War and opportunism

“To initiate a war of aggression”, affirmed the judges at the Nuremberg trial of prominent Nazi leaders, “is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” The US Supreme Court justice, Samuel L Jackson, … [Read more…]

Sixty years after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad – the turning point in the war against Nazi fascism. Henry Metelmann’s personal account of his experiences in the German Panzers at Stalingrad

________________ Henry Metelmann’s vivid recollections of his life in the Hitler Youth and as a tank driver in the Panzer Division at the Battle of Stalingrad are reproduced below, based on his speech at the Stalin Society AGM, Conway Hall, London, 23 February 2003. ______________ I was a member of the Communist Party of Great … [Read more…]

Iraqi people shall emerge victorious!

When the Anglo-American imperialist bandits launched their war of aggression against Iraq on 20 March, they had deluded themselves into believing that their invading armies would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people and that the invasion would coincide with the uprisings of Iraqi people against the regime of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, and … [Read more…]

Patrick Finucane: Murdered by British imperialism

Fourteen years ago Patrick Finucane was murdered by British imperialism. On Sunday 12 February 1989 he was shot fourteen times in front of his wife and three children by two masked gunmen who burst into his home in the early evening. They escaped in a car driven by an accomplice. The next day the Ulster … [Read more…]

Economic crisis and Imperialism’s War frenzy

Those trying to understand how the overproduction crisis of imperialism connects up with the current Anglo-American war frenzy would do well to hearken to the doom-laden Jeremiad from Martin Wolf in the Financial Times (‘The markets are too eager to discount the cost of war’, 26-03-03). Noting how the initial stock market euphoria which greeted … [Read more…]

Venezuela: masses triumph over another counter-revolutionary coup

On 2 February this year, the popular government in Venezuela emerged triumphant from yet another attempt by the united forces of domestic and international capital to bring it down. Having surprised the coup-makers by their readiness to defend the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ by force, the people of Venezuela have, since the defeat of the US-backed coup … [Read more…]

Memory of Stalin

A chemistry professor and member of the Russian Academy of Science. He married Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, in spring 1949 when she was 23, and he 29. They divorced five years after Stalin’s death. It is true that Stalin was a modest person. Everyone knows that after his death he did not leave any property, only … [Read more…]

Victory on the Volga

The anniversary of Stalingrad has inspired major celebrations in Russia, but a strange silence here Sixty years ago the greatest battle of the second world war reached its climax. The site of that decisive battle was not the windswept sands of north Africa beloved of British war mythology, nor the broad expanses of the Pacific … [Read more…]

Memory of Stalin

Mr Varennikov comes from a poor Cossack family in the Krasnodar region near the Black sea, and was among an early generation of working-class people to receive a good education under Stalin, rising to a senior rank in the army. The day of Stalin’s death was very hard, a real shock. A part of my … [Read more…]