COMMUNIST PIONEER: (L to R) Gerda Taro; Gerda Taro, Guadalajara front, July 1937 Photo: Pic: G Taro / Walter Reuter/CC (L to R) Republican dinamiteros (explosives specialists), in the Carabanchel neighborhood of Madrid, June 1937; Training of militia women Photo: Pic: G Taro
GERDA TARO’s funeral on August 8 1937, which would have been her 27th birthday, was a moment of immense propaganda value for the left in a struggle that was not yet lost.
Pravda wrote: “Millions and millions of women, when they decide to take a stand against Fascism, will remember brave little Gerda,” and thousands turned out for the event.
It was organised by the fledgling French communist newspaper Ce Soir for which, as part of an 18-strong team reporting from Spain, Taro had been a photojournalist.
In the Pere Lachaise cemetery a monument was commissioned by the PCF (French Communist Party) by Giacometti, no less.
Defying cold and low temperatures thousands of Muscovites gathered in Red Square on Sunday 5 March in order to commemorate Soviet revolutionary leader Joseph Stalin on the 70th anniversary of his death.
Waiving soviet flags, holding portraits of Stalin and flowers, people of every age created a long queue in order to pay tribute to the late leader’s grave at the Kremlin Necropolis.
On March 5, thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas to pay homage to Commander Hugo Chávez on the tenth anniversary of his death. Photo: Zoe Alexandra
March 5 marked ten years since the passing of Commander Hugo Chávez, former president of Venezuela and the father of the Bolivarian Revolution. Chávez was Venezuela’s president from February 2, 1999, until his death on March 5, 2013.
Chávez inaugurated a new period in Venezuela’s history. Through his comprehensive and inclusive social and economic policies, he brought back dignity and pride to the Venezuelan people and transformed the social reality of the country. He forged important projects for Latin American unity and integration such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). He died at the age of 58, following a two-year battle with cancer.
Professor Joma Sison expired in the night of December 16th. Joma died peacefully after a period of confinement in a hospital in Utrecht, The Netherlands last night at around 8:40 p.m. (Philippine time). He was 83.An irreparable loss of one of the great Marxist intellectuals and leaders of our times. Sison has departed but he has planted seeds for many roses to bloom. He propelled the Filipino people to shape the country’s future and achieve their aspirations for national freedom and democracy.
He was responsible for re-establishing the Communist Party of Phillipines in December 1968 and igniting the spark of the armed struggle in 1969.Unfortunately the bourgeois media is hailing Sison’s death as a culmination of the armed insurrection of the CPP, and a victory of the fascist Duterte regime. Bourgeois intellectuals are labelling late Sison as a terrorist, responsible for bloodshed.
As a consequence of my fledgling activism in my student life to my dedicated commitment towards socialism till now, I found umpteen occasions to meet and interact with many people active in this stream. I constantly learned and picked up something from verily everyone during my work and interactions with them. Of them some became the source of intellectual inspiration, a few helped me in grasping the situations better while others taught me to keep the struggle on even keel in adverse circumstances. As with all other movements, in the socialist fold as well, there were some committed few who selflessly played their part in enriching the movement.
Comandante Hugo Chávez surrounded by people during a political rally. File photo.
It is said that on a rainy night, in Sabaneta de Barinas, the boy who would become one of the greatest political leaders of Venezuela, and of the Latin American and Caribbean region, was born. This was Commander Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the great leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, peasant boy, baseball-playing teenager, young soldier, insurgent man, firm and loving leader, and leading light of peoples and revolutions.
The great revolutionary leader ventured into the military world in an attempt to reach the US major leagues of baseball, but the call of his homeland, and outrage at a world of inequalities, made him change course. Read More »
On 28th July we commemorate the 50th death anniversary of Charu Mazumdar,who was tortured to death in police custody. It ranks amongst the worst abuse of human rights of a political prisoner or leader in India or the world. Today history is repeating itself in with Custodial deaths being a routine occurrence in prisons.Charu’s assassination illustrated the neo-fascist nature of the Congress regime in West Bengal. The Civil Rights groups undertook extensive research on the fascist nature of the execution of not only Mazumdar but thousands of cadres of C.P.I. (M.L).In 1997 a judicial inquiry was initiated 25 years after the murder by son Abhijit and other comrades, but the petition was dismissed by the high court and Supreme Court.
Charu Mazumdar must be credited for igniting the spark of ‘Naxalbari ‘by giving it a political shape, through, his Eight documents. He planted the seeds of the Indian Communist Movement demarcation from revisionism by formulating path of New Democratic Revolution. Whatever serious errors or dogmatic thinking,Charu Mazumdar formulated a path of agrarian revolution based on teachings of the Chinese Revolution. He stitched the base for re-building an All-India Revolutionary Party by delivering a striking blow to revisionism and parliamentary dogmatism. Naxalbari and Charu Mazumdar are inseparable.
A memorial meeting, remembering Com DV and TN was held in Khammam town of Telangana State on July27, 2022.
Hundreds of people who are fighting for and supporting agrarian revolution attended, including a big number of adivasi and poor peasants, and large number of women. The meeting held in the peak of rainy season went on from10.30 am to 5pm (with 30-minute lunch-break), speakers explaining the revolutionary politics, current politics and ongoing struggles. Far left are adivasi and poor pesant leaders, Muttayya and veteran fighter Padiga Yerraiah (President of Grameena Pedala Sangham of rural poor). Far right is Dr. Jatin Kumar, OPDR leader from Telangana.
Currently struggles of adivasi and poor and landless peasants for podu (forest lands),who occupied and tilled thousands of acres and demanding pattas (legal rights) as per Forest Rights Act , 2006,are going on in various parts of Telangana.
Speakers asked if the newly-elected President Draupadi Murmu, born and projected by Modi-led BJP as adivasi herself will stand by the rural poor fighting for their land and democratic rights.
T.Nagi Reddy died 46 years ago on July28,1976, and DV Rao died on July12, 1984. Every year in July, meetings, small and big, are held across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by UCCRI-ML remembering the revolutionary mass line they founded, and reviewing struggles along that line. The above is one such well-attended meeting (see photos below)
countercurrents.org has a rich archive on the lives and work of Comrades TN and DV: see at the end of the article for more.
An avoidable controversy has arisen recently due to the unfortunate comments of a politician of Punjab who called Shahid Bhagat Singh a terrorist. That this politician is linked closely to the Khalistani ideology explains his narrow worldview, and his comments regarding Bhagat Singh were quickly dismissed by most people. However to counter false propaganda based on such comments, it will be helpful to record some more details.
Bhagat Singh and his close colleagues made it amply clear time and again that they did not believe in indiscriminate violence and greatly valued human life. Bhagat Singh wrote very clearly, ‘non-violence as a policy indispensable for all mass movements’ while force is justifiable only ‘when resorted to as a matter of terrible necessity.’ During their trial Bhagat Singh and B.K.Dutt said in a joint statement,‘ We hold human life sacred beyond words.’ When asked to define ‘revolution’, they said equally clearly that it did not mean the cult of ‘bomb and pistol’. World level fraternity based on equality and justice was emphasized by Bhagat Singh.
Rosa Luxemburg (1871, Zamosc, Poland–1919, Berlin, Germany) is one of the most fascinating and imposing revolutionary figures in modern European history and, at the same time, one of the most discussed to date. Her friends and adversaries emphasize the penetrating acuity of her intelligence, her great willpower, her lively and impatient temperament, her strong combative nature, and her great moral rigour.
She was born in Poland in 1871, the year of the Paris Commune, the youngest of five children in a cultured and relatively wealthy Jewish family. Intelligent and brilliant in her studies, independent and rebellious in spirit, she was involved in socialist political activity from her early youth. When she was a little girl, as a typical cultured Central European, she spoke three languages: Russian, Polish, and German. She became an activist in the Proletariat Party, founded in 1882 (almost two decades before the founding of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks), in which she organised and led striking workers. In 1886, four of its leaders were executed, while others were locked up and exiled.
Journal of People 