Among his most substantial speeches in front of the Communist International, Lenin opens the Second World Congress in Petrograd on July 19, 1920 with this survey of the world and role of the new International in the midst of the Civil War and during the revolutionary wave that swept much of Europe after World War One.

‘Report on the International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International’ by V.I. Lenin from Proceedings of the The Second Congress of the Communist International, 1921.

(An ovation breaks out. All present rise to their feet and applaud. The speaker tries to begin, but the applause and cries in all languages continue. The ovation does not abate.) Comrades, the theses on the questions of the fundamental tasks of the Communist International have been published in all languages and contain nothing that is materially new (particularly to the Russian comrades). That is because, in a considerable measure, they extend several of the main features of our revolutionary experience and the lessons of our revolutionary movement to a number of Western countries, to Western Europe. My report will therefore deal at greater length, if in brief outline, with the first part of my subject, namely, the international situation.

Imperialism’s economic relations constitute the core of the entire international situation as it now exists. Throughout the twentieth century, this new, highest and final stage of capitalism has fully taken shape. Of course, you all know that the enormous dimensions that capital has reached are the most characteristic and essential feature of imperialism. The place of free competition has been taken by huge monopolies. An insignificant number of capitalists have, in some cases, been able to concentrate in their hands entire branches of industry; these have passed into the hands of combines, cartels, syndicates and trusts, not infrequently of an international nature. Thus, entire branches of industry, not only in single countries, but all over the world, have been taken over by monopolists in the field of finance, property rights, and partly of production. This has formed the basis for the unprecedented domination exercised by an insignificant number of very big banks, financial tycoons, financial magnates who have, in fact, transformed even the freest republics into financial monarchies. Before the war this was publicly recognised by such far from revolutionary writers as, for example, Lysis in France.

This domination by a handful of capitalists achieved full development when the whole world had been partitioned, not only in the sense that the various sources of raw materials and means of production had been seized by the biggest capitalists, but also in the sense that the preliminary partition of the colonies had been completed. Some forty years ago, the population of the colonies stood at somewhat over 250,000,000, who were subordinated to six capitalist powers. Before the war of 1914, the population of the colonies was estimated at about 600,000,000, and if we add countries like Persia, Turkey, and China, which were already semi-colonies, we shall get, in round figures, a population of a thousand million people oppressed through colonial dependence by the richest, most civilised and freest countries. And you know that, apart from direct political and juridical dependence, colonial dependence presumes a number of relations of financial and economic dependence, a number of wars, which were not regarded as wars because very often they amounted to sheer massacres, when European and American imperialist troops, armed with the most up-to-date weapons of destruction, slaughtered the unarmed and defenceless inhabitants of colonial countries.

The first imperialist war of 1914-18 was the inevitable outcome of this partition of the whole world, of this domination by the capitalist monopolies, of this great power wielded by an insignificant number of very big banks—two, three, four or five in each country. This war was waged for the repartitioning of the whole world. It was waged in order to decide which of the small groups of the biggest states—the British or the German—was to obtain the opportunity and the right to rob, strangle and exploit the whole world. You know that the war settled this question in favour of the British group. And, as a result of this war, all capitalist contradictions have become immeasurably more acute. At a single stroke the war relegated about 250,000,000 of the world’s inhabitants to what is equivalent to colonial status, viz., Russia, whose population can be taken at about 130,000,000, and Austria-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria, with a total population of not less than 120,000,000. That means 250,000,000 people living in countries, of which some, like Germany, are among the most advanced, most enlightened, most cultured, and on a level with modern technical progress. By means of the Treaty of Versailles, the war imposed such terms upon these countries that advanced peoples have been reduced to a state of colonial dependence, poverty, starvation, ruin, and loss of rights: this treaty binds them for many generations, placing them in conditions that no civilised nation has ever lived in. The following is the post-war picture of the world: at least 1, 250 million people are at once brought under the colonial yoke, exploited by a brutal capitalism, which once boasted of its love for peace, and ha~ some right to do so some fifty years ago, when the world was not yet partitioned, the monopolies did not as yet rule, and capitalism could still develop in a relatively peaceful way, without tremendous military conflicts.

Today, after this “peaceful” period, we see a monstrous intensification of oppression, the reversion to a colonial and military oppression that is far worse than before. The Treaty of Versailles has placed Germany and the other defeated countries in a position that makes their economic existence physically impossible, deprives them of all rights, and humiliates them.

How many nations are the beneficiaries? To answer this question we must recall that the population of the United States—the only full beneficiary from the war, a country which, from a heavy debtor, has become a general creditor—is no more than 100,000,000. The population of Japan—which gained a great deal by keeping out of the European-American conflict and by seizing the enormous Asian continent—is 50,000,000. The population of Britain, which next to the above-mentioned countries gained most, is about 50,000,000. If we add the neutral countries with their very small populations, countries which were enriched by the war, we shall get, in round figures, some 250,000,000 people.

Thus you get the broad outlines of the picture of the world as it appeared after the imperialist war. In the oppressed colonies—countries which are being dismembered, such as Persia, Turkey and China, and in countries that were defeated and have been relegated to the position of colonies—there are 1,250 million inhabitants. Not more than 250,000,000 inhabit countries that have retained their old positions, but have become economically dependent upon America, and all of which, during the war, were militarily dependent, once the war involved the whole world and did not permit a single state to remain really neutral. And, finally, we have not more than 250,000 000 inhabitants in countries whose top stratum, the capitalists alone, benefited from the partition of the world. We thus get a total of about 1,750 million comprising the entire population of the world. I would like to remind you of this picture of the world, for all the basic contradictions of capitalism, of imperialism, which are leading up to revolution, all the basic contradictions in the working-class movement that have led up to the furious struggle against the Second International, facts our chairman has referred to, are all connected with this partitioning of the world’s population.

Of course, these figures give the economic picture of the world only approximately, in broad outline. And, comrades, it is natural that, with the population of the world divided in this way, exploitation by finance capital, the capitalist monopolies, has increased many times over.

Not only have the colonial and the defeated countries been reduced to a state of dependence; within each victor state the contradictions have grown more acute; all the capitalist contradictions have become aggravated. I shall illustrate this briefly with a few examples.

Let us take the national debts. We know that the debts of the principal European states increased no less than sevenfold in the period between 1914 and 1920. I shall quote another economic source, one of particular significance—Keynes, the British diplomat and author of The Economic Consequences of the Peace, who, on instructions from his government, took part in the Versailles peace negotiations, observed them on the spot from the purely bourgeois point of view, studied the subject in detail, step by step, and took part in the conferences as an economist. He has arrived at conclusions which are more weighty, more striking and more instructive than any a Communist revolutionary could draw, because they are the conclusions of a well-known bourgeois and implacable enemy of Bolshevism, which he, like the British philistine he is, imagines as something monstrous, ferocious, and bestial. Keynes has reached the conclusion that after the Peace of Versailles, Europe and the whole world are heading for bankruptcy. He has resigned, and thrown his book in the government’s face with the words: “What you are doing is madness”. I shall quote his figures, which can be summed up as follows.

What are the debtor-creditor relations that have developed between the principal powers? I shall convert pounds sterling into gold rubles, at a rate of ten gold rubles to one pound. Here is what we get: the United States has assets amounting to 19,000 million, its liabilities are nil. Before the war it was in Britain’s debt. In his report on April 14, 1920, to the last congress of the Communist Party of Germany, Comrade Levi very correctly pointed out that there are now only two powers in the world that can act independently, viz., Britain and America. America alone is absolutely independent financially. Before the war she was a debtor; she is now a creditor only. All the other powers in the world are debtors. Britain has been reduced to a position in which her assets total 17,000 million, and her liabilities 8,000 million. She is already half-way to becoming a debtor nation. Moreover, her assets include about 6,000 million owed to her by Russia. Included in the debt are military supplies received by Russia during the war. When Krasin, as representative of the Russian Soviet Government, recently had occasion to discuss with Lloyd George the subject of debt agreements, he made it plain to the scientists and politicians, to the British Government’s leaders, that they were labouring under a strange delusion if they were counting on getting these debts repaid. The British diplomat Keynes has already laid this delusion bare.

Of course, it is not only or even not at all a question of the Russian revolutionary government having no wish to pay the debts. No government would pay, because these debts are usurious interest on a sum that has been paid twenty times over, and the selfsame bourgeois Keynes, who does not in the least sympathise with the Russian revolutionary movement, says: “It is clear that these debts cannot be taken into account.”

In regard to France, Keynes quotes the following figures: her assets amount to 3,500 million, and her liabilities to 10,500 million! And this is a country which the French themselves called the world’s money-lender, because her “savings” were enormous; the proceeds of colonial and financial pillage—a gigantic capital—enabled her to grant thousands upon thousands of millions in loans, particularly to Russia. These loans brought in an enormous revenue. Notwithstanding this and notwithstanding victory, France has been reduced to debtor status.

A bourgeois American source, quoted by Comrade Braun, a Communist, in his book Who Must Pay the War Debts? (Leipzig, 1920), estimates the ratio of debts to national wealth as follows: in the victor countries, Britain and France, the ratio of debts to aggregate national wealth is over 50 per cent; in Italy the percentage is between 60 and 70, and in Russia 90. As you know, however, these debts do not disturb us, because we followed Keynes’s excellent advice just a little before his book appeared—we annulled all our debts. (Stormy applause.)

In this, however, Keynes reveals the usual crankiness of the philistine: while advising that all debts should be annulled, he goes on to say that, of course, France only stands to gain by it, that, of course, Britain will not lose very much, as nothing can be got out of Russia in any case; America will lose a fair amount, but Keynes counts on American “generosity”! On this point our views differ from those of Keynes and other petty-bourgeois pacifists. We think that to get the debts annulled they will have to wait for something else to happen, and will have to try working in a direction other than counting on the “generosity” of the capitalists.

These few figures go to show that the imperialist war has created an impossible situation for the victor powers as well. This is further shown by the enormous disparity between wages and price rises. On March 8 of this year, the Supreme Economic Council, an institution charged with protecting the bourgeois system throughout the world from the mounting revolution, adopted a resolution which ended with an appeal for order, industry and thrift, provided, of course, the workers remain the slaves of capital. This Supreme Economic Council, organ of the Entente and of the capitalists of the whole world, presented the following summary.

In the United States of America food prices have risen, on the average, by 120 per cent, whereas wages have increased only by 100 per cent. In Britain, food prices have gone up by 170 per cent, and wages 130 per cent; in France, food prices—300 per cent,. and wages 200 per cent; in Japan—food prices 130 per cent, and wages 60 per cent (I have analysed Comrade Braun’s figures in his pamphlet and those of the Supreme Economic Council as published in The Times of March 10, 1920).

In such circumstances, the workers’ mounting resentment, the growth of a revolutionary temper and ideas, and the increase in spontaneous mass strikes are obviously inevitable, since the position of the workers is becoming intolerable. The workers’ own experience is convincing them that the capitalists have become prodigiously enriched by the war and are placing the burden of war costs and debts upon the workers’ shoulders. We recently learnt by cable that America wants to deport another 500 Communists to Russia so as to get rid of “dangerous agitators”.

Even if America deports to our country, not 500 but 500,000 Russian, American, Japanese and French “agitators” that will make no difference, because there will still be the disparity between prices and wages, which they can do nothing about. The reason why they can do nothing about it is because private property is most strictly safeguarded, is “sacred” there. That should not be forgotten, because it is only in Russia that the exploiters’ private property has been abolished. The capitalists can do nothing about the gap between prices and wages, and the workers cannot live on their previous wages. The old methods are useless against this calamity. Nothing can be achieved by isolated strikes, the parliamentary struggle, or the vote, because “private property is sacred”, and the capitalists have accumulated such debts that the whole world is in bondage to a handful of men. Meanwhile the workers’ living conditions are becoming more and more unbearable. There is no other way out but to abolish the exploiters’ “private property”.

In his pamphlet Britain and the World Revolution, valuable extracts from which were published by our Bulletin of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of February 1920, Comrade Lapinsky points out that in Britain coal export prices have doubled as against those anticipated by official industrial circles.

In Lancashire things have gone so far that shares are at a premium of 400 per cent. Bank profits are at least 40-50 per cent. It should, moreover, be noted that, in determining bank profits, all bank officials are able to conceal the lion’s share of profits by calling them, not profits but bonuses, commissions, etc. So here, too, indisputable economic facts prove that the wealth of a tiny handful of people has grown prodigiously and that their luxury beggars description, while the poverty of the working class is steadily growing. We must particularly note the further circumstance brought out very clearly by Comrade Levi in the report I have just referred to, namely, the change in the value of money. Money has everywhere depreciated as a result of the debts, the issue of paper currency, etc. The same bourgeois source I have already mentioned, namely, the statement of the Supreme Economic Council of March 8, 1920, has calculated that in Britain the depreciation in the value of currency as against the dollar is approximately one-third, in France and Italy two-thirds, and in Germany as much as 96 per cent.

This fact shows that the “mechanism” of the world capitalist economy is falling apart. The trade relations on which the acquisition of raw materials and the sale of commodities hinge under capitalism cannot go on; they cannot continue to be based on the subordination of a number of countries to a single country—the reason being the change in the value of money. No wealthy country can exist or trade unless it sells its goods and obtains raw materials.

Thus we have a situation in which America, a wealthy country that all countries are subordinate to, cannot buy or sell. And the selfsame Keynes who went through the entire gamut of the Versailles negotiations has been compelled to acknowledge this impossibility despite his unyielding determination to defend capitalism, and all his hatred of Bolshevism. Incidentally, I do not think any communist manifesto, or one that is revolutionary in general, could compare in forcefulness with those pages in Keynes’s book which depict Wilson and “Wilsonism” in action. Wilson was the idol of philistines and pacifists like Keynes and a number of heroes of the Second International (and even of the “Two-and-a-Half” International), who exalted the “Fourteen Points” and even wrote “learned” books about the “roots “ of Wilson ’s policy; they hoped that Wilson would save “social peace”, reconcile exploiters and exploited, and bring about social reforms. Keynes showed vividly how Wilson was made a fool of, and all these illusions were shattered at the first impact with the practical, mercantile and huckster policy of capital as personified by Clemenceau and Lloyd George. The masses of the workers now see more clearly than ever, from their own experience—and the learned pedants could see it just by reading Keynes’s book—that the “roots” of Wilson’s policy lay in sanctimonious piffle, petty-bourgeois phrase-mongering, and an utter inability to understand the class struggle.

In consequence of all this, two conditions, two fundamental situations, have inevitably and naturally emerged. On the one hand, the impoverishment of the masses has grown incredibly, primarily among 1,250 million people, i.e., 70 per cent of the world’s population. These are the colonial and dependent countries whose inhabitants possess no legal rights, countries “mandated” to the brigands of finance. Besides, the enslavement of the defeated countries has been sanctioned by the Treaty of Versailles and by existing secret treaties regarding Russia, whose validity, it is true, is sometimes about as real as that of the scraps of paper stating that we owe so many thousands of millions. For the first time in world history, we see robbery, slavery, dependence, poverty and starvation imposed upon 1,250 million people by a legal act.

On the other hand, the workers in each of the creditor countries have found themselves in conditions that are intolerable. The war has led to an unprecedented aggravation of all capitalist contradictions, this being the origin of the intense revolutionary ferment that is ever growing. During the war people were put under military discipline, hurled into the ranks of death, or threatened with immediate wartime punishment. Because of the war conditions people could not see the economic realities. Writers, poets, the clergy, the whole press were engaged in nothing but glorifying the war. Now that the war has ended, the exposures have begun: German imperialism with its Peace of Brest-Litovsk has been laid bare; the Treaty of Versailles, which was to have been a victory for imperialism but proved its defeat, has been exposed. Incidentally, the example of Keynes shows that in Europe and America tens and hundreds of thousands of petty-bourgeois, intellectuals, and simply more or less literate and educated people, have had to follow the road taken by Keynes, who resigned and threw in the face of the government a book exposing it. Keynes has shown what is taking place and will take place in the minds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people when they realise that all the speeches about a “war for liberty”, etc., were sheer deception, and that as a result only a handful of people were enriched, while the others were ruined and reduced to slavery. Is it not a fact that the bourgeois Keynes declares that, to survive and save the British economy, the British must secure the resumption of free commercial intercourse between Germany and Russia? How can this be achieved? By cancelling all debts, as Keynes proposes. This is an idea that has been arrived at not only by Keynes, the learned economist; millions of people are or will be getting the same idea. And millions of people hear bourgeois economists declare that there is no way out except annulling the debts; therefore “damn the Bolsheviks” (who have annulled the debts), and let us appeal to America’s “generosity”! I think that, on behalf of the Congress of the Communist International, we should send a message of thanks to these economists, who have been agitating for Bolshevism.

If, on the one hand, the economic position of the masses has become intolerable, and, on the other hand, the disintegration described by Keynes has set in and is growing among the negligible minority of all-powerful victor countries, then we are in the presence of the maturing of the two conditions for the world revolution.

We now have before us a somewhat more complete picture of the whole world. We know what dependence upon a handful of rich men means to 1,250 million people who have been placed in intolerable conditions of existence. On the other hand, when the peoples were presented with the League of Nations Covenant, declaring that the League had put an end to war and would henceforth not permit anyone to break the peace, and when this Covenant, the last hope of working people all over the world, came into force, it proved to be a victory of the first order for us. Before it came into force, people used to say that it was impossible not to impose special conditions on a country like Germany, but when the Covenant was drawn up, everything would come out all right. Yet, when the Covenant was published, the bitterest opponents of Bolshevism were obliged to repudiate it. When the Covenant came into operation, it appeared that a small group of the richest countries, the “Big Four”—in the persons of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Orlando and Wilson—had been put on the job of creating the new relations! When the machinery of the Covenant was put into operation, this led to a complete breakdown.

We saw this in the case of the wars against Russia. Weak, ruined and crushed, Russia, a most backward country, fought against all the nations, against a league of the rich and powerful states that dominate the world, and emerged victorious. We could not put up a force that was anything like the equal of theirs, and yet we proved the victors. Why was that? Because there was not a jot of unity among them, because each power worked against the other. France wanted Russia to pay her debts and become a formidable force against Germany; Britain wanted to partition Russia, and attempted to seize the Baku oilfields and conclude a treaty with the border states of Russia. Among the official British documents there is a Paper which scrupulously enumerates all the states (fourteen in all) which some six months ago, in December 1919, pledged themselves to take Moscow and Petrograd. Britain based her policy on these states, to whom she granted loans running into millions. All these calculations have now misfired, and all the loans are unrecoverable.

Such is the situation created by the League of Nations. Every day of this Covenant’s existence provides the best propaganda for Bolshevism, since the most powerful adherents of the capitalist “order” are revealing that, on every question, they put spokes in one another’s wheels. Furious wrangling over the partitioning of Turkey, Persia, Mesopotamia and China is going on between Japan, Britain, America and France. The bourgeois press in these countries is full of the bitterest attacks and the angriest statements against their “colleagues” for trying to snatch the booty from under their noses. We see complete discord at the top, among this handful, this very small number of extremely rich countries. There are 1,250 million people who find it impossible to live in the conditions of servitude which “advanced” and civilised capitalism wishes to impose on them: after all, these represent 70 per cent of the world’s population. This handful of the richest states—Britain, America and Japan (though Japan was able to plunder the Eastern, the Asian countries, she cannot constitute an independent financial and military force without support from another country)—these two or three countries are unable to organise economic relations, and are directing their policies toward disrupting policies of their colleagues and partners in the League of Nations. Hence the world crisis; it is these economic roots of the crisis that provide the chief reason of the brilliant successes the Communist International is achieving.

Comrades, we have now come to the question of the revolutionary crisis as the basis of our revolutionary action. And here we must first of all note two widespread errors. On the one hand, bourgeois economists depict this crisis simply as “unrest”, to use the elegant expression of the British. On the other hand, revolutionaries sometimes try to prove that the crisis is absolutely insoluble.

This is a mistake. There is no such thing as an absolutely hopeless situation. The bourgeoisie are behaving like barefaced plunderers who have lost their heads; they are committing folly after folly, thus aggravating the situation and hastening their doom. All that is true. But nobody can “prove” that it is absolutely impossible for them to pacify a minority of the exploited with some petty concessions, and suppress some movement or uprising of some section of the oppressed and exploited. To try to “prove” in advance that there is “absolutely” no way out of the situation would be sheer pedantry, or playing with concepts and catchwords. Practice alone can serve as real “proof” in this and similar questions. All over the world, the bourgeois system is experiencing a tremendous revolutionary crisis. The revolutionary parties must now “prove” in practice that they have sufficient understanding and organisation, contact with the exploited masses, and determination and skill to utilise this crisis for a successful, a victorious revolution.

It is mainly to prepare this “proof” that we have gathered at this Congress of the Communist International.

To illustrate to what extent opportunism still prevails among parties that wish to affiliate to the Third International, and how far the work of some parties is removed from preparing the revolutionary class to utilise the revolutionary crisis, I shall quote the leader of the British Independent Labour Party, Ramsay MacDonald. In his book, Parliament and Revolution, which deals with the basic problems that are now engaging our attention, MacDonald describes the state of affairs in what is something like a bourgeois pacifist spirit. He admits that there is a revolutionary crisis and that revolutionary sentiments are growing, that the sympathies of the workers are with the Soviets and the dictatorship of the proletariat (note that this refers to Britain) and that the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the present dictatorship of the British bourgeoisie.

But MacDonald remains a thorough-paced bourgeois pacifist and compromiser, a petty bourgeois who dreams of a government that stands above classes. Like all bourgeois liars, sophists and pedants, MacDonald recognises the class struggle merely as a “descriptive fact”. He ignores the experience of Kerensky, the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries of Russia, the similar experience of Hungary, Germany, etc., in regard to creating a “democratic” government allegedly standing above classes. MacDonald lulls his party and those workers who have the misfortune to regard this bourgeois as a socialist, this philistine as a leader, with the words: “We know that all this [i.e., the revolutionary crisis, the revolutionary ferment] will pass…settle down.” The war, he says, inevitably provoked the crisis, but after the war it will all “settle down”, even if not at once!

That is what has been written by a man who is leader of a party that wants to affiliate to the Third International. This is a revelation—the more valuable for its rare outspokenness—of what is no less frequently to be seen in the top ranks of the French Socialist Party and the German Independent Social-Democratic Party, namely, not merely an inability, but also an unwillingness to take advantage, in a revolutionary sense, of the revolutionary crisis, or, in other words, both an inability and an unwillingness to really prepare the party and the class in revolutionary fashion for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

That is the main evil in very many parties which are now leaving the Second International. This is precisely why, in the theses I have submitted to the present Congress, I have dwelt most of all on the tasks connected with preparations for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and have given as concrete and exact a definition of them as possible.

Here is another example. A new book against Bolshevism was recently published. An unusually large number of books of this, kind are now coming out in Europe and America; the more anti-Bolshevik books are brought out, the more strongly and rapidly mass sympathy for Bolshevism grows. I am referring to Otto Bauer’s Bolshevism or Social-Democracy? This book clearly demonstrates to the Germans the essence of Menshevism, whose shameful role in the Russian revolution is understood well enough by the workers of all countries. Otto Bauer has produced a thoroughgoing Menshevik pamphlet, although he has concealed his own sympathy with Menshevism. In Europe and America, however, more precise information should now be disseminated about what Menshevism actually is, for it is a generic term for all allegedly socialist, Social-Democratic and other trends that are hostile to Bolshevism. It would be dull writing if we Russians were to explain to Europeans what Menshevism is. Otto Bauer has shown that in his book, and we thank in advance the bourgeois and opportunist publishers who will publish it and translate it into various languages. Bauer’s book will be a useful if peculiar supplement to the textbooks on communism. Take any paragraph, any argument in Otto Bauer’s book and indicate the Menshevism in it, where the roots lie of views that lead up to the actions of the traitors to socialism, of the friends of Kerensky, Scheidemann, etc.—this is a question that could be very usefully and successfully set in “examinations” designed to test whether communism has been properly assimilated. If you cannot answer this question, you are not yet a Communist, and should not join the Communist Party. (Applause.)

Otto Bauer has excellently expressed in a single sentence the essence of the views of world opportunism; for this, if we could do as we please in Vienna, we would put up a monument to him in his lifetime. The use of force in the class struggle in modern democracies, Otto Bauer says, would be “violence exercised against the social factors of force”.

You may think that this sounds queer and unintelligible. It is an example of what Marxism has been reduced to, of the kind of banality and defence of the exploiters to which the most revolutionary theory can be reduced. A German variety of philistinism is required, and you get the “theory” that the “social factors of force” are: number; the degree of organisation; the place held in the process of production and distribution; activity and education. If a rural agricultural labourer or an urban working man practices revolutionary violence against a landowner or a capitalist, that is no dictatorship of the proletariat, no violence against the exploiters and the oppressors of the people. Oh, no! This is “violence against the social factors of force”.

Perhaps my example sounds something like a jest. However, such is the nature of present-day opportunism that its struggle against Bolshevism becomes a jest. The task of involving the working class, all its thinking elements, in the struggle between international Menshevism (the MacDonalds, Otto Bauers and Co.) and Bolshevism is highly useful and very urgent to Europe and America.

Here we must ask: how is the persistence of such trends in Europe to be explained? Why is this opportunism stronger in Western Europe than in our country? It is because the culture of the advanced countries has been, and still is, the result of their being able to live at the expense of a thousand million oppressed people. It is because the capitalists of these countries obtain a great deal more in this way than they could obtain as profits by plundering the workers in their own countries.

Before the war, it was calculated that the three richest countries—Britain, France and Germany—got between eight and ten thousand million francs a year from the export of capital alone, apart from other sources.

It goes without saying that, out of this tidy sum, at least five hundred millions can be spent as a sop to the labour leaders and the labour aristocracy, i.e., on all sorts of bribes. The whole thing boils down to nothing but bribery. It is done in a thousand different ways: by increasing cultural facilities in the largest centres, by creating educational institutions, and by providing co-operative, trade union and parliamentary leaders with thousands of cushy jobs. This is done wherever present-day civilised capitalist relations exist. It is these thousands of millions in super-profits that form the economic basis of opportunism in the working-class movement. In America, Britain and France we see a far greater persistence of the opportunist leaders, of the upper crust of the working class, the labour aristocracy; they offer stronger resistance to the Communist movement. That is why we must be prepared to find it harder for the European and American workers’ parties to get rid of this disease than was the case in our country. We know that enormous successes have been achieved in the treatment of this disease since the Third International was formed, but we have not yet finished the job; the purging of the workers’ parties, the revolutionary parties of the proletariat all over the world, of bourgeois influences, of the opportunists in their ranks, is very far from complete.

I shall not dwell on the concrete manner in which we must do that; that is dealt with in my published theses. My task consists in indicating the deep economic roots of this phenomenon. The disease is a protracted one; the cure takes longer than the optimists hoped it-would. Opportunism is our principal enemy. Opportunism in the upper ranks of the working-class movement is bourgeois socialism, not proletarian socialism. It has been shown in practice that working-class activists who follow the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves. Without their leadership of the workers, the bourgeoisie could not remain in power. This has been proved, not only by the history of the Kerensky regime in Russia; it has also been proved by the democratic republic in Germany under its Social-Democratic government, as well as by Albert Thomas’s attitude towards his bourgeois government. It has been proved by similar experience in Britain and the United States. This is where our principal enemy is, an enemy we must overcome. We must leave this Congress firmly resolved to carry on this struggle to the very end, in all parties. That is our main task.

Compared with this task, the rectification of the errors of the “Left” trend in communism will be an easy one. In a number of countries anti-parliamentarianism is to be seen, which has not been so much introduced by people of petty-bourgeois origin as fostered by certain advanced contingents of the proletariat out of hatred for the old parliamentarianism, out of a legitimate, proper and necessary hatred for the conduct of members of parliament in Britain, France, Italy, in all lands. Directives must be issued by the Communist International and the comrades must be made more familiar with the experience of Russia, with the significance of a genuinely proletarian political party. Our work will consist in accomplishing this task. The fight against these errors in the proletarian movement, against these shortcomings, will be a thousand times easier than fighting against those bourgeois who, in the guise of reformists, belong to the old parties of the Second International and conduct the whole of their work in a bourgeois, not proletarian, spirit.

Comrades, in conclusion I shall deal with one other aspect of the subject. Our comrade, the chairman, has said that our Congress merits the title of a World Congress. I think he is right, particularly because we have here quite a number of representatives of the revolutionary movement in the colonial and backward countries. This is only a small beginning, but the important thing is that a beginning has been made. At this Congress we see taking place a union between revolutionary proletarians of the capitalist, advanced countries, and the revolutionary masses of those countries where there is no or hardly any proletariat, i.e., the oppressed masses of colonial, Eastern countries. It is on ourselves that the consolidation of unity depends, and I am sure we shall achieve it. World imperialism shall fall when the revolutionary onslaught of the exploited and oppressed workers in each country, overcoming resistance from petty-bourgeois elements and the influence of the small upper crust of labour aristocrats, merges with the revolutionary onslaught of hundreds of millions of people who have hitherto stood beyond the pale of history, and have been regarded merely as the object of history.

The imperialist war has helped the revolution: from the colonies, the backward countries, and the isolation they lived in, the bourgeoisie levied soldiers for this imperialist war. The British bourgeoisie impressed on the soldiers from India that it was the duty of the Indian peasants to defend Great Britain against Germany; the French bourgeoisie impressed on soldiers from the French colonies that it was their duty to defend France. They taught them the use of arms, a very useful thing, for which we might express our deep gratitude to the bourgeoisie—express our gratitude on behalf of all the Russian workers and peasants, and particularly on behalf of all the Russian Red Army. The imperialist war has drawn the dependent peoples into world history. And one of the most important tasks now confronting us is to consider how the foundation-stone of the organisation of the Soviet movement Can be laid in the non-capitalist countries. Soviets are possible there; they will not be workers’ Soviets, but peasants’ Soviets, or Soviets of working people.

Much work will have to be done; errors will be inevitable; many difficulties will be encountered along this road. It is the fundamental task of the Second Congress to elaborate or indicate the practical principles that will enable the work, till now carried on in an unorganised fashion among hundreds of millions of people, to be carried on in an organised, coherent and systematic fashion.

Now, a year or a little more after the First Congress of the Communist International, we have emerged victors over the Second International; it is not only among the workers of the civilised countries that the ideas of the Soviets have spread; it is not only to them that they have become known and intelligible. The workers of all lands are ridiculing the wiseacres, not a few of whom call themselves socialists and argue in a learned or almost learned manner about the Soviet “system”, as the German systematists are fond of calling it, or the Soviet “idea” as the British Guild Socialists call it. Not infrequently, these arguments about the Soviet “system” or “idea” becloud the workers’ eyes and their minds. However, the workers are brushing this pedantic rubbish aside and are taking up the weapon provided by the Soviets. A recognition of the role and significance of the Soviets has now also spread to the lands of the East.

The groundwork has been laid for the Soviet movement all over the East, all over Asia, among all the colonial peoples.

The proposition that the exploited must rise up against the exploiters and establish their Soviets is not a very complex one. After our experience, after two and a half years of the existence of the Soviet Republic in Russia, and after the First Congress of the Third International, this idea is becoming accessible to hundreds of millions of people oppressed by the exploiters all over the world. We in Russia are often obliged to compromise, to bide our time, since we are weaker than the international imperialists, yet we know that we are defending the interests of this mass of a thousand and a quarter million people. For the time being, we are hampered by barriers, prejudices and ignorance which are receding into the past with every passing hour; but we are more and more becoming representatives and genuine defenders of this 70 per cent of the world’s population, this mass of working and exploited people. It is with pride that we can say: at the First Congress we were in fact merely propagandists; we were only spreading the fundamental ideas among the world’s proletariat; we only issued the call for struggle; we were merely asking where the people were who were capable of taking this path. Today the advanced proletariat is everywhere with us. A proletarian army exists everywhere, although sometimes it is poorly organised and needs reorganising. If our comrades in all lands help us now to organise a united army, no shortcomings will prevent us from accomplishing our task. That task is the world proletarian revolution, the creation of a world Soviet republic. (Prolonged applause.)

PDF of full issue: www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/2nd-congress/1-Second%20Congress%20of%20CI-1920.pdf

SOURCE :

www.revolutionsnewsstand.com

The post Report on the International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International’ by V.I. Lenin from Proceedings of the The Second Congress of the Communist International, 1921 appeared first on Asia Commune.

Riceviamo e pubblichiamo il comunicato del SI Cobas nazionale in sostegno alla dichiarazione della Federazione Generale Palestinese dei sindacati, la quale fa appello alle lavoratrici, ai lavoratori e ai sindacati di tutto il mondo affinché cresca e si radicalizzi l’opposizione al genocidio nella striscia di Gaza e all’ipotesi di ri-occupazione sionista del territorio di Gaza City., e – a seguire – la risposta dei compagni palestinesi di Masar Badil – Movimento Palestinese per un Percorso Rivoluzionario Alternativo.

Anche in questa occasione, il SI Cobas dimostra di essere tra i pochi sindacati di base in Italia ad assumere l’internazionalismo proletario e l’opposizione alla guerra come centrale nella propria azione e nel proprio orizzonte strategico.

L’unico appunto che ci sentiamo di muovere al comunicato del SI Cobas sta nell’enfatizzazione, a nostro avviso eccessiva, della conferenza della Rete sindacale internazionale “Solidarietà e Lotta” che si terrà a novembre a Chianciano. Quest’ ultima, infatti, nella sua componente maggioritaria (su tutti il sindacato brasiliano Conlutas, il cui gruppo dirigente è legato a doppio filo alla corrente politica della LIT) ha fin dal 2022 assunto una posizione di esplicito sostegno alla sedicente “resistenza ucraina” (cioè nei fatti all’imperialismo USA-UE- NATO), rompendo in maniera netta con l’ABC dell’internazionalismo, che – in caso di scontro tra blocchi imperialisti – impone alle forze anticapitaliste una linea di disfattismo su entrambi i fronti, e non certo il sostegno all’imperialismo “di casa propria”.

Come sosteniamo da anni a questa parte, l’opposizione ferma e radicale alla guerra costituisce ogni giorno di più uno spartiacque invalicabile: non “una questione” tra le tante, bensì la madre tutte le questioni, da cui dipendono le sorti della classe lavoratrice mondiale e dell’intera umanità. Non è un caso che negli ultimi anni sia stato proprio tale spartiacque a determinare una scomposizione e ricomposizione delle forze in campo a livello internazionale, sia sul piano politico che su quello sindacale.

La conferenza internazionale di Chianciano sarà a nostro avviso chiamata in primis a sciogliere questo fondamentale nodo strategico.

Oggi come non mai, vi è l’urgente necessità di una rete internazionale capace di unire tutte le forze politiche coerentemente internazionaliste, ma anche le forze sindacali più genuinamente classiste e anticapitaliste: un compito cui la Rete Solidarietà e Lotta si è candidata, ma che alla luce dei fatti, e di fronte al precipitare degli eventi, non è riuscita ad assolvere con coerenza.

Siamo convinti che il SI Cobas, forte della propria storia e di 4 anni di mobilitazioni contro la guerra, l’economia di guerra e le carneficine in corso a Gaza e in Ucraina, saprà articolare in tale consesso una dura battaglia contro ogni sostegno (aperto o implicito, diretto o indiretto) ai piani bellici e alla corsa al riarmo globale, e per far sì che questa rete sappia collegarsi realmente con le lotte e le mobilitazioni che ai stanno sviluppando ai quattro angoli della terra contro le brutalità del colonialismo sionista e a sostegno dell’eroica resistenza del popolo palestinese. (Red.)

SCIOPERIAMO E LOTTIAMO CONTRO CAPITALISMO, GUERRA E SIONISMO AL FIANCO DELLA RESISTENZA PALESTINESE

Facciamo nostra la dichiarazione dei lavoratori di Gaza, emessa dalla Federazione Generale Palestinese dei Sindacati, rivolta ai lavoratori/alle lavoratrici ed ai sindacati di tutto il mondo mentre si sta consumando una guerra di sterminio accompagnata da una politica sistematica di fame attuata dallo stato sionista di Israele con il sostegno degli stati imperialisti ed i loro satelliti tra gli stessi stati arabi presenti e silenti nell’area Medio Orientale.

Come Si Cobas abbiamo costruito molti momenti di sciopero reale per opporci e denunciare con sempre maggiore forza la politica genocidaria sionista opponendoci al governo rivendicando la cessazione di tutti gli accordi commerciali sull’esportazione delle armi e la cooperazione militare con Israele. Ma questo, appunto, è possibile solo tramite la mobilitazione ed il rafforzamento dell’organizzazione dei lavoratori e lavoratrici combattivi/e. Per questo stiamo organizzando con tutti i sindacati di base uno sciopero generale contro le guerre e l’economia di guerra messa in campo dalla nostra borghesia contro la possibile organizzazione del proletariato e le masse povere d’Italia. Con lo sciopero e con l’organizzazione di giornate di rabbia e solidarietà in solidarietà al popolo ed alla Resistenza Palestinese o contro le fabbriche produttrici di morte – come Leonardo – direttamente protagonista del massacro – e la logistica di guerra.

Tra il 13 ed il 16 novembre a Chianciano Terme si svolgerà un confronto nella Rete di solidarietà internazionale a cui parteciperanno più di una cinquantina di sindacati di tutto il globo terrestre ed uno dei punti in discussione si svolgerà sul terreno di opposizione alle guerre ed in particolare in appoggio alla resistenza palestinese. In quella assise proporremo uno sciopero a livello internazionale come richiesto dalla Federazione Generale Palestinese dei sindacati. Dobbiamo dotarci di strumenti con cui, come lavoratori e lavoratrici rispondiamo compatti a questo attacco violentissimo che i nostri fratelli e le nostre sorelle stanno subendo in Palestina e che, come classe proletaria, subiamo ad ogni latitudine con gli stati di guerra e polizia che si stanno imponendo.

Come accaduto più volte negli ultimi mesi, ci stiamo nuovamente attivando, come sindacato intercategoriale, per organizzare uno sciopero generale contro l’economia di guerra messa in atto dal governo filo padronale Meloni: ci stiamo confrontando e coordinando con le realtà palestinesi per vedere se è possibile far coincidere lo sciopero generale che stiamo organizzando con gli altri sindacati con la giornata del 4 ottobre che vogliono organizzare alcune delle forze palestinesi in Italia affinché la giornata di sciopero sia seguita da una manifestazione e corteo per le strade di Roma contro il genocidio del popolo palestinese, le politiche di riarmo, l’escalation bellica e la repressione politica e sociale. Se ciò non fosse possibile il Si Cobas si orienterà verso l’adesione alla manifestazione del 4 ottobre e lo sciopero nella data stabilita con le altre forze sindacali di base, con l’intento di stabilire un fronte contro le politiche del governo Meloni ma anche contro coloro che all’opposizione apparentemente ed opportunisticamente utilizzano i sentimenti umanitari per proporre una “soluzione” allo scontro in atto a Gaza, dei due stati.

Nel frattempo, proveremo – come accade ogni sabato a Milano con iniziative/cortei/presidi – a moltiplicare le iniziative di lotta e solidarietà: ci impegneremo, auspicando che ciò avvenga da più parti a rilanciare nell’iniziativa internazionale a Chianciano una maggiore interazione e collaborazione nelle lotte e negli scioperi a livello internazionale: dinanzi ad un attacco globale che il Capitale sta portando contro la classe lavoratrice e proletaria – e che trova nell’infamia sionista il suo apice di violenza – la nostra risposta non può che essere internazionale ed internazionalista.

Auspicando che i nostri rapporti possano stringersi nel corso delle prossime settimane e mesi, vi salutiamo a pugno chiuso, vi abbracciamo in questo momento così complicato e duro per voi e per il vostro popolo, vi ringraziamo per lo straordinario esempio di Resistenza, una fiamma che dovrà divampare in ogni angolo del globo per poter mettere in discussione e distruggere, questo sistema capitalistico delle barbarie basato sullo sfruttamento degli uomini e delle risorse a livello mondiale.

Milano, 2 agosto 2025                              SI COBAS NAZIONALE

Cari compagni di SI COBAS,

Grazie per il vostro messaggio di solidarietà e per la vostra azione e organizzazione nel mobilitare la classe operaia per la Palestina e per la Resistenza. È molto importante vedervi e sentirvi, con la vostra forte dichiarazione e anche con le vostre azioni, come lo sciopero generale che avete organizzato, così come le prossime iniziative, eventi e dibattiti di ottobre. Oggi è stato molto ispirante vedere i portuali di Genova prendere posizione per la Palestina, rifiutandosi di movimentare il carico di una nave saudita che trasportava armi per il genocidio israeliano.

Vi preghiamo di tenerci informati sulle vostre azioni, dichiarazioni e attività riguardanti la Palestina, in particolare sugli sviluppi relativi agli eventi e alle azioni di ottobre, in modo che possiamo amplificarle e promuoverle; non vediamo l’ora di lavorare fianco a fianco con voi per costruire una solidarietà internazionale della classe operaia contro l’imperialismo e il sionismo.

In solidarietà,

Masar Badil – Movimento Palestinese per un Percorso Rivoluzionario Alternativo

SOURCE:

https://pungolorosso.com

The post Scioperiamo e lottiamo contro capitalismo, guerra e sionismo al fianco della resistenza palestinese – SI Cobas appeared first on Asia Commune.

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනයයි

ඊශ්‍රායලය ගාසා නගරයට එල්ල කළ ප්‍රහාරයකින් අල්ජසීරා පුවත් සේවයට වාර්තා සපයන ජනමාධ්‍යවේදීන් පස්දෙනෙකු බිහිසුණු ලෙස මරා දමා තිබේ. ලෝ ප්‍රකට වාර්තාකරු අනාස් අල් ෂරීෆ්ද ඒ අතර වේ. ඔහු ඇතුළු මාධ්‍යවේදීන් පිරිස ඝාතනය කර ඇත්තේ අල් සිෆා රෝහල අසළ කුඩාරමක රැඳී සිටියදී ඉලක්ක ගත ඩ්‍රෝන ප්‍රහාරයකිනි. ඒ අනුව පෙනී යන්නේ මෙය සැළසුම් සහගත දුෂ්ට ප්‍රහාරයක් බවයි. 

ගාසා තීරයේ සිදුවන පලස්තීන ජන සංහාරය පිළිබඳ සත්‍යය හෙළිදරව් කළ එම සහෝදර මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ නිදහස් මාධ්‍ය ව්‍යාපාරයේ උත්තමාචාරය හිමි වේ. අපි  ඔවුන් පිළිබඳව ශෝක වන්නෙමු. එසේම පලස්තීනයට ඇතුළු වීම විදෙස් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට තහනම් කර ඇති පසුබිමක එහි සිට වාර්තාකරණයේ නියැලෙන මාධ්‍යවේදීන් ඝාතනය කරන්නේ සංහාරයේ ගොදුරු බවට පත්ව සිටින ජනයාගේ හඬ නිහඬ කිරීමට බැවින් ඒ පිළිබඳව අපගේ දැඩි විරෝධය පළ කරන්නෙමු. 

CPJ වාර්තාවලට අනුව 2023 ඔක්තොම්බර් මාසයේ සිට මේ දක්වා පලස්තීනයේදී ඝාතනය කර ඇති මාධ්‍යවේදීන් ගණන 186කි.  BBC, AP, සහ AFP ඒකාබද්ධ නිවේදනයක් නිකුත් කරමින් තම වාර්තාකරුවන් මුහුණ දෙන දැඩි දුෂ්කරතා අවධාරණය කළ අතර ඔවුන්ට යැපීමට තරම් ආහාර හෝ නොමැති බව සඳහන් කළේය. BBC සේවය වාර්තාවක් මුදා හරිමින්, දින ගණනක් නිරාහාරව සිටි තමන්ගේ නිදහස් සේවකයින් තිදෙනෙකු හා ඔවුන්ගේ පවුල් පිළිබඳ හෙළිදරව්වක් සිදු කළේය. 

මේ ඊශ්‍රායල්  ආණ්ඩුව පලස්තීන ජනසංහාරය අතරතුර දියත් කර ඇති මාධ්‍ය මර්ධනයේ සැබෑ ස්වරූපයයි. රටක ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව සළසා ගැනීම හෝ ත්‍රස්තවාදයට පිළිතුරු දීම තුළ හෝ පවත්නා සැබෑ වුවමනාව ඉක්මවා සිදුවන මේ සියලු සංහාරද එහි ගොදුරු බවට පත්ව සිටින පලස්තීන ජනතාවගේ හඬ නිහඬ කිරිමට සිදුවන මාධ්‍ය මර්දනයද හෙලා දැකීමට අප හා එක්වන මෙන් සමස්ත ලෝක ප්‍රජාවගෙන් අපි ඉල්ලා සිටිමු.

නිදහස් මාධ්‍ය ව්‍යාපාරය

The post මාධ්‍යවේදීන් මරා දමා පලස්තීනයේ ජනහඬ නිහඬ කිරීමට එරෙහිව විරෝධය දක්වමු – නිදහස් මාධ්‍ය ව්‍යාපාරය appeared first on Asia Commune.

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김준효

이스라엘의 인종 학살과 기아 조장이 날로 커다란 분노를 사고 있는 가운데, 8월 9일 토요일 오후 4시 서울 광화문 교보문고 앞에서 팔레스타인 연대 집회가 열렸다. 350여 명이 참가한 이날 집회는 ‘팔레스타인인들과 연대하는 사람들’(이하 팔연사)이 주최한 아흔다섯 번째 서울 집회다.

참가자들은 이스라엘의 기아 학살 만행과, 또 바로 전날 이스라엘 전쟁 내각이 가자시티 완전 점령 계획을 가결한 데에 분노했다. 가자지구를 폐허로 만들고는 평화 운운하는 이스라엘을 규탄하는 구호가 쩌렁쩌렁 울렸다.

한편, 인종 학살과 그에 대한 서방의 공모는 글로벌 팔레스타인 연대 운동의 커다란 저항에 부딪히고 있다. 지난주 호주 시드니에서는 30만여 명이 참가한 대규모 팔레스타인 연대 시위가 벌어졌다. 그리스의 여러 항구 도시들에서는 휴가 나온 이스라엘 군인들이 탄 여객선의 기항을 막는 시위가 벌어졌다.

사회자가 “이스라엘의 전투기 부품을 실은 것으로 추정되는 선박이 정박한 모로코에서 거센 항의가 일어나 운송이 48시간 넘게 지연됐다”는 소식을 전하자 참가자들은 크게 기뻐했다. 집회장 곁을 지나던 행인들도 함께 박수를 쳤고, 어느 중년 여성은 발길을 멈추고 참가자들과 함께 “팔레스타인인들과 연대를” 구호를 외쳤다.

집회 첫 순서로 참가자들은 가자지구 현지에서 팔연사로 보내 온 음성 메시지를 함께 들었다. “세상에 진실을 전하기 위해 전쟁 발발 후 650일 동안 단 하루도 가자지구를 떠나지 않았다”는 기자 무함마드 알카티브 씨의 절절한 호소가 통역을 통해 전해졌다. 알카티브 씨는 한국의 팔레스타인 연대 운동에도 특별한 감사를 표했다.

“여러분의 행동이 그저 상징적인 것에 불과하다고 느끼실 수도 있지만, 그렇지 않습니다.

“여러분은 저희에게 없어서는 안 될 소중한 희망이고, 계속 나아갈 수 있는 원동력입니다. 여러분은 팔레스타인인들이 혼자가 아님을, 점령과 인권 유린에 맞서는 사람들이 있음을 저희에게 일깨워 줍니다.

“여러분은 창문이 모두 닫힌 것 같은 이곳에 간절한 한 줄기 희망의 햇살입니다. 역사는 여러분들이 지금 서 계신 현장을 금빛 빛살로 기록할 것입니다.”

알카티브 씨의 음성에 집회장 인근을 지나던 행인들도 발길을 멈추고 “이스라엘이 잘못해도 한참 잘못하는 거야,” “왜 애들을 그렇게 죽인대” 하며 대화를 나누었다. 이제 막 한글을 읽게 된 듯한 어린 아이가 현수막에 적힌 집회 제목을 더듬더듬 읽자 곁에 있던 어머니가 “지금 이스라엘이 팔레스타인 아이들을 많이 죽이고 있어” 하고 알려 주는 일도 있었다.

이어서 팔레스타인계-아일랜드계 영국인 엠마 씨가 마이크를 잡았다. 엠마 씨는 최근 팔레스타인 국가 지위를 인정하겠다고 발표한 영국 노동당 총리 키어 스타머의 위선을 맹렬히 규탄했다.

“스타머의 말이 그럴듯해 보이지만, 그는 ‘이스라엘 정부가 가자지구의 참상 종식을 위해 실질적 조처를 취하지 않을 경우에만’ 팔레스타인 국가를 인정하겠다는 등의 조건을 달았습니다.

“헛소리입니다. 팔레스타인인들이 자신의 나라를 세울 권리는 협상 카드가 아닙니다. 더구나 지금 그 카드로 게임을 하고 있는 것은 팔레스타인인들을 억압한 바로 그 압제자들입니다!”

엠마 씨는 스타머와, 지난 100년 넘게 팔레스타인을 유린한 윈스턴 처칠, 헨리 맥마흔, 아서 밸푸어 등 영국 정치인들을 일일이 거론하며 규탄했다. 한 문장 한 문장이 끝날 때마다 박수가 나왔다.

“마지막으로, 가자지구 출신인 제 친구 마흐무드의 말을 전하겠습니다. 그는 스타머가 ‘유리 꽃병을 산산히 깨뜨리고는 미안하다고 웅얼거리며 깨진 유리 조각을 테이프로 대충 깁는 시늉을 하는 것이나 다름 없다’고 했습니다. 백 번 맞는 말입니다.

“팔레스타인인들에게 진정으로 필요한 것은 외세의 ‘인정’이 아니라 해방입니다. 바로 영국과 시온주의 식민 점령자들의 족쇄를 끊는 것 말입니다. 팔레스타인에 해방을!”

이어서 카이스트 부설 고등과학원의 유재원 연구원이 발언했다. 카이스트는 2주 후 서울 국립중앙박물관에서 열리는 학술 행사 CIPA 2025를 후원하는데, 유 연구원은 이 행사에 이스라엘의 테크니온 공과대학이 초청된 것을 강하게 규탄했다.

“이 심포지엄은 세계 문화 유산을 디지털로 보존하겠다고 합니다. 그런데 초청자 명단에 [이스라엘이] 수천 년 역사의 가자대사원을 폭파하는 데 일조한 테크니온 공과대학이 있습니다.

“테크니온이 키워 낸 무기 기업의 드론, 인공지능 유도 폭탄, 국경 통제 소프트웨어가 지금 이 순간에도 가자지구의 문화 유산을 말살하고 있습니다. 이 무슨 모순이란 말입니까!”

유 연구원은 행사를 개최하는 국립중앙박물관이 테크니온 초청을 취소해야 한다고 힘주어 말했다. “국립중앙박물관은 지금 광복 80주년을 맞아 … 식민 지배에 맞서 싸워 온 독립운동가들의 모습을 AI로 재현해 전시하고 있습니다. 그런데 그 바로 옆 전시실에는 팔레스타인인들을 굶겨 죽이고 수천 년 문화 유산을 폭파하는 점령국의 대표들이 무대를 차지하게 되는 것입니다!

“국립중앙박물관은 이스라엘의 기관들에게 ‘서울에는 당신들의 선전물이 설 자리가 없다’는 것을 보여 줘야 합니다.”

유 연구원이 “독립 운동가들의 정신을 AI 아바타가 아니라 국경을 넘어 검문소를 뚫는 살아 있는 연대로” 기리자는 말로 발언을 마치자 큰 박수가 쏟아졌다.

이어서 사회자는 팔연사가 CIPA 2025 주관·후원 단체들과 유홍준 국립중앙박물관 신임 관장에게 테크니온 대학 초청 취소를 촉구하는 공개 서한을 보냈음을 알리며 널리 공유해 줄 것을 호소했다.

집회가 끝난 후 참가자들은 거리 행진에 나섰다. 힘찬 구호 소리가 행인들의 이목을 사로잡았다.

행진 대열이 이스라엘 대사관 앞에서 규탄 구호를 외친 후 서울시청 앞을 지나 명동으로 접어드는 동안 여러 행인들과 관광객들이 행진에 합류했다. 을지로 인근에서는 인도 펜스에 바싹 붙어 행진 모습을 촬영하는 사람들이 가득했다.

대열이 방송차와 함께 명동으로 접어들며 분위기는 더한층 고조됐다. 나들이 나온 시민들과 관광객뿐 아니라 인근 상점의 노동자들이 함께 “프리 팔레스타인” 구호를 외치기도 했다.

행진의 종착지인 4호선 명동역 앞은 행진 참가자들과, 대열에 합류한 사람들, 발길을 멈추고 대열에 지지를 담아 손을 흔드는 사람들로 북적였다.

행진 사회자는 다음 주 토요일인 8월 16일 오후 4시에도 서울 도심에서 팔레스타인 연대 행동이 예정돼 있다고 알리며 적극 참가를 호소하고 집회를 마무리했다.

주제

국제〉

중동·북아프리카

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Revolution—IMT in France

October 20, 2023

In France, as elsewhere, the extremely brutal response of the Israeli government to the Hamas attack on October 7 has aroused the indignation of millions of young people and workers. But in the name of “Israel’s right to defend itself” and “the fight against terrorism and antisemitism,” the Macron government decreed that this indignation was unacceptable and must be silenced, at all costs.

Originally published in French at marxiste.org

Demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza—and the Palestinian people in general—were banned by the government, then violently repressed. On October 10, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced that the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) was the target of an “investigation for advocating terrorism.” The day before, Darmanin threatened to “initiate dissolution procedures” against any organization “calling for hatred, intifada, advocating terrorism.” The leaders of France Insoumise, whose position is (unfortunately) very moderate, are constantly accused of fueling terrorism and antisemitism, or even of being “masked” antisemites themselves. In Toulouse, the mayor Macron-supporting Jean-Luc Moudenc, demanded the cancellation of a solidarity meeting for Palestine, which was to be held on the premises of the CGT, at the Bourse du Travail. Moudenc even declared that he reserved the right to contact the police prefect if the CGT did not comply. And so on.

Of course, none of this is really new. French imperialism is a solid ally of Israeli imperialism, whose crimes it has defended for decades. The accusation of antisemitism is regularly thrown in the face of anyone who dares to criticize the reactionary policies of the Zionist state. But against a backdrop of the deep crisis of French capitalism and the extreme fragility of the Macron government, since October 7 the repression of the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people has marked a turning point. The French labor movement has a duty to react—not only with words, but also with action.

The threats of dissolution towards the NPA, in particular, are absolutely scandalous. Darmanin places calls for “hate,” “intifada,” and “terrorism” in the same category. This amalgamation would simply be astonishingly stupid—which is always possible with Darmanin—if it were not deliberate. By identifying the intifada—which refers to a mass uprising against the oppressor—and terrorism, Darmanin threatens anyone who supports any legitimate revolt of the Palestinian people against the oppression they have suffered for decades.

We do not agree with every detail of the NPA’s position on the current conflict, but one thing is perfectly clear: the NPA is not calling for terrorist acts; it is calling for a new intifada in Palestine. The IMT also has that position, as do many other organizations. Is it forbidden, from now on, to wish for the uprising of the Palestinian people against the reactionary government of Netanyahu? This is what the French Interior Minister says.

The threats against the NPA, the attacks against FI, the bans on demonstrations and meetings must not go unanswered by the political and trade union organizations of the labor movement. The problem is that most leaders of the left and the trade union movement have bent under the pressure of the anti-Palestinian propaganda, which has saturated television sets since October 7. Communist Party Fabien Roussel, in particular, trampled in a few hours the historic position of the PCF on this issue, by placing an “equal” sign between the Hamas attack and the Israeli response. “Left” journalist and politician François Ruffin does the same. The position of the CGT leadership is barely better, that is to say very bad. The position of the Socialist Party, unsurprisingly, is in no way different from that of the government. It is precisely all these capitulations to bourgeois public opinion that allow Macron, Darmanin and others to threaten the NPA and other small organizations showing solidarity with the Palestinian people.

All left-wing activists must analyze this situation in the context of the continued development of police and judicial repression of youth and the workers’ movement in France. Bans on demonstrations have multiplied in recent years, under absolutely inadmissible pretexts. When permitted, protests are often brutally repressed by the police. Finally, there is a link—of class—between Darmanin’s threats against the NPA and the wave of judicial repression that is currently hitting hundreds of union activists, who are accused of having fought against pension reform, between last January and June.

The activists of the CGT, the FI, the PCF, and all organizations of the labor movement must react and demand that their leaders organize opposition to the repression of the solidarity movement with Palestine. They must also demand that their organizations participate fully in this movement. This must take the form, to begin with, of large demonstrations—authorized or not—against the aggression in Gaza, against the crimes of the Israeli government and, yes, for a new and victorious intifada in Palestine!

Republished From: https://socialistrevolution.org/france-against-the-repression-of-the-palestine-solidarity-movement/

The post France: Against the Repression of the Palestine Solidarity Movement! appeared first on Asia Commune.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank began their annual meetings in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh on October 9. Finance ministers and central bank governors from 190 countries are in attendance, with the meetings likely to address the prevailing economic crisis. The meetings will wrap up on October 15.

Since 2020, successive economic shocks have led to the loss of $3.6 trillion of the global output, stated IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva in a speech on October 5, meant to kick off the series of meetings. Georgieva’s speech did not acknowledge the enduring role of the IMF and the World Bank in hollowing out state capacity to address socio-economic challenges. The U.S.-dominated Bretton Woods institutions have continued to push their age-old, failed policies of austerity, characterized by cuts to essential public services, subsidies, and benefits.

The IMF chief cited the energy subsidy “reform” in Nigeria as one such example of a “tough decision” in the right direction. What was not noted is the move led to fuel prices rising by almost three times in the country.

Fifty-seven percent of the world’s poorest countries, home to about 30 percent of the world’s population, will have to cut their public spending by $229 billion by 2029. Low and lower-middle-income countries will be forced to pay almost $500 million every day in interest and debt repayments from now until that year.

“The World Bank and IMF are returning to Africa for the first time in decades with the same old failed message: cut your spending, sack public service workers, and pay your debts despite the huge human costs,” said Oxfam’s interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar. “The IMF is forcing poorer countries into a starvation diet of spending cuts, driving up inequality and suffering,” Behar added.

The post IMF Pushes World’s Poorest Countries Into “Starvation Diet” as Debt Burdens Spiral appeared first on Asia Commune.

For more than 75 years, Palestinians have suffered. Israel today epitomises an illegal occupation, illegal colonial practices and illegal apartheid practices. Under these conditions, international law gives the occupied people the right to resist that occupation.

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign thus recognises the operation today by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza as a legitimate expression of their right to resist. We support all efforts of oppressed people to liberate themselves from their oppressors in the same way we did in our liberation struggle.

Over the past seven decades, Israel has brutalised the Palestinian people, stealing Palestinian land, homes, and even culture. The medieval-like siege on Gaza has been in place for almost 20 years, the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have been ongoing and intensifying, including the constant incursions into Al Aqsa, harassment of Palestinian Christians, targeting Palestinian journalists and health workers, home invasions and demolitions in Jerusalem and denial of Palestinian rights within 48 territory.  

In this year alone, hundreds of Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli soldiers and settlers, including 40 Palestinian children, Palestinian homes destroyed, more settlements built, and more prisoners tortured.

In the Masafer Yatta villages over 1,000 Palestinians are under constant attack from occupation soldiers and illegal settlers, destroying their homes, schools, uprooting trees, stealing livestock, confiscating cars of teachers to stop them reaching schools, and arresting residents.  This has intensified since May this year as Israel attempts to ethnically cleanse the area, with Israeli courts affirming the area as an Israeli apartheid military firing zone.  Palestinian residents are conducting resistance simply by their refusal to leave, by rebuilding their homes in tents, schools constructed from the destroyed buildings and defying through their presence their forcible transfer, a crime under international law.

It is no surprise, then, that Palestinians will exercise their legitimate right to resist the occupation, colonisation and apartheid by whatever means. Today’s operation is an escalation of that resistance towards ending Israel’s repeated violations of international law.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign calls out the hypocrisy of the EU and the US who condemn Palestinian resistance against occupation, yet supply Ukraine with weapons and support. These governments – as many of them did during our liberation when they supported the apartheid regime – now enable apartheid Israel to commit the crime against humanity of apartheid with impunity, violating numerous humanitarian and international laws.  We further condemn normalisation with apartheid Israel by despotic Arab and African regimes against their own people who support the resistance. The UN, despite apartheid Israel’s flagrant violation of most treaties, conventions and resolutions have failed to protect the Palestinian people.

The current extreme right wing and racist Israeli government pretends that it can provide security to Israeli citizens. Today’s operation proves that the Israeli apartheid system through its practices endangers the lives of Israelis too. We are saddened by all violence but Israeli Jews will not realise peace until they accept a future where they will live with Palestinians as citizens in a single, democratic Palestinian state, with Palestinians being compensated for seven decades of colonisation, occupation and apartheid. 

As night falls in Gaza – one of the most densely populated areas in the world and home to over 2 million people in 365 km2 – Israel has started bombing residential buildings.  In just a few hours, over 250 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 wounded.

The time is now to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and break all complicity with apartheid Israel.  Palestinians refuse to live on their knees and grovel for handouts. They demand solidarity. We demand the South African government lives up to its political and moral responsibility and takes a clear stand against apartheid Israel:

• End sports, cultural, academic and other links with apartheid Israel and corporations  complicit in Israeli apartheid.

• Declare the Israeli Ambassador in Pretoria persona non grata and sever diplomatic relations.

• Expedite the National Prosecuting Authority case to prosecute South Africans joining the Israeli occupation forces in total contravention of our Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

• Act within the UN to reinstate the Special Committee Against Apartheid towards international sanctions and institute an international protection force against apartheid Israel’s barbarism.

For more information please contact:

Ronnie Kasrils: 082 784 9236

Salim Vally: 082 802 5936

Arianna Lissoni: 078 003 3941

The post Heroic Palestinian Resistance Fights Israeli Apartheid Terror appeared first on Asia Commune.

This video describes the military situation in the Middle East on the 8th of October 2023

The post Israel Strikes Back. Palestinians Retreat to Gaza. Military Summary And Analysis For 2023.10.8 appeared first on Asia Commune.

By Daniel Campos- La Marx International

In the second half of March, world imperialism creaked. A wave of bankruptcies broke out in the first half of March beginning with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, a fall so severe that HSBC bought Silicon Valley Bank’s UK branch for $1. The crisis of Credit Suisse, one of the 10 largest corporations in the world based in Switzerland, which received a bailout of 54,000 million US$, which did not prevent the continuation of a crisis dynamic on the way to bankruptcy, broke out. Then the crisis in the United States of the First Republic Bank, of the Signature Bank , broke out , and the authorities announced that 186 banks were in danger. In Europe, the Credit Suisse crisisit pushed large Global Corporations like Germany’s Deutsche Bank, France’s Societe Generale, and Europe’s HSBC into crisis.

The dynamics of events opened the largest sequence of crises since the beginning of the world crisis of capitalism in the year 2000, even greater than the events of 2008, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, which threatened to bankrupt the Global Corporations that dominate the worldwide economy. If this trend had developed, it would have dragged down Wall Street, and all the world’s stock markets. This forced a coordinated intervention by imperialist governments and states to stop the spread of bankruptcies and stop the crisis.

The agreement of the Central Banks

To stop the crisis unleashed on March 19, 2023, a historic agreement was signed between the 6 main Central Banks of the world. The 6 most important Central Banks on a global scale that are the US Federal Reserve (Fed), the Bank of Canada (BofCa), the Bank of England (BofE), the Bank of Japan (BoJ), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) signed an agreement to put millions of dollars in the pockets of the owners of Global Corporations in order to stop the wave of bankruptcies. This agreement of the Central Banks entered into force on March 20, 2023 with the objective of “saving” Global Corporations, a kind of new round of “Rescue” that introduces the “novelty” that is going to be carried out on a “daily” basis, that is , from now on, day by day, and every day, millions of dollars are granted to Global Corporations.

The mechanism adopted for the implementation of this round of emergency “Bailouts” is through the execution of the mechanism that the capitalists call “swap lines” , that is, the implementation of a “window” that supplies money 24 hours a day to establish and conform a “money security mesh”, providing loans for all the world’s millionaires and their Global Corporations. Such is the severity of the crisis unleashed in March 2023 that the agreement was held as an emergency on a Sunday afternoon to prevent crack from exploding at the opening of the stock markets on Monday.

An emergency “Bailout” that does not solve anything

The agreement of the Central Banks allowed the capitalist governments to advance in the measures to stop the crisis. In the first place, with this agreement it was possible to carry out the rescue ofCredit Suisse, through the mechanism of a merger with the other major Swiss Global Corporation, the Union of Swiss Banks (UBS). The merger of UBS and Credit Suisse was an operation that involved US$3 billion injected by UBS, and US$100 billion from the Central Bank of Switzerland, money injected with the support of the other central banks. The masses of money immersed in the merger operation between UBS and Credit Suisse are obscene, money aimed at saving big businessmen who live in mansions, have luxury cars, yachts, and private islands, the bailout of 1% oligarchs who they dominate the world economy in a world where billions of people have nothing to eat.

the image shows the Central Banks agreement

That is to say, in one week of March, more than 5 important banks and one of the largest Global Corporations went bankrupt, with which the greatest sequence of crises occurred, since the beginning of the world crisis of capitalism in the year 2000 even higher than the events of 2008, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. And if the agreement of the 6 Central Banks had not been made, the Global Corporations that dominate the world economy would have gone bankrupt and in their fall it would have dragged Wall Street, and all the world’s stock markets, a whole process of bankruptcies that led to the return of the Bailouts.

For 15 years, capitalism has lived with an artificial respirator that is the Bailouts . The Bailouts are injections of money that the Central Banks make to the Global Corporations to avoid their bankruptcy, and in general they are economic operations that have been carried out with a periodicity that has varied between several years, or months. At most the urgency of the crises had caused them to occur on a weekly basis. But now the gravity of the crisis is of such magnitude that the agreement implies that the Bailouts will be carried out “every day” that is to say, loans for all the millionaires of the world and their Global Corporations that need dollars .

The crisis does not stop with the agreement of the Central Banks

The return of the bailouts did not solve the problem. At the end of April, a new collapse of First Republic Bank began, bringing the total loss to 95%, which began after the bank revealed that it had lost 100,000 million dollars in deposits as a result of the consequences of the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank last month. The bank’s shares fell 30% on Wednesday after halving in value the previous day as last month’s bailout operation, in which 11 big banks led by JPMorgan Chase dumped $30 billion, unraveled.

First Republic’s announcement of mass layoffs of between 20% and 25% of its workforce and selling assets did not prevent the collapse. From the $115 price that First Republic shares were worth, they dropped to $5.69, a brutal drop. The bank’s share listing had to be halted several times in the past two days due to the rapidity of the decline. Despite the desperate, extreme character of the actions of the Central Bank officials that the Heads of global capitalism were compelled to take to sustain capitalism at any cost, the crisis is latent and can reopen at any time.

The agreement of the Central Banks is a fraud and a scam against the peoples of the world

The Central Banks’ document praises the intervention of the Swiss authorities in favor of financial stability, by endorsing the takeover of Credit Suisse by its competitor UBS. “It has been a decisive action to restore order in market conditions and guarantee financial stability.” The US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, and the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, have also welcomed the backing given by the Swiss authorities to the purchase of Credit Suisse. “We welcome the announcements made today by the Swiss authorities in support of financial stability,” they said in a joint statement.

For her part, the Swiss Finance Minister, Karin Keller-Sutter, justified the rescue of Credit Suisse at a press conference based on its systemic nature and that its fall would undoubtedly have had “severe consequences” for global finance. “It is not a bailout, it is a commercial solution, the best solution” , he has defended. The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, celebrated on Sunday the “quick action” of the Swiss authorities to facilitate the acquisition of the Credit Suisse banking group , affirming that these decisions will allow “reestablishing orderly market conditions”.

But all those statements are lies. They lie to the people in the face, because this money will not guarantee any “financial stability”, this money will not go to any home of the millions who suffer from hunger, poverty, and misery in the world. It will go to the pockets of the oligarchs who dominate the world capitalist-imperialist economy, it will go to the pockets of the richest 1% as has always happened. We must repudiate with all our might the irrational immorality that the agreement of the Central Banks means, what we need is to invest those billions of dollars in work, salaries, health and education for millions of the world who need it.

The insurrections and revolutions that are sweeping the world will destroy the Central Bank Agreement and any other reactionary agreement to defend capitalism. We need to defeat these measures by uniting the struggles of the world, from the National Liberation struggle carried out by the people of Ukraine, through the struggle of the people of France, the strikes of the British, Italian, German workers, as well as the struggle of the people of Iran against the dictatorship of the Ayatollahs, etc. On the way to imposing the fight for Global Socialism we will put an end to the measures solely designed to defend the rich and millionaires of the world.

Republished From: https://www.revolucion.org.es/l/let-us-reject-the-agreement-of-the-central-banks-to-sustain-capitalism/

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