Paul Robeson Singing the Soviet Anthem in English

I am posting this up since I love Paul Robeson's bass baritone voice, what an amazing man he was, an accomplished athlete, a Shakespearean actor of note, and a qualified barrister, all that and a fantastic singer as well as being a consistent defender of peace and progress throughout his life. I am glad that he recorded this song and it is a good video that accompanies it, it must be seen in the context of the USSR after defeating Nazism of course, and is an interesting and still inspiring historical curiousity piece. I hope that the readers of this blog enjoy it as much as I do.

Steve Fullarton;- The Last Surviving Scottish International Brigader Dies

The last surviving Scot to have fought in the Spanish Civil War has passed away in an Edinburgh care home at the age of 87. Steve Fullarton was one of several hundred Glaswegians who travelled to Spain to fight the Fascists led by General Franco. I had the pleasure of meeting Steve in a commemoration of the Battle of the Ebro three years ago, I was struck by his immense fortitude and good humour staying chipper and cheery despite a gruelling sun beating down on us throughout the lengthy ceremonies and speeches.

The contribution of the International Brigades to the fight against Fascism in the 1930's was one of the greatest examples of International working class Soldarity of all time. Volunteers from 52 countries came to the assistance of Spain's government forces who were facing defeat by the fascists of General Franco. Among the International Brigades were several thousand British, among those around 500 Scots and a high proportion of those Glaswegians - like Steve Fullarton who travelled to Spain from his home in Shelttleston at the age of 18. Speaking in 2003, he said: "I was angry at what I saw in the newsreels, the bombing in Spain, so it was a short step for me to go from collecting food to volunteer for the International Brigades and that is how I became involved."

Steve was shot in the leg during the battle of Ebro but recovered. He passed away at the age of 87 on Friday. However, 65 of his fellow Glaswegians perished in Spain fighting a war they believed was between right and wrong, between democracy and totalitarianism.

The statue of the Republican heroine Dolores Ibarruri or La Pasionaria stands at Glasgow's Custom House Quay. As the last of the International Brigade left Barcelona, she bade them farewell and thanked them for their efforts. She said "You can go with pride. You are history. You are legend...we will not forget you."

Comrade Fullarton's funeral will take place in Edinburgh on Friday.

SALUD!

Russia Decides...and its not that bad..

Congratulations to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation presidential Candidate Gennady Zyuganov for increasing his share of the vote in an election which was heavily tilted by the Russian media and the established power base of Vladimir Putin's organisation to ensure that Dimitry Medvedev would take over as President with ease, which he he did of course, garnering a massive 70% of the vote, a preponderance of voting weight which would seem to preclude the possibility of 'rigging' in any way substantially altering the final outcome. The Communist Party candidate, Zyuganov gained a very respectable 17.6% of the popular vote, so much for those who claimed that Russian people would immediately cease supporting the Communists once 'freed' of the 'shackles of soviet power'. My own personal reaction is that the election of the extremely capable Dimitry Medvedev is not a disaster for the forces of progress either, especially in terms of foreign affairs, the dual power base of Medvedev and Putin as Prime Minister will continue to ensure that Russia remains independent of the increasingly aggressive pressure being placed upon Russia by the USA, a trend particularly emphasised by the decision to put the ' Star Wars' anti-missile system into the Czech Republic and Poland.

While the presidential election proved entirely predictable, the transfer of power from Vladimir Putin to Dmitry Medvedev looks likely to be anything but.This will be the first time in the country's history that a popularly elected head of state hands over power to another popularly elected head of state. The lack of precedent is raising some curious constitutional questions over exactly how the Kremlin's impending round of musical chairs is going to work.
"There is not really any previous experience for what happens between an election and the moment the new president assumes power," said Mikhail Krasnov, an author of the Constitution.
While Medvedev is now president-elect and first deputy prime minister, Putin by law will remain president until May 7, exactly four years after his inauguration. Putin has said he will then become prime minister. The constitutional quirks of the interim period mean that, if things stay as they are, President Medvedev on the day of his inauguration will have to approve the resignation of First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev, along with the rest of the government, before nominating Putin to be his subordinate.
Throw into the mix the fact that Medvedev is also currently chairman of Gazprom, and that suggests he could end up simultaneously holding the posts of president, first deputy prime minister and Gazprom chairman.
Confused? You're not the only one. The unprecedented situation has left even constitutional experts and those involved in the process scratching their heads.
"There are a lot of theoretical legal problems connected with this period," said Stanislav Stanskikh, director of the Russian Foundation for Constitutional Reforms.
Part of the problem is that a bill drawn up in 1996 to fully regulate the handover of power between presidents was never approved by the State Duma.
But the main reason for much of the current ambiguity is that eight years ago the ever-unpredictable President Boris Yeltsin quit his post early, said Krasnov, who chairs the constitutional law department at Moscow's Higher School of Economics.
After Yeltsin's dramatic resignation on New Year's Eve in 1999, then-Prime Minister Putin was automatically promoted to the role of acting head of state, allowing Putin to fulfill the role of president before being officially elected to the position in March 2000. That makes the direct transfer from Putin to Medvedev, who, perhaps luckily, is a trained lawyer, unparalleled.
Under Article 116 of the Constitution, the government automatically has to give up its powers when a new president comes in, so one of the first things Medvedev will have to do when he assumes the presidency is to sign off on the dismissal of the Cabinet.
"That means Medvedev will eventually have to fire himself as a member of the government," Krasnov said.
To avoid this scenario, Medvedev could well decide to step down as first deputy prime minister between now and May 7, Krasnov said.
A spokeswoman for Medvedev refused to comment on the transfer of power. A Kremlin spokesman said Putin would continue to hold full presidential powers until the inauguration.
Another possibility is that Putin will replace the Cabinet sometime before the inauguration. Citing Kremlin and government sources, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported late last month that Putin would fire the Cabinet before the election.The dismissal of the government remains a technical possibility, but no such plans are in the works, said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. "We are only talking purely hypothetically," he said.
Cabinet spokesman Alexander Zharov said he could not comment on the plans for the interim period. "This is not our decision, and you have to ask the president what will happen," Zharov said.
Putin has already transferred some presidential responsibilities to Medvedev. Putin on Monday asked his successor to stand in for him at State Council meetings.
On Monday he also issued a special decree regulating Medvedev's new role as the "newly elected president but not yet the president who has assumed presidential power."
The decree means that the presidential administration can now work toward serving the future president while still serving the current president and hands over duties for guarding Medvedev to the president's Federal Guard Service.
And, according to the decree, the guard service and presidential administration can now set about allocating Medvedev his official residence. Peskov said Thursday, however, that Medvedev's official presidential residence has yet to be decided on.
The Kremlin's legal department had not replied by Thursday to written questions submitted a day earlier.
One thing that constitutional experts agreed on is that, under a law that Putin signed after Yeltsin stepped down, Putin and his family will have immunity from prosecution for life for anything he has done as president over the past eight years.
Over at Gazprom, the transfer of power for its top post is also proving problematic. Gazprom is set to elect current Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov as chairman at its annual general meeting on June 28 -- six weeks after Medvedev becomes president.
A Medvedev spokeswoman directed all queries on the matter to Gazprom.
A Gazprom spokesman said he did not know whether Medvedev could or would remain chairman until June. Gazprom then redirected legal enquiries to the Federal Property Management Agency. The agency had failed to respond to a written query by Thursday.
Legally, there is nothing to stop Medvedev from being both president and Gazprom chairman, said Stanskikh, the constitutional scholar. But he said it could create a conflict of interests due the need for the president to be neutral.

Another intriguing element is what will happen to the presidential administration, an immensely influential body that Putin has packed with powerful, former-KGB colleagues such as deputy chief of staff Igor Sechin and presidential aide Viktor Ivanov.
Unlike the Cabinet, the presidential administration is under no obligation to resign, and any changes in personnel are up to the new president, Stanskikh said.
During a recent news conference, Putin said he expected changes both in the new presidential administration and in the Cabinet.
Speculation is also rife over whether Medvedev will use the same tactics as Putin did to shore up his own power eight years ago and bring in close associates to fill prominent positions in the administration.
"Traditionally in our country the presidential administration has often had more power than even the government," Stanskikh said.
Among the people to watch are former classmates of Medvedev's from the law department at Leningrad State University, including Anton Ivanov, chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court; Ilya Yeliseyev, deputy chairman of Gazprombank; Konstantin Chuichenko, head of Gazprom's legal department; and Nikolai Vinnichenko, head of the Court Marshals Service, analysts said.
"Undoubtedly, the influence of such people will increase," said Mikhail Vinogradov, director of the Center for Contemporary Russian Politics.
Leonid Sedov, an analyst at the Levada Center, warned that there would be a struggle for influence and any change would be a long and difficult process.
Despite the legal curiosities over what could happen over the next few months, the problems are more theoretical than real, the experts said.
The Kremlin and Cabinet are keen to see that any confusion over the handover does not put the brakes on the functioning of government during the period.
"One thing is for sure, we don't have the luxury of spending the next two months just sitting around," said Vladimir Pligin, head of the Duma's Constitution and State Affairs Committee, at a recent round table.
Given that a presidential term is four years long, the two-month transition period represents almost 5 percent of that time, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a Kremlin consultant.
"We know for certain who is the president now -- that is Putin -- and who will be president in May -- that is Medvedev -- and we can't waste the time dithering," he said.

However it is handled, the fact remains that the Russian people, by voting for Zyuganov in very significant numbers, and also voting for Medvedev in such a huge landlside, are serving notice once again that they are not going to be the puppet of the West, a prospect that was very much in the offing at the time of the Presidency of Boris Yeltsin, a period that now seems a long time ago. The world needs a powerful and self confident Russia, to act as a form of counter-balance to the interests of the USA which would otherwise be entirely unchallenged in its global hegemony.

Battle of Jarama Still Remembered 71 years on....

On Saturday February 16th a large crowd from several different countries gathered in the hills above Morata de Tajuna, 15 miles from Madrid, Spain. They had come to commemorate the Battle of Jarama, where 71 years earlier the International Brigade of the Spanish Republican Army had turned back the Fascist advance under General Franco. The Brigade's casualties were severe, and included many local militants from the British and Irish labour movements.At the event a large Irish contingent remembered those from their native land who were killed fightingFascism in the Spanish Civil War, and the picture shows the display of the Sinn Fein flag at the cairn placed to commemorate Kit Conway. Conway, like CharlesDonnelly, Frank Ryan and Bob Doyle, had been IRA activists who had gone to defend democracy in Spain against the military revolt of the far right. Thedisplay of the flag served as a reminder of the longstanding links between Irish nationalism and the wider cause of progress around the world....

SALUD!...TO KIT CONWAY (left) CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL (bottom right) and the REV,ROBERT M HILLIARD WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES ALONGSIDE THOUSANDS OF OTHERS OF THEIR COMRADES FIGHTING FASCISM AT JARAMA FEBRUARY 1937 . To see images of the British and Irish position as they are today go to http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/photos/jarama.htm

Volodia Teitelboim-Stalwart Chilean Communist and Award Winning Writer- "no regrets for having dedicated his life to the cause".

I read with great interest yesterday a wonderful obituary in the Guardian for Volodia Teitelboim who has died aged 91. The obituary written by former Morning Star Moscow correspondent Kate Clark was a tribute to a full and memorable life, the life of a man who was a friend to both Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda, and who was in his own right a writer and intellectual of considerable stature. Teitelboim's life encapsulates that combination of - Pictured Left - Teitelboim at back , and left to right Allende and Nerduda commitment and consistency.Many Communist's lives are as rich, imbued with a consistent thread of heroism and adherence to ideals, which gave their time on this earth relevance and hope. I would dare say, this may also help explain why so many such politically committed and pro-active individuals live to such ripe old ages, as Volodia did. What is interesting about Teitleboim is that whilst maintaining his commitment to social progress and equality, he did not become ossified into a rigid ideological orthodoxy, maintaining a rigourous intellectual life ,but never losing sight of that inspiring vision of a better world, not only being possible still , but well worth the effort to achieve or at least maintain the vision of being one day achievable...

"Volodia Teitelboim, who has died aged 91, was a leading Chilean Communist party (CCP) intellectual, a prolific writer and winner of that country's national prize for literature in 2002. A friend and rival since the 1930s of Pablo Neruda, fellow communist and 1971 Nobel prizewinner for literature, Volodia served on the CCP political committee from his 20s until his death, and was its general secretary from 1989 to 1994.
Born Valentín Teitelboim Volosky, in Chillán, 500km south of Santiago, to Ukrainian/Moldovan/Jewish parents, he decided to call himself Volodia, as Lenin was known familiarly. From an early age, he was widely respected for his erudition, courtesy and temperate language. He graduated as a lawyer from the University of Chile but, already a communist, was drawn into the campaign to elect the progressive Frente Popular (Popular Front) government, led by Pedro Aguirre Cerda from 1938 to 1941. He became a friend of Salvador Allende, with whom he spent years in parliament, first as deputy for Valparaíso from 1961 to 1965, then as senator for Santiago from 1965 until the 1973 military coup.
Volodia founded the CCP's daily El Siglo (the Century), the literary journal Aurora, and later, when in exile from General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, Araucaria, a voice for Chilean intellectuals abroad. He lamented not having more time to dedicate to his writing, but as he told me in 2006 in our last conversation, he had "no regrets for having dedicated his life to the cause".
Despite his activism, he produced some 24 books - political novels, essays, anthologies, biographies and latterly, his four-volume autobiography, Antes del Olvido (Before I Forget), published between 1997 and 2004. He was rightly criticised for omitting Chile's first Nobel poet, Gabriela Mistral, from his Antología de Poesía Chilena (1935), a fault he remedied with his 1991 biography of her. He wrote several biographies, including one of Jorge Luís Borges (1996), whom he admired while not sharing the Argentine writer's politics. His most acclaimed biography was that of Neruda (1984).
In the face of fierce opposition by the right, he lobbied with Neruda in his efforts to persuade Cerda, the then Chilean president, to accept escaping refugees after Franco's victory in the Spanish civil war. In August 1939 the Winnipeg docked at Valparaiso with 2,400 Spaniards aboard, fleeing persecution.
In the 1940s and 50s Volodia was arrested several times during the governments of Carlos Ibañez and Gabriel González Videla and was detained in the infamous Pisagua camp. In his autobiography, he relates how one night his then lawyer wife, Raquel Weitzmann, held the police at bay while he escaped through a hole in the fence into their neighbours' house - the husband being a radical party parliamentarian. In pitch darkness, he crept into their bedroom, only to find the wife asleep in bed alone. He woke her, she phoned her husband and the next thing Volodia knew, he was whisked away in a vehicle under the noses of the police. When the getaway car driver told him it was safe to get up off the floor, he recognised him as Allende, fellow senator and doctor.
Volodia played a crucial role as the CCP representative in the formation of the Popular Unity bloc. Its programme and Allende's government ran for three years until it was brutally terminated in September 1973 by the CIA-backed Pinochet coup.
Volodia was abroad at the time, and he was to spend the next 15 years in Moscow, in charge of the influential radio programme Escucha Chile (Listen Chile), a key source of news for millions of Chileans living under the dictatorship. His weekly broadcasts excoriating Pinochet's rule of terror were legendary. "He was like a flea in the ear for Pinochet," journalist Eduardo Labarca said.
It was in Moscow that I got to know him, in interviews for the Morning Star, over dinners with friends, at official receptions and at home in his study. Exile gave him more chances to write - "for me," he said, "writing is a way of being happy" - and the opportunity to observe Soviet society at close hand. In our discussions, he revealed himself to be undogmatic, anti-Stalinist and convinced of the need for reform. In Antes del Olvido he vehemently rejects socialist realism in the arts.
In 1988 he risked his life by returning to Chile. On Pinochet's death a year ago, he said: "Pinochet has died but Pinochetismo is still alive. It is as if he left a restaurant without paying the bill. We still have much to do to restore democracy in Chile."
Volodia had a wry sense of humour. He joked that he had been born a political committee member, citing his poet friend, Fernando Quilodrán, who had supposedly unearthed a quote from the local paper of Chillán dated 1916, which read: "Yesterday in this city, Communist party political committee member Volodia Teitelboim was born."
At his funeral vigil Chile's president Michelle Bachelet and three of her ministers formed a guard of honour around his coffin. He is survived by his daughter Marina.

Valentin Teitelboim Volosky, politician and writer, born March 17 1916; died January 31 2008

Venezuela- The Empire Strikes Back?

Its looking like the policies of Hugo Chavez's socialist government in nationalising the oil resources of their own nation has prompted Exxon, the US oil giant to strike back ...could this be the start of a concerted effort by the old familiar forces of imperialism to strangle Venezuela's experiment in 21st Century socialism?

According to Bloomberg "Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, cut off sales of crude, gasoline and diesel to Exxon Mobil Corp. in retaliation for the freezing of $12 billion in assets in a legal dispute.
Petroleos de Venezuela ``paralyzed'' sales to Exxon in response to court-ordered asset freezes, the Caracas-based company known as PDVSA said in a statement. PDVSA said it will supply the refinery it co-owns with Exxon in Chalmette, Louisiana.
Exxon Mobil, which refines more crude than any other company, won an order freezing $315 million in a Venezuelan account in the U.S. It was granted a ruling blocking transactions in the U.K., the Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles affecting as much as $12 billion in assets pending the resolution of a dispute over the government's seizure last year of a heavy oil project.
``It's more or less political rhetoric,'' Ruchir Kadakia, an international oil analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told reporters in Houston. ``It'll have very little commercial impact on Exxon Mobil.''
The move probably will cut revenue for PDVSA because it reduces the number of potential customers and will force the company's traders to rely more on middlemen who won't pay as much as Exxon Mobil, Kadakia said.
`Willing to Talk'
Exxon Mobil was still prepared to talk with the Venezuelan government and PDVSA, said Senior Vice-President Mark Albers.
``We remain willing to engage in substantive discussions with the government of Venezuela and PDVSA on the fair-market value of assets,'' he said at a press conference at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston.
Exxon is claiming more than $12 billion in the arbitration, according to a company filing in the U.S. District Court.
ConocoPhillips, which is also in arbitration with Venezuela, wasn't mentioned in today's PDVSA statement. Rafael Ramirez, the country's oil minister and president of PDVSA, said Feb. 8 that talks with Conoco were going well and that he expected a negotiated resolution.
Arbitration will likely take several years, and Conoco favors negotiations with Venezuela to avoid a legal battle, Chief Executive Officer Jim Mulva told reporters at the conference.
``Those talks continue, and we are making progress,'' Mulva said. ``I hope that maybe we can come to some kind of solution in 2008.''
IEA Ready to Act
The International Energy Agency is ``prepared to move'' oil from its strategic reserve if the Venezuelan action causes physical constraints in the oil market, Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said in a briefing at the CERA conference.
IEA, a Paris-based adviser to 27 oil-consuming countries, requires member states to hold oil stockpiles equivalent to no fewer than 90 days of the prior year's net imports.
``Venezuelan oil is a very heavy crude, and the demand for it is in the Gulf of Mexico,'' Tanaka said. ``So if they have a program where they try to cut exports to the U.S., that will choke their own demand.''
Most of Venezuela's shipments to Exxon last year were to the Chalmette joint venture, Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, said today in a telephone interview. The country, the biggest oil exporter in the Americas, sold about 50,000 barrels a day directly to Exxon and another 78,000 to Chalmette.
Exports Aren't `Huge'
``In the scheme of things, 50,000 barrels a day isn't a huge amount,'' Lipow said. The Atlantis field that BP Plc has brought into production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico will soon produce 200,000 barrels a day, with characteristics similar to Venezuelan crude, he said.
Venezuela provided about 1.64 million barrels a day of crude and products to the U.S. through November last year, according to Energy Department records. Of that, 1.43 million barrels a day went directly from Venezuela to the U.S. The rest arrived via the Hovensa refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hovensa is a joint venture of PDVSA and Hess Corp.
Crude oil rose as much as 56 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $93.59 after PDVSA announced it would stop sales to Exxon.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Feb. 10 to cut off oil sales to the U.S., a warning that was widely discounted by industry analysts in both countries.
Disruption `Unlikely'
``We consider any disruption to the U.S.-Venezuela oil trade as unlikely,'' JP Morgan analyst Katherine Spector wrote in a note to clients today. ``A halt in U.S.-bound exports would ultimately be more devastating to PDVSA than U.S. refiners, especially if carried out for a sustained period.''
Exxon bought five shipments of Venezuelan crude and another cargo of refined products in November, according to Energy Department data. The ships went to facilities in the Texas cities of Port Arthur, Texas City, and Houston as well as Morgan City, Louisiana.
Venezuela has a limited ability to cut off oil supply to the U.S. because most of its crude is heavy and high in sulfur, making it inappropriate for refining in most of the world's refineries.
While Chavez has announced plans for new refineries in Nicaragua, Ecuador and other countries in order to reduce reliance on the U.S., the Gulf Coast remains the location of most refineries able to handle Venezuelan crude. "

David McCardle...Suaimhneas síoraí go raibh aige

An interesting blog has come to my attention,http://dmccardle.blogspot.com/ it is that of my brother in law David McCardle who lives in Essex. As well as being married to my sister Geraldine, David and I go back a long way, having been through the particularly ahem 'memorable' experience of an education in a school imbued with the ethos of the Jesuits.

IT IS WITH SADNESS THAT I HAVE TO INFORM ALL READERS OF THIS WEBLOG THAT DAVID MCCARDLE PASSED PEACEFULLY FROM THIS WORLD TO THE NEXT AT 2.25 AM ON THE MORNING OF FRIDAY THE 8TH FEBRUARY 2008. I AM ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT DAVID WOULD WISH FOR READERS TO CONTINUE TO UTILISE HIS BLOG COMMENTS BOX TO OFFER THEIR CONDOLENCES TO GERALDINE, ORLAGH, AOIFE AND ALL THE FAMILY.
WHEN ALL ARRANGEMENTS ARE IN PLACE, I SHALL BE POSTING FULL DETAILS CONCERNING DAVID MCCARDLE'S FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THAT COMMENTS BOX ON HIS BLOG , SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO POST YOUR COMMENTS...

THE COMMENTS PAGE ON DAVID'S BLOG WILL NOW TAKE ON THE ROLE OF AN ONLINE BOOK OF CONDOLENCE AND COMMEMORATION TO A VERY BRAVE AND SPECIAL MAN... MANY THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE POSTED ALREADY.I KNOW THAT DAVID WAS GREATLY TOUCHED BY THE INTEREST AND CONCERN HIS BLOG EVOKED.