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Jones: It is our duty to learn as much about the world as loyal citizens of Guyana. Remember, the evaluation of each person on Tuesday in the Peoples Forum. So let’s catch up with everything from Sunday last, some of the things you’ve heard, the nations particularly. The Rosenbergs. Some of the people who have given themselves with commitment and duty, far, far beyond what non-socialists could understand as the beauty and call of duty.
Today’s news. The Constitution is now being formulated, different groups are gathering throughout Guyana to study every sector of constitutional amendments, constitutional freedoms and liberties to ensure that the referendum, which brought about a new Constitution under socialism, will fulfill its goals, said the Guyana Broadcasting Studios. The news today said that the referendum was nationally supported, in spite of all opposition groups calling for a boycott, which the opposition groups declared they would assure by photography, which is a form of harassment, to follow up those who opposed the decision of opposition parties in Guyana, to not go to the election on the referendum. The government said it had very little effect, except in the region where Dr. Cheddi Jagan was born, where there was only a 38 percent turnout, but still, a majority vote, though slight, for the referendum.
The Mirror, said Guyana Broadcasting Studios, showed a voting booth where there were no people present in line, which was during the rain and not during the election hours. It was the only photograph shown of the election process by the opposition. The government pointed out, if indeed there was fear of rigging, the PNC stated, why did the opposition not have watch-people at the polls rather than sitting off in cars, taking photography to be used– used later as intimidation against those who might go to the polls to vote on the question of the referendum. As you know, the government has claimed an overwhelming victory.
Apparently, the socialist promises of the new constitution are beginning to be implemented. The medical superintendent, Dr. Chin of Georgetown General Hospital, said that there had been a severe crisis brought about in Guyana, due to the practice of capitalistic medicine, showing lack of empathy for the general welfare of people, that people could buy themselves appointments, and the working class not having the funds of the bureaucracy, of business or the bourgeoisie could buy an appointment anytime they wished. The medical superintendent further stated that the situation will be alleviated by even more Cuban doctors coming than had originally been planned. In spite of what Guyana Broadcasting Studios calls great opposition, apparently from USA, to having Cuban advisors and medical experts in this country, Guyana is going full speed ahead under the socialist PNC, the ruling party, the Peoples National Congress, to bring in cosmetic surgery, facial surgeons, pathologists, two more anathesiests [anesthesiologists], and a consultant apparently with some degree of knowledge of endocrinology. They praised the Cuban people and government for being of great help to the Guyanese in this hour of need in what the Guyana Broadcasting Network called the transition to pure socialism. Many of the new doctors will be appointed to the rural medical services, which apparently will include one even in the North West region, although that was not one of the major priorities, did not mention if Jonestown’s medical resources were responsible for that. We wouldn’t expect such praise, but it is a good feeling to note that yesterday alone we saved an eye of a neighbor, one of our beautiful Guyanese neighbors in Port Kaituma, we saved a mother and her baby that’s now living in the community recuperating, the baby and she are doing fine. But she was in traumatic shock, total shock, required intravenous and the best medical care, which we have, or she would have passed.
Guyana Broadcasting Studios, which reflects the policies of the Peoples National Congress, which is the party of Prime Minister [Forbes] Burnham, our leader, has called for support of the Korea reunification symposium, meeting tonight in Georgetown. USA has a firm policy against the reunification of North and South Korea, as South Korea, under the dictatorship that was set up as a puppet regime, you know the [ass-] kissers that I spoke about, the lackeys, has been obediently the servant of US imperialist interests in Asia. But Guyana was bolder in its support than I’ve heard heretofore, for the reunification of Korea. It carried an article, commentary, quoting the president of Zambia [Kenneth David Kaunda], who has been greatly intimidated by the fact that USA flooded the world ecommon– economy with copper at low price to bring the Zambian economy to its knees. Zambia has been negotiating IMF, International Monetary Fund, assistance.
However, today the president of Zambia – Z-a-m-b-i-a – called for a Pan-African Unity Force, but clearly and sharply disagreed with the USA and French imperialist policies. President of Zambia said the Pan-African Force of Unity, a military presence made up of all of African nations, should not be in any way formed in a foreign capital, which was a direct ref– reference, said the Voice of America with some disdain, to the fact that USA’s and Paris– the USA’s plan and her NATO lackeys have been conducting meetings in Paris with some of the renegade puppets that are still left in northwest Africa, and Zaire to formulate a Pan-African so-called peace keeping force, with the one intent purpose, to keep down liberation and remove the presence of Soviet and Cuban assistance in terms of military and economic advisers that are presently located in different regions of Africa.
The Soviet Union has refused to make a trade-off for the dissidents for a USA businessman who has been arrested and held, presently in jail, for violating their currency laws, dealing in the white market of money. They’ve also refused to trade them for two alleged Soviet spies in the USA. The USA apparently has not responded to their request of the USSR to trade them for the Wilmington 10 and the Puerto Rican nationals, some of which have been held in jail on flimsy charges for 30 long years in USA prisons.
There are some major summit differences in the important meeting of the heads of states, including President [Jimmy] Carter, in Bonn, West Germany, the capitalist sector of Germany. They did not go into detail over what the economic differences are, over means of recovery from the terrible 1975 recession. It is thought that Japan is being adamant to giving up its surplus and also will not change its protectionist policies, which now Japan sells more than it buys, exports more, in other words, than it imports.
The troubled area of Lebanon is calm to some degree, as Syria, a pro-Soviet ally, has been on war footing for days, over the question of President [Elias] Sarkis, who has said that he would resign unless the phalangist right wing fascist Christian sector would withdraw from the conquered territory of southern Lebanon, occupied by Israeli forces forcefully, and against the people’s will. So this may indicate, though it has not been spelled out all the reasoning that President Sarkis of Lebanon will not resign, it may mean that Israeli forces, the military regime, is open to certain concessions in south Lebanon. It was also required by President Sarkis that Israeli planes do more no– no more low-flying, strafing or bombing of the beautiful city of Beirut.
Ethiopia accuses Somalia of acts of aggression on her border. Yesterday, Ethiopia was bombing Somalian cities. In retaliation, the Ethiopian black government, which is a Christian government turned Marxist, stated that they would carry the war the next time to Somalia.
This is in essence the major areas of news, with exception of one statement in the Organization of African Unity that’s meeting now, the 49 foreign ministers of the leading African nations, about the Pan-African Unity Force, in which you just heard earlier, me tell of Zambia’s utter denunciation of USA making any decisions about – or the French – about how they maintain the peace. Also, Zambia spoke that the Pan-African forces would in no way war against an African nation – they would not do so – but that they would war– in Zambia’s mind, carry out war, against the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia unless the white majority [minority] regimes allow the power to go to the people that it properly belongs to. As you know, in Rhodesia, over 70 percent of the population is black. Counting other minorities, 75 percent nearly. Less than 15 percent white. Giving you some idea of the disproportionate amount of power wielded by whites, while blacks have no representation and no freedom. In South Africa, it is very, very difficult also.
Correct the statistics. I just gave you the statistics of South Africa. In Rhodesia, as you know, blacks outnumber whites 14 to one, approximately, as I recall the statistics of last evening. Statistics I just gave were in reference to the apartheid concentration camp environment of the Union of South Africa, upheld by USA monopoly capitalism and her lackeys.
Zambia took a brave stand, in view of its economic difficulties, and need for International Monetary Fund support, to come against the Pan-African so-called peace-keeping plan of the USA and her lackey– NATO lackey, France. Also, to make the bold statement that as Zambia envisions (turns head to cough away from microphone) a Pan-African keece– peace-keeping force which they prefer to call Pan-African Unity Force, it would pledge its solidarity if necessary to free the black people of South Af– South Africa and the African people and the Indian, who are kept under the misery of the white apartheid regime, and also free Rhodesia from the white rule where they’re outnumbered almost ten-to-one, and in [South] Africa, 14-to-one.
Anyway, we will give a little information, due to the fact that Somalia, in this same Organization for African Unity meeting of the 49 foreign ministers of the leading African nations on the continent, preparatory– this meeting is preparatory to a meeting next week of all of the heads of state. One resolution has been put on the floor. Doubtful that it has much chance of being passed. Somalia has made a demand that all Cuban forces be expelled from Africa. It has also called for the Cuban expulsion from the na– the non-aligned nations, which are due to meet in the Belgrade conference of non-aligned states. Somalia claims that Cuban presence in Somalia and Ethiopia, defending the Ethiopian government and people against the aggression of the Somalians, and the presence of Cubans in Angola that helped them have the government of their choice, Agostinho Neto, the Marxist government, that because of this, that Cuba is showing an alignment with the Soviet Union. Not necessarily follow that logic, of course. Cuba can be concerned about liberation, and still be non-aligned. But Somalia is in the non-aligned conference, and Cuba has definitely taken the side of the Ethiopians, which it seems from all world opinion, even conservative governments, that the violators of the peace have been the Somalians in the Horn of Africa.
Somalia – it’s spelled sometimes S-o-m-a-l-i-a, or S-o-m-a-l-i – Republic, is located, as I said, in the Horn of Africa, the continent’s easternmost point. North is the Gulf of Aden. A-d-e-n. And in that formerly Aden is now the Peoples Democratic Republic that has completely allied with the Soviet Union, and entering in a matter of days, the Comecon, the economic grouping of all communist nations that are allied with the Soviet Union. East and south is the Indian Ocean. West is Kenya. Ethiopia and the French territory of the Afars – A-f-a-r-s – who still live under primitive colonialism of the French imperialists, who are close ally of USA in NATO. And also, the Issas – I-s-s-s– I-s-s, rather, a-s – another territory living under the bondage of French colonialism.
How was Somalia created? Originally it was Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland, under the colonialistic period. It joined together in 1960 to form the Somalia Republic, as capitalist and the Italian sector, capitalist nation, and British sector, made the decision that Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland were to join to form the Somali Republic. Its frontiers, however, are artificial, and nomadic Somalis spread out to all neighboring countries.
What is its size? 246,154 square miles, which is, you see, three times the size of our beloved country of Guyana, and it’s only slightly smaller than the state of Texas. Population is 3,200,000, but Somalia has a great deal of desert, and still it has a more dread ratio of population to its land area than Guyana, four times as many population– as much population as Guyana, but it’s only three times the size, with 3,200,000, and that has increased since these figures. It’s closer now to 3,400,000, almost a three-and-a-half million population figure, with not nearly the fertile land that we have in our beautiful land of Guyana.
Of that population breakdown, the Somalis – S-o-m-a-l-i – are 76 percent, the Sabs – S-a-b – which you’ll have to go into your schools for some of the study of these tribes and ethnic groups – are 19 percent. The Bantu – the capital B-a-n-t-u – are three point six percent. The Arab, only one point one percent. Other are less than three points of one percent.
What is its religion? Predominantly Sunni – S-u-n-n-i – Muslim.
Who rules? As a constitutional republic, so-called, Somalia has a one-house legislature, the National Assembly. Both Constitution and Assembly are presently suspended in a military right wing rule. So the real rulers are the Supreme Council, which took power in 1969, dissolved the representative free legislature, and rules in its place by decree, military dictatorship, through a strong man head. The regime is supposedly pledged domestically to erase the inefficiency, graft, and injustice of the past, but little has been done in that regard. Whereas Ethiopia has made strides and gains in giving benefits to its people, little has been achieved in Somalia. (Pause) Also it’s pledged to expansionism, which is characteristic many times of nations who want the people’s minds off of their own lack of freedoms, domestic perils, economic dearth, poverty. They’ve made a fierce concern, a central concern, is the annexation of Ogaden, which they claim as their territory, and which history – even the most right wing regimes of Africa – claim is clearly in Ethiopian territory.
The ancient Egyptians thought Somalia was the land of Punt – P-u-n-t – or God’s land. The ancients also thought it to be the home of Mir– Myrrh, rather – M-y-r-r-h – and incense, like was supposedly given to the baby Jesus, and called it Regio – R-e-g-i-o – Aromatica – A-r-o-m-i-t-i-c-a. Perhaps the aromas attract locusts, for Somali– Somalia was also considered to be the home of the locust which plagued Egypt in the days before the exodus. And again, they’re having a plague of locusts, as you know, which are even affecting some of Somalia. Seventy-five percent of the people graze herds totaling a million and a half cattle, two million camels, 2,300,000 sheep and 4,200,000 goats.
The capital of Somalia is Mogadisco– discio– M-o-g-a-d-i-s-c-i-o – It’s also spelled Mukdisha – M-u-k-d-i-s-h-a – or Magadisho – M-a-g-a-d-i-s-h-o. (Gives several pronunciations.) It is reputed to be the place [Benito] Mussolini sent Italians he really wanted to be rid of that were giving him difficulty in his fascist regime. It was the end of the anus, as far as Mussolini was concerned. It doesn’t have the potential wealth– wealth and resource of Ethiopia.
Being that there is much in the Soviet Union that is causing and attracting worldwide attention, we need some background of the Soviet Union, who, for whatever reasons, are on the right side of liberation causes in Angola as they were in Mozambique, and recently, at least in backing though denying any military presence in Zaire, they have censured and stopped economic trade with Union of South Africa. They have no land, no businesses, no possessions in Africa, and the same of course cannot be said for USA or her imperialist lackeys in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Where is the location? Northern Eurasia – E-u-r-a-s-i-a – from the Baltic to the Pacific. To the west are Romania, an ally, though an ally that doesn’t always follow policy. Romania has relations with Israel. Some say this is by plan, so the Soviets can try to help those Israelis who really do not support Zionism and support the struggle of the laboring class amongst the population, and socialism. It also has relations, Romania has, with China, and conducts trade, the only satellite, as USA would call these nations, or ally of the Warsaw Pact, as the Soviets refer to their alliance, or Comecon, that has relations with China. Then to the west also is Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, and Norway. To the north – member of NATO – is the Arctic Ocean, and to the north directly, uh, uh– Norway really is to the west. To the north is the Arctic Ocean, to the east is the Pacific, and its various north Asian seas. To the south are Korea – North Korea, the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea – China – mainland, nationalist Communist China – Mongolia, Afghanistan – that just recently became a firm ally in a military coup, a bloodless coup, that made them a firm ally militarily of the USSR, the Soviet Union. Mongolia is also a republic, firm ally of the Soviet Union, made up of Chinese-appearing, Asiatic-appearing people. And Turkey, a very fascistic reactionary regime. About one-fourth lies in Eastern Europe of this great c– l– nation of the Soviet Union, and three-fourths of it in northern Asia. It’s the only nation that encompasses both Europe and Asia.
How was it created? Greater Russia (pause) grew up from the duchies – d-u-c-h-i-e-s – around Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, and Kiev, and pushed to the Volga. We have a movie on the Volga. Remarkable river. And the Volga steppe – s-t-e-p-p-e – and the Caspian Sea. During the sixteenth century, under Ivan the Great, sometimes known as Ivan the Terrible, and his son [Vasily III], Siberia was gradually added during the seventeenth century. And in 1639, Russians reached the Pacific, and in 1689, fixed their boundaries with China at the Amur River. A-m-u-r. China has disputed those boundaries ever since. Peter the Great opened up a window onto the Baltic in the eighteenth century by his imperialism. Russia expanded into its present frontiers by annexing and by conquering the following nations, which are presently a part of the Socialist Republics within the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union have taken votes showing, however, that these nations are in the Soviet Union, federation of 15 republics, by vast majority consent. Nations or republics that now constitute the Soviet Union are: the Ukraine, 47 million, added mostly during the eighteenth century, part sliced from Poland after World War II by agreement with USA and her allies, after the defeat of Axis Germany and her allies; Belorussia – B-e-l-o-r-u-s-s-i-a – nine million, an eighteenth century addition, in its imperialist or colonial period; (turns head from mike for short conversation) Georgia, 4,700,000, an eighteenth century addition, of its feudal imperialist period before the revolution, the great October nin– 17, 1917 revolution that introduced socialism; Lithuania – L-i-t-h-u-a-n-i-a – 3,300,000, eighteenth century conquest, part after World War II; Moldavia – the US capitalists always accuse Lithuania as being annexed against its will, it’s always been historically a part of the Soviet Union. Moldavia – capital M-o-l-d-a-v-i-a – 3,700,000, part of Russia at various times throughout history; Kazakh – K-a-z-a-k-h – 13 million, by conquest of Nicholas I, in the feudalistic, imperialist period in the early nineteenth century. That would mean in the early 1800s. Tughiz – T-u-g-h-i-z – 3,100,000, a nineteenth century addition in its feudalistic, imperialist period; Tadzhik – T-a-d-z-h-i-k – 3,100,000, nineteenth century addition under Nicholas I, the emperor; Armenia – A-r-m-e-n-i-a – two point million, seven hundred thousand, finally subdued in the mid-nineteenth century. Azerbaijan – A-z-e-r-b-a-i-j-a-n – 5,300,000, nineteenth century imperialist addition; Uzbez, over 12 million – U-z-b-e-k – Alexander II added it in the nineteenth century; Turkman, two point– two and a half million, late nineteenth century addition under Alexander III; Latvia, 2,600,000, handed to Russia by Adolf Hitler in the German-Soviet non-aggression pact, retained after the war, although USA propaganda newspapers do not say so, that it was given to them by Adolf Hitler. The Latvians were also very strongly fascist, so Hitler betrayed his own fascist ally in the temporary agreement he had to reach with the Soviet Union, because he and the capitalists had betrayed the capitalist [Winston] Churchill of England and USA, who had put him in power, like [David] Rockefeller, who were even making money on both sides of the war, while US boys, all the people of Europe were killed and ravaged and gassed, tortured and murdered in concentration camps. Rockefeller continued to do so with his interest, make money on both sides of the war till its completion. Though he died just last week in an automobile accident, his lone remaining brother [John D. Rockefeller III] still lives off of that wealth, of blood lost on both sides of a war. Horrendous. Those are the true criminals. Estonia – E-s-t-o-n-i-a – 1,400,000, another non-aggression pact casualty through Peter the Great, though Peter the Great had controlled it earlier, and it was rightfully – if you’re going to take old territorial lines which have been agreed by all nations of the world– a part of the– the Soviet Union to begin with.
Size of the Soviet Union: 8,650,000 square miles. Now Guyana, our beautiful country, is 83,000 square miles. Think what you got there. You’ve got uh, over 100 times, (more emphatic) well over 100 times the size of Guyana in the Soviet Union. Areawide Russia, or the USSR, United Soviet Socialist Republics, is the world’s largest country, covering one-sixth of the land surface of the world. Now, that is something else. Forty percent of the oil, not to mention all other kinds of mineral resources.
Population is now about 260,000,000. Russian ethnic group forms about 50 percent of that. Ukrainian are 16.9 percent, Uzbek four percent, Belorussian four percent, Kazakh two percent, Azerbaijanian two percent, Armenian one-and-a-half percent, the only place where Armenians were not slaughtered in the mass genocide that occurred in Turkey, where two million Armenians were murdered like the Jews in Germany. Georgian, 1.4 percent. Moldavian, 1.2 percent. Lithuanian, One-two– 1.2 percent. A hundred and sixty other ethnic groups, including all races of the world, both black, white, and yellow, red, include 12.8 percent of the entire population. Contrary to the myth that there are no people of color, there are several hundreds of thousands, according to even a capitalistic rendition of Soviet Union and its geography.
Most people belong to no organized religion, but there are 13 percent Russian Orthodox, 13 percent Muslim. Religion has been stamped out more effectively than any other nation of the world. Twelve percent Roman Catholic, one percent over Jewish, eight points of one percent Russian Baptist Union, and a small amount of Pentecostalists and Jehovah Witnesses. Religious freedom is guaranteed, as long as it’s not used as an instrument to try to overthrow the c—the uh, representative government of the uh, Soviet people.
Who rules? The USSR federal constitution provides for legislative and executive branches. One house of the legislature, or Supreme Soviet, is a– is composed of representatives elected from 15 union republics, 25 from each. The 20 autonomous republics, 11 each. The eight autonomous regions, five each. And the 10 national districts, one each. These deputies, running on either the Communist Party ticket, or as a non-party member – contrary to what capitalist propaganda admits, people can run as a non-party member – comprise the Council Soviet of Nationalities. All representatives of the people must have a socialist philosophy, however.
The second house, the Council of the Union, is composed of one deputy for each 300,000 of the population. Both houses usually meet twice per year during the four-year term. This 37-member Presidium is chosen by the Supreme Soviet from among its members. The chairman is the titular head of state, or president, which is actually now uh, government by troika, three. The Council of Ministers, which include the Premier and his deputies, is also appointed by the Supreme Soviet. Its chairman is the Premier.
Who really rules? The Communist Party, it is said by capitalism, whose membership is controlled through a strict Marxist-Leninist indoctrination program that admits only a carefully chosen few people who live by the disciplines of Marxist-Leninism, according to the Soviets. Party membership, a necessity for political advancement of any degree, according to capitalist commentaries, is belied by the statement I’ve given earlier that you can be and are– many deputies who are not a member of the Communist Party.
About nine percent of the total population belong to the Communist Party. The party elects the Central Committee, which in turn names the Politburo – capital P-o-l-i-t-b-u-r-o – members who determine USSR policy, or So– Russian, Soviet policy. The committee also elects the Secretariat or executive body. The First Secretary or Chairman of the Central Committee is the USSR’s political leader, overseeing the corporate manager-types who maintain the– the government on the local regions, and in the cooperatives, and in all of the government-owned factories and mills, because all the means of production and means of distribution are held by the government, which the Soviets declare is representative of all the people.
At times, the party secretary has also been the premier. For example, Nikita Khrushchev. But whether or not he heads the government, the head of the party is in control of the USSR, according to most world opinion.
Despite government claims to the contrary, the Soviet Union has class distinctions, the capitalists de– declare. How the Soviet citizen lives today is determined by his position in a three-tier hier– hierarchy, according to capitalist (tape break-up for several words). There’s a privileged upper class, who are the Communists, so-called, although this has not been borne out by Muhammed Ali, who just came where he said all people were equal. There was no differences between people based on their job or income or their race or their religion. The urban, the educated middle class, and the public, a blue-collar farmer class. This society without any private property or inherited private wealth and without great income disparities, there could really not much be of an argument for this basis of class that the capitalist says exist in the power and status of Soviet citizenry. Even the capitalists admit that there is no real disparity in the basis of income or wealth.
So what do people have to prove their so-called distinction of class, as USA and her lackeys declare is the case. The upper class, so the capitalists say, is 600,000 power elite Communists, one-third of which are party members. That’s strange. How could there be only one-third party members and be in the same class who run the government and society? Now this is capitalist propaganda I’m giving you. Its nucleus is the Politburo – P-o-l-i-t-b-u-r-o – secretariat, surrounded by several hundred thousand technical people, engineers, and lawyers, who are not lawyers in the classic sense as we know it, who are experts in law. Most of the legal problems in the Soviet Union are decided by councils in the community, though it doesn’t have the kind of domestic actual communal lifestyle desired, as the Chinese have. Of course, we know the difference in its foreign policy by example. The Chinese have been on the wrong side of the Ethiopian question and obviously, and most decidedly, on the wrong side of the Angolan question, where they supported the same regime that the CIA, USA supported, and the same, pitifully so, in Zaire.
Most of these people in the so-called upper class that the capitalists charge that they have come from peasant origins, and have less education than the recently-graduated specialist. A contradiction. Yet they’re all supposed to be – this is a capitalist phrase – in the same power elite.
Now the mid-class. These are the specialists – it– I’m giving you capitalist propaganda now – and professionals required to run a modern urban society at the behest of the power elite. Now how could you have a power elite comprised of both professionals, specialists and uh, peasants? And this is the capitalist rundown, I believe you ought to s– see both sides, but you ought to look at it critically.
Now the mid-class, middle class, so-called. Even the capitalists don’t go so far as to call it middle class, they call it mid-class. These are the specialists and professionals required to run a modern urban society at the behest of the power elite, as the capitalists would say, or the Communist Party, representatives of the people, as the Soviets would say. Most of these two million are university or technical school graduates, and their numbers are growing daily, as education is guaranteed by the government to all the citizenry of the Soviet Union, and there are more colleg– college graduates in the Soviet Union than any nation per ratio of its population in the world, in spite of the fact that it came out of feudalism, barely over 15– 50 years ago. To this class also belongs the prestige groups, the writers, artists, senior professors, and scientists, according to capitalist propaganda, whose individual talents, rather than their managerial positions, give them their status.
The lowest class, according to capitalists, and the Soviets deny any class division, and so have many people we’ve known, uh, the successful authors we’ve known that wrote Crisis in US cities, no crisis in Soviet cities [could be book title?], and uh, Muhammed Ali, there are no class distinctions. Bur, according to capitalists, there’s a lower class, comprised of manual workers and farmers. The proletariat or the workers, in other words, for whom the revolution was carried out and in whose name the party rules. Included here are the office workers and artisans also.
The Communist party is organized according to [Vladimir] Lenin’s principle of democratic centralism. In theory, the leading units of the party up to the highest are elected democratically. The capitalists admit that. The party rank-and-file choose delegates to local conferences who in turn meet to elect delegates (turns head to cough) to the next highest level, until the National Party Congress is elected. The Party Congress – we’re better than half done – the Party Congress usually meets every five years to elect a Central Committee, which exercises democratic legislative representation in the party between congresses. The Central Committee of the Communist Party in turn elects a political bureau, the Politburo – as I spelled earlier, P-o-l-i-t-b-u-r-o – and a secretariat to conduct the party’s daily work. In practice – say the– say the capitalists – the power flows in the opposite direction, which they do not bear out with any proof. Delegates are pre-selected, say they, from the top, and voted for automatically by the units below. This is denied by even Sweden, that say the people and communities gather to determine their representatives, and they can either be Communists or non-party, as long as they’re not capitalist. The Politburo selects candidates for the Central Committee, not the other way around, say the capitalists, again denied by Soviets and social democrats alike. In US political jargon, this makes for a system of self-perpetuating rule of the Communist, the– the technocrats, the bureaucrats. Denied by US– SSR, in that we saw movies to that fact, showing shop workers, general assembly line people, being in the highest office of the land, of the Supreme Soviet and the Presidium and the Politburo. As you saw, many of them were just ordinary workers. You remember that woman making– refining silk, and she worked on piecework, on the assembly. Since any person who wants a party career must be approved by the Communist Party – this is denied also by the Soviet Union, I cannot say. There has to be of course in any socialist economy some strict controls of that economy.
The overriding requirement for party discipline overrules any opportunity for open debate or dissension, say the capitalists. Capitalism is not allowed. That is true, and obviously so, no more than there is a socialist congressman in USA, a capitalist economy. There not even a socialist mayor anymore. So no system will allow someone in its system that’s contrary to its economic concepts. Obviously, a socialist or communist society would not allow capitalists to be high in government. They do have to be evaluated by the people, but the people do it in their communities on their commitment to socialism. Same thing that Guyana has had to decide in its referendum, to give certain power and clout to socialist programs. About four-fifths of the Soviet women between 20 and 25 now work fulltime or are– or are in school fulltime, and enjoy equal status completely with the men in the labor force, and equal guarantees. Even the capitalists admit a full emancipation of women has taken place. Women comprise more than half the country’s doctors. In fact, the capitalists not being accurate there, it’s 70– nearly 80 percent. And uh, the capitalists say in their historical analysis of the culture, geography and economics of the Soviet Union, that over half of the economists are women, over half of the teachers are women, and nearly 40 percent of it– its engineers are women, and over that are lawyers, and over that are judges. You won’t find many women judges, and you certainly will find very few women engineers, and the doctor ratio of women is just a small percent in USA, less than five percent.
From 1959 to 1965, the number of fulltime housewives dropped by half. But sexual quality has not– a sexual equality has not worked its way into the home yet, since the Soviet male does not usually, say the capitalists, keep house or rear children. The Soviets say otherwise, and the Cubans, who the capitalists’ almanac interprets, have really a genuine equality, the men are encouraged by the government to take direct part in the housekeeping, domestic and uh, child-rearing programs. Consequently, the working women [woman] is still a half-time housewife, say the propagandists. Without many of the Western appliances, which of course I don’t know what that would be, in that the Soviet woman has most all in the cities today that any in USA have. And more than that, they have uh, no– no tenements, no ghettoes, no rats, no uh, (Pause) diseases that come from malnutrition. Even the capitalists admit, there is no malnutrition in the Soviet Union, and there are no jobless, as jobs are guaranteed by the government. There are no unemployed. (Pause)
Now let us go out of this propaganda realm and uh, let’s get into the areas of history. Nearly half of the Central Committee now are women, and that shows that there’s still some hangovers of chauvinism, and the Politburo has only a third women, but remember, the Soviet Union came from feudalism only 50 years ago. Practically from the caves. But over 95 percent of the people could not read or write, but now there is no illiteracy. Everyone in the Soviet Union can read or– and write to some degree. That is fantastic. The same is true of Cuba, who even has a much shorter history.
Earlier Russia was converted by Greek Orthodoxy, when Ivan III married Sophia [Palaiologina] – S-o-p-h-i-a – the niece of the last Byzantine – B-y-z-a-n-t-i-n-e – emperor. The Russian monarchy then became the standard-bearer for the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church dictated its rule despotically and dictatorially upon the people. Because of this tie to the czarist regime – c-z-a-r-i-s-t – and its opposition to the theoretic grounds for materialism, the Communists shut the church down, because religion, they considered, was the opiate of the people, when they took power. For a period, no religion was allowed to meet, even as marriage was banned, to try to create people uh– their program to a marriage to the community. However, they abandoned this and uh, have a strict adherence to the domestic family now, the nuclear family, although they’re not– they don’t over-emphasize sex as is done in capitalist media, they talk about the bonds of fraternity and the marriage of– to socialism that binds them together. But to get more popular support during World War II, [Josef] Stalin made an apparent peace with the church, say the capitalists, and allowed it and other religions to flourish on a limited basis, which as far as all, even critics of the Soviet Union say, there’s really not any restriction of religious freedom in USSR, unless they propagate capitalism or try to undermine the Soviet state.
Judaism did not fare as well, however, according to the capitalists, and because of recent so-called persecutions, which indeed is a capitalist lie, the only thing about– There’s an entire Jewish community that’s fully uh, Jewish, and nothing is done about it. They do not allow the promotion of Zionism, which is capitalism and a glorified worship of the state of Israel. Obviously, no nation’s going to allow people to live within its confines, if they have any mass numbers. The Jews are a massive percentage of the uh, USSR’s population, there’re a few million Jews, and apparently it’s not too bad or they would’ve all done something very violent about it. Six or time– Six or ten times as many Jews, according to capitalists, are trying to emigrate today, as did five years ago, although statistics show from other studies that it is actually greatly reduced, and that the Jews who do want to leave the Soviet Union do not want to go to the state of Israel, and many of them are now in Austria, uh, living in rather difficult conditions. More than half, uh, even according to BBC, of those Soviets that tried to emigrate have gone back to the Soviet Union, because they would not go to Israel and they became disillusioned and– by the contrast of a non-socialist life, they preferred to go back to the socialist lifestyle of the Soviet Union.
Although the Jews are well educated and fill the professional ranks, they have a double burden to bear, say the capitalists. They are uh, officially suspect as rootless cosmopolitans, according to capitalists, as a prejudice against them, but this has not been borne out by even the most severe critics from Europe and the social democracies. They say they’re insufficiently loyal to the Soviet state. Again I say, yes, they do, if they’re Zionists, because all Zionists must be loyal only to the state of Israel, which is God’s holy land, the only nation that is chosen by God for the chosen people. Obviously, no nation can allow that kind of thing. Many capitalist nations, for instance, stopped the Jehovah Witnesses because of their refusal to give loyalty to the country in which they’re in. (Pause)
Traditional domestic anti-Semitism has now been abolished, according to the Soviet Union and social democrat’s studies. It used to be under czarist Russia, anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish feeling was strong all through Europe. Hitler just uh, symbolized it more (unintelligible word, sounds like “porgedly”) and more horrifyingly in the mass murder of people for no other reason than that they were Jewish.
The party’s treatment of writers led to a protest movement in 1966, which grew out of the trial and conviction of two young writers, Andrei Sinyavski – Sy– S-i-n-y-a-v-s-k-i – and Yuli Daniel. What were those writers? Both of them were against– openly against Marxism. The protest demanded a return to socialist legality. So say the capitalists. That is the right to speak, write, and publish freely. However, according to Soviets and even social democrats, what they were wanting to do was to write and publish freely about Zionism and other ideas contrary to Marxism or socialism.
Now, scientists and academics have also mounted protests for greater information, expression, travel, and human rights. However, there’s been no non-Jew except one that we know about, and that’s Solzeninski– [Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn, rather, and he is talking even of going back to the Soviet Union, and he was critical, as you know, last week of the power of the US press, its corruption and decadence, which he said far outdid anything he’d ever seen in the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union allowed him to leave and uh, take his wealth with him.
But few of these have been imprisoned or exiled– exiled, according to the capitalist propaganda. They admit that very few of these uh, so-called dissidents, and what the Soviets call anti-socialists, are exiled or– or jailed, because the government, say the capitalists, views their services as indis– indispensable to society. The communist government, on the other hand, of the Soviet Union say, that unless they do acts of subversion, cause subversion by their rhetoric, they will be allowed to continue in their jobs. Nonetheless, a few writers and scientists and other dissenters have resorted to an underground press or Samizdat – S-a-m-i-z-d-a-t – which mimeos and circulays– circulates banned capitalist manuscripts and Zionist material. These have been primarily in the form of novel fiction, glorifying capitalism or Zionism, plays doing the same, and (sighs) letters from the prisons of people who have [been] involved in anti-Soviet activity. Also petitions are socula– circulated by this Samizdat (pronounces two ways), which apparently there must be some freedom or it’d been long banned, if it was a true military dictatorship. Open letters to the administration, which is signed. That’s strange, they have the right to do that, and sign them. There much not be too much reprisal. And chronicles of so-called class distinction in the government.
Anyway, you have to read both the Soviet, the socialist voices on that subject, and the capitalist. No country’s perfect. All countries are plagued with high degree of nationalism. But the USA is blinded by its nationalism, to the point that it will back open fascist regimes, like the South Korean government, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile, the junta, which are open murderers. Though the Soviet Union did not start industrializing until the late nineteenth century, and then the Communists say it was done, and even world opinion holds that there was no industrializing on a very– only on a very minor scale, today, due to the Communist or socialist revolution of 1917, her industrial production, even by capitalists, is admitted to be second only to the United States and catching up with her daily. And USA has had a history of– for its government of over 200 years, since 1776. It consist – the in– the industrial production – consists mainly of oil, which over 40 percent of the world’s oil is there, steel, nearly 40 percent of the world’s steel, electricity, the most power in the world, cement, pig iron, and every other type of heavy industrials, as well as foodstuffs and textiles. Much of this heavy industry goes into the (pause) assistance program to Cuba and other of her allies. [Tape edit]
–mentary on Somalia and USSR, each day– each day we give commentary, history and geography of nations that are both capitalistic and purported to be socialistic.
The world suffers with a high degree of nationalism. Nationalism, though understandable, is a grave danger in a thermonuclear age, when there will soon be 35 nations that will have their finger on a nuclear button.
Peace and détente are an absolute essential in these times, peaceful cooperation between governments, and peaceful competition between systems, whatever their economic uh, program may be.
This is the conclusion and commentary of the news for this day, as we give some news– the world news was given earlier. You can study it if you care in the library. Thank you very much. For you that do not have radios that pick up, we use our shortwave to give you the news, all the world news, we give news excerpts from both BBC and the Voice of America, the Voice of Canada, Guyana Broadcasting Studios, the Voice of America, and the Voice of the Armed Forces. And we even give quotes from the Chilean junta, the dread military regime, reactionary regime in Chile, that took over by the coup d’etat. Then it’s up to you to assimilate news and study all sides of the opinion. That’s why I gave in the analysis of the Soviet Union, I gave the capitalistic criticisms and the socialist point of view about the Soviet Union.
Thank you, and have a very good holiday, day off, doing the things you wish to do. Music will begin shortly, the band will be playing, and uh, today– until the meantime, we should have a television program for children, maybe The Wizard of Oz or some other of the little comedies that show an emphasis upon at least brotherhood and good will. We try not to emphasize violence, because it’s counter to the interest of youth. We’ve had no violence in our community, not even children hitting each other. No one even spanks their children by our decision in our democratic forum, our town meeting that meets every week. So we wish to have a film of that type. Tonight’s film will be decided by you, as you give your vote– cast your vote with the radio, and we’ll decide what movie will be shown. We have still some Hollywood movies by video or we have closed circuit television. You can look at the list and make your decision, as we live and abide in all matters by the will of the people.
Thank you.