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More statements from Australian workers defending Dr. Scalice against Philippine Stalinist slanders

The World Socialist Web Site is publishing messages of support for Dr. Joseph Scalice from throughout the world. Dr. Scalice has come under attack from the Philippine Stalinists for his powerful lecture, “First as Tragedy, Second as Farce: Marcos, Duterte and the Communist Parties of the Philippines,” which examined the support given by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the various organizations that follow its political line, to authoritarian Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.

Acutely sensitive to the criticism of the CPP, its founder Jose Maria Sison, without a shred of evidence, has denounced Dr. Scalice as a paid CIA agent and an informer for Duterte. Dr. Scalice, by establishing the historical record of the betrayals of the CPP, has done a service to the working class in the Philippines and internationally.

 

We urge our readers to come to the defence of Dr. Scalice, including by sending statements of support to the WSWS, opposing the CPP’s slanderous attack on him, and by sharing his lecture widely.

Jim Franklin, Australian worker

I wish to state my complete support for Dr. Scalice and make clear my opposition to the slanders and lies that have been constantly hurled against him by the Communist Party of the Philippines, its leader Joma Sison and his supporters.

I know a hatchet job when I see one!! As an older worker I have seen, in my time, the same type of doubletalk, lies and slanders of Stalinists like Sison here in Australia. They utilised similar methods and attacks against their political rivals as well, but they reserved their worst slanders and attacks against the Trotskyists, who consistently exposed their class collaboration and betrayals of the working class.

Stalinists like John Halfpenny, Laurie Carmichael and Maoists like Norm Gallagher carried out some of the worst betrayals of the Australian working class. They intimately collaborated with capitalist governments, like the Labor Party governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in the 1980s and 90s, that carried out economic restructuring and opened the way for a massive destruction of workers jobs and conditions.

Just like Sison they followed the same Stalinist nationalist program of socialism in one country, and refused to unite Australian workers with their oppressed brothers and sisters in the Philippines and the region, in a common struggle against imperialist oppression and the national capitalist class.

The fact that Dr Scalice’s scholarly work has painstakingly exposed the role of these Stalinist and Maoist traitors, means that workers and youth in the Philippines and throughout the entire region are no longer blind to these false leaders and traitors to the cause of socialism. For decades, Sison and the CPP have functioned to divert the revolutionary aspirations and movement of workers and youth into the dead end of bourgeois national movements. This is expressed in the support of the CPP and Sison for bourgeois nationalists like Marcos, Aquino and Duterte.

Indeed, what Dr Scalice has achieved with his dissertation and lectures, as well as his incisive and politically clarifying articles, is a devastating political blow against Stalinism. Sison and his henchmen understand, not only that their bankrupt political perspective has been exposed, but a new road forward for workers and youth in the Philippines has been opened up. It is this that Sison and his cohorts are desperately trying to block by regurgitating the foulest slanders and lies against the Trotskyist movement, the stock-in-trade of every Stalinist hack.

However, for serious workers and youth, who are seeking a way forward out of the dead-end offered by the CPP, the work of Dr Scalice stands as a mighty beacon of truth that I am confident will educate a new generation in the program and perspective of Leon Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution.

Ellen, Shop assistant

I give my full support to academic Dr. Joseph Scalice, and totally condemn the Stalinist slanders to which he has been subjected by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Dr Scalice has given a thorough exposure of the Maoists’ betrayal of the working class in the Philippines. Scalice has shown that Stalinism is nationalist and totally hostile to Marxism, and the international working class.

His scholarship has clearly exposed the decades of betrayal by Sison and the CPP, which has subordinated workers and the oppressed in the Philippines to one or other section of the capitalist class.

The lecture was completely truthful. It is a colossal exposure of the Stalinist betrayals in the Philippines and is extremely important for the political education of the international working class. I encourage all readers of the World Socialist Web Site to come to the defence of Dr. Joseph Scalice and to share this lecture widely.

Mazen, Lebanese worker in Australia

The extensive, detailed and revealing work that Dr. Joseph Scalice has done over the years, to expose the Stalinist/Maoist factions in the Philippines, is relevant not only to the methods and attitude of the Stalinists in the Philippines, but all around the world. The work done to expose the lies of the CPP, their betrayals of the working class, alignment with the bourgeois ruling class, capitulation to the imperialist forces and falsification of the truth, especially around historical events that have been very well documented and cannot be refuted. Dr. Scalice's contribution to the working class in the Philippines, and consequently worldwide, is of great value and is much appreciated.

John, retired worker

I fully support Joseph Scalice and his thorough lecture. I reject the lies, slanderous accusations and propaganda cartoons that have been vomited towards Joseph Scalice by Joma Sison and his party.

The defense of historical truth is absolutely critical to the advance of political consciousness within the working class. Those in the pseudo left, and others who try to distort the truth, are ultimately caught in their own web of lies and treachery.

Bravo Joseph Scalice! Keep up your excellent work.

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