ON 4 APRIL 2021, THE WORLD CELEBRATED THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE YURI GAGARIN’S SPACEFLIGHT
THERE WAS A GLOBAL SPACE EXPLORATION CONFERENCE (GLEX 2021) IN ST PETERSBURG ON 15-18 JUNE 2021. WHEN IT WAS FINISHED, GLEX ANNOUNCED THAT “MORE THAN 20 COSMONAUTS AND ASTRONAUTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, MANY OF THEM ALSO FIRST REPRESENTATIVES OF THEIR COUNTRIES TO TAKE TO SPACE, GAVE THEIR TRIBUTE TO THE FIRST MAN IN SPACE AND THE BEGINNING OF HUMANKIND’S SPACEFLIGHT ERA”.
Before its start, the GLEX 2011 document had recalled that: “in April 2021, the world celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight, the first human being in space (4.4.1961). The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and the IAF Member State Space Corporation ROSCOSMOS are extremely pleased to hold the IAF Global Space Exploration Conference – GLEX 2021 in his native country”.
The Posadists Today focus once again on the profound and historic significance that comrade J Posadas gave to this USSR’s achievement.
In 1961, the Western capitalist countries were waging their ‘cold war’ against the world’s Workers States, of which the USSR, China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and others. Feeling bypassed by a new and superior form of society, the world capitalist system headed by the USA sought to intimidate and bankrupt the USSR. It tried to do this in many ways, but it did so most particularly by forcing the Workers State to spend its hard-won and precious resources on constant self-defence and armaments.
Three times had world capitalism flattened Russia and then the USSR: in 1914, 1918 and again in 1941-45. After WW2, the capitalist world (headed by the USA) counted on the USSR remaining a subjected country for a very long time. But it had not reckoned with the social and economic superiority of the Workers State. A superiority which it denies even now, in 2021.
With the Gagarin’s flight in 1961, capitalism’s bafflement and fear became immense; it suddenly realised that the USSR had not only ‘caught up’ with the West in less than 20 years, but that it was now surpassing the USA in Space.
As the USA started competing madly to beat back ‘the Communists’, the small minded jealousy and petty maliciousness of capitalism became very obvious and pathetic.
It is true that with Yuri’s flight, the Soviet bureaucracy had partly meant to out-compete the West. But even then, and even through the bureaucracy, the USSR was displaying to the world the immense potential – economic, scientific and cultural – of the Workers State. Besides its technological achievement, the USSR was dedicating a lot of its scare resources to support anti-imperialist liberation movements in the world. The support it was providing to Cuba enabled that country to become an inspiration and a beacon for socialist transformation in the world. It was not the just Yuri Gagarin’s space flight that maddened world capitalism, but the proof of the superiority of the Workers State. The Workers State was showing itself to be the form that permits, when allowed to develop, the unending development of world solidarity, excellence, human capability and audacity.
Comrade Posadas was not surprised that the USSR came to be first in Space exploration. He gave great importance to the fact that the guiding motive of the Soviet Workers State, in spite of capitalism’s devastating nuclear threats – had been to overcome all the obstacles in the way to a closer relationship of humankind with the Earth, with Space and the Universe.
Readers may wish to look at these links:
http://quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/pdf_texte/EN/JP-Childbearing-in-space-JP-final.pdf
http://quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/pdf_texte/EN/FutureOfHumanity.pdf
In those documents, J Posadas demonstrates that capitalism has only ever been interested in space for motives connected to profit, empire, exploitation and power domination. Whilst as opposed to this, the Workers State shows itself to be interested in elevating the relations of the humans between themselves, between them and nature and between them and out in Space.
It is important that the GLEX 2021 has been happy to organise this meeting in today’s Russia. This is an implicit recognition of the depth of significance that lies behind the achievements of the Soviet Union, achievements that capitalism would like everyone to forget, for the anti-capitalist examples that they give.
In the USA of the 1960’s, women astronauts-cosmonauts had been expected to wait until men had been in Space first. There never was any such expectation in the USSR. On 16 June 1963, two years after Yuri Gagarin’s flight, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova became the youngest woman in Space.
In 1963, the Soviet Workers State had not been cowered by the Cuban missiles’ crisis. Through Valentina’s feat, it reiterated to the world that there is no antagonism between the Workers State as a form, and the capacity of human intelligence to preside over the infinite development of the social and human relations between people, and between these and the Universe.
Valentina understood this when she said, in 1993: “It is not necessary to dedicate two years of preparation just to achieve a propaganda flight”.
Visit the International Astronautical Federation: https://www.iafastro.org/news/glex-2021-celebrating-the-60th-anniversary-of-yuri-gagarins-spaceflight-with-tributes-by-international-astronauts.html
Posadists Today, 30.6.2021
