The Red Menace

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abhishek_sharma
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by abhishek_sharma »

From the book cited above:

Execution of Lenin's brother Alexander
Alexander was a gifted youth, as the gold medal he attained on graduating from high school indicated. At school he had shown an interest in zoology and acquired three European languages, and at St Petersburg University, which he entered in 1883, he quickly became one of the top students. A month before his father’s premature death he won the University gold medal for work on annelid worms. Nothing indicated that he had been seized by the forces of social protest.

In his first years at university, Alexander was indifferent, if not sceptical, towards the political circles, but he became more involved when friends introduced him to the writings of Marx, Engels and Plekhanov. For them, Marxism emphasized the need for violence to change the existing conditions. One of the more radical members of the group, P. Shevyrev, declared that only by the removal of tyrants could life be reorganized on just principles. At first Alexander, who was wrapped up in his scientific plans and discoveries, merely listened, but gradually he was won over by the apparent logic of his friends’ radicalism, and came to feel it was morally unacceptable to stand aside from ‘the ideas of progress and revolution’, as they put it.

While Alexander was at university his contacts with Vladimir were sporadic, limited to the occasional letter with greetings to all. And when he came home on vacation, there was no particular intimacy between them. They were a close-knit family, but the children tended to pair off, and Vladimir was closest to his sister Olga, though he deferred to Alexander’s intelligence. Anna, the eldest sister, recalled once talking with Alexander after their father had died, and asking him: ‘How do you like our Volodya?’ Her brother replied: ‘He’s obviously very gifted, but we don’t really get on.’ Anna was intrigued, but Alexander refused to explain.30 This may be the only hint in all the apologist literature that relations between the siblings might not have been entirely flawless.

The 1880s in Russia were a time of harsh reaction against the assassination in 1881 of the ‘tsar-liberator’, Alexander II. Students in particular were more closely watched and harassed by the police than ever before, and Alexander’s entry into a group of conspirators who were planning the assassination of Alexander III is commonly explained by the violent dispersal by the police of a student demonstration in memory of the radical thinker Dobrolyubov on 17 November 1886. The arrest and deportation to Siberia of several student friends confronted Alexander with the moral question of how to behave in such circumstances. According to Shevyrev’s view: ‘When the government takes our closest friends by the throat, it is especially immoral to refuse to struggle, and under the present circumstances real struggle with tsarism can only mean terrorism.’ Of this dilemma Nikolai Valentinov, an early Bolshevik who knew Lenin well during the time of his first period abroad, between 1900 and 1905, and a valuable historical source in himself, wrote: ‘Painfully sensitive to suggestions of immorality, Alexander, after agonizing hesitation, began to share these views, and once he did so, he became an advocate of systematic, frightening terrorism, capable of shaking the autocracy.’31

The group of conspirators under Shevyrev’s leadership grew. Their watch on the tsar’s route from the palace to St Isaac’s Cathedral began on 26 February 1887, but they were utterly inexperienced, and when on 1 March the police intercepted a letter from one of them, the entire group was arrested. The Ulyanov family was devastated, but placed their hope in the emperor’s clemency. Alexander’s mother rushed to St Petersburg and handed in a letter to Alexander III which said, among other things, that she would purge her son’s heart of its criminal schemes and resurrect the healthy human instincts he had always lived by, if only the tsar would show mercy.

The drama caught the attention of society, and received much publicity. Maria Ulyanova’s entreaties failed, however, not only because of the tsar’s intransigence, but because Alexander refused to ask for clemency. Those who found it possible to do so had their death sentences commuted to hard labour. The trial was very short, lasting only from 15 to 19 March. Five unrepentant comrades were sentenced to hang. Even when Alexander was saying goodbye to his mother there was still the chance of salvation, but he told her in a quiet, firm voice, ‘I cannot do it after everything I said in court. It would be insincere.’ Alexander’s lawyer, Knyazev, was present at this meeting, and after the October revolution he recalled that Alexander had explained: ‘Imagine, Mama, two men facing each other at a duel. One of them has already shot at his opponent, the other has yet to do so, when the one who has shot asks him not to. No, I cannot behave like that!’

Alexander had proved himself to be extraordinarily brave. His last wish was that his mother should bring him a volume of Heine to read. On the morning of 8 May 1887 the prisoners were told they were to be hanged in the courtyard of Shlisselburg Fortress in two hours’ time. This was their last chance to appeal for clemency, but even now these young people, misguided as history may judge them to have been, proved themselves morally worthy of the nation’s memory. They were not fanatics, they believed that their country’s future could only be altered by revolutionary acts against tyrants. Alexander’s group seemed then and seems now naive, but it is impossible not to admire their willingness to sacrifice their lives in the name of freedom.


abhishek_sharma
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Re: The Red Menace

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Views from The Left
The Congress’s B-team

The Congress is denying Parliament its right to discuss and vote upon FDI in retail, which has a vital bearing on a fifth of our country’s population, according to the CPM weekly, People’s Democracy.

“Forcing the government to accept such a discussion, under the relevant rules, and deciding to a vote would have decisively frustrated the government’s efforts to allow FDI to prise open our markets and access our resources for its profits at the expense of our people,” says the editorial. The party has criticised the TMC, for bringing in a no-confidence motion against the government.

It argues that no-confidence motions are usually considered when enough members in the Lok Sabha belonging to the opposition support it, so there is the possibility of carrying the motion. If the no-confidence motion is unable to be carried, the government can interpret this as an endorsement of all its policies and its governance. It adds that with the SP and the BSP continuing to support the government from outside, the no-confidence motion would have been a non-starter anyway.

UPA in minority

The government does not want to allow discussion on FDI in retail under Rule 184 in Parliament because division voting would prove that the UPA is in a minority over the issue, says the CPI’s New Age.

“If one goes by the current lineup for the reversal of the decision on FDI in retail, the UPA government is totally in [the] minority. If it persists with the policy, it loses its right to continue in power,” says its editorial. It also claims that the ruling coalition, headed by the Congress, has “mastered the art of using allurement, [the] threat of [the] use of the CBI and other such unscrupulous means” to manage members from the opposition. “The BJP is using the threat to bargain certain concessions from the ruling alliance, particularly in the cases of corruption against its leaders,” it says.

KASAB’S EXECUTION

The CPI-ML journal ML Update says that the Congress executed Ajmal Kasab “secretly”, just before the beginning of the winter session to wriggle out of a possible showdown and defeat on the floor of Parliament on the issue of FDI in retail.

“If the Congress believes it can silence the people by citing the hanging of Kasab, the BJP has already begun to raise a shrill demand for the execution of Afzal Guru,” the article says. According to the article, “Scams are a great leveller — the Congress and the BJP both stand exposed as ‘dukaans’ (shops) doing brisk business in the name of ruling the country or different states”.

Compiled by Avishek G. Dastidar
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Nihat »

Rony wrote:Top ten perpetrators of terrorist attacks world wide in 2011

1.Communist Party of India-Maoists (CPI-M): 371
2.Taliban: 254
3.Al Shabaab: 163
4.Boko Haram: 124
5.Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC): 83
6.Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): 80
7.Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP): 75
Should put some priorities in perspective for GoI , the paramilitary forces are bravely fighting these pigs in the jungles but is that enough. IMHO , a awful lot more could be done on the force side of things too. More jungle warfare schools are needed to provide army like specialized training in jungle warfare , active use of choppers for enemy camp destruction will be a major boost to the forces too.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Suppiah »

Beijing puppet rapist goons seem unable to choose is modi acquiring land for industrialisation from farmers or there is no industrialisation....

Can't be arguing that both are true...
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by kshatriya »

The Dharmapuri Dalit Riots has happened in the heart of the Naxalite movement in TN. In the past some of these ex Naxals have involved in dubious out of court dealings.. Not sure if they have any role in the instigation.


http://www.frontline.in/stories/20121214292404000.htm
THE Dalits of Naikkankottai village in Dharmapuri district are not strangers to conflict and violence. They were targeted by the state for some two decades from the 1980s when the naxalite movement was active in the region.

“Being a native of Naikkankottai is a curse. And if you happen to be a Dalit, you are doubly doomed. We suffer collectively for the path we took in the past and are now prevented from leading a dignified life,” said Sasikala, wife of P. Palanisamy, a former naxalite activist and a Dalit resident of Natham colony.

Between the early 1980s and late the 1990s, Naikkankottai was under regular police surveillance. Palanisamy, who is called “POTA” Palanisamy since he served a prison term of five years under the now-defunct Prevention of Terrorism Act, said the police would “knock on our doors at any time and whisk away our youths to an undisclosed destination under the ruse of interrogation. Sustained monitoring, pre-dawn raids and constant intimidation became integral parts of our lives and forced men, especially Dalits, to migrate to far-off places such as Bangalore and Coimbatore to escape harassment and, of course, to earn a livelihood,” he said.

After the police shoot-out at Uthankarai on September 24, 2002, the radical movement was wiped out from Tamil Nadu, particularly from the then composite Dharmapuri district. (Uthankarai is now in Krishnagiri district, which was carved out of Dharmapuri in 2004.)

The state started its intervention programmes with the primary objective of mainstreaming the villagers through a series of confidence-building exercises besides earmarking special funds under socio-economic schemes for their overall development.

The woes of Dalits in the three colonies of Natham, Anna Nagar and Kondampatti in Naikkankottai are, however, far from over. The four-hour arson and looting by rampaging mobs on November 7 left them without any resources to earn a livelihood. The valuables they had accumulated over a decade of hard labour have been destroyed.

The Dalits had enjoyed a sort of immunity to caste-based discrimination until 2000, since naxalite leaders had tuned the poor, mostly Dalits, to the ideology of fighting feudal establishments in the rural pockets. The Natham Dalit colony alone has seven former Marxist-Leninist activists, of whom two, including Palanisamy, served prison terms.

“We faced neither overt nor covert discrimination in those days. Even caste Hindus, who were allegedly behind the recent violence, were with us then. We were able to abolish the pannai adimai system [slaves on farmlands] after a series of struggles,” said Palanisamy. Naxalite sympathisers M. Durai and A. Mathaiyan pointed out that extreme poverty and discrimination had drawn them towards the radical movement though “we were against their gospel of annihilation of class enemies’ to bridge the gap between the landed and the landless”.

In the 1980s, Dharmapuri was a fertile ground for breeding extremists as it was one of the most backward districts in the State. Charu Majumdar, who formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, held a secret meeting in 1970 in Hogenekkal in the district after making a discreet visit to the nearby Puliampatti village. Appu and Balan, who were killed in police encounters, had worked among the poor working-class people in Naikkankottai and its many surrounding villages.

Seventy-year-old Chinnathambi, a naxalite sympathiser, said Dalits were subjected to hardships and were paid a paltry sum of Rs.40 as monthly wages. The naxalite movement helped them get better wages. Chinnathambi’s wife belongs to the Vanniyar caste.

Their inter-caste marriage, which took place some 30 years ago in Naikkankottai, never created any disturbance, unlike the latest Dalit-Vanniyar marriage. “We are living happily with grandchildren,” he said.

The exit of radical elements, according to social scientists, created a void in the rural society, which has been usurped by the caste-based outfits. Since 2005, the Vanniyar Sangam and other caste organisations have been infiltrating the villages in and around Naikkankottai trying to erase the very concept of working class on which the people remained united and promoting a dangerous form of casteism that is fragmenting society.

The delay on the part of the Left parties such as the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to fill the vacuum has further worsened the situation. Admitting that an ideological vacuum had existed in Naikkankottai, the CPI(M)’s State secretary, G. Ramakrishnan, said his party had decided to expand its organisational base to all pockets in order to address the issues.

“It is unfortunate that caste outfits of Vanniyars and Kongu Vellalars have started campaigning against inter-caste marriages, which is against the tenets of the Constitution. The Dharmapuri incident is the fallout of the hate speech made by Vanniyar Sangam president “Kaduvetti” J. Guru alias Gurunathan in Mammalapuram against inter-caste marriages. It was sad that the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a political party born out of the Vanniyar Sangam, failed to rein in the Sangam leadership, he said.

The CPI(M)’s senior leader K. Balakrishnan said the party would organise a felicitation function for inter-caste couples in Dharmapuri soon in order to send the message across to the caste-based outfits that the CPI(M) stood solidly behind these couples. P. Dilli Babu, the party’s Member of the Legislative Assembly representing Harur, said the party had decided to organise youths in Naikkankottai through the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).

The CPI’s Dharmapuri district joint secretary, J. Prathaban, agreed that the Left parties should actively engage in activities aimed at keeping caste-based outfits at bay.

A. Marx, a Chennai-based rights activist, pointed out that identity and hate politics, especially after the decline of far-Left movements, had gained momentum in the State. “Polarisation on caste lines is complete today. Rebuilding lives from ruins will be an uphill task for the disadvantaged Dalits,” he said.
abhishek_sharma
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Re: The Red Menace

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Views from the Left
Executive decision?

Contrary to what the government claims, the decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail is not exactly an executive decision, argues the CPM journal People’s Democracy. The government had been trying to fend off demands for a vote on FDI under Rule 184 in Parliament saying this was an executive decision. “FDI in this sector is expressly prohibited under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999. Any decision now to permit FDI would require an amendment in these FEMA regulations which are made by the RBI,” says the editorial.

Following a writ petition in the Supreme Court, the RBI had issued amendments to the regulation allowing FDI in multi-brand retail two months ago, the write-up says. The editorial argues that according to Section 48 of FEMA, any amendment must be tabled in both Houses of Parliament and voted upon. The point being the decision to allow FDI in retail requires an amendment to an existing law, and laws can be made and amended only by the legislature, not the executive.

Cash transfer ploy

The government’s cash-transfer scheme is completely erroneous, says the CPI in its weekly, New Age. One of the arguments against the scheme is that India’s banking network is not adequate to benefit everyone. “The beneficiary of a particular scheme will have to spend more on transport to reach the bank than the amount he or she is going to receive,” says the editorial.

Regarding the government’s claim that Aadhaar cards could provide everyone with easy access to money through bank accounts, New Age says Parliament has yet to approve the creation of this mechanism; only 210 million people have been issued Aadhaar numbers as yet, and that half of the rural population does not have bank accounts.

“How can government go ahead with a mechanism that is under dispute? What about the allegation that the process adopted for [the] Aadhaar card [is] being used to manipulate the figures of those living below the poverty line?” it asks, adding that this looked like a way to reduce the number of genuine BPL people to show the poverty has been removed.

Globalisation’s underbelly

The fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh that killed more than 100 people exposed the “ugly underbelly” of globalisation, whereby giant clothing brands and retail chains outsource their production to benefit from cheap labour in Asian and South Asian countries, says the editorial in the CPI(ML) journal, ML Update: “Appallingly exploitative conditions of labour, which would no longer be countenanced in the advanced capitalist countries, are the norm in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India...”

The ML Update goes on to say that global brands amass huge profits by sourcing clothes from countries where workers work for low wages, in exploitative and unsafe conditions: “In the dense web of contractors and sub-contractors, responsibility can be easily shrugged off. The government of Bangladesh colludes in the exploitative conditions, unleashing severe repression on workers’ protests...” From Karachi to Dhaka and Delhi to Colombo, the ghettos and death-traps of globalisation will have to be challenged head-on by united waves of South Asian resistance, says the editorial.

Compiled by Avishek G. Dastidar
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by ravar »

Didn't know where else to post this-

Image

The Russian delegation consists of Communists themselves and have three confirmed public seminars with the Communist leaders of Kerala.

One at Kollam (which concluded today) and the other two at Kochi (tomorrow, Dec 6) and Kannur (Dec 7).

They have experienced spirituality from India, thanks to the Art of Living programmes and would share that experience and philosophy with the Communists from Kerala.

Also a write up by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the topic- http://srisriinkerala.org/the-first-communist
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Sachin »

ravar wrote:They have experienced spirituality from India, thanks to the Art of Living programmes and would share that experience and philosophy with the Communists from Kerala.
Did any commie leader worth his salt attended this? I dont think so. There was a report that a commie local level official was chucked out of the party because he conducted an Ayyappan Vilakku (evening ritual devoted to Lord Ayyappa) at his home. Yes the russians may have realised the folly of communism, but I really dont think the Keralite commie goons have risen to that level where they can realise their mistakes. They are still debating about revolutions, Che Guevera etc. etc. Still a long way to go and smell the coffee.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by ravar »

^^Agree.

Today's meeting at Kochi was attended by Sri. V. B. Cherian, IIRC, ex- Party Secretary, who is/was considered by many as an important guy in the party (though it seems he has fallen out with the party honchos for his controversial stance on certain issues).

At one time, the joke in Kerala was that, if it used to rain in FSU, the Kerala Commies would unfold umbrellas in GOC. That was the intellectual slavery that these guys followed.

Today, a bunch of visiting Russian Commies telling these brown-skin comrades to smell coffee, has enough symbolism for all to see. Sometimes, it is best to attempt to remove a thorn using another thorn. Yes, just an attempt, nevertheless.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Yayavar »

^^ The fishing nets on Kerala coast look very nice and am sure are practical too. They are always referred to as 'chinese nets'. Over the last 6 weeks I had the opportunity to travel to multiple places including Assam and take a couple of boat-rides on the Brahmputra. Very similar nets are deployed in Assam - and the locals just call them, at least the boatman called them 'tangni jaal' (hanging net).

I wonder if the communist background turns or makes anything spectacular chinese - so it is chinese nets and not just 'hanging' nets. These could just be imports from Assam or even indigenous for all I know.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Sachin »

viv wrote:I wonder if the communist background turns or makes anything spectacular chinese - so it is chinese nets and not just 'hanging' nets. These could just be imports from Assam or even indigenous for all I know.
Hmm.. the name Cheena vala (Chinese Net) has been in existence even before the first commie was born in Kerala :). Kerala had an active trade culture thanks to the ports etc. So I dont think commies brought in China here (to prove themselves as More Chinese than the Chinese - MCTC). Secondly I think the commies in Kerala relied too much on the Soviet Union of communism (terrorism). USSR was the favourite. But off course in 1962 etc. the commies favoured China. Even today the best way to irritate a commie is to bring up the topic of communism getting kicked out of USSR and Poland :lol:.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Yayavar »

^^ok..but I found it curious since in Kerala it was always referred to as Cheena net vs. just tangani net in Assam. Maybe not a communist thing for a change :).
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Aditya_V »

In this country only leftists and Maoists have human rights, those who opposse them are to be slaugtered.

Salwa Judum leader gunned down in Bastar
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Re: The Red Menace

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Volkogonov, Dmitri Lenin Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Lenin soon realized that ‘victory over the old world’ was impossible ‘without the dictatorship of the proletariat and an iron hand’.1 To this end, labour conscription was introduced, the bourgeoisie were subjected to repeated requisitioning, their apartments were packed out with new tenants, they were ‘purged’ from institutions and put under constant threat of new and worse punishments. A barracks mentality gradually took over in the endless commissariats, offices, Soviets and proletarian bodies.

Trotsky recalled that when Shteinberg, the Left SR Commissar of Justice, protested against the use of violence and repression as a means of settling social problems, Lenin exclaimed: ‘Surely you don’t think we’ll come out as the winners if we don’t use the harshest revolutionary terror?’ Lenin took every opportunity to ram home the message that terror was inevitable. A dozen times a day he would fire off tirades against anyone suspected of pacifism: ‘If we can’t shoot a White Guard saboteur, what sort of great revolution is it? Haven’t you seen what the bourgeois garbage are writing about us in the press? What sort of dictatorship is this? All talk and no action.’2

With typical persistence, Lenin hammered home the need to toughen the dictatorship ‘to save the revolution’, until gradually his regulations for using the iron hand became standard Bolshevik practice. To be sure, he was often pushed into adopting harsh measures by the disasters which threatened, above all the famine, caused by the dislocation of Russia’s supply system as a result of three years of war, together with reduced production. In effect, Lenin believed that terror would save the country from starvation. The food ‘must be taken from the rich’. Black marketeers must be shot. He also urged the masses to act independently, by which he meant they should carry out their own searches and confiscate food: ‘As long we do not use terror—i.e. shooting black marketeers on the spot—we’ll get nowhere.’ Looters should be similarly dealt with, while ‘the better-off should be left without food for three days, as they have stocks’.3

There would seem to be three elements which explain why a man with Lenin’s understanding of humanitarian principles could embrace violent methods. First, he simply lost his head when confronted by an avalanche of problems. Nothing more than an émigré intellectual a few months earlier, with no practical experience beyond controlling a Party faction, he had been cut off from the grim realities of life in Russia. As his first acts show, he had no idea how to deploy his time and responsibilities: personally authorizing an apartment for an old Bolshevik, or sending aid to a village outside Moscow, setting up the management of the Sovnarkom canteen and making endless propaganda speeches. The levers of the state machine, such as it was, were in harsh but inexperienced hands. Many of Lenin’s telegrams portray his loss of control, even if only temporary. For instance, he cabled Antonov-Ovseenko and Dzerzhinsky in Kharkov: ‘For God’s sake, take the most energetic and revolutionary measures to send grain, grain and grain!!! Otherwise [Petrograd] could expire. [Use] special trains and troops. Collect and load. Escort the trains. Inform us daily. For God’s sake!’4 This was a cry of desperation, loss of control and panic, the partners of coercion.

The second element is that the Bolsheviks observed their own scale of moral values. Lack of pity, class hatred and Machiavellianism were to them the highest revolutionary virtues. Lenin even stooped to hostage-taking, decreeing that ‘in every grain-growing district, 25-30 rich hostages should be taken who will answer with their lives for the collection and loading of all surpluses’.5 The effect on the middle classes was utterly demoralizing.

The third element was that Lenin intended to use fear as a weapon. Terror would break the will to resist of millions. When V. Volodarsky, the People’s Commissar for Press, Propaganda and Agitation, was assassinated by a Socialist Revolutionary in Petrograd in 1918, Lenin cabled Zinoviev: ‘This is im-poss-ible! The terrorists will think we’re milksops. We have an extreme war situation. We must encourage energy and wide-scale terror against the counter-revolutionaries, especially in [Petrograd] as a decisive example.’6

Lenin cannot be accused of personal cruelty. His was more the social, philosophical cruelty of a leader. His main argument for the use of terror was that it was in the interests of the proletariat. In an article entitled ‘Plekhanov on Terror’, he wrote with seeming frankness about the difference between bourgeois and Bolshevik terror: The bourgeoisie ‘practised terror against the workers, soldiers and peasants in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants’.7 Such an argument could be used to justify any crime perpetrated by the state. The leaders of the revolution had become priests of terror.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by abhishek_sharma »

Views from the Left
Babri, after 20 years

The CPM’s People’s Democracy carries a series of articles on the 20th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. The lead editorial laments that those responsible for the demolition have not been punished yet: “A full twenty years later, justice has been denied to our Republic as those responsible for such an attack on the secular foundations of our country have not been brought to book... The legal proceedings continue to remain before the judiciary.”

The editorial refers to senior BJP leader L.K. Advani’s call for a national debate on secularism soon after the Babri demolition in a set of two articles in The Indian Express (December 27 and 28, 1992). It refers to the three covenants — rejection of theocracy, equality of all citizens irrespective of faith and full freedom of faith and worship — put forward by Advani then and asks whether the BJP repudiates the RSS philosophy of Hindu nation and Golwalkar’s view that non-Hindus “have no place in national life, unless they abandon their differences, adopt the religion, culture and language of the nation, and completely merge themselves in the national race.” It adds, “The BJP’s call for a national debate on secularism, which it periodically keeps reiterating, is nothing but a ruse to mask its real intentions of functioning as the political arm of the RSS and working for the realisation of the RSS agenda of transforming the secular democratic Indian Republic into their vision of a rabidly intolerant fascistic ‘Hindu Rashtra’...”

In retail

THE latest issues of the CPI and CPI(ML) journals keep their resistance against FDI in retail alive despite the opposition losing the vote in Parliament. While the CPI has accused the government of manipulating Parliament, the CPI(ML) calls it a “concocted majority”. The Left parties have targeted the SP and the BSP for helping the government.

“The claim by the SP and BSP that they did not vote against FDI in retail so as not to benefit the communal BJP is laughable; the BSP is known to have shared power with the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, while the SP is known to have done business with Kalyan Singh, the man who as chief minister of UP from the BJP, had presided over the demolition of the Babri Masjid,” an editorial in ML Update says.

New Age was equally critical. It says the SP’s and BSP’s argument they didn’t want to vote with a communal party was bogus: “The debate was not on the question of communalism and secularism. You cannot say that the brightly lit day is not day but night because your adversary is saying that it is day...”

ML Update calls the government’s arguments for retail FDI “unconvincing and false”. It also talks about the lobbying disclosure report filed by retail giant Walmart: “How exactly was the money spent on ‘lobbying’ for entry into India? Who are the alleged recipients of bribes...? These unanswered questions indicate that the process by which the FDI in retail policy has been adopted is murky,” it says.

Where’s the party?

A NEW AGE article raises questions about Arvind Kejriwal’s political party. It observes that despite Kejriwal’s announcement his party would ensure prominence for youth and women, only two women could find place in its executive committee. It also mentions the lack of representation from southern India.

Besides, CPI leader Binoy Viswam argues that it is easy to speak against corruption or launch a party, but the serious task would be to find out the class origin of corruption: “It is much more difficult to wage a battle against corruption and win that battle... The socio-political evil of corruption can be uprooted only through uprooting [the] capitalist system itself. Have the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party ever thought of this fundamental truth... Do they believe that they alone would be able to... win such a complex battle... If not, whom do they see as their allies in such a struggle...”

Compiled by Manoj C.G.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by abhishek_sharma »

Volkogonov, Dmitri Lenin Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The decree on mass terror was the foundation upon which the system was built and developed by Lenin’s successors and by those who followed Dzerzhinsky and Unshlikht. It is difficult to fathom how a man who loved Beethoven and Spinoza, who had read Kant and who liked to tell Gorky and Lunacharsky how much the Bolsheviks valued the intelligentsia, could reconcile himself to a system permeated with police rule. How could Lenin, who claimed to be the leader of a new world, personally write the orders to hang, to shoot, to take hostages, to imprison in concentration camps, knowing that these would not remain mere words?

When the Bolsheviks first used terror, they justified it by citing ‘revolutionary conscience’ and the hasty decrees of the Sovnarkom which encouraged it. When, however, terror became an everyday, common and at times mass occurrence, Lenin felt the need to give it a theoretical foundation. There are many articles in which he developed his explanations. In November 1920 the journal Kommunisticheskii Internatsional published ‘On the History of the Question of the Dictatorship’. Opening with his customary ‘Whoever does not understand the need for dictatorship of any revolutionary class to secure its victory, understands nothing of the history of revolution,’165 Lenin proceeded to list a number of propositions to justify and whitewash revolutionary terror. ‘The dictatorship means—take note of this once and for all—unrestrained power based on force and not on law.’166 Several times Lenin repeated Gorky’s phrase, ‘the logic of the axe’, and he seemed to enjoy his own discovery that: ‘Unrestrained, lawless power, based on force in the simplest sense of the word, is precisely what the dictatorship is about.’167 He then produced a definition: ‘The dictatorship means nothing other than power totally unlimited by any laws, absolutely unrestrained by regulations and based directly on the use of force.’ The ‘revolutionary people creates its own court and punishment, applies force, creates new revolutionary law’.168 According to Lenin, violence meted out in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat is ‘revolutionary justice’.

...

None of this distracted Lenin from the task of putting the repressive apparatus on a legal basis, even though his notion of what was legal bore little relation to justice. In 1922, Kursky set about formulating the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. With the formation of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) in 1922, each constituent republic composed its own criminal code, in theory independent but in practice in conformity with rules laid down by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin took an active part in formulating the model criminal code, that of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). He wrote to Kursky: ‘In my opinion, we should widen the use of execution (commuted to deportation abroad).’172 Two days later he wrote again: ‘The law should not abolish terror; to promise that would be self-delusion or deception; it should be substantiated and legalized in principle, clearly, without evasion or embellishment.’173 He could hardly have been more frank: terror must be legalized as a matter of principle, and its sphere of application be as broad as possible. Moreover, he added two possible variants showing how the ‘use of execution could be broadened’, only one of which we cite, since the differences between them are insignificant: ‘Propaganda, agitation or participation or collaboration with organizations helping that part of the international bourgeoisie which does not recognize the right of the Communist system of ownership to replace capitalism and attempts its overthrow by force, by intervention, blockade, espionage or financing the press and similar methods, shall be sentenced to [death], commuted in mitigating circumstances to deprivation of liberty or deportation abroad.’174 This became in all respects the basis of the notorious Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code,175 as was recognized in Volume 45 of Lenin’s works, published in 1970: ‘Lenin’s suggestions were taken into account in the Criminal Code … in the section on counter-revolutionary crimes.’176

It was to Lenin that Soviet society owed the credit for having established and created a special rôle for its ‘punitive organs’. In this he owed nothing to Marx and Engels, who had left no instructions about how such bodies should be created or how they were to function. Lenin himself was the patron saint of the Cheka. Established in December 1917, it was soon accorded extra-judicial status at Lenin’s behest. The omnipotent Cheka had the power to arrest, investigate, pass sentences and carry them out. Tens of thousands of people were shot without trial in the cellars of the Cheka. As if this was not enough, on 14 May 1921 the Politburo, chaired by Lenin, passed a motion ‘broadening the rights of the [Cheka] in relation to the use of the [death penalty]’.177

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Re: The Red Menace

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Stalin killed many close associates of Lenin even when they grovelled before him. Their stories are depressing. Here is an example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Bukharin
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by D Roy »

This was the worst of all. As Bukharin was the best suited to succeed Lenin, more so than Trotsky.

This man had the right economic ideas and could have saved the soviet union.

With his execution in those early years, the soviet state basically sealed its fate. Although it came apart much later. But Bukharin was really the last good man they had.

His debate with Preobrazhensky on the future of Kulaks is a famous chapter in Soviet history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeni_Preobrazhensky

Preobrazhensky was also executed by Stalin.
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Re: The Red Menace

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Some information about the fate of Lenin's close associates after his death. This is from the book cited above:
In the internecine conflict that flared when Lenin died, both Kamenev and Zinoviev made poor political judgements. At first they helped Stalin to isolate Trotsky, and then themselves fell under the wheels of Stalin’s chariot. The destruction of the Bolshevik ‘old guard’ cannot be explained solely in terms of different policies, the contest of ‘deviations’ or platforms. Lenin had created a system which could tolerate only one leader at its summit. In the beginning, however, there was a host of claimants. When Stalin came out on top, they served to remind him that Lenin had tried to avoid having favourites, and had kept all his entourage in roughly the same position. Nor could Stalin come to terms with the fact that in many respects Zinoviev, Kamenev and the other ‘October leaders’ had had closer relations with Lenin than he. He saw them as potential rivals, and this decided their fate. The absurd invention of conspiracies and secret centres was merely the outward form of a process that finally confirmed Stalin’s monopoly on Lenin and his heritage.

At first, the ‘twins’, especially Zinoviev, believed they would return to favour. When on 6 November 1929 the Communist cell of the Central Union of Consumers’ Societies was interviewing Zinoviev for membership, he declared: ‘I think that in time (and I hope it will not be far off), the Central Committee will give me the opportunity to apply my efforts in a wider arena.’122 He had obviously failed to study the methods of Lenin’s best pupil. Stalin could not overlook the fact that Zinoviev had been praised far more than he during Lenin’s life. In September 1918 Trotsky had concluded a speech at the Petrograd Soviet: ‘We are pupils of Lenin, we strive, however minimally, to be like this flaming tribune of international Communism, like the greatest prophet and apostle of the socialist revolution.’ He sat down to ‘stormy applause’. But then the chairman of the meeting, a certain Zorin, exclaimed: ‘Long live the best pupil of Comrade Lenin, Comrade Zinoviev!’, and the minutes show that the meeting erupted into a ‘stormy ovation’.123 Not even Trotsky could praise Lenin as Zinoviev could. When the leader died, Zinoviev declared: ‘Lenin is Lenin. As mighty as the ocean; as stern and inaccessible as Mont Blanc; as tender as the southern sun; as great as the world; as humane as a child.’124 It was intolerable to Stalin that others should try to commandeer the dead Lenin and his ‘Leninism’.

As Zinoviev felt Stalin’s grip tightening, he ceased to fantasize about regaining his former glory, concentrating instead on finding ways merely to survive. His (and Kamenev’s) requests for an audience with Stalin were ignored, and he felt he had little choice but to join in the chorus of adoration for the new leader, a rôle for which he had proven talent. On the tenth anniversary of Lenin’s death, in January 1934, Zinoviev wrote an article on the subject which he could not get published. He had cited Lenin and added: ‘Comrade Stalin, the continuer of Lenin’s cause, could in early 1933 reinforce this quotation with the facts of the victoriously completed First Five-year Plan.’ He had then inserted the word ‘great’ before ‘continuer’.125 When Stalin’s book Marxism and the National-Colonial Question was published, Zinoviev at once wrote an article entitled, ‘From the Gold Reserve of Marxism-Leninism’. It began on a high note: ‘There are in the treasury of Marxism-Leninism a number of books which no Marxist can do without, and which constitute the gold reserve of World Communism. Such books are few in number. Indeed, quantity is here unimportant. Few though they may be, these books represent the most valuable possession of the world labour movement. Among this “mighty pile” one of Comrade Stalin’s works has for long—and rightly so—occupied a leading place. We are of course referring to The Foundations of Leninism. Now a new book will with equal merit take its place among the most outstanding works of Marxism-Leninism…’126 This piece also failed to find a publisher.

...

Zinoviev meanwhile tearfully begged for mercy in letters to Stalin, Yagoda and Agranov. In one letter to Stalin, he wrote: ‘I have no illusions. Already at the beginning of January 1935 in the Leningrad holding prison, Central Committee Secretary Yezhov, who was present during one of my interrogations, said to me, “Politically you’ve already been executed.”…I beg you to believe this: I did not know, I absolutely did not know anything, nor did I hear anything, nor could I have heard anything about the existence of any anti-Party group or organization in Leningrad.’ He declined to say anything about Kamenev.128 Whether or not this last fact affected the court’s decision, on 16 January 1935 Ulrikh read out the verdict: ‘As a result of the counter-revolutionary activity of the “Moscow Centre” in various branches of the Zinovievite counter-revolutionary underground, purely fascist methods of struggle have made their appearance, and a terroristic mood aimed against the Party leadership and the government has grown stronger, leading to the murder of Comrade S.M. Kirov.’

...

Ten days later Zinoviev was sent to Verkhne-Uralsk camp, and Kamenev to Chelyabinsk. This, however, was not the end of their odyssey, and they were soon to be brought back for the next phase of their torment. Stalin was determined that there should be no witnesses to the movements of Lenin’s former comrades, and as a result various instructions were cabled to their keepers.

...

At their second trial in August 1936, the ‘Bolshevik twins’ were more compliant. In exchange for Stalin’s promise to spare their lives, they had agreed to confess to all the fantastic charges.

Under interrogation on 28 July 1936, Zinoviev was asked: ‘It has been established by investigation of your case that the organization’s centre carefully worked out a plan of the conspiracy. What evidence can you give us about this?’ He replied: ‘The political aim of the plot was to overthrow the Central Committee and the Soviet government and to create our own central committee and our own government, which would have consisted of Trotskyites, Zinovievites and Rightists. In concrete terms the plan for the coup was the following: we calculated that the murder of Stalin (and other Party and governmental leaders) would cause confusion in the Party leadership. We intended that Kamenev, Zinoviev, I.N. Smirnov, Rykov, Sokolnikov, Tomsky, Yevdokimov, Smilga, Mrachkovsky and others would in these circumstances return to leading Party and governmental posts…According to the plan, Trotsky, I and Kamenev were to have concentrated in our hands the entire leadership of the Party and state…’132, and so on in the same vein.

In his letters to Stalin from prison, Zinoviev sank to the lowest depths of humiliation: ‘I am at the point where I sit for long periods and stare at your portrait in the newspapers and those of other members of the Politburo thinking: my dear ones, look into my heart and surely you will see that I’m no longer your enemy, that I am yours, body and soul …’ He signed his letters, ‘With all my soul, I am now yours, G. Zinoviev.’

Leninist was eating Leninist, the system was remorselessly consuming its creators. Who would be left to be told in June 1988 of the decision to ‘set the case aside in the absence of corpus delicti’? While no trace of Zinoviev’s relatives has been discovered, a grandson of Kamenev and also his younger son have been found to have survived.

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Re: The Red Menace

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From the book cited above:
After the dramatic Twentieth Congress, when Khrushchev courageously stripped the cloak of secrecy off the crimes of the special services, there came a new era in the life of the ‘Leninist’ Politburo. Its tactics changed: only Stalin, Beria and the NKVD had been guilty of ‘violating revolutionary legality’, while the Party, and still more the Politburo, were blameless. Any attempt to examine the origins of the terroristic regime was severely curtailed.

Khrushchev himself felt the effects. When he was removed from power in a palace coup in 1964, he was, perhaps without realizing it, a beneficiary of his courage in 1956, for he was not arrested, shot or exiled, but was left to live out his days in peaceful retirement. But once the former First Secretary of the Central Committee—the post of General Secretary was renamed in 1953 and revived again in 1966—had drawn a bracing breath of freedom, he abandoned any intention he may have had of fading out gracefully. Like many old men who have led a stormy life, he decided to write his memoirs. With little schooling or culture, but much native wit and no little courage, he set about dictating his reminiscences.

This soon became known to the Politburo, of course. On 25 March 1970, KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov reported to the Central Committee in a top secret note:

N.S. Khrushchev has recently started work on memoirs of the period of his life when he occupied senior Party and state posts. These dictated memoirs contain detailed information constituting exclusive Party and state secrets on such specific questions as the defence capability of the Soviet state, the development of industry, agriculture, the economy in general, scientific and technical achievements, the security organs, foreign policy, relations between the CPSU and the fraternal parties of socialist and capitalist countries, and so on. He reveals discussions at closed meetings of the Politburo … Under these circumstances, it is imperative that urgent operational measures be taken to permit the monitoring of Khrushchev’s work on his memoirs, and to prevent the entirely likely leak of Party and state secrets abroad. With this aim in view, it seems sensible to establish operational secret surveillance of Khrushchev and his son, Sergei … We also think it would be desirable to summon N.S. Khrushchev to the Central Committee again and to warn him of his responsibility for the publication and leak of Party and state secrets and to demand that he draw the necessary conclusions.212

The Politburo was worried. Khrushchev had presented them with an unprecedented situation. On 27 March I.V. Kapitonov and Andropov were deputed to inform Khrushchev about the ‘exchange of opinions at the Politburo’.213 This had little effect, except to make Khrushchev and his son Sergei act with greater caution. Nevertheless, the KGB managed to get hold of more than 2000 pages of transcribed dictation. It was, however, only a copy, the original having been spirited out to the West by Sergei and another relation, without even Khrushchev himself realizing it. When it became clear that it was going to be impossible to prevent publication, it was decided to put pressure on the old ‘Leninist’ publicly to denounce the material as a forgery.

This time the Chairman of the Party Control Commission, A.Y. Pelshe, and two other members, S.O. Postovalov and R.E. Melnikov, confronted their recalcitrant ex-comrade. The hour-long conversation, scrupulously taken down by two stenographers, reads like a film script, and although it is far too long to reproduce in full here, it is worth quoting extensively as evidence of Communist morality, the climate of political investigation cultivated by the Politburo, and Khrushchev’s independent and bold behaviour.

PELSHE: According to Ambassador Comrade Dobrynin, on 6 November [1970] representatives of the American Time publishing house officially announced that they were in possession of the ‘memoirs of N.S. Khrushchev’. Perhaps you would tell us straight to whom this material was handed over for publication abroad.

KHRUSHCHEV: I protest, Comrade Pelshe. I have my human dignity and I protest. I gave material to no one. I am no less a Communist than you.

PELSHE: I have to tell you that the material is there.

KHRUSHCHEV: You tell me how it got there. I don’t think it has. I think it’s a provocation.

PELSHE: You are in a Party building …

KHRUSHCHEV: I have never given any memoirs to anyone and would never have permitted it. As for what I dictated, I regard it as the right of every citizen and Party member.

PELSHE: We already said in a conversation with you that this method, this writing of memoirs which a wide circle of people are attracted to do, is not appropriate …

KHRUSHCHEV: Go ahead, arrest me, shoot me. I’m fed up with life. When people ask me, I say that I’m not happy to be alive. I heard today on the radio that de Gaulle died. I envy him …

PELSHE: Tell us how we can get out of the situation.

KHRUSHCHEV: I don’t know. It’s your fault, not yours personally, but the whole leadership’s … I know that before I was summoned, they despatched agents …

PELSHE: A lot of people in Moscow know you’re dictating.

KHRUSHCHEV: I’m seventy-seven. I still think clearly and I answer for all my words and actions …

PELSHE: How are we going to get out of this?

KHRUSHCHEV: I don’t know. I’m totally isolated, virtually under house arrest. Both gates are watched. It’s very shaming. I’m fed up. Relieve my suffering.

PELSHE: No one is trying to hurt you.

KHRUSHCHEV: Moral torture is the worst kind.

PELSHE: You said when you had finished you’d hand it over to the Central Committee.

KHRUSHCHEV: I didn’t say that. Comrade Kirilenko suggested I stop writing. I said I couldn’t do that, it was my right.

PELSHE: We don’t want you to die.

KHRUSHCHEV: I want death.

MELNIKOV: Maybe someone has let you down?

KHRUSHCHEV: Dear comrade, I answer for my words and I’m not mad.I gave no one any material, nor could I have.

MELNIKOV: Your son wasn’t the only one to handle the material, there was also the typist, whom you don’t know, and the writer, who isn’t a Party member, and whom you also don’t know, and others.

KHRUSHCHEV: These are all Soviet people, trusted people.

MELNIKOV: No need to stamp and shout. You’re in the CPC [Party Control Commission] now and you should behave accordingly …

KHRUSHCHEV: It’s my nerves, I’m not shouting. I’m in a different situation and a different age.

PELSHE: Never mind about age and nerves, every Party member has to answer for his actions.

KHRUSHCHEV: You’re absolutely right, Comrade Pelshe, and I do. I’m ready to take my punishment, even the death sentence.

PELSHE: The CPC doesn’t sentence to death.

KHRUSHCHEV: It used to be the practice. How many thousands of people perished? How many were shot? And now they’re putting up monuments to ‘enemies of the people’…

PELSHE: On 23 November, that’s in thirteen days, [the memoirs] will be published, they’re with the printer now …

KHRUSHCHEV: I’m willing to declare that I have given no memoirs either to any Soviet or Western publisher and have no such intention. Please write that down.

POSTOVALOV: We have to think, and you above all, of what kind of announcement you should make, and to make them …

KHRUSHCHEV: I will say only one thing, and that is that everything I dictated is the truth. Nothing made-up, nothing amplified, if anything the opposite, it’s rather toned down. I expected to be asked to write. They published Zhukov’s memoirs, after all. His wife rang me and said: ‘[Zhukov] is ill and can’t talk to you himself, but he wants to know your opinion of his book …’ I told her I hadn’t read it, but people had told me about it. I said what he had written about Stalin was disgusting and I wouldn’t read it. Zhukov is an honest man, a military man, but he’s a hothead …

POSTOVALOV: But you said you hadn’t read his book.

KHRUSHCHEV: People told me about it.

POSTOVALOV: We’re not talking about Zhukov.

KHRUSHCHEV: Comrade Pelshe didn’t let me finish what I was saying It’s Stalinist style to interrupt.

PELSHE: That’s your habit.

KHRUSHCHEV: I was also infected by Stalin, but I liberated myself, whereas you …

MELNIKOV: Comrade Khrushchev, you may make a protest if you’re offended.

KHRUSHCHEV: I’m telling you, don’t push me into lying in my old age.

PELSHE: We heard today that the American Time publishing house has the memoirs of Khrushchev which will be published there. That’s a fact. We would like you to define your attitude to this affair, without talking about the substance of the memoirs, by saying you’re indignant and that you gave nothing to anyone …

KHRUSHCHEV: Let the stenographer take down my statement. From reports in the foreign press, chiefly in the United States of America and other bourgeois countries, it has become known that the memoirs or reminiscences of Khrushchev are to be published. I am indignant at this fabrication because I have given no memoirs to anyone, neither Time nor any other publisher, not even Soviet publishers. Therefore I regard this as lies, a forgery which the bourgeois press is capable of publishing…214

To his credit, Khrushchev would only admit, despite the arm-twisting, that he had not given his memoirs to anyone. He did not disavow the contents of the memoirs. The long dialogue between the disgraced ‘Leninist’ and the Party inquisitors highlights the way Party morality had been intensively cultivated by the Politburo. Since the time of Lenin, falsehood had become one of the Party’s chief political assets. Khrushchev’s words, ‘don’t push me into lying in my old age’, reflect on the individual level the rule of untruth, falsification and lying that were the Communist Party’s stock-in-trade. It has to be said, however, that the vast majority of the people believed the lies, and helped to spread them.
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Re: The Red Menace

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What a sordid tale !!!

It is the worshippers and slaves of these scum that go around calling themselves "humanist" in India despite their admission of engaging in mafia style executions as political tactics
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Re: The Red Menace

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Journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary’s new book quotes a Maoist courier ‘revealing’ that Binayak Sen acted as a courier for a Maoist leader
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/ ... 5.twitteru
This ‘revelation’ has left many angry, and on social media, Choudhary has been accused of “playing a pawn” in the hands of the State. Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao, scheduled to be among the panelists at the launch event, has withdrawn his name. At the time of going to press, Binayak Sen had not responded to Open’s questions to him on the allegations in the book.
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Re: The Red Menace

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I don't know if this would surprise anyone other than complete idiots that believed their lies

Interestingly even as Nandigram rapist goons want us to believe that they are in ideological battle with the son of soil Maoists their yellow agents are running a shared services centre for all laal jhandas and ran a campaign for Sen
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Re: The Red Menace

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Re: The Red Menace

Post by abhishek_sharma »

Views from the Left
Vox populi

The journals of the CPM and CPI (ML) reflect the people’s anger in Delhi over the gangrape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus. An editorial in the CPM’s People’s Democracy argues that the situation cannot improve unless steps are taken to strengthen law enforcement with adequately trained personnel and improve the justice delivery system. “The latest statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau show that... during the last five years, between 2007 and 2011, incidents of rape increased by 9.7 per cent,” it says.

The CPI (ML)’s ML Update says the protests are an encouraging sign of a growing democratic awakening and assertion in the country. “The year 2012 could not possibly end on a more rousing note. Never before did Delhi, or for that matter any other Indian metropolis, see a protest of this magnitude and intensity on an issue of gender violence. The protests have been remarkable for the scale and range of popular participation — mostly spontaneous but also unmistakably aided and encouraged by the spirited participation of organised progressive groups of students, women and workers — as well as for the bold display of courage and determination in the face of water cannons, tear gas shells, repeated raining of lathis, and above all, the monumental apathy and arrogance of the rulers,” it concludes.

Election reform

The CPI journal New Age has voiced the Left demand for an overhaul of the electoral process, particularly replacing the present first-pass-the-post system with proportional representation. It says such reform has become urgent and unavoidable, if any semblance of parliamentary democracy is to be preserved and improved.

The editorial points out that several instances of paid news have been detected during elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. “Hundreds of cases of paid news have been registered by the election watchdog. Many more have gone unreported. This needs to be scrutinised and a proper mechanism needs to be established to wipe out the menace of paid news,” it says.

Plan for future?

IN AN article in People’s Democracy, Prabhat Patnaik argues that two of the central assumptions in the 12th Five Year plan — that Indian exports will pick up as the intensity of the global financial crisis will abate soon, and raising the domestic savings rate relative to the investment rate will bring down the current account deficit — were questionable. He says the plan assumes that Indian exports, as a percentage of GDP, will reach 18 per cent from 14.7 per cent in the 11th Plan. “Now, unless significant growth gets generated in the advanced capitalist countries, this is simply not possible... The crisis of the advanced capitalist countries will continue in the foreseeable future, and may even call forth protectionism in the US, all of which makes the assumption with regard to exports in the 12th Plan untenable”. Patnaik adds that the second assumption was “bizarre” since “it amounts to saying, for instance, that no matter what the world scenario is, we can always, in a ‘liberalised’ economy, manage our current account deficit with impunity, that is, without causing a domestic recession, by reducing our fiscal deficit”. He concludes: “This is a novel argument for ‘austerity’, that says in effect that ‘austerity’ in a ‘liberalised’ economy can resolve the balance of payment problem in all seasons without any adverse impact on the GDP”.

Compiled by Manoj C.G.
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Re: The Red Menace

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View from the Left
US NET

An article in the CPM’s People’s Democracy focuses on the world conference on international telecommunications in Dubai. While 89 countries signed the final document, the US, Canada, Japan and several European nations rejected it outright. New Delhi sought time before “deciding either way” and became the target of various groups as its “position” was conspicuous by the absence of a position.

The main issue was control of the internet: “For the US, Internet should be entirely market-driven... According to the US, the governments... have no role. The US of course does not need any international governance structure involving nation states for controlling the Internet... The body that oversees all domain names and IP addresses of the world — ICANN — operates as a successful bidder for these services under a tender of the US government...” The US, the article says, wanted to introduce a clause enshrining human rights in the ITR preamble. This suggestion was accepted but the African block then wanted to add that all countries should have the right to access the internet, citing Sudan’s example where a number of internet facilities are not available due to US sanctions.

“The US saw... a danger to the power it has by its control over the root DNS servers of blocking access by any country. From arguing in favour of an unfettered Internet, it... then became an opponent of the right of all countries to access the Internet,” the article says, alleging the US wants to liberate the internet from all control except its own.

RIGHT FIGHT

The editorial in the CPI(ML)’s ML Update talks about the Delhi protests, noting that the “unknown young woman will go down in history as one of India’s most memorable martyrs for the cause of justice and freedom for India’s women — freedom without the fear of violence and fetters of patriarchal domination.” The editorial attacks the government for trying to score political points after showing shameful insensitivity.

Recalling the “two key milestones” — the Mathura rape case and the rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama — of the anti-rape agitation in the last three decades, the editorial notes it was important to stress the linkages of the current phase with the previous ones because the government is bent upon reducing it to a passing event: “Changes in rape laws and other laws dealing with women’s rights... are of urgent importance and the government must be forced to adopt an inclusive and transparent democratic process in proper consultation with women’s organisations...” The movement, it says, must be carried forward to defeat all patriarchal ideas and forces which fetter women’s freedom and violate their dignity and democratic rights.

NEO-LIBERAL LOOT

The editorial in the CPI’s mouthpiece New Age notes 2012 had been tumultuous, given that the global economic meltdown worsened: “In place of recovery, the crisis is aggravating... and the apologists of neo-liberalism have to admit their failure...” Delhi, it argues, is in a very vulnerable position as Indian exports have started dwindling. It attacks the UPA saying “in place of taking corrective measures and raising the safeguards, it is shamelessly pursuing the policies of neo-liberalism.” It accuses US firms

of using “all dirty tricks, coercion and blackmail, buying up and bribery” to force open India’s national and natural resources for plunder and loot. “The Congress-led UPA 2 is bent upon leading the nation to disaster,” it says referring to

FDI in multi-brand retail. “The Left has to take the lead in projecting concrete alternative to neo-liberalism and organise the masses behind such an alternative programme,” the editorial concludes.

Compiled by Manoj C.G.
Anindya
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Anindya »

Maoists helped Mamata win WB Assembly poll: TMC MP
Rebel Trinamool Congress MP Kabir Suman on Friday hurled a political bombshell by saying Maoists helped the Mamata Banerjee-led party oust the Left Front Government and come to power in West Bengal.

“What I have learnt that if there were no Maoists, Mamata would not have won a single seat in West Midnapore, let alone the eight it ended up winning during the last Assembly election ” Suman said talking to a private news channel.

“Slain Maoist leader Kishenji had told his cadre to hold the Trinamool flag aloft,” he added.

Suman claimed that Maoists were part of the agitations in Nandigram, Singur and Lalgarh. “This helped the regime change,” he said.

The Trinamool MP claimed that Santosh Rana, a Maoist and his comrades had campaigned for him in Jadavpur during the 2009 general election.
abhishek_sharma
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by abhishek_sharma »

Views from the Left
To whose benefit?

The government has rolled out the ambitious Aadhaar-enabled direct cash transfer scheme, but the Left feels the legality of this scheme is yet to be settled in the absence a law enacted by Parliament. The CPM weekly, People’s Democracy, argues that the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2011, is still pending before Parliament and notes that a parliamentary standing committee has already made it clear that the bill, in its present form, is unacceptable.

According to the committee, it says, the data collected by the UIDAI may be transferred to the National Population Register and has asked the government to reconsider and review the UID scheme, as also the ramifications of all the proposals contained in the bill, and bring fresh legislation before Parliament.

“The current launch of the scheme is based on the clearance of the ministry of law and justice for issuing Aadhaar numbers, pending passage of the bill by Parliament on the ground that powers of the executive are co-extensive with the legislative power of the government, and that the government is not debarred from exercising its executive power in areas which are not regulated by legislation. The parliamentary standing committee completely disagrees with such an understanding,” it argues.

An editorial in People’s Democracy claims the system has inherent weaknesses, like low reliability and success rate of fingerprint recognition, low penetration of banks in rural areas and problems in identification of beneficiaries. “The basic philosophy behind this scheme is that over a period of time, the government will dismantle all its obligations in the social sector. Cash transfers will automatically and continuously reduce the government’s subsidy bill. This is so because as prices rise, the quantities available to people get reduced in proportion to the cash transferred,” it concludes.

A STUDY In MISOGYNY

An editorial in CPI(ML) weekly ML Update argues that the sustained nationwide movement for gender justice has evoked an angry, misogynist backlash. It says that while RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has taken the lead, an assortment of patriarchal forces have joined the bandwagon.

Referring to the statements made by Bhagwat, the VHP’s Ashok Singhal, as also the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh leaders Babulal Gaur and Kailash Vijayvargiya, it says, “considered together, such statements clearly reveal how the Sangh Parivar proposes to go about nation-building — constructing the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ to be more precise — on a medieval patriarchal foundation.”

“Misogynist attitudes have always been a central theme of Hindutva... In normal circumstances, however, the protagonists take care to try and give somewhat sophisticated expressions to their obscurantist views. But this time around they lost their cool when the current movement, instead of dying down as they had expected, continued and went beyond the immediate demand of justice for the Delhi victim and punishment for the culprits — when it developed into a broader one fighting for a thorough overhaul of gender relations in society and polity, when demands like 100 per cent conviction of rapists and suspension of all MLAs and MPs charged for offences like rape began to be raised. The whole political structure of patriarchy was shaken, and they could wait no more,” it adds.

ANTI-UPA PROTESTS

An editorial in the CPI journal New Age seeks to link the protests in Delhi over the gangrape to the economic policies of the UPA government. It says that 2013 has begun with gloom and anger the world over due to the deepening economic crisis. “There is no doubt that the brutality of the gangrape was the immediate cause of outbursts, though it is basically the pent-up frustration and anger due to ever compounding economic and social miseries heaped by the ruling classes... Growing unemployment, price-rise and economic disparities have increased the economic burden on households, including those of the middle classes and affluent sections, who were earlier the most ardent supporters of the misadventure of imposition of policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation... They were there on the streets when Anna Hazare launched his campaign against corruption, another product of economic neoliberalism,” it says. The editorial argues that despite protests against crime against women as well as neoliberalism, the government is not ready to draw lessons.

Compiled by Manoj C.G.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by vishvak »

In Jharkhand, Maoists killed 7 paramilitary personnel. Jharkhand: 7 security men killed in encounter with Maoists

Where do Maoists get ammunition and landmines?
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by IndraD »

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/jhar ... 41507.html

and other reports that a jawan's body was booby trapped to kill more jawans, villagers in line with a Bosnian film only means, this war has to fought with ruthlessness and massive resources, jawans are dying like pigs and no one is bothered. What happened to ambitious plans of Chidu of creating barrier between forests??
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by chaanakya »

Bomb found in body of jawan killed in encounter with Maoists in Jharkhand
NEW DELHI: A bomb was found in the body of a of a CRPF jawan who was killed in a fierce battle with Maoists in Latehar on Monday. Doctors at Ranchi's Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) found lead inside the stomach of of a dead jawan while conducting the postmortem, which turned out to be a bomb. The bomb disposal squad was called in.

Earlier, Naxalites in Latehar district of Jharkhand put the body of a critically injured and incapacitated jawan over a landmine following a fierce battle between the Maoists and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Monday morning, in an action reminiscent of a scene from Oscar-winning Bosnian war film "No Man's Land". On Tuesday evening, security forces along with local villagers found the jawan's body deep in Karmatiya jungles. However, as soon as the body was picked up, the mine exploded, killing three villagers and blasting the jawan to smithereens.

The death toll of forces in the encounter has now risen to 10, including a jawan from Jharkhand Jaguars. However, a senior CRPF official, alluding to the landmine blast, put the figures rather tragically. "We can confirm the death of 10 jawans. However, we have found only nine bodies so far," he told TOI.

The film No Man's Land had ended with an injured Bosnian soldier lying on the mine while still alive with no hope of rescue. Bosnian Serbs had put his body over a landmine while he was unconscious.

Sources said, in all probability the jawan bled to death while lying on the mine adding that even if he had gained consciousness and tried to move, he would have died. Following the blasts, the forces retreated on Tuesday night and the combing operation was restarted with reinforcements on Wednesday.

On the trail of senior CPI (Maoist) leader Arvindji, around 300 soldiers from CRPF and Jharkhand Jaguars were combing Karmatiya forests when they were ambushed by a contingent of around 200 Maoists - led by a woman - who were firing at them from hill top. The forces had taken the only narrow path that cut through the jungle and then opened into a plain with hills surrounding it. That the Maoists were in Army fatigues confounded matters. About 600 Maoists are suspected to be hiding in the jungles moving between Bihar and Jharkhand.

The government, however, is not perturbed by the deaths as the operation is part of a "fight-to-finish" war to flush out Maoists from Latehar and Chhattisgarh's Sukma districts. "Maoists have been considerably weakened as is evident from constantly decreasing incidents of Naxal violence (from 2,258 in 2009 to 1,412 in 2012). This is the season (before the onset of monsoons) to strike and we want to considerably weaken them through continuous offensive," said a home ministry official.
This a new tactics adopted now.
Aditya_V
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Aditya_V »

Not only that , you need some level of medical expertise to put a bomb in a dead body stomach. Doctors are a premium in India, I would say the probaility of soemone doing is for free is .00001%. Some one is paying for it.

Liberal Western Democracies, again what was Binayak Sen qualification and where did he study. why did EU observors come for his court cases.

the dots seem to be joining.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by IndraD »

This is barbaric beyond belief and it smacks of tactics used by Islamic militants. The tribals are being brainwashed, armed, trained and converted into killing machine, this is not possible without a state's help.
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Sushupti »

Image
Raja Bose
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Raja Bose »

^^^WTF?!!!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by sum »

^^ Day by day, my hope for the future of this country keeps sinking lower and lower.

Guess we are destined to be like this onlee with all sorts of retards as our rulers and be bit-slapped by every 2 bit nation and group out there and then debate if we were the guilty party who provoked all this
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Yayavar »

Sushupti wrote:Image
Maybe an attempt at sarcasm?? Her other tweet reads "Maoists no worse than our brutal neighbour Pakistan. Should be considered terrorists for waging a war against their own nation. ".
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by Sushupti »

viv wrote:
Sushupti wrote:Image
Maybe an attempt at sarcasm?? Her other tweet reads "Maoists no worse than our brutal neighbour Pakistan. Should be considered terrorists for waging a war against their own nation. ".
She is a known leftist-Jihadi b***
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Re: The Red Menace

Post by chaanakya »

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 974523.cms
Looks like C Hina P Kaistan and M aoist coalition
NEW DELHI: Grenades and ammunition made in Pakistan were among the items recovered from the site of the Maoist attack in Jharkhand, sources said, adding a fresh twist to the ongoing India-Pakistan stand-off.

Sources said a couple of grenades, pieces of blasted grenades and fired cases of bullets recovered from Latehar in Jharkhand have clear markings to show that they were manufactured in Pakistan. All ammunition contain details of the originating country, so do all the recovered ammunition from Latehar, where 11 CRPF jawans were killed and their bodies booby trapped with explosives.

It is for the first time that ammunition with Pakistani markings have been recovered from Maoists. In the past, some Chinese ammunition have been recovered.

.......................

The recovery of arms with Pakistani markings will add fresh pressure on the government in light of the beheading and mutilation of Indian soldiers in Jammu's Mendhar sector by Pakistani troops. ..................

However, it also raises questions if Pakistani security establishment has extended its reach beyond the Kashmiri groups to establish contacts with Maoists and foment the low cost war into the heart of India.
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