Photos: Joe Brusky
Hundreds Again Pack Milwaukee City Hall to Demand And End to Milwaukee Police & ICE Collaboration! Free Jose de la Cruz-Espinosa!
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70th Anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Revolution
By Chris Fry
October 1 marks the 70th anniversary of the announcement by Mao Zedong, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), of the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949. This culminated the decades-long struggle by the CPC and the Red Army against a terribly oppressive landlord-dominated social and economic system backed by Western Imperialism.
The revolution marked the end of a “century of humiliation” that the people of China endured, beginning with the two infamous “Opium Wars” of 1839 and 1856 waged by the “free market” British, aided by the French and the U.S., which not only addicted millions of people, but also destroyed the craft industry in China and burdened the poor peasants with crushing taxes for the Chinese Qing monarchy to pay “reparations” for losing these outrageous wars.
In the aftermath of the heroic but failed Boxer rebellion directed against Western domination of China, European and U.S. forces exacted a wave of terrible retribution:
One newspaper called the aftermath of the siege a “carnival of ancient loot”, and others called it “an orgy of looting” by soldiers, civilians and missionaries. These characterizations called to mind the sacking of the Summer Palace in 1860. Each nationality accused the others of being the worst looters. An American diplomat, Herbert G. Squiers, filled several railroad cars with loot and artifacts. The British Legation held loot auctions every afternoon and proclaimed, “Looting on the part of British troops was carried out in the most orderly manner.” However, one British officer noted, “It is one of the unwritten laws of war that a city which does not surrender at the last and is taken by storm is looted.” For the rest of 1900–1901, the British held loot auctions every day except Sunday in front of the main-gate to the British Legation. Many foreigners, including Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald and Lady Ethel MacDonald and George Ernest Morrison of The Times, were active bidders among the crowd. Many of these looted items ended up in Europe. The Catholic Beitang or North Cathedral was a “salesroom for stolen property.” The American commander General Adna Chaffee banned looting by American soldiers, but the ban was ineffectual.
The Republic of China and the Civil War
After massive peasant rebellions as well as worker and student struggles, the Qing monarchy, the last of more than 2000 years of dynastic rule, was overturned in 1911 by a bourgeois democratic revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. On January 1, 1912, Sun declared the formation of the Chinese Republic, and formed the Kuomintang Nationalist Party (KMT). Sun sought help from the Second International in 1915 to help establish socialism in China to develop the country, but as nearly all the European social democratic parties betrayed all principles by supporting their countries’ ruling classes in World War I, no help was forthcoming.
China joined the Allies in World War I, but at the end of the war, the Western imperialists “gave” the German-controlled Chinese province of Shandong to Japan rather than back to China. This sparked huge demonstrations in many cities on May 4, 1919 and created the “May 4th” youth movement, many of whom were attracted to Communism after the success of the Russian Revolution. Sun invited the newly formed Communist Party of China (CPC) to join the KMT.
Sun died in early in 1925, and the KMT split into two factions. One was supported by the rich landlord class and Western imperialists and was led by Chiang Kai-shek. The other was the working-class CPC. In April 1927, Chiang launched an all-out attack and massacre of the CPC starting in Shanghai. Within 20 days, more than 10,000 CPC members were arrested and executed. Within three years, 300,000 were killed, all to the applause of the Western powers. This was the beginning of the decades-long civil war in China.
With the CPC decimated in China’s cities, emerging leaders of the party including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai formed and led the Chinese Red Army, which would become the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Encircled by Chiang’s KMT army in the southeast region, in 1934 the Red Army broke out of these sieges and set forth on the famous year-long Long March, some 8,000 miles to the northeast enclave of Shaanxi. Under relentless attack, only a tiny fraction of the Red Army survived the journey. Mao himself stressed its importance when he wrote:
The Long March is a manifesto. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. It has proclaimed their utter failure to encircle, pursue, obstruct and intercept us. The Long March is also a propaganda force. It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation.
In Shaanxi the Red Army was able to rebuild their forces. Retaining the working-class character of the CPC, Mao stressed the importance of developing disciplined relations with the surrounding peasantry:
In addition, policies ordered by Mao for all soldiers to follow, the Eight Points of Attention, instructed the army to avoid harm to or disrespect for the peasants, in spite of the desperate need for food and supplies. This policy won support for the Communists among the rural peasants.
After invading Manchuria in 1931, in 1937, the Japanese Empire invaded China, slaughtering millions of people. The CPC and the KMT formed an alliance to fight Japan, but Chiang’s forces still attacked the Red Army during the war.
At the end of the war, the KMT military forces, equipped by U.S. imperialism, had four times the number of soldiers as the Red Army. But just as the Paris Commune drew the support of French soldiers, just as the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution attracted the support of thousands of the Tsar’s peasant soldiers, because of their strong relations with the peasants, tens of thousands of Kuomintang soldiers switched sides and joined the Red Army. The KMT was swept off the mainland, where, after slaughtering more than 10,000 of the native inhabitants, Chiang settled on Taiwan, protected by the U.S. Navy.
Victory of the Chinese Revolution and the Peoples Republic of China ….
March 21, 2020: TWELFTH ANNUAL WISCONSIN GRASSROOTS FESTIVAL
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Chum Trump
People’s Media: Looking Backward to Move Forward
Assessing the Pan-African News Wire and other electronic media outlets within a historical and contemporary context
Note: This paper was prepared and delivered in part to a panel at the Union for Democratic Communications (UDC) national conference which was held at Wayne State University in Detroit during the weekend of September 30-October 1, 2016. Other panelists in this roundtable were Zenobia Jeffries of Yes! Magazine; Prof. Charles Simmons, retired from Eastern Michigan University and a former senior correspondent for the Muhammad Speaks newspaper in the 1960s and 1970s; Peter Werbe of the Fifth Estate and radio broadcaster in the city for years; and Reginald Carter, former managing editor of the South End and editor staff member of the Inner City Voice.
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Introduction: The Social Need for Independent Media
This conference of the Union of Democratic Communicators is well served by holding this gathering in the city of Detroit during this important period.
Detroit for the more than 180 years has been a center in the movements for the abolition of slavery and national oppression as a major conduit within what became known as the Underground Railroad. One of the first urban rebellions in the history of the United States occurred here in 1833 around the threat of sending Lucie, the wife of Thornton Blackburn, back into slavery in the South. After escaping from detention in Detroit they fled to Windsor, Ontario across the River. Their legal case established Canada as a refuge for Africans fleeing from involuntary servitude in the U.S.
Africans in Detroit in 1833 had threatened to burn down the city if this couple was turned over to slave catchers. Even though there was slavery in the formerly French and British territory and the history of Native removal warrants a separate panel to review, events surrounding the Blackburn saga has served to shape a method in which the political outlook of Africans in Detroit can be viewed extending to the modern period.
As it relates to media, the African population during slavery began to create its own communication mechanism through various forms. There were institutions which arose in the religious area that were independent in character and anti-slavery.
Some of the earliest of these institutions being the First African Baptist Church of the Southeast of the U.S. beginning in the late 18th century. Later the more well-known African Methodist Episcopal Church grew out of the African Society of Philadelphia led by Richard Allen, Sarah Allen and Absalom Jones.
In 1827 the Freedom Journal was founded in New York City under the leadership of Samuel Cornish and John Russworm. According to the Black Past website, “Freedom’s Journal was the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. A weekly four column publication printed every Friday. Freedom’s Journal was founded by free born African Americans John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish on March 16, 1827 in New York City, New York. The newspaper contained both foreign and domestic news, editorials, biographies, births and deaths in the local African American community, and advertisements. Editorials deriding slavery, racial discrimination, and other injustices against African Americans were aimed at providing a counterweight to many of the white newspapers of the time period which openly supported slavery and racial bias….”
https://panafricannews.blogspot.com/
…. Nonetheless, the new technology does not create conditions for the dismissal of tried and tested technics of organizing and mobilizing. The need for one-on-one contacts, sit-down meetings, and the deliberate physical confrontation with adversaries within the corporate structures and the capitalist state are still required to make effective change and to conduct meaningful political education.
This is why the discipline of organization remains a necessity. In our view the intellectual and ideological methodology of Marxism cannot be severed from the Leninist view of revolutionary organization deriving from a clear understanding as it relates to the role of the capitalist state ….
Venezuela Denounces Trump, Crystallex and Guaidó For Attempting to Loot Citgo
October 1, 2019
The executive vice president of the Republic, Delcy Rodríguez, denounced on Tuesday the dispossession of all the assets of Venezuela, specifically Citgo, in the Crystallex case reopened by a court in Delaware (United States).
“We wanted to update the illegal and unlawful situation that continues in the United States as part of a large plot of international organized crime among the criminal chief Juan Guaidó; as a participant of this band, Mr. Carlos Vechio and with a character on which we focus today, Mr. José Ignacio Hernández, the criminal mind that has been behind the dispossession of all the assets of Venezuela abroad and especially in the US,” Rodríguez explained at a press conference in Caracas.
She argued that Hernandez, who called himself “prosecutor” of Venezuela abroad, served as a lawyer for the Canadian company before Guaidó proclaimed himself as “interim president” of Venezuela….
UAW Strike Rolls On, Picket Lines Strong Nationwide
Demand to end illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe intensifies
During the opening of the United Nations General Assembly this week, the United States came under fire. “U.S. imperialist economic sanctions are weapons of war and must end now,” declared Viola Plummer, chair of the December 12th Movement International Secretariat, at a march and rally to lift the illegal U.S. sanctions on Zimbabwe, held in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019.
Hundreds marched in defense of Zimbabwe and Africa through the streets of midtown Manhattan echoing chants, “U.S. hands off Zimbabwe! End the illegal sanctions now! Sanctions kill ordinary people of Zimbabwe!”
A counterprotest by the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change got rowdy at one point, but did not take away from the December 12th Movement’s position.
The plaza was filled with protesters condemning U.S. economic sanctions on Zimbabwe and Puerto Rico, which have a devastating impact on the people of both nations.
“We are all here in unity and solidarity to expose the racist foreign policy of the U.S., which is rampant around the globe. In Zimbabwe, basic human needs, including medicine and medical supplies, water purification systems, fuel, agricultural equipment and national infrastructure development, have suffered due to severe illegal sanctions on international trade, loans and currency manipulations,” Plummer explained.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony referred to as a “territory,” crippled by the hurricanes and the effects of climate change, has been willfully neglected and denied adequate U.S. emergency management assistance. The island nation is recovering at a snail’s pace. The people resisted en masse and forced the resignation of the corrupt Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in July. New York City protesters vowed to fight on.
“The U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2001, in response to their land reclamation program, which returned the vast lands stolen by a tiny sector of former British colonizers to the indigenous Zimbabweans. Further, the 2019 summit of the 16 heads of state in the Southern African Development Community condemned the illegal economic sanctions that have affected the entire region.
“The summit declared Oct. 25, 2019, as the date on which SADC member states can collectively voice their disapproval of sanctions through various activities and platforms until the sanctions are lifted,” Plummer concluded.
The December 12th Movement has also conducted this campaign in Pan African unity. For more information, call 718-398-1766 or visit http://d12m.com/.
