Daily News of The Communist Bloc - January 19th, 2021

• The First Minister debate will be hosted tomorrow on the RMB at 7pm UTC! Discussion will take place in the regional discord to prevent clutter. If you would like to submit questions for the debate, send me (Pajonia) a telegram with your question and who it is directed towards. If you can't make it, there will be a transcript made afterwards to inform your decision when you vote.

• The standing period for the Executive Election has started! It will last until the 22nd, and then voting will begin. Here are the current sign ups and their campaigns:

  • The Workers Union of Habsburg-Lorraine for Minister of Culture - Campaign

  • Radicalania for First Minister - Campaign

  • Asvalya for First Minister - Campaign

  • Ottomeme for Minister of World Assembly Affairs - Campaign

  • Pajonia for Minister of Information - Campaign

  • The jacros for Minister of Domestic Affairs (hasn't posted campaign yet)

  • Eriadni for Minister of Domestic Affairs (hasn't posted campaign yet)

  • Brightbayuniversity for Minister of Foreign Affairs - Campaign

  • Feyrisshire for Ministry off World Assembly Affairs (hasn't posted campaign yet)

    You can sign up here: https://tcb.red/forum/topic/2179-sign-up-executive-election-january-2021?page=1#pid10975

• The RMB Representative has resigned in order to run for Ministry of World Assembly Affairs

• The Law Archive is finished and has been released! This is an easy way to navigate and keep track of all our laws. This document will be updated as new laws get passed.

• The Revolutionary Endorsement Program has launched. If you want some more endorsements, this is an easy way to get them! (If you were having issues with REP recently, it should be working properly now)

• The Legislative Committee has awarded Kirk Socramander with the Order of the Committee. Congratulations Kirk!

• The People's Assembly is discussing a corruption amendment to the Criminal Code

• We now have a channel in our Regional Discord dedicated to trading cards! If you've ever wanted to get in to trading cards but didn't know where to start, this is a great place to start learning.

• Our forums are back online, but unfortunately, we have lost a whole year of data. If you applied for citizenship after January of 2020, make sure to reapply!. You may also have to recreate your account. Apologies for this inconvenience. The government will be working as quickly as possible to re-accept citizenship applications. In order to prevent this from happening again in the future, we will be discussing our options and holding a vote on a potential forum transfer in the near future. Stay tuned!

  This Day in History
  By Theria Han

  Happy Tuesday Comrades! Here is "This Day in History" for January 19!

  We start in 1809, where on this day, poet, author, and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts. By the time he was three years old, both of Poe’s parents had died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England, Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules infractions. Dark, handsome and brooding, Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none of which had received much attention. In 1836, while working as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He also completed his first full-length work of fiction, Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1838. Poe lost his job at the Messenger due to his heavy drinking, and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Poe worked as an editor at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s Magazine. He became known for his direct and incisive criticism, as well as for dark horror stories like “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Also around this time, Poe began writing mystery stories, including “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”–works that would earn him a reputation as the father of the modern detective story. In 1844, the Poes moved to New York City. He scored a spectacular success the following year with his poem “The Raven.” While Poe was working to launch The Broadway Journal–which soon failed–his wife Virginia fell ill and died of tuberculosis in early 1847. His wife’s death drove Poe even deeper into alcoholism and drug abuse. After becoming involved with several women, Poe returned to Richmond in 1849 and got engaged to an old flame. Before the wedding, however, Poe died suddenly. Though circumstances are somewhat unclear, it appeared he began drinking at a party in Baltimore and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a gutter three days later. Taken to the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849, at age 40. (Birthdays)

  We head to 1947, where the Polish legislative elections begin. The January 1947 elections held under the supervision of the PPR fell well short of being "free and unfettered." The PPR, under the leadership of general secretary Władysław Gomułka, embarked on a ruthless campaign to snuff out the PSL and all other potential opposition. Electoral laws introduced before the elections allowed the government – which since its establishment in 1944 by the Polish Committee of National Liberation had been dominated by the Communists – to remove 409,326 people from the electoral rolls, as 'anti-government bandits' (i.e., Armia Krajowa and other Polish resistance movements loyal to the Polish government in exile). Over 80,000 members of the Polish People's Party were arrested under various false charges in the month preceding the election, and around 100 of them were murdered by the Polish Secret Police (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, UB). 98 opposition parliamentary candidates were also crossed from the registration lists under these accusations. In some regions, the government disqualified the entire People's Party list under various technical and legal pretenses, most commonly in regions known to be People's Party strongholds. The electoral fraud was organized and closely monitored by UB specialists, who worked closely with their Soviet counterparts like Aron Pałkin and Siemion Dawydow, both high-ranking officers from the Soviet MGB. Bolesław Bierut, head of the provisional Polish parliament (State National Council) and acting president, asked for Soviet assistance in the election. Over 40% of the members of the electoral commissions who were supposed to monitor the voting were recruited by the UB. Here are the Official Results:

  Democratic Bloc: 9,003,682 Votes (80.07%), gains 394 Seats.
  Polish People's Party: 1,154,847 Votes (10.27%), gains 28 Seats.
  Labor Party: 530,979 Votes (4.72%), gains 12 Seats.
  Polish People's Party "Nowe Wyzwolenie" (Different Version): 397,754 Votes (3.54%), gains 7 Seats.
  Other: 157,611 Votes (1.4%), gains 3 Seats.

  (Eastern Bloc History)

  Also on this day in 2009, anarchist journalist Anastasia Baburova (1983 - 2009) and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov (1974 - 2009) was assassinated by Russian neo-Nazis. Baburova was a member of the Russian anarchist group "Autonomous Action" and a student of journalism at Moscow State University. Markelov was a lawyer who defended left-wing political activists, anti-fascists, journalists, and victims of police violence. On January 19th, 2009, Markelov gave a press conference where he fiercely denounced the early prison release of a Russian army officer, convicted for the abduction and murder of a Chechen girl. After finishing, a masked assailant shot him in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Baburova, who was covering the press conference, was shot and killed after trying to stop the shooter. In May 2011, the shooter Nikita Tikhonov was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his partner Eugenia Khasis was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer has speculated that the Russian government was involved, noting that Tikhonov's use of a pistol fitted with a silencer was atypical for the neo-Nazi movement, which usually used knives and homemade explosives to commit violence. (Assassinations)

  While run by the Ministry of Information, the Daily News does not necessarily reflect the stance of the current administration. Please contact the Minister of Information Pajonia on NationStates or Ant(Pajonia) in the Regional Discord for any corrections, suggestions, questions, comments, or concerns.

  This article was authored by Pajonia