Irish Water Charges Revolt – A young Communist’s view on the ground

Communist Party of Ireland and Connolly Youth Movement
march against water privatization

Graham Harrington

The Irish working-class, previously believed to be cowed into submission by the ruling class, has finally stood up. We have unified under the cause of one word: NO!

No to water charges! No to austerity! No to corruption!

Since the property bubble exploded in 2008/2009 austerity has become our reality. The “Celtic Tiger” years are but now a memory. Neo-liberalism has destroyed us. The bankers gambled our money until the system popped. The bankers debt, in the hundreds of billions, was socialized by the Irish state, the money for paying off their debts was taken from the Irish taxpayer. Cuts in healthcare, education and in public services destroyed families and threw huge amounts of people into poverty, homelessness, and an epoch of darkness. In response, the Communist party called for the complete repudiation of this debt. It was not sovereign debt. It was not borrowed to pay for schools, hospitals or to develop infrastructure. It was taken out to cover the losses of the bankers and financial speculators.

Portuguese Communist Party leader speaks about upcoming election while in Paris

Crowd participating in the June 6th mobilization of the
Communist Party to launch the ongoing election campaign

 Adrien Welsh

“Eles comem tudo e não deixam nada/ They eat everything and leave nothing” says the song by Zeca Afonso. The singer-songwriter also wrote “Grândola Vila Morena”, which became an anthem during the Portuguese April Revolution. These words are probably the best description of the situation the people of Portugal are currently living in. The title of this song is “Os Vampiros/ The Vampires”, referring at the time it was written to the capitalists who kept Portugal under the rule of a fascist dictatorship until 1974.

Although the country was able to overthrow the Estado Novo regime and adopt one of the most progressive constitutions in Europe (thanks largely to the Communists), Portugal, along with Greece, is one of the European countries most affected by austerity programs imposed by the Troika. The European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the new vampires who “eat everything but don’t leave anything” for the people.

More than 128,000 people from Portugal chose to leave their country in 2013, and their number keeps increasing year after year. More than 1.5 million Portuguese have decided to live in France. That is about 15% of the total population currently living inside Portugal.

Why Canadians should support the movement for a Republic in Spain

By Adrien Welsh

Poster from Young Communists in Spain:
"Monarchy & Capital: two sides of the same coin"

As the march organised on June 19th against the inauguration as King of Felipe V has been declared illegal by Spanish authorities, it is very important that progressive and democratic forces in Canada stand with Spanish communists and with all the thousands of people who took to the streets just after the former King Juan Carlos II abdicated on June 2nd.

A Republican State would be far from socialism, just like the American, French or German examples show. However, as Canada’s Head of State officially remains the representation of the British Crown, Canadians understand that Juan Carlos II and now his son’s role is more than a symbolic one. We also know that a popular and massive struggle to defeat this representative of Spanish imperialism is an important first step towards a new constitutional process in which communists and progressive people could, through a common struggle, strengthen their forces and overcome the anti-democratic political system, gather a massive movement that would be strong enough to nationalize key sectors of the economy such as banks, and to demand the withdraw from imperialist institutions such as NATO and European Union of Capital.

The fact that the June 19th rally has been declared illegal is a sign that Spanish oligarchy still counts on this rotten institution, led by a billionaire elephant-hunting fanatic, to maintain its hegemony.

Communist youth denounce developments in Ukraine

The developments in Ukraine are particularly crucial and dangerous, first of all for the people and the youth of the country, who are being transformed again into victims of the intense antagonisms between the USA-EU and Russia, for the control of markets, of natural resources and the transportation networks of the country.

The open intervention of the EU-USA-NATO, the utilization of  fascist groups and organizations which are the descendants of the SS and spread fascist and Nazi venom and anticommunism, the planned persecutions and banning of political parties primarily against the communists, and the racist laws that are being prepared against the Russian-speaking population and other minorities, all demonstrate the character of the developments, and uncover the lies about the “triumph of democracy in Ukraine”.

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.

Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine?

Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine

By Max Blumenthal

Reposted from Alternet – Feb 24, 2014

As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.

White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.

The road to a people`s Greece

Members of the Communist Party of Greece at an rally last week

The Greek bourgeois Establishment sees this weekend's electoral battle as an opportunity to give itself a facelift.

This is because the traditional governing parties are in decay. The right-wing New Democracy has absorbed a smaller right-wing party, the Democratic Alliance, and MPs from the nationalist Popular Orthodox Rally and is seeking to promote itself as a "centre-right pole."

But on the centre-left, the previously dominant Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) has been decimated and its position is being taken by the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza).

Syriza is made up of forces that left the Communist Party (KKE) in the splits of 1968 and 1991 and "divorced" themselves from the communist movement.

Many of these forces are characterised by their support for the imperialist European Union. There are also Maoist and Trotskyite groups and forces which have come to Syriza, chiefly from within Pasok.

Syriza says it is struggling for a "left government" which will relieve the very serious problems faced by the Greek people but without coming into conflict with the EU or Nato, and while keeping Greece in the eurozone.

It was no accident that the Greek federation of industrialists was in favour of a government with Syriza's participation.