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It is just a few days after the arrival of Nowruz, the new year in Iran, and some of the Equality and Freedom Seeking University Students still remain locked in the notorious Evin prison, located in the Iranian capital of Tehran. They remain in jail due mostly to the incredibly high bails placed on the students -- in some cases as high as US$400,000. Families of some students have attempted to post percentages of these bail amounts, but even one-tenth of the bail amounts to a significant sum.
Visit the blog "Nothing Can Stop Us" for more information. (Note: The link may prompt an "Content Warning," likely due to the political content of the site. Click "I UNDERSTAND AND I WISH TO CONTINUE" to view the official site of the Iranian Students.)
It is important to maintain solidarity with these students. They need as much support as possible throughout the course of their struggles.
The Youth of the
Democratic Army at Inspection Photo detail from
The Youth of
Greece: The Heroic Struggle of
EPON, also available from the Greek Civil War Subject Archive at marxists.org
Written prior to the critical events of 1949, this work by Olive Sutton casts a critical light on British and American intervention in Greece following the formulation and execution of the Truman Doctrine. Sutton's piece places special emphasis on the horrors of the "White Terror" in Greece, a period rife with the execution of political prisoners and the starvation and murder of many Greek civilians. Murder Inc. is indeed a candid chronicle of the marriage of imperialist intervention and capitalist exploitation in post-WWII Greece. [Thanks to Mike B.]
Excerpt from the Introduction toMurder Inc. in Greece:
MOST of the seats in the auditorium were filled by bright-faced youngsters—boys just old enough to borrow their father's ties, and girls the age of trying out lipstick and piled-up hair.
They listened wisely when the speaker mentioned Hitler and Mussolini. But when he recalled "Guernica, Barcelona, Granada, the battle of the Ebro, the fight for the Spanish Republic," they widened their eyes and looked at each other, puzzled.
They didn't know the story of the Spanish Republic the first European battleground against fascist aggression, where World War II could have been prevented. They didn't know Hitler's first blow was struck in Spain ten years ago, and they grew a little restless as the meeting wore on.
It wouldn't have mattered at all if, leaving the meeting, you could think: They don't have to go through that again. But you couldn't.
You could only think: These kids may have to learn the meaning of other names, other battles…Salonika, Larissa, Sparta, Corinth, Athens…They must learn these names now, before they become the names of lost battles.
We've already fought one war so that one generation could grow up in peace. But in Greece, children die of disease and starvation and stray bullets. Bullets made in America. Those bullets endanger American children, too.
She was a volunteer, a member of the civilian militia, wearing the blue blouse of a workman. She clasped her rifle with ardour, as though it were not a weapon of death but a much-desired plaything. Amidst the groups of merry militia men who were going smilingly to fight and perhaps to die, she marched in silence, serious and self- engrossed. A light burned in her eyes. They expressed hatred, inflexible determination and courage. I approached her and asked:
"Where are you from?"
"Toledo."
"Why are you at the front?"
She was silent for a few moments, and then answered:
"To fight fascism, to crush the enemies of the working people and…to avenge the death of my brother."
"Was he killed?"
"Yes, he was a soldier and a communist. When the rebellion broke out they wanted to make him, like many other soldiers, fight our brothers and go against the Republic. He refused and they shot him like a dog. I have come here to join the ranks, to take the place he would have occupied, and to avenge his death, to show the fascist scoundrels that when men die, women take their place. We are fight- ing with the same enthusiasm and courage as the men. We have learned from them how to die. It is better to die than to live in the fascist hell in which the workers of other countries are suffering, isn't that so, comrade?"
It seemed to me that she was asking this question of herself, or rather that she was answering a question that rose from the depth of her being.
I questioned her comrades, curious to know how she behaved in battle. They spoke of her with admiration. She was the first wherever the danger was greatest, risking her life with astonishing calmness.
A fighting woman!
She, like the other girls and women who are challenging death, and many of whom are meeting death, is reviving the tradition of the heroines who throughout our history have fought for independence and a constitution—the heroines of Sagunto and Nuinantia, La Vaillida, Augustina of Aragon, Maria Pita, Manuela Sanchez, Mariana Pineda. Women have always played a prominent part, supporting the men in the struggle for liberty and showing them by their example that it is better to die than to bow to the butchers and oppressors of the people.
The heights of Guadarrama, Madrid and many other cities have witnessed the heroism of women who are battling a strong and brutal enemy. They march to death merrily singing. They cheer those who have lost heart, infuse courage into them. and inspire them with the fighting spirit. So it was at Alto de Leon, in Somosierra and elsewhere. These places, drenched in the blood of many a nameless hero, will shine with an inextinguishable flame in the history of our country's struggle against reaction.
With them will be bound up the revolutionary traditions of our people, with them, the women who are fighting at the front, who are donating their blood to save the wounded, who, forgetting their own fatigue, watch at the bedside of wounded heroes, who died exclaiming: "Long live liberty!"
We dip our colours in honour of you, dear women comrades, who march into battle together with the men.
