Euronews’ article on the 85th anniversary of the deportation of Soviet Germans is a textbook example of how anti-communist history is framed in contemporary Europe. 

The method is simple: place Stalin in the dock, reduce Soviet power to “persecution,” and push the decisive historical fact — Nazi Germany’s war of annihilation against the USSR — into the background. 

The ideological slant is obvious from the start. Euronews describes the 1939 Soviet-German non-aggression pact as a period of “close cooperation” (!!) between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. 

But where is Munich? In September 1938, Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler and Mussolini, sacrificing Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland almost a year before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. To isolate Soviet diplomacy from Munich, appeasement and the collapse of collective security is not neutral history. It is political selection.

By August 1941, however, the central reality was no longer diplomacy but survival. Nazi Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in a genocidal war aimed at destroying the socialist state, colonising its territory and annihilating those regarded as racial and political enemies. Soviet wartime security measures cannot be torn out of that context and presented as arbitrary acts floating in a vacuum.

Yet that is precisely what Euronews does. The Nazi invasion becomes background scenery. Stalin becomes the story.

And this framing closely mirrors the broader politics of historical memory promoted by major EU institutions. The European Parliament has repeatedly placed Nazism and communism under a common “totalitarian” framework and, in its 2019 resolution on European remembrance, explicitly treated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as the immediate trigger of the Second World War.

Euronews is not an institution of the European Union, and it should not be described as one. But on this question it reproduces almost perfectly a historical narrative that has become deeply entrenched in official European memory politics: Stalin permanently on trial, socialism reduced to repression, and the Soviet Union’s decisive role in smashing Nazism pushed further and further into the background.

The result is a grotesque inversion. Nazi Germany invades the USSR, but the moral spotlight falls on Stalin. Western appeasement is contextualised; Soviet diplomacy is criminalised. The socialist state that bore the main burden of defeating Hitler is retrospectively placed on the same moral plane as the regime that invaded it.

That isn't serious historical inquiry. It is hideous anti-communism dressed up as journalism. 

Ukrainian regime escalates persecution of political dissidents: Anti-war activist sentenced to 15 years!

A Ukrainian court has sentenced socialist activist Bogdan Syrotiuk to 15 years in prison on charges of high treason, in a case his supporters denounce as part of a broader crackdown on political dissent in Zelensky's Ukraine.

Syrotiuk, 27, was convicted on August 10 for allegedly assisting Russia in its war against Ukraine. According to his supporters, however, the prosecution’s case rested largely on six articles he wrote for the trotskyite World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).

Those articles explicitly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin and condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while also directing sharp criticism at the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Syrotiuk is a member of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), a trotskyite political organisation. According to his supporters, the court also ordered the destruction of the organisation’s political literature. Concerns have also been raised over his health, with supporters warning that his condition has deteriorated in detention and that the conditions in Ukraine’s prison system could pose a serious threat to his life.

The case comes against the backdrop of an increasingly restrictive climate for political opposition in Ukraine, where the authorities have actively targeted dissident and anti-regime currents, with communists among those facing particularly severe repression. One of the most prominent examples is the case of communist activists Mikhail and Alexander Kononovich, who were arrested in 2022 and charged with actions aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order. Their prosecution has continued for years, accompanied by prolonged restrictions on their liberty; the brothers themselves maintain that the case is politically motivated. Ukrainian media have confirmed that their proceedings have remained before the courts and that they have spent extended periods under house arrest.

Against this wider background, Syrotiuk’s 15-year sentence has renewed concerns over restrictions on political activity, freedom of expression and the use of wartime legislation against ideological opponents of the reactionary Ukrainian regime.

Seven dragon balls, zero agreement

Ladies and gentlemen,

as you probably know, it’s now been 7 years that the MAC has existed as an organization, formal or informal, and after all these years, we do sometimes grow weary. After all, what we had to write has already been written, and, in the end, our alliance between progressive nationalism, coherent anti-imperialism, and anti-revisionist communism has already taken de facto shape given the state of the world. Our usefulness is no longer relevant, some will say.

But this news, this piece of information, is proof that our work is necessary, because it’s probably the most far-fetched and delirious News of 2026, and it needs to be called out.

Let’s quote the captain of the French bourgeoisie, Emmanuel Macron.

You know (?!) my interest in manga. You also know my determination to attract to France the investments that create jobs and make the most ambitious projects possible. With Saudi Arabia, we are making an unprecedented announcement. In Cergy-Pontoise, 3 theme parks will be built. 6 billion euros of investment. 22,000 jobs created. Nothing like it since Disneyland Paris. A new global destination. Here, in France. Thank you to Qiddiya and to Saudi Arabia for their trust in our country, in our talents, and in our future.

Sorry, but… what? Macron announced the construction of a Dragon Ball theme park on the scale of Disneyland Paris out of “interest” in manga? What is this absurdity? According to Paris Match, the project reportedly grew out of a conversation between Macron and MBS in December 2024 in Riyadh, where they apparently discovered a shared passion for Dragon Ball Z.

It seems that Saudi Arabia is establishing itself as both a center of investment and a major exporter of entertainment industries, subordinate to American imperialism. One can also imagine coordination between Japanese imperialism (which is becoming increasingly expansionist and militaristic, as the DPRK rightly denounces) and French imperialism (after all, the French elite has always had a certain affinity for Japan and Japanese pop culture — France became the second-largest consumer of manga precisely after the 1970s oil crisis, which ushered in a liberal economy, a social-democratic politics, and libertarian mores).

But the liberal, globalist newspaper Le Monde reveals to us a piece of news that is both juicy… and shameful, scandalous, tragic.

SKP leader exposes the limits of Swedish democracy: “A democracy for the establishment parties”

With less than a month to go before Sweden’s 2026 general election, Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) chairman Andreas Sörensen has denounced what he described as a political system designed to protect the established parliamentary parties and marginalize forces that challenge capitalism.

Speaking in Stockholm on August 15, Sörensen argued that Sweden’s much-praised democracy rests on deeply unequal conditions. 

Parties that surpass 1% in a parliamentary election receive publicly funded ballot papers distributed nationwide, while smaller parties must finance and distribute their own. Parties above 2.5% also receive substantial state funding, while the 4% threshold for entering parliament further shields the established political forces.

Sörensen also pointed to practical obstacles faced by the communists, including cases in which SKP ballot papers have allegedly been hidden or poorly distributed at polling stations. “The smaller the party, the greater the work,” he stressed, arguing that the system channels voters toward the already established parties.

But his criticism went beyond electoral rules. According to the SKP leader, all parliamentary parties — from the Left Party to the Sweden Democrats — ultimately serve the same fundamental purpose: stabilizing Swedish capitalism. Behind their different rhetoric, he argued, none offers an alternative to exploitation, militarization or the transfer of resources from social needs to military spending.

“The Swedish democracy is above all a democracy for the big parties,” Sörensen said, accusing the parliamentary forces of defending a system in which workers are offered different political colors but no break with capitalism.

Despite the obstacles, Sörensen insisted that the communists would not retreat. The SKP, he said, does not view politics as something confined to election day: its struggle continues “every day, all year round.”

For the Swedish communists, the election campaign is therefore only one front in a broader class struggle. As Sörensen put it, the future is not something handed down from above — it must be built through organization, resistance and collective struggle.

Stalin at work while in exile

As he spent several years in exile, and opportunities for political activity were limited, Josef Stalin had plenty of time for study. He spent much time in local libraries.

In February 1912, he disappeared from his lodgings in Vologda (northern Russia), leaving behind his books on a variety of subjects, ranging from arithmetic and astronomy to philosophy. Many of the texts included works by or about Voltaire, Auguste Comte, Karl Kautsky, etc.

His longest exile, from 1913 to 1917, was to Turukhansk in Siberia, a harsh place of detention, and he often suffered from ill health there. He complained about the conditions to his comrades and friends and asked for their financial support. But most of all he repeatedly asked them to send him books and journals, especially those that would enable him to continue his studies on the national question.

It was Marxist literature that most preoccupied him, especially the works of Marx and Engels. His first published work was a series of articles on Anarchism or Socialism? (1906-7) in which he deployed Marxist arguments against anarchist philosophy.

In his Marxism and the National Question (1913), he subjected to criticism the so-called ‘Austro-Marxist’ view that nations were a psychological construct rather than historical entities based on shared land, language and economic life. Apart from Lenin, says Roberts, Stalin’s favourite Russian Marxist was Georgi Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism, whose The Monist View of History Stalin read again in later life.

His famous 1913 treatise on Marxism and the National Question was published in three parts in the pro-Bolshevik journal Prosveshchenia [Enlightenment] and signed K Stalin, a pseudonym he had just begun to use but which became permanent and replaced Koba as his underground party name. This pamphlet was to become the basis of the Bolshevik policy after the October Revolution and greatly facilitated the solution of the complicated question of nationality in a country that comprised scores of nations and nationalities, all with their own languages, culture and traditions.

As the first world war broke out, almost all the social-democratic parties deserted the camp of the proletariat for that of the bourgeoisie – ie, adopting the slogan of ‘Defence of the fatherland’. The Bolsheviks under Lenin’s leadership not only opposed the war but, on the contrary, called upon the socialists of various countries to work for the defeat of their own country and turn the war into a civil war for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie that would pave the way for revolution in Russia and all the belligerent states. This policy brought about the Great Socialist October Revolution in Russia, while the bourgeoisie stayed put in other European countries thanks to the betrayal of social democracy.

Lenin returned to Russia from Switzerland in April 1917 to insist on outright opposition to the war and to the provisional government that had been set up after the fall of the tsar, Nicholas II (the February Revolution).

During the most tumultuous, and world historic, months following the February Revolution, Stalin sided with Lenin at every major turning point. Like Lenin, he too believed that the Russian revolution could be the catalyst for a European and worldwide revolution: “The possibility is not excluded,” he said, “that Russia will be the country that will lay the road to socialism … We must discard the antiquated idea that only Europe can show us the way. There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand for the latter.” (Speech to sixth congress of the RSDLP(B), 3 August 1917)

The October Revolution and the civil war

Many Trotskyite and ordinary bourgeois historians have indulged in gossip to the effect that Stalin was an unimportant figure in the months leading up to the October Revolution (7 November new style). Roberts puts the record straight:

“Though overshadowed by Trotsky in historical memory, there were few Bolshevik leaders more important than Stalin in 1917. One of the first Bolshevik leaders to reach Petrograd from exile, he was a member of the editorial board of the party’s newspaper Pravda, contributing numerous articles to the Bolshevik press. When Pravda was suppressed by the authorities, he edited the paper issued by the party as a substitute. When the provisional government clamped down on the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1917, and Trotsky was gaoled, while Lenin had fled to Finland, Stalin remained at large.

“He spoke at all the party’s major meetings in Lenin’s absence and presented the main report to the sixth congress of the Bolshevik party in July-August 1917. This was a tough assignment, coming as it did in the wake of the party’s setbacks following the demonstrations of the July days that had provoked the provisional government’s crackdown. Stalin supported Lenin’s proposal for an insurrection and was one of seven party members entrusted with overseeing its preparation. As Chris Read puts it, ‘if Stalin was a blur it might seem to be a result of his constant activity rather than indistinctiveness’.” (pp55-6)

Having seized power, the Bolsheviks were determined to hold on to it at all costs. In March 1918, Lenin’s government signed the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany and her allies. The negotiations leading to the treaty provoked a deep split in the Bolshevik leadership and broke up the alliance with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.

One of the first decrees of the Soviet government had been a proclamation on peace, which called for a general armistice and negotiation for a “swift end and democratic peace” – ie, a peace without annexations. When the fighting continued, Lenin agreed to sign a separate peace with the Germans and started the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. Trotsky, the commissar for foreign affairs, led the Soviet delegation. In violation of the Soviet government’s mandate to sign the treaty, he adopted the formula ‘neither war nor peace’ and a unilateral end to hostilities.

Trotsky aimed to spin out the negotiations and use them as a platform for propaganda in the erroneous belief that this would provoke a European revolution. Both Lenin and Stalin were in favour of accepting German terms, since the alternative was losing the war and, with it, the revolution. Opposed to this were Nicolai Bukharin and ‘left-communist’ supporters of a revolutionary war against Germany, who argued mistakenly that the European proletariat would be bound to rise in support of revolutionary Russia. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries were also in favour of continuing the war.

Germany played along with Trotsky’s charade for a while, but in January it issued an ultimatum that demanded the annexation of large territories of the western areas of the former tsarist empire in return for a peace deal. The Russian armies were exhausted and in no position to continue the war. Faced with imminent collapse on the front, the Bolshevik government had little choice but to sign the peace treaty, which now contained far harsher terms than the original ones, for which Trotsky and the ‘left communists’ were entirely to blame.

The conclusion of the first world war in November 1918 was followed by the civil war and the war of intervention, in which the ‘white armies’, led by former generals and admirals and supported by the interventionist imperialist armies, did their best to overthrow the Bolshevik government. The civil war was a close-run thing. However, the Soviet government managed to raise a five million-strong Red Army, which was in the end destined to prevail.

During the war, Stalin played “a very important role in providing direction on crucial fronts. If his reputation as a hero was far below Trotsky’s, this had less to do with objective merit than with Stalin’s lack of flair for self advertisement.” (RH McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler, 1988, cited in Roberts p57)

“During the civil war, Stalin was Lenin’s troubleshooter-in-chief at the front line.” (p57)

A little earlier, in June 1918, he had been sent to Tsaritsyn (renamed Stalingrad in 1924) to protect food supply lines from southern Russia. With the city about to fall to the enemy, he responded with harsh measures against those deemed disloyal and traitorous. He was incensed by the attempted assassination of Lenin by the Socialist Revolutionary party member Fanny Kaplan, in August 1918. Stalin cabled to Moscow that he was responding to this “vile” act by “instituting open and systematic mass terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents”. (Reed, quoted by Roberts at p57)

In January 1919, he was sent to the Urals to investigate why the Perm region had fallen to Admiral Kolchak’s White army. He was accompanied by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the formidable head of Cheka – the agency for countering counter-revolutionaries. This, they reported, was due to the defection of a number of former tsarist officers to the Whites.

In the spring, Stalin was sent to bolster the defence of Petrograd, which was threatened by General Yudenich’s White army based in Estonia. For months he was a highly visible figure of authority in the Petrograd area, touring the front line and inspecting military bases.

Stalin played a significant role in bolstering the southern front against General Denikin’s troops in October 1919. His next assignment was the southwestern front, threatened by the newly-independent Polish state in April 1920, which was threatening to cross the Curzon line (the boundary between Poland and Russia) in order to grab as much territory as possible while civil war raged in Russia.

The Poles won that contest and Soviet Russia was forced in March 1921 to sign the Treaty of Riga, which inflicted severe territorial losses on Soviet Russia, including the incorporation of western Belorussia and western Ukraine into Poland. At the ninth party conference in September 1920, Stalin was criticised for errors during the Polish campaign. He responded with a dignified statement pointing to his publicly-expressed doubts about the ‘march on Warsaw’ and reiterated his call for a commission to examine the reasons for the Soviet defeat.

By this time Stalin had, at his own request, been relieved of military responsibilities. By the time the civil war was over, with the White armies and the imperialist interventionist forces having been beaten, he had plenty of work to do. Throughout the civil war he had continued to be the commissar for nationalities. In addition, in March 1918, he was appointed to head the people’s commissariat of state control, which was later renamed the worker-peasant inspectorate, charged with protecting state property and keeping officials under control.

Appointment as general secretary

Georgia, ruled by the Mensheviks, was the source of serious differences between Lenin and Stalin, with Lenin favouring a more conciliatory approach to the Georgian nationalists. In the end Stalin’s approach prevailed, and the Red Army marched into Georgia in February 1921.

Despite differences over the Polish and Georgian questions, at Lenin’s insistence Stalin was appointed the general secretary of the Communist party in 1922. In view of his experience, his intellectual ability, and his steadfast loyalty to the party and to Lenin, it made a lot of sense to appoint him to this post, which carried tremendous responsibility and an enormous burden of work.

At the tenth party congress in March 1921, Stalin supported Lenin in the dispute with Trotsky on the question of the role of Soviet trade unions, as he did over the introduction of the New Economic Policy – which marked the party’s retreat from ‘war communism’ of the civil war period. And, as a consistent supporter of party unity, he supported the ban on the formation of factions in the party – groups in the party that operated their own internal organisation, rules and discipline.

This resolution was to be resented by the opposition group for years afterwards. In May 1922, Lenin suffered the first of a series of debilitating strokes.

Socialism in one country

After Lenin’s death in January 1924, Stalin emerged as the preeminent leader of the party. Among his demonstrated and administrative capabilities was his ability to inspire in the party a vision of a bright future through the building of socialism in the USSR, as envisioned and argued for by Lenin.

By insisting, as had Lenin, that socialism could be built in the Soviet Union even in the absence of a European revolution, Stalin gave meaning to the lives of party members and the broad masses of Soviet people. While admitting this, Roberts cannot resist propagating the lie spread by Trotskyists and bourgeois historians that in pursuing the building of socialism in the USSR Stalin was departing from Leninism, and that in doing so he was “prioritising the construction of socialism at home over the spread of revolution”.

The theory of socialism in one country – ie, in the USSR – has nothing to do with Stalin. It is a theory, as any well-informed person knows, given birth to, and followed, by Lenin. Stalin was doing no more than faithfully following the steps laid out by Lenin. Roberts’ assertion that “the failure of the revolution to spread abroad prompted Stalin to fashion a new doctrine – socialism in one country” (emphasis added) is totally false, while his statement that they “proclaimed that Soviet Russia could build a socialist state that would safeguard both the Russian Revolution and the future world revolution” is perfectly correct. (p64)

Stalin correctly stated in 1927: “An internationalist is one who is ready to defend the USSR without reservation, without wavering, unconditionally; for the USSR is the base of the world revolutionary movement, and this revolutionary movement cannot be defended and promoted unless the USSR is defended.” (Joint plenum of the CC and CCC of the CPSU(B), 29 July-9 August 1927)

The tragic demise of the Soviet Union has served to prove the correctness of Stalin’s statement.

At a time when the anticipated European revolution had failed to materialise, the construction of socialism, far from contradicting the spread of revolution, was the only means of spreading it, as subsequent events were to prove. The strong Soviet state, through its five-year plans, with their spectacular results, and collectivisation, became a base for world revolution.

The alternative would have been to shut up shop or send the Red Army into Europe, allegedly to spread revolution – both of which would have had catastrophic consequences hardly conducive to world revolution. And yet, that is where the counter-revolutionary theory of so-called ‘permanent revolution’ would have led. No socialism in the USSR and no revolution elsewhere. (For details on this and related questions see Harpal Brar, Trotskyism or Leninism?, 1993)

Roberts writes: “Stalin’s workload as general secretary was enormous and continued to grow … The paper trail of reports, resolutions and stenograms passing through his office were endless, as were the frequent visitors, and the numerous meetings he had to attend.” (pp64-6)

His leadership in the construction of socialism, which enabled to country to shed its medieval integument and join the ranks of highly industrialised countries; his inspiring role as the commander-in-chief of the Red Army that routed the allegedly invincible German army, resulting in the crowning victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War – a victory which, in addition to freeing the USSR from the Nazi hordes, brought liberation to the peoples of eastern and central Europe – will forever remain an eloquent proof of his correct line and leadership of the world communist movement.

People all over the world owe a debt of gratitude to Stalin, and the USSR which he led, for their role in liberating humanity from the jackboot of German fascism and for weakening imperialism.

Setting up the library

In May 1925, Stalin entrusted his staff with the task of classification of his personal book collection, with the request that the books be classified not by author but by subject matter. The list of subjects to be classified is simply staggering, ranging from philosophy, political economy, Russian history and the history of other countries to military affairs, the national question, the history of revolutions in other countries, the February and October Revolutions of 1917, Lenin and Leninism, the history of the Russian Communist party and the International, fiction, art criticism, and political and scientific journals. 

Excluded from this classification and to be arranged separately were books by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Lafarge, Luxemburg and Radek.

All the rest, he instructed could be classified by author.

His grandiose scheme envisaged a grandiose personal library, “one that could contain a vast and diverse store of human knowledge, not only the humanities and social sciences, but aesthetics, fiction and natural sciences. 

“His proposed scheme combined conventional library classification with categories that reflected his particular interests in the history, theory and leadership of revolutionary movements, including [emphasis added] the works of anti-Bolshevik socialist critics such as Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg, as well as the writings of internal rivals such as Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev. Although pride of place went to founders of Marxism – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and to its pre-eminent modern exponent, Vladimir Lenin.” (p68)

Stalin’s library was a personal working archive that “sprawled across his offices, apartments and dachas”. From the early 1920s he had accommodation and his office in the Kremlin and another working space just a few miles away in the party’s central committee building on Staraya Ploshchad (Old Square). 

During meetings, “Stalin was fond of plucking a volume of Lenin’s off the shelves, saying ‘Let’s have a look at what Vladimir Ilyich has to say on this matter.’ Stalin’s daughter Svetlana recalled that, in his Kremlin apartment, there was no room for pictures on the walls – they were lined with books.” (p71)

Yeni Demokrasi has reported that Deniz Pektaş, who was detained in Ancona, Italy, on August 17 and taken to the prison, was released on August 20. Appearing in court on that day, Deniz Pektaş stated that he had been subjected to repression and investigations for many years due to his political activities.

Avrupa Haber shared a joint statement issued on August 19 in solidarity with Deniz Pektaş and condemning his unlawful detention.

Due to an internal communication problem, we were not able to report on this repressive case as we should have. Therefore we make self-criticism, and we also express our joy at the release of Deniz Pektaş.

Deniz Pektaş is a communist revolutionary figure known for his political activism in Europe for many years, and his activity in TKP/ML. He has denounced the fascist and oppressive system in Turkey, the massacres and human rights violations perpetrated against the population, and has actively participated in demonstrations, democratic actions, and political actions against these scourges. Due to his identity and political activities, he has been subjected to surveillance and repression by the Turkish state for many years.

Deniz Pektaş has been subjected to surveillance, pressure, and legal proceedings on numerous occasions in various European countries over the years, allegedly in connection with actions by the Turkish state. In this context, he was among the communist revolutionaries arrested during an operation in Germany in 2015 and was subsequently prosecuted there.

Today, Deniz Pektaş is once again deprived of her freedom as a result of actions carried out within the framework of the repressive policies of the Turkish state and the administration of Tayyip Erdoğan.

With this Resolution, on the occasion of the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Havana from 7 to 9 August 2026,  we express our solidarity with Cuba and its people, we honour the memory and historic contribution of Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba and of the Cuban Revolution, on the centenary of his birth commemorated this year. 

We express our solidarity and stand by the sides of the peoples of Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, and with all peoples who face the barbarity of capitalism, class exploitation, anti-democratic bans and restrictions on trade union and political activity, and, in particular, imperialist interventions and wars.

The war that has been waged for five years on the territory of Ukraine, shedding the blood of two peoples who have lived and thrived together for decades building the new socialist society and who, with their guns in their hands, fought and defeated fascism —that the capitalist system gives rise to—, is based on the overthrow of socialism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 

It is a war waged in the framework of capitalism for raw materials, energy, transport routes for commodities, means of production, geopolitical footing, etc.

It is a war waged by bourgeois classes, the bourgeoisie of Ukraine with the support of the US-NATO-EU on the one hand and the bourgeoisie of Russia, with the involvement of China etc. on the other.

 It is a war utilized by the bourgeois classes to distort history and to attack the communist and labour movement and repress it, both in Ukraine and Russia, as well as in other countries.

It is an imperialist war, which may be generalized and lead other countries to bloodshed and the world to disaster due to nuclear weapons.

Workers must not place their trust in a “multipolar world” that will supposedly stop this or any other imperialist war and lead to a peaceful world without the overthrow of the capitalist system.

The communists struggle against the disorientation of the peoples and expose the pretexts used by both sides of the conflict to make the people choose sides.

The real question today is not whether the US and EU monopolies, backed by NATO, or those of Russia and China will prevail. The real question is the choice between the peoples on the one hand and the monopolies on the other; between socialism and barbarity. The workers’-people’s struggle will grow stronger with an independent line, away from all bourgeois and imperialist plans. 

We call for an escalation of the struggle against the imperialist war.

We struggle against both old imperialist unions, such as NATO and the EU, whose decisions add fuel to the fire of war, and against new imperialist alliances that have emerged in recent years.

We struggle against foreign military bases, first and foremost of the USA, which have flooded the world, as well as against the sending of troops and weapons and the involvement of our countries in the imperialist conflict.

We reject the curtailment of social and labour rights in the name of war preparations and we oppose the increase in military spending and the rise of militarism.

We support the struggle of the peoples against the monopolies, the bourgeois classes and the imperialist unions, for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of the new socialist-communist society, which will also mean the end of exploitation and wars. 

Workers of all lands, unite!  

Solidnet Parties signing the Solidarity Statement

1. Party of Labour, Austria
2. Communist Party of Greece 
3. Workers Party of Ireland 
4. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
5. Communist Party of Mexico 
6. New Communist Party of Netherlands 
7. Palestinian Communist Party 
8. Paraguayan Communist Party 
9. Communist Party of Soviet Union
10. Communist Party of the Workers of Spain 
11. Swiss Communist Party 
12. Communist Party of Turkey 
13. Union of Communist of Ukraine 
14. Communist Party of Venezuela 

The statement is open for further subscriptions

Havana, Cuba, August 7-8, 2026

“Defending and honoring the legacy of the Cuban Revolution on the centenary of Fidel’s birth and consolidating solidarity with socialist Cuba; strengthening joint actions and joining forces for peace and against imperialist aggression.”

The communist and workers' parties gathered in Havana, Cuba:

Recognize the complexity of the current international context and the threat posed by the aggressive and interventionist policies of the United States and other imperialist powers, within the framework of the imperialist system and the relations of rivalry/cooperation that permeate it, for the defense of the sovereignty, independence, and self-determination of our peoples, to eliminate the exploitation of man by man and end the causes of imperialist wars, poverty, and the oppression of peoples; as well as to guarantee the protection of the environment.

Underline the importance of unity, solidarity, and cooperation among communist and workers' parties as a fundamental path to achieving a decisive response to the increase in inequality and exploitation in capitalist countries worldwide, as well as the intensification of rivalries and contradictions within the imperialist system itself, and the belligerent offensive led by the United States that is provoking new aggressions and conflicts.

Emphasize the importance of strengthening debates and discussions on topics that contribute to the articulation and synergy among the communist and workers' parties that comprise this historic platform, which is approaching its 30th anniversary.

Reaffirm the enduring relevance of the thought of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, in the context of the centennial commemoration of his birth. His ideas, against capitalist exploitation, profoundly anti-imperialist, humanist, internationalist, and based on solidarity, are essential to confronting the colossal challenges of the current international arena, halting the resurgence of fascism, and protecting future generations from the scourge of imperialism and war. Their efforts and concrete actions in the struggle for socialism and to strengthen unity and joint action among communist and workers' parties, and the entire anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist forces, are of extraordinary relevance today and constitute the path forward for continued progress in a dynamic and robust articulation, in conflict with big capital and its power. Their unwavering commitment to genuine peace for all peoples, international law, and the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, thanks to the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, and which are being undermined today, compel us to hold high the banners of struggle for a truly just, democratic, and equitable international order for our peoples, which socialism can guarantee.

Reiterate their solidarity with the Communist Party of Cuba and the courageous Cuban people, who are resisting an unprecedented imperialist aggression due to the current United States government's attempts to overthrow the Revolution and reverse the achievements of the past 67 years.

Condemn the genocidal and inhumane economic, commercial, financial, and energy blockade imposed by the United States government, whose terrible impacts severely damage the daily lives of all Cubans and impede the country's legitimate right to development. This system of unilateral coercive measures is becoming increasingly comprehensive, having been intensified by two executive orders that aggravate its illegal and coercive nature.

Denounce the arbitrary indictment of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz by the Department of Justice, as part of a stratagem to tarnish his greatness and his undefeated legitimacy.

Demand the exclusion of Cuba from the spurious and unilateral U.S. list of supposed state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that is entirely meaningless when we recall the more than 3,000 victims suffered by the noble Cuban people at the hands of this scourge.

Emphasize the irrevocable nature of the Cuban people's will to build and achieve socialism as the only system capable of guaranteeing full human freedom.

In this regard, they agree on the following actions.

1. Continue supporting and standing with the Cuban people, the Communist Party of Cuba, and the Revolution in the face of the current imperialist aggression.
2. Coordinate different actions and initiatives to increase denunciation of the economic, commercial, financial, and energy blockade imposed by the United States government against Cuba.
3. Continue advancing toward strengthening cooperation and unity among communist and workers' parties in the struggle against imperialism and capitalism, for the defense and affirmation of sovereignty and rights, and to achieve peace and socialism.
4. Continue developing solidarity with the struggles of peoples throughout the world who defend their sovereignty and rights against imperialist aggression and interference, such as the struggle of the Palestinian people and other peoples of the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa.
5. Promote the solidarity movement with peoples against imperialist aggression, the struggles of the working class and of peoples throughout the world, to honor the history of the communist movement and of class struggles and to analyze the conclusions of the trajectory of the IMCWP in view of the 30th anniversary of their founding in 2028.

Statement by the Communist Initiative of Cyprus on the 100th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Cyprus, on 15 August: 

"On this day 100 years ago, the Founding Congress of the Communist Party of Cyprus (CPC) was held in Limassol. It was the culmination of a process that had been developing for years, as the first socialist groups in Cyprus had already emerged in the late 1910s. News of the October Revolution reached colonial Cyprus as well, giving fresh impetus to the workers’ struggle against wage exploitation.

The CPC carried out its activity under particularly difficult conditions throughout its 18-year existence. Despite its leadership initially being caught by surprise, the CPC took part in the October 1931 uprising. As a result, on 26 October, Vatis and Skeleas were arrested and, without being convicted by a court, exiled to Britain. By decree of 16 August 1933, the Party was officially outlawed. Nevertheless, the struggle continued, and the CPC expanded its influence even under conditions of illegality through its intervention in the trade union movement.

At the same time, the CPC upheld proletarian internationalism, both as a member of the Communist International and through the participation of Cypriot communists in the International Brigades and on the anti-fascist fronts of the Second World War.

The CPC’s 5th Congress, held in 1944, was also its last. The precise causes and circumstances that led to the dissolution of the CPC require further historical study.

A century later, the historical legacy of the CPC remains alive. Social conditions may have changed to some extent, but the fundamental causes that gave rise to the need for a revolutionary workers’ party continue to exist. The activity of the Communist Initiative of Cyprus today forms part of this historical continuity.

With this legacy as our guide, we Cypriot communists must intensify our struggle for a just solution to the Cyprus problem, for the liberation and reunification of our entire people, through an end to the Turkish occupation and the elimination of all its consequences. Only a revolutionary party that unites the vanguard of the working class, regardless of community, origin, language or religion, can lead the struggle against the occupation and the fight for a united and independent Cyprus, without foreign guarantors or protectors and free from imperialist-imposed solutions. A solution born out of the people’s own struggle, for a society free from the exploitation of man by man.

We, as members of the Communist Initiative of Cyprus, draw courage and strength from our political forebears and pledge that, despite the adverse balance of forces, we will continue with unwavering conviction to struggle for the realization of the aspirations of the pioneering communists who, a century ago, laid the foundations for the organized struggle of the Cypriot working class, with the aim of building socialism-communism.

One hundred years later, we continue the struggle." 

On Calle O’Reilly in Old Havana there is a plaque on the wall which says in Irish, Spanish & English:- 

“Two island nations on the same sea of hope and struggle; Cuba and Ireland.”

Because like Cuba with the US base in Guantanamo part of Ireland is still occupied by the British government. We share the same experience of imperialism and that is why we will always stand with Cuba. 

As Communists we understand that the problem is not Trump, the problem is US Imperialism under any US President whether Republican or Democrat. 

US Imperialism is a criminal enterprise.

US Imperialist actions against Cuba are criminal. Imperialism is criminal. Imperialism is rampant around the world and that is our enemy. We cannot divert our resources into petty squabbles amongst ourselves over tactical choices. 

Ireland is ruled by a comprador class that aligns its interests with imperialism rather than building national sovereignty and liberation. Economic dependency is entrenched through Foreign Direct Investment. 

One of our key tasks in Ireland is fighting to defend Irish neutrality, to defend our “Triple Lock”. That means that no Irish troops can be deployed abroad without three approvals:- 

First, the approval of Dáil Éireann 

Second, the approval of the Irish Government 

Third the approval of the United Nations Security Council or the United Nations General Assembly. 

It is this third approval that the current Irish government wish to remove to enable Ireland to be part of the militarisation of the European Union. 

Ireland is also bound by a “Triple Lock” of Imperialism. 

Firstly, US domination through transnational corporations and Foreign Direct Investment. 

Secondly, by European Union neo-liberal and militarist structures undermining democracy and sovereignty whilst attempting to end Irish Neutrality. 

Thirdly, Britain through partition of Ireland and continued occupation and political control of the north of Ireland. Partition sustains sectarian division, blocks national liberation and cements dependency. 

The Communist Party of Ireland reaffirms, following Lenin and Irish marxist James Connolly, that class struggle and the struggle for national liberation are inseparable. The fight for Socialism cannot be realised without breaking the chains of imperialist domination. Equality, national independence cannot be secured on a capitalist basis. Our scientific and historical analysis demonstrates that imperialism in Ireland obstructs the development of class politics and divides the working class north and south. Our Party insists that national liberation and socialism must advance together as two sides of the same coin. 

This year our Party held it’s 27th Congress and passed these calls to action:- 

1. Continue to defend Irish neutrality, oppose militarisation and build a mass anti-war movement. 

2. Continue to build solidarity and aid for Cuba, Palestine and all anti-imperialist struggles. 

3. Continue to build working class power in trade unions, tennant’s movements, women’s and youth struggles and community campaigns. 

4. Continue to fight racism and defeat the far right by uniting workers around the issues of housing, health care, jobs and rights. 

5. Continue to advance the demand for a sovereign and united Ireland as an essential step in the struggle for national liberation and the transition to socialism. 

On the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Fidel it is fitting to remember his words on Ireland:-

“Ireland is one single country. 

One single homeland. 

My desire is that one day this entire Ireland will be united and at peace.”

Similarly we remember these words from Irish marxist and revolutionary leader James Connolly:- 

“The British government has no right in Ireland. 

Never had any right in Ireland. 

And never can have any right in Ireland.” 

Today in 2026 the Communist Party of Ireland says:- 

The US government has no right in Cuba. 

Never had any right in Cuba. 

And never can have any right in Cuba. 

I’m going to finish on this; 

We in the Communist Party of Ireland support Cuba with fund raising for containers of medical aid, solidarity and political awareness actions such as the Dublin Cuban Film Festival plus agitprop on the streets and bridges of Ireland. 

But Ireland is a small country and we can only do so much. 

So we say this:- 

We have the greatest respect for the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government. We recognise the substantial aid that China has given to Cuba with Ships containing rice and solar equipment. 

But, 

But, we plead with you now, 

Send the one thing that Cuba is desperate for and is in your capacity to deliver. 

Send ships of oil! 

Send them now!!

Thank you comrades. 

Viva Cuba! 

Viva Fidel! 

Viva Communism!” 

Sixty-five years ago today (13 August), the “Berlin Wall” was erected. Bourgeois media and all manner of “experts” are once again using the anniversary as an opportunity to wage their anti-communist propaganda campaign and engage in sweeping historical revisionism. Dictatorship, totalitarianism, an “unjust regime,” evil — there is seemingly no end to the labels attached to the German Democratic Republic. Terror, we are told, was omnipresent, with the Wall and the Stasi presented as its ultimate symbols. 

Not a word is said about the origins of the GDR, its achievements, or the historical context in which the Wall was built. Even basic facts and figures concerning border security are largely ignored, because they would undermine many of the myths and falsehoods that continue to be repeated.

 The GDR as an answer to fascism

The German Democratic Republic was founded on 7 October 1949. For four decades it existed as a socialist state on German soil before being brought down in 1990 in the course of the counterrevolution. The founding of the GDR was a response to the experiences and political conditions of its time. German fascism had destroyed the organized workers’ movement in the interests of monopoly and finance capital, abolished bourgeois-democratic structures, and established an open dictatorship backed by a comprehensive system of terror. At the same time, fascist Germany unleashed the Second Imperialist World War.

The peoples of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, together with the political and military leadership of the USSR, played the decisive role in crushing fascism. Alongside anti-fascist resistance movements and partisan forces in numerous European countries, they made enormous sacrifices in securing fascism’s defeat. It was against this historical background that the GDR emerged, with the declared aim of making a fundamental break with fascism and capitalism and building a socialist society.

The achievements of the GDR and the Cold War

The GDR was thus the socialist and anti-fascist answer to a capitalist system that had repeatedly fed the working class into the slaughterhouse as cannon fodder and reduced entire countries to ruins. In less than thirty years, international monopoly and finance capital had twice plunged the peoples into gigantic wars, leaving millions dead and wounded in the struggle for maximum profits.

For four decades, a socialist society was successfully built in the GDR: peace, social security, greater equality and social justice, no unemployment or homelessness, and the nationalization of industry, banks and trade. Healthcare and education were free of charge. Gender equality was also more advanced than in the Federal Republic of Germany, while homosexuals enjoyed a more progressive legal status. As the Party of Labour states in one of its declarations: “The GDR was a milestone in the world revolutionary process.”

These realities, together with the GDR’s other achievements, represented — and still represent — a threat to the monopolies and their political servants in the bourgeois parties. Once the construction of socialism was proclaimed, anti-communist and counterrevolutionary activity by the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Economic Community, NATO and U.S. imperialism intensified.

As the Party of Labour (PdA) notes: “The GDR was never able to develop under ‘normal’ conditions. During the Cold War it stood on the front line. It had to bear enormous expenditure for the security of the state and its population, while constantly confronting hostile propaganda and espionage, technology embargoes, sabotage, and the problem that its own currency was not convertible on the world market.”

The Cold War was felt in the GDR with particular intensity. It was regarded as the forward post of European socialism, while the special situation created by West Berlin — an enclave surrounded by the territory of the GDR — further sharpened the conflict.

Western infiltration – with the destruction of the GDR as the goal

The GDR also had to contend with extensive infiltration from the West. Imperialist states and alliances hoped that a counterrevolution in the GDR — which played an important role in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) — would set off a domino effect, encouraging similar developments in other socialist states.

Berlin in the 1950s became a center of massive intelligence activity, with reports referring to around 80 different secret and intelligence services operating there. The objective was the destruction of the GDR, including the recruitment of informants and collaborators who could carry out sabotage from within.

As Tibor Zenker has observed: “Socialism is not a fool’s paradise in which everyone can simply do whatever happens to suit them. That kind of individualism has nothing to do with freedom. Nor is socialist revolution a magic trick by which all the problems of the world and humanity are solved overnight. It ‘merely’ creates the possibility — the necessary precondition — for solving them.”

This reality, combined with the need for economic reforms, Western propaganda and the systematic recruitment of qualified workers and specialists, contributed to sections of the GDR population leaving the country through Berlin. At the same time, economic problems, shortages of raw materials and unfulfilled expectations among parts of the population created additional difficulties.

The GDR was therefore confronted simultaneously with Western aggression and multiple internal crises. This situation ultimately led to the beginning of the construction of the Wall on 13 August 1961. It formed an essential basis for the GDR’s economic survival and for maintaining peace. Even John F. Kennedy recognized the latter point. The Wall also contributed to a greater concentration of social forces on the construction of socialism inside the GDR.

It was certainly not the original objective of the SED leadership to build a wall. It was the outcome of concrete historical conditions and became necessary for defending the continued existence of the GDR until 1989. It safeguarded the power of workers and peasants and the many social achievements won during those decades.

The myth of the Wall’s victims – while Frontex is considered acceptable

Alongside the myths already mentioned, the GDR’s border regime and the so-called “victims of the Wall” remain among the most frequently used instruments of anti-communist historical falsification.

Between 1961 and 1989, 140 people died at the Berlin Wall. Of these, only 101 were people attempting to flee who were shot, suffered fatal accidents while trying to cross the border installations, or took their own lives. Today almost nothing is said about GDR border guards who, over the course of 28 years, maintained peace along the inner-German border and were themselves killed by counterrevolutionaries and saboteurs. On the contrary, such cases are often included in the general number of “Wall deaths,” thereby distorting the statistics.

This corresponds to an average of around 3.6 deaths per year associated with border enforcement. Compare this, for example, with recent crossings at Ceuta, where as many as 140 people can die in a single day. Yet the European Union is not described as an “unjust regime,” nor does its border system provoke comparable public outrage, because it supposedly exists to defend “our freedom.”

According to the Missing Migrants Project, there have already been 2,185 dead and missing in the Mediterranean this year; in 2016, the figure reached a peak of 5,143. Frontex continues to perform its role in defending the European Union as an alliance of banks and generals. Over fifteen years of border enforcement in the Mediterranean, more than 38,500 people have died or gone missing, many of them as a consequence of policies carried out by Frontex together with the Libyan Coast Guard — intercepting overcrowded boats, forcing people back, sinking vessels and withholding assistance.

Yet none of this produces the same outrage.

There is no comparable scandal over the horrors generated by capitalism, over wars, the climate crisis or the other consequences of the economic system that dominates the world today. Instead, once again, every imaginable anti-communist myth is brought out — not only against the GDR, but against the Soviet Union as well.

Because only through lies, historical distortion and diversion can the existing system continue to present itself as the better alternative.

“Socialism is and will be the hope, the only hope, the only path for the peoples, the oppressed, the exploited, the plundered. Socialism is the only alternative"  — Fidel Castro Ruz

A century after the birth of Fidel Castro Ruz, on 13 August 1926, the hatred directed against him has hardly diminished. Nearly ten years after his death, the same vocabulary is repeated with remarkable persistence: “dictator,” “tyrant,” “totalitarian.” Fidel is vilified, the Cuban Revolution is slandered, its achievements are denied or reduced to inconvenient footnotes, while the Cuba that existed before January 1959 is carefully pushed out of sight.

There is something revealing in this persistence. The bourgeois world does not spend decades fighting harmless ghosts. What remains intolerable to Fidel’s enemies is not simply the memory of a revolutionary giant, but what the Cuban Revolution proved in practice: that capitalist ownership is not eternal, that imperialist domination can be broken, and that political power can pass into the hands of forces determined to reorganize society according to the needs of the working people rather than the profitability of capital.

The revolutionary road opened on 26 July 1953, when a group of young rebels led by the 26-year-old Fidel attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The operation failed militarily. Many of the revolutionaries were murdered after their capture, while Fidel was arrested, tried and imprisoned. Yet Moncada became the political starting point of the process that, less than six years later, would overthrow Batista and change the course of Cuban history.

It was during his trial that Fidel delivered the defense whose closing words became inseparable from his name: “Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.” They were the defiant words of a young revolutionary before the courts of the dictatorship, but they expressed something deeper: the conviction that the Cuban people could cease being an object of foreign domination and capitalist exploitation and become the conscious makers of their own history.

The victory of January 1959 was not simply the replacement of one government by another. Had Batista been succeeded by a more respectable manager of the same social order, Washington could have lived with it. Dictatorship itself had never troubled the United States when capitalist interests and U.S. domination were secure.

The Revolution did something fundamentally different. Agrarian reform struck at the great landowners. Nationalizations confronted foreign monopolies and the Cuban bourgeoisie. The commanding sectors of the economy were progressively removed from capitalist ownership. Cuba broke the chains of dependency that had tied it economically and politically to the United States and opened the road to socialist construction. There lay the real rupture.

Before the Revolution, Cuba was formally independent but economically subordinated. Sugar dominated an economy heavily dependent on foreign capital. Large estates coexisted with deep rural poverty. Havana was sold abroad through the glitter of casinos, luxury hotels, prostitution and organized crime, while behind that façade stood another Cuba: unemployment, illiteracy, miserable housing and profound class inequalities.

Batista tortured and murdered political opponents, but Washington remained his ally. The decisive question was never abstract “democracy.” It was class interest. Batista defended capitalist property and U.S. domination; the Revolution challenged both.

That is why pre-revolutionary Cuba must disappear from the anti-communist account. Once it is restored to the picture, the essential questions become unavoidable: Who lost estates, monopolies, privilege and political power after 1959? And who gained schools, hospitals, land, social rights and sovereignty?

The gains that followed were neither miracles nor gifts bestowed from above by one exceptional leader. They were rooted in the change of power itself. Mass illiteracy was virtually eliminated. Education became a universal social right. A nationwide public health system was created. Cuba trained generations of doctors, teachers, scientists, engineers and other professionals on a scale remarkable for a country of its size. Women entered economic, political and social life in vastly greater numbers, while science, culture and sport were opened to the broad masses of the people.

Socialism did not abolish contradictions, mistakes or bureaucratic distortions. No serious communist would claim that it did. What the Cuban experience demonstrated was something more important: once private profit ceased to be the supreme criterion, society could direct enormous human and material resources toward needs that capitalism routinely neglects.

Cuban internationalism became one of the finest expressions of this new social morality. In it one can recognize something of what Che Guevara meant when he spoke of the formation of a new human being: not a creature of individual competition and private accumulation, but a conscious participant in collective struggle, solidarity and socialist construction.

Cuban medical personnel went to Chile after the devastating earthquake of 1960 and, three years later, to newly independent Algeria. In the decades that followed, doctors, nurses, teachers and other specialists travelled across Latin America, Africa and Asia, often reaching places from which capital saw no profit to be made.

That internationalism also took up arms when history demanded it. In Angola, Cuban internationalists crossed the Atlantic not to acquire colonies, seize mines or obtain concessions for Cuban corporations, but to assist a people fighting aggression backed by apartheid South Africa. Their blood was shed thousands of kilometres from Havana in a struggle whose blows were felt from Angola and Namibia to the very foundations of apartheid.

Here the contrast with imperialism becomes almost brutal in its clarity. The historical trail of U.S. imperialism is littered with coups, invasions, proxy wars, assassination operations, reactionary dictatorships and the economic strangulation of peoples who dared refuse submission. Its tentacles have stretched across Latin America and far beyond it — an imperialist octopus wrapping military bases, monopolies, financial coercion and political intervention around entire countries while speaking, invariably, in the language of “freedom.”

Cuba committed the unforgivable crime of cutting those tentacles.

For more than six decades, the United States has imposed on the heroic Cuban people an economic, commercial and financial blockade — a genocidal policy of economic warfare aimed at exhausting an entire society, sowing hardship and creating the conditions for the defeat of the Revolution from within. Presidents have changed, tactics have shifted and particular measures have been tightened or loosened, but the strategic objective has remained intact.

The blockade is neither an abstraction nor an all-purpose excuse. Its consequences enter hospitals, factories, power stations and Cuban homes. It obstructs access to financing, medicines, technology, fuel, machinery and spare parts; its extraterritorial reach threatens banks, shipping companies and businesses thousands of kilometres from Cuba. The calculation behind it is as cynical as it is simple: make life unbearable enough, and perhaps suffering can accomplish what invasion, sabotage and political isolation failed to achieve.

Yet Marxists have no need to explain every Cuban difficulty through the blockade. Bureaucratic weaknesses, errors in planning, ineffective measures, low productivity and other internal contradictions have existed and must be confronted. Socialist construction does not advance through praise alone, and criticism directed at correcting weaknesses is indispensable. But that has nothing in common with the “criticism” of those for whom every Cuban problem has the same prescribed cure: dismantle socialism, restore capitalist property and return the island to the embrace of U.S. capital.

(…)

A panorama of German Democratic Republic is here. History, Genders, Medias, Culture, Foreign policies, etc. everything you need to know.

Statement by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkey(TKP) following the AKP government's signing of the “Mecca Joint Defense Agreement”: 

"The AKP government has signed the so-called “Mecca Joint Defense Agreement” and thereby dragged our country into a new and extremely dangerous military adventure. The agreement’s most important declared clause treats an armed attack on any one of the three countries as an attack on all of them.

The AKP has thus placed Turkey under an obligation of the gravest consequence, one that could drag the country into war under conditions and on behalf of causes nobody can predict.

The ruling party has taken on this obligation in a region where imperialist aggression, regional rivalries and the calculations of reactionary governments constantly intertwine and threaten to produce fresh conflicts at any moment.

Nothing guarantees that Saudi Arabia’s role in the wars in Yemen and the Red Sea will not tomorrow present itself to Turkey as a “joint defense obligation.”

No one can guarantee that a new wave of attacks on Iran, an escalating war in Yemen, or some other regional reckoning will not pull Turkey directly into the fighting.

This is precisely the point: Turkey’s military power is being chained to imperialism’s regional plans, and the road is being cleared for our people to pay the price of these plans in blood. It takes little imagination to picture Trump rubbing his hands together as he announced this deal to the world, boasting of “Turkey’s army and arms industry, Saudi Arabia’s financial power and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

AKP circles have tried to sell this agreement as regional powers mobilizing against Israel, even as the founding of some new balance of power. None of this carries any conviction.

The AKP is not balancing against Israel, its “enemy brother” in the region. It is signing up as a subcontractor for an “American peace,” a peace that strengthens Israel, weakens Iran, and is flanked by reactionary regional powers ready to play whatever grim role imperialism assigns them.

It has become plain that Washington is working systematically to remove every point of resistance standing in the way of a broader regional settlement centered on Israel, and to realign the whole region to serve its own interests. The attacks aimed at weakening Iran, the rollout of the Gaza Plan, and the signing of the Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani security pact as tensions in Yemen and the Red Sea escalate: none of these developments stands apart from the others.

Washington wants to spread the military burden of this strategy across its regional allies, and at the same time fold its regional orientation into NATO’s common strategy. Turkey has become critical precisely on this point. It was no accident that the NATO Summit in Ankara pushed Turkey’s war-making capacity and arms industry to the fore, or that the bargaining over the regional role assigned to our country took place there.

Now we watch that bargain being carried out step by step across the region.

The Mecca Agreement is therefore not a “defense agreement” signed between three countries. Turkey’s NATO-embedded war machine and military capacity are being bound, through new mechanisms with reactionary regional powers like Saudi Arabia, to imperialist plans spanning a still wider geography.

A harsh period awaits the vast expanse stretching from the Middle East through the Red Sea to Africa. As the fight over control of energy and trade routes, and over new and profitable fields for investment, intensifies, it is plain that this fight will bring new military alignments and bloody reckonings in its wake.

For all these reasons our people must stay alert to the new war scenarios the government will place before them, dressed up in nationalist bombast, dreams of a “new Ottoman” order, sectarian rhetoric, or the language of “national security.”

Turkey’s security does not lie in more military alliances, more armament, or taking on ever greater roles in imperialist plans.

Turkey’s security lies in withdrawing from NATO, shutting down the imperialist bases, sending foreign troops out of our country, and building relations with all our neighbors on the basis of equality, sovereignty and mutual respect.

Only a consistent and strengthening anti-imperialist popular will in Turkey can secure this.

Without the organized strength of our people growing, Turkey cannot break free of the war machine into which the ambitions of its capitalist class have thrust it.

Rejecting the fate that imperialism and reactionary forces have written for our country, and seizing hold of our own future, has become a vital necessity that demands organization. The TKP will do whatever this requires."

On Saturday morning June 27 at around 11 am, U.S. human rights lawyer, professor and journalist Daniel Kovalik was detained by three counter-terror police officers at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport under paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which allows border police to detain and question people they believe to be involved in “hostile state activity.”

Kovalik — who was visiting England to attend a wedding — was detained for approximately two and a half hours and interrogated extensively on his political views about “everything under the sun,” including on Israel, Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organisations Hamas and Hezbollah, the war against Iran, and on China and Russia. He told Crispin Flintoff that despite the scope of questions, ultimately, “I think what they wanted is my electronic devices. That’s what they wanted and they got them.”

Kovalik was told he would be arrested if he did not co-operate with the interview or provide the passwords to his electronic devices. Officers seized his phone and laptop, took his DNA, fingerprints and photographs from nine angles, copied his bank and credit cards and rifled through his luggage. They also questioned him about a book he was carrying — a gift from a student by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories — before releasing him.

During his interview, Kovalik repeatedly informed the interrogating officers — who refused to identify themselves when asked — that he is a practising lawyer, that his electronic devices contained material protected by legal professional privilege and that he objected to their seizure. A supervising sergeant subsequently confirmed that Kovalik had properly asserted legal professional privilege but said his devices would nevertheless be retained “with intention to copy.”

The 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) begins today, 7 August, in Havana, bringing together communist and workers’ parties from around the world at a particularly difficult moment for Cuba and the international communist movement.

Hosted by the Communist Party of Cuba, the meeting will continue through 9 August under the theme: “We defend and honor the legacy of the Cuban Revolution on the centenary of Fidel Castro; we deepen our solidarity with socialist Cuba; we strengthen our joint actions and unite our forces for peace and against imperialist aggression”.

The gathering takes place amid intensified imperialist pressure against Cuba, including the tightening of the U.S. blockade and renewed threats against the socialist island. In April, the IMCWP Working Group stressed that solidarity with Cuba is a historic responsibility of communist and workers’ parties and declared that the Cuban people are not alone.

Following the IMCWP, Havana will also host the 1st International Symposium “Fidel: Legacy and Future”, organised by the Communist Party of Cuba in connection with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Fidel Castro. The symposium will take place from 10 to 13 August and will focus on the political and revolutionary legacy of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution.

The Havana meeting is therefore expected to be not only an important forum for discussion and coordination among communist and workers’ parties, but also a strong internationalist expression of solidarity with socialist Cuba, at a time when the island is once again facing severe economic pressure and imperialist threats.

Engels and His Role in the Creation of Scientific Socialism

Forty years ago occurred the death of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's closest comrade-in-arms, one of the greatest revolutionary thinkers in human history, organizer and leader of the international proletarian party. The names of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels will forever remain in the memories of the peoples as the names of two great geniuses, of the creators of scientific socialism and the founders of the international Communist movement.

The revolutionary activities of Engels are inseparably bound up with the life and activities of Marx.

Forty years ago Lenin wrote:

Ancient legends tell of various touching examples of friendship. The European proletariat may say that its science was created by two scholars and fighters whose relations surpass all the most touching tales of the ancients concerning human friendship

* Lenin, Marx, Engels, Marxism, p. 40. International Publishers, New York.

The fortieth anniversary of the death of Engels which we are commemorating today coincides with the change that has occurred in the world labor movement, with the turn – caused by the influence of the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R. and the very profound crisis of capitalism – which the broad masses of the Social-Democratic and non-party workers have taken towards Communism, and with the accelerated collapse of the Second International. 

The victory of the proletariat in the U.S.S.R. and the growth of the Communist movement all over the world are the direct result of the fact that the Bolshevik Party, the international Party of Lenin and Stalin, has remained loyal to the end to the teachings of Marx and Engels.

The collapse of the Second International, the defeat and bankruptcy of its parties, are the historically inevitable consequences of their desertion from the doctrines of Marx and Engels, of their vulgarization and distortion of Marxism. Millions of toilers – gripped in the vise of the crisis, hanging on the gallows, incarcerated in fascist jails and lying in the trenches of the imperialist wars that are flaring up – are now paying dearly for this desertion. 

The opportunists of all colors, of the Second International – Bernstein, Cunow, Kautsky, Vendervelde and others like them – accused Engels of all mortal sins and opposed Marx and Engels in their effort to "refute" both, their real object being to extract the revolutionary spirit from Marxism. It was not an accident, it was inevitable, and absolutely in keeping with the laws of development, that the revisionists in the Second International, who first fought precisely against Engels on all the fundamental questions of theory and practice, passed to the position of cooperation with the bourgeoisie and gradually slipped into the mire of reaction. 

From the very outset of his revolutionary activities Engels, together with Marx, waged a fight to lay the foundations of and to develop scientific socialism in the sphere of economics and the social sciences, in the sphere of philosophy and natural sciences; he waged a struggle to permeate the minds of the proletarian masses with revolutionary Marxism as widely as possible. (…)

This has been 76 years since the release of Joseph Stalin’s Problems of Linguistics. For this reason, this is interesting to reread this article trying to link the Marxist understanding of languages with the one of nations.

As devastating wildfires continue to ravage Southern Europe, the Communist Party of Greece(KKE) and the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE) have sharply condemned their respective bourgeois governments, arguing that the repeated destruction is not merely the result of extreme weather conditions but of policies that systematically leave public fire protection services understaffed, underfunded and unprepared. 

The criticism comes as Greece and Spain are among the countries hardest hit by this year's catastrophic wildfire season. 

In Greece, the KKE accused Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of cynically calling for "trust in the Fire Service" while his government has systematically left it stripped of the personnel, equipment and infrastructure necessary to prevent and combat large-scale fires. 

The Party stressed that the heroism and self-sacrifice of firefighters cannot conceal the long-standing policy of understaffing, fragmented civil protection and the absence of comprehensive forest management and prevention measures. It argued that every summer exposes the consequences of treating fire protection as a cost rather than a social necessity, demanding the immediate reinforcement of the Fire Service with permanent personnel, modern equipment, effective prevention planning throughout the year, and full compensation for those affected.

Likewise, the PCTE expressed its solidarity with the victims of the devastating wildfires in the Madrid region and with the firefighters, forest brigades, healthcare workers, Civil Protection personnel and all public-sector workers battling the flames under extremely difficult conditions. 

While acknowledging that extreme weather has intensified the fires, the Party insisted that their catastrophic impact is the result of decades of neglected forest management, insufficient investment in prevention and territorial planning subordinated to profitability. It called for year-round strengthening of public forest management and firefighting services with stable staffing, sufficient resources and public ownership, while insisting that the recovery of the affected areas must serve the collective interest rather than private profit and that no affected family should be left without support.

Both communist parties underlined that the recurring wildfire disasters expose the contradictions of capitalist management, where prevention is neglected until catastrophe strikes and public services are treated as expendable costs rather than essential social needs. Their interventions stand in sharp contrast to the attempts of bourgeois governments to present these tragedies as unavoidable "natural disasters," while refusing to address the structural shortcomings that leave workers and local communities increasingly vulnerable.

Note:Also available on Substack.

I will try to translate more and more foreign speeches and articles that were never translated in English for the site.