New Worker Features

The Iron Lady

2012-01-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

By Andy Brooks

The IronLady: (12A) 104mins. Dir: Phyllida Lloyd. General release.

MOST OF the left groaned whenthey heard that the movie moguls were going to give Lady Thatcher the Hollywoodtreatment with a star-studded cast and Meryl Streep as the leading ladyherself. The Tories meanwhile sat back expecting an epic of Churchillianproportions. What they actually got was a bitter disappointment.

Margaret Thatcher is portrayed as ahalf-mad old crone, shunned by her children, who holds imaginary conversationswith her long dead husband, which trigger flash-backs to her long-gone days ofglory.

The film has not surprisingly been dismissedas a “disgrace” by Tory grandee Norman Tebbit and “left-wing fantasy” by herchildren. The focus on Thatcher’sdementia has been criticised as a cruel invasion of the privacy of an elderlywoman, with some justification. Nevertheless it’s the artistic device that thewhole movie revolves around.

Though it isby no means a conventional biopic, the film does tell a story. In a sequence ofscenes we see Thatcher rise from her student days at Oxford to struggle toovercome Tory male chauvinism in her quest for high office, the defeat of theminers and, of course, the Falklands War. All of this is set against abackground of strikes, IRA bombings and riots on the streets, using newsreelfootage from the time.

But what doesthe film tell us? Well it’s the tale of how one woman overcame male prejudiceto become the first woman prime minister in British history, leading thecountry from 1979 to 1990, only to be ignominiously dumped by her own partywhen her popularity slipped. The moral of the story is perhaps only in itsending.

Maverick Tory MPEnoch Powell famously said: “All political lives, unless they are cut off inmidstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature ofpolitics and of human affairs”. It was certainly true of Powell himself, whoplayed the race card in his own failed bid for power. It’s equally true of Thatcher,Major and Blair as well as every British prime minister we’ve had over the past100 years or so.

Thatcher maywell be an icon to the ruling class. But so are all the others, Labour andTory, who followed in her footsteps when they went to Downing Street.The great reforms of the post-war Labour Government were indeed partly due tothe overwhelming demand from working people for a better life. But they werealso the product of a bourgeois consensus on the need to boost production bypumping state money into ailing industries, while buying off and divertingworking people down the dead-end of social democratic reform to head off thecommunist movement that had massivelygrown throughout Europe during the struggle to defeatthe Nazis. This tactic was followed bythe bourgeoisie throughout Western Europe during theCold War.

By the 1970s the bourgeoisie as a whole, in Britainand in Europe, were no longer prepared to pay theirshare in maintaining state welfare and that consensus ended. Thatcher simplyrepresented the class the Tories serve and she did nothing that would not havebeen done by any other Tory leader at the time.

MargaretThatcher led the Tories to victory three times in a row, spearheading abourgeois offensive against the unions, the National Health Service and thewelfare state, whose consequences we still live with today.

Yet in the Iron Lady the rage of the victims of theThatcher era is used only as a backdrop to her life. But perhaps the portrayalof Thatcher as a lonely, neglected old woman symbolises more than immediatelymeets the eye.

Capitalist crisis and class consciousness

2012-01-26T16:02:00.001-08:00

By Eric Trevett

IT IS NOT often that we agreewith Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England, but we concur with hisappraisal that the present economic crisis may be more profound than that of the 1930s and that there is no way ofavoiding a further recession.

This dispelsthe argument that the last Labour government was mainly responsible for thecrisis affecting Britain.The capitalist crisis is global. And the struggle for peace and socialism hasto be global too.

Now thatMiliband has joined the Tory-Liberal Democrat alliance in supporting the cuts,it means that the leaders of all three main political parties in Britainare in favour of reactionary politics. Along with the right-wing press theytell us that we are all in this together. “We’ve all got to do our bit to cutthe nation’s debts and achieve an expanding economy. Unity between the workingclass and capitalist class,” we are told, “will guarantee victory.”

It is worth noting how this unity works. Theexample set to us by our “betters” is very impressive. It includes massivebonus payments for the top echelons of the banking system. It includes themajor private companies owing the Treasury £87 billion in unpaid taxation. Thenwe have company directors pushing up their salaries by 49 per cent.

Wemust not forget that expenses’ fiddling is widespread among the elite. Theseare indeed impressive sacrifices being made by the rich compared to the“terrible workers”, “turbulent students” and outraged pensioners who have thetemerity to do something to oppose cuts in services, jobs, wages and pensionsand even have the guts to go on strike. Pensioners of course cannot go onstrike but they can show solidarity with those who do.

In capitalistsociety there are two main classes: the capitalist class, which for the momentis dominant, and the working class, which is exploited, with the poorestsections being the most numerous.

Themiddle stratum is not a class but is thrown and vacillating between politicalallegiances – between the labour movement and the capitalist class. The bigmistake labour leaders make is to prioritise making concessions to what areoften petty bourgeois aspirations.

It issignificant that capitalism is now being identified around the world as anenemy of the people. Many individuals who have described themselves as middleclass are already beginning to develop a socialist outlook.

Theway forward is to develop a radical working class programme combatingprivatisation and renationalising the heights of the economy. Military spendingmust be reduced, the arms programme cut and Britainmust become a nuclear-free zone.

And we must restore the NHS to a standard tomeet the ideals it was established to achieve and free the NHS from theshackles of Private Finance Initiative contracts.

Much of thisis already the policy of the Labour Representation Committee and trade unionbranches and organisations should be encouraged to affiliate to it. Thealternative to the right-wing policies of the party leaders represents thestruggle from below.

Thecrisis of capitalism is a crisis of overproduction. It is not difficult toprove this, with bargain sales no longer limited to January but now on all yearround. We are offered new furniture and no need to pay for a year or more. In arelatively new feature £1 bargain shops are selling goods directly from themanufacturers. When one thinks about themass of goods available that are not sold, the bargain sales and otherincentives to buy, it gives some idea of the tremendous amount that is producedthat the market cannot absorb.

Nationallyand internationally the banks made money available for all sorts of venturesand encouraged working people to usenext year’s wages to buy things on the never-never. And with mortgagerepayments they ensured that millions are in debt. This means the risingunemployment levels could be quite devastating for family life.

Since 1971 theattack on municipal housing property has featured strongly. The relatively lowcost of rents had served to keep the private landlord rented sector andproperty values down. In privatising the municipal housing stock, the curb onprices in the private sector was removed – so much so that it is now virtuallyimpossible for working class young people and even middle strata people to geta mortgage. But the problem for first time buyers is not just how to get amortgage but being able to guarantee their continued employment at a high wageand make enough to sustain the payments.

Inany case we think the way forward for housing is to restore municipal propertyat reasonable rents relating to wage levels.

The post-warperiod has seen rapid advancement in the techniques of production. Over theyears industrial capitalism has moved from water power to steam power toelectricity and now to the new technology. It is significant that for the firsttime investment in equipment is not matched by investment in workers. In otherwords, under capitalist conditions the price of labour power is falling and thecompetition for advances in new technology leads to a reduction in the size ofthe employed labour force.

This does notmean we should oppose the introduction of new technology; on the contrary weshould welcome it and realise that under socialist conditions it will prove auseful source of wealth production that frees people to enjoy greater leisuretime and the chance for engaging in cultural, sporting and scientific pursuits– instead of the rat race conditions we have to endure under capitalism.

This isleading to the realisation among the working class and broader sections of thepopulation that capitalism is obsolescent. All over the world the working classis beginning to take up cudgels once again against the capitalist class and itsimperialist machinations.

Lastyear’s riots in London and otherplaces were understandable but they lacked the perspective of a socialistrevolution. But socialism is the only answer to the capitalist crisis for theworking class.

When thecrisis of capitalism becomes acute, it not only means hardship for most of thepeople, it also includes the drive to authoritarian government and imperialistwar as the different powers and nations seek to solve their problems at theexpense of their rivals.

Theaims of the temporary alliance between the United States, British and French imperialism canclearly be seen by the strategy of destabilising the Middle East,not just for the oil although that is a major factor, but also to militarisethe area with bases plainly aimed against Russia.

Theimperialist powers use the strategy of divide and rule. Agent provocateursgenerate hatred between the tribal and religious groups to instigate warbetween Middle Eastern countries. They back reactionary elements with militaryequipment while bashing progressive or non-compliant governments with tradesanctions and even unilateral acts of war.

Theimperialists’ aim is to remove these leaderships and replace them forces thatwill be in favour of complying with imperialist demands and allow them moredirect control of the resources of the area.

The result is,apart from the destruction of tens of thousands of people’s lives, that Britishimperialism is guilty of consigning many British youths to their death orserious injury – who are also the victims of imperialism.

The strugglefor peace is more than a plea for mercy. It is a revolutionary demand and westress that the working class aims of peace and socialism are indivisible.

Bringing alive our illustrious past

2012-01-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

image copyright South Wales Area NUM. Photography by Martin Shakesaft

The great mining communities have long gone – destroyed by aTory government determined to abandon the British coal-fields in favour ofimported coal and nuclear energy. But their memory lives on in the memories ofthe mineworkers and the photos andmementos of their struggle.

Back in 2009 Past Pixels was launched to makeimages of working class struggle more widely available to a newer generation.Over the past two years it has produced collections of greeting cardsreflecting the struggle of the British mining community including snapshots ofthe epic miners’ strike of 1984/85 and a collection of NUM enamel badges. Nowthe company has issued a new set using images of banners from South Wales mining communities.

South Wales Area of the NUM hasgiven permission for the reproduction of all the banners in their possession.The first four banners reproduced are from the South Wales Area of the NUM,Tower Lodge NUM, Maerdy Lodge NUM and the Maerdy Women’s Support Group.

Each card provides a shorthistory of the banner and another photograph, often with the banner in use. Aproportion of the income from sales will be donated to the South Wales Miners’Benevolent Fund, a registered charity.

Past Pixel cards can be ordered online at http://www.pastpixels.co.uk or from anincreasing number of retail outlets, including the Rhondda Heritage Parkwhere both the Maerdy Lodge and Maerdy Women’s Support Group banners arecurrently on display. Further information about all the cards can also beobtained by writing directly to: PastPixels, PO Box 798, Worcester, WR4 4BW

Scotland's Choice

2012-01-13T14:37:00.001-08:00

DAVID Cameron’s Tory-led Coalition has decided to call the Scottish nationalists’ bluff by proposing a straight either/or referendum on independence by May 2013. The Tories say they are doing this because of pressure from major businesses, who have claimed privately that delay on the constitutional question will destabilise the Scottish economy.

North of the border most suspect that Cameron’s move is designed to forestall the Scottish National Party (SNP), whose own plans for a referendum are believed to include an option for greater fiscal autonomy, like that of the old northern Irish government, that fall short of the complete independence that the majority of Scottish voters are wary of in the current economic climate.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats, who oppose independence, favour this option that would also give the SNP, which won an overall majority in the Scottish parliament in last year’s elections, a fall-back position if the independence vote was lost.

The Tories are against giving the Scottish government any more real authority, let alone independence. But they will have to rely on Labour and the Liberal Democrats to win the argument. There’s now just one Scottish Conservative MP in the House of Commons and only 15 in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament.

The nationalists have long taken much of the Tory vote in Scotland but there are clear divisions within the ranks of the Scottish bourgeoisie on the question of outright independence. Some believe it is unattainable and others that it is undesirable at a time of global capitalist crisis. Scottish banks relied on the Bank of England to bail them out in the 2008 crash and many bankers doubt whether an independent Scotland would get an AAA credit rating these days.

Support for independence can be also found among sections of the ultra left in Scotland. But they assume far too easily that such a rearrangement of the constitutional furniture will inevitably have progressive consequences.

The degree of local autonomy won by the Scots is, in itself, no guarantee that the national traditions and culture of the Scottish people will be developed, nor will it automatically lead to the strengthening of working class power.

But the creation of national institutions in Scotland has had some positive developments. Scottish governments have developed policies, under pressure from the labour movement, that reflect more the demands of the working class for social justice. Scotland maintains free university education and personal care for the aged, frozen council tax and introduced free prescription charges and eye tests.

There can be no doubt that Scotland could, if it were carried in a referendum, hold its own as an independent state.

If and when that question is put to the Scottish electorate the New Communist Party would support a vote for independence. At our last Congress in 2009 we said: “The New Communist Party has long recognised the rights of the Scottish and Welsh nations to full national self-determination. We support Scottish and Welsh demands for the right to preserve and develop their culture and national identity. We support their right to posses and control all the physical and other resources present on their land and territorial waters.

We support the demand for genuine self-governing powers for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

“The NCP supports the demand for the encouragement of the Welsh language, which should be raised, in practice as well as in theory, to equal standing with English throughout Wales. We likewise support demands for the encouragement of Scottish Gaelic in traditional Gaelic areas.”

Kim Jong Il

2012-01-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

Kim Jong Il

1942 – 2011

Kim Jong Il was born on 16^th February 1942 during the Korean people’s struggle againstthe Japanese occupation. His father was the Korean partisan leader Kim Il Sungwho led the Korean communist movement to victory against Japanese colonialismand American imperialism to build the modern socialist republic that exists inthe north of the divided Korean peninsula.

Kim Jong Il grew up to be a greatrevolutionary and wisely led the Workers Party of Korea (WPK), the army andpeople for a long period, performing undying revolutionary feats on behalf ofthe country, the people, the times and history.

In 1960, he began to study at thepolitics and economics department of Kim Il Sung Universityand graduated four years later. Kim Jong Il started working for the CentralCommittee of the Workers' Party of Korea in 1964. In 1973, he was electedsecretary of the committee and in February the next year, member of thePolitical Bureau of the Central Committee. Since October 1980, Kim Jong Il hasbeen member of the Presidium of the Politburo and secretary of the CentralCommittee of the WPK and member of the Central Military Commission.

From 1982 to 1998, Kim waselected deputy to every Supreme People's Assembly. From December 1992 to April1993, he was successively Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, FirstVice-Chairman and later Chairman of the National Defence Commission.

On 8^th October 1997, Kim Jong Il was elected General Secretary of the WPK.

Kim Jong Il was given the honorary title "Hero of theDemocratic People's Republic of Korea"in 1975 and 1982. In April 1992, he was given the title of Marshal of the DPRK.He has also received the Kim Il Sung Order three times and many other awardsand honours.

Democratic Korean leader Kim JongIl died following a heart attack on a train during a field inspection tour on17^th December. His passing was mourned by leaders of the people’s democracies,the Third World and throughout the world communist movement while millions ofKoreans attended the 25 mile, three hour funeral procession in Pyongyangon 28^th December.

At the United NationsHeadquarters in New York the UN’sblue and white flag flew at half mast last week to mourn the death of Kim JongIl and a minute’s silence was observed at the UN General Assembly in respect ofthe Democratic Korean leader. The Cuban government decreed three days ofmourning during which all Cuban flagswere flown at half staff at publicbuildings and military installations.

In BritainNCP leader Andy Brooks, together with Michael Chant and Chris Coleman of theRCPB (ML), went to the DPR Korea embassy in Londonto sign the book of condolences and pay their last respects to the great Koreancommunist leader.

messages of condolence

Friends of Korea

NCP, RCPB (ML) and Juche Study group

Socialism is the future!

2012-01-06T04:18:00.000-08:00

By our European Affairscorrespondent

Over ahundred comrades from 78 parties, including the New Communist Party of Britain, took part in the 13^thInternational Meeting of communist and workers’ parties in Athens last month.

Representativescame from 59 countries, including delegations from the ruling parties of Cuba,DPR Korea, Laos, Vietnam and those that participate in government like the South African Communist Party, the two Syriancommunist parties, AKEL in Cyprus and the People’s Progressive Party of Guyana.

The conference was hosted by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) whose resistance to thebourgeois offensive sparked off the mass struggle against the austerityprogramme throughout Europe. At the close of the three day event delegates joined thepicket line in solidarity with steelworkers who’ve been out for over six weeksstriking against short time and a 40 per cent cut in wages.

The communist response to the global capitalist crisiswas, naturally, a major theme in the three days of debate in the Greek capital.The communist movement also looked at rise of racism and fascism in Europe, the way US-led imperialism wasexploiting the upheavals in the Arab world and imperialist aggression all overthe world.

In his contribution NCP leader AndyBrooks said that: ”In Britain and throughout the rest of theEuropean Union the labour movement has two options as its economic standardsdecline and its political and democratic rights are eroded.

“One option for the labour movement isto remain tied to reformist ideology and continue to give its support toright-wing social democratic leadership which co-operates with and capitulateswith the demands and interests of state monopoly capitalism.

“These leaderships have no commitmentto socialism, no commitment to defend the welfare state and the social wage andno commitment to renationalise the industries that have been privatised. Theylead no effective fight to mobilise the people against reactionary governments.They betray, and work for the defeat of workers in struggle. They refuse tocountenance any action which infringes against reactionary capitalist laws.They work to strengthen Nato and US imperialism’s military andpolitical grip over Europe and in Britain and France the social-democratic leadershipremains committed to the possession and development of vast nuclear arsenals.

“The other option is to fight to defeat the right-wingclass collaborators in the unions and the social democratic movements whilebuilding the revolutionary party dedicated to the struggle that can unite andmobilise the working class behind the banner of socialism. Socialism is theonly alternative that can achieve the emancipation of the working class andfulfill the people’s desire for world peace, nuclear disarmament and theelimination of the causes of war”.

In the final statement the conference strongly condemnedthe imperialist war of Nato and the European Union against the Libyan peopleand the threats and interference in the internal affairs of Syria and Iran, as well as of any other country.It considered that every foreign intervention against Iran under whatever pretext attacksthe interests of the Iranian workers and their struggles for democraticfreedoms, social justice and social rights.

The conference declared that only socialism can create theconditions for the eradication of wars, unemployment, hunger, misery,illiteracy, the uncertainty of hundreds of millions of people, the destructionof the environment. Only socialism creates the conditions for developmentaccording to the contemporary needs of the workers.

“Working people, farmers, urban andrural workers, women, young people, we call on you to struggle together to putan end to this capitalist barbarity. There is hope, there is a prospect. Thefuture belongs to socialism”.

Photo album

contributions

resolutions

final statement

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2011-12-30T03:42:00.000-08:00

Socialism is the future!

2011-12-15T06:20:00.000-08:00

KKE leader Aleka Papariga opens conference

By our European Affairscorrespondent

Over ahundred comrades from 78 parties, including the New Communist Party of Britain, took part in the 13^thInternational Meeting of communist and workers’ parties in Athens last weekend.

Goodbye Barcelona: a stirring anti-fascist musical

2011-12-14T06:49:00.000-08:00

Review

By Theo Russell

IT IS ALMOSTunheard of these days on the London theatre scene to comeacross a committed anti-fascist musical, in which there are two renditions of The Internationale, as well as No Pasaran! and A valley in Spain called Jarama.

Even for those likemyself with no great love for musicals, GoodbyeBarcelona, currently showing at the Arcola Theatrein Hackney, is a stirring, visually superb and extremelywell acted production. As much a play as it is a musical; there’s a good dose of humour as well.

It is remarkable that today, 75 years after the start of the Spanish Civil War,its politics are still the subject of heated debate and argument in Britain. While Goodbye Barcelona refers to many of the crucialissues – the Soviet Union’s role, the anarchists,and the despicable Anglo-French non-intervention policy – its main focus is on theexperiences of three very different International Brigade volunteers.

While the political message becomes slightlyconfusing towards the end, ultimately the anti-fascist message is not lost.

The story begins in London’s East End in 1936 and 18-year-old Sammy’s part in the battle of Cable Street.Sammy andhis single mother Rebecca are Jewish working class anti-fascists and Daily Worker readers.

Sammy responds to LaPasionaria’s appeal to defend the Spanish Republic and decides to become a volunteer. In Spain hefalls in with George, an older and more experienced communist, and Jack, a bitter and cynical veteran of the Great War.

Later Rebecca, desperate to find her son, joins the brigade as a nurse,and falls in love with the wounded Spanishanarchist Ernesto, from a remote village in the grip of fascist feudal landowners.

Much of the play is taken up by this affair, and Sammy’s with Spanish girl Pilar, both of which reflect the enormous hardships and sacrifices enduredduring the war. But more interesting is the ongoing conflict Sammy and George have with the cynic Jack.

Jack is provocative, constantly harping on Stalin’s alleged“treachery”, and morally dubious, and Sammy and George angrily berate Jack’s lack of morals and political commitment.

The climax of the show is towards the end when Sammy, facing theprospect of defeat, becomes disillusioned and defeatist. Just before dying in battle, he tells Jack: “I’m tooashamed to go home. We’ve lost. We’ve lost everything.” But Jack reassures him, saying “You’ve told me enough times. The People!”

After Sammy’s death Rebecca receives his letterin the same defeatist tone, and says to Ernesto: “Weshould never have come,” to which he responds: “Don’t you say that! Don’t youdare say that! Spain will never forget what you people try to do for us. Never.”

This episode is somewhat confusing, but the message is that the sacrifices of the InternationalBrigadiers were after all worthwhile and necessary, and that while individualscaught up in war react differently; the volunteers’ cause was heroic and just.

The play is based on a collection of interviews with Brigade veterans byJudith Johnson, with music and lyrics by K S Lewkowicz, and was directed and choreographed by Karen Rabinowitz. It receivedstrong support from Civil War veterans, including the late Jack Jones, and the International Brigade Memorial Trust.

The press launch was attended by the Spanish ambassador and cultural attache and representatives of the Catalan government, and was widely reviewed in Spain. We recommend our readers to see Goodbye Barcelona for themselves.

Goodbye Barcelona runs at the Arcola Theatre until 23^rdDecember (box office 0207 503 1646). Entrance on Tuesdays is pay what you canafford.

Leon Trotsky as I knew him

2011-12-02T05:46:00.001-08:00

Reviewed by Andy Brooks

Leon Trotsky As I knew him:M N Roy, 32 pp, Second Wave Publications, London 2011

DO NOT be misled by the title orthe flattering portrait on the cover into thinking that this is yet anotherpaean of praise for Leon Trotsky. Don’t dismiss it out of hand because it waswritten by another one-time revolutionary who fell by the wayside. This paperis, in fact, a biting critique from someone who had been in Trotsky’s camp butended up voting with all the others in 1927 to expel him from the CommunistInternational.

ManabendraNath Roy was the movement name of Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, a militant Indiannationalist who embraced Marxism and helped found the communist parties of Indiaand Mexico andlater sat on the presidium of the Comintern from 1921 until he too was expelledin 1929 for supporting the Right Opposition of Bukharin and the Germancommunist Heinrich Brandler. M N Roy then tried to form a radical wing withinthe Indian Congress Party and when that failed he openly renounced Marxism infavour of what he called “radical humanism” to lead an Indian humanist society,until his death in 1954.

Thesedays M N Roy is barely knownamongst the British left and he’s been largely forgotten by the Indiancommunist movement he spurned so long ago. But in the 1920s M N Roy played aprominent role in the international communist movement, working in Moscowand Berlin for the CommunistInternational, where he came to personally know most of its leading membersincluding Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.

Thisis what makes this pen sketch of Trotsky so interesting. It’s from someone whoknew him and someone Trotsky considered an ally of sorts, right up to the finaldenunciation from the Comintern in 1927.

Thediscussion had gone on throughout the night. Speaker after speaker had got upto denounce Trotsky but M N Roy was prepared to give him the benefit of thedoubt until:

“Having agreed that it is not possible tobuild Socialism in the Soviet Union in the midst of a capitalist world thereare two alternatives – either we should continue doing whatever is possible byway of advancing towards the ultimate goal of Socialism, pending the success ofrevolution in other countries; or we should lay down power in the Soviet Unionand go back to emigration to wait for the time when there will be a revolutionsimultaneously throughout the world. I asked whether Trotsky would choose thelatter alternative.

He shouted “No”. ThenI would vote for his expulsion, because he had been advocating a policy withoutunderstanding its implications or without meaning to put it into practice if hehad the opportunity to do so.

Trotsky lookedcrestfallen. All through the night, he had heckled the speakers withchallenging questions. He kept quiet while I spoke and hung his head in answerto my question. The historic vote was cast against him – unanimously. TheRevolution went over the head of one of its most brilliant products”.

Tofind out more read the rest of the article, which written immediately afterTrotsky’s assassination in 1940 and later included in Men I Met, a collection of a number of M N Roy’s biographicalsketches originally published in Indian magazines.

Leon Trotsky As IKnew Him is available at £2.00 plus 60p postage from: Second WavePublications & Distribution, BM Box 2978, London WC1N 3XX.

Solidarity with the working people of Greece, PAME and the KKE

2011-11-29T05:58:00.001-08:00

communist and workers parties' joint statement

For more than a year the Greek people, the workers and youth, members of the trade union front PAME and the Communist Party of Greece have said NO to the measures that the Greek government authorities are willing to impose on them. They are completely opposed to the fact that the bourgeois class in Greece, its governments, with the support of the EU, the IMF and the ECB, attack the people in order to bankrupt the people under the conditions of the crisis and increase the immense profits of the big financial and industrial capital.

The Greek people, the workers and youth, PAME and the Communist Party of Greece need all our solidarity. Their struggles can give us precious experience.

Greece itself is a rich country. However, the wealth is concentrated in even fewer hands. Indeed, unacceptable measures are taken against the working people. What happens now in Greece will be extended to all countries of the European Union.

In all of Europe the question is being raised: Who has to pay for the crisis of capitalism?

All European bourgeois parties – Social Democrats, Liberals, Christian Social, Conservative and Greens – are united in supporting their colleagues in Greece and the infamous measures of the EU bodies.

The governments and the European Commission are about to intensify the measures against the peoples: a general lowering of wages, generalisation of insecure working condition, a witch-hunt against all people receiving social welfare benefits…

Altogether this means the pillage of the world of workers by the world of capital.

In Greece, the workers, the youth, the ordinary people say NO. They are building a resistance that is exemplary for all Europe.

Solidarity with this resistance is our duty.

Everyone should know: today they attack the Greek working people, tomorrow it will be the turn of the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Italian people – and the day after tomorrow they attack all of us.

We are all Greeks!

Support the struggle against the shifting of the burdens of the crisis onto the shoulders of the working people!

Down with capitalism! For a socialist society!

Communist Party of Luxembourg (KPL)
New Communist Party of the Netherlands (NCPN)
Workers Party of Belgium (PTB/PVDA)

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS)

Communist Party of Bangladesh

Brazilian Communist Party

Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain (NCPB)

Communist Party of Canada

Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia

Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KCSM)

German Communist Party
Hungarian Communist Workers' Party
Communist Party of Ireland
Lebanese Communist Party
The Socialist People's Front, Lithuania
Communist Party of Malta
Communist Party of Mexico
Popular Socialist Party of Mexico

Palestinian People's Party
Peruvian Communist Party
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Communist Party of Slovakia

Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE)
South African Communist Party
Communist Party of Venezuela

Other organisations

Pole of Communist Rebirth in France (PRCF)

From around the world

2011-11-19T14:53:00.001-08:00

Review

By Ray Jones

Revolutionary Democracy Vol XVII, No 1, April 2011. £3 plus 50pP&P from NCP Lit. PO Box 73 London SW11 2PQ. Cheques to New Worker.

IT’S GOOD to see Revolutionary Democracy out again aftera short delay with its the usual mixture of interesting articles from aroundthe world.

The first is apiece by N Bhattacharya, which, inspite of anuninspiring title, is an excellent brief overview of India’ssituation today, full of telling facts and figures but without overloading the“little grey cells”.

There are anumber of articles about the “Arab Spring” from different parties andorganisations, which although perhaps a little dated now, certainly widen ourperspective.

The question of Libyais of course addressed and here there is a clear difference of approach (which,incidentally, has been reflected in the letters in the New Worker).

Everyone agreesthat intervention of the imperialists should be denounced. But while an articlefrom the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) points out that theGaddafi government was at this time objectively part of the front againstimperialist aggression, the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Partiesand Organisations, a forum of Hoxhaist parties, on the other hand, labels it asreactionary.

TheICMLPO seems to support the Libyan rebels as progressives pursuing “democracy”while at the same time condemning their Nato allies who also seek “democracy”.

The confusioninto which the ICMLPO has fallen is not uncommon on the left and it stems froma failure to apply dialectics, a failure to see the situation in the round andapply your principles with the correct priority.

RD as usualincludes fascinating Russian archive material as well as material on modern Russia.It concludes with a dose of culture in the form progressive poetry.

Neo-nazis on the web

2011-11-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Review

By Andy Brooks

Far-Right.com:Nationalist extremism on the internet: Searchlight Magazine & the Radicalism and New Media Research Group,76pp, pbk, London 2011, £8.50.

This shortbook is the result of recent joint work between Searchlight, the veteran anti-fascist magazine, and the Radicalismand New Media Research Group at Northampton University, headed by Dr MatthewFeldman. It began with a seminar on exploitation of the internet by neo-Naziand racist movements that took place at Northampton University last year.

A number ofleading academics took part in the discussion on Fascist Radicalism and the New Media organised by Dr Feldman’sgroup. This was followed up with the ThinkGlobal, Hate Local: England’s Far Right conferencein April this year and the launch of a new project to look in detail atcontemporary far-right extremism.

This bookreflects recent research and is the first of a planned series called Mapping the Far Right. Edited by PaulJackson of the Radicalism and New Media Research Group and Searchlight publisher Gerry Gable, it provides a detailedexamination of the way the world-wide web is being exploited by fascists andracists in Britainand throughout the world.

Topics range from the British National Partyand the English Defence League to the Aryan Strike Force, British People’sParty, Racial Volunteer Force and the Blood & Honour music scene.

Criticalanalysis by leading academic and Searchlightexperts reveals how online cultures developed by such far-right movementshave revolutionised extremist activity in recent years.

This volume isa collection of well-researched academic papers that provides analysis forcampaigners searching for the latest thinking on far-right activity. It is nota campaigning pamphlet for sale on the street and that is reflected in the£8.50 price. But it is vital reading for all students and researchers of modernBritish fascism.

It can be ordered from most booksellers orpost-free from: Searchlight, PO Box 1576, Ilford, IG5 OHE.

REVIEW

2011-10-28T03:50:00.001-07:00

Scottish Workers Republic: Scottish Republican Socialist Movement P.O. Box 16887 Glasgow G11 9EP£3.00

by Wee Jimmie frae Auchenshuggle.

A CURIOUS periodical recentlyarrived at the New Worker office.Undated and unnumbered it describes itself as the “bumper issue” of the journalof the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement (SRSM).

According to their website the SRSM wasfounded in 1973. Since then it has gone through a number of name changes andhas suffered confusing splits, which are naturally caused by agents of Britishintelligence who seem to devote all their resources to these most dangerousenemies of British imperialism. Its relationship to other bodies – chronicledon their website such as the “Army of the Provisional Government” active in the1970s – is unclear.

Clearly morenationalist than socialist they welcome the recent triumph of the ScottishNational Party (SNP) in the Scottish Parliament elections. Their main targetseems to be the “traditional British Unionist Left”, who are abused rather thanhave their policies subject to withering criticism.

There is aninteresting piece on imperialist reporting on Libya. A touch of the Messianic is evident in apiece about Trident, which seems to suggest that it is essential to vote SNP tocreate a nuclear free Europe. A short but neverthelessrambling article on James Connolly by James D Young concludes the issue.

Anyone lookingfor a left-wing critique of the SNP policies or bourgeois Scottish nationalismin general is going to be disappointed. A party that hopes to maintain theBritish monarchy and seeks to lower corporation tax to please itsmulti-millionaire bankers and led by a former economist at the Royal Bank of Scotlandis a tempting target for “Socialist Republicans”. But they can’t find theirtongues.

Poetry, of asort, features strongly. The miscellany of poetry includes offerings that makeWilliam McGonagall appear positively Shakespearean.

There are somemore inspiring efforts, including a satire on Edinburghmerchants by the 15^th century poet William Dunbar, but this ismarred by blatantly obvious typos and poor layout.

Strangely enough forScottish nationalists, they have an abysmal knowledge of Scottish history, onethat seems to be derived from entirely from pictures on those shortbread tinssold in tourist shops.

At one point we are informed that the 1745Jacobite Rebellion was a “Scottish revolt against British rule”. The Jacobiterebellions were nothing of the kind; 1745-46 saw the final attempt by theabsolutist French monarchy to put their man, “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, on the Britishthrone. Some Highland feudal chiefs conscripted theirfollowers into an army that treated Glasgow and Edinburgh as occupied citiesbefore heading south to Derby,where they gave up the march on London.

More Tory Jacobites were to be found in Lancashirethan Lanarkshire. Their final defeat at the Battle of Culloden was at the handsof a British Army that included 12,000 Lowlanders and Highlanders and allProtestants, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, eager to rout their Catholicenemies.

They alsodistort the events of 1820, when the British working class was engaged in adesperate struggle for Parliamentary reform against a background of economicdepression following the ending of the Napoleonic wars, which is romanticallyturned into a nationalist revolt.

Anyleft-inclined Scottish nationalist or a left-winger of a nationalist persuasioncould take justifiable pride in the valuable role that Scottish enlightenmentfigures played in the role of developing the study of society, past andpresent, on which Marx later drew to good effect: Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson,John Millar and William Robertson to name but few. The lessons of theEnlightenment are clearly lost on what are at best charitably described as theromantics of the SRSM.

Thispublication will be of great interest to collectors of political sectariana andanyone wanting a temporary change from the ForteanTimes.

The death of Gaddafi

2011-10-28T03:47:00.000-07:00

THE IMPERIALISTS are celebratingthe death of Colonel Gaddafi and well they might as they were the ones whokilled him. The Libyan leader died in Sirte last week when the Nato-backedrebels stormed the last loyalist bastion on the Libyan coast.

Butthere’ll be no victory parades in London,Paris, Washingtonor Rome. The imperialists are happyto leave that to their local pawns. Behind closed doors they squabble overwho’s going to get the biggest cut of the spoils. But in public they closeranks as defenders of what they call “democracy” and “human rights”.

They claim tochampion the “Arab Spring”. They believe that they can perpetuate imperialistdomination of the oil-rich Arab world in alliance with the reactionary MuslimBrotherhood. They think they can continue to use the United Nations and the“human rights” gang as a smokescreen for their neo-colonial aggressions.

In public theyuphold human rights and brand those who dare to stand up to them as “warcriminals”. Naturally they have hastened to assure us thatthey had no hand in the cold-blooded murder of the Libyan leader. And therebels were happy to claim credit for killing the Libyan leader and to displayGaddafi’s body in public for days for the benefit of their gloating supporters.They’ve not been so open about the manner of his death.

Contradictory stories from the rebel camp onlyseem to add credibility to at least one report that Gaddafi was wounded whenhis retreating car convoy was hit byNato aviation, including a US Predator drone and a French warplane, and thenfinished off by French commandos.

Theimperialists now believe that the Gaddafi’s death will end all resistance tothe “National Transitional Government” (NTC) puppet regime that they’ve installedin Tripoli. That remains to beseen.

At least one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al Islam,lives on ready to fight, and he has apparently been accepted by his tribalallies as leader. If reports that the loyalists have spirited away thecountry’s entire gold reserves are true they could sustain a continuingguerrilla war in the south for years to come.

That seems themost likely outcome as the rebels, who rely entirely on the might of Natoaviation, have consistently refused to negotiate with the loyalists to end theconflict. The rebels have promised “free elections” early next year but theycan’t even agree on the formation of a provisional government.

This rag-bagof supporters of the old royal family, reactionary Muslim Brothers and Gaddafiturn-coats are united only in their hatred of Colonel Gaddafi and a lust for powerthat they believe they can get by serving imperialism. They would not have wonone single battle without the support of Nato air-power and if the imperialistair-umbrella is withdrawn it is difficult to see how they could survive today.

Imperialistair power will doubtless be used again and again to impose puppet regimes incountries that the western powers seek to directly plunder. They will continueto look for more collaborators to do their dirty work. They still hope tomaintain control over Iraqand Afghanistaneven after the formal pull-out of their garrisons next year. Their greedy eyeshave long focused on Syriaand Iran andtheir forces are already fighting with the Kenyans in southern Somalia.

What does thissay to the world? Well first of all it tells us that UN structures, inthemselves, are useless in preserving peace and that the UN Security Councildesperately needs to be reformed to ensure that it can never again be used tosanction another Iraqor Libyan-style invasion. Above all it tells us that Third Worldcountries must ultimately rely on their own defence to preserve theirindependence.

ColonelMuammar Gaddafi ruled his country for 42 years. He used the oil wealth to createa prosperous modern society for the Libyan people and for the millions ofAfrican immigrants who went to his land to work.

The Libyanleader, like Saddam Hussein before him, made many mistakes. But the biggest wasto ever trust the word of imperialist leaders. Nothing in his life became himlike the leaving it and Muammar Gaddafi will be remembered as an Arab leaderwho was ready to fight imperialist aggression to the end and go down gunsblazing.

Serbia: Far Right in dissarray

2011-10-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

By Ilija Buncuk

THE EXTREME right is in retreatin Serbiatoday. They have not managed to launch any serious actions for years and they’vesplit into a number of rival groups, which significantly weakens theirstrength.

First of all there was a splitin Blood & Honour Serbia/Combat 18 – the Serbian section of the neo-Nazimovement that was founded by Ian Stuart Donaldson and proud of its loyalty tothe Combat 18 neo-Nazi terror group that takes its name from the first andeighth letter of the alphabet, AH – Adolf Hitler,

Blood & Honour (B & H) emerged from theneo-nazi movement and the white power skinhead music scene in 1987. Ian StuartDonaldson, the lead vocalist in the neo-Nazi Skrewdriver band, was one of itsprominent leaders. But a few years after his death in 1993 B & H split intorival factions following arguments over direction and control of the profits.

This divisionwas mirrored in Serbiatoo. Some disaffected members left the original organisation to establish Blood& Honour Serbia/Unity – the Unity fraction that is opposed to the Combat18.

On the Serbian section of the neo-Nazi Stormfrontwebsite the verbal duel between the supporters of two camps over who is the “phoney”and who is the “real” B&H went on for months. The newly established theBlood & Honour/Unity has also a new Jurišnik[Stormtrooper] faction. They had their own website, but it went down some timeago for unknown reasons.

MeanwhileBlood & Honour/Combat 18 no longer call themselves the National Alignment (Nacionalni stroj) on their posters andstickers, following the court-ordered banning of its political branch. They nowcall themselves the National Revolutionaries – Blood & Honour or Combat 18.

The split hasseriously weakened Blood & Honour/Combat 18 but there are other reasons forits decline. Attempts to hold public gatherings in the past few years havefailed because they were prevented by the actions of the anti-fascists. Therehave no neo-Nazi attacks on punk concerts in Belgradesince 2003 and in past few years they have not even organised their secret“White Power” concerts.

This is apartly because they are constantly under police surveillance. Their last “whitepower” concert, held near the city of Niš,was interrupted by the police. Thesedays Blood & Honour Serbia/Combat 18 actions have come down to theproducing Nazi and racist periodicals and cartoons, sticking labels and posterson walls, secret visits to the cultural monuments of “national significance”and taking part in national socialist forums on the Internet.

On the otherhand, Goran Davidović, who served a prison sentence for organising an attack onan anti-fascist platform in Novi Sad,has closed his New Serbian Programme (NSP) movement after a faction-fight withinit.

The NSP internet forum NSP has been taken downand it is still unknown whether there were technical problems or whetherDavidovic closed it for some other reason.

All organisationsof the extreme right in Serbiaface stiff competition from Serbian Action (SrpskaAkcija), which has only a few members but is very active. They attractedthe attention of the public in August when they put a litter bag over thestatue of national heroes in Nis –anti-fascist fighters in the Second World War.

They published footage of that action on theirwebsite. Only a few newspapers reported the action and there was no responsefrom the authorities or civil non-government organisations. One of the fewpublic condemnations of the event came from the Young Communist League ofYugoslavia (SKOJ).

Serbian Action was established by severalformer members of the reactionary Obraz movement. They had been supporters ofObraz leader Nebojsa Krstic who died in a car accident in 2001. But they walkedout in protest at the "lack of clear ideological guidelines" of the newleadership under its current president Mladen Obradovic, to form their ownorganisation.

Like Obraz,Serbian Action is inspired by the actions of the pre-war clerical-fascistYugoslav National Movement Zbor. It classifies itself as within the “ThirdPositionist” movement and alongside Charles Maurras and his Action Française,it considers itself as the successor of the ideological tradition of Codreanu'sRomanian "Iron Guard".

Leading Serbian Action activists present theirmovement on some extreme right Internet forums as "orthodox-nationalistic". The Internet blog "Srpski Poredak" (Serbian Order), which is editedby the supporters of the ideology of Adolf Hitler, who also define themselvesas "orthodox national-socialists", is close to Serbian Action.

Anti-communism won't pass!

2011-10-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

Statement of Communist and Workers’ parties

On the post-Soviet Union area the anticommunist hysteria is in full swing again. On the eve of the anniversary of the Soviet power execution in Moscow in 1993 a court in Kazakhstan has suspended the activity of the Communist Party.

A ridiculous pretext has been found by the ruling regime to actually ban the Communist party of Kazakhstan. It was the participation of the 1st Secretary of the CC CPK Gaziz Aldamjarov in a meeting of an unregistered non-governmental union of citizens. Before that a number of party activists have been subjected to police persecution. One of the leaders of regional party organizations Nurijash Abdrimova was sentenced to a heavy fine only because she dared to address the workers of “KasMunaiGas” company who went on strike.

Suspension of the party activity is yet another act of outrageous tyranny on the part of Kazakhstan authorities. The semi-monarchic regime of Mr.Nazarbaev can’t tolerate the only opposition force in the country, which forms the class awareness, courageously struggles against mass dismissals and impoverishment of the working people and consistently fights for the friendship among nations.

Before that the parliament of Georgia upon the order of Mr.Saakashvili adopted a Law on persecution which says that former CPSU and Young Communist League members, as well as former employees of the Soviet Union institutions are banned to occupy state positions and to teach in the universities.

We express our solidarity with the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and the United Communist Party of Georgia. We resolutely condemn the barbaric and cave-age anticommunism of the powers in Kazakhstan and Georgia!

Communist party of the Russian Federation

Union of Communist parties-CPSU

Communist Party of Ukraine

Communist Party of Belarus

Party of Communists of Republic of Moldova

Communist Party of Armenia

Communist Party of Azerbaijan

Party of the communists of Kyrgyzstan

Communist Party of South Ossetia

Communist Party of Abkhazia

Transdnestrian Communist party

Also

PADS, Algeria
Communist Party of Bangladesh
Workers’ Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain
French Communist Party
Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of Israel
Lebanese Communist Party
Communist Party of Luxembourg
Communist Party of México
Communist Party of Norway
Communist Party of Pakistan
Palestinian Communist Party
Philippine Communist Party [PKP-1930]
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
South African Communist Party
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Sweden
Communist Party of Turkey

Virtual Field Visit: Israel's Enforcement of the Buffer Zone in the Gaza...

2011-10-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Art of Revolution

2011-09-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Review

By Andy Brooks

The Art of Revolution: John Callow, Grant Pooke and Jane Powell. Hbk, illus,96 pp, Evans Mitchell Books, London 2011.

THE USSRcollapsed, or rather was destroyed by the counter-revolutionaries at the helmof the Soviet communist party in 1991. Along with it went the old Communist Party ofGreat Britain (CPGB) and many other so-called communist parties that had clungto coat-tails of Gorbachovism.

The CPGB’sarchives went to Manchester’sPeople’s History Museum.Other documents were piled up in the cellars of the Marx Memorial Library tolanguish in the dust until the work of cataloguing and preservation began in2005.

It was thenthat an amazing discovery was made. Hundreds of posters from the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies were found amongst the bundlesof old CPGB dossiers and pamphlets. A collection spanning the entire period ofSoviet power from the October Revolution to Brezhnev’s days had come to light, includingkey campaigning posters from the early days of the German Democratic Republicand socialist Czechoslovakia.

With the helpof the GMB union these posters have all been recorded and conserved at MarxHouse for art scholars and students of the world communist movement. Now aselection of these images has been published in a book produced with thesupport of the Marx Memorial Library, the GMB and TUink.

This bookcontains full colour images of over 60 Soviet and revolutionary posters from1917 to 1953, together with a couple of very rare early examples of CPGBagitational art. While some of these posters are old favourites well known toveteran communists, many others are exceedingly rare and have probably not beenreprinted since the day they were first issued.

The publishershave clearly provided a service to the working class in helping a newgeneration discover the graphic realism and political punch of proletarian art.

Unfortunatelythe same cannot be said about the text that accompanies the images. Threeacademics, John Callow from the Marx MemorialLibrary and Grant Pooke and Jane Powell, both from the University of Kent, provide a commentary thatis technically superb but sadly politically flawed.

The cliché referenceto the “Soviet Government, and latterly its satellites…” in the very beginningof the first chapter sets the tone for a potted history of the Soviet Union thataccompanies the posters from the Stalin era and it largely accepts thebourgeois explanation of the “Great Purges” that accompanies them. Thankfullyit is overshadowed by the detailed commentary on the artists and teams whoproduced the posters of the 1930s and 40s, which brings to life these gems ofSoviet mass art for the modern reader.

This is not asystematic collection of political posters over the years. It simply reflectswhat was brought back to Britainby leading comrades such as R P Arnot and Andrew Rothstein from trips to WeimarGermany, the Soviet Union and post-war Czechoslovakia.This limitation accounts for a certain unevenness in the selection presented inthis book though those posters that have been chosen clearly have been pickedto illustrate the particular views of the authors. There’s no other explanation,for instance, for the curious elevation of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, whowas shot for treason in 1937.

When it comesto the final chapter, largely devoted to Czechoslovak posters of the 1940s, weare treated to an openly revisionist narrative that consciously distorts therole of the leadership of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) at that time.

People’s power came to Czechoslovakiain February 1948 when the communists thwarted a bourgeois coup in parliamentaimed at breaking up the KSČ-led coalition government.

Theauthors accept that the right-wing moved first but then suggest that the KSČ,the largest party in parliament, was set to lose seats in the forthcoming 1948election. This forced them to portray the right-wing manoeuvres as“miscalculations” based on “too much reliance upon the USAto rally international opinion to their aid”.

The real motive of the Czech bourgeoisie – tobring down the communist-led government and replace it with one that would acceptMarshall Aid – is never mentioned. The Marshall Plan – USimperialism’s project to rebuild war-shattered European economies with American“aid” to exclude communists from government and build a new trans-Atlanticalliance to confront the Soviet Union – is ignored.

The Pragueshow trials are treated in a similar way. Former KSČ general secretary RudolfSlansky and a number of other leading members of the Party arrested in 1951 are said to have been denounced as “bourgeoisnationalists”. But we see the snake-like heads of three of them in the grip of capitalism, beingbeheaded by a worker armed with a hammer in a poster entitled We have captured dangerous vermin. Infact they were all charged with high treason.

The authors says that the arrest, trial andsubsequent execution of most of them was “in reality, an internal strugglewithin the ruling power” without saying what that struggle was about. Theyclaim that “the root cause of the trials, aside from the animosity of North America, was the refusal of Marshal Tito to let Yugoslaviabecome entirely subordinated to Stalin’s will and the needs of the Sovieteconomy”.

But this ismeaningless without explaining what “Titoism” meant, or was supposed to mean,in Czechoslovakiaor the other people’s democracies in 1940s eastern Europe.

In 1948 Czechoslovakiahad been a major arms supplier to Israeland a training ground for the Zionist air force in 1948. A secret air-base inthe town of Žatec, which the Zionists called “Ezion”, was also used to fly foursurplus USair-force B17 Flying Fortresses to Israel,despite an official USarms embargo on all warring sides during the first Arab-Israeli war. One of them bombed Cairoon its way to Tel Aviv.

But there’s no mention of this or the factthat within the KSČ some wanted that relationship to continue for economicreasons or out of sympathy with the Zionist cause, despite Israel’s rapid alignmentwith imperialism. Nor is there any suggestion that some of those arrested were,like Tito, opposed to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance set up by the USSRin 1949 to counter Marshall Aid in eastern Europe.

Nothing issaid about the continuing controversy that still surrounds the Slansky trial inthe Czech republic.The revisionist leadership of the mainstream Communist Party of Bohemia andMoravia, a mass party with two senators and 26 deputies in the Czechparliament, endorses the rehabilitation of Slansky & Co that took place in1968. But hard-liners, inside and outside its ranks, still uphold the original Slanskyverdict. And even today’s bourgeois Czech establishment concede that Slanskywas framed by a letter implicating him as an agent of imperialism planted by anagent of Okapi, a Czech émigré movement set up by the CIAto encourage subversion and sabotage in the new people’s republic.

The text isone problem. The other is the price. This slender volume is no bargain at £30.But at the moment copies can be obtained for £15 plus £2.50 directly from theMarx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, LondonEC1R ODU.

The Hidden Hand at Work

2011-09-22T05:08:00.000-07:00

REVIEW

By Andy Brooks

The Poisoned Well: Sean Kelly; NCP pamphlet £2.00

COLD WAR propaganda andTrotskyist dogma would have us believe that everyone arrested during the Sovietpurges of the 1930s was innocent. Western pundits would regularly portray theSoviet secret service as an incompetent and brutal instrument of terror and inthe same breath charge it with organising legions of dupes in the western worldfor espionage purposes or to ferment civil unrest.

At the sametime the public were fed with romantic tales of agents of imperialism likeSidney Reilly, the “ace of spies” shot by Soviet intelligence in1925 after an abortive attempt to overthrow the Soviet government, and thefictional exploits of James Bond whose antics soon rivalled those of Americancomic-book super-heroes. But a veil ofsilence was drawn over the army of western government informers and agentswithin the labour movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

Only after thecollapse of the Soviet Union did the ruling class feelconfident enough to boast about some of their real agents’ exploits. Therelease of documents under the “thirty year rule” revealed that the radicalnovelist George Orwell, the darling of the Trots, had been a policeinformer. The BBCran a series called True Spies in2002 which revealed that secret service agents bugged, burgled and bribed theirway into the heart of the unions throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Yet the storyof the sinister role of intelligence agents within the communist movement hasstill to be published. This pamphlet redresses the balance by summarisingattempts to sabotage the communist movement in America,Britain andother parts of Europe.

And it startsby looking at the extraordinary career of Morris Childs, the American communisttrained at the Lenin Schoolin Moscow, who became deputy leaderof the Communist Party of the USAand the go-between who arranged the transfer of secret Soviet subsidies to the USparty. From 1958 until 1980 Childs made 52 trips to Moscow.

Morris was trusted by leading members of theSoviet party and became a close friend of Leonid Brezhnev. In 1975 the Sovietleader presented Morris with the Order of the Red Flag in recognition of hisservices to the international communist movement. What Brezhnev did not knowwas that Morris had been working for the FBI from at least the beginning of the1950s.

Well if youwant to know more order this pamphlet, which is a revised edition of twoarticles that first appeared in the NewWorker in 2002, it can be obtained from:

NCP Lit,

PO Box 73,

London SW11 2PQ

Please add 50p for postage and packing.

Twin Towers ten years on

2011-09-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

THOUSANDS of Americans attended the Ground Zero memorial service in New York last Sunday for those who lost their lives in the terror attacks of 11th September 2001. The solemn occasion, led by President Obama, was repeated at similar ceremonies across the United States and in the capitals of US imperialism’s allies across the world.

The movers and shakers of the imperialist world publicly express their grief at the 3,000 innocent civilians killed in the terror attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. They talk about the “war on terror”. They claim that the world has become a better place in the past 10 years. But they say nothing about the million or so equally innocent civilians who have died at the hands of US-led imperialism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya since 9/11. No one plays the bagpipes for them and their names will not be immortalised in bronze in New York or anywhere else in the United States.

US imperialism’s bid for global hegemony began with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Under cover of a bogus United Nations mandate, a trick they first used to attack north Korea in 1950 and one they have used time and time again ever since, Anglo-American imperialism attacked Iraq. Soon after they moved to violently break up the Yugoslav federation and attack the Serbs.

But the American plan for world domination, called the “new world order”, really kicked off after the Al Qaeda attacks in 2001; 9/11 was used by the US ruling class as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a plan for total imperialist control of the immense oil and gas resources of what they began to call the “Greater Middle East” region.

Arabs and Muslims who stood in the way were demonised as brutal religious bigots and savages while the crimes of those autocratic feudal leaders willing to serve imperialism were whitewashed by the imperialists and the “human rights” gang that trail behind them. The random terrorism of the oppressed is branded as barbarism while the systematic terror of imperialist occupation is routinely denied.

Piracy and hostage-taking by impoverished Somali fishermen is condemned as extortion while a blind eye is turned to the abuse of prisoners in concentration camps in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. It’s not surprising to see the murder of a Basra hotel worker, beaten to death by British troops in 2003, so easily dismissed as a “very serious and regrettable incident”. His death will doubtless be blamed on individual soldiers and not on the underlying culture of imperialist military occupation that led to the atrocity in the first place.The imperialists spent billions of dollars in their drive to control the resources of the world. But at the end of the day what have they got to show for it?

Despite all the might of their aviation and the strength of their legions the Americans are on their way out in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US economy is in the doldrums along with the rest of capitalist world that is sinking into the biggest slump seen since 1929. Though they control a large part of global oil production they cannot change the rules of supply and demand or the fundamental law of value.

Ten years on the wild hopes of the imperialists lie buried in the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan along with the hundreds of thousands of victims who perished in the attempt to make the world a better place for the big oil corporations.

Oliver Cromwell

2011-09-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

1599 - 1658

OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the English Revolution, diedon 3rd September 1658. Cromwell, the MP for Huntingdon, was theleading Parliamentary commander during the English Civil War, which began in1642 and ended in1649 with the trial and execution of Charles Stuart and theabolition of the monarchy. The Republic of England, or Commonwealth as itwas styled in English, was proclaimed soon after.

The fighting had taken a fearful toll in lives and propertyin England, Wales,Scotland and Ireland.The death toll, including civilians, came to around 870,000, some 11.6 per centof the pre-Civil War population. Material damage was immense, particularly in Ireland.In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became head of state, the Lord Protector.

Royalist hopes of a counter-revolution were smashed with thedefeat of their forces at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Cromwell representedthe most militant elements amongst the Puritan bourgeois gentry. While infavour of reform they feared social upheaval that could overturn their ownexclusive right to private property.

The democratic movement born from the New Model Army, theLevellers, was crushed by Cromwell’s supporters and the most militant regimentssent to Ireland.Attempts to set up farming co-operatives by the Diggers, many of whom were alsoformer soldiers, were also suppressed.

The republic Cromwell led included England,Wales, Scotlandand Ireland,the port of Dunkirkand colonies in New England and the Caribbean.During its brief life the Commonwealth became a force in Europe.Culturally it inspired the great poetry of Milton and Marvell and other radicaland pacifist religious movements like the Quakers who are still with us today.

Oliver Cromwell was succeeded by his son, Richard. Richardwas neither a politician nor a soldier. Unable to reconcile republican generalswith the demands of the rich merchants and landowners to curb the influence ofthe New Model Army, Richard Cromwell resigned the following year. Thegovernment collapsed and the monarchy was restored in 1660. Oliver Cromwell’sdeath invoked genuine mourning. His funeral, modelled on that of the King ofSpain, was the biggest London hadever witnessed.

Two years later his body was dug up and ritually hanged inpublic at Tyburn. All those still alive who had signed Charles Stuart’s deathwarrant, apart from a handful that managed to flee the country, were hanged,drawn and quartered. And the “good old cause” they had fought for was buriedwith them. It was clear that a great revolution had taken place. It is equallyclear that it was incomplete.

For communists the English Revolution is a paramountimportance. It influenced the thinking of the American revolutionaries. TheVictorian utopian socialist and co-operator, Robert Owen, embodied some of theideas of the Digger philosopher, Gerrard Winstanley, in his writings. And eventoday the question of the monarchy and the House of Lords is still unresolved.

A Russian sniper's story

2011-09-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Review

By Andy Brooks

Notes of a Russian Sniper: Vassili Zaitsev, Hbk, illus, 208pp, Frontline Books, London 2010 £19.99.

Vassili Zaitsev was the Soviet sniper immortalised by JudeLaw in Enemy at the Gates, the 2001blockbuster movie set during the Battle of Stalingrad with a star-studded castincluding Ed Harris as his Nazi counterpart and Bob Hoskins as NikitaKrushchov. Stalingrad has long been used in the West asa symbol of the sacrifice of the Soviet people in the struggle to defeat NaziGermany in the Second World War. The film is remarkable for the visual power ofthe gritty battle scenes and realistic recreation of the ruined city. Sofilm-goers could easily be forgiven for thinking that the movie, produced byFrench director Jean-Jacques Annaud, was an accurate portrayal of Zaitsev’swartime career.

Far fromit. Zaitsev, who died in 1991, would have turned in his grave had he lived tosee Enemy at the Gates which depicts him as a barely literate hunter from theSteppes and reduces the Second World War to a sniper duel between two men. Butwhile Zaitsev’s own account of his exploits in Stalingradhad been published in the USSRback in 1956 the first English translation was only published in 2003.

Thisrevised edition published by Frontline Books includes the original introductionby Marshal V I Chuikov and a pithy foreword that demolishes the anti-communistnonsense that is passed off as artistic licence in Annaud film.

As a boyZaitsev was taught to shoot and hunt in the woods by his family. A dedicatedcommunist he served a pay clerk in the Soviet Pacific Fleet but volunteered tofight in the army when the Germans invaded in 1941. And it was in Stalingradthat his particular skill was recognised. With at least 242 kills to his creditZaitsev ended up running a sniper school in the city that broke the back of theWehrmacht.

Libraryshelves are full of dusty memoirs of generals who portray war in terms ofmanoeuvres and tactics. This book sees war through the eyes of a rank-and-fileron the front-line in a struggle against a cruel and determined foe.

Though Zaitsev was like the millions of Soviet youth whorallied to the call to defend the Soviet Union hisparticular skill sets him apart from most other soldiers.

Snipers area special breed. They shoot to kill in cold blood and without remorse. AsZaitsev says: “As a sniper, I’ve killed more than a few Nazis. I have a passionfor observing enemy behaviour. You watch a Nazi officer come out of a bunker,acting all high and mighty, ordering his soldiers every which way, and puttingon an air of authority. The officer hasn’t got the slightest idea that he onlyhas seconds to live”.

There’s plenty more of this asZaitsev tells his story of the fight for Stalingradwhich also includes a report of his experiences first published in Moscowin 1943 and Stalin’s famous “Not a Single Step Back!” Order Number 227 of 28th July 1942.

This is abook well worth reading. Don’t be put off by the publisher’s cover charge. Itcan be bought for far less on the web or obtained by ordering it from yourlocal library.

The Burston School strike

2011-09-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

by Robert Laurie

A HUNDRED years ago in February 1911 twoschoolteachers arrived to take up new posts in the Norfolk Parish of Burstonand Shimpling near Diss. This was not the first posting in the agricultural countyfor the couple Tom and Kitty Higdon. Kitty Higdon married her younger husband,also a teacher, in their native Somerset in 1896.

Fora while they taught at St James's and St Peter's School in London's wealthy Piccadilly.In 1902 they took up joint posts at Wood Dalling, north of Norwich with Kitty asheadmistress.

Here they proved popularand effective teachers. Staunch Christian Socialists they did much to improvethe harsh lives of their pupils, such as purchasing shoes and footwear out of Kitty’sown pocket and conducting cookery classes in her own kitchen.

The Higdon's were notcontent with private charity. Soon after arriving in Norfolk Thomas (himselfthe son of a farm labourer) was fined for assaulting a farmer who employed boyswho should have been at school. He also spoke in public and organised for theEastern Counties Agricultural Labourers' and Small Holders' Union, founded in 1906.

This was no easy task. In the countryside thenormal difficulties of getting workers to join unions in the face of employerhostility was heightened by the tied cottage system, which meant a dismissedworker was also made homeless.

In 1910 he and otherlabourers were elected onto the parish council. This was not to the approval ofthe farmers who employed the labourers. They were also managers of the school andresented the Higdon's continued demands for improvements to the fabric of theschool.

Such a lack of deferencedid not go unpunished. Norfolk Education Committee launched enquiries intotheir activities. The threat of sacking was finally lifted but these"troublesome teachers" were transferred to Burston in the south ofthe county. Defiant to the end Kitty Higdon's final remarks in the school logbook were later officially expunged from the record.

Perhapswary of the Education Committee, the Higdon's kept a low political profile atfirst, but they soon started making complaints about the state of their newschool. In 1912 Tom published a short pamphlet, Bodies without abodes, a fictional indictment of the tied cottagesystem.

TheApril 1913 Parish Council elections saw Tom Higdon return to the electoralfray. He topped the poll along with many farm labourers who were also elected.The man at the bottom was no less a figure than the Reverend Charles TuckerEland, Anglican Rector and chair of the school's management committee.

Hewas not a man to take electoral defeat gracefully. From a wealthy Essex gentry family he usedhis remaining post as chair of the school body to launch a barrage ofcomplaints against the Higdons. Enormities such as lighting a fire for pupilsto dry their wet clothes and showing gross "discourtesy" weresupplemented by trumped up charges of assaulting two pupils.

HisReverence persuaded the county Education Committee to sack them(despite glowing reports from the inspectors and a rejection of the assaultcharges) after an inquiry in which the National Union of Teachers failedmiserably. Their last day was the 31^st March 1914.

As they were about tohand over the next day, 66 of the 72 children refused to attend school.Instead, led by a concertina band they marched around the Village wavingbanners and cards reading: "We want our teachers back" and "Weare out for justice".

As is normal with thebourgeois press The Times understatedthe support when on the 2^nd April it reported that only 25 of the 72pupils attended the march that day. Dismissed by the Rector as an "AprilFool's Joke" the march was repeated in the afternoon and on the followingdays. Properly organised lessons were given by the Higdons on the VillageGreen.

Only six pupils remainedat the official school. On the 22^nd April the parents of thestriking children were heavily fined by the magistrates at Diss. Half-a crowneach was a severe penalty for farmer labourers earning less than a pound aweek. They were further warned of heavier fines if the trouble recurred.

In the words of The Times of the following day:"All the parents demanded a public inquiry as to why the teachers weredismissed. Some of them said they sent their children to school, but thechildren joined the strikers. One parent said his lad had joined the strikersand dared not break the rules."

Repeated fines for non-attendance were indeedimposed on the farm labourers, who were in fact sending their children to the schoolof their own choosing.

The outbreak of theFirst World War in August with the resulting need for manpower put a stop tofarmers sacking labourers for their insubordination but this did not stop theReverend Eland from evicting labourers from the allotments he rented out toboost his ample stipend.

A national campaign bythe labour movement ensured the striking pupils did not lack funds. Just oneexample of the campaign can be mentioned. In February 1916 the Higdons, someschoolchildren and their parents visited London sponsored by London tradeunionists, where they spoke at four large meetings including a musical event atBermondsey.

The hatred Eland broughtupon himself can be seen in the case which took place in early 1917. The fatherof a former striker who was killed in the war objected to the Rector putting upa memorial tablet in the church as Eland had opposed the strike.

His efforts to have itremoved failed so he smashed it with a coal hammer, an action resulting in thebereaved father being imprisoned. Later the diocesan court had it removed moreofficially. It was not only the established church that incurred the strikers'displeasure. When a Methodist lay-preacher spoke in favour of the Strike School he was rebuked by his church,prompting the departure of most of the village's congregation.

As summer turned to autumna disused carpenter's workshop was used as a schoolhouse. The launch ofnational appeal for a more permanent building bore fruit within three years.The building which survives to this day was opened on the 13^th May1917 by Violet Potter, the leader of children three years earlier.

George Lansbury, chairof the national appeal for the school and future Labour Party leader, unveiledthe foundation stone while the militant Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst alsospoke.

Many branches of theIndependent Labour Party, and the National Union of Railwaymen supported thebuilding fund. Coal mining unions gave £401 of the £1662 raised. Many otherlabour movement bodies such as the Coventry Typographical Society and theParkstone and Bournemouth Co-operative Society also contributed.

The departure of theReverend Eland in 1920 was followed by his replacement by a less hostile Rector,who conducted services for the children of both village schools.

That they competedagainst each other on sports days demonstrates that the Strike School had become anestablished fixture of village life. Being the focus of a national campaign itwas difficult for the powers to be anything but tolerant of the Strike School.

An annual rally was heldby the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, which kept the schoolin the public eye. The Norfolk Education Committee was doubtless glad not tohave the "troublesome teachers" on their books.

Thus the school continuedfor a quarter of a century. Apart from local children a few were sent bymembers of the Soviet Trade delegation to London. During the 1926General Strike and lockout six children of Nottingham miners were boarded andtaught for free.

The curriculum did nothave classes on how to curtsy or forelock tugging to the gentry, but includedtrips to trade union rallies. When Thomas Higdon died in August 1939, theschool had only 11 pupils. Kitty Higdon, then aged 75 was unable to continueand retired soon afterwards. The remaining pupils were transferred to thecounty school. She died in 1946 and was buried next to her husband in Burstonchurchyard near the school to which she had devoted her life.

The initial success ofthe campaign to defend the Higdons and the remarkable endurance of the schoolwas a fine example of trade union solidarity. While Norfolk was one of the betterorganised areas the agricultural labourers were too weak in themselves tosupport the school for long.

Inside the Far Right

2011-08-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

Review

By Owen Liddle

Matthew Collins: Hate, my life in the far right;With foreword by Billy Bragg
From Biteback publishers pbk, illus, 316 pp £14.99 but discounted to £13.50 if bought through www.hopenothate.org.uk and all good bookshops. All proceeds from copies bought from Hope not Hate go to the Searchlight Educational Trust

MATTHEW Collins was a teenager who grew up in south east London. He was not atypical, coming from a poor working class background, single-parent family and his father having left home when he was a small child.
He also hated the secondary school Thomas Tallis that failed to give him the education that he needed, thinking for example, that eating lemon meringue pie was a sign of sophistication. Where Matthew differed was that his anger and alienation turned into racism and lead him to join the National Front (NF) and quickly rise in their ranks.
I had wondered what had turned Matthew to the NF as I too have a lot in common with him: I also come from the same part of London and from a poor single-parent family; I also went to Thomas Tallis at the same time as Matthew and we both left school the same year (although I'm two years older) to go on and get shit jobs in the civil service.
Tallis was one of the better schools in Greenwich, despite having a high number of Trotskyite teachers and Colin Yardley, a Eurocommunist, had taken over as headmaster, and was busily ruining the school’s reputation as well.
Although it was a progressive school there was racial tension between the Afro-Caribbean gangs from Lewisham and the white gangs from the Ferrier (a large sink estate next door to Tallis) and I knew several fellow students who carried knives "for their own protection".
Despite this the vast majority of white kids were not racist, having grown up with and forged friendships with other children of several different races, most notably Afro-Caribbean's, Punjabis, Cypriots and Chinese. Matthew’s hatred stopped him from having different race friends and so learning about their culture and more importantly the things common to all of us, being poor and hard up.
Time and time again he mentions that the NF and BNP thugs who he'd go out with knew nothing about the people whom they were trying to beat the shit out of. With Thatcher doing away with national pay bargaining and constantly attacking the National Union of Teachers both Matthew and I were glad to leave Tallis behind us. A large number of teachers also left at the same time and those who stayed wished they could have left as well.
Mathew was already an NF member when he left school, as his new comrades in the far right were the only ones who would take his racist view point seriously.
He was soon being mentored by the then leader of the NF, Ian Anderson, as he was thought of as being one of their most intelligent members and a possible future leader.
Taking six months sick leave from the civil service, he was soon learning how to organise meetings, produce Nazi magazines and was soon flogging them as well as hard core porn to the right-wing faithful.
Some of Matthew’s tales of his time in the NF will be familiar with any one involved in small political parties. Problems like the battle with constantly breaking down print presses, the failure to understand modern technology, and sitting through meetings where the party hierarchy waffle on, massaging their egos, while every one else tries to stay awake. There is also the familiar backbiting and clash of egos but the right wing took this to extremes by actually thumping each other.
Matthew’s epiphany came when he organised a group of NF and BNP hooligans to gatecrash a meeting of anti-racists at Welling Library. In what became know as the battle of Welling Library he tells of how he led his Nazi horde into the meeting and started punching and kicking anyone they could lay their hands on, mostly middle-aged Asian women.
One pregnant woman had to lock herself in the toilets to avoid getting a good kicking. Having felt sick at what his comrades had done he ended up phoning Searchlight anti fascist magazine anonymously to pass on information to them.
Matthew grew increasingly disillusioned with the psychopaths, alcoholics and violent Nazi nutters of the far right. He realised that the realities of the fascists taking over in a military coup were pure fantasy born of blood-crazed, ignorant, paranoid minds who would never understand, as he had come to, that society’s problems were down to class not race.
He began to hate the far right everything they stood for, like the links they were trying to forge with other right-wing paramilitaries like the UDA and American Nazi groups. He was making more and more phone calls to Searchlight. This led him eventually to meet up with Searchlight activists and become one of their moles in the far right.
As a reward for his spying he was given book tokens and told to go educate himself. This was only partially successful as he may have used them to buy Billy Bragg CDs.
Matthew’s book is a thoughtful, candid and very personal look into the British far right. Despite the serious and often brutal nature of the book there are several laugh out loud moments, I practically liked the Eddie Whicker guide on how to post a turd through the mail.
The only possible criticism is that he may have used a bit of artistic exaggeration as according to accounts from the anti-fascists at the battle of Welling library, it was not as one-sided as Matthew’s recollection.
But that's not to take away the poignancy and relevance of the book and recent events have reminded us that the disillusioned and disenfranchised youth can turn to mob mentality and violence.
In fact this book should be on the school reading lists. But the middle class trendy pseudo-lefty teachers would probably object to the language and the violence contained in the book, totally missing the point and again that would be letting down another generation of kids, much as they did at the school Matthew and me were from.

Stalin's Wars

2011-08-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

BOOK REVIEW

By Eric Trevett

Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War 1939-1953. Geoffrey Roberts: Yale University Press 2008,496 pp, illus. £15.20

THE BOOK Stalin’s Wars is a valuable contribution to the discussion around getting a clearer assessment of Stalin and the Soviet Union.
The book covers the years 1939-53 and includes a detailed account of the major battles of the Great Patriotic War, which started in Russia in 1941.
Geoffrey Roberts is a bourgeois military historian who has done his research through the archive files in Moscow and is trying to be objective. He was born in Deptford, south London, and is a professor at Cork University in Ireland.
In his preface Roberts makes the case that Stalin was an effective and highly successful war leader. He made many mistakes and pursued harsh policies. Millions of people died as the Germans advanced but Stalin kept his head and without his leadership the war against Nazi Germany would probably have been lost.
Roberts does explode a slander that began with Kruschov’s “secret” speech to the 20th CPSU congress in 1956. Kruschov said: “It would be incorrect to forget that after the first severe disaster and defeats at the front, Stalin thought this was the end. In one of his speeches in those days he said: ‘All that which Lenin created we have lost forever’. After this Stalin for a very long time actually did not direct the military operations and ceased to do anything whatever. He returned to active service only when some members of the Political Bureau visited him and told him that it was necessary to take certain steps immediately in order to improve the situation at the front.”
Roberts reports that Kruschov went on to elaborate this story in his memoirs, claiming that Beria, Molotov and Mikoyan were the Politburo members in question. But, as Roberts points out, citing different accounts by Roy and Medvedev, this is was a very unlikely story because Molotov and Beria were among the most submissive of Stalin’s inner circle and would not have dared be so forthright.
Roberts quotes the direct report of Yakov Chadev, which paints a very different picture. In an interview in 1982 Chadev said: “During those days of crisis, of critical situations on the front, Stalin controlled himself very well on the whole, displaying confidence and calmness and demonstrating industriousness.”
Roberts also quotes Molotov’s account of the incident at the dacha: “Stalin was in a very agitated state. He didn’t curse but he wasn’t quite himself. I wouldn’t say that he had lost his head. He suffered but he didn’t show any signs of this. Undoubtedly he had his rough moments. It’s nonsense to say he didn’t suffer. But he is not portrayed as he really was… As usual he worked day and night and never lost his head or his gift of speech. How did he comport himself? As Stalin was supposed to, firmly.”
Then there was Zhukov’s account: “Stalin himself was strong-willed and no coward. It was only once I saw him somewhat depressed. That was the dawn of 22nd June 1841, when his belief that the war could be avoided was shattered. After 22nd June 1941, and throughout the war, Stalin firmly governed the country.”
Roberts continued: “When Lazar Kaganovich, another Politburo member, was asked if Stalin had lost his nerve when the war broke out, he replied: ‘It’s a lie!’…
“Perhaps a better guide to Stalin’s personal response to the German attack is the contemporary evidence of his actions during the first days of the war. According to his appointments diary, when war broke out Stalin held numerous meetings with members of the military and political leadership.
“The early days of the war required many decisions by Stalin. On the day war broke out he authorised 20 different decrees and orders….”
This must be contrasted to performance of western European leaders who fell apart and capitulated to the German war machine.
Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt – they were all replaceable as warlords but not Stalin. In the context of the horrific war on the eastern front Stalin was indispensable to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
To fully appreciate the contents of Geoffrey Roberts’ book it is essential to have some knowledge of the history of the whole of the 1930s. That decade began with capitalism in crisis; millions were out of work; in the United States one in four of the workforce was unemployed. The response of the capitalists was to turn towards fascism.
Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria all had fascist governments and even Britain had a strong presence of people who admired Hitler.
In the second half of the 1930s the elected government of Republican Spain was overthrown with the direct assistance of the Nazis. The town of Guernica was destroyed by Nazi bombers.
The International Brigade predicted that the bombs that dropped on Madrid would be falling on London before long if fascism was not defeated in Spain – and they were proved right.
The governments of Britain and France sought to appease Hitler, paving the way for German rearmament.
Roberts gives a fair account of the Russo-Nazi non-aggression pact. In spite of the heroic Soviet endeavours and those of the workers and peace movements of the capitalist countries, especially those of Britain and France, they were unable to prevent the collaboration of their governments. All the capitalist governments had within them pro-fascist elements who were in contact with the Nazi regime.
The pact with Ribbentrop was signed after the western powers had signed the Munich Agreement in September 1938. After that Great Britain and France claimed they could not join an anti-Nazi alliance and when Stalin invited them to do that they sent only a minor diplomat. Clearly they had had no intention of any serious response to Stalin’s call for unity against Hitler.
Stalin, through the Comintern, warned communist parties and the labour movement that the Soviet Union would have to take steps to safeguard its own future but this would be in the long-term interests of the working class.
Much is made of the failure of Stalin and the Soviet high command to resist the onslaught of the Nazi armies in the Soviet Union in 1941. But in reality even if they had been prepared they could not have repulsed the Nazi offensive. The official thinking in Britain at the time was that if the Soviet Union survived for six seeks it would be an achievement and if they lasted out for three months it would be a miracle.
Trotsky also had this view and he tried to make this a death wish by promoting acts of industrial sabotage and spreading disaffection and defeatist ideas designed to demoralise.
Roberts is critical of Stalin’s purge of senior Red Army officers in the 1930s. Many of those purged were veteran officers of the old Czarist army in which there was a culture of admiration for German militarism.
But the new Red Army nurtured and produced many fine generals from the working class to replace those who were purged. These included Marshall Zhukhov who won the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Leningrad. The battle of Kursk involved 4,000 tanks and it was where the German Panzer tanks met their match.
Roberts reports that at one of the lowest points in the war, on 7th November 1941 when German forces were advancing through Soviet territory and the Red Army was taking severe casualties, Stalin addressed troops parading through Red Square. He said: “Remember the year 1918, when we celebrated the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Three-quarters of the country was … in the hands of foreign interventionists. The Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East were temporarily lost to us.
“We had no allies, we had no Red Army … there was a shortage of food, or armaments … Fourteen states were pressing against our country.
“But we did not become despondent, we did not lose heart. In the fire of war we forged the Red Army and converted our country into a military camp. The spirit of the great Lenin animated us ….
“And what happened? We routed the interventionists, recovered our lost territory and achieved victory.”
Roberts sometimes refers to Stalin as a dictator but Stalin always worked in the collective and this is referenced in his daily communiqués that he gave to the armed forces. These statements were the product of the leadership collective.
In the 1930s every country in the western world, without exception had a considerable number of willing and influential people favouring an alliance between themselves and Hitler in a crusade to destroy the Soviet Union.
Indeed France and Britain had expeditionary forces ready to go to the aid of Finland, which had refused to allow the Soviet Red Army authority to occupy a part of Finland essential to ensure the defence of Leningrad.
On the issue of the shooting of the Polish officers at Katyn, Roberts comes down on the side of blaming the Soviets. He puts a lot of store on the questionable fact that a letter had been found dated after the blame was being attached to the Nazis. This issue remains unresolved but the probability is that it was a Nazi atrocity. More to the point, the ammunition used was German.
Geoffrey Roberts is good on the controversy over whether the Soviet Union should have aided the uprising in Warsaw. He argues that the uprising was authorised by the Polish government in exile in London in an attempt to establish authority before the Soviet occupation of Warsaw, which they believed to be imminent.
At that time the Red Army had already twice tried to breach the Nazi defences of Warsaw and had been repulsed. It was therefore absolutely necessary to build up the forces that would overcome the resistance of the Nazis.
He reports that the Red Army was always well led and well disciplined.
Roberts is also good on the interplay between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, which is quite fascinating. Churchill was always the more treacherous compared to Roosevelt – witness his letter from in the War Cabinet before the battle of Stalingrad had been won, expressing his fears that there might be a run of communism across Europe.
Again in 1945, Churchill told Montgomery to be ready to hand weapons back to the Nazis if the Red Army reached where the western liberation line had stopped.
It may surprise many readers to learn how keen Stalin was after the war to see Germany broken up. He feared that Germany would become a threat again within 30 years. And the recent alliance between Britain and France within Nato have been a reflection of this old fear of Germany – not so much on the military but on the political and economic front.
Another good feature of the book is the glossary of events from 1939 to 1953. One of the best quotes is attributed to W Averell Harriman, the US Ambassador to Moscow, describing Stalin: “He had an enormous ability to absorb and act on detail. He was very much alert to the needs of the whole war machine … In our negotiations with him we usually found him extremely well informed.
“He had a masterly knowledge of the sort of equipment that was important for him. He knew the calibre of the guns he wanted, the weight of the tanks that his roads and bridges would take and the details of the type of metal he needed to build aircraft.
“These were not characteristics of a bureaucrat but rather those of an extremely able and vigorous war leader.”
All in all, this book requires a knowledge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from its inception. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia inherited a country where 80 per cent of the population was illiterate, the working class was proportionately small and poverty and superstition were prevalent.
Stalin carried on from where Lenin left off. He renounced the term “Stalinist” and always claimed to be a Leninist. Under his leadership the Soviet Union changed from being the poor house of Europe to being a commonwealth of nations from which skilled and educated people of all professions emerged in great numbers.
His ability to inspire and teach remains unsurpassed and this is what has to be borne in mind when reading the revisionist Kruschov’s so-called secret speech at the CPSU 20th Congress, as well as Geoffrey Roberts’ book
Roberts says that Stalin made a lot of mistakes. But in his conclusion he says: “To make so many mistakes and arise from the depth of such defeat to win the greatest military victory in history was a triumph beyond compare.”

Twenty years ago...

2011-07-28T04:27:00.000-07:00

in the NEW WORKER

ROVER plans to axe 1,260 non-manual jobs, 12 per cent of the group’s workforce. It brings the total number of Rover jobs lost in the last 18 months to 3,500.
Around 500 will go at Longbridge, 400 at Solihull, 180 at Cowley, 110 at Swindon and 70 at Gaydon.
The recession has hit motor companies world-wide. In Europe only German new car sales are up significantly fuelled by re-unification.
Rover claims that this latest round of job cuts are part of a long-term restructuring, “emulating Japanese manufacturing efficiencies” as a company statement put it.
Even so, Rover has said it will put 12,000 production workers on a four-day week because of falling demand for key models.
Rover has been increasing its share of the market, but the market itself is shrinking fast.
Last month Ford announced it was halting production at Harewood. But it will retain the plant’s 6,500 assembly workers, already working short-time on full pay.

**************************

A SENIOR European Community official has met the Albanian government which has been desperately seeking imperialist aid to stave off famine.
The Ramiz Alia government, a coalition of anti-communist nationalists and Alia’s revisionist wing of the former Party of Labour, faces an economic crisis provoked by the so-called reforms of this year.
This has seen the abandonment of the socialist constitution, the break-up of the co-operative farms and the beginning of the restoration of capitalism in the small Balkan republic.
The talks between the EC Foreign Affairs Commissioner Frans Andriessen, and Albanian Prime Minister Ylli Bufi centred around Albanian appeals for urgent supplies of food and medicine.
The Albanian premier warned the EC official that government wasn’t bailed out soon the people would lose confidence in what he called the “democratic reforms” and the subsequent backlash could jeopardise its very existence.

Unions remember Tolpuddle

2011-07-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

by Alex Kempshall

Thousands of trade union and labour movement activists marched through the small Dorset village of Tolpuddle last weekend. They marched behind the banners of the Tolpuddle agricultural branch. Southampton Unite and Unison workers were at the head of the march with their banners shouting the slogan “Cut my pay – no way” a protest against Southampton Council's attempt to cut the pay of it's workers.

The keynote speeches were delivered by TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, and Tony Benn. Nigel Costley, South West TUC Secretary set the scene by reminding the rally that “We come here to remember and honour the Tolpuddle Martyrs. We come here to refresh out commitment to what they believed in – Unity, Solidarity, Trade Unionism and we also come to celebrate the fact that protest and campaigns that were waged by the unions then resulted in victory when the government backed down and performed a u-turn. It was possible then and it is possible now.”

Sharan Burrow spoke of the importance to renew our commitment to a decent world, social justice and to the rights of union members. She reminded us that “The crisis that was born of greed, the greed of profits from the bankers and shareholders of those incredible products which had nothing to do with the real economy... It is a crisis that is undermining every community throughout the world. The bankers are forcing governments from Spain, to Portugal, to Greece, the US right through to the poorest countries of the world demanding that people pay with their services, public sector jobs, their very way of life.”

She went on to point out that “The people of Spain are standing up against it, people in Portugal, Romania, in Africa, the US, Asia are standing up to the demands of Conservative governments. It's the time for solidarity, it's the time for a shared commitment to collectivism. Solidarity is about sharing the wealth, building the common good.”

Brendan Barber in speaking about the big challenges that the trade union movement is facing and that the rally was about celebrating what the Tolpuddle stands for said “All these values of solidarity we're going to need that in the months ahead” and asked the rally to send a message of solidarity “to the trade unionists of Southampton, the teachers and trade unionists in the Civil Service who took industrial action on June 30th, to the half million people who marched on the 26th March to tell the government that there is an alternative.

Brendan warned the rally “That we are facing a government that is absolutely committed to cut public spending whatever the consequences but that we know the price is going to be paid by the poorest and weakest for a crisis that was caused by the richest and powerful. The price we risk paying is the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, the services we rely on from Sure Start centres to the vital caring services for the elderly and the living standards of just about everyone, with wages held down and inflation let rip and the threat to our pension system.”

He went on to say “We mustn't allow this government to try and divide public and private sector workers” citing the case of pensions where both government and major companies like British Airways were attempting to move pension indexing from RPI to CPI resulting is a 15% reduction in pensions.”

He called upon the movement to win that battle of ideas he pointed out that “Over the last thirty years we've seen the growth of inequality, living standards squeezed, we've seen our economy double in size yet for most ordinary people their earning levels have hardly increased at all.”

In the months ahead he said that there were going to be some major industrial battles to defend decent pensions, pay, living standards and protect jobs and concluded by saying that he was “confident that we will see the return of a Labour government committed to decent values and justice for the British people”

The weekend was more than just the Sunday march and rally there were may stalls from the trade union and solidarity movements. A radical history school dealt with topics such as the poor law, risings against enclosures, transportation including crime and punishment. The Prison Officers Association organised the Tolpuddle Freedom Hike from Dorchester Prison to Tolpuddle to raise monies for the POA Freedom charities. On each of the days from Friday through to Sunday a whole host of musicians and comedians entertained at the event organised by the South West TUC.

The Fall of the House of Murdoch

2011-07-22T00:57:00.000-07:00

NONE of us were sorry to see the News of the World go under last week. The arrest of Rebekah Brooks, News International’s chief executive, for questioning in connection with corruption issues after a number of Rupert Murdoch’s chief henchmen jumped ship, will have brought wry smiles to veteran Fleet Street printers who fought the Murdoch empire to preserve free trade unions during the Sun dispute in the 1980s.
With a bit of luck the resignation of two high-ranking chiefs in the Metropolitan Police and the mysterious death of a former News of the World journalist who had spilt the beans on the phone-hacking scandal will end the sinister domination of the British media by this oligarch once and for all.
For over three decades politicians across the mainstream bourgeois consensus grovelled at the feet of Rupert Murdoch and his minions. Tory and Labour governments alike sanctioned the monopolisation of information by News International, which targeted working people with its relentless stream of racist and imperialist propaganda laced with vicious celebrity gossip that we now learn was obtained through phone hacking and pay-offs to the police on an industrial scale.
News International may have thought that it could fight off the legal challenges from high-profile victims like Hugh Grant and Max Mosley but it was on a certain loser once the depth of its corrupt involvement with the forces of law and order was exposed to wider public scrutiny.
The Establishment has now closed ranks to condemn the excesses of the Murdoch-owned media and Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are leading the pack in condemnation and demands for more regulation.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was right to lead the attack and question the link between the Prime Minister and his former aide, who had been a senior member of Murdoch’s entourage. It is also clear that by any standards, even those of the bourgeoisie themselves, that News International is neither fit nor proper to own any newspapers or TV stations in Britain.
But there’s a hidden agenda behind the furore that has forced Parliament to summon Murdoch and his cronies to the Select Committee this week and that is to re-impose the media censorship we had to put up with until the 1970s under the Lord Chamberlain’s Office and the odious D-notice regime.
While there’s clearly a need to reform the toothless Press Complaints Commission, which does nothing to protect those who cannot afford to go to court, demands for more “regulation” can only stifle the freedom of the media. There is, in fact, no need for it. The issue is not whether what is reported was true but how the information was obtained in the first place.
Phone-hacking, mail interception and bribing the police are against the law and some journalists have already been convicted. More will undoubtedly follow.
There’s certainly a case for repealing Britain’s draconian libel laws that impose self-censorship on much of the media and can only be used by those rich enough to pay the immense legal fees court actions incur. The media must be free to comment on what it likes and report what it believes to be true. But that can’t continue to be monopolised exclusively by the representatives of the big bourgeoisie.
If nothing else the News International scandal shows the need for the unions to pool their resources to provide a voice for the labour movement to counter the barrage of propaganda rammed down our throats every day in the bourgeois media.
Our unions spend millions on bland house magazines that are rarely read even by their own members. The Labour Party, which dumped its own weekly in 1988, will spend millions at election time and rely on the half-hearted support of the Mirror Group rather than help fund an independent trade union and co-operative journal like the old Daily Herald, which they sustained for over 50 years.
But with new technology it can be done and it needs to be done because there’s plenty more like Murdoch ready to take his place.

New Worker editorial

Who's afraid of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

2011-07-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

By Ray Jones

JEAN-JACQUES Rousseau (1712-78) has long been considered to be one of the leading “philosophes” who provided the theory behind the great French bourgeois revolution of 1789 and who gave the revolutionary Jacobins their ideological basis for this world-changing event.
But these days he is largely ignored by our media and little known generally. It’s even been suggested lately by some bourgeois academics that perhaps he wasn’t so important after all.
It might be argued that Rousseau’s lack of limelight is at least partly the result of his success. Reading his main political works, Discourse on Inequality and On the Social Contract, much seems very familiar and common to the ideas we hear about us all the time – to the point of being almost boring.
They are written in relatively simple language (Rousseau was also a renowned novelist) but have been interpreted in many different ways and perhaps this hasn’t help his profile either.
But these factors surely don’t fully explain his relative neglect – after all he has been called the father of modern political philosophy.
That Rousseau was an influence on the French Revolution is undeniable. Maximilien Robespierre, a main leader of the revolution, wrote of him in his diary: “Divine man! It was you who taught me to know myself. When I was young you brought me to appreciate the true dignity of my nature and reflect on the great principles which govern the social order…”
Rousseau’s main ideas were accepted by the Jacobins: the basic equality of humans; that morality is innate within us; the importance of reason; that we originated in a “state of nature” prior to society; that society is a Social Contract that we enter into for our own good.
Perhaps Rousseau’s best known quote is, “Man was been born free and everywhere he is in chains”. This was a rallying call for the revolution and much of his writings were banned.
Rousseau believed that from a very simple society, little more than families, the development of the division of labour and private property had caused the growth of the unfair and oppressive societies he saw about him.
And although he did not think it possible, or desirable, to revert to a “state of nature” (and perhaps he didn’t think of it as an actual historical period) he believed it was possible to reorganise society and make a better world.
The object for Rousseau is to organise society so that the citizen and the magistrate complement each other, working together so that peoples’ innate morality can come through and the societies’ “General Will” could be implemented. The General Will being a collective construction not dependent on any individual but which all individuals follow for the good of all.
He believed the best form of this society would be a democratic republic – although he did not rule out other forms, even monarchy, being used in particular circumstances or a certain period of time. He also thought that it would only really work well with a small population in a small area where personal contact and communication were easy – similar to the ancient Greek states and early Rome which he, and the Jacobins thought well of.
It’s easy to see how revolutionary and incendiary these ideas were in a country still mired in the injustice and rigidity of late feudalism.
The growing petty bourgeois and intellectuals of France were groaning under the heavy taxation enforced by the King, whose failed wars had ruined the economy, while the aristocracy and the clergy paid almost nothing. The peasantry and the town poor, who were near starvation due to crop failures and oppressed by savage feudal laws and customs, were more than ready to follow them.
Rousseau’s personal example on religion was also radical. While believing in a creator God he was willing to switch from the extreme protestant Calvinism of his home city of Geneva to Roman Catholicism when he moved away and change back again when he wanted to regain his Genevan citizenship – just about as big a leap as you can make inside Christianity.
Robespierre and his supporters showed their religious rebellion by building the cult of the Supreme Being, a Deist movement, to replace the Catholicism which was a pillar of the old regime. But that did not stop him attacking those on his political left for atheism.
Clearly, for its time, Rousseau’s thinking was democratic and could legitimise the overthrow of tyrants. He supported the freedom of individuals but this freedom could only be within Social Contract and the General Will.
People who attack the General Will and the state (the “fabric of social right” as Rousseau puts it) cease to be citizens and become enemies of the state. They have declared war on it and if they are a real danger may be killed.
In May 1791, when the King was still on the throne, Robespierre made an impassioned plea against capital punishment and for the rights of the individual (to be fair most of his speeches seem to have been impassioned). In 1792 however he was arguing that then imprisoned King should not even be granted a trial but be summarily executed on the Rousseaunian grounds that the King had become an enemy of the state.
The King, he argued, had been dethroned for his crimes by the people and the General Will had been expressed. To give him a trial would be to open the matter to doubt; to do so and find him innocent would be in effect to find the people (the General Will) guilty which would be senseless. If it was not possible to find him innocent a trial would be a farce.
By 1794 Robespierre was calling in the Convention for the use of terror against the enemies of the state (the Republic) while using reason with the people. Nature, he said, echoing Rousseau, has imposed on every being the law of self-preservation. Just so with the state; the Republic must crush all internal and external enemies or be crushed. Terror is vital to insure that justice reigns: “The government of a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.” And this perhaps takes this Rousseauian theory to its limit on the subject.
Marx and Engels acknowledged the dialectical style of Rousseau and his importance for the French Revolution but were doubtful about the Terror which they thought was a tactic which came from weakness rather than strength.
Basically Rousseau was an idealist who did not have materialist roots to his philosophy, He realised that people were not naturally bad or sinful but erred in the other direction in thinking they are innately moral. He saw that problems arose from the division of labour and private property but didn’t realise they were the source of the main contradiction in society.
While Rousseau’s “state of nature” and Marx’s “primitive communism” can be compared, Marx saw the progressive historical stages of society (slavery, feudalism, capitalism, communism) based on the means of production which Rousseau was not, understandably, able to.
Some have equated the General Will with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat but the former is idealistic, semi-mystical, concept based on innate morality and a misguided idea of equality where as the latter is based on class realities and interests.
Nevertheless the ideas of Rousseau and his fellow “philosophes” served the need of the bourgeoisie in it hour of need. That they are ungratefully played down now is typical. In the same way they play down the role of Cromwell and the English Revolution, preferring to talk of the Glorious (and peaceful) Revolution of 1688.
They want to forget the revolutionary methods and theories which brought them to power and all their promises of liberty, equality and fraternity, which they have so obviously failed to deliver.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-06-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

... in the NEW WORKER

MAGISTRATES in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, have jailed a 39-year-old widow who was unable to pay a poll tax bill of £95.
There was no question of non-payment for political reasons – she offered to pay at £2-a-week from her weekly income of £57.
Demonstrations have taken place outside Holloway and Pentonville prisons in London, where non-payers have recently been jailed.
Croydon Against the Poll Tax has launched a new petition to save local democracy and restore the rights of communities and councillors.
“We found the collection of signatures much slower than when we started four years ago” campaigner Queenie Knight told the New Worker.
“Although councillors and town hall officials know the inroads on local democracy it has made no impact on the general public.”
“This is not surprising as the Government consultation does not cover the role of local government so the media concentrates on the council tax. “

*****************

TANKS have returned to the centre of Algiers in a new government crack down on the opposition Islamic Salvation Front.
In confrontations with demonstrators at least two youths were killed by police gunfire.
Tension had arisen after the Islamic leader, Abbasi Madani, had threatened a holy war against the FLN government, which has postponed general elections and imposed a state of emergency for four months.
Abbasi Madani and his deputy, Ali Belhadj, have now been arrested and charged with inciting rebellion and the police have seized their Party’s headquarters.
The emergency was imposed at the beginning of June after bloody clashes with Islamic protestors, demonstrating against what they claimed was FLN manipulation of electoral rules.
The appointment of a caretaker government to supervise the deferred elections, under Sid Ahmed Ghozali, had led to a brief respite in the violence and a withdrawal of the army from Islamic Front strongholds in the capital.

Ocalan's prison writings

2011-06-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

Review

By Andy Brooks

Prison Writings: The PKK And The Kurdish Question In The 21st Century
by Abdullah Ocalan, London 2011, 174 pp Pluto Press, £17.50.

ABDULLAH Ocalan was the leader of the Kurdish resistance in Turkey that was the focus for all progressive Kurds in the fight for freedom. Kidnapped in Kenya in 1999, Ocalan was tried and condemned to death by the Turkish authorities. Though this was commuted to life imprisonment, Ocalan remains to this day in prison on the island of Imrali. There he has written two books, in extremely difficult circumstances, making the case for the Kurdish people and proposing a new way forward to start the dialogue with Turkey and end the conflict that has claimed so many lives on both sides.
Some say that the Kurds missed the boat at Versailles in 1919 when the victorious Anglo-French imperialists carved up what was left of the Turkish Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The Arabs who had fought for Britain in the belief that they would get independence got promises that were never kept. The Zionists, who had supported the Entente against Germany and its allies, were allowed to settle in the new British “mandate” of Palestine. The Kurds got nothing.
Some lived in Iran, then a satellite of the British Empire. Others found themselves part of the new British “mandate” of Iraq headed by a puppet king imposed on the Iraqis after a nationalist revolt was crushed. Most Kurds remained in what became the Turkish republic, a bourgeois dictatorship led by General Mustafa Kemal, whose “Kemalism” dismissed them as “mountain Turks” and refused to recognise them as a separate nation.
When the Arabs of the Middle East broke the chains of colonialism after the Second World War the feudal Kurdish chiefs in Iraq sought the protection of the Shah of Iran and Anglo-American imperialism to strengthen their claim for independence. But in Turkey militant Kurds founded a revolutionary Marxist party, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and launched a guerrilla war in 1984 that for many years held the Turkish army at bay in a fight for freedom that still goes on today.
Following Ocalan’s arrest, the PKK declared a truce and offered to talk. But despite the virtual end of the uprising, the Turks still refuse to listen or even recognise that a problem exists.
In this second volume of prison writings, Ocalan reviews the entire history of the Kurds from ancient times to the modern era. He frankly talks about the problems and mistakes made by the PKK during the height of the guerrilla war and he appeals for a dialogue with the Turkish authorities to end the oppression of the Kurds, who live largely under Turkish military occupation.
Now no longer a doctrinaire Marxist, Ocalan rejects the old demand for “an independent, united and socialist Kurdistan” as neither a realistic nor practical objective. He calls, instead, for “a democratic country and a free homeland” wherever Kurds live and for his people to campaign for equal rights in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria in tandem with all the other democratic forces in those countries.
In Iraq the feudal Kurdish chiefs run an autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government under American protection. The Iranian Kurds have a regional government and a certain degree of cultural freedom within the Islamic Republic. But in Turkey, where the majority of the Kurdish people live, the Kurds are still denied even basic human rights.
In his prison writings Ocalan calls on the Arab and Iranian leaders and above all the Turkish government and the leading political forces in Turkey to begin the dialogue and resolve the “Kurdish problem” once and for all.
This is an important book that makes a serious contribution to understanding one of the key flash-points in the Middle East. It deserves a wide audience.

syrian anthem النشيد العربي السوري

2011-06-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-06-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

...in the NEW WORKER

WORKERS at Severn Trent Water are furious with their employers.
On the very day they gave an overwhelming “thumbs down” to an 8.75 per cent pay offer with strings, Severn Trent announced 15 per cent boost in profits to £249 million and increased dividends to shareholders by 18 per cent.
Those profits are at least 30 per cent above the level agreed with the Government on privatisation. Yet Severn Trent may raise its charges another 15 per cent.
Many water company executives gave themselves pay rises in excess of 50 per cent last year and company chairpersons are raking in pay packets between £110,000 and £150,000 a year.
“Severn Trent’s pay offer would have left 700 employees receiving less than the European low pay threshold whilst top executives have been getting rises of over £30,000”, Nalgo regional water officer Richard Burden said on behalf of the joint unions.

***********************

SEVEN Mongolian workers have gone on hunger strike in protest at the Government’s sell-off plans.
Employed by the public television repair company, in the capital Ulan Bator, the seven hunger strikers are demanding that workers should be given the option of buying their own company before it is sold.
Last year the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party followed Gorbachov’s road and paved the way for the restoration of capitalism in what had been the world’s second socialist state.
Now in coalition with non-communist parties set up by the reform leadership, the party is spearheading the drive to dismantle the socialist system.
Seventy per cent of the public sector is to be sold, including the vast herds of Mongolian cattle, which will be sold to private ranchers.
Once a major meat exporter Mongolia now faces food rationing and shortages of all kinds.

The Lenin Museum in Finland

2011-06-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Lenin Museum in Tampere, Finland is the best known Finnish museum abroad. Within the first decade of the 21st century, over 136,000 people found their way to the Lenin Museum.
The Lenin Museum in Tampere, founded in 1946, is the oldest remaining Lenin museum of the world (another can be found in Vyborg, Russia). The Museum is housed in the historic Tampere Workers’ Hall, where the Russian Bolsheviks under the guidance of V I Lenin held their conferences in 1905 and in 1906. Lenin and the former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin also met for the first time in this Workers’ Hall in 1905. The Lenin Museum is owned by the Finland-Russia Friendship Association.
Though most visitors are Finns, the museum is increasingly attracting a large number of visitors from abroad interested in the life and times of the Bolshevik leader. In 2010 10,868 guests from 78 countries made their way to the Lenin Museum ,from all continents, and even as far as Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The Lenin Museum now provides guide booklets and websites in Chinese language because of the increased number of Chinese visitors (218 last year) and a member of staff is now learning Chinese to help provide a better service for Chinese guests in the future.
The museum has its own shop which sells books and souvenirs, including works of Lenin and other ideological thinkers of the revolutionary movement, Soviet posters, badges, busts and Russian art works.
The Lenin Museum has two permanent exhibitions; Lenin’s Biography and Lenin and Finland. The first one colourfully depicts the life of V I Lenin from his childhood to his last days as the revolutionary leader of Soviet Russia. The other describes the numerous connections between the Finnish people and Lenin.
Together with the permanent displays a number of special exhibitions were held in 2010 including Lenin’s footsteps, Socialist realism in Finland in the 21st century and Photographs from revolutionary Cuba.
The website of the Lenin Museum is another popular service, largely in Finnish but including information in English, Russian and Chinese.
The Lenin Museum is the member of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI). In 2010 it cooperated with several institutions including the Lenin Museum in Vyborg in Russia as well as with the governmental museums in St Petersburg, Moscow and Krasnoyarsk.

The Defeat of the CPI(Marxist) in West Bengal

2011-06-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

THE RIGHT-wing swept the Left Front out of West Bengal in India’s legislative assembly elections in May. West Bengal, India’s fourth largest state in terms of population, with 90 million people, had been administered by the CPI(M)-led Left Front since 1977 without a break.

By Kumar Sarkar

The defeat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was expected, but not quite to the same extent as it actually happened. From my limited, though very recent, knowledge of present day West Bengal's urban and rural life, the opposition to the Left Front, stemming from frustrations in the urban areas, was massive, due primarily to extensive unemployment. The discontent in the rural areas has been a recent phenomenon, after the bureaucratic handling by the Left Front government of land acquisition to promote industrialisation. Otherwise, the support for the CPI(M) amongst the rural poor had been extensive after the “Operation Barga” (the code name for land distribution amongst the landless peasants). But, after that, the CPI(M) ran out of steam and did not do anything significant to weaken the semi-feudal rural life. “Panchayat” or the local level village administration was, of course, a big achievement, but this was not used with any vision for the future.
The socio-economic development of Indian society reflects uneven regional development. In this, West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra and Tamilnadu have a rich history of peasant struggles. The situation in Tamilnadu changed, for which I do not have good knowledge. Most of the Andhra communist leadership went to the side of various Naxalite groups and Andhra had been, until recently, a stronghold of the Maoists. Kerala and West Bengal have been the two bastions of the CPI(M).
In Kerala, the CPI(M) has a largely agrarian base of many radical peasant struggles. West Bengal is unique in many ways because of its early pre-colonial industrial development and consequent development of a significant middle class of “bhadraloks”, who control the self-styled revolutionary parties. They are comparable with Western petit-bourgeoisie, but remaining half-feudal in their socio-political outlook. They can be divided into two sub-classes: comprador and progressive or democratic. It is the latter sub-class that has been the backbone of the CPI(M) in West Bengal, which is the most democratic part of India.
Failing to grasp the essence of the uneven developments, the character of the semi-feudal and comprador bourgeois Indian society, and encouraged by understandable electoral successes in democratically advanced West Bengal, the CPI(M) has been gradually transformed into a reformist party, not comparable even with the Western Social Democracy. It has developed an all-India electoral strategy in which Bengal is attributed an "exemplary" role, which is supposed to attract the rest of India to follow suit!! And after 34 years, even the adjoining states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odishi and Assam still live in the predominantly feudal times and have not seen many red flags except in Bihar and the tribal areas. And, of course, the decimation of the CPI(M) now is in the heartland itself!
With the abovementioned all-India strategy, the CPI(M) became a full-fledged party of “parliamentary cretinism”. With seven successive terms of electoral victories for the West Bengal Legislative Assembly over 34 years, achieved mainly by rural land distribution and to some extent by coercive practices in the urban areas and with a massive and largely disciplined membership, winning elections became the sole objective.
Within the narrow boundaries of a regional administration, in a fake federal system with member states having no real fiscal powers, soon it became impossible to satisfy the demands of the unemployed in the urban areas without initiating large scale industrialisation, which, again, could only be provided by the compradors! The problem was made worse by acquiring lands, paradoxically from those who had earlier been given lands, forcibly and using an archaic colonial act!!
With the class-consciousness emanating from 34 years of Left Front rule, the peasants firmly and militantly resisted such acquisition, led by the very forces, wearing the mask of populism, which had been cornered for three decades. An incredible irony indeed! The initially declared objective of using the Left Front government as an ”instrument of class struggle”, soon became, inevitably, an instrument of class collaboration!
To this can be added the antithesis of 34 years of continuous rule, the personal behaviour and high handedness and arrogance of thousands of cadres, and large-scale corruption of leaders, many of who have no ideological interests in the communist movement.
The electoral battle was fought almost entirely within the limits permitted by the ruling classes, represented by the regional Trinamul (Grassroots) Congress and the all-India Congress party. While the Trinamul wore the mask of populism, conveniently, to counter the leftwing signboards of the governing combine, the issues raised were naturally confined to good governance, law and order, corruption, education and jobs for sons and daughters of the bhadraloks and place of West Bengal in the all-India league table of capitalist exploitation.
Alongside this there was also the issue of the land acquisition policy for industrialisation to pacify the rural voters. Unashamedly the CPI(M) treated the issue of tribal struggle, led by Maoists in the western parts of the state, as a central issue of terrorism and law and order and asked for help from the Centre to crush it. Under these circumstances, the bourgeois media was highly successful in sending out waves of skilfully designed “news” item against the Left Front, and became instrumental in befooling even the most faithful that a “change” would be in their best interests, at least for one term.
The “electorate” chose the direct representatives of the bourgeois-semi feudal forces rather than their indirect bhadralok apologists. And, surprise, surprise, the bhadraloks have already promised, “to play the role of a responsible and constructive opposition” to feudal and comprador forces!!
The defeat of the CPI(M) creates an unforeseen political crisis. Tactics, which appear to be inappropriate, at least from outside, have prevented revolutionary communists from using, appropriately and positively, the heightened class consciousness in the countryside, originating from the Left rule, and accommodating this into an all-India strategy that has three inter-related components:

(a) Regions with land reforms completed;
(b) Regions with almost unchanged feudalism and;
(c) Tribal areas where production relations are older than feudalism.

The revolutionary process that has unfolded in the tribal areas is likely to resonate eventually in the areas of (b), creating its own dynamics. As for the areas of (a), the process may require some skilful initial use of electoral politics, with West Bengal being an appropriate component.
But to do so systematically, the issue of the democratic revolution as characterised by the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920 needs to be re-opened in the 21st century. The concept of democratic revolution in post-colonial and semi-feudal countries, with a big comprador bourgeoisie as distinct from its original anti-feudal European “counterpart”, and as a prelude to socialist revolution, remains a relatively undeveloped area in Marxism. The example of India elucidates this problem.
In India, an ex-colonial country of semi-feudalism and comprador bourgeoisie, there is still no “proletarian” working class of the Western type. As per official statistics, 43.9 per cent are self-employed (mostly agricultural, followed by wholesale and retail sales), 39.3 per cent are casual labour (mostly agricultural, followed by construction work) and 16.8 per cent are waged/salaried (mostly manufacturing, followed by community services). As per fields of work, 46 – 52 per cent of the working population is agricultural, 34 per cent is in the service sector and 14 per cent is in the industry, dominated by textiles; 65.8 per cent work in enterprises having fewer than 10 workers. 43.6 per cent are employed in seasonal or ad hoc type of enterprises [35.9 per cent of the total population is available for work, 63.5 per cent of the 15 – 59 age category; 9.4 per cent of those who are available for work are unemployed, 4.9 per cent in the 15 – 59 age group] (Source: Government of India, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Labour Bureau, October 2010). A large number of people are engaged in pre-capitalist mode of productions. All categories of workers have a dual character with a constant “backward” link with their peasant roots.
Of course this makes the worker-peasant alliance very convenient. In my last visit about two months ago to a Bengali village, about 20 miles from the large town of Howrah with its extensive small scale industries, I came across a growing trend of young members of peasant families daily commuting to Howrah to work in a sheet metal manufacturing factory. Some of these probably work sometimes as agricultural wage labourers.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-05-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

...in the NEW WORKER

Rolls Royce workers lobbied shareholders of the aerospace group last week.
Some workers who own shares entered the group’s annual general meeting to make their criticisms.
The 34,000 workforce had been angered when the company issued them contract termination notices in order to impose a pay freeze.
Threats of legal action and industrial action forced the company to back off, but it still wants the pay freeze and 6,000 aerospace job cuts.
Trade union negotiators were meeting the company as we went to press.
Workers at the Leavesden site, which is threatened with closure at a cost of 1,760 jobs, are preparing detailed proposals for keeping at least the engine plant open.
Rolls plans to sell the site, which it recently purchased from the Ministry of Defence, a move reminiscent of the British Aerospace-Royal Ordinance scandal.
Lord Tombs, Roll’s chairman, announced he would cut his salary by 10 per cent, from £150,000 to £135,000 in 1991.

Soviet soldiers have clashed with nationalist militias in renewed tension in the Baltic states.
No-one was killed but the Lithuanian and Latvian authorities claim Soviet soldiers held their militiamen at gunpoint and then burnt down the border check-points which they have illegally set up across their frontiers.
The Soviet forces, Black-Berets from the Interior Ministry, were involved in bloody clashes with nationalist groups last year.
The nationalist regimes have demanded their withdrawal from the Baltic region.
In Moscow attention is focusing on the forthcoming Russian Federation elections.
Yeltsin is leading a high-profile campaign, promising to retire from public life if his challenge fails.
His rival, Soviet President Gorbachov, is trying to remain in the limelight by giving publicity to the private visit of former British premier Margaret Thatcher, who has arrived fresh from a similar jaunt in South Africa.

TWENTY YEARS AGO...

2011-05-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

...in the NEW WORKER

THE NATIONAL Association of Local Government Officers last Monday resumed pay talks with employers on behalf of 500,000 local government members.
They are claiming a rise of 12 per cent of the Council of Europe decency threshold of £9,330, whichever is greater. Around 38 per cent of their members are paid less than this threshold.
Nalgo is also seeking to make the adult rate payable at 18 instead of 21, reductions in the working week and increases in annual leave.
This claim was first submitted in January, giving the employers a long period of consultation on the claim and the unions expected a first offer by the beginning of May.
So far the employers have made no offer and are divided on whether or not to make an offer by the end of this month.
This would be likely to anger the membership and lead to calls for strike action as happened in 1989, when a programme of one-day stoppages and selective strikes by Nalgo members won a substantial pay award.

****

YUGOSLAVIA stands on the brink of civil war, despite the talks between the Serbian and Croat leaderships and the army has demanded sweeping powers to stop the ethnic violence.
Fighting between Croat and Serbian nationalist militias led to many deaths last week. At least one soldier died in clashes with Croat nationalists. The national army, in which most officers are Serbs, may also disintegrate if the crisis worsens.
Hungary is believed to be arming the Croat militias who accuse Romania of backing the Serbian-Montenegran front.
Yugoslavia’s constitution provides for a presidency that rotates among the individual republics and is virtually nominal.
Yugoslavia’s worsening economy and its unworkable federal constitution have produced a situation like that in the Lebanon with nationalists leaders from every community and religious group set on establishing local centres of power.

The Scottish Elections

2011-05-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

By our Scottish Political Correspondent

IN THE AFTERMATH of last year’s general election, in which Labour reversed the trend in England, members thought they had a fair chance of reversing the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections that saw the Scottish National Party form a minority administration with 47 MSPs, only one more than Labour’s 46. When the formal campaign for the 2011 election began this seemed unlikely as Labour’s lead in the polls faded away. After an insipid and accident-prone campaign by Labour it was clear that former Royal Bank of Scotland economist, First Minister Alex Salmond, was staying put in his official residence.
However it was not until the early hours of Friday morning that the extent of Labour’s defeat and the Nationalist triumph became clear. The final results saw the SNP secure an overall majority with 69 seats, Labour came a distant second with 37, the Tories had 17 (two down from 2007), the Liberal Democrats, despite frantic efforts to distance themselves from the coalition, dropped to five seats from their former 16. Two Greens and an Independent (a former Nationalist) retained their seats.
Labour lost a lot more than the reduction of nine MSPs implies. As only 73 MSPs were elected for constituencies with another 56 being elected on a top-up party list system some of their losses were compensated by gains on the lists. Under this system the former Tory leader lost his Edinburgh constituency seat, but will reappear as a regional list MSP. However, none of the Labour constituency MSPs were also on the regional lists, so those new Labour MSPs are not exactly inspiring figures or intellectual heavyweights.
Remarkably the percentage of people voting Labour declined only by a microscopic 0.5 per cent, but the fact that only one in 200 voters deserted Labour was of no help as the SNP vacuumed up votes from disaffected voters from all other parties, thus causing Labour to lose the sort of seat where they used to weigh the Labour votes.
As has became the norm in the three previous elections to what comedian Billy Connolly called the “pretendy wee parliament,” the election saw only about half the electorate inspired to rise from their sofas to the polling stations. Turnout was particularly low in working class areas; in one Glasgow constituency turnout was a just under 35 per cent. The highest turnout was 63 per cent in a leafy former Tory seat won by Labour.
On the fringes of the election those standing for left-wing parties did not make any significant impact. Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, the Scottish Socialist Party and their former comrades in Solidarity stood in all the regional lists. Political train spotters can find full details of their votes at the bottom of the results tables among those for the Pensioners, Christians, UKIP and single issue candidates.
Curiously enough, of these three left parties the one which did the best was the SLP which, in contrast to the other two, has virtually no visible presence in Scotland. In Glasgow George Galloway, standing as a Solidarity-backed opponent of the cuts failed to win a seat, doubtless much to the relief of the remaining Labour MSPs whom Galloway cruelly, but accurately, described as having a struggle to become nonentities.
In Donald Dewar’s old constituency of Glasgow Anniesland, the incumbent Labour MSP lost to the SNP by a mere seven votes. This was the sole seat in Scotland contested by the Communist Party of Britain, whose candidate who polled 245 votes. He was quoted in the Morning Star as saying “... the defeat of Bill Butler, a consistent left-wing Labour MSP, is a blow to the whole left in Scotland”. That may be the case, but if so why oppose him in an election? In the west of Scotland there were many right-wing MSPs who would have been better targets.
The fascists, in the form of the BNP and the curious Scottish Homeland Party (who want to prevent Turkey joining the European Union, hardly a vital issue to Scots) all did badly. However the BNP’s small vote was always greater that the two Trotskyite parties.
Until a dramatic change of tack in the last week of the campaign, Labour more or less ignored the SNP and spent most of its time and energy attacking the Con-Dem Coalition. Given that David Cameron was not actually standing this was a big mistake. Labour’s few attacks on the SNP focussed on their plans to hold a referendum on separating from England as being a distraction from more mundane economic questions. Opposing such a vote was clearly an error, given that if a referendum actually been called it would have seen a resounding defeat for the Nationalists.
What of the future? The insipid Labour leader Iain Gray, who only just survived election night, is standing down as leader. The pool of talent to replace him is not great. For what it matters, the leader of the Liberal Democrats also fell upon his sword, leaving four other MSPs in the running. This leadership contest is unlikely to be riveting viewing.
Trying very hard not to gloat, El Presidento, Alex Salmond in his victory speech, claimed that he would “govern for all the ambitions for Scotland and all people who imagine that we can live in a better land”. These pieties bring to mind Margaret Thatcher’s quoting St Francis on the steps of Downing Street when she was first elected Prime Minister and promising to end strife.
Salmond’s previous administration did indeed introduce some welcome minor reforms such as abolishing prescription charges for the few not covered by exemptions, but his main policies are not progressive. He and his normally Tory backers want the Scottish Parliament to have control of taxation in order to reduce Corporation Tax on multi-national businesses. Tellingly, shortly before the election Salmond’s main attacks on the Tories focussed on their plans to levy a tax on oil companies.

Fifty Years of Human Spaceflight!

2011-05-07T02:09:00.000-07:00

Review

By Theo Russell

Yuri Gagarin - The First Spaceman by Vix Southgate; First Orbit, directed by Christopher Riley; Little Eagles, by Rona Munro.

SPACE enthusiasts and scientists from around the world came together last month in a global celebration of the new era of space exploration which began with Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight, on 12th April 1961.
Writers, broadcasters and scientists from Britain were at the forefront of several projects aimed at giving Gagarin’s flight the momentous commemmoration it deserves, and to encourage young people to learn about space exploration and astronomy.
Yuri Gagarin – The First Spaceman is a comic, or graphic novel, style book detailing the flight as it happened, aimed at schoolchildren by Vix Southgate. Vix is an author and illustrator specialising in science-based stories, and also administrator of Yurigagarin50.org, a website promoting Gagarin events around the world.
The book, which combines text and comic strip, recounts that Gagarin was an ordinary boy who witnessed his village being occupied by the German invaders, and grew up to be a skilled worker.
“He grew up as a farm boy and saw the horrors of war. He went to live in Moscow to become better educated and he trained to become a foundryman at a steelworks. He went on to technical school and joined a flying school, later becoming a pilot in the Soviet military. He joined the space programme and became the first man in space.”
Vix’s website (http://www.vixsouthgate.co.uk/) also contains valuable resources designed for school teachers and links to websites Gagarin space exploration and astronomy.
YuriGagarin50.org contains lots of fascinating information about the Russian astronaut, his space flight and his visit to Britain in 1961 and pulls together other people’s memories of the day.
The film First Orbit, launched on YouTube 12th April is a remarkable international collaboration directed by Christopher Riley. It opened on over 1,000 screens around the world in more than 75 countries, including UNESCO HQ in Paris, Boeing HQ in Seattle, and the European Space Agency’s Columbus Control Centre near Munich. It has now been viewed over 2.8 million times on in almost every country on Earth.
The film, which took almost five years to bring together, is a collaboration between the European Space Agency, Roscosmos, Nasa and the ISS.
It combines original footage of Gagarin’s training and flight with film shot by Italian astronaut and photographer Paolo Nespoli from the International Space Station (ISS), matching as closely as possible the orbit followed by Gagarin's Vostok 1 spaceship.
It also uses historic audio recordings of the entire mission, which many thought to be lost, and is probably the first time it has been heard outside of Russia.
The music accompanying the stunning shots of the earth from space was composed by British musician Philip Sheppard, who also wrote the music for the Olympic Handover Ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
First Orbit can also be downloaded from the website by anyone applying for permission to show it to a group of people.
The ISS is itself in many ways a continuation of the Soviet space programme, and its full name in the space industry is “ISS-Zarya”. Zarya, “dawn” in Russian, was the first module of the ISS. It was launched in 1998 from the same cosmodrome – the famous Baikonur in Kazakhstan – as Vostok 1.
While the United States has provided most of the funding and built most of the modules, the ISS is a genuine international undertaking involving Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada. Five of its 15 modules are Russian-built and another, Nauka (Science) is due to be added next year.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, regards the ISS as the continuation of a "permanent Soviet human presence in low-Earth orbit", and there can be no doubt that it would have taken many more years to develop without the pioneering work of the Salyut and Mir space stations on long-duration human spaceflight.
While the Soviet Union clearly saw the military potential in developing space flight from the beginning, it also actively pursued the use of space flight for peaceful scientific purposes. Today, 50 years after Gagarin’s flight, Russia and many other countries still oppose the militarisation of space.
One addition to the contributions made by Vix Southgate and First Orbit to the Gagarin celebrations, the play Little Eagles recounts the life of Sergei Korolyev, the extraordinary genius and Chief Designer behind the Soviet space programme. The play, by Rona Munro, is being performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Hampstead Theatre, North London, until 7th May.
The 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight not only marks the beginning of a new era in human history, but reminds us of the positive contribution and the peaceful international cooperation still being made possible through the exploration of space. Projects such as First Orbit and Yuri Gagarin – The First Spaceman and Little Eagles are helping to bring those inspiring ideals to a new generation.

photo: Vix Southgate

Twenty Years Ago

2011-04-28T03:29:00.000-07:00

...in the NEW WORKER

Politicians began arriving at Belfast’s Stormont Castle last Tuesday to make preliminary arrangements for talks on the political future of the occupied Six Counties of northern Ireland. The talks are billed in most of the media as “historic”.
Much is being made of the participation of both unionist and nationalist parties. The Financial Times said: “It is the first time nationalists and unionists have sat at the same table for 15 years”.
The talks will be opened by the British Government’s northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke and the Irish Government is expected to take part at a later date.
Speaking at a meeting of Sinn Fein’s Executive Committee, Sinn Fein president and West Belfast MP Gerry Adams said:
“Contrary to media reports and political criticism Sinn Fein is not critical of the current British process simply because we are not involved. If it held out hope of a permanent and peaceful solution we would welcome it.
But we are not naive ... We believe in Irish independence not only for ideological or even patriotic and democratic reasons – it also makes sense.
Partition and British involvement has not worked. It has been a catalyst for conflict. Irish Independence, an end to the British connection, can be a catalyst for peace and justice
This is the stated view of all other Irish political parties except Unionists. This is the basis on which we judge the Brooke process.
Our collective experience persuades republicans that in spite of Brooke’s November speech in which he claimed Britain has no ‘selfish, strategic or economic’ interest in the north, it is in reality Britain which is setting the agenda setting the current political agenda underpinned by a re-affirmation of the Unionist veto”.

******************************

Twenty Years Ago

2011-04-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

...in the NEW WORKER

The Trades Union Congress may agree the affiliation of the Electrical and Plumbing Industries Trade Union this week.
The 4,000 strong EPIU was formed when the EEPTU was expelled from the TUC in 1988. The EPIU was given observer status in 1989 but was refused full membership.
The TUC says the EPIU is now self sufficient and no longer dependent on other unions. Holding sections for EPIU members set up by the TGWU, MSF and GNB general unions will be disbanded.
Some members of the general council had hoped a way could be found for the EEPTU to return but that is extremely unlikely.
Leading members of both the AEU engineering union and UCATT building workers union want merger with EEPTU. A rat race could develop to carve it up.

Mikhail Gorbachov has returned empty-handed from Japan to face renewed demands from all quarters for his resignation.
The visit was a failure. Gorbachov had been seeking some £15 billion worth of Japanese aid to stave off the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.
But he was unable to meet the Japanese demand for the return of some or all of the Kurile islands, which Tokyo has set as their price for propping up his ailing regime.
The Japanese government had been expecting a major concession from the Soviet side over the Kurile islands, whose strategic and economic importance and history as part of Russia until 1905 led to their re-incorporation into the Soviet Union after the victory over Japan in 1945.
Many suspect the Soviet leader had privately indicated his willingness to meet Japan’s demands. But the intervention of his rival, Boris Yelstin who controls the Russian Federation made this impossible.

******************************

Historic opportunity for communists

2011-04-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

By New Worker correspondent

COMMUNIST and workers’ parties from all over Europe met in Brussels on 11th and 12th April to exchange views on the response of the movement to social and political processes across the continent. Representatives of 38 parties from 31 countries, including the New Communist Party of Britain, took part in the conference held in the European Parliament in the Belgian capital. Mirta Castro, head of the Cuban delegation to the European Parliament, ambassador to Belgium and Luxemburg and representative of the Communist Party of Cuba, was also present at the meeting.
The conference was opened by Aleka Papariga, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), who said that there was now a historic opportunity to direct the thoughts and actions of the peoples in struggle towards working class power.
But she stressed that that even if a pro-people majority in parliament was elected in one country and a government was formed on this basis, it would still not be able to overcome the limits of the basic laws of capitalism if it did not resolve the central issue of the socialisation of the basic means of production, withdrawal from the EU and Nato, nationwide planning and workers’ control from the bottom up.
NCP general secretary Andy Brooks represented the party at the conference and in his intervention he stressed the NCP’s opposition to the imperialist attack on Libya and its support for the massive anti-cuts protest in London last March. He called for mass industrial action against the cuts to build the resistance to the ruling class offensive.

Brussels European Communist and Workers Parties Conference April 2011

2011-04-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

Joint Statement

The communist and workers parties which participated in the European Communist Meeting in Brussels, 11-12 April, exchanged their views on the ongoing deep crisis of the capitalist system and denounce the imperialist aggression against Libya. This war, in the conditions of the capitalist crisis, is a continuation of the barbaric assault which capital has unleashed at the expense of the working class and the popular strata of our countries through savage anti-people measures. The imperialist intervention of the USA, NATO, and the EU in Libya is yet another crime of the imperialists at the expense of the peoples. The false pretexts which the imperialists use cannot conceal the truth that the inter-imperialist competition for the control of natural resources in Africa, the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caspian is intensifying. We demand the cessation of the imperialist war, that the bases be closed and every kind of assistance for the implementation of the imperialist plans be stopped. Also in the case of Libya we consider that the people must have the right to choose its path of development on its own, without foreign interventions.

At the same time in the name of “competitiveness” with other imperialist powers, the bourgeois class of the countries of Europe generalises the anti-worker measures. They reduce wages and pensions in the name of the crisis in order to ensure the profitability of capital. In many countries savage reductions of labour and trade union rights are being promoted, unemployment is on the rise, the right to strike and other trade union freedoms are being undermined, xenophobia is strengthening while the poor farmers are being wiped out in favour of the big farmers and monopoly groups. The historical limits of capitalism are being demonstrated objectively, as it cannot solve the basic problems of the peoples.

The bourgeois class is very well aware of the fact that the main enemies of their strategy, the main opponents of the capitalist system are the communist and workers’ parties. For that reason in many countries they intensify the anticommunist threats, persecutions and bans.

However, there is only one way for the peoples. Only through the struggles of the workers for the working class- people’s problems, for the political power of the working class, we can pave the way for social progress, for socialism.

The communist and workers’ parties of Europe are against the membership of new countries in NATO, struggle for the withdrawal of their countries from NATO having as a goal the dismantlement of NATO.

We salute the massive struggles of the class-oriented movement that are taking place in many European countries. The peoples are benefited by the growth of the current that challenges the anti-people political line, the imperialist organisations, and the capitalist path of development itself.

The communist and workers’ parties which participated in the meeting decided to further intensify their activity and coordination.

СОВМЕСТНОЕ ЗАЯВЛЕНИЕ

Коммунистические и рабочие партии, принявшие участие в Европейской коммунистической встрече, организованной в Брюсселе 11-12 апреля, обменялись мнениями относительно развивающегося, глубокого кризиса и осудили империалистическую агрессию против Ливии. В условиях капиталистического кризиса, эта война является продолжением варварского наступления капитала на рабочий класс и народные слои наших стран, посредством применения жёстких антинародных мер. Империалистическая интервенция США, НАТО и ЕС в Ливии – очередное преступление империалистов против народов. Лживые предлоги империалистов не могут скрыть истины – обострения межимпериалистической конкуренции за контроль над природными ресурсами Африки, Ближнего Востока, Восточного Средиземноморья и Каспийского моря. Мы требуем прекращения империалистической войны, закрытия военных баз и отказа от участия в реализации империалистических планов. И в случае Ливии, мы считаем, то народ должен избрать собственный путь развития без давления иностранных империалистических интервенций.

В то же время для обеспечения конкурентоспособности по отношению к другим империалистическим державам, буржуазный класс в странах Европы осуществляет антирабочие меры. Во многих странах, как членах ЕС, так и в других для обеспечения высоких прибылей капитала сокращаются зарплаты и пенсии. Попираются трудовые и профсоюзные права, растёт безработица, урезаются право на забастовку и профсоюзные свободы, усиливается ксенофобия, в интересах крупных землевладельцев и монополий разоряются бедные крестьяне. Налицо объективные доказательства исторической ограниченности капитализма, его неспособность решать основные проблемы народа.

Буржуазный класс прекрасно знает, что основной противник его стратегии, основной враг капиталистической системы – это коммунистические партии. Поэтому во многих странах отмечается рост угроз, гонений в отношении коммунистов и вводятся запреты на коммунистическую идеологию.

Но для народов нет другого пути. Только борьба трудящихся за трудовые и народные права, за политическую власть рабочего класса открывает путь к социальному прогрессу, к социализму.

Коммунистические и рабочие партии Европы выступают против вступления новых стран в НАТО, борются за выход своих стран из НАТО, имея целью развал НАТО.

Мы приветствуем массовую борьбу рабочих и народа, борьбу классового рабочего движения, которая ведется во многих европейских странах. В интересах всех трудящихся, чтобы народы стали решительней оспаривать антинародную политику, империалистические организации и сам капиталистический способ развития.

Коммунистические и рабочие партии, принявшие участие во Встрече решили усилить свою деятельность и координацию.

Parties

1. Communist Party of Styria [Austria]
2. Communist Party of Belarus
3. Workers' Party of Belgium
4. New Communist Party of Britain
5. Communist Party of Britain
6. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
7. AKEL-Cyprus
8. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
9. Communist Party in Denmark
10. Communist Party of Denmark
11. Communist Party of Estonia
12. Finland Communist Workers’ Party for Peace and Socialism
13. Pole of Rebirth of Communistes in France
14. Union of Revolutionary Communistes of France URCF
15. German Communist Party(DKP)
16. Communist Party of Greece
17. Hungarian Workers' Communist Party
18. The Workers' Party of Ireland
19. Communist Party of Ireland
20. Communist Peoples' Left, Italy
21. Socialist Party of Latvia
22. Communist Party of Luxembourg
23. Movement of People's Resistance, Moldavia
24. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
25. Communist Party of Norway
26. Communist Party of Poland
27. Communist Party of Russian Federation
28. Communist Workers' Party of Russia - Revolutionary Party of Communists
29. Communist Party of Soviet Union
30. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
31. Communist Party of Slovakia
32. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain
33. Communist Party of Sweden
34. Party of Labour, Switzerland
35. Communist Party of Turkey
36. (EMEP), Turkey
37. Union of Communists of Ukraine

Brussels conference: Resolution on Belarus

2011-04-16T02:20:00.001-07:00

RESOLUTION ON BELARUS

The communist and workers’ parties and organizations which participated in the European communist meeting held in Brussels 11-12 April 2011 condemn the bombing of the Minsk metro, which caused the death and injury of dozens of people. With this motion we express our grief for the victims of this act and our condemnation of the continuing plans of destabilization, which are being elaborated with the intervention of the USA, the EU and NATO.

We express our support for the right of every people to choose its own path of development, without foreign imperialist interference.

РЕЗОЛЮЦИЯ ПО БЕЛОРУССИИ

Коммунистические и рабочие партии и организации, принявшие участие в Европейской коммунистической встрече, состоявшейся в Брюсселе 11-12 апреля 2011 г. осуждают взрыв в метро Минска, в результате которого погибли и получили ранения десятки человек. В этой резолюции мы выражаем скорбь по поводу жертв этого действия и осуждаем планы по дестабилизации в стране, вынашиваемые при помощи США, ЕС и НАТО.
Мы поддерживаем право каждого народа самостоятельно избирать свой путь развития, без иностранных империалистических вмешательств.

======
1. Communist Party of Styria [Austria]
2. Communist Party of Belarus
3. Workers' Party of Belgium
4. New Communist Party of Britain
5. Communist Party of Britain
6. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
7. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
8. Communist Party in Denmark
9. Communist Party of Denmark
10. Communist Party of Estonia
11. Finland Communist Workers’ Party for Peace and Socialism
12. Pole of Rebirth of Communistes in France
13. Union of Revolutionary Communistes of France URCF
14. German Communist Party(DKP)
15. Communist Party of Greece
16. Hungarian Workers' Communist Party
17. The Workers' Party of Ireland
18. Communist Party of Ireland
19. Communist Peoples' Left, Italy
20. Socialist Party of Latvia
21. Communist Party of Luxembourg
22. Movement of People's Resistance, Moldavia
23. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
24. Communist Party of Norway
25. Communist Party of Poland
26. Portuguese Communist Party
27. Communist Party of Russian Federation
28. Communist Workers' Party of Russia - Revolutionary Party of Communists
29. Communist Party of Soviet Union
30. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
31. Communist Party of Slovakia
32. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain
33. Communist Party of Sweden
34. Party of Labour, Switzerland
35. Communist Party of Turkey
36. (EMEP), Turkey
37. Union of Communists of Ukraine

Brussels Conference: Support for the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

2011-04-16T02:12:00.000-07:00

Support for the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

The Communist and Workers’ parties which participated in the European Communist Meeting held in Brussels 11-12 April 2011 raise their voices in intense protest at the systematic persecution and discrimination against the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NCPY).

At the order of the Serbian government the Central Committee of the NCPY is obliged to vacate its only offices in Belgrade within eight days. Despite the fact that the main offices of the NCPY have been locate there for the last 20 years from the moment of its foundation. And at the same time, the Serbian authorities have not provided the NCPY with any other location to move its offices to.

We demand the immediate cessation of the persecution against the NCPY.

Hands off the NCPY!

=================
В поддержку Новой коммунистической партии Югославии

Коммунистические и рабочие партии, принявшие участие в Европейской коммунистической встрече, организованной в Брюсселе 11-12 апреля, выражают свой резкий протест против систематического преследования и дискриминации направленной против Новой коммунистической партии Югославии (НКПЮ).

По приказу правительства Сербии, Центральный комитет НКПЮ должен за восемь дней покинуть свой единственный штаб в Белграде. Несмотря на то, что в последние 20 лет, со дня формирования НКПЮ, штаб-квартира партии размещалась в этом здании. Одновременно, власть Сербии не представила НКПЮ никакого другого помещения под штаб.

Эти действия правительства Сербии направлены против НКПЮ, которая давно является частью международного коммунистического движения.

Мы требуем немедленно прекратить преследования против НКПЮ!

Руки прочь от НКПЮ!

The Parties

1. Communist Party of Styria [Austria]
2. Communist Party of Belarus
3. Workers' Party of Belgium
4. New Communist Party of Britain
5. Communist Party of Britain
6. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
7. AKEL-Cyprus
8. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
9. Communist Party in Denmark
10. Communist Party of Denmark
11. Communist Party of Estonia
12. Finland Communist Workers’ Party for Peace and Socialism
13. Pole of Rebirth of Communistes in France
14. Union of Revolutionary Communistes of France URCF
15. German Communist Party(DKP)
16. Communist Party of Greece
17. Hungarian Workers' Communist Party
18. The Workers' Party of Ireland
19. Communist Party of Ireland
20. Communist Peoples' Left, Italy
21. Socialist Party of Latvia
22. Communist Party of Luxembourg
23. Movement of People's Resistance, Moldavia
24. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
25. Communist Party of Norway
26. Communist Party of Poland
27. Portuguese Communist Party
28. Communist Party of Russian Federation
29. Communist Workers' Party of Russia - Revolutionary Party of Communists
30. Communist Party of Soviet Union
31. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
32. Communist Party of Slovakia
33. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain
34. Communist Party of Sweden
35. Party of Labour, Switzerland
36. Communist Party of Turkey
37. (EMEP), Turkey
38. Union of Communists of Ukraine

Joint Statement on Solidarity with the Palestinian People

2011-03-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

The International Meeting on "The Palestinian Problem and the Solidarity of the Left to the Struggle of the Heroic People of Palestine" organised on 25-26 February, 2011, in Nicosia, Cyprus by AKEL, with the participation of the Communist and Left parties and liberation organizations listed below, condemns the continuous crimes committed against the Palestinian people, demands the immediate end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and calls for the recognition of the Palestinian state on the borders of June 4th 1967.

Talks between Palestine and Israel are in a complete deadlock due to the Israeli intransigent policy aiming to perpetuate the occupation and to destroy any possibility for the establishment of an independent, sovereign, viable Palestinian state. Israeli aggressive and intransigent policy has been tolerated and supported by the United States and by the complicity of EU and in particular by a number of EU member-states and institutions. The new NATO dogma, adopted in Lisbon, constitutes upgrading of the alliance of aggressiveness; hence it becomes even more dangerous for the peoples in the region and the world.

Forty four years after the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, Israel, violating international law, pursues unabatedly its expansionist policies continuing the building of settlements, colonizing East Jerusalem and the West Bank, evicting Palestinians, demolishing Palestinian houses, stealing away the land, water and resources that belong to the Palestinian people. A policy reminiscent of ethnic cleansing. Almost seven years after the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice declared that the construction by Israel of the wall of shame to be contrary to International Law, Israel continues to fortify the wall tearing apart the Palestinian land and society, leaving the Palestinian towns and villages without land and water, dividing communities, separating the farmers from their land, the patients from the hospitals, and the schoolchildren from their schools. Two years after the Israeli war on Gaza in December 2008 that resulted in the death of over 1,350 citizens wounded thousands of innocent civilians including women, children and elderly, destroyed homes, properties and infrastructure that still lay in ruins, the humanitarian tragedy remains. The residents of Gaza are still deprived of the most basic goods and services. The Israeli attack on Gaza is in reality an aggression against the entire Palestinian people.

Almost five years after the siege of Gaza, and despite the slight slackening of it, more than one million Palestinians continue to live in conditions of an open air prison. The daily attacks by the Israeli occupation army against the unarmed Palestinian population defending its land and right to freedom and statehood cause daily victims that constitute a constant bleeding and war crimes mainly silenced by the international press.

In view of the above, the representatives of the participating Parties and Organisations consider that these policies and facts close all doors and opportunities in front of a just and comprehensive solution of the Palestinian problem and in the Middle East in general.

Based on the above, the signatories wish to declare the following:

(1) We reaffirm our support for and solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle to regain their legitimate and inalienable national rights, including the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent and sovereign state on the borders of June 4, 1967, with Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) as its capital, as well as the right of return for all Palestinian refugees in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194;

(2) We demand the immediate end of the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian and Arab lands, including Syrian Golan heights and the remaining Lebanon Shebaa Farms, that are illegally under the control of Israel since 1967; we call the international community to proceed with the recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with the implementation of UN resolutions;

(3) We condemn the racist character of the Zionist movement and its plans and atrocities against the Palestinian people and we express our full support to the right of the Palestinians in resistance against the occupation;

(4) We condemn the Israeli intransigent policy vis-à-vis the talks and continual creation of faits accomplis mainly through the settlement policy that resulted to a deadlock for which Israel is fully responsible;

(5) We condemn the support of imperialist forces towards Israel that encourages the continuation and escalation of its criminal policies. Using the veto right in the security council of the U.N by USA concerning the Israeli settlements, is a recent example of this support by imperialist forces to Israel; We also condemn the political forces that are keeping equal distances between the victim and the victimizer, by accepting or even supporting the aggressive policy of Israel.

(6) We demand the immediate full lifting of the siege of Gaza, the re-opening of borders, the opening of the Rafah crossing by Egypt and the rapid reconstruction of all that was damaged or destroyed by this unjustifiable aggression and hold Israel accountable for all the damages; the Goldstone report and recommendations that considers Israel responsible for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, must be implemented and Israel’s impunity should be stopped; the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are part of the future Palestinian state and any division between them would render a Palestinian state non-viable and is unacceptable.

(7) We strongly condemn the perpetuated construction of the racist wall as well as of the colonial settlements in the occupied West Bank which violate all relevant UN resolutions and constitute a flagrant violation of International Law. We demand the immediate removal of the wall and all the settlements.

(8) We demand the immediate release from custody of all the freedom prisoners in Israeli detention, including women, children, elderly and elected representatives.

(9) We extend our solidarity to the forces in Israeli society resisting and denouncing the criminal Israeli policies against the Palestinians and against democracy

(10) We urge all sections of Palestinian national movement to advance the national dialog and to work seriously and in a responsible manner toward ending the internal split and re-establishing Palestinian national unity. This process should be aiming at strengthening the role of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate and sole recognized representative of the Palestinian people and also at reforming the role and status of the PLO, on democratic bases, with an open door to all those Palestinian forces or organizations desiring to join it. In this respect, we welcome the announcement of Presidential, legislative and local elections ahead of the possible declaration of Palestinian state

(11) We declare our decisiveness to be a vital part of the international campaign to support the goal of international recognition of the Palestinian state. In the above framework, until September 2011 we shall proceed with the following concrete initiatives:
(a) To carry out an international campaign for raising signatures of support to the aim of international recognition of the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders; (b) After coordination with the GUE-NGL group, to organize a meeting in the European Parliament in order to raise the issue of international recognition of the Palestinian state;
(c) To organize an international visit of solidarity to West Bank, in which the main goal will also be the effort for international recognition of the Palestinian state; (d) To undertake several other initiatives, on the national or regional levels, by individual parties within the above political framework.

1 Brazil Brazilian Communist Party

2 Brazil Communist Party of Brazil

3 Cyprus AKEL

4 Denmark Communist Party in Denmark

5 Denmark Red Green Alliance

6 Georgia Unified Communist Party of Georgia

7 Germany German Communist Party (DKP)

8 Greece Democratic Left

9 Greece Communist Party of Greece (KKE)

10 Hungary Hungarian Communist Workers' Party

11 India Communist Party

12 Iran Tudeh Party

13 Iraq Iraqi Communist Party

14 Ireland Communist Party of Ireland

15 Israel Communist Party of Israel

16 Italy Italian Communists

17 Luxemburg Communist Party of Luxemburg

18 Malta Communist Party of Malta

19 Mexico Mexican Communists

20 Morocco Party of Progress and Socialism

21 Netherlands New Communist Party of Netherlands

22 Pakistan Communist Party of Pakistan

23 Palestine Palestinian Peoples Party

24 Palestine Communist Party of Palestine

25 Russia Communist Party of the Russian Federation

26 Sudan Sudanese Communist Party

27 Sweden Communist Party of Sweden

28 Tunisia Ettajdid Movement

29 Turkey Turkish Communist Party

30 UK New Communist Party of Britain

Condemn the Armed Intervention in Libya!

2011-03-25T15:28:00.001-07:00

Joint Statement of the New Communist Party of Britain and the
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

Our two parties call on the working class and people to condemn the British government as well as the governments of the US, France, Canada and other countries for the military attacks on Libya. The Members of Parliament who this week voted overwhelmingly in support of what amount to crimes against peace must also be condemned. These attacks, which have included bombardment from the air and sea using the military might of some of the most powerful armed forces in the world, are being carried out under a UN mandate and with the alleged aim of protecting civilians. However, it is clear to the whole world that they are a cynical attempt to bring about regime change, as part of an attempt to re-divide the natural resources of this country and gain strategic advantage in the region. The attacks have already led to many civilian deaths as well as the destruction of the resources and infrastructure of the Libyan people.

There can be no justification for such barbaric attacks, carried out on a daily basis with overwhelming force against a sovereign country. The fact that Anglo-American war chieftains have openly admitted that they are seeking regime change and the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi makes a mockery of any claim that armed aggression is being carried for humanitarian reasons. The UN Charter was originally conceived in order to prevent crimes against peace and provides no basis for foreign intervention carried out in order to support armed rebellions. The Anglo-US imperialists and the other big powers who shout the loudest about the rule of law and their “universal values” have once again shown that they adhere to no other principle but “might is right”. They put the defence of their own neo-liberal interests first, while international law and the UN itself can be manipulated or ignored as best suits their purposes.

The hypocrisy and deceit of the British government and its allies, broadcast through the monopoly-controlled media has now reached unprecedented levels. On the one hand, the government claims that it is the greatest champion of those protesting against reactionary regimes in North Africa and the Middle East and, on the other, claims that it has reacted in Libya because these same reactionary regimes organised in the League of Arab States have called on it to do so. Armed intervention in Libya is also in stark contrast to the complete disregard that the Anglo-Americans and their allies have shown for the civilian population of Palestine, who have been driven from their homeland or massacred on an almost daily basis for the over sixty years.

The military attack on Libya show that Britain and the other big powers will let no international norm stand in the way of intervening militarily in pursuit of their interests. It shows that the big powers are still intent on dominating world affairs and dictating matters in their interests, as well as contending to divide up the world’s resources between them. It is not for nothing that Cameron and Hague speak about the great opportunity presented by the recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. In these circumstances, they seek to consolidate and strengthen their position throughout the region, impose political and economic arrangements that are to their liking and divert the aspirations and struggles of the people from threatening their interests. Justice-loving people can be under no illusion that Britain and the other big powers are supporters of the people’s empowerment and sovereignty.

The military attacks on Libya and the continued interference of the Britain and its allies throughout the region must cease. Now is the time to demand and organise for an anti-war government in Britain!

Hands Off Libya!

End All Use of Force and Armed Intervention!

26th March 2011

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-03-23T13:17:00.000-07:00

...in the NEW WORKER

Workers from every British Aerospace factory in Britain joined together in a 3,000 strong march to Parliament on Wednesday, to lobby for jobs and against plant closure.
Just days before, BAe announced it will axe 4,700 jobs at seven plants, in addition to the 5,000 jobs that will go with the closure of Preston and Kingston.
Immediate demands at the lobby focussed on BAe, but with unemployment accelerating in every sector, they reflect the feelings of workers throughout the country.
The BAe workers fight has opened the way for the Labour and trade union movement to act now and stop the slaughter of British industry as a whole.
Alex Ferry, general secretary of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions demanded the Tory government take a political decision and intervene to save industry.
In the last 25 years the number of defence industry jobs has been halved to 620,000 even while arms spending rocketed.

A new movement against unemployment and poverty is sweeping eastern Germany.
Mass demonstrations, which began in Leipzig, are now being held throughout what was once the German Democratic Republic, organised by trade union officials and with the support of the opposition Social Democrats.
Social Democrat leader Hans-Jochen Vogel joined calls for Chancellor Kohl’s resignation at an 80,000 strong rally in Leipzig.
Demonstrations are now being held there every Monday. Anti-government protests have also taken place in Berlin, Dresden and Zwickau.
Leipzig had been the centre of the anti-communist movement which led the opposition which brought down the socialist government of Erich Honecker.
Now the city is on its last legs. The birthrate has dropped by 40 per cent and the number of marriages has slumped by over 60 per cent. Divorces are rocketing as are crime and political violence from Nazi skin-head gangs.

Review

2011-03-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

War Cry!

Reviewed by Bill Topaz

War Cry: Milton Smalling; First Class Publications London 2011; 128 pp. ISBN 978-0-9508636-3-4.

On the back of this book the author’s brief autobiography describes him as being born in Stepney, Jamaica which he left in 1965 to join his mother in Battersea the working class area of London which is the home of the New Worker and a well established black community. War Cry is the fifth book to be published by Milton Smalling since his first book of verse hit the streets in 1982; three of these are slim volumes of poetry, the other a play, all of which are unknown to this reviewer.

The advert accompanying the review copy states that the poems “draws upon his experience, and he documents the things that he sees around him”. The poems are undated, but that entitled “The Greedy Bankers” suggests at least some have been written recently. No clues are given as to the precise occasion which inspired the poem. The poem “African Americans Cuddle or Struggle” contains the line “This is a wonderful day for African Americans” may or may not be a reference to Obama’s 2008 Presidential election victory. It would be useful to know one way or the other. Titles such as “The Mass Murder of Enslaved Black Africans”, “The Working Class Under Pressure” and “Divided Britain” tell us that the author is coming from a progressive direction.

Here are a few examples of his work:

From: “Living in Cardboard Boxes in London”

The poor lives in the shadow of the rich.
A stone’s throw from the seat of parliament,
people are sleeping in cardboard boxes.
They are drinking themselves to sleep, because life is cheap.

From: “Since the Day We Were Born”

Since the day we born people have been in conflict,
With other people somewhere in the world.
Some people have never known a week or a month of peace
Maybe when it all ends someone will tell them.

The literary critic Philip Hobsbaum, making a passing reference to Smalling’s 1980s poems in his 1996 book Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form notes that his published writings are similar to the score for a performance where the meaning is much more evident when performed on stage than in a private reading.

Curiously all the poems are in Standard English with not a trace of Jamaican patios or the “Sarf London” dialect which one might expect from a poet concerned with Black and local issues.

The forename of the author and the name of the publisher might give rise to unduly heightened expectations, but the reader approaching this book with an open mind will find it a remarkable example of modern self published poetry. It will be of considerable interest to devoted connoisseurs of that genre.

Available for £12.99 from First Class Publications, PO Box 1799, London W9 2BZ.

Joint statement against imperialist aggression in Libya

2011-03-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

Joint Statement of Communist and Workers' Parties Against imperialist aggression in Libya

The imperialist killers headed by the USA, France, Britain and NATO as a whole and with the approval of the UN started a new imperialist war. This time in Libya.

Their allegedly humanitarian pretexts are completely misleading! They throw dust into peoples' eyes! Their real goals are the hydrocarbons in Libya.

We, the Communist and Workers' parties condemn the military imperialist intervention. The people of Libya must determine their future on their own, without foreign imperialist interventions.

We call on the peoples to react and demand the immediate cessation of the bombings and of the imperialist intervention!

1.Algerian Party For Democracy And Socialism, PADS
2.Communist Party of Armenia
3.Communist Party of Azerbaijan
4.Communist Party of Australia
5.Communist Party of Bangladesh
6.Workers’ Party of Bangladesh
7.Communist Party of Belarus
8.Workers’ Party of Belgium
9.Brazilian Communist Party
10.Communist Party of Brazil
11.Communist Party of Britain
12.New Communist Party of Britain
13.Party of the Bulgarian Communists
14.Communist Party of Canada
15.Communist Party of Chile
16.Socialist Worker`s Party of Croatia
17.Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
18.Communist Party of Denmark
19.Communist Party in Denmark
20.Communist Party of Estonia
21.Communist Party of Finland
22.Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party
23.Unified CP of Georgia
24.Communist Party of Greece
25.Communist Party of India
26.Communist Party of India [Marxist]
27.Tudeh Party of Iran
28.Communist Party of Ireland
29.Workers’ Party of Ireland
30.Party of the Italian Communists
31.Communist Party of Kazakhstan
32.Socialist Party of Latvia
33.Lebanese Communist Party
34.Communist Party of Luxembourg
35.Communist Party of Malta
36.Communist Party of Mexico
37.Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
38.New Communist Party of Netherlands
39.Communist Party of Norway
40.Communist Party of Pakistan
41.Communist Party of Poland
42.Portuguese Communist Party
43.Communist Party of Russian Federation
44.Communist Workers' Party of Russia – Revolutionary Party of Communists
45.UCP- CPSU
46.Communist Party of Soviet Union
47.New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
48.Party of the Communists of Serbia
49.Communist Party of Slovakia
50.Communist Party of Sri-Lanka
51.Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
52.Syrian Communist Party
53.Communist Party of Sweden
54.Communist Party of Turkey
55.Labour Party (EMEP), Turkey
56.Communist Party of Ukraine
57.Union of Communists of Ukraine
58.Communist Party of Venezuela

Other Parties

1. Pôle de Renaissance Communiste en France

2. Galician People's Union

3. Communists-People's Left (Italy)

WFTU condemns attack on Libya

2011-03-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS

Athens, Greece 20/03/2011

PRESS RELEASE

''THE WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNION condemns the military aggression of the imperialists against Libya.
In the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, the North Africa the dangerous developments, the conflicts and the competition between the various imperialist compounds are targeting the petroleum of Libya, the natural gas of the countries in North Africa and the control of strategic points rich in raw materials.
This competition leads to economic and spy wars or in warfare like nowadays in Libya.

The European Union, the USA, France, England and their allies argue that their attacking Libya to implement the decisions of the UN.
They are hypocrites and liars!
Why are they not doing the same for the resolution about the Cyprus issue? Why are they not doing the same to implement dozens of the UN resolutions for Palestine? Why are they not doing the same to implement the resolutions of the UN to stop the embargo against Cuba?
We demand the immediate ceasing of the military aggression against Libya. We express our internationalist solidarity to the people of Libya.

The Secretariat

40, ZAN MOREAS STREET, ATHENS 11745 GREECE
Tel. +302109214417, +302109236700, Fax +30210 9214517
www.wftucentral.org E-mails: info@wftucentral.org, international@wftucentral.org

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-03-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

...in the New Worker

THE TORIES are in disarray after the people of this country have defeated the poll tax – the flagship of this Tory administration. But they have not abandoned their ambition to demolish local democracy.
As we go to press Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine is expected to announce the poll tax is to be scrapped and replaced with a property tax. But at the same time a whole tier of elected local government, the shire counties are expected to follow the Greater London Council into abolition.
The Government is expected to increase the financial incentives to schools to opt out of local authority control while squeezing funds to the local education authorities. In this way most of the funding – and control – of education will move from local to central government.
The Tories have hinted they will keep some form of minimal "head" tax.
The divisions within the Tory Party are still wide open. Former local government minister Rhodes Boyson believes the only objection to the poll tax is its size and thinks it should stay, with all education removed from local authority budgets.

************************

AMID mounting popular discontent the Kuwaiti government leadership resigned this week although real power remains in the hands of the Sabah family.
The return of the Emir and his entourage was greeted with a noted lack of enthusiasm from his subjects who still have no running water or electricity.
But Kuwaiti mechanics and the United States Army Corps of Engineers have been working 16-hours-a-day to restore his palace. Four hundred workers have installed hundreds of gold-plated French bath-room fixtures and door-knobs as well as power and running water to make the Emir feel at home.
A reign of terror is sweeping Kuwait with thousands of Palestinians and Kuwaitis being rounded up by the Emir's gunmen on charges of collaboration with Iraq.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-03-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

...in the New Worker

The Dalai Lama, former priest-king of feudal Tibet, is stepping up his campaign against Peking. And in his exile centre of Dharmsala, in India, he warned that unless Peking accepts his terms he will withdraw his offer to compromise.
In 1988, the Buddhist leader offered to accept Chinese control of Tibet’s foreign and defence policy in return for the restoration of his priestly autocracy in Tibet. The offer was ignored by Peking, which never recognised that Tibet has ever been sovereign, a position held by the former Kuomintang Government of Chiang Kai-Chek as well.
The restoration of his backward, feudal rule is out of the question as far as People’s China is concerned.
The Dalai Lama is in Britain this week to drum up support for his cause but Prime Minister John Major has rejected some Tory calls for a meeting as this would jeopardise relations with China.

Three quarters of all children with jobs are employed illegally according to a survey of 2,000 children by the Low Pay Unit and Birmingham City Council published last week.
About two million children work in their spare time, most of them illegally and some for as little as seven pence an hour.
Furthermore over 600,000 are likely to have had an accident at work.
The survey found that 43 per cent of children have a job other than baby-sitting, washing cars or running errands.
A quarter are under 13 and not supposed to work at all. Fewer than a tenth were registered as the law requires.
Many are employed in work prohibited to children, for example in pubs and on building sites.
One 11 year old worked cleaning a pub and off-licence for 55p a hour and a 12 year old boy worked 18 hours a week in a sweetshop for 44p an hour.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-03-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

...in the New Worker

If the Tories win the next general election they may implement a policy of pressurising nearly all of Britain’s schools to opt-out of local authority control within five years.
The confidential proposals are being considered for the Tory manifesto it was revealed last week.
They will give huge incentives to encourage schools to leave local authority control.
A member of the manifest working party said “The recommendation does not use the word compulsory but its effect will be the same.
“By the end of the next parliament the aim is to ensure there is hardly a school left under local authority control”.
A spokesman for the National Union of Teachers told the New Worker that already the Government is bringing enormous pressure on schools to opt-out.
The Government is severely restricting what local authorities can spend on schools while offering the schools the funding they desperately need if they will opt-out.

Reactionary politicians have formed a new centre party which will be ready to contest the Polish general elections set for this May.
Its programme will be based on Catholic social teaching and capitalism. The congress was welcomed by President Walesa and the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The Catholic hierarchy made the ending of the country’s abortion laws a major issue in the forthcoming elections. A Bishop’s letter called for support of the abortion law reform bill which is now going through the country’s parliament.
It will provide for jail sentences of up to two years for doctors and accomplices who carry out abortions except in cases of pregnancies resulting from rape, incest or if an abortion is recommended on medical grounds.
The Bishops want to eliminate the exceptions. Under the former socialist government abortions were legal and according to recent opinion polls some 57 per cent want it to remain that way.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-02-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

...in the New Worker

Hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets throughout Europe against the Gulf War. In Czechoslovakia information is only now beginning to filter through the dense wall of official censorship.

The state mass media, reflecting unquestioning government support for the “American ally” churn out American war propaganda day and night, continuously reminding the public of the divine mission of the “Allied” troops in their crusade against the Iraqi “evil”.

Speculation has now begun to appear over the actual purpose of the 200-strong Czechoslovak army unit to the Gulf for active service. Despite government claims to the contrary, this was tantamount to a declaration of war against Iraq, a strange act for a regime that claims to oppose the use of violence for solving political disputes.

Poverty pay among Britain’s farm workers is increasing. The wage gap between farm and factory is widening.

Farm workers will lobby their wage negotiators and MPs on Tuesday 12 March to demand a £180 a week basic rate and a reduction in the working week from 40 to 35 hours.

The employers claim that times are hard and say the proposed cuts in farm support make it impossible to increase wages.

The big farmers can afford to pay decent wages says the agricultural workers section of the Transport and General Workers Union.

The big farmers are getting richer – output and efficiency are up and land values have increased. Labour costs are low, compared with machinery, pesticides and fertilisers. The loss of jobs on the land is keeping the wage bill relatively low.

The wage demand is no threat to hard-pressed small farmers and can only lift the standard of living in rural areas.

The claim is on behalf of full-time hired workers, the main type of farm worker in England and Wales.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-02-19T02:35:00.000-08:00

...in the New Worker

The newly privatised water and electricity industries are about to introduce sharp increases in their charges.

Rises in water bills will average just over 15 per cent while electricity bills will rise by 13 per cent.

But big industrial users of electricity could face 25 per cent rises because Energy Secretary George Wakeham has refused to extend a deal for cheap power.

He claimed it would be uncompetitive and breach European Community rules.

Among those worse hit will be steel and chemical companies already hit by the recession.

The Government chose the image of Frankenstein to sell shares as they privatised the electricity industry.

Now it seems their monster creation will be holding industrial and domestic users to ransom.

The electricity companies are planning their rise based on a formula that allows them to charge the rate of inflation – and they are taking last October’s figure of 10.9 per cent – plus a certain percentage.

Russian deputy premier, Gennady Filshin, has been forced to resign following charges that he was involved in large-scale currency deals.

Filshin was associated with the British businessman who has been held on suspicion of fraud. The scandal erupted after it was said that the withdrawal of 50 and 100 rouble notes was rushed to prevent a speculative coup led by western banks with the ultimate intention of ruining the government.

Filshin insists he was hoping to revive Russian industry, but his enemies say his plans would have simply striped Russia of all its assets.

The Government of the Russian Federation is led by Yeltsin’s anti-communist Democratic Russia bloc and Filshin’s departure is seen as a victory for the communist fightback.

Twenty Years ago...

2011-02-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

...in the NEW WORKER

Thirty nine weeks after being sacked 79 Midlands workers marched triumphantly back into their factory, having won their dispute. The predominantly Asian workforce of Hayes Shellcast at Wye, West Midlands were fired when they refused to sign new contracts and to accept cuts in pay and conditions. Macho management failed. The workers’ stand forced the company into receivership. The Transport and General Workers’ Union has negotiated an agreement with the new Company, which includes trade union recognition, re-employment for the sacked workers and a wage deal. The dispute began last May when Shellcast sacked the entire workforce of 130 after they took strike action to stop a wage cut of up to £130 a week. The management proposed the wage cuts in anticipation of the recession. Previous redundancies and productivity agreements had made the wage cuts even more unacceptable. Hayes Shellcast makes castings for the heavy motor industry and was profitable until it provoked the strike.

The direct hit on a Baghdad air raid shelter last Wednesday killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians thought to be mainly women and children. Eyewitness reports said the bodies recovered had been burned without recognition - the bombs had caused the shelter to burst into flames. According to the American news network (CNN) correspondent Peter Arnett the shelter, built during the Iraq/Iran war, had been used a great deal since the coalition round-the-clock bombing began on January 17. Alan Little, a BBC correspondent reported that the blazing shelter could not be doused as Baghdad now has neither the water or pumping facilities to cope with such a fire. News of the carnage was reported just a day after senior military spokespersons had been at pains to reassure us every possible care is being taken to avoid civilian casualties.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-02-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

...in the New Worker

THE RATE of job losses throughout Britain accelerated sharply last week with a number of big employers announcing savage job cuts, amounting to nearly 116,000 jobs lost or threatened.
On Thursday came news of the collapse of the John Lewis chain of retail stores. The firm was founded in 1856 by David Lewis and has large department stores throughout the country.
Then came the news that Brel, the engineering division of British Rail now owned by the Trafalgar House construction and shipping group, is to cut 1,200 train-building jobs.
On the same day, called Black Friday by Jimmy Knapp, London Underground announced 1,000 job cuts.
Still on Black Friday, Federal Express, the International delivery group, announced 1,850 job losses. Three of the group's British distribution centres are to close: in Norwich, Alfreton and Exeter.
By the next day British Airways announced it is considering cutting between 3,000 and 5,000 jobs, up to 10 per cent of the total workforce.

********************

THE AFRICAN National Congress called on western governments "not to be too hasty" in calling off sanctions on South Africa following the regime's decision to scrap many of the racist laws.
President F W de Klerk's declaration to scrap the Group Areas Act, which segregates residential areas; the Land Act, which segregates farming and rural land and the Population Registration Act, which classifies people by race has been welcomed by the ANC. As has been the publication of the Manifesto for a New South Africa, which will provide the climate for the writing of a new constitution.
But the ANC rejected de Klerk's proposal for the "integration" of the ANC into the existing state structure. Their demand is as before, for an interim government and an elected constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution, which must be based on one person, one vote.

A very short history of the Communist Party

2011-01-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Review

By Robert Laurie

The Communist Party 1920-2010: 90 Years of struggle for the working class & humanity: Robert Griffiths & Ben Stevenson , London: Communist Party of Britain History Group, 2010 pp. 44. £3.00 from left bookshops or £4.00 including postage and packing from the CPB, Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon, London CR0 1BD.

Robert Griffiths and Ben Stevenson, General Secretaries of the Communist Party of Britain and its associated Young Communist League have produced this pamphlet to provide an outline history of the Communist Party in Britain. In the introduction the authors wisely disavow any ambition to produce a full official history as “There are already four substantial volumes on the Party’s history from 1920 to 1951”. In fact there have been another two volumes in this series published by Lawrence & Wishart: John Callaghan’s Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: the CPGB 1951-68 (2003) and Geoff Andrews’s End Games – New Times: the final Years of British Communism 1964-1991 (2004). As these are precisely the sort of “bourgeois, liquidationist and anti-communist accounts” mentioned it is regrettable that some space was not spent explicitly refuting them to show how misleading they are.
The structure of the pamphlet is strictly chronological with twelve chapters taking the reader from the foundation in 1920 to the present day. It is a pity that the first chapter did not devote even a little more space to the pre-history of the party and how a number of diverse groups were able to successfully come together and forge a new party. The chronological approach has advantages and disadvantages. While it gives a sense of how the party progressed and suffered setbacks over the decades it does make it hard to follow recurring themes over time. Relations with the Labour Party, both with its leadership and the left wing membership have fluctuated over time. These are mentioned at the appropriate points in the text, but it is difficult to keep track of when attitudes changed, and why. To give another example membership figures for every few years are mentioned in each chapter, but would be more useful if presented in a single table.
Generally speaking the pamphlet is at its best describing the work of communists in various fields and campaigns. One such is the 1926 General Strike when communists, despite many of the leaders being jailed, played a far more important role than their numbers would imply. The party’s role in the struggle against fascism in Spain when party members made up about half the British volunteers who fought against Franco is something all communists ought to be proud of despite smears from the bourgeois and ultra left. It is easy to forget that Communist opposition to imperialism (especially when British troops were involved) required far more courage than going on a present day demonstration. Less creditable episodes such as the ballot rigging in the Electrical Trade Union in 1961 are sensibly not ignored. As a whole the pamphlet is rather weaker in describing general policies and placing them in context. For instance the 1935 For Soviet Britain is usefully outlined but it is unclear how this differed other left wing views at the time.
There are many examples of anti-communism in this pamphlet, such as the vicious campaign attacking Jimmy Reid, leader of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work in, during the 1974 General Election. It is noticeable that many of them, as in this case, came from the Labour Party. Reid himself was to contribute to this genre a few years later.
There is one aspect of this pamphlet with which we have to register some dissent. Given the constraints of space it gives a useful outline account of the general history of the Communist Party of Great Britain but the account of the demise of the party leaves something to be desired. To this reviewer it is impossible to see how an organisation founded in 1988 as was the Communist Party of Britain can claim to be “re-established” when the Communist Party of Great Britain continued to exist, transforming itself into the “Democratic Left” at its final congress in 1991. This organisation later became the “New Politics Network” and if one looks hard enough lingers on as “Unlock Democracy” which merely wants to introduce some form of proportional voting. It is based at the same premises as the former CPGB and openly boasts of funding the campaign from renting former CPGB properties.
This is not a book for those with poor eyesight. Economy is all very well but a larger typeface ought to have been used even if that meant increasing the number of pages.

Along the British Road

2011-01-28T04:39:00.000-08:00

By Eric Trevett

(a contribution to a discussion in the New Worker)

JOHN ANTHILL’S letter in the 1613 issue of the New Worker (7th January 2011) made the case for opposing the Labour Party in great detail. He argued that the Labour Party is not a party of the working class and that revolutionaries should oppose it in elections. And he argues that the New Communist Party strategy for working class unity is mistaken.
We believe that these arguments are wrong and an example of good people getting frustrated and angry at right-wing social democratic attacks on the working class and paves the way – as the Blair government did – for the return of a much more anti-working class government.
We believe this is a subjective approach and runs contrary to the efforts to promote working class unity in the day-to-day struggles and in the more profound struggles for revolution and socialism.
Before the Labour Party was formed the skilled working class tended to give its allegiance to the Liberal Party. When it became obvious that the party would not defend the interests of the trade union movement there was a struggle to establish the working class party.
The socialist parties in those days joined with the trade union leaderships and founded the Labour Party to represent the working class interests in Parliament.
The right wing was also involved in that struggle and from that day to this has been in the ascendancy for most of the time in both the Labour Party and trade union organisations.
The Labour Party is a reformist party but with all its weaknesses has, under pressure from the trade union movement, achieved a number of reforms beneficial to the working class.
There was revulsion at two world wars and the recognition of the role that imperialism played in the causes of the wars. After the First World War Clause Four – calling for the working class to take control of the means of production and distribution – was written into the Labour Party constitution in 1919. And after the Second World War a number of nationalisations were achieved. The essential housing programme was promoted and then the National Health Service was introduced.
Most of the trade union membership pay the political levy and are therefore affiliate members of the Labour Party, irrespective of whether they are communists or not.
The trade unions are the Labour Party’s main source of finance. Most of the trade unions and the Co-Operative party are affiliated to the Labour Party. This is the basis of why we say the Labour Party is a working class party but also that it has a reformist leadership whose policy is to perpetuate capitalism.
The labour movement organisationally is not divided into warring trade union groups and this is very important to maintain; it is an asset that the British working class should be proud of.
It is true that with the introduction of individual membership it has been easy for petty bourgeois elements to penetrate the party and advance their personal careers and this has reinforced the position of the right wing in the Labour Party and trade union movement.
But the way to counter this is to promote working class unity around working class policies. It is not for organisations to contest the Labour Party’s position in national and local elections. In truth we have seen in recent years that such efforts are futile. Both the Socialist alliance and George Galloway’s Respect Party have collapsed and so has Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party. The tragedy of that is that Arthur Scargill has isolated himself from the movement in which he was widely respected.
The Communist Party of Great Britain has from its earliest days tried to win the idea that it should stand in elections and maintain its backing of the Labour Party.
In hindsight we believe this policy to have been wrong even in the days when the party’s vote was high and Gallagher, Saklatvala and Phil Piratin were elected to Parliament.
Since then and in the post-war period the bankruptcy of standing against Labour was plain to see. Since the Second World War the emphasis in electioneering in the localities has undermined the industrial work. At one time factory branches were being closed and the major part of party resources were concentrated on localities.
This weakened the capability of the trade unions to exert pressure on the government of the day.
Our declared aim is to work to strengthen the working class and its political consciousness and fight for the right to affiliate to the Labour Party ourselves as communists.
That is the way we believe and demonstrate that we are genuinely concerned to participate in the struggles for full employment, peace and socialism in a manner that unites the working class and its allies, including the student bodies.
It would be wrong for us to stand candidates in national elections because it would be seen to be weakening the fight against the Tories and reaction.
Experience has shown that communists do best in industry and at the places of work because they are regarded as a genuine, integral part of the working class. It is there that we often get communists elected to leading union positions out of respect for their militancy, profound wisdom and practical understanding in the unending struggles with the employers.
To return to the question of elections and standing in localities, the CPGB at its congress in 1975 removed the aim of affiliating to the Labour Party. That was part of the revisionist concepts against working class unity.
We therefore ask J Anthill and others who think like him to re-evaluate their positions and support the struggle as we have outlined.

Twenty years ago this week...

2011-01-28T04:33:00.000-08:00

...in the NEW WORKER

LEADERS of 180,000 low-paid hospital workers last Wednesday lodged a ten-point pay claim, seeking a flat £20 a week pay increase.
This would put the poorest paid on the same rate as their local government counterparts.
Current pay scales range from £101.38 a week (£2.60 an hour) to £131.35 a week (£3.37 an hour).
Groups covered by the claim include hospital cleaning staff, porters and gardeners telephonists and laundry workers.
Other key points of the claim include a review of the job evaluation system to establish a new evaluation system based on equal pay for work of equal value and increases in annual leave.
Union chief negotiator Roger Poole said: “vastly improved pay, conditions and opportunities for hospital workers are a perquisite for a more responsive service to patients”.

************

IRAQ continues to stand firm in the face of the US Air Force, which has been bombing Iraq night and day since they launched their attack on the 17th January.
Iraq air-defences are continuing to take their toll, though the US government only admits to losing 25 warplanes as we go to press.
The early confidence of the American hawks has gone, with predictions now of a long war one in which Washington’s top regional pawns, Saudi Arabia and Israel, have not escaped unscathed.
Iraqi missiles continue to get past the US defences hitting targets in Saudi capital of Riyadh and causing devastation in Israel.
In Tel Aviv the authorities admit that Iraqi missiles have destroyed over 6,000 apartments and put their casualties at over 200 including 4 deaths.
In the United States, already worried that Morocco may pull out of the American war-coalition, told the Israelis to take no unilateral action that may provoke greater anti-American feeling in Syria and Egypt, whose regimes support Bush.

Twenty Years Ago...

2011-01-26T06:13:00.000-08:00

in the New Worker...

The United States, backed by its main NATO allies, has launched a bombing campaign against Iraq. As we go to press unconfirmed reports of the first land clashes are coming in and preparations for a naval attack are building.
The air offensive, which began on January 17 with waves of fighter-bomber aircraft and Cruise missiles, is continuing night and day against the Arab country which dared defy imperialism.
The capital, Baghdad, is being pounded around the clock and US, British, French and Italian airforce units are carrying out continuous raids against Iraq with the support of puppet Saudi and Kuwaiti units.
Iraq’s air defences appear to have survived the onslaught more or less intact, a result of careful and painstaking defensive preparations.
US military spokespersons have admitted that many of the Iraqi “bases” they have obliterated could be cardboard dummies. The US commander in chief has admitted that the western forces have lost 15 warplanes so far.
In Baghdad captured pilots from the US, Britain and Italy have appeared on television. One Iraqi diplomat commented that if the NATO allies had only lost the number of planes acknowledged at the time, these men could not possibly be prisoners of war. Iraq claims to have brought down a number of cruise missiles.
Iraq has responded to the attacks by firing rockets art targets in Israel. Iraqi missiles have hit Tel Aviv and Haifa, one narrowly missing the Defence Minister.
Israel has admitted last Tuesday night’s bombardment killed three women and injured many.
An attack on a US airbase Dhahran, in Saudi Arabia was countered by US missile defences.The Saudi oil refinery at Khafji has been knocked out by Iraqi artillery.
Huge demonstrations in support of Iraq are taking place throughout the Arab world.

20 Years after the Gulf War -- Joint statement of communist and workers parties

2011-01-21T13:29:00.000-08:00

Twenty years after the Gulf War

The importance of the struggle for peace, against imperialist exploitation and
oppression

Twenty years have elapsed since the beginning of the Gulf War. On January 17, 1991, the
armed forces of the USA, NATO and its allies unleashed - with the ratification of the
Security Council of the United Nations - their first large-scale war in the Middle East,
despite widespread anti war opposition in several countries .Being inseparable from the
profound and negative changes associated with the liquidation of Socialism in the Soviet
Union and in Eastern Europe, that war was a prelude to 20 years of large-scale
aggressions, invasions and imperialist interferences.
From the Gulf to Yugoslavia, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, imperialism
has tried to impose its domination in each country and over the globe, seeking to impose
the direct control of the world's main energy resources, to annihilate the peoples’
sovereign rights and to submit the entire planet to the exploitation and interests of the big
capital. This militarist and war-mongering offensive has been developed hand in hand with
the attacks against the workers’ and peoples' social, economic and political rights – even
in the centers of imperialism - and contributed to sharpen the contradictions among
imperialist powers.
Thanks to the peoples' resistance and struggle – first and foremost, that of the peoples
who were the victims of aggression – imperialism's offensive has faced obstacles and
suffered important setbacks. But the dangers for peace and the peoples have not
disappeared. On the contrary, capitalism's profound economic crisis, and the ruling
classes' powerlessness to overcome it, is leading – as in the past – to an attempt to
ensure their power through violence, authoritarianism, war and brutal offensives against
the workers’ and peoples' rights and living standards.
The threats of war and aggression are evident in the attacks against workers’ and peoples’
movements that struggle against imperialism, labeling it as an “internal enemy”; in the
recent NATO Summit and the new strategic concept of this militaristic and aggressive
imperialist organization– which the Lisbon Treaty considers its armed wing thus deepening
the process of affirming the European Union as an imperialist economic, political and
military block - ; in the constant imperialist threats of war, provocations and interferences
in numerous parts of the globe; in the increasing expenditure on military and security
apparatuses.
The signatory Parties call upon the workers and peoples of the world to strengthen the
struggle for peace and against imperialism's plans of war and aggression, to strengthen
the struggle against capitalist exploitation and in defense of sovereignty and of the rights
of all peoples of the world. They stress that the struggle for peace, cooperation and
progress is an inseparable element of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the
construction of socialism.
They express their solidarity with the peoples and to the national-liberation, revolutionary
and progressive anti-imperialist forces who are struggling against the imperialism's
aggressions, interferences and threats. In particular, they express their solidarity with the
communists and other anti-imperialist forces of the Middle East and especially with the
Palestinian people in their struggle for the right to establish an independent State of
Palestine in the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital
January 2011

The Parties:

1. Algerian Part for Democracy and Socialism
2. Communist Party of Bangladesh
3. Communist Party of Brazil
4. Worker's Party of Belgium
5. New Communist Party of Britain
6. Communist Party of Canada
7. AKEL, Cyprus
8. Communist Party in Denmark
9. Communist Party of Finland
10.Communist Party of Greece
11.New Communist Party of the Netherlands
12.Hungarian Communist Workers Party
13.Communist Party of India (Marxist)
14.Communist Party of Ireland
15.Workers Party of Ireland
16.Party of the Italian Communists
17.Workers' Party of Korea
18.Lebanese Communist Party
19. Communist Party of Luxembourg
20.Communist Party of Mexico
21.Communist Party of Norway
22.Palestinian Peoples Party
23.Peruan Communist Party
24.Communist Party of Philippines
25.Portuguese Communist Party
26.South African Communist Party
27.Communist Party of the Russian Federation
28.Communist Party of Spain
29.Party of the Communists Catalonia, Spain
30.Communist Party Peoples of Spain
31.Communist Party of Turkey
32.Communist Party of Venezuela
33.New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

Why Did China's economic stimulus succeed?

2011-01-20T08:24:00.001-08:00

by Theo Russell

In November 2008 the Chinese government announced a two-year economic stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion or £382 billion) to counteract the effects of the biggest global recession in 80 years.

Unlike similar efforts in Europe and the United States, China’s stimulus proved to be a spectacular success, and the recession hardly affected China at all. GDP growth was maintained at 10% per year in 2007-2009, generating over one trillion dollars, despite the fact that exports, the engine of China’s economic success for the last three decades, fell by over $120 billion as Western demand slumped.

Following the 2007 credit crunch many Western economists warned of threats to China’s economic stability, including property price bubbles, rising inflation and a fragile banking system. As yet none of these threats have materialised apart from inflation, which the government has already acted to bring down.

Some economists even predicted that the United States would be the first major economy to come out of recession, and China one of the last. The reality has been the exact opposite: China’s recession was brief and shallow, while these predictions turned out to be wildly optimistic about the US economy. So much for our highly-paid Western economists!

The US economy has spectacularly failed to take off, in spite of a $787 billion stimulus package in 2009, and a staggering $1.6 trillion spent on quantitative easing in 2009 and 2010. By the 3rd quarter of 2010, US GDP was 0.8% below its peak in the 4th quarter of 2007. This month’s figures show that US unemployment is still stuck at 9.4 percent.

Our experience in Britain has been similar to that of the US. The government spent or loaned £550bn in bank bail-outs, and £200bn in quantitative easing in 2008/09. Britain’s bank bailout equaled 19.8% of GDP, a higher proportion than in any other country, reflecting the huge influence of the financial sector.

The UK’s GDP growth collapsed from an annual rate of about three percent in early 2007 to minus five percent in the spring of 2009. It has gradually returned to 2.8%, but unemployment is still close to 3 million or 8%, mortgage lending is at its lowest level since 2000 and has fallen 10 per cent in the past year,
and repossessions are rising and are expected to continue rising in 2011.

So what explains the success of China’s economic stimulus in comparison to the leading capitalist countries? The answer apparently lies in the structure of the Chinese economy and the Communist Party of China’s so-called “market socialist” economic model.

Research by Professor John Ross, visiting Professor at Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University and editor of the internet blog Key Trends in Globalisation, has identified that the key factor in the success of China’s policies as the level of private fixed investment.

In the US, the GDP fell by $103bn during the recession – or “Great Recession” as Ross calls it - yet exports actually grew by $46bn and private inventories by $103bn, while personal consumption only fell by $8bn.

The single factor which wiped out all the other growth factors was the $409bn collapse in US private fixed investment (residential and non-residential).“In short, the fall in fixed investment accounted for the entire decline in US GDP. Indeed, the fall in US fixed investment was four times the total drop in US GDP,” says Ross.

In China during the same period exports fell by 0.8 trillion yuan, inventories increased only slightly (0.1 trillion yuan), and personal consumption grew by 2.6 trillion yuan. But fixed investment leapt by a massive 5.3 trillion yuan, equivalent to 67% of the increase in GDP, and this counteracted the effects of the recession. This was the exact opposite of the US experience and as Ross says “China’s avoidance of recession, and its rapid economic growth, was driven by the rise in fixed investment.”

The steep increase in fixed investment in China was possible because the stimulus programme combined investment by state-owned banks, with government directives to private banks to invest in the domestic economy. China’s financial sector was directed by the state to invest in new technologies such as water treatment, AIDS prevention, computer chips, wireless technology and energy extraction.

In Britain, a hallmark of our post-credit crunch experience has been the collapse in lending. The British banks have falsely claimed that this has been caused by a collapse in demand for loans. But this is flatly contradicted by the Bank of England, which said in a report in December that the real reason for the lending collapse is that the banks had “reduced the supply” of loans.

In other words, the banks have imposed a squeeze on credit, in the midst of the biggest economic recession since 1929. Taken together with the biggest government spending cuts since 1945, it’s hard to see what the growth being predicted by David Cameron in 2011 will be based on.

Since the bank bail-out both the Labour and coalition governments have endlessly debated the possibility of imposing lending targets on the banks. In response, the banks offered to set up a "Big Society Bank", codenamed “Project Merlin,” with a £1.5 billion fund for small businesses.

But by December 2010, when coalition ministers met the bank chiefs, the banks had backtracked. Now they were offering to lend £200 million to UK businesses, of which a paltry £70 million would be for small businesses.

It’s a similar story with bonuses and the “banking levy”. In October the coalition introduced a £2.5bn a year levy on bank profit sheets, but in 2010 alone bank bonuses are expected to be £7bn. It is now clear, after months of promises, that no action is going to be taken on bonuses.

British bank profits have actually gone up since 2007, according to the Bank of England, as if the recession had never happened! They reached £15.5bn in the first six months of 2010 alone and will probably hit £30-35 billion for the whole year, so a £2.5bn levy is just small change for the banks.

They’re not short of funds either. The UK financial sector owns foreign assets worth almost 600 percent of the country’s GDP. But they want to hang on to every penny, so they can carry on business as usual exploiting workers in Britain and the world over.

So in China while the government’s stimulus funds are being transferred into productive capital in domestic enterprises, in Britain and the US the banks are taking vast amounts of government cash and not passing them on to the real economy. They claim this is because their finances are in a fragile state, due to the “credit crunch” which they themselves created.

In November the US Federal Reserve announced a further $600 billion injection of quantitative easing into the US economy, but according to Professor Ross this is unlikely to have the same effect as China's stimulus, as long as US private fixed investment does not return to growth. With Republican control of the House of Representatives, and the growth of “anti-statist ideology”, the rise of the Tea Party and the Republican Right, Ross says an investment programme able to generate real growth is politically impossible.

This is perfectly normal: capitalists will only invest in the domestic economy when it is growing and profitable to do so. The capitalist class will only resort to Keynesian social investment when faced with the threat of revolution, and that is clearly not the case now.

Ross predicts that “the US economy will therefore continue to be strongly outperformed by China's”, adding: “It is therefore clear why Hu Jintao stated that China’s high performance in the financial crisis was due to the superiority of its economic structure.”

The success of China’s economic stimulus and its development model are of practical and theoretical importance for Marxists, adding new pages to the historical experience of building socialism and the application of Marxist economic theory.

In an article in the London Guardian, Professor Ross stresses that China’s economic model is not “market capitalist”, but a "socialist market economy". Quoting from Keynes’ General Theory that "a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the only means of securing an approximation to full employment", he points out, quite correctly, that this is “impossible in a private sector-dominated economy.”

China has, in the current phase of its economic development, permitted strictly regulated capitalist ventures to operate in certain economic sectors, but the state has maintained control of the commanding heights of the economy, and most importantly of the financial sector.

All land in China is owned by the state or in rural areas collective farms. Mineral resources including coal, oil and gas, arms companies, the energy and petrochemicals sectors, telecommunications, airlines and shipping remain, by law, under "absolute state control and public ownership”. Foreign joint ventures cannot be wholly owned by foreign investors, and just under three quarters have agreements recognising a trade union, including the US giant Wallmart.

On the other hand, three of China’s 128 state-owned enterprises, were listed among the top 10 most valuable companies in the world by the Financial Times in 2009 (the China National Petroleum Corporation, China Mobile and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China). This is an unprecedented achievement for a socialist state.

This “market socialist” model allows China to benefit from the continuing dynamism of the capitalist model. The vast financial and human resources at the disposal of the capitalist countries enable them to continue to make remarkable scientific and technological advances. But at the same time China can avoid becoming in any way dependent on imperialism, and strictly limit the capacity of foreign investors to exploit its resources.

But we need to bear in mind that “market socialism” is not a scientific term but extremely imprecise and open to many interpretations. A better description for the Chinese model might be “a socialised economy with market elements and regulated foreign capital investment”.

Hu Jintao, Chinese President and general secretary of the Communist Party of China, told the party’s 2007 congress: “the current reality is that China is still in the primary stage of socialism, and will remain so for a long time to come,” and added that the Party's tasks had become more difficult than ever due developments globally, nationally and in ‘intra-Party’ conditions. But he also stressed that the party would continue to uphold and improve “the basic economic system in which public ownership is dominant”.

The CPC’s long-term aim remains to lay the foundations for creating a socialist society. Its policy puts national development and the interests of the working class and peasants, not of domestic or foreign capitalists, at the forefront.

It is important to understand that the current Chinese model is not cast in stone, but is best seen as a temporary adaptation to the enourmous tasks of development, at a time when capitalism is still the overwhelmingly dominant system in the world economy.

This is all the more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its allies in Comecon, which formed a significant industrial, commercial and financial counterbalance to the capitalist system up until 1990.

We also have to remind ourselves that there is no magic formula for achieving economic development in China and raising the whole population to a standard of living, education and culture comparable with the advanced capitalist countries.

To quote Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic reforms: “In building socialism we must do all we can to develop the productive forces and gradually eliminate poverty, constantly raising the people’s living standards.

“In the second stage, or the advanced stage of communism, when the economy is highly developed and there is overwhelming abundance, we shall be able to apply the principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Such enourmous transformations take place very over long periods, and it will be many years in the future before that “second stage” is reached.

It would also be a fundamental mistake to conclude that there is a gradual trend towards the growing influence of the capitalist sector in China, although many in the West like to entertain such delusions. The capitalist sector is a significant, but minor one which remains firmly under the control of the Chinese state, and that is not going to change.

China’s “market socialist” policy is responsible for the vast sums being invested in the national infrastructure, in developing the poor interior and Western regions, and in entirely new sectors such as high speed railways, solar energy and electric cars. An example of the incredible speed of this development is that China already has the largest network of high-speed railways in the world.

The capitalist countries are well aware of the fact that the Chinese economic model is fundamentally socialist, and after bringing down socialism in the Soviet Union their number one aim is to do the same in China.

The real objective of ceaseless campaign for “democratic reforms” is to end China’s “socialised investment” policy as soon as possible, to divert the fruits of China’s growth into private profit, and to gain unrestricted access to China’s human and natural resources. But the CPC has no intention of following the example of the Soviet Union and allowing domestic or foreign capitalists to sieze control of the state.

It is worth considering what would happen if bourgeois democracy and capitalism were to be restored in China. Its workers would be ruthlessly exploited and millions would be unemployed, and the country would face being physically carved up, as we can see from the Western-backed separatist movements in Tibet and Xingjiang.

A capitalist China would be far closer to the examples of India or Brazil, countries which also have large scale foreign investment, but unlike China have enourmous economic and social problems and human suffering on a vast scale.

China’s economic model, based on the creative application of Marxism-Leninism, also reflects the ruling party’s analysis that although the world transition from capitalism to socialism has begun, the capitalist model is still extremely dynamic and creative, and this creativity can be utilised while restricting the rapacious nature of capitalism, first and foremost the diversion of profits and wealth into private hands.

What we are seeing today in China is a new contribution to the practical experience of building socialism. It is also similar in many ways to the controlled, or “civilised”, capitalist model which left of centre Western liberals dream of, but which will only ever be a utopian fantasy under capitalism.

This model has enabled China to play the capitalists at their own game, and effectively beat them. It is accumulating large-scale capital while resisting American pressure to revalue its currency. Where other countries would have succumbed to such bullying, China can do this because the US economy is now dependent on China’s US government bonds holdings, the profits from manufacturing in China, and China’s growing domestic market.

It is the first time in history that a socialist state, a formerly backward and semi-colonised country, has been able to even give advice on economic policy to the US government which the latter could not afford to ignore.

In March 2009 prime minister Wen Jiabao said at the end of the annual National People's Congress in Beijing: "We have lent huge amounts of money to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am a little bit worried. We would like the United States government to honour its word and remain a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

Wen also added at that time confirming China’s long-term economic strategy: "We already have plans ready to tackle even more difficult times. To do that, we have reserved adequate ammunition, which means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."

It would of course be a mistake to look at China through rose-tinted glasses and ignore the negative aspects and problems arising from China’s economic model. The CPC is well aware of the widespread corruption which is a reminder that China is a huge developing Asian country which still lags behind the developed capitalist countries in overall education and living standards. As Deng Xiaoping famously warned when the reforms were introduced in China, “When you open the window to let in fresh air, you have to expect some ﬂies to blow in.”

But these problems have to be seen in the context of the enourmous tasks confronting the CPC leadership. Since the economic reforms were introduced in the 1980s rural poverty in China has fallen from 250 million to around 20 million, but 20 million is still a very large number.

On the one hand, income inequality has rocketed, creating widespread resentment, but on the other hand, the government has implemented rural subsidies, lower taxes and higher pensions.

It is also true that a considerable amounts of wealth are going to individuals and to foreign investors, but in 2002-2009 average workers’ wages increased by 8 percent a year in real terms (after… inflation. Of course this was from a relatively low level, but it shows that ordinary working people in China have benefited from economic growth.

China is currently experiencing problems with inflation, especially in food prices, a by-product of its economic success. But the government has acted swiftly, and raised interest rates twice leading to a sharp fall in food price rises.

With this spectacularly successful strategy China is laying the groundwork for the next stage of economic restructuring, developing its capacity for technological innovation, producing sophisticated manufactured goods and building its own global marketing capability.

China has no intention of remaining an “assembly line” economy for foreign companies, and its enterprises are already buying up manufacturing companies and banks around the world to lay the basis for exporting its own-brand products such as solar panels and electric and internal combustion cars.

For Marxist-Leninists the real significance of China’s spectacular successes is that it is creating a better life for its people and laying the groundwork for a future socialist society, and since the revolution there has been a significant increase in the size, influence and confidence of the Chinese working class.

Professor Ross’s analysis has identified the key element of its current economic model: utilising capitalist methods and financial resources, while channelling the capital created into social investment rather than private profit.

Anti-communism in Europe will not succeed

2010-12-29T08:01:00.000-08:00

Joint Statement of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of Europe

The Communist and Workers’ Parties of Europe condemn the provocative and outrageous initiative of the Foreign ministers of Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic to demand that the European Union instigate the legal persecution of all those within the EU who do not accept the so-called reactionary campaigns of rewriting of History and criminalization of communists and communism.
This is a dangerous attempt to generalize the legal persecution and other related measures which are in force in several EU countries against all those who reject the slanders against the historical experiences of socialist construction and against all those who combat the attempts to erase the decisive contribution that the communists gave in struggle for social and labour rights and for democracy in Europe and reject the distortion of the history of the 2nd World War and the unacceptable equation of communism with fascism.
It is not by chance that this initiative is being carried out in a period when working class and popular struggles are strengthening. The expansion of the anti-worker assault goes hand in hand with the expansion of anti-communist measures. The communists are the target of these attacks because they are in the front line of the struggles not only so that the workers do not bear the burden of the capitalist crisis and also because they are the only ones who hold the real solution to capitalist barbarity. The dominant class, understanding full well the impasses of the capitalist system and its irreconcilable contradictions, intensifies its persecutions, threats and crimes. However whatever measures it takes it cannot prevent the inexorable laws of social development, and the necessity of the overthrow of capital’s power. It cannot prevent the strengthening of the organization of the working class and the development of the mass struggle for socialism and communism.
We firmly declare that the anti-communist plans of the bourgeoisie will fail. The superiority of our ideology, the just cause of the working class can break even their harshest measures. We will continue in an even more determined and uncompromising manner in order to defeat the anti-people power of big capital. Anti-communist hysteria will not deceive the working class and popular forces which experience the problems of unemployment, the overturning of social, social-security and labour rights, and capitalist barbarity itself.
We appeal to all democratic, progressive and anti imperialist forces to join us in the struggle against anti-communism, a struggle which is directly connected to the fight for labour and popular rights as well as for social justice, for a world without the exploitation of man by man.

1. Communist Party of Armenia

2. Communist Party of Azerbaijan

3. Communist Party of Belarus

4. Workers' Party of Belgium

5. Communist Party of Britain

6. New Communist Party of Britain

7. Communist Party of Bulgaria

8. Party of the Bulgarian Communists

9. AKEL, Cyprus

10. Communist Party of Denmark

11. Communist Party of Estonia

12. Communist Party of Finland

13. Communist Party of Macedonia

14. German Communist Party (DKP)

15. Communist Party of Greece

16. Hungarian Communist Workers' Party

17. Communist Party of Ireland

18. Party of the Italian Communists

19. Communist Party of Kazakhstan

20. Socialist Party of Latvia

21. Communist Party of Luxembourg

22. Communist Party of Malta

23. Communist Party of Norway

24. New Communist Party of the Netherlands

25. Communist Party of Poland

26. Portuguese Communist Party

27. Romanian Communist Party

28. Communist Party of Russian Federation

29. Communist Party of Soviet Union

30. Communist Workers' Party of Russia - Party of the Communists of Russia

31. Union of CPs-CPSU

32. Party of Communists, Serbia

33. Communist Party of Slovakia

34. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain

35. Communist Party of Sweden

36. Communist Party of Turkey

37. Communist Party of Ukraine

38. Union of Communists of Ukraine

Happy New Year!

2010-12-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

Best Wishes for

Christmas

and the

New Year

Twenty Years Ago...

2010-12-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

...in the NEW WORKER

THE SHOPWORKERS’ union Usdaw is winning its campaign to stop stores opening the Sunday before Christmas. Few will attempt to lout the Sunday trading laws in the way they did last weekend.
At least nine local authorities have so far taken out injunctions to enforce the laws. Gateshead borough council is taking Currys, Comet, Children's World and Poundstrecher to court. Burton Group is among the stores that have decided not to open.
Garfield Davies, Usdaw's general secretary said he was "delighted that most responsible retailers recognise that they, like everybody else, have to obey the law of the land."
The stores blamed the recent blizzard and the recession for slow sales. Many retailers have had their eye on Sunday trading for a long time and shown keen interest in the long battle over Sunday trading in the DIY and furnishings sector.

****

Troops and tanks are in the streets of Albania's cities following two days of riots. An anti-communist rampage was signalled by the ruling Party of Labour to end the dictatorship of the proletariat and allow the establishment of anti-communist parties.
The public foundation of the Democratic Party, a nationalist front which wants a union with the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia, sparked off simultaneous attacks in the capital Tirana and in other major towns, including the port of Durres and the industrial centre of Elbasan.
Party offices were stormed and torched, cars burnt and factories attacked by reactionary gangs, who clashed with the police and army. One hundred and fifty seven will now go on trial and the new chief of police has said new measures of public order.
But President Ramiz Alia intends to press on with political reforms and multi-party elections.

What are communists for?

2010-12-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

by Daphne Liddle
THE SIGHT of thousands of angry students on the march through towns and cities throughout England has cheered the older generation of campaigners no end. And so has the emergence of unknown numbers of mostly anonymous cyber warriors inflicting real damage on the powers of western imperialism and oppression through massive revelations of Wikileaks.
Nevertheless our current economic and political situation is gloomy. We are in an economic crisis that is very likely to turn into a double-dip, under a Con-Dem government that is using the economic crisis as an excuse for ideologically driven cuts in public services and in working class living standards (greed for power and wealth is the ideology and religion of the ruling class).
We will need more than student anger and Wikileaks audacity to make our day-to-day lives better. And this is where the Communist political perspective has a vital role to play.
The students and the progressive liberals know what they are against: the unjust wars, the cuts; the exploitation and the oppression. We know what we want to put in the place of this evil system. We know what we are for: socialism. And every now and then we need to raise our eyes and look towards our long-term perspectives and remind ourselves of what civilised society can be under the rule of the working class.
And we need to go out on the streets and the on-line networks to tell all those who are angry, disappointed, frustrated, demoralised and generally miserable under capitalism how their lives could be different, if and when we throw off capitalism and start to build socialism: to tell them it is worth fighting for.
We are for:
• A world where people come home after work at a reasonable hour with still enough time and energy to enjoy being with their families, doing sports and hobbies and there are more leisure activities than collapsing exhausted in front of the television;
• A world where no one fears to lose their job or their income; where employment is a right and all are encouraged and supported to find work that is interesting and fulfilling;
• A world where workers have a right to decent housing and rents are minimal, where no one fears the bailiffs and where homes are built with enough space for adults and children to grow and to play.
• A world where people do not have to wait until they are nearly middle-aged before they can afford to start a family because decent homes and incomes are guaranteed.
• A world where personal debt is something people read about in history books.
• A world where healthcare is guaranteed, free and supplied locally without long journeys to get treatment. And where the elderly get the same standard of treatment as younger people.
• A world where state-provided high-quality childcare is freely available so parents can choose their work patterns and where employers allow parents time off to be with their children.
• A world where education is freely available at every level throughout life, where classes are smaller and every pupil/student gets the support, attention and encouragement they need to fulfil their potential.
• A world where people have the time and the energy for generations to mix and socialise and care for each other so that children, the elderly and those in between feel valued, respected and secure.
• A world where children know their own history and culture and so can recognise and respect other people’s.
• A world where all children learn how to sing, dance and make music and can recognise and reject commercial rubbish “culture” – and recognise what is really good and original.
• A world where we have the time, the energy and can afford to go regularly to the theatre, to concerts and to the cinema.
• A world where we have time to be human, where we are not just “personnel resources” existing for the sole purpose of making money for our bosses, landlords and bank managers.
• A world where there is time to stop and smell the roses.
• A world where ordinary workers can sit in summer under shady trees drinking coffee or beer and arguing intellectual philosophical points at great length.
• A world where we can talk long slow walks at sunset along sandy beaches.

I am getting carried away. But none of these dreams is asking too much in a world where technology can provide so much and it does not take a lot of human labour to provide a decent standard of living for everyone on the planet.
And none of these dreams would harm the environment – indeed it would be much better safeguarded than it is now.
Rich people already live like this but their greed for power and wealth is denying a decent way of life to everyone else on the planet.
For the working classes in the western imperialist countries now life is one long rush to work as many hours as they can, to be at the beck-and-call of demanding bosses, and fit childcare and housework into whatever small margins of time they have left.
Late night trains and buses are crammed with weary workers on their way home; many are young mothers with toddlers in pushchairs who should have been in bed hours ago. Tired workers get irritable with each other and with their children. Housework gets neglected.
Deep debt and job and housing insecurity drive workers to seek ever longer hours while depression and stress are at epidemic levels.
Holidays are impossible. One in five children growing up in England have never been on a beach or paddled. Few inner city children have ever seen the stars properly – away from the perennial glare of neon lighting.
Cinema, concert and theatre visits are out of the question. For many workers, even if they found the time and the money they would probably fall asleep during the performance. Much easier to make do with the TV – you don’t have to dress up; it doesn’t cost anything extra and it doesn’t matter if you do fall asleep.
People struggle to make time for the elderly; grandparents feel neglected and lonely. Teenagers feel that no one has time for them, not to just sit and have a proper conversation. Everyone is alienated; society is fragmented and everyone is miserable.
And we’re living under the threat that it’s all going to get a lot worse with the cuts.
We don’t have to accept this.
We have a lot to fight for – our very humanity. The danger is that so many, with their noses to the grindstone, shackled to impossible and ever more demanding work targets, rarely get the chance to look up and be aware of what they are missing, what is being stolen from them in order to make vast profits for the bosses, bankers and landowners.
In previous generations workers worked in large factories, mines and mills. They stood next to fellow workers in the same situation as themselves. They were not alone in their misery and there was a community spirit. It was this spirit that build the trade unions and the Labour Party to fight back against the exploiters.
And it won significant improvements: shortening the working day, the old age pension, unemployment benefit, the National Health Service, state-financed higher education and welfare services.
Now these gains are steadily being taken from us because, with the passing of large scale industry in Britain that proletarian spirit of community and solidarity has been weakened. And with it the strength of the labour movement has ebbed, leaving us vulnerable to the exploiters’ greed.
We must find ways of overcoming the current isolation and alienation of workers so they do not feel alone with their debts, their exhaustion and all the impossible demands on their time and energy. We must find ways to rebuild the sense of community and solidarity – and outrage at the way they are being exploited. Maybe the internet could be used to rebuild community awareness.
In the meantime we must remember that the “impossible dream” already exists in places like Democratic Korea and Cuba. The Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe did succeed in giving workers a far better quality of life than most of them have now. And in China they are working hard to lay the economic base of a socialist society.
A socialist society is not an impossible paradise: life is not perfect there. There is still bad weather; people fall in and out of love and that is still painful; there are not unlimited resources; not everyone gets a perfect job.
But the workers of the DPR Korea and Cuba work eight hours a day, health care and education at all levels are free. Jobs and housing are secure. There is still occasional hardship but everyone faces it together.
Socialism does not end all misery and it is not perfect. But it does end the causes of misery that are linked specifically to the capitalist system and it does give workers time for leisure, for dignity and for each other – time to be human.

Twenty Years Ago...

2010-12-14T16:11:00.001-08:00

...in the New Worker

ONCE AGAIN a major public asset, the electricity industry, has been sold into private hands and once again the British public have been robbed and cheated at every turn of the process.
From the very beginning, when privatisation was being discussed, nuclear power stations had to be taken out of the scheme because they were too expensive for the privatised companies to want them.
Plans for new nuclear power stations were scrapped and the future of the old ones left as a burden for taxpayers. The two new major power generating companies, Powergen and National Power will be sold in February.
Their Privatisation has caused the delay of measures to reduce air pollution from power stations. The costs of having to introduce air scrubbers to clean power station emissions would have made them an unattractive buy. This will cheat the whole of north-west Europe of the possibility of cleaner air.

***

LECH WALESA is now President of Poland after an overwhelming victory in the second round over Stanislaw Tyminski.
Walesa won over 70 per cent of the vote while Tyminski polled just 25 per cent. Tyminski, an émigré Polish businessman from Canada used get-rich-quick slogans in an election which was dominated by smear campaigns and innuendos.
As both candidates were right-wing reactionaries it was perhaps only natural for the campaign to be quickly reduced to personalities.
Walesa takes over a ruined Poland, where the standard of living has declined by 40 per cent according to official statistics since the socialist government collapsed.
Walesa warned of the beginning of an anti-communist witch-hunt, promising a “settling of accounts for the past,” which can only mean harder times for the impoverished Polish people.

Resolution on the Cyprus Problem

2010-12-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

The undersigned parties, which participated in the International Meeting that was held in the framework of the 21st Pancyprian Congress of AKEL in Nicosia-Cyprus, on the 25th of November 2010, having discussed the latest developments regarding the Cyprus problem and the ongoing negotiations between the leaders of the two communities, declare the following:

1. They consider the continued division of the island as illegal, unacceptable and detrimental to the people of Cyprus as a whole; Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
2. They condemn the imperialist conspiracies and interventions that leaded to the invasion and the continuing occupation of 37% of the territories of the Republic of Cyprus for 36 years by Turkey; the Cyprus problem constitutes an international problem of illegal foreign intervention, of violation of core principles of international law, of the UN Charter, of basic principles of European law and of the human rights and civil liberties of its people.
3. Calls for the immediate implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions on Cyprus, the termination of the occupation, the end of the settlement of the occupied area and the unacceptable status quo, the withdrawal of all Turkish troops and the reinstitution of human rights for the people of Cyprus in its entirety.
4. They condemn the continuing efforts of Turkey to alter the demographic character of the island, through the influx of settlers from mainland Turkey, and the usurpation of land and properties in the areas which are not under the control of the Republic since the 1974 invasion, in violation of international humanitarian law.
5. They express their solidarity to the Cyprus people and underline that the finding of a peaceful, just and viable solution of the Cyprus problem constitutes an urgent priority for the international community.
6. They welcome and support the ongoing substantive inter-communal negotiations taking place under the auspices of the United Nations aiming to the finding of a mutually acceptable, comprehensive solution based on the agreed framework of bicommunal, bizonal federation with political equality as prescribed by the relevant UN Resolutions. A solution providing for the transformation of Cyprus into a federal state with a single sovereignty, single international personality and single citizenship.
7. They underline, that the solution must adhere to the principles of International and European law, the UN Security Council Resolutions and the High- Level Agreements between the leaders of the two communities of 1977 and 1979. The solution in Cyprus must safeguard the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all citizens, in line with international law, including the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties and the right of the families of missing persons in both communities to be informed of the fate of their loved ones.
8. Underlines that the election of Demetris Christofias to the Presidency of the Republic marked the undertaking of continued initiatives that led to the reopening of direct negotiations between the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus that solely aim at finding a durable, functional and just solution of the Cyprus Problem.
9. They welcome the difficult and constant effort of President Christofias to reach a comprehensive solution, and express their strong support to his recent balanced threefold proposal namely the linking of the property issue with the territorial and settlers issue, the return of the fenced city of Famagusta to its lawful inhabitants and the convention of an International Conference regarding the International aspects of the solution, once the two sides reach a range of agreement on the other issues.
10. Emphasizes the precision of the agreed framework and the need for the parties to remain committed to this framework. Categorically rejects any effort for introduction of suffocating timetables or arbitration. The Cypriot ownership of the process does not result to the exclusion of the responsibility of Turkey as occupying power.
11. Notes that despite statements and other communication maneuvering, Turkish positions remain, in substance, not supportive to the efforts for finding a solution and continue to be based on the philosophy of two states and the upgrading of the illegal regime of the occupied area. A number of proposals submitted to the negotiations do not fall within the agreed framework for a solution of bicommunal, bizonal federation. The International Meeting denounces this stance and condemns it as it constitutes an obstacle to the progress of the efforts for a solution.

12. They call on the international community as a whole, to exercise its influence on Turkey in order to abandon its current policy towards Cyprus and enable the negotiations to proceed constructively, also taking into consideration the proposal of President Christofias. It is urgent that Turkey proceeds immediately in taking concrete steps in order to reach a comprehensive solution as soon as possible.
13. They express their conviction that the two communities can live together as they have done in the past and build a peaceful, common future in a united, bicommunal, bizonal federal Cyprus; constituting a bridge of peace and multiculturalism in the Eastern Mediterranean region and setting a paradigm for the world community as a whole.

AKEL: A Force for Cyprus A Force for the People

2010-12-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

By a New Worker correspondent

That was the slogan that greeted representatives from communist parties all over the world, including NCP leader Andy Brooks, who came to Cyprus last month to join their Cypriot comrades taking part in the 21st Congress of the Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL) that began in Nicosia on 25th November.
AKEL was founded in 1941 but it has a much longer history as it is the direct heir of the old Communist Party of Cyprus (KKK) that was established in 1926 and later banned by the British colonial authorities. Following independence in 1960 AKEL struggled to defend the island from imperialist plots that culminated in the 1974 coup organised by the reactionary Greek military junta that gave Turkey the pretext to invade and occupy northern Cyprus.
AKEL has maintained warm relations with virtually all the communist parties throughout the turbulent history of the world communist movement so it was no surprise to see that the number of fraternal delegations at this Congress was almost equal to that of the annual conference of communist and workers’ parties itself.
Over a hundred fraternal observers representing 67 parties and movements took part in the Congress and an AKEL sponsored conference on the struggle of the left and the struggles of the peoples for world peace and security against the imperialist order. Major communist parties were in the hall including delegations from People’s China, Cuba and Vietnam, the Syrian Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (Baath) as well as some parties of the European Left movement including the Dutch Socialists and the German Left. All the parliamentary parties in Greece and Cyprus were represented at the Congress and the Greek visitors included deputy premier Theodoros Pangalos from the governing social-democratic PASOK movement, Aleka Papariga from the Greek communist party (KKE), the opposition conservative New Democracy and the far-right LAOS movement.
AKEL is a mass party with nearly 15,000 members out of population of 670,000 in the free south of the island and membership has increased by 800 plus since the last Congress in 2005. The membership was reflected in the numbers of delegates taking part in the Congress. Over 1,400 full delegates including a number from AKEL overseas branches in Britain and Greece took part in the debates and votes over the long Congress weekend.
AKEL formed a left-leaning government after it won the Cyprus parliamentary elections in 2006 and its then leader, Dimitris Christofias, won the presidential race in 2008. But AKEL’s leaders stress that it is a “governing” – not a “ruling” party. Though the coalition is committed to social justice it is administering the economy rather than steering it towards socialist reform. Amongst other things this is largely because no major advances can be made while the island remains divided and occupied by Turkish forces. The end of partition and the restoration of a united republic with full rights for both the Turkish and Greek communities is the paramount objective of AKEL and its allies.
Nicosia is now the only divided capital in the world and the continuing division of the island, of course, dominated much of the Congress. The Turkish government publicly says that it will never betray the interests of the Turkish Cypriot community to obtain admission into the European Union. But everybody knows they would if that was the price to pay to join the European club and everybody also knows that Turkey’s accession is as far away as ever in these days of slump.
If the Turks were seriously concerned about the fate of the Turkish Cypriots they would have done more to preserve their community in northern Cyprus rather than seeing it evaporate over the years through immigration. Though the ethnic balance is maintained through immigration from the poorest parts of Turkey about half the original Turkish Cypriot population now live in Britain and other parts of the European Union while the rest are outnumbered by Turkish immigrants encouraged to settle since the invasion in 1974.
Turkey occupies 36 per cent of the island which is administered by “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” – a phantom state governed by Turkish Cypriot leaders and recognised by no-one apart from Turkey itself. Real power lies with the Turkish “ambassador” and the 40,000 Turkish troops based in the north. Some 200,000 Greek Cypriots were driven out of their homes after the invasion while 50,000 Turkish Cypriots were incited to move to the north.
In 2004 the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities voted on a United Nations plan to end partition. It was accepted by the Turkish Cypriots but rejected by the Greek community, largely because it met more Turkish requirements but failed to meet core Greek demands. Talks between the two communities continue but no-one expects a breakthrough unless there is a dramatic change of policy in Turkey.
Of all the predominantly Greek Cypriot parties AKEL has the best credentials for negotiating with the Turkish Cypriot community. The Cypriot communist movement has always fought against nationalism and chauvinism. The Party has Turkish Cypriot members and from the very beginning the Cypriot communist movement worked to end ethnic divisions to build united unions and a united working class. AKEL considers that the Cyprus problem should be resolved on the basis of the UN resolutions based in the framework of a bizonal and bicommunal federation with a single sovereignty, single international personality and single citizenship, with the human rights and freedoms of all Cypriots guaranteed. AKEL calls for an end to the Turkish occupation and the demilitarisation of the island and the closure of the British, Turkish and Greek bases.
The AKEL leadership does acknowledge that the current Islamic-leaning Turkish government is more realistic than the old guard parties that had dominated Turkish politics for the past 60 years. More check-points have been opened along the cease-fire line making it easier for Turkish Cypriots to look for work in the more prosperous south and making it easier for southerners and tourists to visit the north of the island.
But the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came to power in 2002, has its own agenda that focuses on the restoration Islamic practices outlawed by General Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern secular Turkey who ruled the country from 1923 until his death in 1938. The AKP government kept Turkey out of the Iraq war and it has developed closer ties with its Arab neighbours including the Palestinians. At the same time Turkey has sought to strengthen its position as the eastern flank of Nato to establish itself as the major power in the eastern Mediterranean.
Delegates also pondered on the impact of the global slump and the actions that the AKEL-led government has to take to deal with the crisis. Though Cyprus was better placed to withstand the storm the largely tourist dependent economy has been hit by a five per cent drop in visitors which has had a knock-on effect on the property market. The government is hoping that increased tourism from Russia will fill the gap but it is also planning to curtail the civil service payroll and raise taxes on a number of products, including medicines and foodstuffs to slash the deficit and achieve the EU goal of 4.5 per cent of GDP by the end of 2011. This isn’t enough for the right-wing opposition which wants sweeping cuts in the public sector and more incentives for the market economy and the issue will be fiercely argued during next year’s parliamentary and local elections.
The Cypriot communist movement has thrived despite all the twists and turns within the communist movement. A revisionist, liquidationist trend was defeated in the late 1980s when huge parties, millions strong were collapsing in the people’s democracies of eastern Europe. AKEL has become the leading player in the Cyprus parliament working together with other democratic forces to defend working people and foster peace and reconciliation with the Turkish community. AKEL has established links with some left social-democratic parties in Europe while continuing to play an important role in the network of communist and workers parties because it has retained the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and the long-term objective for the socialist transformation of Cypriot society. There can be little doubt that AKEL will continue to defend and advance the interests of the working people of Cyprus from both the Greek and Turkish communities in the years to come.

The worker and the machine

2010-12-02T13:33:00.001-08:00

By Eric Trevett

THE MAIN factors in the economy of class divided and exploitative societies are first the labour power of the slave in slave society, the peasant in feudal society and the worker in capitalist society. The second main feature is the process of production and the instruments and tools that are available and the personnel able to use them.
There is a relationship between these two factors and the type of society in which they develop. Generally speaking the revolutionary development of the means of production is not matched straight away by fundamental changes in society.
In all stages of the development of humanity there is conflict between the oppressed and their rulers arising from their opposed interests. That lasted for thousands of years and included violence and slave revolts – the most well-known one was led by Spartacus. These revolts were brutally suppressed. Similarly in feudal society there were peasant revolts, the most notable of which in Britain was led by Wat Tyler against the poll tax in 1381.
Under the influence of extended trade wool became an important commodity and the feudal landlords and emerging capitalists forced the peasants from the land. Huge tracts of the country were enclosed for sheep pasture and peasants were forced out at sword point to a life of destitution.
Vagrancy was considered a crime for which many were hanged. Others resettled themselves into cottage industries and the small but growing towns.
The emergent capitalist class challenged for state power with the civil war against the claimed divine right of kings and against the Catholic Church and its doctrine against usury, which was the main obstacle to the growth of trade and quests for colonisation.
Industrial methods of production, in the early stages of capitalism, caused tremendous suffering. Apart from the undermining of the cottage industries, the cotton industry, for example, employed many children as well as adults and the employers fought a rearguard to defend their right to employ children. These children suffered ill health and sometimes horrendous injuries arising from their working conditions.
In the United States the oppressive laws against black people and discrimination on race lines in the US forces were not discarded until the 1950s.
The main feature of capitalist production methods is the boom and slump cycle where so many commodities are produced that there is not enough purchasing power in the national or international markets to absorb them.
These crises, including the one that happened in the 1930s, arise essentially from the scale of overproduction. Crops were often destroyed by poisoning them so they could not be eaten to keep the price of food commodities high in saturated markets.
The major part in achieving better working conditions and better education and health provision came about through the militant activity of the trade unions. Their role in present and futures struggles is crucial. At present the battle is to defend, maintain and improve the current standard of living from a policy of cuts.
Following the 1984-5 miners’ strike in Britain the engineering industry was decimated. Literally thousands of factories in manufacturing were closed.
Throughout the capitalist period new machines have replaced older ones, increasing the production rates and making production less labour intensive. The new electronic technology has affected a number of industries in the recent past. Capitalism has changed the nature of the printing industry. The typewriter has been made obsolete and instead of umpteen drafts of statements being prepared with amendments, deletions and insertions, today these changes are completed on the computer screen and copies run off as required. This enables Cameron to target staffing levels and make cuts in the public sector.
The development and application of new technology affects both industry and commerce to the detriment of employment prospects for the working class. This now includes people who are in the middle strata, such as managers.
Robots are increasingly employed in manufacturing, especially spot welding in the car industry and it is reported that in Scotland that machines are predicted to take over cleaning work to replace jobs presently done by human cleaners.
We have reached a stage in capitalist development where industry and commerce are going to be even less labour intensive. The ruling class is trying to manipulate the education system to give more priority to those students involved in engineering, mathematics, science and technology. They want to develop a sort of elite without any understanding of the role of the organised working class and isolated from the organisations of the working class movement, especially the trade unions.
Another feature from a capitalist point of view is the advancing computer literacy of the working class, especially the youth. In the past new technology was considered to be the cause of the misery of the working class and sections of the working class opposed the introduction of new industrial machinery as in the Luddite movement, which of course was abortive.
We should welcome the introduction of new technology as it has the potential to raise living standards and to advance scientific and cultural standards as well as fulfilling people’s economic needs. But for that to happen there has to be a fundamental change in the nature of society.
What technology cannot do is to continue to expand the economic system without the boom and slump cycle. Indeed the new technology plus the anarchy of capitalist production, in which competition for markets becomes more bitter, will exacerbate this destructive cycle.
The factories of the future are likely to be much more clinical in appearance and in working conditions. They are unlikely to include large concentrations of workers as was seen in the car industry. Much of the work will be spread out at different sites and done in clinical conditions to reduce the airborne dust particles polluting the parts being assembled. In short the new technology will undermine the building of working class solidarity.
The current growing militancy in the fight against Government cuts is a welcome development. It must expand into a movement brining all workers into the struggle against the cuts through being united, with a policy of “a cut against one is a cut against all”.
The struggle to defend jobs has to be a political struggle as well. This is fundamental if the new technology is to serve the interests of the people rather than the profits of the capitalist class.
And we stress that in the absence of a Marxist-Leninist party, having mass influence in the context of a united trade union movement, the revolutionary changes that are necessitated by the new technology will not be realised. This is a problem that the labour movement and its allies must face and resolve.