Rebel Youth Podcasts

News and views from Rebel Youth!

Rebel Youth Podcasts
content from Rebel Youth Magazine

"Our Walmart: Strategies in organizing the unorganized"
(6m23s):



"Global Class Struggle" Newscasts
content from People's Voice newspaper

May 23, 2013

Newscast (5m01s):

"Blame companies, not consumers", "Cheap labour boosts UK profits", "Big gains for Venezuela workers"

June 6, 2013

Newscast Part 1 (4m08s):

"Dubai striking workers being deported", "Campaign to re-run the World Cup vote"

Newscast Part 2 (4m38s):

"Ford execs charged in Argentina", "Mass uprising and repression in Turkey", "McDonald's New Zealand boycott"

June 19, 2013

Newscast (4m03s):

"Repression of workers in Bangladesh", "Murder of trade unionist in South Africa", "Striking banana workers in Colombia"

July 9, 2013

Newscast (7m43s):

"Strikes in Indonesia", "Poland looses the 8 hour day", "Global share of labour compensation declines", "Strikes at Ford in Russia"

August 9, 2013

Newscast (9m22s):

"Samsung workers found union in South Korea", "Wages of garment workers stagnate", "Communists and activists arrested in Turkey", "Japanese workers suffer from nuclear fallout"

The peaceful struggle for socialism

This article is part of an seven-part series of short quotes Rebel Youth is issuing about class struggle, revolution, civil-war, and parliamentary democracy. See also: Lenin on elections; the Communist Party of Canada on a counter-offensive against capitalism; Engels on voting and street fighting; Lenin on Democracy and Class struggle; Communist and Worker's parties on the struggle for socialism; and Lenin on tactics and guerilla war; theCommunist Party of Canada on force, and a peaceful transition to socialism.

From November 14-16, 1957, representatives of 12 Communist and Workers Parties of Socialist countries, came together in Moscow for the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, and adopted a declaration, from which is taken this excerpt about the struggle for socialism. Among the endorsers were the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The text below is one section of the full statement.

The forms of the transition of socialism may vary for different countries. The working class and its vanguard—the Marxist-Leninist party—seek to achieve the Socialist revolution by peaceful means. This would accord with the interests of the working class and the people as a whole as well as with the national interests of the country.

Today in a number of capitalist countries the working class headed by its vanguard has the opportunity, given a united working-class and popular front or other workable forms of agreement and political cooperation between the different parties and public organizations, to unite a majority of the people, to win state power without civil war and ensure the transfer of the basic means of production to the hands of the people. It has this opportunity while relying on the majority of the people and decisively rebuffing the opportunist elements incapable of relinquishing the policy of compromise with the capitalists and landlords. The working class then, can defeat the reactionary, anti-popular forces, secure a firm majority in parliament, transform parliament from an instrument serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie into an instrument serving the working people, launch a non-parliamentary mass struggle, smash the resistance of the reactionary forces and create the necessary conditions for peaceful realization of the socialist revolution.

All this will be possible only by broad and ceaseless development of the class struggle of the workers, peasant masses and the urban middle strata against big monopoly capital, against reaction, for profound social reforms, for peace and socialism.

In the event of the ruling classes resorting to violence against people, the possibility of non-peaceful transition to socialism should be borne in mind. Leninism teaches, and experience confirms, that the ruling classes never relinquish power voluntarily. In this case the degree of bitterness and the forms of the class struggle will depend not so much on the proletariat as on the resistance put up by the reactionary circles to the will of the overwhelming majority of the people, on these circles using force at one or another stage of the struggle for socialism.

The possibility of one or another way to socialism depends on the concrete conditions in each country. In the struggle for better conditions for the working people, for preservation and extension of democratic rights, winning and maintaining national independence and peace among nations, and also in the struggle for winning power and building socialism, the Communist Parties seek cooperation with the Socialist parties. Although the Right-Wing Socialist Party leaders are doing their best to hamper this cooperation, there are increasing opportunities for cooperation between the Communists and Socialists on many issues. The ideological differences between the Communist and the Socialist parties should not keep them from establishing unity of action on the many pressing issues that confront the working-class movement.

Declaration of the Twelve Communist and Workers Parties, Meeting in Moscow, USSR, Nov. 14-16, 1957

"Brigadistas" Return from Cuba Volunteer Work Program

Chevy Phillips,
Special to Rebel Youth


A press conference was held today in Toronto’s City Hall to welcome back and hear from the most recent Che Guevara Work Brigade, a group of 43 people aged from 15 to 82 years of age, from 5 provinces across Canada and 1 American state, who spent three weeks engaging in a variety of volunteer work projects across the island of Cuba.

The highly diverse group included 12 students and 9 retirees, 13 people on their first Che Guevara Work Brigade experience, 12 who were present last year and one person for whom 2013 saw their fifth Brigade excursion. Many of the Brigade participants are active in Canada with Cuba Solidarity campaigns, work with their local Cuban Friendship Associations, and take part in the global campaign to free the "Cuban 5" prisoners held in US prisons. Rene Gonzales, one of the 5, has recently been given leave to remain in Cuba and no is longer obliged to fulfil the restrictive bail conditions that were imposed upon him after his release from incarceration due to the popular pressure of the international "Free the Cuban 5" campaign. Members of the Young Communist League of Canada were also proud participants of the Brigade.

The Brigade's press conference was led by Niagara's Dave Thomas, who has been the coordinator for the Work Brigade for the past three years, and heard contributions from four of the Brigadistas. Examples of the activity of the Brigade were discussed, including work on a cooperative farm and visits to schools and hospitals. Work Brigade members of all ages were given tasks according to their abilities; on a Mango farm this meant sorting fruit for distribution or weeding out in the fields, since the overwhelming majority of Cuban agriculture is organic. The Brigade participants related how their efforts were always warmly and gratefully received by local Cuban workers.

A visit to a housing complex for victims of recent hurricane damage was also discussed, the Brigade members relating how impressed they were that even this small community on an island off the mainland was still generously served by education and health services, both of which are world class and free to all citizens. This community has seven teachers for ten students, four daycare workers for around a dozen young children, and a doctor and nurse in residence in the community. One of the Brigade participants, a nursing student from Vancouver, spoke of how trainee nurses in Cuba receive excellent levels of one-on-one training with qualified doctors, and how the average wait time in ER in Cuba is just 30 minutes. In Canada, the average wait times are over four hours, among the highest in the world. Cuba’s health service provided a dramatic and lasting example to the Brigadistas of how even a relatively poor country can have excellent health provision if resources and spending priorities are set accordingly.

One of the highlights of the three weeks was, as anticipated, May Day in Havana. The Brigade participants spoke of their admiration for the enthusiasm and collective spirit of the million or so participants, who from first thing in the morning began to gather with great pride at the achievements of their country, their ranks being led this year by scientific workers currently engaged in ground breaking cancer research. This year’s May Day parade also saw a giant tribute display to the late Hugo Chavez, recently deceased president of Venezuela, who was a great friend of Cuba and much loved by the people there.

May Day 2013 - Havana Cuba

In the words of some of the Brigadistas themselves:

“I have great hope that the Cuban Revolution is strong and surviving, and has answers for the problems we have here in Canada"

“I was greatly impacted by the warmth and humanity of the Cuban people”

“Cuba is a beautiful and powerful example of what a country can achieve when its people work together”

Organising for the next Che Guevara Work Brigade will begin a little later this year. See http://www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/ to keep up with the latest news on Cuba and more information on the Brigade.

Rebel Youth Blog will be publishing more on this year's Brigade and hearing from some of the participants themselves... so stay tuned!

Force and the peaceful transistion to a socialist Canada

This article is part of an seven-part series of short quotes Rebel Youth is issuing about class struggle, revolution, civil-war, and parliamentary democracy. See also: Lenin on elections; the Communist Party of Canada on a counter-offensive against capitalism; Engels on voting and street fighting; Lenin on Democracy and Class struggle; Communist and Worker's parties on the struggle for socialism; and Lenin on tactics and guerilla war; theCommunist Party of Canada on force, and a peaceful transition to socialism.

Ample historical evidence testifies to the fact that reactionary capitalist forces will not give up their power and privilege voluntarily. They will try to halt the democratic process. The danger will inevitably arise of capitalist violence against the socialist state and the expressed will of the majority of the people. This cannot be overlooked except at severe cost. The working class and its allies, when they achieve socialist power, will be justified in using the power and authority of the state to protect the democratic will of the majority against the minority, who will strive to restore their lost positions. The nature of the laws and measures enacted to protect working class power will depend on the amount of resistance that the reactionary capitalist elements offer to socialist law and order.

The peaceful transition to socialism, which is desirable, depends not only on the wishes of the people but on the relationship of forces at the time. The maximum unity and single-minded purpose of the people, the united participation of the widest masses of the working class in political struggle and the forging of unity with the small producers (farmers, fishers and artisans) and with the middle strata of the population will be crucial to withstand and paralyze capitalist violence and political reaction. The working class must be ready to use all forms of struggle to combat capital’s inevitable resistance to social progress.

For the first time in Canada’s history, however, the majority of the people will rule the country and establish a genuine democracy. The dictatorship of capital over labour – the rule of the minority over the majority – will be abolished and replaced by a socialist democracy in which political power will reside with the working class and its allies. For the first time, the interests of the Canadian people will be the prime determinant of our economic, political and cultural life.

Irrespective of the form it will take, the socialist state, from the point of view of its class essence, will represent working class rule. Marx referred to this as “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” In practical terms, state power will be exercised by the great majority of the Canadian population – over the former capitalist minority.

From Chapter 7 of the Programme of the Communist Party of Canada