefront to develop resistance to UPA government’s
moves including signing of the Indo-US Nuclear Act, enslaving the country to US masters. In
a number of states the Party and class/mass organizations were continuously waging
struggles against the UPA government’s and state governments’ anti-people policies.
Besides the party and the landless peasants-agricultural workers organizations led by it have
launched agrarian movements with land to the tiller slogan in many areas.
The CPI (ML) is contesting the Lok Sabha elections putting forward a good number of
candidates in almost all important states for utilizing the election to vigorously campaign for
this Election Manifesto calling for building up Anti-imperialist People’s Democratic Alternative.
At a time when the neo-colonial stranglehold, communal fascist onslaughts and influence of
caste politics are intensifying day by day, and when imperialism, especially US imperialism, is
engaged in accelerating its efforts to impose its hegemony in all fields building such an
alternative uniting all revolutionary left, and patriotic democratic secular forces has great
significance.
CPI (ML) appeals to the working class, landless-poor peasants and agricultural workers,
all other toiling masses and the patriotic democratic secular forces to rally for building this
people’s democratic alternative.
CPI (ML) appeals to the people of the country, to the toiling masses, to all patriotic
democratic forces to exercise their right to vote in support of the Election Manifesto put
forward by the Party, to vote for the candidates fielded by the party and all forces supported
by the party based on this orientation. Come forward to vigorously utilize the election to fight
the ruling system and to initiate the building of the People’s Democratic Alternative.
RALLY FOR ANTI-IMPERIALIST PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC ALTERNATIVE
- Scrap Imperialist Global-isation-Liberalisation-Privat-isation policies; Scrap SEZ and
CMZ.
- Kick out IMF-World Bank-WTO and MNCs.
- Throw out Present Anti-People Development Policies Dominated by Capital-Market
System.
- Struggle for People Oriented, National, Democratic, Self-reliant Development Policy.
- Control Corporate forces, Stop Privatisation, Nationalise all Core Sectors, Strengthen
Public Sector.
- Restore and Develop all welfare Policies; Ensure Food, Housing, Education, Health-
care and Employment for all.
- Throw out MNCs and Corporate Forces from Agricultural and Plantation Sectors.
- Implement Land to the Tiller slogan through Revolutionary Land Reforms; Distribute
Land to Landless Peasants and Agricultural Workers Including Dalits, Adivasis and All
Other Oppressed Sections; Write off Loans of Peasants Holding up to 5 Acres of Land,
Agricultural Workers and all toiling classes.
- Scrap Contract Labour System and ‘Hire and Fire’; Ensure Need-based Minimum
Wages, Social Security and Democratic Rights to Working Class.
- Scrap All Black Acts, Ensure Civil Rights for All.
- Struggle for Secularism Separating Religion from Politics; Fight Communal Fascism,
State Terror and Terrorism Promoted by Religious Fundamentalism and Caste-based
Suppression.
- Scrap Indo-US Nuclear Act and All other Unequal Treaties with Imperialist Countries.
- Unite to Realise the Dreams of Freedom struggle; Carry Forward Struggle for People’s
Democracy and Socialism.
STATE COMMITTEES INITIATE ELECTION CAMPAIGN
KERALA: Rallying to the call of the CC of CPI(ML) to launch a vigorous campaign fielding
maximum candidates to propagate the line of People’s Democratic Alternative being explained
in the Election Manifesto, the Kerala State committee of the Party has decided to field
candidates in 11 out of the 20 seats in Thiruvananthapuram, Mavelikara, Pathanamthitta,
Kottayam, Idikki, Ernakulam, Chalakudy, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Wynad and Kannur. The
candidates for these seats will be announced by 31st January and the campaign will be
started soon thereafter. Along with the Manifesto issued by the CC, the SC is going to publish
an appeal highlighting the vital issues to be raised in the context of Lok Sabha elections
including the burning issues confronted by the people in the state. The campaign will be
focussed against the UDF and LDF alliances ruling the state in rotation, acting like two sides
of the same coin basically, and against the communal fascist BJP.
The SC is holding discussion with the co-ordination committee of the large number of
CPI(M) members who have revolted against the social democratic CPI(M) leadership and who
have come out mainly in Kozhikode and Palakkad districts in order to organise joint election
campaign based on above slogans. In the context of the intensifying conflict within the CPI(M)
leadership as the name of its state secretary is included among the accused in the notorious
Lavalin case, the dissidence within CPI(M) is going to be more serious. The CPI(ML) has
extended support for the candidates fielded by the co-ordination committee and plan a joint
campaign in all the seats in the state.
TAMIL NADU: In TN the 15th Lok Sabha elections are also going to be reduced to a replay of
the contest between the two so-called ‘Dravidian’ contestants DMK, which is in power, and
AIADMK, which is in opposition. All the burning issues at national level including the grave
consequences of the imperialist globalisation policies in the context of the crisis and
stagnation started in the imperialist countries are side lined, as both parties have no basic
differences in embracing these anti-people policies. Even on Tamil question in Sri Lanka in
the context of military offensive there, which is nearing the elimination of the LTTE, there are
no basic differences between the two. Even when DMK is exhibiting lip sympathy to the plight
of the Tamil speaking people there, it has not asked for cessation of Indian arms supply to Sri
Lankan government. In this situation the CPI and CPI(M) shifting their ‘loyalty’ and alliance
from DMK to AIADMK is nothing but another opportunist policy in search of more seats.
Though the PMK like parties have not decided on their election partners, in Tamil Nadu the
main contest is once again going to be between the ruling class alliances led by DMK and
AIADMK, with BJP and BSP contesting alone. Policy-wise the parties led by few film stars are
also not having any difference with the above.
In this situation the TN state committee of the CPI(ML), in line with anti-imperialist
people’s democratic alternative called by the CC, has already decided to context six seats,
viz, South Chennai, Salem, Dharmapuri, Coimbatore, Krishnagiri and Kanyakumari and
formation of election committees and propaganda campaign have already started. In alliance
with forces who oppose imperialist globalisation and stand for land to the tiller struggles,
mainly the dalit and adivasi organisations, there are possibilities for contesting many more
seats and to launch a vigorous campaign in the state.
KARNATAKA: In this state while the ruling BJP and Congress are the main ruling class parties,
the alliance of Janata Dal (Secular) with CPI-CPI(M) and the BSP are basically pursuing the
very same ruling class policies. None of them are ready to oppose even the mining mafia
controlling the state politics, which is swindling fabulous wealth. When the meltdown in
imperialist centres and lessening of outsourcing by them have started affecting even the ‘IT
boom’ in the state, none of these parties/alliances are ready to oppose the neo-liberal policies
enslaving the country to neo-colonisation. Besides, after the BJP government taking over, the
already serious communal divisions and caste-based oppression have taken a worsening
form, with the communal fascist Sangh Parivar running amuck with the support of state
machinery.
In this situation, in line with the CC’s call for building a people’s democratic alternative
based on the central slogans announced by the Party, the state committee has decided to
issue and appeal focussing on state level issues also and to launch an active campaign
fielding maximum possible candidates. The SC has decided to announce candidates for
Raichur, Koppal, Chikmangalur, Hassan and Mysore seats by 31st January and for
Bangalore, Shimoga, Davanagere, Bellary and Gulbarga seats by 28th February. The
strengthening of party committees at local level and the political campaign are already started.
Talks with like-minded dalit and adivasi organisations are already started to forge a state level
anti-imperialist people’s democratic alternative based on people’s struggle.
MAHARASHTRA: The state political scene is in a confused condition with both Congress-NCP
and BJP-Shiv Sena alliances facing turmoils. Leaderships of ‘dalit’ parties like the Republican
Party factions and BSP are adding to the confusion hobnobbing with the ruling class parties,
while the chauvinist outfit of Raj Thakeray is seeking a place to butt in. CPI-CPI(M), though
they are further marginalised, are in frantic search of some ruling class party to align with. At
the same time, in continuation to the global financial crisis and consequent stagnation, the
state’s economy is in acute crisis with tens of thousands of workers and even IT engineers
being rendered jobless. The crisis in the agricultural sector is also worsening. Still the state
government, in line with the UPA government’s policies, is going ahead with displacement of
tens of thousands of families, procuring their land for SEZs and in the name of
‘developmental’ projects. Unemployment, price rise and corruption have worsened the living
conditions of the masses.
In this situation, in line with the basic orientation put forward by the Party, the state
committee has decided to launch a vigorous campaign against the ruling class policies of
central and state governments utilising the Lok Sabha elections. With this perspective the SC
has initiated moves to launch five candidates in Mumbai, Thane and around focussing on the
struggle areas. Discussion with like minded revolutionary left organisations have started to
launch a state level people’s democratic front with anti-imperialist globalisation orientation and
‘land to the tiller’ perspective.
CHHATTISGARH: The campaign for the recent assembly election had given a new impetus to
spreading the party’s political line among the masses and to spread and consolidate the
organisation. As a result, during the post-assembly election months party has launched many
struggles and local level campaigns focussing on various issues. In continuation to these and
in line with the basic orientation for the Lok Sabha elections put forward by the CC, the state
committee has decided to field party candidates from Durg, Raipur, Jagdalpur and Bilaspur
seats and to unite all like-minded forces to field more candidates in other seats.
MADHYA PRADESH: The recent campaign during the assembly elections fielding 9 candidates
had given a new fillip to the efforts to carry the party line to the people and to spread and
consolidate the Party organisation. The political campaign has led to a good number of CPI
cadres including four state committee members resigning from it and joining the CPI(ML). It
has helped to vigorously support the struggle of the peasants including adivasis in Singrauli
district against the land acquisition for super thermal power plants and other industries. The
activities to mobilise the construction/contract workers under TUCI have picked up further
momentum. The land to the tiller campaign is embolding dalits and adivasi families to occupy
government/surplus/banjar lands and to start cultivating it. The youth and student movements
led by the Party have started taking up many issues concerning these sections.
In this situation the state committee on 24th January has decided to field two candidates
from Sidhi and Guna seats and seek possibilities to field candidates in Rajgarh, Rewa and
Satna seats. Besides the discussion with like minded organisations have started based on
basic orientation towards Lok Sabha election campaign.
ORISSA: The recent campaign against Sangh Parivar and the reactionary policies of the BJD-
BJP government in the state uniting with like minded political organisations, the support to the
continuing Kalinganagar and Posco movements, the activities of the organisation of the slum
dwellers of Bhubaneshwar resisting eviction, etc. have given a new fillip to the Party and the
class/mass organisations in the state. In this situation the state committee has decided to field
candidates for Bhubaneshwar and Bhadrak Lok Sabh seats and for 5 assembly seats in these
districts. Discussions with like-minded forces to field candidates based on common slogan is
also started.
PUNJAB: The ruling Akali Dal-BJP alliance and Congress are the major ruling class parties
fighting the Lok Sabha elections in the state, while BSP is making attempts to create inroads
by pausing as a better champion of the very same basic policies of the above two, but on a
caste-based alliance. CPI and CPI(M) are in frantic search for their ‘third front’ alliance which
is still a non-starter at all India level.
In this situation the state committee based on the basic slogans put forward by the Party
at central level has appealed for a polarisation of like-minded forces based anti-imperialist,
pro-people slogans. It has condemned the efforts for opportunist alliances based on
parliamentary illusions. The state committee is planning to contest the Mansa, Barnala and
Ludhiana seats in alliance with like-minded forces and to support candidates of such forces in
other seats.
In line with the decisions of the Central Committee meeting on 22nd January and based
on the Election Manifesto for the Lok Sabh elections finalised by the CC, a vigorous campaign
is already launched to reorganise and strengthen the state committees in other states and to
organise a country-wide campaign to build up anti-imperialist people’s democratic alternative
against all the ruling class alternatives. The CC has decided to publish the Election Manifesto
by 15th February, to pursue talks with like-minded forces and to finalise the candidates in all
states by the end of February so that a country-wide campaign can be started from the first
week of March.
APPEAL TO THE REVOLUTIONARY LEFT, DEMOCRATIC, SECULAR FORCES BY THE CC OF CPI(ML)
The 15th Lok Sabha elections are going to take place most probably during April-May
2009 at a critical time in the history of our country. As the consequences of the global financial
crisis starting from US have started creating havoc in the country, the total bankruptcy of the
claims of the ruling classes and their political representatives for the last two decades that
imperialist globalisation, that is, integrating Indian economy with the global finance-market
system is the panacea for ‘development’ are proved hollow. While the ruling system here is
engaged, similar to what is being done in the imperialist countries, to bail out the speculative
sharks who are responsible for this crisis, which is the greatest depression so far and from
which no immediate recovery is possible, utilising state revenues, the vast masses of working
class and all other oppressed classes and sections are left to reel under growing
unemployment, sky rocketing prices of essential commodities and services and all round
pauperisation.
Still the UPA government at centre and the state governments run by various ruling class
parties and social democrats or their alliances are pursuing the very same neo-liberal policies,
intensifying the miseries of the people. They are all united to pursue imperialist globalisation
still, whatever may be their interpretations for it. Side by side, the communal fascist offensive
started by Sangh Parivar and BJP, and aided and abetted by the Congress through the
demolition of Babri Masjid to divert the anti-government struggles and the mobilisation of
oppressed classes and sections based on Mandal Commission Report has taken the country
to unprecedented communalisation, caste-based oppression, criminal-isation and growth of
state terrorism, along with terrorism promoted by both majority and minority religious
fundamentalists. The whole electoral scene is reduced to communal, caste, parochial based
divisive vote bank politics. Following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, both Congress led UPA
government and the BJP and Sangh Parivar, aided by the corporate media are competing
with each other to spread jingoism, targeting Muslims and Pakistan as the root causes of
India’s ills, thus playing in the hands of US imperialism which is engaged in destabilising and
controlling the whole region. The UPA government and both Congress and BJP are sabre
rattling and working up a war fever with Pakistan with a view to gain upper hand in the Lok
Sabha elections. The has further aggravated the communal divisions and all round crisis
including the huge economic burden the war build up going to impose over the people.
The Congress-led UPA as well as BJP-led NDA are engaged in a frenzied competition to
utilise the jingoism against Pakistan and the vote bank politics to win the 15th Lok Sabha
elections. The CPI(M)-led Left Front had propped up the UPA government for more than four
years and cannot disclaim responsibility for the reactionary policies it pursued. Now the LF
has entered into opportunist alliance with AIADMK in Tamilnadu and Telugu Desham in
Andhra Pradesh. From Congress and BJP and all other ruling class parties of various shades
to CPI(M) are united in implementing the imperialist globalisation policies wherever they are
in power. Whether it is UPA or NDA or CPI(M)’s ‘Third Front’, all are basically ruling class
alternatives bent upon following the imperialist dictated policies which are ruining the country
and pauperising the masses. Continuation of their rule means further intensification of the
acute crisis faced by the country and the people.
In this grave situation we are of the view that all the revolutionary left, patriotic,
democratic, secular forces at all India level should start discussions to chalk out a joint
platform of anti-imperialist people’s democratic alternative against all the ruling class
alternatives and contest the elections to the Lok Sabha from maximum seats. We propose the
following slogans to help our discussion. An early response is requested so that we can start
the bilateral discussions to be followed by multilateral discussions among the like minded
forces to forge this people’s alternatives as early as possible.
On CPI-CPI(M)-CPI(ML) Liberation Alliance
ON 14TH JANUARY the CPI(M) owned newspapers in different states gave banner heading
about the ‘CPI-CPI(M)-CPI(ML)’ alliance forged in Bihar and Jharkhand, calling it broad left
front. Though CPI(ML) Liberation is a registered party with the Election Commission in the this
name, CPI(M) papers wrote everywhere CPI-CPI(M)-CPI(ML) in order to confuse the
revolutionary left forces. It was a cunning game.
As far as the CPI(M) leadership is concerned, it is facing a real drought to find alliance
partners outside south India. After propping up the Congress-led UPA government faithfully
for four years and two months allowing it to impose one after another reactionary policies over
the people, it had withdrawn this support as its principal opponent is Congress in the election
battle in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Within days CPI(M) general secretary had visited
BSP chief Mayawati at Lucknow and announced prospects of alliance with her, projecting her
as next prime minister candidate. But as Mayawati did not entertain alliance with CPI(M) and
CPI in the recent state assembly elections preferring to go it alone in all seats, the CPI(M)
leaders’ hopes were belied. As shrewd Mayawati has asked for a seat each in Bengal and
Kerala for a seat each to them in UP, their hope for alliance with BSP has vanished in thin air.
Outside Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, CPI(M)-CPI have succeeded to forge alliance only
with Jayalalita’s AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Telugu Desham in Andhra Pradesh and Janata Dal
(Secular) in Karnataka. But as the prospects are for a more splintered hung Lok Sabha after
the elections, if the BJP or its alliance turns up as the numerically bigger force, these partners
of CPI(M)-CPI will not have any difficulties to once again join the BJP-bandwagon as they did
during 1998-2004. CPI(M)’s claims about supporting the UPA government for such a long
period in the name of keeping the BJP away from power are getting more and more hollow
with this type of outright opportunist alliances.
In spite of going to any extent for winning partners for its Third Front in other states, as it
is still a non-starter, the CPI(M) has gone for alliance with Liberation to claim some headway
in the Hindi belt. Liberation’s adoption of the path of peaceful transition has become helpful to
CPI(M) to change its earlier policy and ally with it. It has thus become broad alliance of the
social democrats in Bihar and Jharkhand.
This alliance shows how far the Liberation has degenerated even from its earlier reformist
positions. The CPI(M) has degenerated to an out and out ruling class party today even
compared to the 1980s when com. Vinod Mishra had called for a Left Confederation of CPI-
CPI(M)-Liberation. So the present leaders of the Liberation will find it quite difficult to justify
this alliance by quoting VM today. Today CPI(M) is a party in which one of its polit bureau
members is charge sheeted as one of the accused in the multi-crore Lavlin deal. Its neo-
liberal path is compelling the revolutionary minded ordinary cadres to leave it in large numbers
as evident in Kerala. By joining hands with redundant CPI and neo-liberal CPI(M) leadership,
Liberation has proved how far it has also degenerated to the social democratic path. The only
alternative before the revolutionary minded forces still left in it is to rebel and get out of it as
hundreds of its members have already done in Tamilnadu, AP, Punjab and Gujarat.
Naxalbari struggle was waged by the communist revolutionaries within CPI(M) as a revolt
against the neo-revisionist CPI(M) leadership. The CPI(ML) was formed in 1969 as a rebellion
against CPI and CPI(M). And in spite of his grave mistake of adopting annihilation line and
leading CPI(ML) to sectarian line and to severe setbacks and disintegration to numerous
groups, com. Charu Majumdar had initiated the rebellion against the revisionist and neo-
revisionist lines of CPI and CPI(M). So after forging alliance with CPI and CPI(M) leadership,
the Liberation leadership has no right to speak about Naxalbari, CPI(ML) and com. CM.
International Call
Not Imperialism, Socialism is the Path Forward
THE UNCONTROLLED RULE of the world capital-market that is being run as a casino by the financial
czars, and where the parasitic, speculative character of capital is dominating more and more, has been
shaken by an international financial crisis to an unprecedented extent and depth. There is great anxiety
and the confidence of the masses in the viability of the capitalist economy has severely been shaken.
We call to mind that during the last three decades world capitalism has been hit by various forms of
economic and financial crises 30 times. About once per decade, worldwide overproduction crises
occurred. Such economic crises are inseparably linked up with the capitalist system. Now, even the
IMF has announced that the present financial crisis is more serious than even that of 1930. Accordingly
the impending world economic crisis will be deeper and more extensive than the previous ones of 1991
and 2001. In order to save the imperialist system from the financial crisis starting from the US, the
Bush administration has pumped $700 billion into the financial markets. These are state subsidies to
bail out the financial sharks of the crisis for which they themselves are to be blamed. In financial circles
it is being estimated that the capitalist states will spend a total of the inconceivable sum of more than $
10 trillion in order to check the uncontrolled destruction of capital and to settle the losses of finance
capital on the back of the broad masses. All this can temporarily decelerate the worst excesses of the
international financial crisis, but it can neither solve it nor cancel it. The measures for checking the
crisis will rather even intensify or provoke the future development of crises. There is a growing trend
that invests hope and political energy in seeking Keynesian solutions that would be efficacious in
transcending the crisis. Given the weakening of the national state structures due to globalization, such
solutions will be discovered to be illusory.
These huge sums of money being paid out by various governments, to keep the fat
imperialists afloat, are being squeezed out of the people by means of taxes, abolishment of
social rights, higher inflation and intensified exploitation, which may cause a considerable
aggravation of class contradictions. Even today hundreds of thousands of people are losing
their jobs due to the interruption of payment transactions. The imperialist crisis management
holds the entire society liable for the incapability of those in power to lead society for the
benefit and in the interests of the broad masses. It is a cover for the increased looting of the
vast masses and the transfer of this wealth to the hands of a few in the ruling classes. It also
shows that the Governments in such imperialist and neo-colonial countries are not working in
the interests of the masses but merely to safeguard the imperialist system of exploitation.
This financial crisis reveals the insatiable greed of the ruling finance capital for maximum
profits and the corruption of the imperialist economy, which is a parasite on the toiling masses
of humanity. The same imperialist system, in which it is possible that a few finance oligarchs
are gambling away the fruits of social wealth at the roulette table of speculation, is not by
chance also responsible for the US wars of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and other
onslaughts against the world people. The imperialist world system is against the interests of
the majority of mankind and has to be called into question fundamentally and to be overcome.
The upcoming world economic crisis will combine with deep political crises - the already
chronic latent political crises will break out deeper and more often. It will intensify the class
struggle between the monopolies and the working class, and between the imperialist system
and the nations and people of the world to the utmost and constitute the basis for
revolutionizing the working class and the broad masses. The ruling classes are well aware
that the tendency towards a revolutionary world crisis is inherent in the imperialist world
system. For this reason they prepare themselves to maintain their power with every means
available to them under the hypocritical banner of the fight against terrorism.
As long as the fundamental contradiction in the imperialist system, between the ever-
increasing socialization and internationalization of production and the private appropriation of
the produce by the ever narrowing internationally operating finance oligarchs exists, there is
no escape from world-wide havoc. That is why Marx and Engels, and later, Lenin, have taught
that without overcoming the imperialist system, without its replacement by a socialist social
order, the proneness to crisis of society cannot be resolved.
We therefore call upon all Marxist-Leninist Revolutionaries to come together in this period
of crisis and organize themselves and to organize the masses for the struggle against the
imperialist system and for people’s democracy and socialism.
Down with the imperialist system!
March forward along the path of the Worldwide Democratic & Socialist Revolution!
Signatories :
Resistance Movement, Bulgaria;
Communist Party of Columbia–Maoists (PCC-M);
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia-Czechoslovakian Workers Party (KSC-CSSP);
Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD);
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist);
PCC, CPI(ML);
Communist Organization of Luxembourg (KOL);
Nepal Communist Party(Mashal);
GML/Red Morning, Netherlands;
New Communist Party of Romania (NCPR);
Marxist-Leninist Platform,Russia;
Russian Maoist Party (RMP);
Workers Party (Partija Rada),Serbia;
Workers Education Zürich,Switzerland;
Bolshevist Party North-Kurdistan Turkey (BP NK-T);
Coordinating Council of the Workers’ Movement, Ukraine.
International Scene
People Around the World Condemn Israeli
Attacks on Gaza
Denounce US and European Complicity in the Barbarous Attacks on
Gaza by Israel !
Express Militant Solidarity with Gazan People !
GAZA AND WEST BANK inhabited by the Palestinian people are turned in to the biggest prisons
in the world, prisons where millions of people are subjected to barbarous attacks, shellings,
bombings, rocket attacks, aggression using even poisonous gases, killing, maiming
thousands, and flattening houses, hospitals, schools, worship places, markets and whatever is
standing. Children and women become the easy targets. In the name of disciplining Hamas
what was let loose for weeks in the coldest days of December and January by the Zionist
thugs, murderers, sadists, fascists is an attack on the humanity itself. The CC of the CPI(ML)
has condemned this aggression with all its might and has called for protest actions all over the
country, alone and joining with other anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist forces. Reports are received
from different states about various forms of protest actions. The CC of the CPI(ML) expresses
its firm solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people and the fighting forces there who have
once again humiliated this marauding brutes with their sheer heroism. We shall continue to
stand firmly in support of you.
The CC of the CPI(ML) strongly condemn the US imperialists, the European imperialists
and all the Security Council members including Russia and China for their support to this
beastly aggression, to this pogrom, for arming and encouraging the Zionist fascists, and for
not doing anything significant in the Security Council to block this genocide. We appeal to all
anti-imperialist forces across the world to unite in militant solidarity with the Palestinian people
and against the Israeli aggressors and their overt and covert supporters.
22-01-2009 CC, CPI(ML)
[We are publishing below a statement by comrade Khalid Mishal, head of the Hamas
Political Bureau, and some of the reports of worldwide demonstrations against the Zionist
aggression on Gaza. - Red Star]
THIS BRUTALITY WILL NEVER BREAK OUR WILL TO BE FREE
For 18 months my people in Gaza have been under siege, incarcerated inside the world’s
biggest prison, sealed off from land, air and sea, caged and starved, denied even medication
for our sick. After the slow death policy came the bombardment. In this most densely
populated of places, nothing has been spared by the Israel’s warplanes, from government
buildings to homes, mosques, hospitals, schools and markets. More than 540 have been killed
and thousands permanently maimed. A third are women and children. Whole families have
been massacred, some while they slept.
This river of blood is being shed under lies and false pretexts. For six months we in
Hamas observed the cease-fire. Israel broke it repeatedly from the start. Israel was required to
open crossings to Gaza, and extend the truce to the West Bank. It proceeded to tighten its
deadly siege of Gaza, repeatedly cutting electricity and water supplies. The collective
punishment did not halt, but accelerated - as did the assassinations and killings. Thirty
Gazans were killed by Israeli fire and hundreds of patients died as a direct effect of the siege
during the so-called cease-fire. Israel enjoyed a period of calm. Our people did not.
When this broken truce neared its end, we expressed our readiness for a new
comprehensive truce in return for lifting the blockade and opening all Gaza border crossings,
including Rafah. Our calls fell on deaf ears. Yet still we would be willing to begin a new truce
on these terms following the complete withdrawal of the invading forces from Gaza.
No rockets have ever been fired from the West Bank. But 50 died and hundreds more
were injured there last year at Israel’s hands, while its expansionism proceeded relentlessly.
We are meant to be content with shrinking scraps of territory, a handful of cantons at Israel’s
mercy, enclosed by it from all sides. The truth is Israel seeks a one-sided cease-fire, observed
by my people alone, in return for siege, starvation, bombardment, assassi-nations, incursions
and colonial settlement. What Israel wants is a gratuitous cease-fire.
The logic of those who demand that we stop our resistance is absurd. They absolve the
aggressor and occupier — armed with the deadliest weapons of death and destruction — of
responsibility, while blaming the victim, prisoner and occupied. Our modest, home-made
rockets are our cry of protest to the world. Israel and its American and European sponsors
want us to be killed in silence. But die in silence we will not.
What is being visited on Gaza today was visited on Yasser Arafat before. When he
refused to bow to Israel’s dictates, he was imprisoned in his Ramallah headquarters,
surrounded by tanks for two years. When this failed to break his resolve, he was murdered by
poisoning.
Gaza enters 2009 just as it did 2008: under Israeli fire. Between January and February of
last year 140 Gazans died in air strikes. And just before it embarked on its failed military
assault on Lebanon in July 2006, Israel rained thousands of shells on Gaza, killing 240. From
Deir Yassin in 1948 to Gaza today, the list of Israel’s crimes is long. The justifications change,
but the reality is the same: colonial occupation, oppression, and never-ending injustice. If this
is the “free world” whose “values” Israel is defending, as its foreign minister Tzipi Livni alleges,
then we want nothing to do with it.
Israel’s leaders remain in the grip of confusion, unable to set clear goals for the attacks -
from ousting the legitimately elected Hamas government and destroying its infrastructure, to
stopping the rockets. As they fail to break Gaza’s resistance the benchmark has been
lowered. Now they speak of weakening Hamas and limiting the resistance. But they will
achieve neither. Gaza’s people are more united than ever, determined not to be terrorised into
submission. Our fighters, armed with the justice of their cause, have already caused many
casualties among the occupation army and will fight on to defend their land and people.
Nothing can defeat our will to be free.
Once again, Washington and Europe have opted to aid and abet the jailer, occupier and
aggressor, and to condemn its victims. We hoped Barack Obama would break with George
Bush’s disastrous legacy but his start is not encouraging. While he swiftly moved to denounce
the Mumbai attacks, he remains tongue-tied after 10 days of slaughter in Gaza. But my people
are not alone. Millions of freedom-loving men and women stand by its struggle for justice and
liberation - witness daily protests against Israeli aggression, not only in the Arab and Islamic
region, but worldwide.
Israel will no doubt wreak untold destruction, death and suffering in Gaza. But it will meet
the same fate in Gaza as it did in Lebanon. We will not be broken by siege and bombardment,
and will never surrender to occupation.
[Khalid Mish’al is the head of the Hamas political bureau. Statement issued on 6th
January 2009]
STATEMENT OF THE CC, PALESTINIAN COMMUNIST PARTY
Since Saturday noon 27/12/2008, our Palestinian people in Gaza which is in the state of
siege for more than 20 months facing the worst bloody massacre.
Hundreds of our people were murdered due to Israeli air strikes which is carried with total
disregard to human beings and with disregard to Civilian Institutions such as Schools,
Universities, Mosques etc. Hundreds are dead and over one thousand and seven hundreds
wounded due to the Savage air strikes and attacks on civilians up to now.
The Zionest State uses all sort of weapon from air, land, and sea to blockade people in
order to break their will in resistance and steadfastness and force our people to accept the
Zionist-Imperialist plans and give up the right of Palestinians for self- determination to
establish their free state on their occupied land since the year of 1967 according to the
International legitimacy and the Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, 194.
We in the Palestinian Communist Party, as part of this striving people, suffers for more
than 60 years from oppression of the racist-zionest regime. The Palestinian suffers from the
International community’s double standards and biases. We look forward to you and to your
free peoples to stand with our people and our Party at all International fronts and in all related
International conferences.
Long live Communist Unity
Long live the unity of all oppressed peoples.
APPEAL BY THE LEBANESE COMMUNIST PARTY
In solidarity with Palestine and Gaza strip facing the Israeli Massive Aggressions
Palestine is still under the aggressive brutal actions of the Israeli enemy whereby
hundreds of people by today morning were either killed or injured. The massive aggressions
today in Gaza target the innocent children, women, and civilians in accordance with the
American Project in the Middle East.
Gaza massacre is viewed as a new momentum to the famous project entitled: “The New
Middle East”. Elements of this project are very evident: introducing more of the expansionist
policies whereby free people are deprived of their right to struggle and strive for a better living.
Therefore, this is a single episode of the long project including wars and conflicts sponsored
by the US. In fact, the peoples of Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and the whole Arab region
are suffering from the same organized Israeli aggression aiming at cancelling the rightful
Palestinian cause. Therefore, it is our responsibility, as the Lebanese communist party to call
on all the communist, socialist, democratic parties, social forces, civil societies to act upon this
and struggle in the face of the on going aggression. Thus, we call for issuing solidarity
statements to put pressure on the international society to stop Israel’s brutal aggressions
immediately, without any conditions. Also we call for solidarity movements and appeals for
supporting the resistance and freedom struggle of the Palestinian people and for everlasting
peace. l
27-12-2009
COMMUNIST PARTY OF ISRAEL CONDEMNS DEADLY ATTACKS ON GAZA AND CALLS FOR
INTERNATIONAL MOBILIZATION
The Communist Party of Israel and Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality)
condemns today’s deadly attack by the Israeli Air Force on the Gaza Strip, which resulted in
the killing of over 150 Palestinians. The CPI calls on Communist and Workers parties and
social movements throughout the world to mobilize against these Israeli war crimes and
demands that the international community implement sanctions against Israel and indict Tzipi
Livni, Ehud Barak, and other Israeli political and military leadership for these blatant war
crimes, committed as part of Israel’s election process.
Today’s Israel’s military attack is part of the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip. Israel is
exploiting the last moments of the Bush administration to implement the deadly but ineffective
imperialist policy of utilizing military force to effect political change. Demonstrations against
the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip are planned in the major Israeli cities, and
demonstrations will be held tonight in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Nazareth.
2008-12-29
MASSIVE LONDON DEMONSTRATION OPPOSES ISRAEL’S GAZA ATTACKS
Up to 150,000 people took to the streets of London on Saturday in a mass show of
solidarity with Palestinians caught under Israeli bombs in the Gaza Strip. The London
demonstration was part of a wave of outrage at Israel. More than 10,000 marched in
Edinburgh. At least 30,000 protested in Paris and 100,000 in Barcelona. There were further
marches in the US, Norway, Greece, Malaysia, Sweden, Bosnia, Lebanon, Thailand,
South Korea and India.
The London demonstration drew families, young people and trade unionists. As the march
assembled Hyde Park had a thick covering of frost. Demonstrators braved freezing
temperatures to march from Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, through Notting Hill Gate, up
Kensington High Street by the Israeli embassy to a rally filling the road by Kensington
Gardens.
Police initially claimed that only 12,000 people marched (the same figure they chose for a
sizable, but far smaller march last Saturday), though they later increased this to 20,000. Many
protesters stopped outside the gates to the road containing the embassy, to throw shoes. As
the numbers grew after the rally, witnesses said riot police defending the gate sprayed white
clouds of gas at a section of the crowd. Some fainted as they were overcome by the gas.
Those who attempted to escape the confrontation found their way blocked by increasingly
aggressive police. Baton wielding riot police then stormed in from a side street to split the
demonstration in two. In the panic many demonstrators became crushed against a double line
of police barriers that blocked off the pavement. Police pushed back people who were
attempted to cross the barriers to safety. The pressure of bodies eventually caused the
barriers to give way.
Furious demonstrators then succeeded in forcing the riot police back down the side street
to release those caught in the crush. Hours of confrontations followed with police eventually
driving vans into the back of the crowd, as mounted police, supported by more police
reinforcements, made several charges into the demonstration. Many of the protesters took
refuge in buildings to escape the ensuing police riot. Others were chased down side streets.
As they stumbled away a number of these were set on by gangs of police. They beat several
people with batons and kicked them, as they lay helpless on the ground. A section of the
crowd then set up a series makeshift barricades to stop the police charges. This action
allowed people to retreat safely. The police riot continued into the evening. It marks a new
phase of violent police behaviour against anti-war demonstrations that have always passed off
peacefully.
The demonstration was called by the Stop The War Coalition, the British Muslim Initiative
and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. (January 12, 2009)
250,000 SPANIARDS DENOUNCE ISRAEL’S BLOODSHED
In the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in Europe so far, over 250,000 Spaniards
denounce Israel’s bloodshed in Gaza and call for ceasefire. Protesters in Spain’s capital
Madrid and in other cities, including Seville, Malaga, Oviedo, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
and Ourense, carried banners saying “Peace”, “SOS Gaza” and placards with the word
“Gaza” above a red-stained hand and mock blood-spattered bodies of children.
Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem’s mother Pilar, also an actress, was among the
speakers who addressed the crowd. “The Spanish government has to do something. The
Gaza Strip is now practically a concentration camp,” AP quoted her as saying.
Sunday’s protests are a follow-up of Barcelona’s mass demonstration the previous day,
where police estimated the crowd around 30,000 but according to organisers accounts,
100,000 people took to the streets. The demonstration was organised by an alliance of
groups, which in the past had organised mass protests against the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, 30,000 people protested in Brussels on Sunday denouncing the Israeli
carnage in Gaza. Children carrying effigies of dead and bloodied babies were at the head of
the procession. Also in the Italian cities of Rome, Naples and Verona, thousands of people
marched in pro-Palestinian rallies. In Athens, Greece, dozens of children and their parents,
carrying effigies and photos of bloodied children, marched to protest Israel’s incursion and
bloodshed in Gaza. (12-01-2009 )
100,000 DEMONSTRATE IN PARIS
French protesters marched through Paris, other French cities to denounce Israeli’s
offensive in Gaza. Tens of thousands of protesters marched through central Paris and other
French cities Saturday to denounce Israeli’s offensive in Gaza and express support for the
Palestinian cause. Thousands of French men and women carried Palestinian banners, amid
cries of “Israel murderer”. As the various groups gathered, portraits of slain Hamas chief
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah were carried behind
those of revolutionary Che Guevara and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.
A banner strung along a truck carrying a sound system declared: “Support for Hamas”, as
all the chants laid the blame for the fighting at Israel’s door. “We are all Palestinians. We are
all children of Gaza,” the cortege chanted as it set off down a treelined boulevard separating
eastern Paris’ districts from the Marais, the city’s oldest Jewish quarter. “I have no problem
marching with Hamas. Hamas has been victim of a campaign of disinformation,” Mark
Cramer, a 62-year-old a former journalist from New York and founder member of Paris group
“Americans Against the War.”
Cramer put the blame for the collapse of the Middle East ceasefire on Israel. “There was a
mediaeval siege against Gaza. That siege was violent. People were starving,” he said. Some
3800 police were deployed, equipped with riot shields and body armour, but remained
discreetly in side streets as the crowd marched on under a sea of Palestinian and Hezbollah
flags. Despite the biting winter chill, organisers claimed a turnout of 100,000.
In the northern industrial city of Lille around 10,000 protesters gathered, according to both
police and organisers. Other protests took place in Toulouse in the southwest and Mulhoise in
the east. (10-01-2009)
TENS OF THOUSANDS PROTEST ACROSS THE UNITED STATES
On Saturday, January 10, hundreds of cities, and hundreds of thousands of people,
responded to the call for an International Day of Emergency Action to support the people of
Gaza. Outside the United States, marches took place in London, Edinburgh, Cairo, Athens,
Kuala Lumpur, Beirut, Seoul, Mexico City, Jakarta, Montreal, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles,
Lyon, Oslo, Berlin, Bern, Karachi, Nablus, New Delhi, Amman, Sarajevo, Ramallah,
Stockholm and Tokyo. The protests continue to grow — today, another 250,000 took to the
streets in Spain and more than 100,000 in Algeria.
In the US, the Day of Action was initiated on just one week’s notice by a call from the
ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, National
Council of Arab Americans, and Al-Awda - International Palestine Right to Return Coalition. In
Washington DC, over 20,000 took to the streets in the freezing rain to demand, “Let Gaza
Live!”. The streets were so backed up that thousands of people in buses and cars were still
arriving after the march had left Lafayette Park.
The demonstration began with a rally at the White House. Featured speakers included
former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was just on a humanitarian relief mission
attempting to bring supplies to Gaza when the boat she was on was intentionally struck by an
Israeli military vessel; Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom;
Rev. Graylan Hagler, National President of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice;
Mounzer Sleiman, Vice Chairman, National Council of Arab Americans; Ralph Nader; Paul
Zulkowitz, Jews Against the Occupation; Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER
Coalition; Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice; and
others.
The spirited march then led to the Washington Post, where demonstrators denounced the
paper for its biased pro-Israeli coverage of the massacre and its complete blackout of protest
activities in the United States. In San Francisco, 10,000 took part in the march and rally. The
rally included a huge outpouring from the local Arab community, and energetic participation
from Bay Area youth.
A crowd of 2000 demonstrators confronted a heavy police presence in downtown Orlando
for the “Let Gaza Live: Florida Statewide March for Palestine” called by Act Now to Stop War
and End Racism Coalition/Florida—just six days prior. The demonstration is the largest anti-
war demonstration in Florida in more than a decade and certainly the largest ever protest in
Florida calling for a free Palestine. Police tried to intimidate marchers by initially searching all
bags, forcing protesters to remove sticks from signs, and denying the use of amplified sound.
Organizers and protesters challenged and pushed back their unwarranted scare tactics, and
the protest turned out to be a powerful success.
In Los Angeles, 10,000 people participated in a regional mass march and rally to “Let
Gaza Live” at the Westwood Federal Building. Hundreds of Palestinian flags and signs
reading “Stop bombing Gaza!” and “The real terrorists: US/Israel war machine!” lined all sides
of the street and the lawn in front of the federal government headquarters. It was the largest
protest and the first major march in Southern California since the Israeli bombing campaign
and invasion began.
A funeral procession led the march with makeshift coffins draped with Palestinian flags,
representing the hundreds of people killed by Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. Hundreds of
children followed, along with a huge, hand-made Palestinian flag, in a contingent organized by
the Palestinian American Women’s Association.
The worldwide movement is continuing to grow with more protests today, January 11.
There will be countless other actions in the days to come. Today in New York City, the police
carried out a violent assault against those marching in mid-town Manhattan in support of the
people of Palestine. A number of people were injured and arrested.
With the support of the United States, the Israeli military machine has expanded its
invasion into urban areas of Gaza. The death toll among Palestinians is now nearly 900, with
many thousands wounded. The injured and hungry of Gaza have no relief. We must do
everything in our power to deepen and broaden this movement in the coming days. (January
11, 2009 )
THOUSANDS PROTEST ACROSS SOUTH AFRICA, CALL FOR SANCTIONS AND CUTTING DIPLOMATIC
TIES
In Tshwane, Durban and Port Elizabeth, thousands of people protested today (Friday)
against the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel. Some 2000 people laid siege to the
Egyptian Embassy in Tshwane, while thousands marched in Durban, Port Elizabeth witnessed
a placard demonstration, and a huge rally was held in Cape Town.
Actions follow a week of energetic activity by Palestine solidarity organisations throughout
the country. 15,000 people marched in Cape Town one day before and the city also saw
placard demonstrations throughout the week. The messages emerging from the protests and
from the spokespersons of the various organisations have been - A demand that Israel ceases
its “genocidal campaign” and withdraws its troops from Gaza; Calls on the South African
government to recall the South African ambassador from Tel Aviv, expel the Israeli
ambassador from South Africa, and sever all diplomatic ties with Israel; Calls on the South
African government to impose sanctions against Israel — as has been called for by more than
200 Palestinian political, social and other organizations representing the vast majority of
Palestinian society; and A commitment to a sustained campaign of boycotts, divestment and
sanctions. In addition, speakers at yesterday’s march and at today’s protests emphasised the
right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation of their lands.
In Tshwane, today, people from across the province protested against the involvement of
the Egyptian government in the current massacres in Gaza. Salim Vally, of the Palestine
Solidarity Committee, said that in the past 18 months, while the people of Gaza were under
siege and no food, fuel or medicines were allowed freely to enter the territory, Egypt had
ensured that it kept its border with Gaza — the Rafah Crossing — sealed as well. The rulers
of Egypt are proving how faithfully they are serving the Zionists and their US imperialist
masters.
The Inauguration of a New President: The
Continuation of US Imperialist Rule
ON JANUARY 20, 2009, in front of the largest inaugural crowd in U.S. history, Barack Obama
will be sworn in as the 44th President of the USA under the U.S. Constitution. As many as
three million people are expected to make the pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. A large number
of them, especially among the Afro-American people, are motivated by many of the same
religious feelings that possess millions of other distressed and oppressed human beings who
travel to Rome or Mecca or Jerusalem or the holy sites of India or elsewhere around the world
in the expectation that their lives will be enriched, their distress will be relieved, their
oppression will be lifted.
The millions who travel to Washington, D.C. will be clinging to their “faith” in “the Obama
dream” in the face of a mountain of facts, a mountain which grows larger every day. We hope
this Newsletter is a source of cold bracing water – not serving as a “wet blanket” spoiling a big
celebration. Rather, we hope it serves as an aid to wake up those millions in the USA and
billions worldwide who have been taking a nap, induced by the soothing lullaby of the two
years-long epic flim-flam of the U.S. presidential campaign and its ultimate product, “the
Obama dream.” We all need to deal seriously and effectively with U.S. imperialism, and
international capital, especially in the world capitalist economic crisis that has now erupted.
In the period since his election, Barack Obama has rapidly assembled his leadership
team. Especially in the most crucial departments of the U.S. imperialist state apparatus,
Obama has not only elevated the Democratic Party hack “usual suspects” but has even
retained a number of key Bush Regime war criminals for his own inner circle. This is certainly
true of his National Security team, tasked with defending the U.S. Empire at home and
abroad, and his Economy Team tasked with providing a turnaround for the collapsing U.S.
and world capitalist economy and providing relief to the rapidly increasing millions of
dispossessed in the USA itself.
MILITARY FACTS AND PROSPECTS FOR PEACE:
One of the earliest and most important forces behind the Obama candidacy were those
pacifists and anti-war activists who opposed the Bush Regime’s war policies to one degree or
another. Obama’s opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq while he was still in the Illinois Senate
was much of the basis for the Obama campaign’s ability to surpass Hillary Clinton and make
him the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. This anti-war credential remained a key
ingredient in his successful run for the Presidency against Republican John McCain, who was
saddled (thanks to the Iraqi and Afghan people’s resistance movements) with the Bush
Regime’s criminal and failed war policies.
As soon as he became President-elect, however, Obama praised Senator McCain, a
classic war criminal in the Vietnam War.* Obama said of his Republican “rival,” “He has
endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off
for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.” (Barack Obama’s Acceptance
Speech, 11-4-08)
*As a privileged fighter pilot, this son and grandson of four-star admirals had enthusiastically
bombed the Vietnamese people until he was shot down, captured and made a prisoner of war by the
heroic Vietnamese national liberation fighters.
Since then, Obama has selected a National Security Team of war mongers,
connected to the military-industrial and finance capitalist complex. All have already
proven themselves in the service of arch war criminal George W. Bush!
First of all, Obama has chosen to retain Bush’s own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates,
to lead the entire U.S. military apparatus! And Gates has already begun to implement
Obama’s plans to expand the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama has selected
Clinton, with her track record of six years on the Senate Armed Services Committee and
strong support for Bush’s so-called war on terror, to be his Secretary of State.
Finally, he has selected Marine four-star General James Jones to be his National Security
Adviser. At the beginning of 2003 George W. Bush had made General Jones the head of the
U.S. European Central Command and the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in which
capacity he served until the end of 2006. In 2007, Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, a fellow board member of Chevron Corporation, appointed then retired General Jones
as Special Envoy for Middle East Security where he represented the Bush Regime and U.S.
imperialism in building the security infrastructure of both the Israeli settler state and the
imperialist puppet Palestinian Authority and conducted U.S. security negotiations with them.
General Jones concurrently served as the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s
“Institute for 21st Century Energy” and today remains a member of the board of directors of
the Boeing Company as well as Chevron. As he deals with the Middle East and other national
security matters, General Jones will not forget where his bread is buttered.
In addition, Obama’s very first appointee, Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is a dual
citizen (U.S. and Israel) who is a combat veteran of the Israeli military as well as a former Wall
Street investment banker and insider at Freddie Mac. And one of Obama’s earliest acts, as
President-Elect, was to intercede with the Senate Democratic leadership to allow the
“Independent Democrat,” Joseph Lieberman, a key link between the Israeli settler state and
the U.S. imperialist state, to retain his Chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security
Committee, in spite of his unqualified support for Obama’s Republican rival, McCain, for the
Presidency!
Obama’s national security team has been praised by John McCain, and his key Senate
allies, Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) and, of course, Joseph Lieberman
(Independ-ent Democrat-Connecticut) as well as by George W. Bush’s former political director
and chief strategist, Karl Rove. Rove observed that Obama’s national security team
“represents, to a substantial degree, continuity.”
Rather than peace becoming a reachable goal in Afghanistan and Iraq on the eve of the
Obama inauguration, the settler state of Israel, the most reliable ally of U.S. imperialism in the
Middle East, has launched a massive air war and ground invasion on the Palestinian people of
the Gaza strip. This Israeli military assault has the full backing of the disgraced Bush Regime
and, more importantly, the clear backing of the incoming Obama administration. This latter
point helps explain why virtually no government in the world has raised its voice in defense of
the Hamas-led Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip nor condemned the role of U.S.
imperialism in this brutal war crime.*
*An indication of the significance of Obama’s support for the Israeli aggression in Gaza is that, in
the truthful words of anti-war heroine Cindy Sheehan, “‘the anti-Republican war’ movement will stand
down, as evidenced at the recent United For Peace and Justice gathering where it was decided to do a
mass protest highlighting the ‘economic crisis’ in NYC instead of an anti-war protest on the 6th
anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.” Evidently, the argument that prevailed at this anti-war (but
definitely not anti-imperialist) group’s convention was to give Obama a “honeymoon” opportunity to
end the war on his own rather than demanding that the new administration carry out the anti-war
agenda they supposedly elected him to carry out.
From the standpoint of the international working class and the oppressed peoples, the
incoming Obama Regime, somehow freed of all the Bush baggage, represents a new counter
offensive in defense of the U.S. Empire and a temporary strengthening of U.S. imperialism.
A CALL TO THE US WORKING CLASS
1. Had the world communist movement been armed with a proletarian internationalist world
outlook over the past two years, “the Obama phenomenon,” providing a new and exciting façade for
bourgeois democratic illusions about the U.S. imperialist state, and thus representing a new U.S.
imperialist ideological and political counter-offensive, would have been thoroughly exposed. With a
clear internationalist view that the liberation movements of the Afghani and Iraqi peoples are on the
frontlines of our struggle, President-elect Obama’s decision to retain George W. Bush’s Secretary of
Defense, Robert Gates, would have been the “last straw” rather than the first hint about Obama’s key
role in defense of the U.S. Empire.
2. Those proletarian revolution-aries, Marxist-Leninists, scientific socialists, who understand
clearly that Obama has become the leader of the U.S. imperialist state, the chief bulwark of world
capitalism, have a responsi-bility to help unite those working people who have illusions about Obama
with those who do not, in practical activities – tactically projecting petition campaigns, marches, strikes
and solidarity strikes, sit-ins and sit-downs – making demands on Obama, channeling the mass
mobilization into a fight for our own working class and mass interests in opposition to the interests of
U.S. imperialism.
3. The working class and oppressed masses of the USA cannot afford to watch and wait in the face
of the deepening economic crisis, wars at home and abroad and the continuation of U.S. imperialist
rule, now coming under the baton of the new Obama administration. The encouraging examples of
struggle of the Smithfield, Republic Windows and SEIU 250 workers help chart the path for militant
“Fight Back” actions against the Wall Street rich and their obscene trillion dollar government bail-outs
as well as the oil wars in defense of U.S. Empire in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Struggles for more union jobs and decent wages and a massive public works program, to keep
homeowners and renters in their homes, to win guaranteed pensions, to fight for health care for all (the
new coalition “Labor for Health Care” is a positive example), to gain “the right of return” for the Afro-
American masses and other displaced people to and the reconstruction of the Katrina-devastated Gulf
Coast and for nationalizing the banks and placing them in the service of the people are all on the order
of the day!
Let us heed the words of Georgi Dimitroff, the outstanding leader of the Communist International
and hero of the fight against Hitler and world fascism leading up to and during World War II: “… in
history great revolutions have grown out of small movements for the defense of the elementary rights of
the working class.”
[Revolutionary Organisation of Labour, USA]