It’s with deep sorrow that we learned that, at 08:30 on 3 September 2021, the indomitable heart of comrade Tamila Yabrova stopped beating. She died at the age of 92 from bilateral COVID-19 pneumonia in the intensive care unit of the Oktyabrskaya (now Akeksandrovskaya) Hospital in Kiev. Courageous and tenacious, she never gave up the fight, with pride and conviction, never backing down in the face of challenges and anti-communist repression. Only the virus was able to break her.
The international communist movement loses with her a legendary leader, a sincere revolutionary who dedicated her entire life to the cause of the working class and Socialism-Communism.
Tamila Yabrova’s knowledge of on Marxism-Leninism was profound. She was a doctor of economics with a specialisation in political economy, the founder and editor-in-chief of the theoretical journal “Marksizm i Sovremennost'” (Marxism and Modernity), president of the Union of Communists of Ukraine, a member of the CC and the Political Council of the RCWP-CPSU, as well as a member of the Editorial Board of the International Communist Review. Despite her old age, Comrade Yabrova remained at her battle station until her last breath, making an invaluable contribution of theoretical elaboration and tireless active militancy to the entire international communist movement, with an energy enviable even by the youngest.
Born in Kiev in 1929, she graduated from the G.V. Plekhanov Institute of People’s Economics in Moscow (now the Russian Economic University, REU). From a very young age, she joined the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party (b), in which she was active all her life, going through the dramatic turbulence of history and engaging in the construction of the first socialist state in the world, always maintaining the enthusiasm and convictions of her youth.
In the 1980s she vigorously opposed the liquidationist drift of the Gorbachev clique and the advocates of market economy, and joined the “Marxist Platform” within the CPSU. After the counter-revolutionary overthrow of Soviet power and the break-up of the USSR, Comrade Yabrova worked hard to restore the unity of Soviet communists and restart the work of the dissolved CPSU.
As an ardent supporter of world revolution, she was no less tireless in her efforts to strengthen proletarian internationalism and international coordination between communist and workers’ parties, helping to create the Solidnet platform in the 1990s together with the Greek comrades of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and promoting the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties (ICWPM) and the publication of the International Communist Review, of which she was always an influent member. Being aware of the objective situation in which the international communist movement finds itself in the present phase, Comrade Tamila supported with conviction the creation of the European Communist Initiative (ECI) as a first step towards the regrouping and coordination of genuinely revolutionary and coherently Marxist-Leninist communist and workers’ parties. It was not a purely formal membership, but an active and continuous participation in international meetings and initiatives. Her internationalism did not stop at theoretical contributions, but, as a member of RCWP-CPSU Central Committee’s Working Group for the Donbass, it translated into practical work to help develop the communist organisations in the two People’s Republics.
Those of us who had the good fortune to meet her personally at international meetings and work and debate with her -she also spoke at the first congress of the Front of Communist Youth (FGC – Italy) in Rome- were able to appreciate her analytical insight, her inflexible ideological coherence, never dogmatic but always grounded in reality, supported by her vast culture, sharp critical spirit and in-depth knowledge of the subject matter. These intellectual qualities, her political honesty and her unwavering support for communist ideas were the source of her unrelenting opposition to opportunism and any distortion of Marxism-Leninism, to carelesness and approximation in party work, to an unscientific approach to theoretical issues. She was as demanding of her comrades as she was of herself, but she endeavoured to understand and correct their errors, without issuing irrevocable judgments. The necessary rigour of the communist leader was accompanied by a friendly and cheerful disposition, which matched well the battle name ‘Comrade Rosa’ given to her by the comrades in the Donbass.
The Communist Front (Italy) and the Front of Communist Youth (Italy) jointly express their deepest condolences to her daughter Irina, to her family, to the comrades of the Union of Communists of Ukraine and bow their flags in mourning in memory of Comrade Rosa, pledging to continue the battle for world revolution, for Socialism-Communism!
COMMUNIST FRONT (ITALY)
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee
