Revolutionary Communist Group

Socialist Cuba: old obstacles and new challenges

Details: Created: Wednesday, 05 April 2017 16:03; Written by Helen Yaffe

Cuba's Mariel port

On 25 and 26 March the first National Cuba Conference to be held in the United States since 1979 took place at Fordham Law School in New York. The conference demanded the full normalisation of US-Cuba relations; the elimination of the US blockade, the return of US-occupied territory in Guantanamo and an end to US regime change programmes. These are essential demands for the international movement in solidarity with socialist Cuba at this complex juncture; with the possibility of renewed aggression from the new Trump administration, and with the challenges faced both in its process of economic restructuring and the pending transition to a post-Castro era. Helen Yaffe reports.

Turkey’s referendum: resistance is coming

Details: Created: Friday, 28 April 2017 11:32; Written by Trevor Rayne

turkey referendum
'No' voters have protested against the referendum result

That the opposition No vote gained almost half the votes cast in Turkey’s 16 April 2017 constitutional referendum, under conditions of fierce repression and blatant ballot rigging, should serve as a warning to President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). The Yes vote to grant Erdogan dictatorial powers was 51.4% and the No vote 48.6%. Erdogan lost in the big cities: Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Diyarbakir and in the Aegean and Mediterranean coastal regions and the predominantly Kurdish south east. The Financial Times commented: ‘The new constitution will turn the president into a modern-day sultan, allowing him ample opportunity to complete his subordination of Turkey’s institutions…This is a tragedy for the country. Mr Erdogan offers discord, not reform or development’ (18 April 2017). Erdogan threatens not only the Turkish and Kurdish people but the entire Middle East and he will be confronted and brought down.

Venezuela: Behind the media lies

Details: Created: Friday, 28 April 2017 10:08; Written by Sam McGill and Alvaro Michaels

Marcha chavista
PSUV supporters mobilise against vicious counter-revolutionary attacks

Opposition violence wreaks death and destruction in renewed coup attempt

Venezuela’s bourgeois opposition has once again taken to the streets in violent scenes of chaos and destruction with the aim of toppling President Maduro and the United Socialist Party (PSUV) government. Since 4 April several of its marches have ended with gangs of right-wing thugs setting up burning barricades and attacking public housing projects, hospitals, schools, health centres, transport systems and government offices. To date at least 31 people have been killed. The imperialist media and privately-owned Venezuelan press dishonestly portray these masked groups as ‘pro-democracy’ protesters facing down repression from the government; inevitably, they completely censor the mass mobilisations by working class supporters of the Bolivarian government. These lies, disseminated across the globe, are designed to provide the ideological framework for what is in reality a coordinated attempt at a right-wing coup.

Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera is free

Details: Created: Monday, 29 May 2017 12:57; Written by Nicki Jameson

oscar lopez rivera free

Puerto Rican freedom fighter Oscar Lopez Rivera has now officially been freed after more than three and a half decades behind bars in the United States prison system. In January 2017 Oscar was one of the 539 prisoners granted clemency by outgoing US President Obama and in February he was released from high security Terre Haute prison in Indiana and flown to Puerto Rico, where he then remained under house arrest for three months until he was finally able to walk free on 17 May.

In the 1970s Oscar was an active member of the Armed Forces for National Liberation, a communist organisation which fought for the independence of Puerto Rico from US occupation. Having been captured, in 1981 he went on trial for a range of offences, including ‘seditious conspiracy’, armed robbery and bomb-making. He did not deny any of the specific charges but instead declared himself a prisoner of war, demanding immunity from prosecution under the Geneva Convention and refusing to participate in most of the court proceedings, although he did address the court to close his own case, stating proudly: ‘Puerto Rico will be a free and socialist country.’

Ukraine: three years after the US-backed coup

Details: Created: Friday, 05 May 2017 11:47; Written by Mike Webber

Maidan revolution

The term ‘revolution’ has perhaps never been misused as frequently in the mainstream media as over the past few years. No longer does it refer to a vast social upheaval of the oppressed and exploited masses against a (usually US-backed) oppressive regime. Instead it is now used routinely to describe movements funded by US government agencies to replace governments which have fallen into disfavour with US puppets. The so-called Maidan revolution (deriving its name from the central square in Kiev where its supporters held their rallies) fits the bill perfectly. Although the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich had been democratically elected, he suffered from a fatal flaw. His wing of the bourgeoisie tried to perform a balancing act between Russia and the European Union (EU), while the opposition was intent on bringing Ukraine firmly into the orbit of the EU – and of the US, including NATO membership if possible. Neither this reality, nor the involvement of the fascist Svoboda party, did anything to dim the enthusiasm of petit bourgeois leftists in Western Europe for this odious enterprise – even as the US National Endowment Fund for Democracy (sic) poured funds into it.