http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OPvWFDzDlA

In 1944, to honor the Allied victory in Italy, the great Arturo Toscanini–a refugee from Fascism in his home country–decided to conduct a performance of Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations”. “Hymn” is a composition that Verdi orginaly built around the national anthems of Britain, France, and Italy. In order to honor all four of the major Allies, Toscanini decided to add “The Star Spangled Banner” for the U.S. and “The Internationale” for the Soviet Union. The music was performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, with the Westminister Choir and the great tenor Jan Peerce as soloist; conducted by Toscanini. It was filmed as a featurette to be shown in movie theaters, and was narrated by Burgess Meredith.

In the early 50’s, at the height of the Red Scare, U.S. censors removed the portion of this performance that featured the “Internationale”.

For years this sequence in the original featurette was considered forever lost. But recently it was rediscovered in Alaska and now this rousing rendition of the Internationale–together with chorale and orchestra under the direction of a legendary conductor–can now be enjoyed again.

As you listen to this song, remember that there have been times and places when singing this song could get you immediately arrested and or killed or “dissappeared”. Germany under the Nazis, the U.S. in the 1950’s, Chile in September 1973…people suffered and died over this song. Let us remember those who have suffered for Socialism and carry with us the knowledge in our hearts that the great truths of Socialism shall triumph someday.

By Raskonikov Radek

AUSTIN – Today I went to the march in Austin to support public education. Though it is not certain how many people there were, estimates have it that about 11,000 people showed up. There were many different progressive organizations there, as well as teacher’s unions. There was a very large number of ultra-Leftists who were entirely isolated from the people. They had red flags and signs that said “join the socialists”, and were trying to dominate the march. Most of the teachers unions and other progressive groups were trying to avoid the ultra-Leftists; I heard one say “I am trying to create a buffer between the socialists and us”.

The strategy of the ultra-Left is extremely harmful to the movement for working class unity. By isolating themselves from the working class, the ultra-Leftists obstruct the revolutionary process. A comrade from the Houston Communist Party was there, with a very modest sign, which said “stop the budget cuts! stop the attacks on working people! put people before profits!”; many of the working people at the demonstration said how much they liked his sign and did not show any animosity towards him.

The ultra-Left was largely looked down upon and ignored; the only people that gave them any attention were the Tea Party thugs, with whom they tried to argue. It is crucial today that communists do not separate themselves from the working class like ultra-Left groups. The working class today largely supports the Democrats; it is only by working on their level of political consciousness that communists will actually reach them. As long as one is guided by the end goal of Socialism and revolution, one does not become a revisionist if one puts down the red flag and instead carries a sign with a less radical slogan.

The role of communists today should be to ally themselves with the organizers of these kinds of demonstrations and try to steer the demonstration in a more progressive way without isolating themselves from the masses. As long as they try to tie each of their actions to the working class and to the larger movement of socialist revolution, there is nothing reformist about it. The ultra-left, who refuses to work with other less radical organizations, will show up at these demonstrations, fully exposing themselves and trying to organize the demonstrations outside of the demonstration itself. This will fail, as most people have no understanding of socialism and generally have inherited many negative bourgeois prejudices against socialism. Thus, only if one works within the organizations that organize these events can one assist our class assume the role of the ruling class.

Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East

Appendix to the report of the Fourth Session
John Reed’s speech:

I represent here the revolutionary workers of one of the great imperialist powers, the United States of America, which exploits and oppresses the peoples of the colonies.

You, the peoples of the East, the peoples of Asia, have not yet experienced for yourselves the rule of America. You know and hate the British, French and Italian imperialists, and probably you think that ‘free America’ will govern better, will liberate the peoples of the colonies, will feed and defend them.

No. The workers and peasants of the Philippines, the peoples of Central America and the islands of the Caribbean, they know what it means to live under the rule of ‘free America’.

Take, for example, the peoples of the Philippines. In 1898 the Filipinos rebelled against the cruel colonial government of Spain, and the Americans helped them. But after the Spaniards had been driven out the Americans did not want to go away.

Then the Filipinos rose against the Americans, and this time the ‘liberators’ started to kill them, their wives and children: they tortured them and eventually conquered them. They seized their land and forced them to work and make profits for American capitalists.

The Americans have promised the Filipinos independence. Soon an independent Filipino republic will be proclaimed. But this does not mean that the American capitalists will leave or that the Filipinos will not continue to work to make profits for them. The American capitalists have given the Filipino leaders a share of their profits — they have given them government jobs, land and money — they have created a Filipino capitalist class which also lives on the profits created by the workers — and in whose interest it is to keep the Filipinos in slavery.

This has also happened in Cuba, which was freed from Spanish rule with the help of the Americans. It is now an independent Republic. But American millionaire trusts own all the sugar plantations, apart from some small tracts which they have let the Cuban capitalists have: the latter also administer the country. And the moment that the workers of Cuba try to elect a government which is not in the interests of the American capitalists, the United States of America sends soldiers into Cuba to compel the people to vote for their oppressors.

Or let us take the example of the republics of Haiti and San Domingo, where the peoples won freedom a century ago. Since this island was fertile and the people living on it could be put to use by the American capitalists, the government of the US sent soldiers and sailors there on the pretext of maintaining order and smashed these two republics, setting up in their place a military dictatorship worse than the British tyrants.

Mexico is another rich country which is close to the USA. In Mexico live a backward people who were enslaved for centuries, first by the Spaniards and then by foreign capitalists. There, after many years of civil war, the people formed their own government, not a proletarian government but a democratic one, which wanted to keep the wealth of Mexico for the Mexicans and tax the foreign capitalists. The American capitalists did not concern themselves with sending bread to the hungry Mexicans. No, they initiated a counter-revolution in Mexico, in which Madero, the first revolutionary President, was killed. Then, after a three-year struggle, the revolutionary regime was restored, with Carran a as President. The American capitalists made another counter-revolution and killed Carranza, establishing once more a government friendly to themselves.

In North America itself there are ten million Negroes who possess neither political or civil rights, despite the fact that by law they are equal citizens. With the purpose of distracting the attention of the American workers from the capitalists, their exploiters, the latter stir up hatred against the Negroes, provoking war between the white and black races. The Negroes, whom they lawlessly burn alive, are beginning to see that their only hope lies in armed resistance to the white bandits.

At the present time the American capitalists are addressing friendly words to the peoples of the East, with a promise of aid and food. This applies especially to Armenia. Millions of dollars have been collected by the American millionaires in order to send bread to the starving Armenians. And many Armenians are now looking for help to Uncle Sam.

These same American capitalists incite the American workers and farmers against each other: they starve and exploit the peoples of Cuba and the Philippines, they savagely kill and burn alive American Negroes, and in America itself American workers are obliged to work under frightful conditions, receiving low wages for a long work-day. When they are exhausted they are thrown out on to the street, where they die of hunger.

The same gentleman who is now in charge of bringing aid to the starving Armenians, Mr. Cleveland Dodge who writes emotional articles about how the Turks have driven the Armenians into the desert, is the owner of big copper mines where thousands of American workers are exploited, and when these workers dared to go on strike the guards protecting Mr. Dodge’s mines drove them at the point of the bayonet out into the desert — just as was done to the Armenians.

Many Armenians are grateful to America for its attitude to the Armenians who suffered from the brutality of the Turks during the war. But what has America done for the Armenians apart from issuing wordy declarations? Nothing. I was in Constantinople at that time, in 1915, and I know that the missionaries refused to make any serious protest against the atrocities, saying that they had a lot of property in Turkey and so did not want to bring pressure to bear on the Turks. The American ambassador, Mr. Strauss, himself a millionaire who exploited thousands of workers in his enterprises in America, proposed that the entire Armenian people be shipped to America, and himself donated quite a large sum for this project to be carried out; but his plan was to make the Armenians work in American factories and provide cheap labour so as to increase the profits of Mr. Strauss and his friends.

But why do the American capitalists promise aid and food to Armenia? Is it out of pure philanthropy? If so, let them feed the peoples of Central America and help the Negroes of America itself.

No. The main reason is that there is mineral wealth in Armenia, and that it is a big reservoir of cheap labour which can be exploited by American capitalists.

The American capitalists want to win the confidence of the Armenians with a view to getting their claws into Armenia and enslaving the Armenian nation. It is with this aim that American missionaries have established schools in the Near East.

But there is also another very important reason: the American capitalists, together with the other capitalist nations, united in the League of Nations, are afraid that the workers and peasants of Armenia will follow the example of Soviet Russia and Soviet Azerbaidzhan, will take power and their country’s resources into their own hands, and will work for themselves, making a united front with the workers and peasants of the whole world against world imperialism. The American capitalists are afraid of a revolution in the East.

Promising food to starving peoples and at the same time organising a blockade of the Soviet Republics — that is the policy of the United States. The blockade of Soviet Russia has starved to death thousands of Russian women and children. This same method of blockade was applied in order to turn the Hungarian people against their Soviet Government. The same tactic is now being used in order to draw the people of White Hungary into war against Soviet Russia. This method is also being used in the small countries bordering on Russia-Finland, Estonia, Latvia. But now all these small countries have been obliged to make peace with Soviet Russia: they are bankrupt and starving. Now the American Government no longer offers them food; they are no longer of any use to America, and so their peoples can starve.

The American capitalists promise bread to Armenia. This is an old trick. They promise bread but they never give it. Did Hungary get bread after the fall of the Soviet Government? No. The Hungarian people are still starving today. Did the Baltic countries get bread? No. At a time when the starving Estonians had nothing but potatoes, the American capitalists sent them ships laden with rotten potatoes which could not be sold at a profit in America. No, comrades, Uncle Sam is not one ever to give anybody something for nothing. He comes along with a sack stuffed with straw in one hand and a whip in the other. Whoever takes Uncle Sam’s promises at their face value will find himself obliged to pay for them with blood and sweat. The American workers are demanding an ever larger share of the product of their labour; with a view to preventing revolution at home, the American capitalists are forced to seek out colonial peoples to exploit, peoples who will furnish sufficient profit to keep the American workers in obedience and so make them participants in the exploitation of the Armenians. I represent thousands of revolutionary American workers who know this, and who understand that, acting together with the Armenian workers and peasants, with the toiling masses of the whole world, they will overthrow capitalism. World capitalism will be destroyed, and all the peoples will be free. We appreciate the need for solidarity between all the oppressed and toiling peoples, for unity of the revolutionary workers of all the countries of Europe and America under the leadership of the Russian Bolsheviks, in the Communist International. And we say to you, peoples of the East: Do not believe the promises of the American capitalists!

There is only one road to freedom. Unite with the Russian workers and peasants who have overthrown their capitalists and whose Red Army has beaten the foreign imperialists! Follow the red star of the Communist International!

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL

Havana. March 2, 2011

Cuba categorically rejects any attempt whatsoever to take advantage of the tragic situation created in order to occupy Libya and control its oil

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/news-i/2marzo-Cuba%20categorically.html

• Statement by Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs to the UN Human Rights Council, Geneva, March 1, 2011

Mr. President:

Humanity’s conscience is repulsed by the deaths of innocent people under any circumstances, anyplace. Cuba fully shares the worldwide concern for the loss of civilian lives in Libya and hopes that its people are able to reach a peaceful and sovereign solution to the civil war occurring there, with no foreign interference, and can guarantee the integrity of that nation.

Most certainly the Libyan people oppose any foreign military intervention, which would delay an agreement even further and cause thousands of deaths, displacement and enormous injury to the population.

Cuba categorically rejects any attempt whatsoever to take advantage of the tragic situation created in order to occupy Libya and control its oil.

It is noteworthy that the voracity for oil, not peace or the protection of Libyan lives, is the motivation inciting the political forces, primarily conservative, which today, in the United States and some European countries, are calling for a NATO military intervention in Libyan territory. Nor does it appear that objectivity, accuracy or a commitment to the truth are prevailing in part of the press, reports being used by media giants to fan the flames.

Given the magnitude of what is taking place in Libya and the Arab world, in the context of a global economic crisis, responsibility and a long-term vision should prevail on the part of governments in the developed countries. Although the goodwill of some could be exploited, it is clear that a military intervention would lead to a war with serious consequences for human lives, especially the millions of poor who comprise four fifths of humanity.

Despite the paucity of some facts and information, the reality is that the origins of the situation in North Africa and the Middle East are to be found within the crisis of the rapacious policy imposed by the United States and its NATO allies in the region. The price of food has tripled, water is scarce, the desert is growing, poverty is on the rise and with it, repugnant social inequality and exclusion in the distribution of the opulent wealth garnered from oil in the region.

The fundamental human right is the right to life, which is not worth living without human dignity.

The way in which the right to life is being violated should arouse concern. According to various sources, more than 111 million people have perished in armed conflicts during modern wars. It cannot be forgotten in this room that, if in World War I civilian deaths amounted to 5% of total casualties, in the subsequent wars of conquest after 1990, basically in Iraq, with more than one million, and Afghanistan with more than 70,000, the deaths of innocents stand at 90%. The proportion of children in these figures is horrific and unprecedented.

The concept of “collateral damage,” an offense to human nature, has been accepted in the military doctrine of NATO and the very powerful nations.

In the last decade, humanitarian international law has been trampled, as is occurring on the U.S. Guantánamo Naval Base, which usurps Cuban territory.

As a consequence of those wars, global refugee figures have increased by 34%, to more than 26 million people.

Military spending increased by 49% in the decade, to reach $1.5 trillion, more than half of that figure in the United States alone. The industrial-military complex continues producing wars.

Every year, 740,000 human beings die, not only on account of conflicts, but as victims of violent acts associated with organized crime.

In one European country, a woman dies every five days as a result of domestic violence. In the countries of the South, half a million mothers die in childbirth every year.

Every day, 29,000 children die of hunger and preventable diseases. In the minutes that I have been speaking, no less than 120 children have died. Four million perish in their first month of life. In total, 11 million children die every year.

There are 100,000 deaths a day from causes related to malnutrition, adding up to 35 million a year.

In Hurricane Katrina alone, in the most developed country in the world, 1,836 people died, almost all of them African Americans of few resources. In the last two years, 470,000 people died throughout the world as a result of natural disasters, 97% of them of low income.

In the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti alone, more than 250,000 people died, almost all of them resident in very poor homes. The same thing occurred with homes swept away by excessive rainfall in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil.

If the developing countries had infant and maternal mortality rates like those of Cuba, 8.4 million children and 500,000 mothers would be saved annually. In the cholera epidemic in Haiti, Cuban doctors are treating almost half of the patients, with a mortality rate five times lower than those being treated by physicians from other countries. Cuban international medical cooperation has made it possible to save more than 4.4 million lives in dozens of countries in four continents.

Human dignity is a human right. Today, 1.4 billion people are living in extreme poverty. There are 1.2 billion hungry people, and a further two billion are suffering from malnutrition. There are 759 million illiterate adults.

Mr. President:

The Council has demonstrated its capacity for approaching human rights situations in the world, including those of an urgent nature which require attention and action on the part of the international community. The usefulness of the Universal Periodic Review, as a means of sustaining international cooperation, of evaluating the undertakings of all countries without distinction in this context has been confirmed.

The spirit which animated our actions during the review process of this body was to preserve, improve and strengthen this Council in its function of effectively promoting and protecting all human rights for everyone.

The results of this exercise express a recognition of the Council’s important achievements in its short existence. While it is true that the agreements reached are insufficient in the light of the demands of developing countries, the body has been preserved from those whose aim was to reform it to their convenience in order to satisfy hegemonic appetites and to resuscitate the past of confrontation, double standards, selectivity and imposition.

It is to be hoped from the debates of the last few days that this Human Rights Council will continue constructing and advancing its institutionalism toward the full exercise of its mandate.

It would be very negative if, on the pretext of reviewing the Council’s institutional construction and in abuse of the dramatic juncture which is being discussed, it should be manipulated and pressured in an opportunist way in order to establish precedents and modify agreements.

If the essential human right is the right to life, will the Council be ready to suspend the membership of states that unleash a war?

Is the Council proposing to make some substantial contribution to eliminating the principal threat to the life of the human species which is the existence of enormous arsenals of nuclear weapons, an infinitesimal part of which, or the explosion of 100 warheads, would provoke a nuclear winter, according to irrefutable scientific evidence?

Will it establish a thematic procedure on the impact of climate change in the exercise of human rights and proclaim the right to a healthy atmosphere?

Will it suspend states which finance and supply military aid utilized by recipient states for mass, flagrant and systematic violations of human rights and for attacks on the civilian population, like those taking place in Palestine?

Will it apply that measure against powerful countries which are perpetrating extra-judicial executions in the territory of other states with the use of high technology, such as smart bombs and drone aircraft?

What will happen to states which accept secret illegal prisons in their territories, facilitate the transit of secret flights with kidnapped persons aboard, or participate in acts of torture?

Can the Council adopt a declaration on the right of peoples to peace?

Will it adopt an action program that includes concrete commitments guaranteeing the right to alimentation in a moment of food crisis, spiraling food prices and the utilization of cereal crops to produce biofuels?

Mr. President:

Distinguished Ministers and Delegates:

What measures will this Council adopt against a member state which is committing acts that are causing grave suffering and seriously endangering physical or mental integrity, such as the blockade of Cuba, typified as genocide in Article 2, Paragraphs B and C, of the 1948 Geneva Convention?

Thank you very much.

Translated by Granma International

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 25 (acn) Cuba stated on Friday in Geneva that
interventionism in Libya is
unacceptable and opposed the exclusion of that Arab nation as a member of
the Human Rights
Council, the intergovernmental organ that is part of the United Nations
system.

Rodolfo Reyes, Cuba’s permanent representative at the organization,
spoke in one of the
sessions to analyze the issue, and recalled that less than 72 hours before
Cuban Foreign
Minster Bruno Rodriguez had expressed that some politicians and media
outlets incite to
violence, military aggression and foreign intervention in Libya.

Feelings are running high everywhere and I’m afraid that could lead to
serious
international and internal mistakes, warned the minister, cited by Reyes,
the National
Television Newscast reported on Friday.

We wish the Libyan people to achieve a speedy peaceful and sovereign
solution to the
situation created there, without any kind of interference or foreign
intervention, which
guarantees the integrity of the Libyan nation, said Rodriguez in his
speech, read then in
Brussels.

The ambassador stressed that the concerns that declaration reflected
became a reality and
that that State is amid a civil war, within the context of a world
economic crisis of great
dimensions, which plunges the peoples of that region and the world into
despair.

We’re all concerned about the loss of human lives and the damages
caused to the civilian
population due to the current conflict in that Arab nation, asserted the
diplomat, whose
statements were also published by the www.cubadebate.cu Web site.

He warned that the risk of taking advantage, in an opportunistic way,
of the tragic
situation to satisfy interventionist appetites, take sovereignty away from
the Libyan people
and seize its resources, can’t be accepted.

Some are already talking about a humanitarian military intervention,
which we oppose,
because, instead of solving the situation, it would complicate it even
more and could lead to
other serious implications, he said sententiously.

Reyes declared himself to be against some elements included in the
approved resolution,
which constitute what he described as “a disastrous precedent” for
cooperation in terms of
human rights, which the work of the Council should be based on.

He recalled that, from the start, when we were creating this new
Council, Cuba opposed the
clause on the suspension of a State’s membership.

In this regard, he pointed out that its inclusion in Resolution 60/251
set a negative
precedent that burdened the new organ with an additive that is
unparalleled in any other
organ of the United Nations.

Immediately afterwards, he asserted that it had never been cited until
today, but that its
use on this occasion will open the door to those seeking to legitimize
this mechanism, with
the purpose of using it selectively against countries disagreeing their
patterns.

Cuba, consequently, disassociates itself from the paragraph of the
approved resolution, he
stated.

Lastly, Reyes expressed that the island calls on calm and reiterates
its confidence in the
capacity of the Libyan people to solve their internal affairs, without any
foreign
interference, and to preserve the country’s peace, stability and sovereignty.

This is the first time that the suspension of a member of the of the
Human Rights
Commission, to which Libya belongs since May, 2010, is recommended, the
Telesur television
network reported.

The final decision in this regard will be made at the UN General
Assembly, the next meting
of which has been scheduled for March 1st in New York, specified the state
television network.

Here is a video of the recent strikes and demonstrations in Greece.

Here is the link to an article on a protest against the wars in New Haven organized by the New Haven Peace Council

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/protest_targets_war_spending/