Iranian President to Vist Latin American Socialists

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently hosted a number of neo-Nazis, anti-semites and Israel haters at a Holocaust Conference in Tehran.


Now he is about to embark on a tour of Latin America to catch up with his socialist friends like Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega.

Do any of the Chavistas and socialist who comment on this blog have anything to say about fascist supporting Ahmadinejad, cuddling up to their revolutionary heroes?

From Breitbart.com Hat tip Cafe Cubano

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to kick off a four-day tour Saturday to Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, whose leaders share his defiance towards the United States, media said.
Ahmadinejad will start his visit with a trip to Venezuela to hold official talks with his counterpart President Hugo Chavez,” the Kayhan newspaper quoted a presidential statement as saying.

Ahmadinejad visited Venezuela last September while Chavez has made numerous trips to the Islamic republic.

After his one day visit to Caracas, Ahmadinejad is scheduled to head to Managua to hold talks with the Nicaraguan president elect and former US foe Daniel Ortega.

According to the report, the Iranian president will on Monday take part in the swearing-in ceremony of the Ecuador’s new president Rafael Correa, who won his country’s presidential election last November.

Correa has vowed to seek stronger ties with Venezuela, oppose a free-trade deal with the United States, and not renew the lease for a US military air base on Ecuador’s Pacific Coast.

Ahmadinejad will also hold meetings with other South American presidents including Bolivia’s Evo Morales, before wrapping up his tour on Tuesday, the report added.

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21 thoughts on “Iranian President to Vist Latin American Socialists

  1. “I’ll forgive you if you’re 15 or under, wherever you live.”

    You seem fivish to me if you act in this trollish uneducated manner.

  2. “All of this while he and his boss President Reagan (for whom Rummy carried a handwritten entreaty to the said Saddam) ALREADY KNEW by virtue of a US Congressional Committee Report, that the said Saddam was ALREADY GASSING the Kurds.”

    Isn’t it interesting how someone like you “steve the not-so nice guy” would protect and defend the monster-Saddam Hussein to which Reagan and Rumsfeld “created”? Just like Osama bin Laden how folks like you defend monsters like that at the same time suggest they were “created” by Reagan and Rumsfeld but get away with protecting those same monsters when Bush prepares to use military intervention against them.

    Really shows how and what an uneducated troll you really are “steve the not-so nice guy”. If Reagan or Rumsfeld even remotely did create Saddam or Osama, why the hell are you not supporting ousting those monsters from power? Shows that Saddam and Osama weren’t created by Reagan or Rumsfeld but really wouldn’t mind supporting folks like you into stating how the Israelis are “Nazis” at the same time promote anti-Jewish/anti-Semitic feelings throughout the Arab World.

  3. Actually, how old are you ? And where are you, actually ?

    We’re not talking to some arrogant living room in a settlement somewhere are we ?

    It’ll be a damn shame if you’re middle age plus like me. Cos you’re so lacking in the “knowingness” about life.

    You might as well play tin soldiers !

    I’ll forgive you if you’re 15 or under, wherever you live.

  4. Dear Far Right Wing (so as to be an idiot)Oracle Mah,

    Hmmm, there is evidence of a poosibility that I agree with you.

    But I’m not into seedy, fat old commie dictators at all.

    I’d like to hear from you about the relationship between then Mr Secretary of Defense Donald Acrid Rumsfeld and the said Saddam, when in 1983-4 they cordially shook hands in a glorious palace somewhere in Baghdad, and posed for the assembled press. Yes, there are photos.

    And what did Rummy come away with ?
    Arms orders and agreement from the said Saddam to “normalise” diplomatic relations.

    All of this while he and his boss President Reagan (for whom Rummy carried a handwritten entreaty to the said Saddam) ALREADY KNEW by virtue of a US Congressional Committee Report, that the said Saddam was ALREADY GASSING the Kurds.

    Did they care, these exemplars of freedom ? Where is your humanity man ? You endorse that “kills many people” chicanery ?

  5. So you would also ignore reports of Russia (the same nation that was bribed by Saddam in the U.N.) removing WMDs from Iraq into Syria before the war? Go search them yourself if you are too lazy.

    And isn’t it strange how unhappy folks like you are now that someone like Saddam is dead?

  6. Always trying to tout “international law” that would support the Somali Islamists? How about those Somali Islamists getting caught raising money in Britain for their war in Somalia?

    And how about “international law” when Saddam bribes members of the United Nations who were getting rich off the oil for food scandal happening in Iraq? You people just love to favor “international law” which is quite typical because most of the time whenever “international law” is broken with nations like France still intervning in Africa in nations like the Ivory Coast or Russia and China sending arms to Sudan, there’s no major outrage.

    But when it comes to Ethiopia trying to advert the Somali Islamist advance or Iraq, “international law” is suddenly deemed to be “broken”. Where is the same outrage for “international law” in Russia’s war in Chechnya to which the FSB were to allegely be implicatable in the 1999 Moscow apartment building bombings?

  7. Wonder what would these trans-tasman nations would do if Iran and Venuzuela opened up talks with Fiji.

    Iran gives Fiji arms technology. Venuzuela oil and expertise in fossil fuel exploration and Brazil their alternative fuels knowledge.

    India and China, similar technology transfers as well. China cancelling the foreign debt like they did with some African nations.

    ANZAC might as well just keep their foreign aid, with strings attached.

    Internation quips Mah 29001,

    And forgets the international law abused in Iraq and the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

    How about the international law of the sea, which Australia despised when their started usurping the natural gas and oil resources of East Timor.

  8. How about “interantional law” being applied when Iranian soldiers are found dead supporting Hezbollah in the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon?

  9. Hello? Iran has been one of the players in fueling the terrorist insurgency with the “Shiia” section of the insurgency being trained by Iran prior to the invasion.

    As for “international law” when will it be applied to Iran’s actions in Iraq along with it supporting the Islamist radicals in Somalia?

  10. Bush invaded Iran last night
    John in DC

    Last night, Bush sent US forces to attack the inviolate territory of a foreign diplomatic mission, the Iranian mission in northern Iraq – legally, the land of a foreign nation – and took the Iranians hostage. It’s hard to see under international law how this is legal, let alone how this isn’t an act of war. And it’s beyond ironic that we appear to have condoned the very action that we condemned Iran for – attacking diplomatic missions in violation of international law.

    But what’s most troubling about this is the transparency of what Bush is up to. He’s trying to provoke a war with Iran, either by forcing Iran to strike back, or by discovering secret Iranian diplomatic documents that would prove their complicity in helping the insurgents in Iraq. We just invaded Iran last night, folks. Foreign embassies and diplomatic outposts are legally the foreign soil of the country represented. We invaded Iran. This is an act of war.

    Only problem with Bush’s plan? How exactly are we going to fight a war with Iran? Our generals told us we didn’t even have enough troops to meet the needs of Bush’s new escalation plan (the plan called for 32,000 more troops, the generals said we only have 22,000 or so available, that’s it.) So where exactly will we get the troops to fight a new war with Iran, at the same time we’re fighting a civil war in Iraq, and fighting an increasingly bad civil war in Afghanistan? Our worst nightmare would be Iran calling Bush’s bluff and invading Iraq. So, why is it then that this is exactly what Bush is trying to provoke?

    It’s increasingly looking like Bush is more interested in provoking the coming Rapture than solving the multiple crises in the Middle East.

    See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

    Iraqi officials said Thursday that multinational forces detained as many as six Iranians in an overnight raid on Tehran’s diplomatic mission in the northern city of Irbil….

    The forces stormed the Iranian mission at about 3 a.m., detaining the five staffers and confiscating computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information….

    A resident living near the mission said the foreign force used stun bombs in the raid and brought down an Iranian flag that was on the roof of the two-story yellow house.

    This is incredibly serious. Bush may have just given every country in the world justification for attacking US diplomats, attacking US diplomatic posts and embassies, and taking our diplomats hostage. Then again, he already gave the world a green light to torture our soldiers, so why not add American diplomats to the mix.

    At some point, we are a country of laws. That is supposed to be what differentiates us from the Irans and the Al Qaedas and the Saddams of the world. This is an incredibly serious breach of international law. It’s also an act of war. A war we can’t afford. Someone needs to stop this man before he kills again.

  11. Socialist Worker (UK) on IRAN-

    1. Bush’s hypocrisy over Iranian nuclear plans

    http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8249

    (Naz Massoumi is an activist with Action Iran, a group campaigning against military intervention in Iran. Contact actioniran@hotmail.co.uk)

    The anti-war movement must resist attempts by US warmongers to ratchet up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme, writes Naz Massoumi

    To the delight of George Bush’s government, all the major world powers last week voted to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear programme.

    So what is Iran doing wrong? As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is well within its right to develop nuclear energy for civilian purposes and has done so under the watchful eye of International Atomic Energy Authority.

    It has even voluntarily signed a more intrusive Additional Protocol as a goodwill gesture. And contrary to the White House mantra, US intelligence agents estimate that Iran is still ten years from acquiring highly enriched uranium – the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon.

    Not since George Bush proclaimed that free elections in Lebanon could not take place under foreign occupation have we seen such hypocrisy. Iran is surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed, lie to its east. To its west lies Israel with over 200 warheads, making threats.

    Neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq are occupied by Britain and the US, both nuclear powers and the latter the only one to have ever used nuclear weapons. As for North Korea’s bomb, with the clear lessons drawn from the Iraq war, it would be hard not to see why Iran wouldn’t acquire one as a deterrent.

    Some point to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial and talk of “wiping out Israel” – statements that are completely reactionary that we should certainly condemn. But these are not unique to Ahmadinejad.

    Rhetoric

    In fact the early 1980s saw far more radical rhetoric from the Iranian ruling class, including that from Western-preferred presidential candidate Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

    Nor is this exclusive to the Iranian regime, as Alex Callinicos rightly pointed out in his column here two weeks ago.

    If anything, these statements have only ever worked to whip up anti-Zionist sentiment to strengthen support at home. And if there are any countries actually doing any “wiping out” it’s the US and Israel in Iraq and Palestine.

    And far from the media depiction, restarting uranium enrichment was not a consequence of Ahmadinejad’s election. Iran’s two year suspension of the programme was only ever a confidence building measure.

    The decision to restart was made prior to the election in a meeting that included Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani as well as Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the country’s outgoing president Mohammad Khatami.

    It also has the full backing of the Iranian population—which has implications for any Iranian government. Indeed, in a recent poll 79 percent of Iranians said they were against halting of nuclear activities or complying with demands from the West.

    Iranian society is very different from the backward tyrannical regime portrayed in the West. More than 60 percent of university students are women for example. This is a young and socially active population (70 percent are under 30) who talk politics in the cafes and fight for reforms on the streets.

    Their concerns are the growing inequality and high unemployment. But while they struggle for change at home, they reject any model set by Western powers.

    They’ve seen exactly what 12 years of sanctions have done to their neighbours in Iraq and they certainly don’t want to be bombed into “democracy”. Theirs is a real movement from below that needs no lessons on human rights from the criminals of Fallujah and Guantanamo Bay.

    The US neo-conservatives have no interest in bringing democracy to Iran, or anywhere else for that matter. Yet their agenda for control of Middle Eastern resources is not only backfiring, but causing huge problems for them on all fronts—domestically and internationally.

    Although their hands are tied, Iran’s alliances with China and a Shia-led Iraq undermines precisely the reason the US went to war in the first place. And if Vietnam is anything to go by, there is a strong possibility the US could escalate the war before a pullout from Iraq.

    What’s clear is that, caught in this difficult dilemma, isolating Iran is the first step before sanctions or military intervention. The responsibility now rests on us to build an anti-war movement capable of delivering such a defeat for the US in Iraq, that an attack on Iran, or any other country, doesn’t become an option.

    2. IRAN: What lies behind the democracy movement?

    http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=685

    Socialist Worker spoke to Elaheh Rostami Povey about the background to this week’s elections in Iran

    Those who control Iranian society have banned many candidates from standing. Why?

    This week’s election is the most serious crisis facing Iran’s rulers since the revolution in 1979. The Guardian Council, an unelected constitutional watchdog consisting of conservative clergy, disqualified 3,600 reformist candidates out of 8,200 prospective candidates. Young women and men in Iran reject the idea that modern, progressive attitudes are held exclusively by the West. They also oppose the rigid traditional rules set by the conservative clergy.

    The majority of the population are actively trying to construct emancipatory models that derive from their own experiences. The conservative clergy are threatened by the popularity of the democracy movement.

    What are groups like workers, women and students doing?

    In response to the disqualification of reformist candidates, 80 reformist MPs (14 of them women) held a sit-in in parliament. This was followed by the resignation of 134 out of 290 MPs. Under these pressures, the Guardian Council removed the bar from 1,150 candidates but announced that the other 2,450 will remain barred.

    The Participatory Front, the largest reformist party, and other parties who have the support of the democracy movement called for the boycott of the election. The conservatives who control the judiciary, army and the state media could rig the election and undermine the reformist majority in the parliament.

    But this will be a shortlived victory, as there will be more radical opposition which will end the legitimacy of the autocratic system. Mehdi Aminzadeh, a student leader, explained, “In the short term we will protest on the issue of elections, but in the long term our aim is to change the system.” Many believe that if the president, Khatami, is unable to choose the movement for democratic change he should withdraw and not get in the way. Among those who have called for Khatami’s resignation is Shirin Ebadi, one of the leading members of the women’s movement, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. She spoke against US occupation of Iraq, and Israel’s occupation of Palestine, in the World Social Forum in Mumbai.

    Why has the reform movement sprung up?

    Since the early 1990s workers, women and students have been demanding changes. They have high expectations-the desire for equality before the law, equal political participation, the right to health, education and employment, and women’s rights to choose whether or not to wear the Islamic hijab.

    Many people are disillusioned with the reformists’ conciliatory approach. They believe that President Khatami should have fought the conservatives when they vetoed reforms, when they closed down newspapers and journals, when they arrested students, workers, women and journalists.

    How much of a monolithic society is Iran?

    The democracy movement is diverse. Some are secular, the majority Muslim. There are also religious minorities (Jews, Armenians, Zoroastrians) and ethnic minorities (Azari Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchs and Turkamans). They have been working together for democracy. They have put aside many issues which divide them and concentrated on issues that unite them. This collaboration has strengthened the democracy movement.

    What kind of impact does the revolution still have 25 years on? The 1979 revolution overthrew a vicious dictatorial regime supported by the West. This was achieved by 18 months of demonstrations and strikes, and a general strike led by the oil workers.

    The democracy movement, which began in the early 1990s and which today is unstoppable, is deeply rooted in the experiences of the revolutionary struggles of 1978-9.

    Do the people who want reform support America?

    Iranians judge America through the lens of history. They remember well that during the 1980s Iraq-Iran war America and the West supplied Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, which burnt and suffocated their families.

    Older Iranians have not forgotten that MI6 and the CIA overthrew the popular nationalist government of Mossadeq in 1953 and replaced it with the Shah’s puppet regime, which denied the majority of the population basic human rights, access to health, education and employment.

    Today women exercise more rights in Iran than in neighbouring US-backed states. They have the right to vote, and more gender-balanced family law, education and employment laws. However, the West ignores these achievements, which are the result of 25 years of bitter struggle, and only highlights women’s hijab as a symbol of women’s oppression. Therefore for many in Iran, Bush and Blair’s concept of liberation and democracy is pure hypocrisy.

    The neo-conservatives in Washington have formed a “coalition for democracy in Iran” which advocates “regime change”. Iranians resent these pressures on their country. People in Iran are patiently struggling for their own idea of democracy that may ultimately have a progressive impact on the region.

    People in Britain can support their plight by fighting Blair and Bush’s war against the people of the Middle East.

    Elaheh Rostami Povey is the author of Women, Work and Islamism: Ideology and Resistance in Iran (Zed Books), under the pen name of Maryam Poya.

    Six key facts about Iran

    # In 1979 a popular revolution, with mass strikes and demonstrations, toppled the Shah of Iran, a dictatorial ruler who was the West’s key ally in the oil-rich region.

    # After almost two more years of upheaval a group of conservative clerics linked to the merchant section of the capitalist class consolidated its grip on power. The figurehead for this group was the religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini. He combined repression at home with opposition to US policy in the Middle East.

    # The new rulers allowed for elections, but also put huge powers in the hands of a Guardian Council, an unelected body of conservative clergy.

    # This regime also repressed workers’ and students’ organisations, and fought to restrict women’s rights.

    # The growing mood for change among the mass of the population was reflected in the landslide victory in 1997 of Mohammad Khatami in presidential elections. He was re-elected with an equally large majority in 2001.

    # Khatami represents a section of Iran’s rulers who wanted some reform, and his supporters are dubbed “reformists”, while those who want to stop change and dominate the Guardian Council are dubbed “conservatives”.

    3. How the war in Lebanon went wrong for the White House

    “Hizbollah started the crisis, and Hizbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis.” Those were George Bush’s words at the start of this week. He is 100 percent wrong on both counts.

    Bush approved the attack on Lebanon during a meeting with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert at the White House on 23 May. Joint military planning for the operation stretches back far further.

    Bush believed that by encouraging an Israeli assault on Hizbollah he could punish Syria, who the US blames for the resistance in Iraq, and deliver a major blow to Iran.

    Israel and the US both fear Iran becoming a regional superpower – and treat Hizbollah as a proxy for Tehran. An attack on Iran was supposed to follow quickly from an Israeli victory.

    But the assault on Lebanon ended with Hizbollah undefeated, and with Syria and Iran both far from intimidated.

    Bush was quick to renew his verbal assault on Iran – and there is always a danger that a cornered beast will lash out. But the US is in a far weaker position to impose its will on the region.

    The US’s support for the onslaught has also undermined its relationship with its Arab allies, who originally attacked Hizbollah but changed their tune as the Israeli assault was beaten back.

    Bush has been weakened by this conflict. The fiasco he faces in Lebanon joins the ones he created in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  12. Two articles from this weeks Socialist Worker (UK)

    first two letters on anti-semitism and racism from the letters page, the second a first article opening up a debate on Cuba, Venezuela etc with Socialist Workers traditional line

    Gilad Atzmon is not racist

    As the organisers of the Cultures of Resistance event we were disappointed to see Michael Rosen claiming that Gilad Atzmon is an antisemite and should therefore not have been invited to perform (Letters, 6 January).

    We would never give a platform to a racist or fascist. Our entire history has been one of fierce opposition to fascist organisations and antisemitism.

    Faced with such accusations, Gilad has issued a personal statement making it clear that he is not a racist or a Holocaust denier. It is also worth noting that papers like the Morning Star and Guardian have also run articles refuting these claims.

    Gilad has now played around a dozen fundraising events for the SWP and we can say categorically that he has never made any offensive/racist comments – in fact every performance has been one of supporting the civil rights struggle and opposing war.

    While defending Gilad’s right to play, that in no way means we endorse all of Gilad’s views. However it is worth noting that he is a Jewish exile from Israel who was a member of the Israeli army.

    As part of his struggle to break from his Zionist upbringing he has become an angry and bitter opponent of Israel. For the record we have publicly challenged and argued against those of his ideas we disagree with.

    Instead of banning him shouldn’t socialists be celebrating his undeniable musical talent, and at the same time challenging those ideas that he holds that we disagree with?

    Hannah Dee and Viv Smith, London

    I was sorry that Michael Rosen feels that antisemitism “doesn’t matter as much” to some people as other forms of racism today.

    It should matter, because all racism has to be opposed. But in the current context, two further points should be made.

    The state of Israel and its policies towards Palestinians lead some people to equate Jews with Israel’s ideology of Zionism. We have to constantly explain that not all Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews (some of Israel’s strongest supporters are the neocon Christians in the US).

    We also have to recognise that in Europe today the main form of racism, taken up and propagated by governments and media, is against Muslims. This scapegoating has direct parallels with the situation of the Jews in the 1930s.

    Of course other groups suffer racism as well. The Nazis were humiliated by the black athlete Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, whose performance didn’t fit in with their views of Aryan supremacy.

    But the main form of racism was still against Jews. Today the caricatures and demands to integrate are not directed at Jews but at Muslims.

    While it’s a mistake not to recognise racism in any form, it’s at least as big a mistake to fail to understand the main form of racism at any particular time.

    Let’s not make any of these mistakes.

    Lindsey German, East London

    Second article-

    The road to change

    The successful radical movements in Latin America are restoring the credibility of the left after years of crisis, argues Diana Raby

    Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc the left has been in crisis worldwide. The rise of the anti-globalisation and anti?war movements and of the Zapatistas could not hide the fact that the left no longer had credibility for most people.

    But in the last few years Latin America has begun to inspire hope for change. The Venezuelan revolution has provided a radical challenge to US dominance, and president Hugo Chavez proclaims socialism as the ultimate goal.

    In Bolivia president Evo Morales has nationalised natural gas and oil and pushed forward constitutional changes despite reactionary opposition.

    Cuba defies predictions of collapse or chaos as Fidel Castro lies ill.

    In Venezuela and Bolivia – for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall – governments based on working class and popular movements have taken power and begun to construct an alternative social and economic order.

    The state is not dead, as the neoliberals claimed, and it is possible to defy international capital and wring major concessions from it.

    Cuba – never fundamentally Stalinist despite its dependence on the Soviet Union – has survived and begun to work with Venezuela and Bolivia to create a new type of socialism.

    But is Venezuela socialist, or at least beginning a process of transition to socialism? Most readers of Socialist Worker would say no. But eight years ago, when Chavez was first elected, few took his “Bolivarian revolution” seriously.

    It is undeniable that Chavez’s government has done more to challenge capitalism and promote popular interests than any regime in the past 20 years.

    To understand Venezuela, it is necessary first to understand Cuba. The Cuban revolution was not made by the old Communist Party, but by Fidel Castro and the 26 July Movement.

    When the guerrillas triumphed on 1 January 1959, they did not talk about socialism or Marxism-Leninism, or even class struggle – but about social justice, economic independence from the US and Latin American liberation.

    It was over two years later, in 1961, that Fidel first used the term socialism.

    The Cuban revolution was radicalised by confrontation with the US and the dynamic of the popular movement.

    But it would be grossly misleading to suggest – as many Marxists do – that Fidel and the leadership were simply driven forward by the people.

    Fidel inspired the movement with his vision, courage and by maintaining unity and revolutionary leadership. And through crucial decisions throughout the dramatic transformation of 1959-63.

    Cuba first reached socialism in practice and then acquired socialist consciousness as a result – confirmation, surely, of Karl Marx’s argument that ideas arise out of social reality.

    Three things were necessary to achieve this – a mass popular movement, a leadership totally committed to national liberation and social justice, and armed force.

    In Venezuela, in very different circumstances, the same three factors have come together.

    As in Cuba, the failure of the traditional left opened the way for a broad mass movement inspired by a charismatic leader who had the vision and commitment to lead the way.

    It is important not to ignore or deny the vital role of leaders like Fidel and Chavez. Their prominence does not make them dictators, on the contrary, they grow in stature with the popular movement which correctly sees them as giving voice to its own latent sentiments.

    Finally, what does socialism mean today? As I see it Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin’s debate over “socialism in one country” was misleading.

    According to Marx and Lenin, socialism is a transitional phase on the road to the “withering away of the state” and full communism.

    As a transitional phase, it is not a mode of production in its own right, and there cannot exist a fully formed and stable socialist system with its own economic laws of motion – this was the fundamental error of the Stalinists.

    Socialism – or the nearest thing to it that is possible until the final overthrow of capitalism – can exist in one country, and for a prolonged period, as Cuba shows.

    It is possible to use revolutionary state power to promote social and economic structures with an anti?capitalist logic, in other words, to move in the direction of socialism/communism although not to create a perfect socialist system.

    Capitalist and imperialist oppression will inevitably produce revolutions, and these revolutions will inevitably move towards socialism.

    They cannot create a fully fledged “socialist system” whether in one country or a large group of countries, because such a thing does not exist even in theory.

    What they can do – and what revolutionaries around the world must support, because it is the only viable alternative in the present historical period – is create revolutionary states of popular power.

    Revolutionary states of this type can only be maintained to the extent that the leadership remains profoundly democratic and in touch with the working people and their organisations.

    If they can be maintained, if they spread and multiply, they can contribute to undermining the world capitalist system and to the eventual global transformation conceived by Marx.

    This is the real revolutionary alternative, and it is vital to overcome yesterday’s sectarian divisions and sterile debates and unite in support of it.

    Diana Raby’s book, Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today, is available from Bookmarks, phone 020 7637 1848 or go to http://www.bookmarks.uk.com

    What do you think? Please e-mail your comments to letters@socialistworker.co.uk

  13. Good to see you taking the principled approach Cameron-keep that up and you’ll be in ACT one day.

    Don’t see our Socialist Worker buddies saying much.

  14. As for the picture of the group of Rabbis being pictured in the first photo, they belong to a group that is on the PLO payroll. Even members of that group collaborate closely with the Palestinian Authority.

  15. Anonymous, why don’t you care that Iran invited folks like David Duke as “honored guests” to their holocaust denial conference?

    You’re just quite typical to just deny nations like Iran are linked right up with your boy Chavez. Typical, typical. You hardly don’t give a damn about the Iranian President promoting holocaust denial do you? Or suggest that the Jews living in Israel should move?

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