Whatever has happened with Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union. You are responsible, and your forebears, for 60 million to 100 million Black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t ask me about anybody, please.
(via classe)
Syrian Communist Party (Unified) - Report on the Crisis
The dangerous situation in which our country is living makes us highlight the basic points made public by our party from the time the crisis has broken out until now:
1. To defend our homeland against any foreign intervention regardless of its name and justification, and to consider this mission as the fundamental circle and a compass guiding our political stances.
2. To restore security, stability and tranquility for citizens; through putting an end to devastation, sabotage murder and terrorism against citizens, public and private installations.
3. The emphasis that a political solution should be based on dialogue with all patriotic powers, which raise the following (no’s); no to foreign intervention; to violence, and sectarianism and ethnic orientations, on one hand and, to persist political dialogue with their powers, on the other.
4. To put an end to all security irregularities, to avoid hurting innocent civilians and to pay attention to the humanitarian and living conditions in areas where tension prevails.
5. To take all measures necessary for regaining the confidence of citizens, through releasing political prisons and detainees holding those who committed security transgressions accountable, and to make public the findings of the committee formed to investigate out law deeds, and to punish those who committed them severely.
6. To quicken the steps taken for the purpose of declaring an all embracing national reconciliation, spread the spirit of tolerance and forgiveness and to remove all the remains of the sorrowful fighting which took place in those areas.
7. - To have the articles of the constitution instantly implemented in letter and spirit once it has been adopted and to continue applying reforms in every field.
8. - To take to take all measures necessary for putting an end to the chaos in prices, to use an iron fist against “war merchants” who exploit the current circumstances to achieve narrow material gains at the expense of citizens.
9. - To strengthen the militancy of the party, widen its contacts with the masses as well as all patriotic forces and parties, whether they be old or new under the motto “Homeland is First”.
Politbureau of the Syrian Communist Party (Unified)
Damascus 22-2-2012
(via classe)
Comrade Liu Hulan (1932-1947) was an activist in her native village of Yunzhouxi, Shanxi Province. She became a member of the Communist Party of China in 1946.
As an organizer, she had set up a chapter of the Women’s Federation, and in her capacity as secretary of that chapter, she had been actively involved in moblizing her fellow villagers to support the CCP in the civil war. When Nationalist troops surrounded the village in 1947 and attempted to cart off the confiscated grain reserves from the public granary, she led the villagers in resistance. She was executed.
(via classe)
“All property should be held in common and should be distributed to each according to his needs as the occasion required. Any prince, count or lord who did not want to do this, after first being warned about it should be beheaded or hanged.” - Thomas Müntzer
(via uomoinpolvere)
47 years late, NY Times reports on anti-communist massacre in Indonesia
From Stephen Millies:
In 1965, Indonesia—which has the largest Muslim population in the world—also had the largest communist party in the world outside the socialist bloc. Three million people belonged to the PKI (the initials of the communist party), which was the oldest CP in Asia, with roots dating back before World War I. Twenty million people belonged to trade unions, women’s groups, peasant leagues and other organizations that were affiliated to the PKI.
The biggest political massacre since Hitler began in the fall of 1965. One million Indonesians were murdered, including 1 out of 10 people on the island of Bali. The U.S. embassy prepared lists of communists to be executed. The political genocide in Indonesia became the template for fascists around the world. The code name used by the coup plotters in Chile on Sept. 11, 1973 was “Jakarta.”
After many years of silence, the Jan. 19 New York Times has a large article on what happened in Indonesia. Using the search feature on the Times web site, I found that this is the first time in at least 31 years that this so-called paper of record has even mentioned the PKI.
New York Times: Veil of Silence Lifted in Indonesia
(via classe)
If one throws a stone, the action constitutes a crime.
If one thousand stones are thrown, it becomes a political action.
If you burn a car, the action constitutes a crime.
If you burn hundreds of cars, it becomes a political action.
Protest is when I say that something does not sit well with me.
Opposition is when I do something to make sure that what I do not like does not happen again.
(via classe)
Denazification in socialist Germany opened door to gay rights
By Leslie Feinberg
Articles appeared in many newspapers advocating the elimination of Paragraph 175. In Saxony, which later became a part of East Germany, the legislature endorsed repeal of the Paragraph.
One communist in particular deserves credit for these efforts: Dr. Rudolf Klimmer.
As a medical student in Dresden during the Weimar Republic, Klimmer, a gay man, had traveled to Berlin many times to follow developments within the homosexual emancipation movement. He particularly developed an association with Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Human itarian Committee.
Klimmer was a member of the Communist Party. So was the committee’s secretary and later chairperson, Richard Linsert.
During 12 long years of fascism, Klimmer kept his political views and sexuality under wraps, marrying a lesbian for mutual protection. After the Nazis were defeated, he chose to live in the Soviet Occupied Zone and joined the Communist Party once again.
Steakley noted, “He launched a one-man campaign which aimed at repealing all laws against homosexuality, re-establishing Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science, and agitating with Soviet and local authorities for the full equality of gay people.”
More by Leslie Feinberg on LGBT rights in East Germany:
Same-sex rights in East Germany: Legal and material progress
East Germany in the 1970s: Lesbian & gay movement blossoms
East Germany: Forming of gay groups ignites church struggle
Lesbians and gay men: Great gains in 1980s East Germany
(via classe)
