Russian Intel: West ‘Tearing Apart’ Venezuela Like Syria, Libya

teleSUR | April 25, 2019

Russian Intelligence Sergei Naryshkin says western countries are “tearing apart” Venezuela and following the same patterns as in Libya and Syria. | Photo: Reuters file

Western countries, Naryshkin highlighted, “are tearing Venezuela apart cynically and following the same patterns as in Libya and Syria. The U.S. retakes the Monroe Doctrine.”

Chief of Russian Intelligence Sergei Naryshkin has denounced the “tearing apart” of Venezuela and promoting of the humanitarian catastrophe in the Latin American nation by Western countries.

US Sanctions Killed Over 40,000 Venezuelans Since 2017

teleSUR | April 25, 2019

Demonstrators stand outside the entrance of the Embassy of Venezuela in Washington, U.S., April 25, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

A new study reveals that Trump’s animosity towards Venezuela has caused grave harm to most vulnerable Venezuelan social groups.

President Donald Trump’s economic sanctions against Venezuela are affecting not only President Nicolas Maduro’s administration but also the civilian population after over 40,000 deaths were reported in a study released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said Thursday.

Venezuela: “Red line”, for whom? And a story of spies, double agents

A Journal of People report

Venezuela is now a hot “chip” of imperialism’s geostrategic map. The mainstream media with its motive and purpose are presenting many interesting reports and analyses – a few of which are part of imperialist disinformation campaign while the rest carry some salt of truth.

The New York Times in a news analysis said:

“During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump often complained about how President Barack Obama drew red lines that he never enforced, and how a diminished America let Russia walk into Syria unchallenged, something he said would not happen if the Russian leader respected the United States president.

The Commune at Lyons, St. Etienne and Creuzot

by Lissagaray

[From History of the Paris Commune of 1871, chapter IX]

All parts of France have united and rallied around the Assembly and the government. (Circular from Thiers to the Provinces, evening of the 23rd.)

What was the state of the provinces?

For some days, without any of the Parisian journals, they lived upon lying despatches of M. Thiers, 103 then looked at the signatures to the proclamations of the Central Committee, and finding there neither the Left nor the democratic paragons, said, ‘Who are these unknown men?’ The Republican bourgeois, misinformed on the events occurring during the siege of Paris — very cleverly hoodwinked, too, by the Conservative press — cried, like their fathers who in their time had said, ‘Pitt and Coburg’, when unable to comprehend popular movements, ‘These unknown men can be nothing but Bonapartists.’ The people alone showed true instinct.

Timeline of the Civil War in France

A Journal of People report

1870

January 10: About 100,000 people demonstrate against Bonaparte’s Second Empire after the death of Victor Noir, a republican journalist killed by the Emperor’s cousin, Pierre Bonaparte.

May 8: A national plebiscite votes confidence in the Empire with about 84% of votes in favor. On the eve of the plebiscite, members of the Paris Federation were arrested on a charge of conspiring against Napoleon III. This pretext was further used by the government to launch a campaign of persecution of the members of the International throughout France.

Workers of the World unite (at last)

by Ronaldo Munck

Great Transition | April 2019

Once seen as the vanguard of a new social order, the contemporary labor movement has been written off by many progressive activists and scholars as a relic of the past. They should not be so hasty. Rather than spelling the beginning of the end for organized labor, globalization has brought new opportunities for reinvention, and a sea change in both trade unions and the wider labor movement. Most notably, globalization has forced unions to think and act outside the state to build transnational solidarity across countries and sectors. Emerging transnational unionism, if it perseveres, contains the seeds of a new global movement, a new international that extends beyond labor to embrace all forces working toward a Great Transition.

“Socialism” in the Economic Report of the President of US

by Paul Cockshott and E. Ahmet Tonak

MR Online | April 23, 2019

Something unusual has just happened. The current Economic Report of the President (March 2019; henceforth Economic Report) has devoted one full chapter to attacking socialism, under the title “Markets versus Socialism.”[1] The only intellectually honest part of the Economic Report is the reason given for allocating no less than 45 pages to socialism:

[T]here was a time in American history when grand debates over the merits of competing economic systems were front and center, and the terms of the debates and characteristics of the competing views were widely known. It is clear that such a time may be returning. Detailed policy proposals from self-declared “socialists” are gaining support in Congress and are receiving significant public attention.

Samir Amin internationaliste organique/organic internationalist

MR Online | April 22, 2019

The Communist Party in the 1920s: The first decade of struggle

by Norman Markowitz

Peoples’ World | April 24, 2019

Artwork featuring Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, the most famous labor martyrs of the 1920s, which appeared in the Daily Worker. | American Graphic Workshop / People’s World Archives

In the first decade of the Communist Party’s existence in the United States, 1919-1929, activists fought to build inclusive industrial unions, working within the existing AFL unions. They formed an organization, the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), to coordinate these activities. William Z. Foster, who had led the great Steel Strike of 1919, the largest strike in U.S. history up to that time, emerged as a leader of the TUEL and later of the CPUSA.

The Values of April: 45 years since Portugal overthrew fascism

by Diana Ferreira

Peoples’ World | Apirl 25, 2019

Street scene from the 25th of April Revolution in Portugal. | Alfred Cunha / Public Record

April 25, 2019, marks the 45th anniversary since the April Revolution in Portugal when a mass democratic uprising overthrew the fascist dictatorship that had ruled the country for nearly five decades. What started as a coup by anti-fascist army officers quickly morphed into a revolt of the whole Portuguese people. As she walked the streets of Lisbon that day, restaurant worker Celeste Caeiro started placing red carnations into the barrels of soldiers’ rifles and tanks, giving the 25th of April its other name—the Carnation Revolution. Below is an excerpted speech delivered today in the Assembly of the Republic, the country’s parliament, by Portuguese Communist Party member Diana Ferreira.