Marxist.com under attack Website sabotaged by hackers DEFEND MARXIST.COM! DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION!
AN APPEAL TO OUR FRIENDS AND READERS Marxist.com has been the victim of a deliberate act of politically-motivated aggression. On Thursday, January 3, our web server was hacked into by unidentified individuals, with the clear intention of destroying our site. The attackers aimed to silence us by stopping the server from working. As a result of this sabotage a number of websites were deleted, including: In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com) Youth For International Socialism (www.newyouth.com) Socialist Appeal (www.socialist.net) Socialist Labor (www.socialistlabor.com) Trotsky year 2001 (www.trotsky.net) El Militante, Spanish Marxist site (www.elmilitante.org) Fundacion Federico Engels, Spanish Marxist site (www.engels.org) Militante, Mexican Marxist paper (www.militante.org) La Riposte, French Marxist site (www.lariposte.com) Der Funke, Austrian Marxist site (www.derfunke.at) Wellred On-line bookshop (www.marxist.com/wellred) Socialistiki Ekfrasi, Greek Marxist site (www.marxismos.com) There is absolutely no doubt that the attack was politically-motivated and directed specifically against In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com) and allied sites. Only our sites were targeted. Other, non-political sites hosted by the same server, were not touched. This was therefore not a random act of vandalism, but one that deliberately targeted our site and other Marxist sites. Since we had quite tight security, it is clear that this was a very professional operation, and that the perpetrators took a lot of time and trouble to carry out their sabotage. The consequences of this attack have been quite serious. They succeed not only in deleting a number of websites, but also in deleting a number of files which effectively stopped the server as a whole from working. They clearly knew what they were doing, and what they wanted, which was to shut us up. THEY WILL NOT SUCCEED! For the last five years, Marxist.com has consistently defended the cause of the working class on a world scale. We have consistently opposed the aggressions of imperialism in Iraq, the Balkans and, most recently, in Afghanistan. We have also worked hard to explain and develop the theoretical positions of Marxism and show their relevance to the contemporary world. The success and wide appeal of our website can be seen by the following statistics: 5,000 page requests every day, and a total of over one million successful page requests in 2001 alone. Our work has obtained the widest recognition, even from people who would not consider themselves Marxists. This is shown by the huge and increasing number of visits to our site, and the voluminous correspondence we receive from all over the world every day. The very day we were hit by the saboteurs, we received an outstanding letter from New York, praising our coverage of the September 11 events, which we were unable to publish then but which we publish today. The letter says: "I loved your article about the terrorist attack on the WTC. My husband worked in one of the adjacent buildings that were damaged (3 World Financial Center), and I can't even describe what it was like not to be able to reach him for the first seven hours after the attack. Yours was the most sincere, level headed, and intelligent analysis of the attacks that I've read. It neither took the righteous moral high road, nor the blame the victim, ¡¥Americans deserve it because the almighty dollar is evil¡¦, venom-filled rhetoric that so many unsympathetic Europeans like to torment us with." However, not everyone is pleased by the fact that Marxist ideas are getting such wide circulation and finding an echo in the world. What happened on January 3 is recognition of the fact that the enemies of Marxism cannot tolerate a situation where people can read the truth. The enemies of Marxism, lacking the ability, intelligence or courage to meet us in the open and answer our arguments in free debate, are obliged to act in the shadows and utilise sabotage, hooliganism and other dirty methods in an attempt to defeat free speech. For a day or so, our website has been silenced by the actions of criminals. Our temporary, enforced silence will be greeted with satisfaction by reactionaries, and by indignation by workers, socialists and progressive people everywhere. This comes at a bad time for us, because we were in the process of giving coverage to the magnificent revolutionary events in Argentina. But such methods can never succeed. A few dedicated collaborators have been working literally day and night to get the website up and running again. We have recovered practically all the lost material, which we protected with back-ups. We will soon be running a normal service again. We are taking the necessary steps to detect the assailants and take action against them. We have further improved our security to minimise the danger of other attacks. But all this requires your help. As we explained in our December appeal, we have never charged a penny for our services to the world working class cause, and we have no wealthy backers. We depend exclusively on the support of our readers and friends to be able to continue work which we consider to be indispensable. The best answer to the enemies of Marxism is not just to renew the publication of Marxist.com, but to improve the website and extend its scope. As an immediate task we need to adopt certain measures which will make us virtually immune against any future attacks. BUT WE NEED YOUR ASSISTENCE. It is to this that we now address an URGENT APPEAL. We address ourselves in the first place to our readers and subscribers. Please send us messages of solidarity to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and cash donations to http://www.marxist.com/wellred/donations.asp We also ask you to pass this appeal on to your friends, to members of the labour movement, shop stewards, trade unions, student and youth organisations, left wing newspapers and websites and ask them to do likewise. Our message to your organisation is very simple: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO US TODAY CAN HAPPEN TO YOU TOMORROW. If the perpetrators are allowed to succeed, it will establish a most dangerous principle: that any group on the Left that wants to express its opinions on the Internet can be silenced by sabotage. The attack on Marxist.com is not just an attack against us: IT IS AN ATTACK AGAINST THE PRINCIPLE OF FREE SPEECH AND DEMOCRACY. We ask you to respond urgently, to rally round in defence of the most elementary principles upon which the labour movement was built. The message of Marxism is all-powerful, because it tells the truth. We do not fear any attacks, because we rely on the support of the international labour movement. By united action, we can overcome all obstacles! Please act NOW. Fraternally, Alan Woods (General editor, Marxist.com) ===== Denise Rodriguez PO Box 16109 Stanford, CA 94309-6109 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist." - From Leon Trotsky's Testament __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/
