Why Don’t the Greek Communists Just Link Forces With the Radical Left Coalition?

by Johan Boyden

The political assessment of the Communist Party of Greece (which we posted here) deserves some introduction for our readers in Canada. Afterall, as Greece heads towards Sunday elections, all eyes seem to suddenly be turned to the volatile situation in the Hellenic Republic.

UPDATE: View the election results in graphic form and read the assessment of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece.

Progressive-minded people in Canada are optimistic. After years of hard struggle with countless general strikes and mass rallies, maybe these elections will hand a victory to political parties that identify with the left? Maybe they will demonstrate a different direction from austerity and economic crisis to the world?

There is also a certain renewed anxiety in the voices of the ruling class.  “We cannot have a Greek election determining the future of the global economy. That’s not fair to anybody,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said recently. Today, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney referenced Greece and the European situation to warn of more mass unemployment and ‘recession’ over here.

Quebec Movements Face Election Challenge

by Johan Boyden, Montreal

The community of Trois Pistoles along the northern banks of the St. Lawrence river is known for its picturesque beauty and historic links to Basque whalers, who travelled there hundreds of years ago from Spain. Now it has become a symbol of the pre‑election polarization and fear‑mongering going on in Québec.

A student protester in Quebec

An ecological festival in the town, put on by community activists including some who have been fighting high‑risk shale gas development in the region, wanted to invite student leaders to speak at their event.

A storm of controversy erupted. Mayor Jean‑Pierre Rioux met with organizers and threatened to withdraw all funding. “Around here, people think that [student leader] Gabriel Nadeau‑Dubois is […] like Maurice `Mom’ Boucher” one festival organizer said.

Mom Boucher is, of course, the convicted rapist, drug dealer and murderer who leads the Montreal Hells Angels.

YCL says “Down with Austerity! For Jobs, Peace and Democracy!”

Communists Condemn Austerity Budget in Ontario

People’s Voice

The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) has condemned the Ontario Budget, delivered March 27, as a massive attack on working people and the poor that will destroy tens of thousands of jobs, drive down wages, pensions, incomes and living standards. Combined with the austerity measures in the federal budget, it could push the province into another deep economic recession.

Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) leader Elizabeth Rowley

The Executive of the CPC (Ontario) also warned that the threat of legislated wage controls is a dangerous attack on free collective bargaining and on civil and democratic rights.

“There’s not much air between the Liberals and Tories when it comes to bashing workers and the poor, and restricting their rights. They both unerringly deliver the goods to Big Business, the banks and financial sector, and transnational corporations like Vale, US Steel, Caterpillar, Rio Tinto ‑ the source of the crisis in Ontario” said CPC (Ontario) leader Elizabeth Rowley. “Everything that falls in the way of bigger and bigger corporate profits is under acute attack.”

The Federal Budget Is Still A War Budget

Statement from the Canadian Peace Alliance, March 28, 2012

The Federal budget 2012 still shows an increase in military spending to a total of more than $20 billion for the year 2012. Despite claims that the Harper government will be reducing military spending, the reality is that this reduction is simply a small haircut of $1.1 billion off of a massive structural budget increase as outlined by the Canada First Defence Strategy which calls for almost a half trillion dollars in spending by 2025.

The costs of the military spending in the social wage for Canadians is staggering and the Conservatives are purblind to those costs. They are still pushing ahead with a plan to buy 65 F‑35 fighter jets despite the fact that we still have no idea what these offensive and rather useless jest will cost. According to Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page the total cost of the F35s may reach more than $30 billion.

The Working of Imperialism in the Era of Globalisation: Draft Ideological Resolution of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2.1   The CPI(M), steadfastly upholding Marxism-Leninism and its inviolable tool of ‘concrete analysis of concrete conditions’, evaluates the working of imperialism in the present concrete conditions and its impact on India. The latter is of utmost necessity to work out the correct and appropriate tactics that will advance our strategic objectives.

2.2   Globalisation must be understood in its totality. The internal dynamics of capitalism, as Marx has shown, leads to the accumulation and concentration of capital in a few hands. It is on the basis of a scientific analysis of the development of this tendency that Lenin identified the emergence and growth of imperialism from the stage of monopoly capitalism. The Leninist analysis of the politics of imperialism – the last stage of capitalism – laid the foundations for correct revolutionary strategy and tactics for intensifying class struggles leading, for the first time in human history, to the triumph of the proletarian revolution – the great October Socialist Revolution of 1917.

Political Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland

Communist Party of Ireland

At its regular meeting held on 31 March the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland discussed the continuing crisis of the system and its growing effect on the economic and social well-being of working people, north and south. This crisis is the central question facing all our people, north and south. A just outcome for working people can only be found in their united action throughout the country fighting for an alternative socialist way forward.

The party calls for maximum opposition and a resounding No vote in the forthcoming referendum on the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union. The CPI demands that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Treaty also be put to the people in a referendum, as the two are inseparable. Both are central to the imposition of permanent austerity on working people in Ireland and all working people throughout the euro zone and the EU as a whole. This mechanism creates a permanent bail-out fund for capital that working people will be forced to pay into generation after generation as capital gambles away the future of the planet.

The CPI calls on the ICTU to stop prevaricating, to campaign for a No vote, and to come out clearly and give leadership to Irish workers in regard to these treaties and explain their potential effect on working people.