Cuban Prisoners and Imperialist Hypocrisy

The following article is reprinted from MR Zine. It
highlights the lies, slanders and sheer hypocrisys of the recent attacks on
socialist Cuba. The Cuban 5 are but a few of the many political prisoners that Imperialism holds in the USA, alongside other such notable personalities as Mumia Abu-Jamal, the MOVE 9, the Angola 3 and Leonard Peltier.

Cuban Prisoners, Here and There by Michael Parenti and Alicia Jrapko

For more than half a century Western political leaders and their corporate media have waged a disinformation war against socialist Cuba. Nor is there any sign that they are easing up. A recent example is the case of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, an inmate who died in a Cuban prison in February 2010 after an 82-day hunger strike.
Zapata's death sparked an outcry from Western capitalist media and official sources, including of course the United States. Almost without exception, in literally thousands of reports, the corporate media portrayed him as a "political prisoner" and a "political dissident" -- without offering any supporting specifics. In March 2010 the European Union voted to condemn Cuba for his demise.

Since 2004, Amnesty International has treated Zapata Tamayo as one of Cuba 's 75 "prisoners of conscience," without offering evidence to buttress this assertion. Like the Western media, Amnesty failed to specify what were the political activities that had led to Zapata's imprisonment.

An Amnesty International article (24 February 2010) stated that in May 2004 Zapata Tamayo was sentenced to three years in prison for "public disorder" and "resistance." According to some reports he launched his hunger strike not only to protest his conditions of detention but to demand a personal kitchen in his cell, a television set, and a cell phone, amenities that were not likely to materialize.
Zapata was subsequently tried several times on charges of assaulting guards and "disorder in a penal establishment." The offenses began to add up. At the time of his fast he was facing a total sentence of 36 years. Again Amnesty made no mention of any political activities.

Cuban doctors attempted to keep Zapata alive with intravenous feedings and other stratagems. One psychologist testified that she tried to convince him to cease the hunger strike and try to register his grievances by other means. Zapata's mother remarked that her son had the best Cuban doctors at his bedside and she thanked them for their assistance. Later she would change her story and claim that he was a "dissident" who had been mistreated.

According to the Cuban writer Enrique Ubieta Gomez, Zapata was a common criminal who was convicted of "unlawful break-in" (1993), "assault" (2000), "fraud" (2000), and "public disorder" (2002). One of his serious transgressions occurred in 2000 when he attacked someone named Leonardo Simón with a machete, fracturing his skull and inflicting other injuries.

Ubieta Gomez concluded that Zapata had been involved in a wide range of criminal doings, none of which were remotely political. He was in jail for breaching the peace, "public damage," resistance to authority, two charges of fraud, "public exhibitionism," repeated charges of felonious assault, and being illegally armed.

Despite this extensive rap sheet Zapata was paroled in March 2003, eleven days before the arrests of the 75 so-called "prisoners of conscience." Later that same month he was charged with another crime and imprisoned for parole violation.
To repeat: while his 2003 arrest happened to come within days of the imprisonment of the 75, Zapata was never part of that group. The Cuban government never accused him of conspiring with -- or accepting funds and materials from -- a foreign power, charges that were leveled against the 75.

Contrary to what was claimed by the Spanish news agency EFE, Zapata's name does not appear on the list of the 75 Cuban prisoners drawn up by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2003.

Since 2003, at least 20 of the 75 have been released due to health problems, shrinking the number still incarcerated to 55 -- a level of humanitarian leniency not likely to be emulated in the US criminal justice system. Apparently this news has yet to reach the US media. As of 17 March 2010 the New York Times still referred to the "imprisonment of 75 dissidents." Even more recently (5 April 2010) an NPR commentator referred to the "75 dissidents being held in Cuba 's prisons."

The Cuban government argues that to describe the 75 (or 55) as being "prisoners of conscience" or "political dissidents" is to misrepresent the issue. They were never tried for holding dissenting views but for unlawfully collaborating with a hostile foreign power, receiving funds and materials from the US interest section, with the intent to subvert the existing political system in Cuba.

Many countries have such laws, including the USA. As Arnold August points out, the US Penal Code, under Chapter 115 entitled "Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities," Section 2381 stipulates that any US citizen who "adheres to" or gives "aid and comfort . . . within the United States or elsewhere" to a country that US authorities consider to be an enemy "is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000." So too, Cuba has legislation directed at those who are funded by hostile foreign powers.

In comparison to the media's tidal outcry on behalf of Cubans imprisoned in Cuba, consider the coverage accorded the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States. During almost 12 years of incarceration, the Cuban Five have been largely ignored by the corporate media and consequently remain mostly unknown to the US public.
The Five possessed no weapons and committed no act of terror, sabotage, or espionage. Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Rene Gonzalez came to the United States during the 1990s to infiltrate and monitor the terrorist activities of private right-wing groups of Cuban exiles. The information they gathered in their undercover work was forwarded to the Cuban government which in turn passed much of it on to the US government with the understanding that the two nations were now supposedly cooperating in a war against terrorism.

In 1998 after receiving evidence of impending terrorist activities planned against Cuba, the FBI went into action. But instead of arresting the right-wing Cubans who were planning the attacks from US soil, the feds apprehended the five Cubans who were working at uncovering such plots.

The five were tried in a federal court in Miami, home to over half a million Cuban exiles. Miami is a community with a long history of hostility toward the Cuban government -- a record that a federal appellate court in the United States later described as a "perfect storm" of prejudice, designed to make a fair trial impossible.
The Cuban Five were kept in solitary confinement for 17 months, denied their right to bail and the right to a change of venue. After the longest trial in the history of the United States, they were sentenced by a jury in Miami to four life sentences plus 77 years collectively. The US public outside Miami heard next to nothing about this case -- in striking contrast to the lavish treatment later accorded to Zapata Tamayo.

Of those who have managed to hear about the Cuban Five through alternative channels, many have denounced the unfair and unwarranted convictions. On March 6, 2009 in an unprecedented show of support, twelve amicus briefs called upon the US Supreme Court to review the case. Numbering among the Cuban Five's supporters were ten Nobel Prize winners, the entire Mexican Senate, the National Assembly of Panama, members from every political group within the European Parliament, including three current vice-presidents and two former Presidents, and hundreds of lawmakers from Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Scotland, and the United Kingdom.

In 2009 the US Supreme Court, giving no reason, refused to review the case, and the US corporate media continued to ignore it. Meanwhile the Cuban Five, hailed in Cuba as heroes defending their homeland against US-sponsored terrorism, continue to serve inflated sentences in US prisons on trumped-up charges.

If US rulers really are interested in fighting oppression and injustice, they might start closer to home. Thus far President Barrack Obama has shown no interest in the case. (Why does this not surprise us?) But other more genuine souls at home and abroad continue to press for justice.

$1 billion damages sought in new Chiquita lawsuit

The following article was found on Reuters. Upon
reading, it may be interesting to consider the way that whilst the
FARC-EP are demonised and shown as monsters, the real murderers get away with so much so openly.

Chiquita faces new lawsuit, $1 bln damages sought

* Company has faced several damages suits for Colombia ops

* Chiquita admitted paying right-wing AUC paramilitaries

* In latest case, 242 seek damages for killings, injuries

MIAMI, April 14 (Reuters) - Nearly 250 Colombians who say they and relatives were victims of violence by Colombian right-wing paramilitaries filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking more than $1 billion in damages from the Chiquita banana company, which has admitted making payments to paramilitaries.
The lawsuit against the U.S.-based Chiquita Brands International Inc (CQB.N), was filed on behalf of 242 plaintiffs in a U.S. District Court in Florida. The plaintiffs were also seeking unspecified punitive damages from the court.
In their complaint, some allege that family members were killed by the right-wing paramilitary group AUC, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, "as a result of Chiquita's support for the AUC and its operations."
Others allege they themselves were seriously injured by the AUC, which is accused of carrying out massacres during Colombia's long-running guerrilla war before it began disarming in 2003.
The lawsuit is the latest of several similar damages suits filed against Chiquita over its operations in Colombia.
In a March 2007 agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, Chiquita agreed to pay a $25 million fine to settle a criminal complaint accusing it of paying the AUC more than $1.7 million from 1997 to 2004.
The U.S. government has declared the AUC a foreign terrorist organization, along with Colombian leftist rebels.
Chiquita acknowledged in 2007 it had made payments to both left- and right-wing militias. It said that the money was aimed at protecting Chiquita employees at a time when kidnappings and murders were frequent in the Andean country's northern banana-growing region.
"This lawsuit, and others like it, will hold Chiquita -- which had revenues in excess of $3.5 billion last year -- accountable to those victimized by its unlawful conduct," said Lee Wolosky, a partner at Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP which is acting on behalf of the 242 plaintiffs.
Chiquita could not be reached for comment.
"Chiquita has already admitted to engaging in criminal conduct that violated federal law by making systematic financial payments to a foreign terrorist organization," Wolosky said.
"Yet it has refused to provide compensation to the victims of terrorist atrocities made possible by its regular, repeated and knowing financial support," added Wolosky, who is a former White House counterterrorism official under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. (Reporting by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Robert MacMillan)

Cuban Socialism - Resisting Imperialist Attacks Since 1959!

In lieu of the recent slurs and attacks on socialist Cuba by the bourgeois media, we are here reprinting a recent editorial from Granma International, the organ of the Cuban Communist Party, on their resistance to these vicious attacks.

We will defend the truth with our ethics and our principles

THE empire and its allies have launched a new crusade in an attempt to demonize Cuba. Its powerful political and media machinery has set in motion a colossal operation of deception with the object of discrediting the revolutionary process, destabilizing the country and provoking the conditions for the destruction of our social system.

In this heated campaign they are using their mercenaries at their whim. In order to obtain shameful political dividends they are tossing them to their deaths without the most minimal concern for those human beings; just as they have never cared about the death of more than 3,000 Cubans as a result of acts of terrorism organized and financed from the United States, or the fate of the 2,000-plus compatriots mutilated by those abominable acts, or citizens who have perished in the Strait of Florida having launched themselves on ill-fated adventures after the siren calls of the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act.

They are cynically invoking the human rights that they themselves have disregarded and are still disregarding with impunity today in diverse parts of the world. They are hypocritically accusing the Revolution of being responsible for the death of one person, a common prisoner who, thanks to the anti-Cuba campaigns and the abundant resources and means dedicated to that end, they have dressed up as a political prisoner, to be sacrificed to serving as the launch pad for the denigration of the nation that has made the greatest effort in the world to save lives, by sending tens of thousands of its selfless heath workers to cooperate in more than 100 countries. The Revolution that did not hesitate for one second to offer its doctors to come to the aid of U.S. citizens in New Orleans and other southern cities in the devastating wake of Hurricane Katrina; the Revolution that has given higher education to young people who were unable to graduate in their own nations, including a number from the United States; the Revolution that has placed at international disposition an innovative literacy method that has made it possible for millions of people in various countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Oceania to have access to the sacred human right of education and knowledge.

The Cuban Revolution has consistently acted on the basis of ethical, political and moral principles, following the teachings of Fidel. Respect for human beings is the essence of our system and has been one of the keys of popular support for the process since the heroic days of the Sierra Maestra, when the lives of enemy prisoners were always respected.

Despite the empire’s unvarying policy of hostility and constant aggression, ranging from armed invasion, terrorist acts of sabotage and attempts on the lives of Fidel and our leaders, to the promotion of subversion and a genocidal economic, commercial and financial blockade that has been in place for 50 years, the Revolution has never murdered, tortured or disappeared even one of its enemies.

Can the governments of the United States and the European countries that are shouting their heads off criticizing Cuba and condemning it as if they were vestal virgins, say the same thing? What can they say about the million dead in Iraq and the tens of thousands of victims in Afghanistan as a consequence of the illegal wars executed there? How can they explain the secret prisons and the torture of alleged terrorists? What is the legal basis for the selective assassinations that the United States has perpetrated against its enemies in various parts of the world with a special force headed during this period by the very same general who is now commanding the troops in Afghanistan? How can they justify the death in the last five years of more than 100 immigrants who were in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

What human right sustains the brutal blows dealt to representatives of social movements protesting during the Climate Summit in Copenhagen or Californian students demanding a larger budget for and less money taken out of education? Who is supervising the humiliating treatment meted out to immigrants in hundreds of detention centers scattered throughout Europe? Have the U.S. Congress or the European Parliament and the right-wing parties of Europe, currently so concerned about Cuba, responded with alarm to, denounced or condemned these scandalous violations of human rights?

What is really making them concerned is the moral fortitude of the Revolution, its fidelity to principles, its growing prestige in our region, where it has become an important actor in promoting the integration process; its intelligent and serene response to confronting the harsh consequences of the international economic crisis and the blockade; and its clarity in terms of having to change what has to be changed in pursuit of attaining full justice for our people, as we have been asked by Fidel and Raúl.

It is for that reason that the empire and its European allies are drawing up plans, coordinating the work of their special services, sending their diplomats onto the streets to monitor the work of their paid agents on the island, and increasing funds for subversion in Cuba. The USAID alone has a budget of $20 million this year to supply counterrevolutionary group and finance the media attack on Cuba.

They are currently focusing their cynical campaign on another hunger striker – whose common crimes and counterrevolutionary acts were exposed in Granma last March 8 – and who is being offered all the qualified medical treatment he requires.

They are internationalizing his show while maintaining a cynical silence concerning his cruelty and criminal record, his aggression and death threats to a doctor, the director of the hospital where he worked, and his attack on a defenseless elderly man who had to undergo emergency surgery as a result of the injuries he received.

They are likewise kicking up a fuss around the self-denominated Damas de Blanco (Women in White), who are lending themselves to the enemy’s game while supporting themselves with dollars stained with Cuban blood, supplied among others by the terrorist Santiago Alvarez Fernández Magriá, who attempted to blow up the Tropicana Cabaret and is the Miami benefactor of Luis Posada Carriles. Thus it is not surprising that the mastermind behind the sabotage of a Cubana de Aviación passenger plane and other execrable acts should have come out a few days ago in Miami to show his support for these "damas," whose only sanction to date has been the overwhelming and energetic repudiation of our people in the streets.

Receiving money from a terrorist organization is a felony that is severely punishable in the United States. So is acting in the service of a foreign power. The crimes of the so-called "dissidents" have nothing to do with freedom of expression, but are related to paid collaboration with the enemy superpower in its conspiracies against our nation. It is proven that all of them were in direct or indirect receipt of funds from the U.S. government and more than a few European foundations collaborating with the policy of war on Cuba.

What would happen to these "dissidents" if they acted in the country of their master in the same way they are in Cuba? The U.S. Penal Code sets out a sentence of 20 years for those who advocate the defeat of the government or the established order; 10 years for persons who make false statements with the aim of threatening national interests in relation to another nation, and three years for those who maintain "correspondence or relations with a foreign government" with the intention of influencing its conduct in relation to a conflict or controversy with the United States."

The enemy is using all its weapons of pressure. It is using political coercion and ordering the media annihilation of those wishing to show their solidarity with Cuba. It is attempting to silence any voice that is in discrepancy with its dictate. It has even forgotten the much-trumpeted "freedom of expression" by obliging Google to close the digital blog of a Cuban intellectual who has exposed with irrefutable arguments the real political propositions of the campaign against our homeland.

Nothing surprises us. They are the same perverse methods as those put into practice 50 years ago when President Eisenhower passed the Covert Action Plan against Cuba.

As compañero Raúl stated in the closing session of the 9th UJC Congress:

"More than half a century of permanent combat has taught our people that vacillation is synonymous with defeat."

"We will never yield to coercion from any country or group of nations, no matter how powerful they might be, and regardless of the consequences. We have the right to defend ourselves. Let them know that if they try to corner us, we will take cover, first and foremost with truth and principles. Once again we will be firm, calm, and patient. Our history is rich with such examples!"

We will make battle with our ideas, in our streets and in all international scenarios.

This May Day will receive an overwhelming and unequivocal response of support for the Revolution from our nation and its workers!

We will defend the truth with our ethics and our principles!

Translated by Granma International

V.I. Lenin: The State

This is a reproduction of Lenin's lecture on the state, delivered to the Sverdlov University in 1919, after the victory of the October Revolution. It provides a concise introduction to the Marxist-Leninist theory of the state, a subject which is further elaborated on in his seminal work, The State and Revolution.

Comrades, according to the plan you have adopted and which has been conveyed to me, the subject of today’s talk is the state. I do not know how familiar you are already with this subject. If I am not mistaken your courses have only just begun and this is the first time you will be tackling this subject systematically. If that is so, then it may very well happen that in the first lecture on this difficult subject I may not succeed in making my exposition sufficiently clear and comprehensible to many of my listeners. And if this should prove to be the case, I would request you not to be perturbed by the fact, because the question of the state is a most complex and difficult one, perhaps one that more than any other has been confused by bourgeois scholars, writers and philosophers. It should not therefore be expected that a thorough understanding of this subject can be obtained from one brief talk, at a first sitting. After the first talk on this subject you should make a note of the passages which you have not understood or which are not clear to you, and return to them a second, a third and a fourth time, so that what you have not understood may be further supplemented and elucidated later, both by reading and by various lectures and talks. I hope that we may manage to meet once again and that we shall then be able to exchange opinions on all supplementary questions and see what has remained most unclear. I also hope that in addition to talks and lectures you Will devote some time to reading at least a few of the most important works of Marx and Engels. I have no doubt that these most important works are to be found in the lists of books and in the handbooks which are available in your library for the students of the Soviet and Party school; and although, again, some of you may at first be dismayed by the difficulty of the exposition, I must again warn you that you should not let this worry you; what is unclear at a first reading will become clear at a second reading, or when you subsequently approach the question from a somewhat different. angle. For I once more repeat that the question is so complex and has been so confused by bourgeois scholars and writers that anybody who desires to study it seriously and master it independently must attack it several times, return to it again and again and consider it from various angles in order to attain a clear, sound understanding of it. Because it is such a fundamental, such a basic question in all politics, and because not only in such stormy and revolutionary times as the present, but even in the most peaceful times, you will come across it every day in any newspaper in connection with any economic or political question it will be all the easier to return to it. Every day, in one context or another, you will be returning to the question: what is the state, what is its nature, what is its significance and what is the attitude of our Party, the party that is fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, the Communist Party—what is its attitude to the state? And the chief thing is that you should acquire, as a result of your reading, as a result of the talks and lectures you will hear on the state, the ability to approach this question independently, since you will be meeting with it on the most diverse occasions, in connection with the most trifling questions, in the most unexpected contexts and in discussions and disputes with opponents. Only when you learn to find your way about independently in this question may you consider yourself sufficiently confirmed in your convictions and able with sufficient success to defend them against anybody and at any time.

After these brief remarks, I shall proceed to deal with the question itself—what is the state, how did it arise and fundamentally what attitude to the state should be displayed by the party of the working class, which is fighting for the complete overthrow of capitalism—the Communist Party?

I have already said that you are not likely to find another question which has been so confused, deliberately and unwittingly, by representatives of bourgeois science, philosophy, jurisprudence, political economy and journalism, as the question of the state. To this day it is very often confused with religious questions; not only those professing religious doctrines (it is quite natural to expect it of them), but even people who consider themselves free from religious prejudice, very often confuse the specific question of the state with questions of religion and endeavour to build up a doctrine—very often a complex one, with an ideological, philosophical approach and argumentation—which claims that the state is something divine, something supernatural, that it is a certain force by virtue of which mankind has lived, that it is a force of divine origin which confers on people, or can confer on people, or which brings with it something that is not of man, but is given him from without. And it must be said that this doctrine is so closely bound up with the interests of the exploiting classes—the landowners and the capitalists—so serves their interests, has so deeply permeated all the customs, views and science of the gentlemen who represent the bourgeoisie, that you will meet with vestiges of it on every hand, even in the view of the state held by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, although they are convinced that they can regard the state with sober eyes and reject indignantly the suggestion that they are under the sway of religious prejudices. This question has been so confused and complicated because it affects the interests of the ruling classes more than any other question (yielding place in this respect only to the foundations of economic science). The doctrine of the state serves to justify social privilege, the existence of exploitation, the existence of capitalism—and that is why it would be the greatest mistake to expect impartiality on this question, to approach it in the belief that people who claim to be scientific can give you a purely scientific view on the subject. In the question of the state, in the doctrine of the state, in the theory of the state, when you have become familiar with it and have gone into it deeply enough, you will always discern the struggle between different classes, a struggle which is reflected or expressed in a conflict of views on the state, in the estimate of the role and significance of the state.

To approach this question as scientifically as possible we must cast at least a fleeting glance back on the history of the state, its emergence and development. The most reliable thing in a question of social science, and one that is most necessary in order really to acquire the habit of approaching this question correctly and not allowing oneself to get lost in the mass of detail or in the immense variety of conflicting opinion—the most important thing if one is to approach this question scientifically is not to forget the underlying historical connection, to examine every question from the standpoint of how the given phenomenon arose in history and what were the principal stages in its development, arid, from the standpoint of its development, to examine what it has become today.

I hope that in studying this question of the state you will acquaint yourselves with Engels’s book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. This is one of the fundamental works of modern socialism, every sentence of which can be accepted with confidence, in the assurance that it has not been said at random but is based on immense historical and political material. Undoubtedly, not all the parts of this work have been expounded in an equally popular and comprehensible way; some of them presume a reader who already possesses a certain knowledge of history and economics. But I again repeat that you should not be perturbed if on reading this work you do not understand it at once. Very few people do. But returning to it later, when your interest has been aroused, you will succeed —in understanding the greater part, if not the whole of it. I refer to this book because it gives the correct approach to the question in the sense mentioned. It begins with a historical sketch of the origin of the state.

This question, like every other—for example, that of the origin of capitalism, the exploitation of man by man, socialism, how socialism arose, what conditions gave rise to it—can be approached soundly and confidently only if we cast a glance back on the history of its development as a whole. In connection with this problem it should first of all be noted that the state has not always existed. There was a time when there was no state. It appears wherever and whenever a division of society into classes appears, whenever exploiters and exploited appear.

Before the first form of exploitation of man by man arose, the first form of division into classes—slave-owners and slaves—there existed the patriarchal family, or, as it is sometimes called, the clan family. (Clan-tribe; at the time people of one kin lived together.) Fairly definite traces of these primitive times have survived in the life of many primitive peoples; and if you take any work whatsoever on primitive civilisation, you will always come across more or less definite descriptions, indications and recollections of the fact that there was a time, more or less similar—to primitive communism, when the division of society into slave-owners and slaves did not exist. And in those times there was no state, no special apparatus for the systematic application of force and the subjugation of people by force. It is such an apparatus that is called the state.

In primitive society, when people lived in small family groups and were still at the lowest stages of development, in a condition approximating to savagery—an epoch from which modern, civilised human society is separated by several thousand years—there were yet no signs of t e existence of a state. We find the predominance of custom, authority, respect, the power enjoyed by the elders of the clan; we find this power sometimes accorded to women the position of women then was not like the downtrodden and oppressed condition of women today—but nowhere do we find a special category of people set apart to rule others and who, for the sake and purpose of rule, systematically and permanently have at their disposal a certain apparatus of coercion, an apparatus of violence, such as is represented at the present time, as you all realise, by armed contingents of troops, prisons and other means of subjugating the will of others by force—all that which constitutes the essence of the state.

If we get away from what are known as religious teachings, from the subtleties, philosophical arguments and various opinions advanced by bourgeois scholars, if we get away from these and try to get at the real core of the matter, we shall find that the state really does amount to such an apparatus of rule which stands outside society as a whole. When there appears such a special group of men occupied solely with government, and who in order to rule need a special apparatus of coercion to subjugate the will of others by force—prisons, special contingents of men, armies, etc.—then there appears the state.

But there was a time when there was no state, when general ties, the community itself, discipline and the ordering of work were maintained by force of custom and tradition, by the authority or the respect enjoyed by the elders of the clan or by women—who in those times not only frequently enjoyed a status equal to that of men, but not infrequently enjoyed an even higher status—and when there was no special category of persons who were specialists in ruling. History shows that the state as a special apparatus for coercing people arose wherever and whenever there appeared a division of society into classes, that is, a division into groups of people some of which were permanently in a position to appropriate the labour of others, where some people exploited others.

And this division of society into classes must always be clearly borne in mind as a fundamental fact of history. The development of all human societies for thousands of years, in all countries without exception, reveals a general conformity to law, a regularity and consistency; so that at first we had a society without classes—the original patriarchal, primitive society, in which there were no aristocrats; then we had a society based on slavery—a slaveowning society. The whole of modern, civilised Europe has passed through this stage—slavery ruled supreme two thousand years ago. The vast majority of peoples of the other parts of the world also passed through this stage. Traces of slavery survive to this day among the less developed peoples; you will find the institution of slavery in Africa, for example, at the present time. The division into slaveowners and slaves was the first important class division. The former group not only owned all the means of production—the land and the implements, however poor and primitive they may have been in those times—but also owned people. This group was known as slave-owners, while those who laboured and supplied labour for others were known as slaves.

This form was followed in history by another—feudalism. In the great majority of countries slavery in the course of its development evolved into serfdom. The fundamental division of society was now into feudal lords and peasant serfs. The form of relations between people changed. The slave-owners had regarded the slaves as their property; the law had confirmed this view and regarded the slave as a chattel completely owned by the slave-owner. As far as the peasant serf was concerned, class oppression and dependence remained, but it was not considered that the feudal lord owned the peasants as chattels, but that he was only entitled to their labour, to the obligatory performance of certain services. In practice, as you know, serfdom, especially in Russia where it survived longest of all and assumed the crudest forms, in no way differed from slavery.

Further, with the development of trade, the appearance of the world market and the development of money circulation, a new class arose within feudal society—the capitalist class. From the commodity, the exchange of commodities and the rise of the power of money, there derived the power of capital. During the eighteenth century, or rather, from the end of the eighteenth century and during the nineteenth century, revolutions took place all over the world. Feudalism was abolished in all the countries of Western Europe. Russia was the last country in which this took place. In 1861 a radical change took place in Russia as well; as a consequence of this one form of society was replaced by another—feudalism was replaced by capitalism, under which division into classes remained, as well as various traces and remnants of serfdom, but fundamentally the division into classes assumed a different form.

The owners of capital, the owners of the land and the owners of the factories in all capitalist countries constituted and still constitute an insignificant minority of the population who have complete command of the labour of the whole people, and, consequently, command, oppress and exploit the whole mass of labourers, the majority of whom are proletarians, wage-workers, who procure their livelihood in the process of production only by the sale of their own worker’s hands, their labour-power. With the transition to capitalism, the peasants, who had been disunited and downtrodden in feudal times, were converted partly (the majority) into proletarians, and partly (the minority) into wealthy peasants who themselves hired labourers and who constituted a rural bourgeoisie.

This fundamental fact—the transition of society from primitive forms of slavery to serfdom and finally to capitalism—you must always bear in mind, for only by remembering this fundamental fact, only by examining all political doctrines placed in this fundamental scheme, will you be able properly to appraise these doctrines and understand what they refer to; for each of these great periods in the history of mankind, slave-owning, feudal and capitalist, embraces scores and hundreds of centuries and presents such a mass of political forms, such a variety of political doctrines, opinions and revolutions, that this extreme diversity and immense variety (especially in connection with the political, philosophical and other doctrines of bourgeois scholars and politicians) can be understood only by firmly holding, as to a guiding thread, to this division of society into classes, this change in the forms of class rule, and from this standpoint examining all social questions—economic, political, spiritual, religious, etc.

If you examine the state from the standpoint of this fundamental division, you will find that before the division of society into classes, as I have already said, no state existed. But as the social division into classes arose and took firm root, as class society arose, the state also arose and took firm root. The history of mankind knows scores and hundreds of countries that have passed or are still passing through slavery, feudalism and capitalism. In each of these countries, despite the immense historical changes that have taken place, despite all the political vicissitudes and all the revolutions due to this development of mankind, to the transition from slavery through feudalism to capitalism and to the present world-wide struggle against capitalism, you will always discern the emergence of the state. It has always been a certain apparatus which stood outside society and consisted of a group of people engaged solely, or almost solely, or mainly, in ruling. People are divided into the ruled, and into specialists in ruling, those who rise above society and are called rulers, statesmen. This apparatus, this group of people who rule others, always possesses certain means of coercion, of physical force, irrespective of whether this violence over people is expressed in the primitive club, or in more perfected types of weapons in the epoch of slavery, or in the firearms which appeared in the Middle Ages, or, finally, in modern weapons, which in the twentieth century are technical marvels and are based entirely on the latest achievements of modern technology. The methods of violence changed, but whenever there was a state there existed in every society a group of persons who ruled, who commanded, who dominated and who in order to maintain their power possessed an apparatus of physical coercion, an apparatus of violence, with those weapons which corresponded to the technical level of the given epoch. And by examining these general phenomena, by asking ourselves why no state existed when there were no classes, when there were no exploiters and exploited, and why it appeared when classes appeared—only in this way shall we find a definite answer to the question of what is the nature and significance of the state.

The state is a machine for maintaining the rule of one class over another. When there were no classes in society, when, before the epoch of slavery, people laboured in primitive conditions of greater equality, in conditions when the productivity of labour was still at its lowest, and when primitive man could barely procure the wherewithal for the crudest and most primitive existence, a special group of people whose function is to rule and to dominate the rest of society, had not and could not yet have emerged. Only when the first form of the division of society into classes appeared, only when slavery appeared, when a certain class of people, by concentrating on the crudest forms of agricultural labour, could produce a certain surplus, when this surplus was not absolutely essential for the most wretched existence of the slave and passed into the hands of the slave-owner, when in this way the existence of this class of slave-owners was secure—then in order that it might take firm root it was necessary for a state to appear.

And it did appear—the slave-owning state, an apparatus which gave the slave-owners power and enabled them to rule over the slaves. Both society and the state were then on a much smaller scale than they are now, they possessed incomparably poorer means of communication—the modern means of communication did not then exist. Mountains, rivers and seas were immeasurably greater obstacles than they are now, and the state took shape within far narrower geographical boundaries. A technically weak state apparatus served a state confined within relatively narrow boundaries and with a narrow range of action. Nevertheless,. there did exist an apparatus which compelled the slaves to remain in slavery, which kept one part of society subjugated to and oppressed by another. It is impossible to compel the greater part of society to work systematically for the other part of society without a permanent apparatus of coercion. So long as there were no classes, there was no apparatus of this sort. When classes appeared, everywhere and always, as the division grew and took firmer hold, there also appeared a special institution—the state. The forms of state were extremely varied. As early as the period of slavery we find diverse forms of the state in the countries that were the most advanced, cultured and civilised according to the standards of the time—for example, in ancient Greece and Rome which were based entirely on slavery. At that time there was already a difference between monarchy and republic, between aristocracy and democracy. A monarchy is the power of a single person, a republic is the absence of any non-elected authority; an aristocracy is the power of a relatively small minority, a democracy is the power of the people (democracy in Greek literally means the power of the people). All these differences arose in the epoch of slavery. Despite these differences, the state of the slave-owning epoch was a slave-owning state, irrespective of whether it was a monarchy or a republic, aristocratic or democratic.

In every course on the history of ancient times, in any lecture on this subject, you will hear about the struggle which was waged between the monarchical and republican states. But the fundamental fact is that the slaves were not regarded as human beings—not only were they not regarded as citizens, they were not even regarded as human beings. Roman law regarded them as chattels. The law of manslaughter, not to mention the other laws for the protection of the person, did not extend to slaves. It defended only the slaveowners, who were alone recognised as citizens with full rights. But whether a monarchy was instituted or a republic, it was a monarchy of the slave-owners or a republic of the slave-owners. All rights were enjoyed by the slave-owners, while the slave was a chattel in the eyes of the law; and not only could any sort of violence be perpetrated against a slave, but even the killing of a slave was not considered a crime. Slave-owning republics differed in their internal organisation, there were aristocratic republics and democratic republics. In an aristocratic republic only a small number of privileged persons took part in the elections; in a democratic republic everybody took part but everybody meant only the slave-owners, that is, everybody except the slaves. This fundamental fact must be borne in mind, because it throws more light than any other on the question of the state and clearly demonstrates the nature of the state.

The state is a machine for the oppression of one class by another, a machine for holding in obedience to one class other, subordinated classes. There are various forms of this machine. The slave-owning state could be a monarchy, an aristocratic republic or even a democratic republic. In fact the forms of government varied extremely, but their essence was always the same: the slaves enjoyed no rights and constituted an oppressed class; they were not regarded as human beings. We find the same thing in the feudal state.

The change in the form of exploitation transformed the slave-owning state into the feudal state. This was of immense importance. In slave-owning society the slave enjoyed no rights whatever and was not regarded as a human being; in feudal society the peasant was bound to the soil. The chief distinguishing feature of serfdom was that the peasants (and at that time the peasants constituted the majority; the urban population was still very small) were considered bound to the land—this is the very basis of "serfdom". The peasant might work a definite number of days for himself on the plot assigned to him by the landlord; on the other days the peasant serf worked for his lord. The essence of class society remained—society was based on class exploitation. Only the owners of the land could enjoy full rights; the peasants had no rights at all. In practice their condition differed very little from the condition of slaves in the slave-owning state. Nevertheless, a wider road was opened for their emancipation, for the emancipation of the peasants, since the peasant serf was not regarded as the direct property of the lord. He could work part of his time on his own plot, could, so to speak, belong to himself to some extent; and with the wider opportunities for the development of exchange and trade relations the feudal system steadily disintegrated and the scope of emancipation of the peasantry steadily widened. Feudal society was always more complex than slave society. There was a greater development of trade and industry, which even in those days led to capitalism. In the Middle Ages feudalism predominated. And here too the forms of state varied, here too we find both the monarchy and the republic, although the latter was much more weakly expressed. But always the feudal lord was regarded as the only ruler. The peasant serfs were deprived of absolutely all political rights.

Neither under slavery nor under the feudal system could a small minority of people dominate over the vast majority without coercion. History is full of the constant attempts of the oppressed classes to throw off oppression. The history of slavery contains records of wars of emancipation from slavery which lasted for decades. Incidentally, the name "Spartacist" now adopted by the German Communists—the only German party which is really fighting against the yoke of capitalism—was adopted by them because Spartacus was one of the most prominent heroes of one of the greatest revolts of slaves, which took place about two thousand years ago. For many years the seemingly omnipotent Roman Empire, which rested entirely on slavery, experienced the shocks and blows of a widespread uprising of slaves who armed and united to form a vast army under the leadership of Spartacus. In the end they were defeated, captured and put to torture by the slave-owners. Such civil wars mark the whole history of the existence of class society. I have just mentioned an example of the greatest of these civil wars in the epoch of slavery. The whole epoch of feudalism is likewise marked by constant uprisings of the peasants. For example, in Germany in the Middle Ages the struggle between the two classes—the landlords and the serfs—assumed wide proportions and was transformed into a civil war of the peasants against the landowners. You are all familiar with similar examples of repeated uprisings of the peasants against the feudal landowners in Russia.

In order to maintain their rule and to preserve their power, the feudal lords had to have an apparatus by which they could unite under their subjugation a vast number of people and subordinate them to certain laws and regulations; and all these laws fundamentally amounted to one thing—the maintenance of the power of the lords over the peasant serfs. And this was the feudal state, which in Russia, for example, or in quite backward Asiatic countries (where feudalism prevails to this day) differed in form—it was either a republic or a monarchy. When the state was a monarchy, the rule of one person was recognised; when it was —a republic, the participation of the elected representatives of landowning society was in one degree or another recognised—this was in feudal society. Feudal society represented a division of classes under which the vast majority—the peasant serfs—were completely subjected to an insignificant minority—the owners of the land.

The development of trade, the development of commodity exchange, led to the emergence of a new class—the capitalists. Capital took shape at the close of the Middle Ages, when, after the discovery of America, world trade developed enormously, when the quantity of precious metals increased, when silver and gold became the medium of exchange, when money circulation made it possible for individuals to possess tremendous wealth. Silver and gold were recognised as wealth all over the world. The economic power of the landowning class declined and the power of the new class—the representatives of capital—developed. The reconstruction of society was such that all citizens seemed to be equal, the old division into slave-owners and slaves disappeared, all were regarded as equal before the law irrespective of what capital each owned; whether he owned land as private property, or was a poor man who owned nothing but his labour-power—all were equal before the law. The law protects everybody equally; it protects the property of those who have it from attack by the masses who, possessing no property, possessing nothing but their labour-power, grow steadily impoverished and ruined and become converted into proletarians. Such is capitalist society.

I cannot dwell on it in detail. You will return to this when you come to discuss the Programme of the Party you will then hear a description of capitalist society. This society advanced against serfdom, against the old feudal system, under the slogan of liberty. But it was liberty for those who owned property. And when feudalism was shattered, which occurred at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century—in Russia it occurred later than in other countries, in 1861—the feudal state was then superseded by the capitalist state, which proclaims liberty for the whole people as its slogan, which declares that it expresses the will of the whole people and denies that it is a class state. And here there developed a struggle between the socialists, who are fighting for the liberty of the whole people, and the capitalist state—a struggle which has led to the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic and which is spreading all over the world.

To understand the struggle that has been started against world capital, to understand the nature of the capitalist state, we must remember that when the capitalist state advanced against the feudal state it entered the fight under the slogan of liberty. The abolition of feudalism meant liberty for the representatives of the capitalist state and served their purpose, inasmuch as serfdom was breaking down and the peasants had acquired the opportunity of owning as their full property the land which they had purchased for compensation or in part by quit-rent—this did not concern the state: it protected property irrespective of its origin, because the state was founded on private property. The peasants became private owners in all the modern, civilised states. Even when the landowner surrendered part of his land to the peasant, the state protected private property, rewarding the landowner by compensation, by letting him take money for the land. The state as it were declared that it would fully preserve private property, and the state accorded it every support and protection. The state recognised the property rights of every merchant, industrialist and manufacturer. And this society, based on private property, on the power of capital, on the complete subjection of the propertyless workers and labouring masses of the peasantry, proclaimed that its rule was based on liberty. Combating feudalism, it proclaimed freedom of property and was particularly proud of the fact that the state had ceased, supposedly, to be a class state.

Yet the state continued to be a machine which helped the capitalists to hold the poor peasants and the working class in subjection. But in outward appearance it was free. It proclaimed universal suffrage, and declared through its champions, preachers, scholars and philosophers, that it was not a class state. Even now, when the Soviet Socialist Republics have begun to fight the state, they accuse us of violating liberty, of building a state based on coercion, on the suppression of some by others, whereas they represent a popular, democratic state. And now, when the world socialist revolution has begun, and when the revolution has succeeded in some countries, when the fight against world capital has grown particularly acute, this question of the state has acquired the greatest importance and has become, one might say, the most burning one, the focus of all present-day political questions and political disputes.

Whichever party we take in Russia or in any of the more civilised countries, we find that nearly all political disputes, disagreements and opinions now centre around the conception of the state. Is the state in a capitalist country, in a democratic republic—especially one like Switzerland or the U.S.A.—in the freest democratic republics, an expression of the popular will, the sum total of the general decision of the people, the expression of the national will, and so forth; or is the state a machine that enables the capitalists of those countries to maintain their power over the working class and the peasantry? That is the fundamental question around which all political disputes all over the world now centre. What do they say about Bolshevism? The bourgeois press abuses the Bolsheviks. You will not find a single newspaper that does not repeat the hackneyed accusation that the Bolsheviks violate popular rule. If our Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in their simplicity of heart (perhaps it is not simplicity, or perhaps it is the simplicity which the proverb says is worse than robbery) think that they discovered and invented the accusation that the Bolsheviks have violated liberty and popular rule, they are ludicrously mistaken. Today every one of the richest newspapers in the richest countries, which spend tens of millions on their distribution and disseminate bourgeois lies and imperialist policy in tens of millions of copies—every one of these newspapers repeats these basic arguments and accusations against Bolshevism, namely, that the U.S.A., Britain and Switzerland are advanced states based on popular rule, whereas the Bolshevik republic is a state of bandits in which liberty is unknown, and that the Bolsheviks have violated the idea of popular rule and have even gone so far as to disperse the Constituent Assembly. These terrible accusations against the Bolsheviks are repeated all over the world. These accusations lead us directly to the question—what is the state? In order to understand these accusations, in order to study them and have a fully intelligent attitude towards them, and not to examine them on hearsay but with a firm opinion of our own, we must have a clear idea of what the state is. We have before us capitalist states of every kind and all the theories in defence of them which were created before the war. In order to answer the question properly we must critically examine all these theories and views.

I have already advised you to turn for help to Engels’s book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. This book says that every state in which private ownership of the land and means of production exists, in which capital dominates, however democratic it may be, is a capitalist state, a machine used by the capitalists to keep the working class and the poor peasants in subjection; .while universal suffrage, a Constituent Assembly, a parliament are merely a form, a sort of promissory note, which does not change the real state of affairs.

The forms of domination of the state may vary: capital manifests its power in one way where one form exists, and in another way where another form exists—but essentially the power is in the hands of capital, whether there are voting qualifications or some other rights or not, or whether the republic is a democratic one or not—in fact, the more democratic it is the cruder and more cynical is the rule of capitalism. One of the most democratic republics in the world is the United States of America, yet nowhere (and those who have been there since 1905 probably know it) is the power of capital, the power of a handful of multimillionaires over the whole of society, so crude and so openly corrupt as in America. Once capital exists, it dominates the whole of society, and no democratic republic, no franchise can change its nature.

The democratic republic and universal suffrage were an immense progressive advance as compared with feudalism; they have enabled the proletariat to achieve its present unity and solidarity, to form those firm and disciplined ranks which are waging a systematic struggle against capital. There was nothing even approximately resembling this among the peasant serfs, not to speak of the slaves. The slaves, as we know, revolted, rioted, started civil wars, but they could never create a class-conscious majority and parties to lead the struggle, they could not clearly realise what their aims were, and even in the most revolutionary moments of history they were always pawns in the hands of the ruling classes. The bourgeois republic, parliament, universal suffrage—all represent great progress from the standpoint of the world development of society. Mankind moved towards capitalism, and it was capitalism alone which, thanks to urban culture, enabled the oppressed proletarian class to become conscious of itself and to create the world working-class movement, the millions of workers organised all over the world in parties—the socialist parties which are consciously leading the struggle of the masses. Without parliamentarism, without an electoral system, this development of the working class would have been impossible. That is why all these things have acquired such great importance in the eyes of the broad masses of people. That is why a radical change seems to be so difficult. It is not only the conscious hypocrites, scientists and priests that uphold and defend the bourgeois lie that the state is free and that it is its mission to defend the interests of all; so also do a large number of people who sincerely adhere to the old prejudices and who cannot understand the transition from the old, capitalist society to socialism. Not only people who are directly dependent on the bourgeoisie, not only those who live under the yoke of capital or who have been bribed by capital (there are a large number of all sorts of scientists, artists, priests, etc. , in the service of capital), but even people who are simply under the sway of the prejudice of bourgeois liberty, have taken up arms against Bolshevism all over the world because when the Soviet Republic was founded it rejected these bourgeois lies and openly declared: you say your state is free, whereas in reality, as long as there is private property, your state, even if it is a democratic republic, is nothing but a machine used by the capitalists to suppress the workers, and the freer the state, the more clearly is this expressed. Examples of this are Switzerland in Europe and the United States in America. Nowhere does capital rule so cynically and ruthlessly, and nowhere is it so clearly apparent, as in these countries, although they are democratic republics, no matter how prettily they are painted and notwithstanding all the talk about labour democracy and the equality of all citizens. The fact is that in Switzerland and the United States capital dominates, and every attempt of the workers to achieve the slightest real improvement in their condition is immediately met by civil war. There are fewer soldiers, a smaller standing army, in these countries—Switzerland has a militia and every Swiss has a gun at home, while in America there was no standing army until quite recently and so when there is a strike the bourgeoisie arms, hires soldiery and suppresses the strike; and nowhere is this suppression of the working-class movement accompanied by such ruthless severity as in Switzerland and the U.S.A. , and nowhere does the influence of capital in parliament manifest itself as powerfully as in these countries. The power of capital is everything, the stock exchange is everything, while parliament and elections are marionettes, puppets.... But the eyes of the workers are being opened more and more, and the idea of Soviet government is spreading farther and farther afield, especially after the bloody carnage we have just experienced. The necessity for a relentless war on the capitalists is becoming clearer and clearer to the working class.

Whatever guise a republic may assume, however democratic it may be, if it is a bourgeois republic, if it retains private ownership of the land and factories, and if private capital keeps the whole of society in wage-slavery, that is, if the republic does not carry out what is proclaimed in the Programme of our Party and in the Soviet Constitution, then this state is a machine for the suppression of some people by others. And we shall place this machine in the hands of the class that is to overthrow the power of capital. We shall reject all the old prejudices about the state meaning universal equality—for that is a fraud: as long as there is exploitation there cannot be equality. The landowner cannot be the equal of the worker, or the hungry man the equal of the full man. This machine called the state, before which people bowed in superstitious awe, believing the old tales that it means popular rule, tales which the proletariat declares to be a bourgeois lie—this machine the proletariat will smash. So far we have deprived the capitalists of this machine and have taken it over. We shall use this machine, or bludgeon, to destroy all exploitation. And when the possibility of exploitation no longer exists anywhere in the world, when there are no longer owners of land and owners of factories, and when there is no longer a situation in which some gorge while others starve, only when the possibility of this no longer exists shall we consign this machine to the scrap-heap. Then there will be no state and no exploitation. Such is the view of our Communist Party. I hope that we shall return to this subject in subsequent lectures, return to it again and again.

The British General Election - Bourgeois Parties, Bourgeois Rule!

In view of the forthcoming British general election, it seems wise to dwell on the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the state. The British working class are represented with 3 imperialist parties; 1) the Tory party, whose last term in government consisted of slashing wages, rising unemployment, rapid privatisations, and support for imperialist puppet dictatorships in South Africa (Azania) and Chile, amongst others, and a sycophantic backing of the imperialist US interventions across the world; 2) the "Labour" party, who has presided over a period of imperialist wars across the globe, racist attacks on immigrants, slashing of living standards and attacks on the working class, continued privatisation and lustful support of finance capital; and 3), the Liberal Democrats, whose leader and majority of MPs contributed to the notorious "Orange book", a textbook of neoliberal savagery, and whose deputy, Vince Cable, was chief economist for Shell during the time when it was wreaking havoc across Nigeria. As such, in a series of forthcoming posts we shall reproduce a number of key Marxist-Leninist writings on the state, in hope of stimulating discussions.

Ukrainian government and people recognize Cuban treatment of the children of Chernobyl

This is reproduced from Granma International, the organ of the Cuban Communist Party. I am posting it as an example of the fantastic acts of solidarity that the Cuban socialist revolution has achieved, something we need to uphold in the current climate of imperialist attacks on socialist Cuba.

A distinction for Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, chief inspiration of the humane project constituted by the treatment program in Cuba for Ukrainian children and their families affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, was presented during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the first patients’ arrival.

José Ramón Machado Ventura, first vice president of the councils of State and Ministers, received the distinction from Dr. Julio Medina, director of the program in the city of Tarará.

During the ceremony, former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma announced the conferral on Fidel of the Order of Merit, First Class, and on President Raúl Castro, the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, First Class.

Kuchma also presented distinctions to Minister of Public Health José Ramón Balaguer and other doctors, diplomats and collaborators who have contributed to the program’s success.

In closing remarks, Balaguer said that the treatment program for these children was an example of what a people without great material resources can do when it has the great spiritual wealth of having been educated in solidarity, unconditional dedication, and love for other peoples.

The minister noted that the years of the special period, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the intensification of the blockade could not put a dent in the Cuban people’s spirit of solidarity and humanity, and that Cuba continues to carry out the program according to the existing possibilities.

It was during those difficult years of the 1990s that more children benefited from the program, he said. Treatment was provided to more than 300 children with hematological illnesses, chiefly leukemia, and 136 with different types of tumors. Fourteen complicated heart operations were performed, as well as two kidney transplants, six bone marrow transplants, and others.

Balaguer affirmed that the victims of that catastrophe who have been treated in Cuba have also found consolation and love, and he praised the efforts of those who have worked over the last 20 years to provide excellent services – workers in healthcare, science, services, gastronomy, and culture, all to benefit these 25,457 people, 21,378 of them children, who will always carry in their hearts the indelible mark of friendship between the Ukrainian and Cuban peoples.

Declaration of the Ukrainian mothers

We, the mothers of the children affected by the Chernobyl disaster, and the International Chernobyl Fund, would like to address all people of goodwill in this world: be receptive to our words, because they come from deep within our hearts as mothers.

For a mother, the worst misfortune that can happen in life is the illness of her child. When in 1990, Cuba and the Comandante Fidel reached out to help the sick Ukrainian children, we could not but appreciate this great deed of the Cuban people, and we want to declare to the entire world that there is no action more humane with respect to sick children than the Ukrainian-Cuban program, Children of Chernobyl.

With all our hearts, we thank the immense Cuban people, their wise leaders Fidel Castro, who made this program a reality, and Raúl Castro, who has now taken over its leadership, for everything they have been able to do for the Ukrainian children affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe.

There are things in life that are not bought or sold with money: friendship, and mutual aid and support in difficult times, and this is what now firmly unites the Cuban and Ukrainian people.

We trust that the sincere and just voices of the Ukrainian mothers will be heard by the peoples of the world.

And we would like to state that there is no country freer than Cuba, that it is known throughout the world as the island of freedom, where never, under any circumstance, have human rights been violated.

We the Ukrainian mothers thank the people and the government of the Republic of Cuba with all our hearts for treating our children, and we hope that the black wings of Chernobyl disappear forever, and that the friendship between two great peoples lasts forever.

Viva Cuba! Viva Ukraine!

Translated by Granma International

Maoist strike in Chhattisgarh disrupts iron ore shipments

From the International Campaign Against War on the People in India:

A 48-hour strike called by the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) has hit iron ore shipment by India's largest iron ore miner, NMDC Ltd, in Chhattisgarh, company officials said Tuesday.

The National Mineral Development Company Ltd (NMDC Ltd) has cut short iron ore transportation up to 40 percent on a daily basis due to rail services disruption between its Bailadila iron ore mining facilities in Dantewada district, some 400 km from state capital Raipur, to Andhra Pradesh's port city Visakhapatnam.

Railways have cancelled night movements of goods trains since March 21 fearing attacks by Maoists who have strong presence in and around the NMDC's Bailadila's Kirandul and Bacheli mining facilities.

The Maoists' 48-hour shutdown that began from Monday is effective in six states, including Chhattisgarh.

'Nearly 40 percent of total daily dispatches of some 56,000 tonnes from Kirandul and Bacheli locations of the NMDC's Bailadila iron ore mining facility has been hit as rail rakes are not available since March 21 night,' a senior official of the NMDC based in Chhattisgarh told IANS, requesting anonymity.

He informed IANS that a number of domestic major customers, including Essar Steel Ltd and Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, were hit due to the distruptions in supply.

Officials of the East Coast Railway that runs goods trains between Kiradul to Visakhapatnam say the rail services would be restored during night within a couple of days after assessing the threat perception by Maoists.

Maoist rebels who claim to be fighting for the rights of poor peasants and landless labourers, routinely call strikes in Chhattisgarh and attack government property.

In recent years the insurgents carried out deadly attacks on security guards deployed at NMDC mining complexes in Chhattisgarh and in recent months the iron ore dispatches were hit hard on a regular basis.