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Home | Browse | Search | Invite | Film | Mail | Blog | Favorites | Forum | Groups | Events | Videos | Music | Comedy | ClassifiedsThis is the link to a film about the coup d'etat on President Hugo Chavez. A must-see for everyone. The Revolution will not be televised
Another Film on State supported Terrorism:
TerrorStorm
Some more links:
In Defense of Marxism
socialistappeal.org
Youth for International Socialism
Monthly Review
Venezuela Information Centre
National Assembly Against Racism
British Venezuela Solidarity Campaign
British Cuba Solidarity Campaign
Oil wars
One
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Friedrich EngelsKarl Marx was an immensely influential German philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary. While Marx addressed a wide range of issues, he is most famous for his analysis of history in terms of class struggles, summed up in the opening line of the introduction to the Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."At the same time as Engels, Marx took part in the political and philosophical struggle of his times, writing the Communist Manifesto a year before the Revolutions of 1848, although the two events had nothing to do with each other. Marx had broken with his university environment, German Idealism and the Young Hegelians, and took part in the debates of the European workers' movement, in particular in relation with the First International founded in 1864. He published the first tome of Das Kapital in 1867, a few years before the 1871 Paris Commune. The influence of his ideas, already popular during his life, was given added impetus by the victory of the Russian Bolsheviks in the 1917 October Revolution, and there are few parts of the world which were not significantly touched by Marxian ideas in the course of the twentieth century. The relation of Marx's own thought to the popular "Marxist" interpretations of it during this period is a point of controversy; he himself once said that "the only thing I know is that I'm not a Marxist"(In response to the views of a French Social-Democratic Party). While Marx's ideas have declined in popularity, particularly with the decline of Marxism in Russia, they are still very influential today, both in academic circles, some worker movements, and in political practice, and Marxism continues to be the official ideology of some Communist states and political movements. Vladimir Ilich Lenin The founder of the USSR and father of communism. He was active in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), and in 1903 he led the Bolshevik faction after a split with the Mensheviks that was partly inspired by his pamphlet "What is to be Done?" (which i highly recommend everyone to read!). In 1906 he was elected to the Presidium of the RSDLP. In 1907, he moved to Finland for security reasons. He continued to travel in Europe and participated in many socialist meetings and activities, including the Prague Party Conference of 1912 and the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915. When Inessa Armand left Russia and settled in Paris, she met Lenin and other Bolsheviks living in exile, and it is believed that she became Lenin's partner during this time. Lenin later moved to Switzerland. When the First World War began in 1914 and the large Social Democratic parties of Europe (at that time self-described as Marxist), including luminaries such as Karl Kautsky, supported their various countries' war efforts, Lenin was shocked, at first refusing to believe that the German Social Democrats had voted for war credits. This led him to a final split with the Second International, which was composed of these parties. Lenin adopted an "unpatriotic" position, stating the goal as the defeat of the Tsarist government in the war. After the 1917 February Revolution in Russia and the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin knew he needed to travel back to Russia as soon as possible. But he was isolated in neutral Switzerland as the First World War was raging, and it would not have been easy to travel through Europe. The Swiss communist Fritz Platten, however, managed to negotiate with the German government for Lenin and his company to travel through Germany in a sealed train. Kaiser Wilhelm II is thought to have expected Lenin to cause political unrest back in Russia and help end the war on the Eastern front. While on German territory, Lenin was not allowed outside the train. Once past Germany, Lenin continued by ferry to Sweden, and the rest of the trip through Scandinavia was arranged by the Swedish communists Otto Grimlund and Ture Nerman. On April 16, 1917, he returned to Petrograd and took a leading role within the Bolshevik movement, publishing the April Theses, which called for an uncompromising opposition to the provisional government. Initially, Lenin isolated his party through this lurch to the left. However, this uncompromising stand meant that the Bolsheviks were to become the obvious home for the masses as they became disillusioned with the provisional government, and with the "luxury of opposition" the Bolsheviks did not have to assume responsibility for any policies implemented by the government. Meanwhile, Aleksandr Kerensky and other opponents of the Bolsheviks accused Lenin of being a paid German agent. On this allegation, co-leader Leon Trotsky made a defensive speech on July 17, saying: "An intolerable atmosphere has been created, in which you as well as we are choking. They are throwing dirty accusations at Lenin and Zinoviev. Lenin has fought thirty years for the revolution. I have fought twenty years against the oppression of the people. And we cannot but cherish a hatred for German militarism. ... I have been sentenced by a German court to eight months’ imprisonment for my struggle against German militarism. This everybody knows. Let nobody in this hall say that we are hirelings of Germany. After a failed workers' rising in July, Lenin fled to Finland for safety. He returned in October, inspiring an armed revolution with the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!" against the Provisional Government. His ideas of government were expressed in his essay "State and Revolution", which called for a new form of government based on workers' councils, or soviets. In this work, he also stated that ordinary workers should, in principle, be capable of running a factory or government. He emphasized, though, that to be able to govern the state, a worker should "learn communism." Major works of Lenin include "what is to be done?", "Capitalism, the hightest stage of Imperialism" and "The State and the Revolution"" Cuba
Fidel Castro
Ernesto "Che" GuevaraFidel Castro left his exile in Mexico for Cuba in November 1956, in a small yacht named Granma. They hoped their landing in Eastern Cuba would coincide with planned uprisings in the cities and a general strike, coordinated by the llano wing of the 26th of July Movement. It was their intention to launch an armed offensive and swiftly topple the Batista government.
The Granma was delayed en route to Cuba, arriving late and at a location further east than was planned. This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the llano wing of the movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in Southeastern Cuba. Shortly after their trek began, they were attacked by men from the army. Most of the Granma participants were killed in this attack, but a small number, between one and two dozen, escaped. The survivors were separated from one another, and alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for other survivors. Eventually, this small group of persons, would find one another with the help of peasant sympathizers. This small group of people, which included Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Raúl Castro would form the core leadership of the guerilla army.
From 1956 through the middle of 1958, Castro, with the aid of the Frank Pais and Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small Batista garrisons in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Batista forces tried bloody repression to retain control and the cities in Cuba remained under Batista's control until the end. Che Guevara and Raúl Castro helped consolidate political control in the mountains through executions of Batista Loyalists and potential rivals to Castro. The irregular poorly armed escopeteros harassed the Batista forces through the foot hills and the plains of Oriente Province; in addition these much maligned forces provided Castro's main forces with moderate military support, intelligence, and protected supply lines. Thus Castro achieved military control of these mountains.
During this time, Castro's forces were quite small, at times less than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force numbered between 30,000 and 40,000 in strength. Yet nearly every time the army fought against the revolutionaries, they were the ones who retreated from the fight. The Cuban military was remarkably ineffective.
Batista forces finally responded with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano (the rebels called it "la Ofensiva"). Some 12,000 soldiers (more than half new, untrained recruits) attacked into the mountains. In a series of small scale fights, the Cuban army was defeated by Castro's determined fighters. In one battle (the Battle of La Plata) which lasted from July 11 till July 21, Castro's forces defeated an entire battalion, capturing 240 men, while losing just 3 of their own. The tide nearly turned on July 29 when Castro's small army (some 300 men) was nearly destroyed at the Battle of Las Mercedes. The Cuban army under General Cantillo lured Castro's forces into a trap. After two days of fighting, Castro's forces lost 70 men, nearly one third of his men. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and was granted, a temporary cease-fire (August 1st). Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By August 8th, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains. Operation Verano had been a failure for the Batista government.On August 21 1958, after the defeat of the Batista "ofensiva", Castro's forces began their offensive. Three columns under the command of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Jaime Vega proceeded westward toward the provincial capital of Santa Clara. Jaime Vega's column was ambushed and destroyed. The surviving two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined efforts with several other resistance groups not under the command of Castro. Cienfuegos won a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on December 30, 1958 (earning him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay"). The next day (the 31st), in a scene of great confusion, the city of Santa Clara was captured by the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic just hours later on January 1, 1959. Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and he immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On January 2nd, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight and Castro's forces took over the city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on January 6th after a long victory march. Fidel Castro supports struggles against imperialism all over the world to this day. Hugo Chavez Frias As the leader of the "Bolivarian Revolution," Chavez promotes his vision of democratic socialism, Latin American integration, and anti-imperialism. He is also an ardent critic of neoliberal globalization and U.S. foreign policy.A career military officer, Chavez founded the leftist Fifth Republic Movement after orchestrating a failed 1992 coup d'etat against former president Carlos Andres Perez. Chavez was elected President in 1998 on promises of aiding Venezuela's poor majority, and was reelected in 2000. Domestically, Chavez has launched Bolivarian Missions, whose goals are to combat disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, poverty, and other social ills. Abroad, Chavez has acted against the Washington Consensus by supporting alternative models of economic development, and has advocated cooperation and unity among the world's poor nations, especially those in Latin America. Hugo Chavez is a true hope for the fight against imperialism! Check my videos on the left for more information about Chavez. Ho Chi Minh In 1923 Ho moved to Guangzhou, China, where he married a Chinese communist cadre. From 1925-26 he organised 'Youth Education Classes' and occasionally gave lectures at the Whampoa Military Academy on the revolutionary movement in Indochina. He stayed in Hong Kong as a representative of the Communist International. In June 1931 He was arrested there by British police and remained in prison until his release in 1937. He then made his way back to the Soviet Union, where he reportedly spent several years recovering from tuberculosis. In 1938 he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces. He returned to Vietnam in 1941 to lead the Viet Minh independence movement, conducting successful military actions against the Japanese occupation forces and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946-1954).
He adopted the name Ho Chi Minh, a Sino-Vietnamese name with a common surname (Ho) and a given name meaning 'enlightened will' (Chi meaning 'will', and Minh meaning 'light') in August 1942 while sojourning in China. He was jailed for many months by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities. After his release in 1943 he returned to Vietnam. After the August Revolution (1945) organized by Viet Minh, he became Chairman of Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam), when he forced Emperor Bao Dai to abdicate, but this government was not recognized internationally. He petitioned American President Harry Truman to accept Vietnamese independence, but was rebuffed. It was on September 2, 1945 that he read the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. Before this speech, both the new Vietnamese anthem (Tien Quan Ca) written by Van Cao and the American anthem (the Star-Spangled Banner) were played.He signed an agreement with France which recognized Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union on March 6, 1946. But soon after, the agreement broke down. The purpose of the agreement on the Vietnamese side was to get the Chinese army to withdraw from northern Vietnam. Soon after the Chinese left, fighting broke out with the French. Ho Chi Minh was almost captured by a group of French soldiers led by Jean-Etienne Valluy at Viet Boc, but he was able to escape.In January 1950 the Soviet Union recognized Ho's government and in February Ho went to Moscow to meet with Stalin and Mao. Ho was told by Stalin that China would be responsible for backing his Viet Minh. Mao's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60-70,000 Viet Minh in the near future. China's crucial support to Ho enabled him to carry on the fight against the French.In 1954, the important Battle of Dien Bien Phu was fought between the French and Viet Minh, which convinced France of giving up its empire in Indochina.Quotes:"Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty."
"I only follow one party: the Vietnamese party."
"You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win." (referring to France and America in their wars in Vietnam)
"It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery!"
“The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man."
"We have to win independence at any cost, even if the Truong Son mountains burn."
"In (Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Questions) there were political terms that were difficult to understand. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: "Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!" Since then (the 1920s) I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International!"
"When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out."
"It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me."
"Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability." Thomas Sankara Captain Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (born December 21, 1949 in Yako – died October 15, 1987 in Ouagadougou) was the leader of Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) from 1983 to 1987. With a potent combination of personal charisma and Leninist social organization, his government undertook major initiatives to fight corruption and improve education, agriculture, and the status of women. His revolutionary program provoked strong opposition from traditional leaders and the country's numerically small but powerful middle class. Added to friction between radical and more conservative members of the ruling junta, these factors led to his downfall and assassination in a bloody coup d'état on October 15, 1987. Watch a Google Video on Thomas Sankara: HERE Free Palestine! Palestine is the largest refugee camp in the world, constantly being harassed by Isreal, the biggest tool of Imperialism within the Arab World (The USA is donating an aid of 5 Billions a year to Israel, thus supporting Israeli Terrorism against various Arab countries). The Arab World and all the socialist organisations must Unite and Stand up for Palestine to have their own state with the capitol Jerusalem! “The total blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has paralyzed the Palestinian economy, which is so vulnerably dependent on Israel and already severely weakened by frequent border closures, to such an extent that it is now in a deep recession, with millions of people severely impoverished and extremely food insecure,†FAO said in a special alert, which was issued in Rome.Reporting rising levels of malnutrition, the agency cited recent estimates of a 10.4 per cent increase in the incidence of low birth weights and a 52 per cent increase in the still birth rate in the West Bank. Reports also indicate that many homes are now without water and electricity, and what little food the Palestinians have is rotting.The alert voiced “serious concern†about the on-going large-scale destruction of Palestinian infrastructure – including farm assets such as stores, irrigation systems, greenhouses, water facilities and orchards – as well as the removal of topsoil from an estimated 8,000 hectares of land.FAO said that by severely restricting Palestinian access to international markets, Israel has become virtually the sole supplier of food to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with the country accounting for more than 95 per cent of Gaza's total agricultural imports and almost 100 per cent of its exports. Under those circumstances, the agency pointed out that “border closures have extreme consequences for the food security of the Palestinian people.â€The alert also raises concern over Israel’s confiscation of agricultural land and water resources. According to FAO, freshwater resources available to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip amount to 112 cubic metres per person a year, compared to 377 cubic metres for Israel.The agency, which has been unable to conduct a long-planned assessment mission to the territories because of security concerns, warned that “all available information points to a major catastrophe under way in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.†Isn't this genocide?! And the world doesn't react... Stand up for Palestine NOW!George W. Bush (He really is the devil!!)
Because of the picture below, the 13 Year old creator of the picture and her parents have been questioned by two Secret Service Agents about them being a thread against President Bush. This shows that there is no real democracy in an imperialist country. KILL BUSH! She is so right! (Check my Blogs for more information on the picture.)
EZLN The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, EZLN) is an armed revolutionary group based in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Their social base is mostly indigenous but they have supporters in urban areas as well as an international web of support. Their most visible voice, although not their leader, is Subcomandante Marcos (currently a.k.a. Delegate Zero in relation to the "Other Campaign"). Unlike the Zapatista comandantes, Subcomandante Marcos is not an indigenous Mayan.The group takes its name from the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata; they see themselves as his ideological heirs, and heirs to 500 years of indigenous resistance against imperialism.Some consider the Zapatista movement the first "post-modern" revolution: an armed, yet non-violent (despite an uprising in the early 1990s) revolutionary group that incorporates modern technologies like satellite telephones and the internet as a way to obtain domestic and foreign support. They consider themselves part of the wider anti-globalization, anti-neoliberalism movement. It is up to us to support the EZLN as much as possible. It is a very advanced organisation and takes a big part in the fight against Imperialism. ..The image below is the flag of the EZLN Hugo Chavez Frias (Venezuelan President) A warning to George Bush .. Hugo Chavez calls Bush responsible, if he would be assassinated ..Another brilliant speech Chavez gave at Al Jazeera about the middle East conflict ..Malcolm X talks about the necessity of a mass movement to force a change ..A very nice Clip of Nelson Mandela meeting Fidel Castro A fantastic TV-Interwiev with George Galloway about the Lebanon-Israel conflict. It is very rare to hear so much truth in the news! Kanye West's changes his greatest hit to make a strong comment on Bush's attitude towards the hurricane Katrina victims of New Orleans ..Nelson Mandela urges us to be "the Great Generation" and help to fight poverty especially in Africa, the continent that suffers the most under Imperialism. It is a fact that 3.2 Billions of US Tax Dollars are being spent to Israeli aid per year. This money is sucked out of 3rd World countries and put into Israel (the greates tool of Imperialism in the east) to buy Arms to terrorize and control the very oilrich and stragecically important Muslim and Arab countries. A lot of Africa could be safed with that money. So listen to the wise words of Nelson Mandela. Because what he says in this video is nothing but the truth... ....
Das Kapital. Karl Marx' unfinished Masterpiece!
The Communist Manifesto. A very important political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The State and Revolution - My favorite book by Lenin. Nothing can illustrate the marxist-leninist doctrine better than this excellent piece of writing.
What is to be done. Lenins very important book in which he illustrates how a revolution has to be organized.
The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky. A critical analysis of the soviet union and its enourmous crimes under stalins bureaucratic dictatorship.
Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky. This is a must read for everyone, not just socialists. It is an essential book on US-imperialism and explains how and why it uses terrorist atrocities and media control to remain its hegemony. This book has been recommended by Hugo Chavez at the UN and it is well worth the read!
How far we Slaves have come! (speeches by Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro in 1991)
Accumulation of Capital by Rosa Luxemburg.Other books I recommend:Failed States by Noam Chomsky
Imperialism the highest stage of Capitalism by V. I. Lenin
Che Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson
Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela was the first President of South Africa to be elected in fully-representative democratic elections. Before his presidency he was a prominent anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He was tried and imprisoned for his involvement in underground armed resistance activities. The armed struggle was a last resort; he had remained steadfastly committed to non-violence. Through his 27-year imprisonment, much of it spent in a cell on Robben Island, Mandela became the most widely-known figure in the struggle against South African apartheid. Although the apartheid regime and nations sympathetic to it considered him and the ANC to be terrorists (every freedomfighter is a terrorist to the enemy), the armed struggle was an integral part of the overall campaign against apartheid. The switch in policy to that of reconciliation, which Mandela pursued upon his release in 1990, facilitated a peaceful transition to fully-representative democracy in South Africa.Having received over a hundred awards over four decades, Mandela is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela. Many South Africans also refer to him reverently as 'mkhulu' (grandfather). Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish-born German Jewish Marxist political theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary. She was a theorist of the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland, later becoming involved in the Social Democratic Party of Germany, followed by the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. She started the newspaper The Red Flag, and co-founded the Spartacist League (or Spartakusbund in German), a revolutionary group that became the Communist Party of Germany and took part in an unsuccessful revolution in Berlin in January 1919. The uprising was accompanied by Luxemburg's propaganda, and crushed by the remnants of the monarchist army and freelance militias collectively called the Freikorps. Luxemburg and hundreds of others were captured, tortured, and killed. Since their deaths, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht have attained great symbolic status amongst democratic socialists and Marxists. Leon Trotsky Leon Trotsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was an influential politician in the early days of the Soviet Union, first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and then as the founder and commander of the Red Army and People's Commissar of War. He was also a founding member of the Politburo. Following a power struggle with Joseph Stalin in the 1920s, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet Union. He was eventually assassinated in Mexico by Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, with an ice axe. Trotsky's ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, his variation of Communist theory, and Trotskyism remains a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism and Maoism...