"We should get our comrades to understand that the twofold basic task of the leading bodies of the Communist Party is to know conditions and to master policy; the former means knowing the world and the latter changing the world." -Mao Zedong, 1941, Reform our Study
The next series of posts will be devoted to the various views and debates in the International Communist Movement (historically … Continue reading Post series: How to Fight, How to Win? The Military Strategic Line for Imperialist Countries
[From Computerworld.com and Kasama.]
By Robert McMillan
IDG News Service – More than three years after the iPhone was first hacked, computer security experts think they’ve found a whole new way to break into mobile phones — one that could become a big headache for Apple, or for smartphone makers using Google’s Android software.
In a presentation set for next week’s Black Hat conference in Washington D.C., University of Luxembourg research associate Ralf-Philipp Weinmann says he plans to demonstrate his new technique on an iPhone and an Android device, showing how they could be converted into clandestine spying systems. “I will demo how to use the auto-answer feature present in most phones to turn the telephone into a remote listening device,” he said in an e-mail interview.
Weinmann says he can do this by breaking the phone’s “baseband” processor, used to send and receive radio signals as the device communicates on its cellular network. He has found bugs in the way the firmware used in chips sold by Qualcomm and Infineon Technologies processes radio signals on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks used by the majority of the world’s wireless carriers.
Continue reading “Coming soon: A new way to hack into your smartphone”
by Samir Amin Monthly Review, February 2011 [R.I. Editorial Comment: The Egyptian political economist Samir Amin, whose works span more … Continue reading The Trajectory of Historical Capitalism and Marxism’s Tricontinental Vocation
The following is an untitled Press Statement from the International Bureau of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The … Continue reading “Homage to all martyrs and rebels” – Press Statement from Nepali Maoists to the Middle East
A statement from the General Secretary of Revolutionary Initiative (Canada)
February 14, 2011.
When the young Tunisian produce merchat Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze after having his livelihood taken from him by Tunisian authorities, he sparked a rebellion amongst a stratum of youth, students, the urban unemployed, and petty-bourgeois, first in Tunisia and then all across the Arab world. But Bouazizi was himself merely a rallying point, the final trickle of indignation sufficient to allow the fears of Tunisians to be overcome by their yearning for liberation. The Tunisian revolt, followed by the flight of Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, emboldened the Arab masses to emulate Tunisia’s example, igniting all of North Africa and the Middle East in rebellion.
The domestic and international situations that have conditioned these revolts are the depressed economic conditions in most of the Arab world, subordinated as it is to the geopolitical interests and economic dictates of imperialist globalization, which includes the defense of Zionist aggression and expansionism. The protests and rebellions throughout the Middle East – from Tunisia, to Algeria, to Egypt, to Jordan, to Yemen, to Gaza, and beyond – have been triggered by decades of pro-imperialist, feudal, dictatorial, pro-Israel, and bankrupt antipeople policies. As the Arab revolts unfolded, the news outlet al-Jazeera began to release the leaked “Palestine Papers”, thousands of diplomatic documents from the past decade of the Israel-Palestine conflict. A brief glance at only a few of the thousands of documents reveal unequivocally how treachourous and pro-Israeli is the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and the entire Palestinian Authority. These documents have offered the Arab masses and the whole world yet another opportunity to observe how U.S. imperialism, Israel, and comprador ruling classes like Mahmoud Abbas and Co., conspire against the interests of the masses in the geopolitical and economic interests of imperialism. Continue reading “North Africa and the Middle East: Support the revolts and prepare for revolution”
Party of the Committees to Support Resistance – for Communism (CARC) – Italy
Via Tanaro, 7 – 20128 Milano – Tel/Fax 02.26306454
e-mail: resistenza@carc.it – website: www.carc.it
National Direction – International Relations Department
Tel. +39 0226306454 – e-mail: carc.ri@libero.it
02/02/2011
We release this stance by Communist parties, groups and organizations led by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism about the popular masses who rebel in Tunisia, Egypt and in the other countries where they soon will begin the same great and heroic enterprise, inviting to subscribe it.
CARC Party – Int. Dept.
The international communist movement led by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism greets with joy and favor the uprisings of the popular masses in Tunisia and Egypt that are overthrowing the regimes that oppress their country. They are anti-popular and tyrannical regimes, heirs of the old colonial system that has now worn neocolonial clothes. They are regimes slaves of U.S. imperialism, of the International Community that the U.S. government presides over, of the Zionist groups in Israel who are the colonial armed wing of the American imperialist bourgeoisie in Palestine and in the Middle East, of the world imperialist system.
Let their revolt be the dawn that heralds a new world!
Right On 21 Right On 22 The Liberator 16 The Liberator 17 Serve The People 11 Red Heart Warrior … Continue reading The Latest From the United Panther Movement
[More on our series on the various views in ICM on participating in bourgeois elections. This post comes from the Social Revolution Party, a MLM group in Ontario. Their original post can be found here.]
I. Introduction
In light of the recent debates within the International Communist Movement1 as to the value of working within the bourgeois parliamentary system, and because of questions posed to the Social Revolution Party as to its position on bourgeois elections, it seemed prudent to write an article on the bourgeois parliamentary system and the attitude that communists should be taking towards parliament. For whatever reasons, it seems that English speaking communists often romanticize the parliamentary experience; indeed, almost all of the “official” Communist Parties within the Anglosphere have been reduced to, in the words of Marx, “parliamentary cretinism”2.
In the interests of a detailed and thorough exposition of the problem at hand, this article will begin by looking at the original debates surrounding communist involvement in bourgeois parliaments dating back to the inception of the Third International. Careful attention will then be paid to Lenin’s critique of both British and German communist involvement in their respective parliaments, with an eye as to whether or not Lenin was being consistent in his critique. We will then step forward 80 years and examine the modern Canadian context and whether or not advocating parliamentary involvement in Canada in 2009 is a Leninist position. Lenin’s position itself will then be the focus of extreme critiques, examining the effects of parliamentary involvement on communist organisations. Finally, after careful investigation, a position for the Social Revolution Party will be put forward. Onwards!
Continue reading “On Elections: Social Revolution Party (Canada)”
Should we Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:
“… All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected” [[__ Rjc: Could be incomplete here; check __]]
This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics. Continue reading “On Elections: An Excerpt from Lenin’s Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder”
[From Call For A New Class Struggle in Canada:]
Boycott the Elections! is a slogan that is anything but passive. Driven by the forces of the militant proletariat, led by activists working for revolution and for the destruction of the exploitative capitalist system, this slogan is a call to fight
against apathy and indifference, and against what will be an inevitable defeat otherwise.
This slogan is a call for unity among the proletariat, whether they be young, old, unemployed, immigrant or refugee.
This slogan is a call to unite with the most militant layers among the Native nations who refuse to recognize the Canadian Parliament, except than to be the organizer of their own oppression. This slogan when carried forward by the most conscious forces among the proletariat, can offer the proletariat a real political perspective: the actions of the revolutionary proletariat to transform society. This action must be first and foremost the expression of the rejection of bourgeois politics in a conscious and unified way. By organizing actions, through meetings and protests, through the massive distribution and publication of leaflets and newspapers throughout the country, these revolutionary actions
represent a real threat to the apparatus of domination of the bourgeoisie. They reveal and expose to the eyes of many the deeply unfair nature of this system ruled by a tiny minority.
There will be those that will criticize us who boycott by saying that we are playing the game of the rightists. Some forces on the left often use this argument: “One can try to rebalance bourgeois parliamentarism by calling for proportional representation”. In either case, whether it be twoheaded or three-headed, it remains the party of the bourgeoisie. What really matters is that in all cases, the same interests prevail, both in government and in opposition. Regardless of parliamentary representation, the nature of Parliament itself remains the same.
