By William Blum – Published March 11th, 2013
bblum6@aol.com

Hugo Chávez

I once wrote about Chilean president Salvador Allende:

Washington knows no heresy in the Third World but genuine independence. In the case of Salvador Allende independence came clothed in an especially provocative costume – a Marxist constitutionally elected who continued to honor the constitution. This would not do. It shook the very foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower is built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that “communists” can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population. There could be only one thing worse than a Marxist in power – an elected Marxist in power.

There was no one in the entire universe that those who own and run “United States, Inc.” wanted to see dead more than Hugo Chávez. He was worse than Allende. Worse than Fidel Castro. Worse than any world leader not in the American camp because he spoke out in the most forceful terms about US imperialism and its cruelty. Repeatedly. Constantly. Saying things that heads of state are not supposed to say. At the United Nations, on a shockingly personal level about George W. Bush. All over Latin America, as he organized the region into anti-US-Empire blocs.

Long-term readers of this report know that I’m not much of a knee-reflex conspiracy theorist. But when someone like Chávez dies at the young age of 58 I have to wonder about the circumstances. Unremitting cancer, intractable respiratory infections, massive heart attack, one after the other … It is well known that during the Cold War, the CIA worked diligently to develop substances that could kill without leaving a trace. I would like to see the Venezuelan government pursue every avenue of investigation in having an autopsy performed.

Back in December 2011, Chávez, already under treatment for cancer, wondered out loud: “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” The Venezuelan president was speaking one day after Argentina’s leftist president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This was after three other prominent leftist Latin America leaders had been diagnosed with cancer: Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff; Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo; and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“Evo take care of yourself. Correa, be careful. We just don’t know,” Chávez said, referring to Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, both leading leftists.

Chávez said he had received words of warning from Fidel Castro, himself the target of hundreds of failed and often bizarre CIA assassination plots. “Fidel always told me: ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what.” 1

When Vice President Nicolas Maduro suggested possible American involvement in Chávez’s death, the US State Department called the allegation absurd. 2

Several progressive US organizations have filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA, asking for “any information regarding or plans to poison or otherwise assassinate the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, who has just died.”

I personally believe that Hugo Chávez was murdered by the United States. If his illness and death were NOT induced, the CIA – which has attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders, many successfully 3 – was not doing its job.

When Fidel Castro became ill several years ago, the American mainstream media was unrelenting in its conjecture about whether the Cuban socialist system could survive his death. The same speculation exists now in regard to Venezuela. The Yankee mind can’t believe that large masses of people can turn away from capitalism when shown a good alternative. It could only be the result of a dictator manipulating the public; all resting on one man whose death would mark finis to the process.

It’s the end of the world … again

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recent convention in Washington produced the usual Doomsday talk concerning Iran’s imminent possession of nuclear weapons and with calls to bomb that country before they nuked Israel and/or the United States. So once again I have to remind everyone that these people – Israeli and American officials – are not really worried about an Iranian attack. Here are some of their many prior statements:

In 2007, in a closed discussion, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that in her opinion “Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel.” She “also criticized the exaggerated use that [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.” 4

2009: “A senior Israeli official in Washington”, reported the Washington Post (March 5), asserted that “Iran would be unlikely to use its missiles in an attack [against Israel] because of the certainty of retaliation.”

In 2010 the Sunday Times of London (January 10) reported that Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, war hero, pillar of the Israeli defense establishment, and former director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, “believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons.”

January 2012: US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a television audience: “Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability.” 5

Later that month we could read in the New York Times (January 15) that “three leading Israeli security experts – the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz – all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel.”

Then, a few days afterward, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio (January 18), had this exchange:

Question: Is it Israel’s judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: People ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now … in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case.

In an April 20, 2012 CNN interview Barak repeated this sentiment: “It’s true that probably [Iranian leader] Khamenei has not given orders to start building a [nuclear] weapon.” 6

And on several other occasions, Barak has stated: “Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel.” 7

Lastly, we have the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in a January 2012 report to Congress: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.” … There are “certain things [the Iranians] have not done” that would be necessary to build a warhead. 8

So why, then, do Israeli and American leaders, at most other times, maintain the Doomsday rhetoric? Partly for AIPAC to continue getting large donations. For Israel to get massive amounts of US aid. For Israeli leaders to win elections. To protect Israel’s treasured status as the Middle East’s sole nuclear power.

Listen to Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at America’s most prominent neo-con think tank, American Enterprise Institute:

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.” … And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem. 9

Osama bin Laden, Bradley Manning, & William Blum

Bradley Manning has the charge of “Aiding the enemy” hanging over his head. This could lead to a sentence of life in prison. As far as can be deduced, the government believes that the documents and videos that Manning gave to Wikileaks, which Wikileaks then widely distributed to international media, aided the enemy because it put US foreign policy in a very bad light.

Manning’s attorneys have asked the prosecution more than once for specific examples of how “the enemy” (whoever that may refer to in a world full of people bitterly angry at the United States because of any of many terrible acts carried out by the US government) has been “aided” by the Wikileaks disclosures. Just how has the enemy made use of the released material to harm the United States? The government has not provided any such examples, probably because what really bothers Washington officials is the embarrassment they have experienced before the world resulting from the documents and videos; which indeed are highly embarrassing even to genuine war criminals; filled with violations of international law, atrocities, multiple lies to everyone, revelations of gross hypocrisy, and much more.

So our splendid officials are considering putting Bradley Manning in prison forever simply because they’re embarrassed. Hard to find much fault with that.

But now the prosecutors have announced that a Navy Seal involved in the killing of Osama bin Laden is going to testify at the court martial that bin Laden possessed articles about the Wikileaks documents that Manning leaked. Well, there must be a hundred million other people in the world who have similar material on their computers. The question remains: What use did the enemy make of that?

The Iraqi government made use of the material, inducing them to refuse immunity to US troops for crimes committed in Iraq, such as the cold-blooded murders revealed by the Wilileaks videos; this in turn led the US to announce that it was ending its military engagement in Iraq. However, Manning was indicted in May 2010, well before the Iraqi decision to end the immunity.

In January, 2006 bin Laden, in an audio tape, declared: “If Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book ‘Rogue State’ [by William Blum], which states in its introduction … ” He then went on to quote the opening of a paragraph I wrote (which appears actually in the Foreword of the British edition only, that was later translated to Arabic), which in full reads:

“If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize – very publicly and very sincerely – to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. I would then announce that America’s global interventions – including the awful bombings – have come to an end. And I would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but – oddly enough – a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings and invasions. There would be more than enough money. Do you know what one year of the US military budget is equal to? One year. It’s equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born.

“That’s what I’d do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I’d be assassinated.”

Thus, Osama bin Laden was clearly making use of what I wrote, and the whole world heard it. And I was thus clearly “aiding the enemy”. But I was not prosecuted.

The United States would like to prove a direct use and benefit by “the enemy” of the material released by Wikileaks; but so far it appears that only possession might be proven. In my case the use, and presumed propaganda benefit, were demonstrated. The fact that I wrote the material, as opposed to “stealing” it, is irrelevant to the issue of aiding the enemy. I knew, or should have known, that my criticisms of US foreign policy could be used by the foes of those policies. Indeed, that’s why I write what I do. To provide ammunition to anti-war and other activists.

The Department of Justice and socialism
For many years when I’ve been asked to explain just what I mean by “socialism” I’ve usually replied simply: “Putting people before profits”. There are a thousand-and-one details that would have to be considered in a transformation from a capitalist society to a socialist society, but rather than going into all that it’s much simpler to leave it with just that motto, which expresses theessence of my socialist society. In any event, in that glorious future world things will evolve in ways that could not be wholly predicted. The structure could take any one of many forms, but the essence must remain the same if it’s going to be called socialist.

Thus was I both surprised and amused in reading a news article about the current trial in New Orleans which is attempting to determine, amongst other things, the extent of blame of various companies, particularly BP, involved in the 2010 historic accident which took the lives of 11 workers and dumped an estimated 172 million gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Justice Department attorney declared in his opening statement: “The evidence will show that BP put profits before people, profits before safety and profits before the environment.” 10

Well, imagine that. The Justice Department certainly captured the essence of corporate behavior. The attorney chose such words because he knew that the sentiments expressed would appeal to the average American sitting on a jury. The members of the jury would understand that BP had blatantly ignored and violated certain cherished ideals like people, safety and the environment. Prosecuting the corporation would sound fair and just to them.

Yet, when someone like me expresses such sentiments – and I have used the exact same words on occasion – I run the risk of being written off as an “extremist”, a “radical”, and other bad-for-you labels; not long ago it was “commie”.

The irony runs even deeper. If a corporation flagrantly ignores putting profits before everything else, stockholders can sue the executives.

This just in! The real reason the Pope resigned!
He’s losing his mind.

In January, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Pope Benedict XVI to receive his blessing. Afterward, Panetta said the pontiff told him, “Thank you for helping to keep the world safe.” 11

The precious art of assassinating legally

Obama hopeium addicts can soon be expected to call for support of the president’s increasing use of drones for assassination on the ground of their being good for the environment. My White House agent informs me that Obama is going to announce that all American drones will soon be composed 85% of recyclable material and will be solar-powered. And each drone missile will have the following painted on its side: “He was a bad guy. Just take our word for it!”

By Daniel Rosenberg

The writer Phillip Bonosky, a member of the Communist Party since 1938, died on Saturday (March 2, 2013) in Brooklyn, New York. He was 96. Known for his labor novels Burning Valley and The Magic Fern, Bonosky distinguished himself as one of the first U.S. journalists to visit socialist China and one of the few to interview Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. He also was one of the handful to witness the removal of the notorious Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the destabilization of Afghanistan prior to the rise of the Taliban.

He epitomized the labor and Communist activists from the 1930s. He also exemplified a certain type of writer of that period, one with roots in labor and union struggles. In his writing style, Bonosky assimilated several dimensions. Raised in the Catholic Church in Western Pennsylvania as the son of devout immigrants, he grasped the religious traditions helping to influence and shape the contours of labor movements. He honestly portrayed negative and positive influences therein. Knowledge of corporate domination of peoples’ lives in small industrial towns, and familiarity with how workers actually produced, energized his insights in print.

Bonosky came from the steel-producing town of Duquesne, Pennsylvania. An altar boy, he grew up hearing stories from the survivors of the famous 1892 strike in nearby Homestead, where his family attended church, and the labor walkout of 1919, a valiant attempt to organize steelworkers industry-wide (which was headed by future Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster, to whom Bonosky would draw close). Like his father and brothers, Bonosky worked in Duquesne and Pittsburgh mills. Before being blacklisted from employment due to his Communist Party affiliation, he belonged to Local 1256 of the United Steelworkers.

At his best in fiction-writing, his work covered the social and class ramifications of family life, high school basketball, homelessness, chronic illness, and communities. He could write with grace, but took all his subject matter personally. He wrote to enlighten, provoke, and inflame. In fiction and non-fiction, there was no secret as to where he stood. He counseled new and young writers to directly confront the challenges of writing: to work hard at it; to write regularly, if not daily; to get to the point; to avoid jargon; to acknowledge the pitfalls of “writer’s block,” but at least to get out a paragraph before surrendering to it.

He developed a love for writing at an early age. He was among the most frequent visitors to the Duquesne Public Library as a teenager. He was likely one of the most disciplined and prolific diarists who ever lived; he documented his life nearly everyday for 75 years, a legacy that fills two large file cabinets in his daughter’s attic.

Sustained by a literary acumen, Bonosky came to New York in the late 40s, convinced that he could make his most important contributions to the causes he espoused through writing. His first short stories appeared in noted magazines of the 1940s, such as Collier’s and Story Magazine. He produced his first books in 1953: the steel town novel Burning Valley (reissued by University of Illinois in 1997) and Brother Bill McKie, about an Auto Workers leader.

He held writing workshops at the Communist Party’s Jefferson School and in a Harlem workshop. He contributed to the literary journal Masses & Mainstream, along with screenwriter John Howard Lawson, novelist Meridel LeSeuer, singer-activist Paul Robeson, and historian Herbert Aptheker, in the 1950s. His long friendship with leftwing painter Alice Neel is detailed in Phoebe Hoban’s Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty and in Andrew Neel’s acclaimed documentary of the artist. His second novel, The Magic Fern, appeared in 1960, followed by Dragon Pink on Old White, about Chinese culture. The Magic Fern provided readers with a close-up portrait of Communists in the labor movement at the end of the Cold War. The blacklisted Bonosky was well familiar with anti-Communism as a labor organizer and FBI target (demonstrated in a host of newly released documents), and as the brother of Toni Nuss, stigmatized in the sensationalist press as the “Red Queen of Pittsburgh.”

In the Great Depression, Bonosky “rode the rails” looking for work and eventually landed in Washington, D.C., living in a warehouse for the homeless under the auspices of the Transient Bureau, where his social worker was Ann Terry White. White’s husband was Treasury Department official Harry Dexter White, later hounded to death by anti-Communists during the Cold War. Through assistance from the Whites, odd jobs, and a monthly payment of $20 from the National Youth Administration, Bonosky took some courses at Wilson Teachers College. He was hired by the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Writer’s Project help write the Guide to Washington D.C.

In his WPA years, Bonosky served as President of the Washington D.C. section of the Workers Alliance, chief advocate for the government to meet the needs of the unemployed in finding jobs, and acquiring housing, food, and health care. He led a delegation to meet with Eleanor Roosevelt in 1940, widely reported in the local press. A well-known activist in the city, he spoke at demonstrations and testified before Congress. During World War II, Bonosky became a fulltime organizer for the Communist Party in the Pittsburgh area, including in the steel town of McKeesport. He was part of the Party leadership in the Western Pennsylvania district. Bonosky belonged to the board of the journal Political Affairs for many years. Of late, he had lost his sight to macular degeneration. Until his death, he continued to apply his words and mind to the solution of profound human dilemmas, from exploitation to war to inequality. His wife Faith Bonosky and son Daniel Bonosky predeceased him. He is survived by his daughter Nora Bonosky and her husband Daniel Rosenberg; three grandchildren, Celina Rosenberg, Gabriel Rosenberg, and Alex Bonosky; and a great-grandson, Sebastian Bonosky. A memorial will be held later this Spring. Examples of his work may be found at www.phillipbonosky.com.

On the occasion of the annual International
Working Women’s Day, the Secretariat of the
WFTU wants to take the opportunity to once
more highlight an issue that seriously concerns
the contemporary working women and the
young couples, a social issue that reveals
in all its extent the rottenness of the policies
implemented in the capitalist world: The
violation of the rights of maternity protection
for the women of the working class. A right
that must be defended by both the female
and male workers in their struggle against
the exploitation of human by human though
the class-oriented trade union organizations.
Maternity protection is not only the legislation
referring to the pre and postnatal period of a woman.
For the WFTU, the issue of maternity protection
conserns the general system of healthcare, from
the early ages till the old age; the health and safety
conditions in the working places; the educational
system from the kindergarten until the university;
the prices of food supplies and daily essentials;
the quality and cost of housing; the high rate of
unemployment. It even has to do with the imperialist
wars, the catastrophe that they cause in households and families, the impact of the use of nuclear
weapons to people’s health causing teratogenesis.
The woman who is allocated from nature with a
special and increased role in the reproductive
process – motherhood – needs special care and
protection. This care and protection needs to be
supplied to all women for free and exclusively from
the state services in the Public Healthcare System.
There is a need for special care for women from
their early years of age until their old age, there
is a need for special arrangements for women in
the working place during their reproductive years.
In the contemporary society which is based
in the exploitation of men and women by the
capital, maternity and labour are in conflict.
The need of the working class to protect
its reproductive process and the well-being
of its descendants lead us directly to see
that capitalism cannot deliver; it is an
obstacle to all the contemporary needs of
the working people and the poor people.
One the on hand, capitalism pushed women
massively in the production using them as the
cheapest labour force, with less rights than
the men. During the latest decades, with the
struggle of the workers movement, women
managed to gain a type of “equality” in the
exploitation and they managed to have some
special rights such as the early retirement age.
Today, especially in a period of a deep capitalist
crisis, the living conditions of the vast majority
are getting worse. Women are either working
overtime or working part time or are unemployed in
big numbers. The “flexible” working conditions are
dominant opposed to stable work. Their working
hours are completely defined by the needs of the
capitalists according to their needs for profits.
The possibility of pregnancy and motherhood
prevents women from getting employment.
The dismissals, the flexible working hours and
the overtime, the night shifts… In general the
intensification and super-exploitation of women
increase the precariousness, the anxiety of women
affecting their physical or psychological health.
Their working conditions and the low wages,
the poverty, the uncertainty of the future, the
precariousness become basic criteria of a family in
its decision to postpone maternity. These are main
reasons why abortions rise in many countries. We
need to fight for every woman and each couple to be
able to choose freely their own future and we need
to fight that there will be a free and public healthcare
system able to support their decision. But we need
also, to fight hard and confront the real social
reasons that lead a woman/couple to abortion.
In the workplaces, the scientific and technological
achievements for the health and safety are not
implemented because of their extra cost creating
serious risk factors in the work places. From lifting
weight to inhaling bacteria and fungus, many of those
factors create problems in conceiving, miscarriages,
problems in the baby’s normal development.
The scientific achievements in this area, in helping women conceive, are not provided as a social
service but as a way for capitalists owning hospitals
and healthcare facilities to make profits. The
public health care facilities around the world are
undermined and function with private-economic
criteria. The admitted persons have to pay for the
services that are being provided to them. Many
times these services are much less than expected.
But even after the natal, the family has to
undertake a series of everyday activities that have
to do with the reproduction of the labour force. The
house of a poor family is at the same time a small
restaurant, a laundry, a kinder-garden, an old-age
home and so much more. These are all activities
that usually women are undertaking in their
free time, working for free for the whole society.
In most countries not even the ILO Conventions
that define that maternity leave should be 14
weeks after and at no less than one week before
the natal are respected. ILO Conventions also
state that women should be entitled to the twothirds of the previous earnings for these 14 weeks.
“Out of the 167 countries, 97 per cent provide cash benefits
for women during maternity leave and 42 per cent provide
at least two-thirds of previous earnings for 14 weeks. What
is more important is how countries finance cash benefits
during maternity leave. We noticed a shift away from the
systems relying entirely on employer responsibility. By 2009,
half of the countries financed benefits solely through their
social security systems or public funds in order to relieve
employers. A share of 17 per cent relied on a mix of payments
by employers and social security, while in one-fourth (26
per cent) of the countries payment is still covered entirely
by the employer with no public or social security support.
We found out that paternity leave provisions are becoming
increasingly common around the world, with at least 49
countries providing paternity or parental leave policies
that fathers can use around the birth of their child.
In some countries, women in agriculture, domestic
work or part-time work are still explicitly excluded
from legal coverage and cash maternity benefits.
In at least 54 countries, domestic workers are covered
by maternity leave legislation, including Guatemala,
which has recently extended social security services to
these workers, such as maternal and infant health care.”
Our maternity protection demands have to
refer to all these fields of the life of the society.
• Adequate pre and post-natal paid maternity
leave. Banning of the dismissals of pregnant
women. Parental leave with full healthcare and
insurance. Banning of night-shifts and hazardous
work for the women before and after giving birth.
• Decisive confronting of the unemployment rates
through a development path that make use of
the natural wealth-producing resources, the land
and the industries to satisfy the needs of the
peoples and not the profiting of the monopolies.
• Free, public and qualitative Healthcare System
that will take care of all the people of all the ages
in any of their needs; vaccinations, regular HIV
tests, proper medication for all the occasions.
• Free, public and qualitative Education
System from the kindergarten to the university.
An educational process that would make
sure that people receive general knowledge
and specialized education, to grow up and
become an integrated personality utilizing fully
its capabilities for the benefit of the society.
• Full-time, Stable job with dignified salaries.
7hours a day, 5 days a week, 35 hours a week.
• Real and sufficient house subsidy or loans
without interest for the young couples.
• A network of real free, public and qualitative
services that will assist the family, the child, the
elderly, the people with special needs, in order for
the life of the woman to be improved. Free, public
and qualitative kindergartens, old-homes, vacationfacilities, restaurants at the working places.
The right to maternity protection for the women
of the working class is not only a matter of
struggle of the working women but the entire
working class. Men and women workers must
jointly struggle against inequality, gender
discrimination and maternity protection.
THE SECRETARIATWORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS
MARCH 2013
40, Zan Moreas str, 117 45 Athens, GREECE
Tel: +30210 9214417, +30210 9236700, Fax: +30210 9214517
E-mails: info@wftucentral.org, international@wftucentral.org
Website: www.wftucentral.org

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela, PCMLV, expresses its grief and solidarity at the physical loss of Commandante President Hugo Chavez Frias to all the workers, peasants, students, women’s organizations, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, socialist and Bolivarian parties and organizations of the masses.

We also express our condolences to all his family, friends and to the national government for the loss of a great humanist, a patriotic, progressive and consistent revolutionary statesman, as President Hugo Chavez proved to be until the last days of his existence.

We call on the working class, which knows how to rise to the challenge in the revolutionary struggle in the most pressing moments of history, to prepare to resist and defeat the reactionaries who will not hesitate to take advantage of this difficult time to thwart through violent means the gains and demands that we have achieved under the leadership of President Chavez. Imperialism will set stronger traps at this sorrowful moment that the national revolutionary movement is going through.

The call is to not renounce the struggle to build socialism, the banner that President Hugo Chavez raised in all circumstances; this banner needs to be taken up rigorously and courageously by all the workers of this nation in this difficult moment in history. We, as Party of the working class in Venezuela, make the call for the struggle and building of socialism and communism from the scientific conception of Marxism-Leninism.

The acts of sabotage, of hired killers, the terrorism, food shortages, the propaganda of disinformation, anxiety and manipulation will intensify. The national and international reactionaries feel victorious at this time, but the national and world working class will go forward with the necessary and strategic battles to continue the path of victory and the accumulation of forces to confront the fascists and imperialists.

The death of the President of the Republic must not mean the decline in popular organization, but rather it must serve as an impetus for future struggles against the class enemy. We must not believe in the phony condolences local right wing, which on dozens of occasions tried to assassinate the commandante. These sectors are moved by a single impulse: profit at any cost whatever.

The right wing is evaluating what actions to take in the coming days. It is no coincidence that the Venezuelan government expelled two U.S. military attaches for conspiratorial work.

We strongly call on all the revolutionary elements to close ranks against the capitalist and imperialist enemy. The working class must be prepared for a possible difficult situation; it must not trust the bourgeois enemy that has historically proven to be traitorous. If the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie tries to take advantage of this hard time of grief of the humble and exploited masses, the masses should respond forcefully and applying revolutionary violence.

Socialism can only be built with the worker-peasant alliance in Power and the people in arms!

PCMLV

Caracas, March 5, 2013.

Written by Government of Cuba
Statement of the Revolutionary Government:

It was with profound and searing grief that our people and the Revolutionary Government learned about the decease of President Hugo Chávez Frías and are therefore preparing to pay a heartfelt and patriotic tribute to him, for he will go down in history as a Hero of Our America. We convey our sincere condolences to his parents, brothers, daughters and son as well as all of his relatives, whom we feel are already ours, for Chávez is also a son of Cuba, Latin America, the Caribbean and the whole world.

In this moment of profound sorrow, we share our deepest feelings of solidarity with the brother people of Venezuela, whom we will continue to accompany under any circumstances.

The Bolivarian Revolution will be able to count on our resolute and unrestricted support at these difficult moments.

We reiterate our support, encouragement and confidence in victory to our comrades of the Bolivarian political and military leadership and the Venezuelan Government.

President Chávez has been waging an extraordinary battle throughout his young and fruitful life. We will always remember him as a patriotic military to the service of Venezuela and the Bigger Homeland; as an honest, clear-sighted, audacious and courageous revolutionary fighter; as a leader and supreme commander in whom Bolivar reincarnated in order to conclude what he had left unfinished; as the founder of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America and the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States.

His heroic and indefatigable struggle against death is an insuperable example of firmness. The admirable commitment shown by his doctors and nurses have been a feat of humanism and dedication.

The return of the President to his beloved Venezuelan homeland changed the course of history. “We have a homeland,” he exclaimed, filled with emotion, on December 8 last, and he returned to his homeland to confront the biggest risks imposed by his disease. Nothing and no one could ever take away from the Venezuelan people the homeland that they have recovered.

The work of Chávez emerges undefeated before our eyes. The achievements attained by the revolutionary people who saved him from the coup orchestrated on April of 2002, who have followed him without hesitations, are already irreversible.

The Cuban people considers him to be one of its most outstanding sons and has admired, followed and loved him as if he were its own. Chávez is also Cuban! He also suffered our difficulties and problems and did everything he could, with extraordinary generosity, especially during the harshest years of the Special Period. He accompanied Fidel as a true son and forged a very close friendship with Raúl.

He excelled in all the international battles against imperialism, always in defense of the poor, the workers and our peoples. Filled with passion, persuasively, eloquently, ingeniously and excitedly he spoke from the roots of the peoples; he sang our joys and recited our passionate verses with ever-lasting heroism.

The tens of thousands of Cubans who work in Venezuela will pay tribute to him through the fervent accomplishment of the international duty and will continue to accompany, with honor and altruism, the heroic deeds of the Bolivarian people.

Cuba will remain forever loyal to the memory and the legacy of Commander President Chávez and will continue to pursue his ideals in favor of the unity of the revolutionary, integration and independence forces of Our America.

His example will guide us in our future battles.

Ever Onwards to Victory!

March 5, 2013
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations
www.cubadiplomatica.cu/onu

By Mark Solomon

Read the full article at:

http://portside.org/2013-03-06/whither-socialist-left-thinking-%E2%80%9Cunthinkable%E2%80%9D

This is a quote from the article:

There are socialist organizations already airing divergent views within their ranks – reflecting positions that overlap with other socialist organizations committed to democratic struggle and socialist education. The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, the Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization have been meeting to explore areas for cooperation in advancing the fight to defend the needs and interests of all working people. With involvement of their members, and with all who honestly wish a unity project to succeed, those organizations could constitute a starting point for other left and socialist groups and individuals to join as equal participants in building an imaginative, revitalized socialist presence.

Looter’s feast

The pillage of the USSR

In 1987 the external debt of the U.S. rose to $246 billion. On the 19 of October 1987, Wall Street crashed! Only a miracle could save the U.S. in dire straits. And the miracle took place, and its saviour was Gorbachev.

Gorbachev, saved the U.S. economy, by ruining that of the USSR.

Would you like to know how?

In January 1987 the restrictions on foreign trade were repealed. These restrictions protected the domestic market of the USSR from collapse. Without them the domestic market of the USSR – with its ridiculously low prices for food and essential consumer goods, in comparison with the foreign markets – could not maintain itself for a single day.

And all of a sudden, companies and individuals were authorised to export overseas foodstuffs, raw materials, electronics equipment, energy, chemical products, just about … everything!

It was as if a powerful hurricane had swept over the vast territory of the USSR. In a moment it sucked outside the country all products of value. Groceries and manufactured objects disappeared from store shelves.

The pillage of the gold reserves

On 21 July 1989 new customs regulations repealed all restrictions on the export of gold and precious stones.

The work of the Soviet customs for the last 70 years was instantly wiped out.

Gold, in quantities up to then unheard of, was thrown onto the internal market, to be bought at an internal price, and then exported overseas.

At the time the newspaper “The Moscow Komsomol” described the jewellery trade thus: “A glittering picture of unrestrained speculation, the sales quota of the State Treasury (Gokhran) for jewellery was allocated over and over … The counters were under assault, the State Treasury was bombed with mail requesting new supplies of gold and precious stones … “.

The newspaper “Izvestia” requested that as a control measure against queues for gold and diamonds: “Be put on the market a formidable quantity of gold such as the State’s gold reserves.”

The newspaper “Soviet culture” called outright for the removal customs barriers for the export of gold.

After some time G. Yavlinsky (responsible for the economy in the government at the time) alarmed the press with a statement about the disappearance of the gold reserves. But it all calmed down rather quickly.

It got worse and worse

That same year individuals exported 500,000 colour televisions and 200,000 washing machines. In 1988 just one single family exported: 392 refrigerators, 72 washing machines, 142 air-conditioning machines… The personnel of one of the thousands of foreign organisations exported: 1,400 irons, 174 fans, 3,500 pieces of soap and 242 kg of washing powder, products that were specifically bought by the State – at the insistence of MPS – with foreign currency supposedly for the use of Soviet citizens.

These data appeared inadvertently in the press at the time. In 1989 alone, at just one of the many customs controls points, individuals exported more than 2 million tons of products that were in short supply in the USSR.

The entire production of the Krasnoyarsk cotton combine was exported. At the time a good bed-sheet cost 5 roubles, a double sheet 8 roubles. The exports of cloth tripled, those of cotton nearly quadrupled, while those of linen multiplied by 7.

These are figures about State exports alone. Private exports surpassed those of the government. Moreover, determining the exact figures of exports was impossible. The same newspaper “Izvestia” wrote at the time: “Our State is one of the few in the world that does not compile customs statistics.”

What is the Balcerowicz miracle about which so many media talk about?

American experts have suggested to Balcerowicz (the organiser and inspirer ideological economic reforms in Poland) to reduce production and normal trade and instead encourage unreservedly small business dealings from hand to hand.

That is to say debase the labouring population and transform it into a “nation of hucksters.” All these downgraded individuals, by the million, flocked into the USSR like grasshoppers and began to export everything they could lay their hands on, from imported furniture to toothpaste, and by the ton.

In the Congress of Deputies there was a terrible scandal and shouting about the lack of toothpaste for the Soviet population. It never occurred to the Representatives of the people to question themselves as to the causes that brought about that glaring penury of toothpaste. They simply decided to buy abroad $60 million worth of toothpaste.

Who got rich with these $60 million?

In France, from where it was imported, the toothpaste tube cost 15 Francs, while in the USSR it sold for a rouble. Of course, in no time, the toothpaste found once again its way abroad. It was sent to Poland in packs of 500 tubes (the original package of the French factory) and again without any restrictions.

It was transported in car boots, entire train compartments, or containers on decks of boats. Just like ants who only leave the skeleton of the body of a dead lion, the “Balcerowicz piranhas” took everything and left the Soviet people with empty store shelves. There was not an article of consumption, from foodstuffs to household appliances that was not exported.

We were left to wonder about how these goods had disappeared, because industry over the years continued to produce at full capacity.

“The Leningrad Pravda» 1992

“In the USSR until 1990-1991, we produced 38 meters of cloth per capita. This represented 75% of the world production of linen cloth, 16% of wool and 13% silk. According to official State figures, only 50% of linen products and 42% of wool products were exported.”

But these figures did not take into account exports by private individuals. Because, like locusts, they exported everything they could buy.

The USSR produced 21.4% of the world production of butter (the Soviet population was 4.88% of the world population). Butter production continued to increase, but because of exports, rationing tickets had to be introduced. In the Soviet Union the production of butter per capita was 26% more than that in Great Britain. This being so, there was no butter in Soviet stores but one could buy it in Britain without any problem. Strange, is it not?

Official statistics regarded as consumed in the USSR all the butter and the meat that were sent to storage warehouses that supplied the grocery stores. For the purchase of butter and meat, passports were not required, consequently products purchased in the USSR, yet exported beyond its borders, were considered as contributing to the well-being of the Soviet people. In fact tons of meat and butter, bypassed the retail stores, and went directly to warehouses abroad by sea in containers, by land (road and rail) and by air.

All the while statistics demonstrated that the insatiable Soviet people had devoured it all.

In the late-80s and early 90s, everything had disappeared. Socks and refrigerators, televisions and plates, sheets and washing machines! The flying grasshopper had devoured it all, the sausages and the fish, the semolina and the sugar. Aluminium pots, soup-bowls and spoons were exported as cheap very valuable material that had gone through the stages that require a lot of energy and polluting treatment. The wood boring insects and exporters eroded the once powerful ship that was the Soviet economy and reduced to dust.

In 1991 it collapsed.

Tatiana Yakovleva 6-07-2012

(French translation YB)

http://south-worker.com/?p=556