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Thirty-five years have passed since the beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev disastrous Perestroika policy which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, almost half of the Russian people believe that life would be better if Perestroika had never happened.

According to a poll conducted by Levada Center, 47% of Russians acknowledge that life in the country was better before Gorbachev's destructive reform plan, with just 39% disagreeing. A 14% of the participants found "difficult to answer".

In the question "Why do you think the situation was better before Perestroika?", the answers were: 65% said because the "country was strong and united", 55% because "there was order in the country", 43% because the "relations between people were better" and 38% because "people were confident about the future".

Almost two-thirds (61%) of the people over 55 years of age, who were adults when the reforms began in 1985, agree that life was better before.

In another poll, also conducted by Levada Center last September, showed that almost half of Russians (49%) regard the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the most shameful and upsetting event of the past.

No matter how intense the anti-communist propaganda becomes, the people of Russia never forget the extraordinary achievements of socialism and the glorious past of the Soviet Union which is in sharp contrast with today's capitalist barbarity.

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM

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Nostalgia for Socialism: Most Russians say that life would be better if Perestroika had never happened - In Defense of Communism

A very engaging television series that has been appearing on CNN in recent weeks is "First Ladies." It is focused on some iconic presidential wives, blending interviews, news reports, and rare archival film footage to present Michelle Obama, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, and Eleanor Rooseveltso far. The two final episodes will feature Lady Bird Johnson and Hilary Clinton. (All of these Sunday night programs will be subsequently available on demand, via cable/satellite and CNN apps.)

Although these six first ladies all played distinctive roles, the one who clearly stands out as a national and international figure is Eleanor Roosevelt. Born into a wealthy family in 1884, she lost her mother and father in the early 1890s and later attended a private finishing school in England. She married her distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1905, and his political career prompted her to be active for civic and political purposes, too. Aside from being the longest-serving first ladysince FDR served four terms as presidentshe was also an acclaimed diplomat and a crusader for many causes.

As the "First Ladies" program devoted to her revealed, one of her causes was civil rights for African-Americans. Her productive efforts for that purpose prompted the Ku Klux Klan to offer $25,000 to anyone who would kill her, but the heroic female leader persisted.

As a "Western Courier" article pointed out on April 27, 1960, a week before her scheduled talk at Morgan Gym, "Always interested in social and political matters, she helped organize a nation-wide organization of Democratic women," and she was very active in her husbands campaigns for the presidency, too. Beyond that, she was a groundbreaking woman in many ways: "She was the first wife of a president of the United States to maintain a career of her own, the first to hold regular press conferences, and the first to travel by plane."

After FDRs death in 1945, she also served as an influential, much-celebrated U. S. delegate to the United Nations, for seven years. In fact, during 1946 she was elected President of the U. N.s Commission on Human Rights, and in that role, she supervised the drafting of a major world statement, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Later, she chaired President Kennedys Commission on the Status of Women, working to expand roles for women in the workplace and make other contributions to female equality. It is not surprising that an organization with female leadership, the Western Community Forum, led by Betty Mulder and strongly supported by the American Association of University Women, sponsored her visit to Macomb.

Mrs. Roosevelt was then 75 years old, and everyone regarded her as a remarkable national and international leader. At the lecture event, Mrs. Mulder introduced her to the huge crowd as "the worlds best-known and most respected living woman."

Prompted by the Cold War with Russia, which had developed after World War II and had been causing great national concern, she had titled her lecture "Is America Facing World Leadership?" Mrs. Roosevelt was striving to make sure that Americans were focused intensely upon combatting Russias influence on many other nations.

The "Macomb Journal" article about her lecture indicated that at the outset of her program she briefly stated the problem facing the United States: "Two strong ideasthe democratic idea and the communist ideaare struggling for the uncommitted peoples of the world." And she asserted that, unfortunately, "the Soviet Union has often gained success through thought control, iron discipline, police state methods, and rule by fear." So, she declared that if Americans dont effectively deal with the Russian threat on a variety of global fronts, especially in Africa, Asia, and South America, "We may wake up and find that Russia has won over the majority of the peoples of the world."

Naturally, Mrs. Roosevelt was relying upon the international awareness that she had acquired during her years of service in the United Nations. Among other things, she had personal experience with the Russian premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and she reported that, in his view, communism will eventually prevail: "He will tell you that we are wasting our time [promoting democracy]," because "the future is communism."

Her program about the Cold War and its international impact generated a number of questions, "concerning Fidel Castro, the South American attitude toward the U. S., the effectiveness of Christian missionaries, and the recognition of Red China," but she was pleased to address them. And when it was all over, the audience gave a very appreciative response.

As with so many other places that she had spoken, her overall purpose at Western was to motivate college students and others to focus on the international threat posed by the Soviet Union, for she was concerned that America didnt have enough people committed to awareness of, and resistance to, the impact of communism in various countries. So, the answer to the question in her talk title, about America facing up to world leadership, was that more should definitely be done, if the U. S. was to effectively combat its chief enemy on a global scale.

After speaking to the capacity crowd in Morgan Gym, Mrs. Roosevelt sat in a chair and shook hands with over 100 people who lined up to greet the remarkable, and inspiring, former First Lady. A female reporter for the "Western Courier," who witnessed her long interaction with audience members, said in an article that appeared several days later that she asked the famous woman "how on earth she managed to remain so pleasant and sweet, after meeting so many people when she must have been so very tired." Mrs. Roosevelt replied, after patting her hand lightly, "I dont often get tired when Im around people who are interested," and the audience at WIU was "so very attentive and very good."

So, the local program delivered by the most admired woman in the world was a success in her view, and the whole event also reminds us that Eleanor Roosevelt was an amazing example of what a purpose-driven, hard-working senior citizen can accomplish. She continued to speak widely, and promote her social and political causes, until heart problems limited her activities in 1962, and she died in November of that year, at age 78. Various statues and other memorials now celebrate her life.

Local residents should be proud that Mrs. Roosevelts purposeful visit, to urge global response to Russia during the tense and troubling Cold War, is part of Macombs heritage. But in general, she was an inspiring, progressive leader, and as the U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, said to the audience at her funeral, "What other single human being has touched and transformed the existence of so many?" So, her presence in our town was also a reminder that human greatness, which she exemplified, is based on commitment to humanity.

Writer and speaker John Hallwas is a columnist for the "McDonough County Voice." Research assistance was provided by WIU archivist Kathy Nichols.

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The greatest First Lady and her visit to Macomb - McDonough Voice

On October 30th, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) marked its 100th anniversary. On this occasion a number of events have been organized in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth from 29th October to 1st November 2020.

In a press release, the Communist Party points out:

"Only one conclusion can be drawn on surveying 100 years of Communist; that the party has has a colourful and successful past. In the first decade the Party struggled with the boom of the early 20s but as the depression hit the Party gained much notice as the organisers of the unemployed, providing food and pressure on Government to provide resources for the unemployed. They ran eviction struggles and these made headlines in Sydney and in other parts of Australia.

As the 30s progressed and fascism arose, the Campaign against War and Fascism was set with a strong contingent of Communist Party members in the leadership along with clergymen and others. This organisation invited Egon Kisch, a Czech-Austrian Jewish journalist to Australia who travelled the country warning of the dangers Nazism. The Government tried in vain to get rid of him but he eluded their attempts.

Communists gained leadership roles in unions such as the Railways and later the Waterside Workers Federation WWF. It was the WWF who prevented Australian scrap iron going to Japan on the ship called Dalfram at Port Kembla just prior to the WWII. Menzies earned the nickname "pig iron bob" after that incident.

Communists work for workers and the people in general. They organise and lobby for a better deal for all and for a future of socialism in Australia."

For more check out the official website of the CPA and its Facebook Page.

Greetings from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)

"Dear comrades,

The 100 years of the Communist Party of Australia mark the outstanding contribution of the Australian Communists to the organisation of the struggle of the Australian working class for its rights against big capital, in conflict with imperialist plans and competitions of the bourgeois classes.

The tens of thousands of immigrant workers of Greek descent who have been living and working for decades in your country, contributing to the workers'-people's movement, the class struggle, and the historical course of the communist movement in Australia, are an additional connecting link for the necessary exchange of experience and conclusions from the historical course of our Parties.

On the ground of dangerous developments for the peoples, this historical experience highlights that the communists have the obligation to strengthen discussion and substantive examination of serious and complex issues of class struggle, because their intervention in each country, and especially in a powerful capitalist country such as Australia, is a difficult and demanding case.

The 100th anniversary of the foundation of your Party coincides with serious developments at a global level that are connected with the new deep capitalist crisis and also the COVID-19 pandemic, which acter as a catalyst, accelerating the outbreak of the capitalist crisis, in the midst of the sharpening of the competitions between imperialist centres and bourgeois classes. [...]

With these thoughts, we would like to convey to you the wishes of the Greek communists for the 100 years of the CP of Australia."

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM

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Australia's Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary - In Defense of Communism

Courtesy of npr.org/THE REVIEW This Land is Your Land is an oft-remembered patriotic tune. But how much do you really know about it?

BY SHREYA GADDIPATI Editor-in-Chief

Can you fill in the blank?

This land is your land, this land is __ ___.

If you have lived in the United States of America for a certain amount of time, it is likely that you can recognize this song at the drop of a hat. Ingrained into memories with each passing Independence Day barbecue, political rally and campfire sing-along, This land is your land by Woody Guthrie seemingly seeps with American patriotism or does it? The history behind one of Americas favorite songs is far more complex than it may seem.

While politics and music have frequently overlapped throughout American history, according to university professor Philip Gentry, the trend of writing overtly political or partisan folk style music started roughly in the 1930s. It emerged out of what is called the Popular Front a broad coalition of different political groups, some being communists, socialists and liberals.

The American left had made a concerted effort to adopt more populist aesthetics and culture as part of their organizing efforts, Gentry says.

According to Gentry, it was around this time that the left side of the political spectrum very purposely took advantage of populist music, that being folk music, in order to relate to the average American.

The most famous example of this would be the Seeger family. Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger were modernist American musicians who composed in what Gentry called an ultra modern, avante garde fashion. Being the committed leftists they were, they made a shift away from modernism into folk music. Charles Seegers son is Pete Seeger, famed American folk singer and friend to the late Woody Guthrie. Another example would be Aaron Copeland, who also started his career in a very extravagant, modernist style. When the 1930s hit, his style shifted into something that, while not folk, was far more populist.

To be clear, the lefts shift into populist music was not something necessarily welcomed by society. It was during this time that WWII was still ongoing and America had allied itself with the USSR in order to defeat Nazi Germany. According to Gentry, this allyship was a tenuous relationship at its very best. As WWII came to a close, there was what Gentry described as a sense of dividing the world between these two superpowers.

They were worried that there were too many left wing people in the American government and that they were secretly working for the Soviet Union, Gentry says of the perspective of most anti-communists at the time.

Gentry made clear that while this may have been the case for some people in the U.S. government, the government mostly consisted of leftover liberals from the Roosevelt administration who were uninvolved in any sort of treason. Gentry also states that this feeling of paranoia of communism was further perpetuated in reaction against the New Deal, put forward by Franklin Roosevelt, and by the fact that in the late 1940s, the communists achieved victory in China.

So if there was sort of a feeling amongst the United States of losing parts of the world to communism, Gentry says. And there was this sort of sense that communism was insidious. That it wasnt like fighting the Nazis where you went into battle. It was something that would sneak in and come to you and your home. That it might brainwash you in some fashion.

And from this fear rose McCarthyism, a campaign against alleged communists in the U.S. government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was during this time that McCarthy, as well as numerous other government officials, produced a series of hearings and investigations.

Various famed actors, authors, producers, entertainers and musicians especially folk singers were blacklisted during this time for suspected communist involvement.

Given that the folk music scene was an extremely political space at the time, the mainstream music industry tried to distance itself from folk music out of fear of persecution and stigmatization. It was during the 1940s that the mainstream music industry started going through a transition of which folk music, which varied stylistically across the country, would undergo a process of consolidation, so that, essentially, all music consumed by more rural audiences would be put into one category.

In fact, according to Gentry, prior to 1949, Billboard had a music chart titled Hillbilly Records. In search for a less offensive and more inclusive name, the company briefly considered coming up with a name that included the word folk in it. However, out of a desire to distance themselves from the left, they titled it Country and Western, giving rise to the popular music genre many know today.

Folk singers, including Guthrie, emerged from the aforementioned Popular Front. As times passed in the 1940s, the folk revival moved to very urban areas, creating a juxtaposition between a very liberal movement and McCarthyism.

The folk revival moves to very urban areas, Gentry says. Woody Guthrie himself moved to New York City because hes having trouble getting played on radio stations and other markets. So he ends up as part of this revival in New York City with people like Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, the Lomax family and all those sorts of people. So its really out of that that This Land Is Your Land merges.

Woody Guthrie originally wrote This Land is Your Land in 1940 when he first arrived in New York City from Oklahoma. The song was written as a parody of God Bless America, which dominated the airwaves at the time.

God Bless America was written by Irving Berlin, famed composer and lyricist of many smash hits such as White Christmas and Theres No Business Like Show Business.He was also part of what was called Tin Pan Alley, a collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the airwaves at the time.

According to Gentry, Guthrie and many of his folk acquaintances most likely took issue with the commercialized and jingle-ized form of music that was God Bless America, inspiring him to parody it.

I think they found it kind of nativist and jingle-istic in a lot of ways, Gentry says. I think it was also just really omnipresent as a form of commercial pop music that you couldnt escape.

According to Gentry, Guthrie never necessarily prescribed a political alliance that in turn inspired him to parody the song.

[Guthrie] was never actually like a doctrinaire ideological member of a specific organization or something like that, Gentry says. I think it was more intuitive to sort of like anger at the nationalism of rah rah America.

Gentry went on to explain that another issue that people on the left seemed to take with the song was the blatant nationalism of the song in combination with the religious message.

The left position on that is, first of all, often anti-nationalist, Gentry says, describing the left political perspective of the time. Like God doesnt bless countries. [Like even] if youre religious, he doesnt bless specific countries in that sense. Its like nation states are not exactly a spiritual formation.

Some of the lyrics to Guthries original version of the song included:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.The sign was painted, said Private Property.But on the backside, it didnt say nothing.This land was made for you and me.

While this verse was recorded in 1944 by Moses Asch, it was never released. In fact, this version of the song was almost lost until it was once again unearthed in 1997.

Additionally, there were even more radical verses that Guthrie wrote but never officially recorded. This verse was scribbled on a loose-leaf sheet of paper found in the archives of Guthries daughter:

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,by the relief office I saw my people.As they stood hungry,I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.

Additional removed lyrics include:

Nobody living can ever stop me,As I go walking that freedom highway;Nobody living can ever make me turn backThis land was made for you and me.

Gentry explains that these lyrics may not have been necessarily removed for a nefarious reason. At the time, folk music was being adopted as childrens music for educational purposes a process that the Seegers were involved in. Therefore, in order to be more child-friendly and universal, it could be likely that these verses were naturally phased out of the song.

However, later in Guthries life, he was blacklisted just as he began experiencing symptoms of Huntingtons Disease an illness that would lead to his demise. His close friend, Pete Seeger, was denounced as a communist and blacklisted as well. The Weavers, a folk quartet, lost their recording contract, could not book concerts and their recordings could not be played on the radio.

Treatment of folk singers at the time had a deep impact on the folk revival with groups such as the Kingston Trio trying to avoid any political or social commentary in an attempt to achieve success without being labeled as communists.

Guthrie died in 1967 from complications of Huntingtons Disease. In the time since, Pete Seeger, alongside Guthries son, Arlo, have made a point of singing This Land is Your Lands more radical verses. In fact, at the 2008 inauguration of President Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger and Tao Rodrguez-Seeger sung this song with many of its radical verses intact.

Gentry explained that even today, many political campaigns will identify with music, though partisanship may not be as obvious from the lyrics of the song.

But I think it is sometimes not legible in interesting ways, Gentry says, explaining that partisanship of the music may not be obvious to various audiences.

However, some songs are so closely affiliated with campaigns that it is hard to ignore the correlation. For example, when Hilary Clinton campaigned in 2016, a song that played frequently at her events was Fight Song by Rachel Platten. When Bill Clinton ran for office in 1992, Dont Stop by Fleetwood Mac was often played at his events.

So there is tons of political music happening out there, Gentry says. I think it suffuses the popular music charts in a lot of ways. But it doesnt always mark itself legibly in the way that a left wing folk ballad of the 60s said I am political, but theres lots of other ways for music to be political.

Gentry also makes an interesting point about music once it leaves its maker. He notes that the Trump campaign has recently been playing Macho Man by the Village People a gay club anthem from the 70s at their rallies. Another song often played at Republican rallies is Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen, which takes a very critical look at the de-industrialization of the Reagan era. The original intent by the creators of either of these songs do not necessarily correlate with the message of the campaigns but are nonetheless frequently played.

Thats how music works, Gentry says. The people who write them arent in charge of them after theyre done.

Excerpt from:
"This Land Is Your Land": The truth behind the song The Review - University of Delaware Review

She is not so beholden because the organizations to which she demonstrated loyalty, most notably the Soviet Union, are no more. They were destroyed by the people who they had oppressed for decades. An event that likely still fills her with regret.

After all, the great humanitarian was feted by the usual commie states. Fidel Castros Cuba was afavorite spot which she visited. After one trip she decided that only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed.

In December 1979, about three weeks before Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan, Davis was in Moscow to receive the Lenin Peace Prize and receive an honorary degree from Moscow State University. Sheaccepted the former with abroad smile, receiving afloral bouquet along with the requisite three kissesfrom the Soviet official who pinned the award onto her dress. She noted with approval that the prize bore the glorious name of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin here on the very soil where he led the great October Revolution. Ah,the glorious, peaceloving, freedompromoting, justiceinspiring Lenin. Davis made quite an international splash withher praise for the USSR.

Davis twice visited East Germany, more formally known as the (SoCalled) German Democratic Republic, where she received an award, the Star of Friendship of the People of the World, and an honorary degree from the University of Leipzig. She had apleasant meeting with Erich Honecker, who took over the communist party in East Germany in 1971.Aphoto shows the two smiling broadly, lovely and loving servants of the people no doubt discussing how they could better serve the masses. She also met the Stalinist leader ousted by Honecker, Walter Ulbricht, who ordered construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

Of course,among the points of interests she visitedwasthe infamous fortified barrier, where she expressed her condolencesfor the East German border guardwho was shot by afleeing citizen,calling the formera loyal soldier, who sacrificed his life for his socialist country. She promised that on her return to America she would undertake to tell our people the truth about the true function of this border. Alas, apparently even the East German people failed to understand the Berlin Walls real purpose since they tore it down the moment they could.

In fact, German workers were notoriously fickle,having revolted against the Sovietinstalled leadershipin 1953. That, after all the work loyal communists had done to suppress dissent! So Honecker &Co. were forced to rule what amounted to anational prison which famously walled its people in. Around athousand were murdered trying to escape. The last East German to be shot down seeking freedom, a20yearold restaurant worker named Chris Gueffroy, was killed in February 1989, just nine months before the border fortifications fell.

Tragically, Honecker did not enjoy as pleasant aretirement as Davis. He lost his job in October 1989. Ungrateful proletarians just did not appreciate his devotion and hard work. He reportedly wanted acrackdown against growing protests across the workers notso paradise,especially in Leipzig ironically the same city in which Davis received her honorary degree. However, the rest of the Politburo balked: the Soviet Unions Mikhail Gorbachev said the Red Army would remain in its barracks and East German officials could not be sure which direction their own troops would fire. Davis dictatorial friend found himself seeking other opportunities, as the saying goes.

Still, the USSR was her greatest promoter. In theFederalistauthor David Harsanyinoted that Davis became afocus of Soviet propaganda, with more resources devoted to her than was being spent on propaganda directly about the Vietnam War. Harsanyi cited Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author ofThe Gulag Archipelagoabout the Soviet system of prison camps,who observed: We had our ears stuffed with Angela Davis. Little children in school were told to sign petitions in defense of Angela Davis. Sovietborn Cathy Young remembers her elementary school class being obliged to sign postcards on Davis behalf.

Davis friendship toward the Soviet state and its Stalinist spinoffs was no passing fancy for someone unfamiliar with the USSR as aprison state. For instance, when Czech dissidentsmade amoving appeal to her for assistance, she responded: They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison. Daviss spokeswoman (imagine, aproletarian heroine having aspokeswoman!)said that Davisdid not think people should leave socialist countries to return to the capitalist system. Precisely what one would expect from agreat and respected human rights activist.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who consulted on Davis legal defense, similarly requested that she speak out on behalf of Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate to Israel. Her response? According to Dershowitz: Several days later, Ireceived acall back from Ms. Davis secretary informing me that Davis had looking into the people on my list and none of them were political prisoners. They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of Socialism. Davis would urge that they be kept in prison where they belonged.

Naturally, Davis has her academic defenders, whodance on pinheadswhiledismissing her affection for human tyranny. But even they should ask why adevoted representative of the working classes would have asecretary. What could be amore typical example of an oppressor and beneficiary of accumulated capital living off the labor and effort of the proletariat held in bondage by the capitalist system? Surely Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, or at least the glorious Lenin said something about this situation. How forgiving would Vladimir Ilyich be if confronted with such an outrageous example of capitalist oppression? Had Americas communist revolution actually occurred, Davis head also might have ended up on apike!

Angel Davis is amodel member of the tyrannical left, which seeks to destroy everyone and everything that stands in its way. Davis sanctimoniously claimed moral authority to judge others while endorsing amonstrous system which imprisoned more than abillion people, starved and impoverished entire societies, and murdered tens of millions of opponents, critics, independents, and innocents. This was no minor mistake. It was an overwhelming, debilitating ethical failure that undermined her credibility to speak even on other issues, such as racism.

America and Western societies have much to answer for. But they have acted to redress past errors and crimes, and undoubtedly will do more in the future. And they never had to wall their people in, something which Davis saw firsthand on her visit to East Germany. But she chose to take the side of the oppressors. When it comes to communism, proponents really should have to say they are sorry. And say it again and again. As should Angela Davis, before mercifully, finally, and quietly retiring from public life.

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Communism Collapsed, but Communists Are Still with Us - Cato Institute