By Jim Lane

Check out this article on a holiday ignored in the USA but celebrated abroad.

http://peoplesworld.org/victory-day-celebrated-abroad#PageComment_15497

ORIGINAL FRENCH ARTICLE: Lire et relire Lénine, pour préparer l’avenir

by Jean Salem, philosopher, interviewed by Laurent Etre

Translated Friday 6 May 2011, by Hervé Fuyet and reviewed by Henry Crapo

Jean Salem, is professor of philosophy at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. Jean Salem is notably the author of “Lénine et la révolution”, published by Encre marine, 2006.
Jean Salem:

In the present major crisis of capitalism, even when one is tempted to pretend to ignore the rise of the extreme right and other symptoms of despair, we do discern a need for a political perspective – a need that is expressed here and there in the world in very different mobilizations. The works and actions of Lenin, a major thinker of the Revolution, will be instructive in this search. I can see in his works six theses which seem to have retained all their pertinence.

1. The Revolution, first of all, is a war.

Lenin compared politics to military art, and stressed the need to ensure the existence of organized, disciplined revolutionary parties : because a political party is not just a think-tank (French Socialist Party leaders: thank you for the show!).

2. For Lenin, as well as for Marx before him, a political revolution is also, and above all, a social revolution, that is to say a change of status for classes into which society is divided.

This means that it is always appropriate to question the true nature of the State, of the “Republic”. Thus, the crisis of autumn 2008 clearly demonstrated how, in the leading centers of capitalism, the State and public money could be used to serve the interests of banks and a handful of privileged people. The state, in other words, is most surely not “above classes”.

3. A revolution is a series of battles, and it is up to the vanguard party to provide, at each stage of the struggle, slogan and watchwords adapted to the situation and to its potential.

Because it is neither the mood attributed to the “people” nor the “opinion” allegedly measured by pollsters that are able to develop such slogans. When, at the climax of a succession of days of demonstrations, 3 million people are in the streets (which is what has happened in France at the beginning of 2009), there is a need to offer them a perspective other than yet another meeting between union leaders. Otherwise, the movement runs out of steam, and it discourages those who waited in vain for an indication of the precise nature of the objectives and the way to reach them …

4. The major problems of people’s lives are always settled by force, Lenin also emphasized.

“Force” does not necessarily mean, far from it, open violence or bloody repression against the other side! When millions of people decide to converge in one place, such as Tahrir Square in central Cairo, and indicate that nothing will force them to back up in the face of a hated power, it is already fully a matter of force. According to Lenin, it is crucial to dispel the illusions of parliamentary and electoral cretinism, leading, for example, to the situation we are in presently in France: a “Left” geared almost entirely toward electoral campaigns, from which the masses of citizens, rightly, expect .. almost nothing. 


5. Revolutionaries must not despise the struggle, contenting themselves with reforms.

Lenin was certainly aware that at certain times, a given reform can be a temporary concession, or a decoy, with the consent of the ruling class, better to put to sleep those who try to resist it. But he considers, nevertheless, that reform is most of the time a new leverage for the revolutionary struggle.

6. Politics, finally, since the dawn of the twentieth century, begins when and where there are millions, even tens of millions of people involved.

In formulating this sixth thesis, Lenin sensed that revolutionary situations will tend to develop increasingly in colonial or semi-colonial dominated countries. And indeed, since the Chinese Revolution of 1949 till the independences in the 1960s of the last century, History has largely confirmed the latter prediction.

In short, one should read Lenin,
especially after the flood generated by “the end of real socialism”. Let’s read and reread Lenin again and again, to better build the Future!

http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?article1761

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice.”

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870

By Houston Communist Party

The recent upsurge in interest in socialism and communism prompted us to write this article as a clarification of how we would envision a socialist society in the U.S A recent Rasmussen poll indicated that 11% of U.S. voters believe that communism is morally superior to capitalism. This means that in spite of the campaign of misinformation that has been ongoing since the early part of the 20th century, 34 million people in this country believe that communism is morally superior to capitalism.

This paper is largely based on how the classic works of Marxism-Leninism envision a socialist society. Of course, the classic works also maintain that socialism would be developed differently in various sovereign nations according to democratic struggles and the historical context of the various societies in which socialism develops.

Let us examine what these key terms mean for working people and how they might be worked out in a developing socialist society.

Private property

Many people in the U.S. do not know the meaning of socialism and have little understanding about it, although the label “socialist” is often bandied about these days. Most people misunderstand concepts like social-ownership simply because they do not know what Marx and Lenin meant when they talked about “Private Property.”

Private property, when referred to by communists, only refers to private ownership of industry or the means of production; the things you own personally are not private property in this sense. Marx and Lenin would just call them personal belongings. Socialist economic systems seek to end private property by making the means of production collectively owned and democratically operated by the workers; the state protects the workers’ ownership of the means of production. This means real democracy in the workplace.

In a socialist system, the state would not come and take your things; that’s nonsense! The mainstream media (e.g. Fox News) would have you believe that socialists and communists will take your fingernails and toenails. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lenin wrote that if people try to accumulate and hoard publicly-owned property for their own private gain, then they will have all their personal belongings confiscated and will be sent to prison. But he never says anything about personal belongings in any other sense. The only ideology on the left in which theorists advocate the abolition of all personal belongings are the ultra-left deviations such as anarchism and Maoism. So it is very important to be precise when speaking about private property.

It is important to remember that the capitalist system leads the way in confiscation of working people’s property. The bottom 60% of households in this country owns only 4% of the nation’s wealth. The top 1% owns 37% of all the capital and the top 10% owns 90% of all capital. So, it is important to consider who is seizing what.

Rights of the capitalists

The bourgeoisie (the current ultra-wealthy, ruling class in capitalist countries that own all of the means of production, but do none of the work) will have their rights curtailed. The word “freedom” in capitalist countries has generally been used to refer to the rights of the capitalist to oppress, and exploit the workers in order to maximize profits. Socialist countries who do not extend the freedom to capitalists to exploit workers are deemed to be “not free” by the capitalists and their cheerleaders, which historically has included hypocritical politicians and other community leaders such as right wing clergy, professors and teachers. Some union leaders have also fallen into this trap. Capitalists in a socialist society would be forced to follow the will of the people and maintain dignity and respect in the workplace and would accrue severe penalties for discriminatory, oppressive and exploitative workplace practices.

In a socialist system, the workers would become the ruling class and as such would be fully compensated for their labor which is the basis of all wealth. Profits for the capitalists would be severely curtailed and eventually phased out. When capitalists and their cheerleaders smear socialists by branding them “totalitarian, and undemocratic”, we have to ask with whose democratic rights are they concerned. The answer is obvious, they are concerned about the freedom of capitalists to steal from their workers and amass great fortunes based on the labor of people other than themselves.

Universal health care, socialism vs. reformism

Socialism is not defined by reforms. For example, universal health care is not a defining feature of socialism. Universal health care is one of the many goals of a developing socialist society and it would represent an incremental improvement in any system, capitalist or socialist, since it would make health care accessible to all peoples. However, some capitalist systems have achieved universal health care, but are not socialist economies.
A socialist society would provide health care based on need, not ability to pay. Lenin argued that it is necessary that health care delivery increase in socialist systems to meet the public demand for health services. Hospitals and clinics would be built and organized based on the concrete needs of the community rather than consideration of the “profit margin.”

What does socialism do?

What is the purpose of socialism? To raise the material (i.e. concrete) standard of living of the workers, end the exploitation of one person by another, end all forms of oppression, end racism and sexism, end patriarchy and white-supremacy, end the violence of imperialist warfare, and eventually reach the goal of communism, a society without the struggle between the classes.

How do you identify a socialist country? By asking a very simple question: who owns the means of production and who controls the state? If the answer is the workers, then it is a socialist country. If it is the bourgeoisie, it is a capitalist country (no matter how liberal or “social-democratic” it is). In socialist countries, commodity production for private profit ends; production is no longer designed for the sake of the market, but rather determined by the actual needs of the people.

How does socialism happen?

Socialism must go through many stages. Unfortunately, it is difficult to specify these stages. As Marx pointed out, these stages are necessarily relative to the individual societies that develop socialism. One of the important tasks of communists is to figure out what these stages are in their societies and to educate the workers accordingly. Important questions like “what stage of socialism are we in?” should have a definite answer based on the existing material conditions and historical developments of the community in which they develop.

In the first stages of socialism, the goal is to raise the material standard of living for the working people. That means raising wages and benefits for workers. Socialist societies would provide everyone an opportunity to get an education and this will be most important for the workers. The purpose of education in a capitalist society is to train workers both for manual and intellectual labor. In capitalist countries, worker’s exposure to and preparation for appreciation of the arts and cultures of the world is very limited. A socialist education would give workers the capacity to fully enjoy and appreciate literature, art and music and would prepare them to think critically and understand scientific concepts. In a socialist system, workers would be trained to develop their own art as an expression of their own consciousness of the environment in which they live.

What would communism look like?

As the stages of socialism progress, the workers will eventually attain a comfortable standard of living and will have received a thorough education. All workers will have access both to public libraries and their own books, all of the wisdom of the ages being available to them, just because they are human beings and thus deserve all of the fruits of humanity.

Only when the final goals of socialism are met and a communist society is established will people truly be free; for in capitalist countries, most of the things that people call freedoms are really false freedoms. The freedom to buy one commodity over another is not true freedom. The freedom to choose McDonald’s over Burger King is not freedom. Neither the workers of McDonald’s nor Burger King have any say so over how these corporations are run. The community does not participate in the decisions made about how these companies produce their food. The decisions are made based on the owner’s best guess as to what product will maximize their profits.

There is no such thing as “economic freedom” in a society based on class exploitation. Only in a communist society, where the working class is no longer prevented from living the good life based on their lack of money, will there truly be freedom for all.

Who can make this happen?

Only the working class can liberate itself and claim its historic role. Only the working class can break the chains of capitalism and pave the bright path to true freedom. This can only be done by organizing and unifying the working people of this nation and the world. When working people unite and fight for their rights, it will be possible for the working class to become the ruling class. This is what we are about. This is the side that communists have fought for historically. We want a truly egalitarian and democratic society by the workers, of the workers and for the workers.

Check out this video of the May day celebration in Cairo, Egypt

by L. Bryant

Anger doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel as a woman. My body, my choice. That’s something many women have heard before, and many men as well. What it means to me is that no one—no politician, not even my spouse—has the ability to make decisions for me when it comes to what I want done with or to my body, especially when it comes to abortion. I, as a woman, have to carry a baby to term for nine months—go through the morning sickness, the emotions, and the worry, the planning. I’m not trying to sound like a man-basher or hater here at all, but a man is not obligated to stay and help me take care of this unborn child, or to help me prepare. I’m stuck with it, whatever the outcome, whether it be married, unmarried with a boyfriend, or a single mother. What the Texas Legislature is proposing for an upcoming bill that will be signed into law by Rick Perry is not only repulsive, it’s taking away yet another right that women should all have: it is my choice whether or not to have an abortion, and no one ought to be able to tell me otherwise. What is the bill proposing, you ask? What three other states have enforced already: that a woman must have an ultrasound (forced) 24 hours before she has an abortion performed, and she must look at the fetus. I for one do not want anyone invading my space, telling me I have to look at something I have already decided to give up. It’s hard enough, making that decision. A quote from the Houston Chronicle article on the subject: “The doctor is also required to describe what the sonogram shows, to include the existence of legs, arms and internal organs.” You don’t have a choice, ladies. You must look, listen, and have to be embarrassed and shamed into either accepting your baby because it’s the “right” thing to do, or have people look down on you because THEY believe you are making the wrong decision. It isn’t about what is right in the Bible, or what the right wing believes. It is my body, and you can’t tell me what to do with it! Baby or not, if it grows in me, it is part of me. It is my decision to make, and no one but myself should be involved. Now, the bill does have a stipulation: women who are raped, victims of incest, or have fetuses with abnormalities are exempt. The question must be asked: for how long? How long before they are guilted into keeping instead of aborting?
Women, we need to rise up and defend ourselves! If we won’t, who else will? In the 1970’s the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was not passed as a law. Its purpose? To guarantee women the same rights as men under the law. If our own country won’t take us seriously, why should anyone else have to? If that had been passed 40 years ago, we might not be facing this problem today.

By James Thompson

HOUSTON – Our CPUSA Houston club attended the May Day march in honor of Tim O’Brien, a local labor activist and member of the CPUSA Houston club who died last week after a long battle with cancer.

The march to support immigrant’s rights attracted many local activists from a wide variety of progressive organizations to include TSEU, SEIU, FIEL, CRECEN, Houston Peace and Justice Center and many others. About 2000 marched and rallied to support immigrant rights and celebrate May Day.

Participants were from a diverse background to include African American, Latino, Anglo, Asian American and many others.

Speakers and participants demanded rights for immigrants as well as justice, dignity and respect in the workplace. Participants were lively and very vocal and enthusiastic in their participation. Chants included “No to deportation! Yes to education!” One woman carried a sign which read “Do I look illegal?”

There was a tribute to Tim O’Brien and a plaque of appreciation was presented to his family. Here are some words written in honor of Tim by one of our club members:

“I will always remember Tim as a brave, outstanding leader and fighter for the underprivileged working class. He didn’t hesitate to get right in the middle of many fights against large parasitic organizations and corporations feeding off the labor of working people here and around the world. He was an internationalist who understood that injustice against workers in other countries is used to oppress workers in this country. He fought tirelessly against sweat-shop labor and stood up for the voiceless. He joined several of us when we went to Austin with the AFL-CIO to fight for health care and was a powerful presence at countless rallies and protests.

He was also a marvelous historian and completed his Ph.D. in African American studies from the University of Houston. I attended his oral examination for his Ph.D. candidacy and was impressed by his writing and research abilities. His dissertation was on Lightnin’ Hopkins, a famed Houston musician. He completed his manuscript for publication of a biography of Lightnin’ Hopkins on March 24. Visit his website at http://lightninghopkins.org/

Many injustices were done to him and he fought against them fearlessly and prevailed in many cases. However, the injustices of our medical system and his difficulty in accessing healthcare clearly shortened his exemplary life. He should be remembered as a martyr of our broken health care system.

He was a family man and clearly loved his wife and child. He even brought his child to some rallies to teach her about democracy and the beauty of standing up to injustices committed against our brothers and sisters.

We extend our deepest condolences to Tim’s family and friends and mourn the passing of this beautiful, wonderful man who can be an example to all of us who champion worker’s rights and the interests of working people.”

At the presentation and throughout the march a sign proclaiming “Jobs with Justice” was displayed prominently. It was a sign made by Tim.

The sign was offered to his family, but his sister asked that we keep the sign and use it to promote progressive causes. She felt that would be the best way to honor Tim and carry out his vision. I assured her that we will do just that.

It should be remembered that May Day is a holiday celebrated throughout the world, but is largely ignored in this country. It is a holiday to commemorate the Haymarket uprising which eventually resulted in the establishment of the 40 hour work week. Two Texans, Albert and Lucy Parsons, were the leaders of that uprising. Albert Parson and other Haymarket martyrs were hanged in Chicago in 1887. Lucy Parsons lived until 1942 and was a member of the Communist Party USA during the last years of her life. 

PHill1917@comcast.net