Remembering 1945: No compromise with fascism, whatever form it takes

by Samuel Sillen

People’s World | May 08, 2019

U.S. and Soviet soldiers meet on the Elbe River, April 25, 1945, effectively cutting Nazi Germany in half. Within days, Hitler would be dead and his Third Reich in ruins. | U.S. Army Photo

The following article appeared in the May 8, 1945 issue of the Daily Worker under the headline “The Worst Crimes in History.” It was printed on the day that the Nazis surrendered in Germany, thus ending World War II in Europe. In the piece, author Samuel Sillen says the best memorial to the millions killed in the fight against fascism is to make sure that fascism never returns.

Millions—many millions—did not live to share this hour of triumph. Millions were hounded, twisted, strangled, starved. Their ashes heaped in German ovens. Their skeletons clumsily piled in shallow ditches.

The 1919 Amritsar Violence, Through Saadat Hasan Manto’s Eyes

by Raza Naeem

The Wire | April 09, 2019

Saadat Hassan Manto. Credit: Twitter

This is the first article in a two-part series on Manto’s writing on Jallianwala Bagh.

‘I am the trader of sighs
To versify blood is my mission
Remaining winds of the garden!
Gather your refuges…for
My fiery songs
Are about to cause an upheaval within depressed bosoms.’

Amritsar was a city of worshippers of freedom. A 100 years ago this month, the city witnessed the bloody tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh.

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.

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.

The Paris Commune of 1871

by Greg Oxley

In Defence of Marxism | May 16, 2001

[Note: We repost this article here to reiterate the message of Paris Commune and commemorate the proletariat”s struggle worldwide]

The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the greatest and most inspiring episodes in the history of the working class. In a tremendous revolutionary movement, the working people of Paris replaced the capitalist state with their own organs of government and held political power until their downfall in the last week of May. The Parisian workers strove, in extremely difficult circumstances, to put an end to exploitation and oppression, and to reorganise society on an entirely new foundation. 130 years later the lessons of these events are of fundamental importance for socialists today.