Anti-communism and Vice Media : is all alternative media really progressive?

Special to RY 

This article is a response of the YCL-LJC Canada to an article published on July 24th by Vice Media.

In an article published online on July 24th, the so-called alternative media reported on two young men, Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky, both researched by the RCMP in relation with two murders that occured in BC on July 14th. Reporting on facts revealed by the Globe and Mail linking these two individuals to ultra-right, neonazi and violent groups especially, the Vice article also states that « on Facebook, Schmegelsky also liked the Young Communist League of Victoria page » before continuing to enumerate his gun loving activities.

Meet the Communists on McMaster campus

Ajit Singh & Mike Van Arragon

While tabling on campus, and being active in the student movement, the YCL Hamilton noticed that some students have unfounded anti-communist prejudices.

At the same time, when engaging with students the comrades in Hamilton found that many students are concerned with many of the same political struggles as the young Communists; against climate change, war, inequality and exploitation, racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia, for example.

This opinion piece was prepared for the student press in order to fight anti-communism on campus and give the YCL Hamilton a space to describe themselves in their own words.

The following article is republished from McMaster’s student newspaper the Silhouette.

Harper’s History Lesson: anti-communism and war

Brendan Campisi

The Harper government's planned 'Memorial to the Victims of Communism', which will take its place in Ottawa between the Supreme Court and Library and Archives Canada, has come under scrutiny lately because of the significant and growing cost of the project. Shirley Blumberg, an architect who was on the jury that selected the design for the 'memorial', said in December that there is no way it will be completed for the government's estimated cost of $5.5 million. A growing chorus of establishment figures have criticized the project for its costs, the aesthetic damage they say it will do to central Ottawa, and the (at least) questionable necessity of such a memorial. The government has committed to paying $3 million of the cost of the project, while the rest is supposed to be paid by Tribute to Liberty, the anti-communist organization formed in 2008 to advocate for the project. However, they have so far had trouble raising the money. In fact there seems to be very little public interest in or support for the memorial, as any glance at the comments under a story on the project will reveal. Even many Canadians with no particular sympathy for communism cannot understand why the Harper government wants to spend several million dollars to put up a memorial to the victims of communism on prime central Ottawa real estate.

Attacks on young communists in France, Serbia and Venezuela are the latest violent examples of growing fascist threat

Communist Youth of Venezuela respond to attack
targeting their office and activists

By Drew Garvie

General Secretary, YCL-LJC of Canada

In late October, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a global anti-imperialist federation of youth organizations founded after the fascist defeat in Europe in 1945, issued two statements condemning fascist violence in both Venezuela and Yugoslavia. These attacks had occurred in the preceding weeks.

In the early morning hours of October 21st in Caracas, members of the Communist Youth of Venezuela (JCV) were finishing their work at their central offices. Several firebombs were launched at the building and a fire was started in their meeting room. Fortunately no comrades were injured in the attack and the fire was extinguished.

The JCV Executive Committee released a statement contextualizing the attack against them: "This deed occurs within the framework of violence imposed by fascism since February of this year carried out by mercenaries and paramilitaries serving the extreme, pro-imperialist right." This references an upsurge in right-wing protests that took place from February through June, which led to the deaths of 43 people. Most recently, Robert Serra, the youngest parliamentarian elected in Venezuelan history, and a member of Venezuela’s Socialist Party (PSUV), was murdered with Colombian paramilitaries being implicated.

A letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen

By Nicolas Lopez,
Hugo Chavez People's Defence Fund

A Venezuelan citizen living in Canada corrects lies in Ottawa Citizen published on March 25, 2014: Venezuela and the Canadian Left

As a Venezuelan who recently returned from visiting family and friends in Venezuela, I’m taken aback by the extent to which this article doesn’t reflect the reality in Venezuela. In most of the country, people are going about their business with absolute normalcy. In almost all of Caracas you don’t see protests. This is with the exception of the affluent neighbourhoods in the east of the City where violent protestors only make things difficult for people living in those areas.

Hence, I was bewildered as to why I couldn’t take Air Canada to come back home from Caracas, but I could if I were travelling back from Cairo or Kiev.

Isaac Asimov on 1984

This year marks the 65th anniversary of one of the classic tomes of anti-communist writing, George Orwell's 1984.  Today the book is required reading in high schools, colleges and universities across Canada. It has been made famous and is on best readings lists across the country.

What is less well known is that its author, Eric Blair, wasn't adverse to helping Big Capitalist Brother, passing a list of over 30 friends and acquaintances he had made in public life and whom he regarded as Soviet sympathisers, including film star Charlie Chaplin, the actor Michael Redgrave (Vanessa Redgrave's father) and the historian E. H. Carr. 

But was Orwell a very good science-fiction writer? Here we publish the view of the famous science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, whose critique while not pro-socialist does raise some serious criticisms that might be especially helpful to high school readers "struggling" with this mandatory text.

* * * *

I've been writing a four-part article for Field Newspaper Syndicate at the beginning of each year for several years now and in 1980, mindful of the approach of the year 1984, FNS asked me to write a thorough critique of George Orwell's novel 1984.
   I was reluctant. I remembered almost nothing of the book and said so - but Denison Demac, the lovely young woman who is my contact at FNS, simply sent me a copy of it and said, 'Read it.'
   So I read it and found myself absolutely astonished at what I read. I wondered how many people who talked about the novel so glibly had ever read it; or if they had, whether they remembered it at all.
   I felt I would have to write the critique if only to set people straight. (I'm sorry; I love setting people straight.)

Dangerous developments for the people of Ukraine

Members of the Communist Party of Ukraine rally
to defend a statue of Lenin from ultra-right forces

Joint Statement of Communist and Workers' Parties, circulated by the Communist Parties of Germany and Greece. 

The recent dramatic developments in Ukraine do not constitute the "victory of democracy" by the alleged "revolutionaries", as it is described by the mass media of the USA and the EU, but is a dangerous development, above all for the people of Ukraine themselves.

Reactionary political forces, ideological descendants of the Nazis, have risen to the political "surface" with the assistance of the EU and the USA. These are forces which apart from destroying the offices of their opponents, are planning political persecutions, and the banning of parties, above all against the communists, and even racist legislation at the expense of the Russian‑speaking population, like what has been in force for the last 20 years in the countries of the "European" Baltic, with the blatant political support of the EU.

Oxfam report on inequality: 60 second summary

Poster by Oxfam UK

By J. Boyden,
Rebel Youth Magazine

This week the international charity Oxfam released a report which confirmed that almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population. The briefing paper, entitled Working for the few: Political capture and economic inequality was authored by researchers Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva and Nicholas Galasso.

We quote some of the statistics below in a 60 second summary.

Stop the witch hunting and red baiting

Councillor Mamoliti is out to get the reds

The Communist Party is considering legal action, including a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal regarding Toronto City Councillor George Mamoliti’s witch-hunting at City Hall, and his attack on the public’s right to free political expression and association – rights guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Mamoliti is a member of Mayor Rob Ford’s Executive and an aggressive advocate for Ford’s agenda of privatization and confrontation with the city’s labour and democratic movements.

Mamoliti has attacked more than 300 City Hall deputants, asserting they were members of the Communist Party, after they stayed through the night and into the early hours to oppose the KPMG proposals to eliminate ‘gravy’, including the closure of libraries, old age homes, 2,000 subsidized child care spaces; ending funding to cultural and arts groups including Caribana and Pride events, ending AIDS related funding, increasing transit fares and reducing service, and more.

Mamoliti has attacked Councillors who also oppose the cuts, alleging they are members of the Communist Party and that opposition to the KPMG cuts stems from Communist Party membership.

While the Communist Party is opposed to the cuts and is fighting them, opposition to this agenda includes members of almost all parties, save the Tories, and people who are not members of any party. Suggesting otherwise is a smear – something Mamoliti is expert at.

This is a witch-hunt aimed to intimidate widespread and growing public opposition to the levelling of public services and programs in the city, and to frighten Councilors into silence and stampede them into voting for deep cuts and privatizations against the demonstrated wishes of the public.

Mamoliti is attempting to do what Joe McCarthy did in 1950s USA – crush free speech and free political association in an effort to crush opposition to this administration’s far-right political direction. It’s clear from Don Cherry’s remarks to Council at its inaugural meeting last December (“This is what you’ll be facing, Rob, with these left-wing pinkos — they scrape the bottom of the barrel.”) and from Mamoliti’s developing witch-hunt against some Councilors and the public, that red-baiting is part and parcel of this administration’s attack on public services and on labour and democratic rights. It’s a package.

It’s a dangerous combination that threatens all Toronto residents, and must be challenged.
With this in mind, the Communist Party is exploring legal action including a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, and is urging the labour and democratic movements and all those who support democratic and civil rights to speak up and demand an end to the witch hunt.

The Communist Party is the second oldest political party in Canada, and has worked over 9 decades to strengthen labour, democratic and equity rights, to raise living standards and improve social programs, with the aim of curbing corporate power and winning a socialist Canada. The CPC (Ontario) is fielding 8 candidates in the October 6th provincial election.

Contact: Elizabeth Rowley, leader, 416-469-2446, 647-994-4976

Real communists consider complaint against Mammoliti

This ridiculously funny graphic is from
the right-wing Globe and Mail Paper

The Communist Party of Canada is thinking about filing a human rights complaint against Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, the party’s Ontario leader said Sunday.

Mammoliti, a prominent ally of Mayor Rob Ford with a long history of provocative remarks, has gleefully escalated his red-baiting rhetoric over the last week. On Tuesday, he said he would ban “communists,” whom he creatively defined as citizens who spoke against budget cuts at City Hall, from his new Facebook group. By Friday, he had progressed to alleging, without any evidence, that six or seven sitting councillors are communists who want the municipal government to seize all private property and control the minds of Toronto residents.

“We are considering putting in a complaint about your behaviour and your attacks,” Elizabeth Rowley said on the NewsTalk 1010 radio show hosted by Councillor Josh Matlow.

It is not clear what provision of the Ontario Human Rights Code Rowley believes Mammoliti has violated. Political affiliation is not one of the grounds on which the code prohibits discrimination. Further, the code covers discrimination in employment, housing, union membership, and the provision of goods and services; Mammoliti discriminated, or attempted to, only on his Facebook group.

“If anyone should complain, it's me,” he responded. “Because it's them who attacked my Facebook, with their comments and with their logos and with their ‘comrade’ suggestions.”

Rowley compared Mammoliti's statements to those of former U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who alleged in the 1940s and 1950s that communists had infiltrated the American government. “McCarthyism is not appropriate,” she said, “and pretty ugly.”

Mammoliti was unrepentant. In language mirroring that of the McCarthy-era House Un-American Activities Committee, which infamously asked Hollywood screenwriters and directors whether they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party, he asked Matlow: “How many of those councillors at City Hall does she have a relationship with — a speaking relationship, an email relationship, a relationship of communication in one form or another?”

When Rowley said the last email she had sent to councillors was to oppose the closure of libraries, he said: “So you have no ongoing relationship, you don't write to any particular councillor, you haven't ever spoken, had dinner with, had lunches with, any of those councillors that I'm suggesting that you have?”

Rowley said, “You're asking me if I ‘am or ever have had lunch with’ — no, I haven't.”

Councillor Paula Fletcher led the Communist Party in Manitoba in the 1980s before becoming a supporter of the NDP. Mammoliti has not demonstrated that any other councillor has ties to the party.

Said Rowley: “What is really egregious here is that anybody who objects apparently to the proposals that are coming from the Ford administration is being attacked as a communist by prominent members of that administration.”

Rowley said “some” of the 166 people who spoke against cuts at a marathon executive committee meeting in July were party members. But she also said, “We certainly don't have as many members as would be implied by Councillor Mammoliti.”

The anti-communist offensive in Portugal and in the world: an offensive against the peoples and youth rights!

The offensive that has been taking place against the czech communists has developed. After the failed attempt of ilegalization of the Communist Youth Union (KSM), defeated by the struggle of the czech youth and by the solidarity of thousands of people and organizations from the whole world, we now watch the new attempt to annulment, physically and ideologically, of KSM.

Referring to an article of the Criminal Code that condemns any actions of denial, approval or justification of a genocide, some Czech authorities intend to punish the publication by KSM an article on its site about the battle of Katyn, in World War II. In an attempt to state the historical truth about one of the most remarkable events of World War II and the condemnation of crimes against humanity by Nazi-Fascism, the young Czech communists now face a complaint by some of the most prominent figures of the extreme right and anti communists in the country, leeking well, once again, to attack the KSM. This is another demonstration of the anti-communist offensive, which also tryes to bleach history, trying to equate Communism to Nazism.

This offensive, however, is not felt only in the Czech Republic. The attacks against freedoms and democratic guarantees multiply and the repression of those who struggle and resist, intensifyes. Recently communist symbols were banned in Poland, with the support of the European Union; a few days ago, the president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth was arrested by Moroccan authorities and was prevented from visit Western Sahara, to participate in a solidarity activity with the Saharawi people, in Ecuador, the general secretary of Communist Youth of Ecuador was violently attacked by members of an organization of right-wing lying in a coma. In Portugal, there have been limitations on the class trade union actions, the right to strike, attempts to limit the student's unions, the boycott of struggles, whether from the workers or from the students. The episodes of restricting political activity of JCP increase. Recently, Portuguese Communist Youth activists were detained by the police because they were painting a mural, in Lisbon, in Leiria, a militant of the JCP was detained by the police for stiking posters . The right to political activity and and propaganda and is constitutionally guaranteed, and we intend to continue to do so.

In a time when capitalism faces a global crisis, also intensifies its offensive against the progressive forces, who claim and struggle for a different system, a world of peace, democracy, freedom and respect for the fundamental rights of mankind. The Communists have always been ahead of the fierce battles that were fought against the advances of capitalism and the rights of peoples. It was like this, in the hard fight against Nazi-fascism, and was thus the resistance struggle against fascism in Portugal, so it is all over the world where crimes of imperialism are felt.

JCP condemns the anti-democratic and anti-communist acts in Czech Republic, as well as in all parts of the world where resistance and the struggle for a different world of peace and solidarity among peoples, democracy, progress and social transformation are targets of violent attacks by the imperialist forces. The offensive grows, but also increases the willingness and strength to resist and fight.

Lisbon, 9th of November of 2010

Dear Rebel Youth

RY received this email from a reader. The story of a young man who got into a traffic accident in Cuba has been picked up by Canadian members of Parliament and rapidly brought to the attention of the Canadian public.

I am growing weary of the story of Cody LeCompte, the [Canadian] teen who was “stuck” in Cuba.

He managed to rent a car, even though he was under age. If that’s the case, they were wrong to rent to him and he was wrong to be driving while under age, even if he did not know the law. If he somehow misrepresented himself, that’s another matter.

Video review: Anti-Cuban TV

This program from deep-dish TV looks at the U.S. government's use of TV and radio to broadcast into Cuba subversive, anti-revolution programming. This form of warfare over ideas has been a favorite cold war tactic in use by such agencies like the Voice of America, and more blatant Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty (now merged with RFE) and Radio Free Asia. Even today, anti-communist programming is still broadcast in Eastern Europe to keep any "threat" from interfering with trade and treaties.

deep dish 1990 TV marti

see wikipedia entries on RFE/RL [1]

National Committee for a Free Europe [2]

American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia [3]

What's the big secret?

The website wikileaks hosts the audio tapes (1) (2) of recent strategy and tactic meetings of campus conservatives.

The leak was made on March 13, 2009.

Update: link two is now broken but link 1 still works. Some of the files are copied below.

In addition, copies of agendas, photos, speakers lists and other documentation are available. Also of note is the turn of events at the CBC. Wikileaks' source mentions and speculates the following:

After running a few times on CBC Radio One's early morning news cycle on March 20, 2009, the story was abruptly pulled. Thus, this tape has been released to Wikileaks, given the concern that this story was pulled or censored from within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The CBC story mentions the use of front groups or clubs. Such clubs mentioned are: Star Trek Club, Star Wars Appreciation, Games and Leisure, and the Friedrich Nietzsche club at Carleton University in Ottawa. Such names hardly sound political, Tory, or aimed at attacking the Canadian Federation of Students. What's the big secret?