Saturday, July 05, 2025

Creeping fascism

Only the Starmer leadership and their toadies in the BBC could turn the Glastonbury music festival into a massive rally in support of the Palestinians. But that’s what they did when forgot about the rap-punk Bob Vylan duo and tried to censor Kneecap. These artists are not afraid of police action. Nor are their fans or the millions upon millions who had never heard of them until last week but are now echoing their calls for “free Palestine” and “death to the IDF [the Israeli army]” all around the world.
Now Palestine Action faces is going to be outlawed as a terrorist organisation. It would be one of, if not the, most draconian attack on everyone’s freedom of speech and right to dissent.
The police have been given powers to arrest and charge with terrorism anyone declaring support for Palestine Action. It is a chilling attack on the right to non-violent protest.
Palestine Action has been proscribed as a terror organisation. Anyone supporting the non-violent activist group could face up to 14 years in prison.
Since the 1990s there has been a procession of Police and Crime Acts, Immigration and Asylum Acts and anti‑terror legislation. And since the 11th September 2001 attacks on the United States, there has been an avalanche of very repressive anti‑terror measures, including detaining suspects indefinitely without charge or trial along with the introduction of control orders that amount to house arrest. These anti‑terror laws have been used against people who are plainly not terrorists – usually peace protesters. Now they’re being used to suppress the direct action Palestine solidarity movement that campaigns to end British involvement in the genocidal war against the Palestinian Arabs. 
Shamefully only a handful of Labour MPs voted against the proscription of Palestine Action. Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance took the principled stand. So did the Greens and the SD&LP from northern Ireland.
Supporters of Palestine Action have voiced concern about the precedent this sets for protestors who are calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Critics decried the chilling effect of the ban, which puts Palestine Action on a par with the gunmen suicide bombers of the sectarian al-Qaeda and ISIS movements, making it a criminal offence to support or be part of the protest group.
“Let us be clear: to equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t just absurd, it is grotesque. It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity, and suppress the truth” says Zarah Sultana, the maverick Labour MP suspended from the party for opposing Starmer’s plans to ends the two-child benefit cap. Or as the journalist and environmentalist campaigner George Monbiot put it “you can blow the limbs off a child...you can directly and deliberately target journalists, academics, you can blow up entire families, you can target people who are queuing for food aid. You can do what the hell you like and you will not be condemned by this government. But spray a bit of paint on some war planes, on some weapons of war, and that paint becomes the true weapon of war. That becomes the true aggression. That becomes in [Home Secretary] Yvette Cooper’s words a ‘disgraceful attack’”.

After the guns fall silent…

...real negotiations must begin – and not just on the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear energy industry. The American-inspired truce that some say was brokered at Israel’s request may have put the Israeli-Iranian conflict on hold but it hasn’t stopped the fighting in Palestine. In occupied Palestine Zionist gangs spread terror in the West Bank while the Palestinian resistance fights on against a brutal foe who kills scores of civilians every day in what is clearly an attempt to drive the Palestinian Arabs out of their Mediterranean enclave to make room for more Zionist settlement.
Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who signed the Camp David surrender treaty, with Israel once said that the United States held “99 per cent of the cards” in the Middle East and that he relied on the Americans to advance the peace process in the region by “bringing Israel to reason”. The Arab traitor, who was assassinated by Islamic militants in October 1981, was wrong.
Sure – recent events have shown that the United States can bring “Israel to reason” any time they like as the Zionist entity is a total dependency of the United States. But the Americans, who certainly hold 99 per cent of the cards in Tel Aviv, have little or no sway in the corridors of power in Tehran let alone the Palestinian resistance. 
Despite all the talk of “Zionist lobbies” and the “Jewish vote” only the Americans count in Tel Aviv. The Israelis are American puppets that, until recently, enabled the Americans to pose as friends of the feudal Arab kings who allow the Big Oil corporations to plunder their oil in return for a juicy cut and American protection.
Likewise the Zionist leaders who strut the world posing as independent politicians are just alibis for American aggression in the Middle East. US imperialism provides the military and economic support that keeps Israel going. The country is an American protectorate and their leaders will ultimately do whatever America wants.
Iran is perfectly entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. While Trump and his Israeli and European followers bleat on about Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb project the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that the claim by Israel and the USA that the Islamic Republic is secretly building a nuclear weapon is false. Likewise the continuous monitoring of Iranian nuclear activities by the agency has not unearthed any evidence of departure from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that Iran has signed. 
The war goes on in Gaza because that’s what American imperialism wants. They want the fighting to continue until Hamas is crushed – because Hamas stands in their way, because the Palestinian resistance sabotaged the American plan for NATO expansion in the Middle East when it launched its raid into Israel in October 2023.
But what the Americans want and what they get is another matter altogether. They failed in Iraq. They failed in Afghanistan. They will fail in Syria and they will fail in the rest of the Middle East.
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 led to the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians from their homes. The war continues to this day. The Palestinians fight on and they will continue the struggle until their legitimate rights are restored.
UN resolutions have provided the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. First of all Israel must totally withdraw from all the occupied territories seized in 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. The Palestinians must be allowed to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. And all states in the region, including Israel, should have internationally agreed and recognised frontiers guaranteed by the Great Powers.

Stop the drive to war

Trump walks out of the G7 conference in Canada. He threatens to kill the Iranian leader and join Israel in its offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran. All in all it seems that the American establishment, the “deep state” or war lobby that cuts across the bogus political spectrum in the United States, that represents the most venal and aggressive sections of the American ruling class is back in charge if the mercurial acts of the man in the White House is anything to go by these days. That, of course, we won’t know for sure as Trump’s bargaining style is a heady mixture of lies, bluff and threats What we do know is that the entire Middle East will be set ablaze if US imperialism does openly join in the war to save the skin of its Israeli puppet.
That’s why the Stop the War movement and the rest of the Palestine solidarity coalition has added the slogan No War on Iran as part of its mobilisation for the big national demonstration in London this weekend. That’s why we, as communists, must also help in the effort to stop British involvement in any future American aggression in the region.
The Americans will almost certainly want to use Diego Garcia, the Anglo-American military base in the Indian Ocean, as a staging post to conduct strikes on Iran. They may also want the RAF squadron in Cyprus to join them in what the Israelis are openly calling “regime change” in Iran. 
Crawling to the Americans is second nature to Labour and Tory politicians who still drone on and on about trans-Atlantic “partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify British imperialism’s slavish support of American power throughout the world. So we shouldn’t expect much from the Starmer government that bleats on about “de-escalation”, says Iran must never have a nuclear bomb while supporting Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” whenever anyone demands a serious response to Zionist war-crimes from the British government. 
Stop The War convener Lindsey German says Trump has “absolutely no business bombing or attacking the country in any way. To do so would be a completely illegal war crime which will cause misery to millions and drive the world into the worst Middle East war ever.
“The claims that Israel is simply defending itself against the attacks by Iran over the last week are completely false. 
“We know from the past 20 months of Israel’s assault on Gaza they’re not defending themselves, they’re engaged in an aggressive and genocidal war, and they intend the same for Iran”.
 In Britain the ruling class would have us believe that we live in what the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil, mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for Labour leaders and a daily dose of lies from the bourgeois media they think they can play this cynical game for ever and ever. We must prove them wrong and stop this war.






Friday, July 04, 2025

The Gordon riots

by Ray Jones

In June 1780 thousands of people marched through London and started what is said by some to be the greatest riot Britain has ever seen. Led by Lord George Gordon, after whom it became known – an MP for a pocket borough in Wiltshire – the initial cause was a bill set to give very limited rights to Catholics. In the forefront were the middle classes organised in the powerful Protestant Association. Peacefully they marched through London to present a petition against the bill to Parliament.
But Parliament quickly rejected it and the situation swiftly changed. What started off peacefully enough became violent and destructive; the middle classes stepped back (although some liberal Whigs continued to pay lip service to the cause) and the initiative was taken up by the poor. For a week London was held by the ‘mob’. All except one of the prisons were wrecked and the inmates released, Parliament was blockaded. The houses of wealthy Catholics were burnt and looted as were Catholic chapels (most of which were attached to the houses) but poorer Catholics were mostly left alone. The Bank of England was attacked and perhaps this was some kind of turning point.
For a week the magistrates and the authorities were remarkably inactive and for the most part the troops obeyed the law which restrained their actions, not having a magistrate willing to read the Riot Act. The King, George III, stepped in and demanded that the law be reinterpreted to allow the troops to ignore the magistrates and fire at will (that is as they were ordered, because there is a suggestion that before this a lot of fraternisation was going on). Fifteen thousand soldiers had been brought into the city and they opened fire killing between 400 and 700 people and wounding many more.
The riot was effectively crushed. Twenty five rioters were tried and hanged and Lord George Gordon was tried for treason but acquitted (possibly because he had turned against the rioters before the end – and no doubt being a Lord and MP helped).
Although the Gordon Riots are sometimes categorised as purely anti Catholic riots there is much to indicate that they were more complex than that. It’s true that “No Popery” was a common battle cry of the rioters and that anti-Catholicism had deep roots going back before the English Revolution but poor Catholics were not targeted. It was the wealthy and powerful that were mainly attacked and institutions that represented authority.
The change in the law was seen as a means of allowing more men into the army to be used against the Americans in their struggle for independence which many supported. But it was also used to bolster the King’s push for absolutism in Britain – hence the other battle cry of “Liberty!”. The very limited freedoms that people had were cherished and people looked nervously at the rest of Europe and linked Catholicism with the absolutist regimes on the Continent and the even greater poverty they saw there.
The conditions for working people were hard. London was over-crowded, dirty, stinking, poverty-stricken and disease ridden but with tiny islands of immense wealth and enormous class differences. Working class political organisation was in its infancy. It’s not surprising that people struck out in revolt sometimes.
If readers fancy a fictional account of the riot they might try Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge. He is hardly pro-riot and the novel was written years after the event but his liberal attitude (for the time) is clear and being a journalist he did some research.
As for Gordon he later converted to Judaism and died in prison after being jailed for libelling the queen of France, the French ambassador and the administration of justice in England. 

Monday, June 23, 2025

The struggle of the people against imperialism must be strengthened!

 Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties

The Communist and Workers’ Parties signing this Joint Statement strongly condemn the US attack on Iran, which escalates the military offensive already launched by Israel.
After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the USA and its allies are now shedding the blood of yet another country in the Middle East. This imperialist aggression is plunging people into war across a wider region and threatening to destroy humanity as a whole.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties are demanding an immediate end to the escalation of the war against Iran by the USA, NATO and Israel. We also call on people to strengthen their struggle against war, foreign military bases, troop deployments abroad, military equipment and nuclear weapons.
Solidarity with the people of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and all other peoples in the region must be strengthened.
 
SolidNet Parties

  • Communist Party of Albania
  • Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
  • Communist Party of Armenia
  • Communist Party of Australia
  • Party of Labour of Austria
  • Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain
  • Communist Party of Bangladesh
  • Brazilian Communist Party
  • Communist Party of Britain
  • New Communist Party of Britain
  • Communist Party of Canada
  • Communist Party of Chile
  • Colombian Communist Party
  • Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
  • Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia
  • Communist Party of Denmark
  • Communist Party of El Salvador
  • German Communist Party
  • Communist Party of Greece
  • Communist Party of India
  • Iraqi Communist Party
  • Tudeh Party of Iran
  • Communist Party of Ireland
  • Workers Party of Ireland
  • Communist Party of Israel
  • Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
  • Communist Party of Mexico
  • New Communist Party of the Netherlands
  • Communist Party of Norway
  • Communist Party of Pakistan
  • Palestinian Communist Party
  • Palestinian Peoples Party
  • Paraguayan Communist Party
  • Peruvian Communist Party
  • Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]
  • Communist Party of Poland
  • Romanian Socialist Party
  • Communist Party of the Soviet Union
  • Communists of Serbia
  • South African Communist Party
  • Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
  • Communist Party of Sri Lanka
  • Communist Party of Sweden
  • Syrian Communist Party
  • Swiss Communist Party
  • Communist Party of Turkey
  • Communist Party of Ukraine
  • Union of Communists of Ukraine
  • Communist Party USA
  • Communist Party of Venezuela

Other Parties
  • Argentinian Communist Party
  • Revolutionary Brazilian Communist Party 
  • Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism (Finland)
  • Communist Revolutionary Party of France 
  • Communist Party (Germany)
  • Communist Front (Italy)
  • Communist Workers' Platform USA

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Israel lights the fuse

The Israeli attack on Iran is the opening shot of a war that could plunge the whole of the region into flames. The Israelis originally said their objective was to destroy Iran’s atomic energy industry, which they claim is a cover for efforts to produce nuclear weapons. Now they’re calling on the Iranian people to overthrow their government.
These have always been the objectives of Benjamin Netanyahu and the rabid Zionist leaders of the parties in his coalition government. More to the point they are also the objectives of American imperialism that has long worked for regime change in the Islamic Republic. 
Netanyahu’s coalition is deeply divided over moves to end Orthodox Jews exemption from conscription. Some of the Ultra-Orthodox parties have threatened to resign over the issue which would bring down the government and lead to fresh elections – elections Netanyahu would almost certainly lose.
Israel is in a quagmire of its own making fighting a war in Gaza it cannot win amidst rising inflation and economic stagnation. Many Israelis think Netanyahu is indifferent to the fate of the remaining Israelis held by the Palestinian resistance. Public opinion polls show a growing number of Israelis support the anti-war movement while calls for army reservists to refuse service have also been increasing.  So while doing the Americans bidding war with Iran provides a new prop to hold Netanyahu’s coalition together.
Though there is a growing peace movement in Israel the Netanyahu government thinks it can do whatever it likes regardless of the consequences because it believes that the Arabs and the Iranians are weak and that the United States will always be there to lend a hand when the going gets tough.
What they didn’t take into account was the Iranians’ ability to withstand their first wave of attacks. Nor did they foresee the devastating missile response which has shattered the myth of the so-called “Iron Dome” defence and left parts of Tel Aviv in ruins. Neither did Trump.
The ludicrous dreams of the US president of winning a Nobel Peace Prize have died in the dust of the streets of Gaza and the rubble in Tel Aviv. The Iranians say that as the Americans are the main supporter of Israel, the United States "will also be responsible for the dangerous effects and consequences" of Israel's attacks. Even some of Trump’s closest supporters have broken ranks with him over Iran including Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchorman, who says his former icon was  “complicit” in Israel’s attacks on Iran. Carlson says “Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be America First can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it”.  Or as Mollie Hemingway, another Republican pundit, put it: if Trump gave Israel the “green light” to target Iran, it “would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters”.
 Israel has not been able to kill or drive out the defiant Arab population of the Gaza Strip. Gaza is not going to become a Trump-style American leisure resort. The Palestinians fight on. And so do the Iranians.

A new lease of life for Labour?

Labour’s victory in the south Lanarkshire by-election this week has surprised the bookies, dented the prestige of the SNP and boosted the standing of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. But while the nationalists were expected to hold their Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse seat the political pundits always said it would be a close run thing.
And so it was with Labour’s Davy Russell beating the nationalists by a margin of 602 votes. The Faragists came a close third while the Scottish Tories were well behind with the also-rans.
Labour’s U-turn over pensioners’ winter-fuel payments and the expansion of the free school meals scheme clearly helped sway voters – as did the decision to keep Sir Keir Starmer well away from the constituency during the campaign. 
But though Labour and the nationalists were neck and neck in Hamilton the SNP still retain a clear lead in the national polls. Professor John Curtice says “the recent message from opinion polls are the SNP is running at just over 30 per cent, Labour is around 20 per cent, so it seems a reasonable expectation that such a result would not mean Anas Sarwar is Scotland’s next First Minister”.

No arms for Israel!

Too much even for Britain or France to stomach – the latest American veto at the United Nations shows the true colours of the Trump administration as the instigator of the Zionist massacres in the Gaza Strip. But while the Starmer government likes to pose as “even-handed” or even sympathetic to the legitimate demands of the Palestinians it continues to supplies arms and intelligence to the Zionist entity. 
Now a new Opinium poll reveals huge British public support for arms embargo on Israel by the UK government alongside other sanctions. The British public support a full arms embargo on Israel by more than 4 to 1, including 72 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2024. 54 per cent of the British public support Israel being expelled from the United Nations, with only 16 per cent being opposed. And 50 per cent of respondents supported the idea that supermarkets should no longer stock any goods produced in Israel, in line with the Co-op’s recent decision to boycott Israeli goods at its AGM.
Now we’ve go to turn these polls into reality. Get the message across at the monthly mass protests in London and the weekly demonstrations throughout the country.  From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!

Pastures new?


It didn’t take long for differences between Donald Trump and Elon Musk to degenerate into smears and common abuse. Musk is peddling all sorts of unsavoury stories about his former ally while Trump leaves it to his acolytes to call for Musk’s deportation as an “illegal immigrant”. 
The South African-born oligarch became an American citizen in 2002. He is still, apparently,  a Canadian citizen. But as he is unlikely to be welcomed back in either of his past homelands he should seriously consider the offer of a new safe haven in the Russian Federation.
Communist MP Dmitri Novikov, the first deputy chairman of the Committee on International Affairs in the Russian parliament, told the Moscow media that he could always seek political asylum in the Russian Federation. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek Novikov added that while he didn’t think Musk would need it “Russia, of course, could provide it”.
Indeed. Musk should take it while the going’s good given the irascible and unpredictable nature of the The Donald these days...

Knives out for Starmer

Smears, rumours and gossip. From the mainstream media to the murky corners of the dark web it’s clear that concerted efforts are being made by some of the Labour prominenti to clear the decks for a challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership later in the year. Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are in the frame amid renewed speculation around Andy Burnham’s return to the parliamentary arena.
The knives are out on the Labour street. Many in the Westminster bubble say any one of those three could do a better job than Starmer. The truth is that practically anyone in the Labour Party as a whole would be better than Starmer – the man who led Labour to landslide victory at the general election last year and is now leading them to an equally colossal defeat if the opinion polls are anything to go by.
Starmer is a cynical politician whose lodestar is simply to follow what he believes is the dominant trend within the British ruling class. Not an easy thing to do at the best of times – let alone in these fraught times of end days capitalism.
But there is no dominant trend within the ruling class these days – neither on the European Union, Nato or, more importantly, on how to deal with the Trump administration.
Starmer’s European “reset” enraged the Brexiteers but won him no favours from the Remainers who say, with some justification, that these token gestures to Brussels do nothing to swell the demand for a second referendum on the European Union. His attempt to become a “leader” in Europe by rallying Franco-German imperialism to stave off the collapse of the Zelensky regime is an equally pointless gesture as the fate of Ukraine is going to be decided by Washington and Moscow – regardless of the “special relationship” that supposedly exists between Britain and the United States.
Gone are the delusions of grandeur of the British ruling class who believed that the American sphere of influence across the globe constitutes the “free world” and that Britain was the second-in-command in policing it. The days when British imperialism could play off the USA against the Europeans by acting as a trans-Atlantic “bridge” between American imperialism and that of France and Germany are long gone. 
The “special relationship” that Winston Churchill believed went beyond the terms of the NATO alliance largely existed only in the imagination of Tory leaders and right-wing Labour politicians. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair liked to pose as partners of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton but at the end of the day it was always the Americans who called the shots. Boris Johnson talked about "a new special relationship"  and a trans-Atlantic free trade zone. But the ‘Treaty of Washington’ never saw the light of day and Trump’s latest thinking – a one-sided tariff agreement and the annexation of Canada – is totally unacceptable to the British ruling class.
In the corridors of power some believe Britain should simply sit it out. Put up with Trump until his term of office expires and hope for better times to come.  Others say time is not on their side – wary of the talk of a “new Yalta” in Washington and the Kremlin – a redivision of the world by the super-powers that would leave nothing but crumbs for Britain and the European Union.
A change may well be as good as a rest but Labour needs more than a cosmetic reshuffle of the top table to revive its flagging fortunes. Starmer, of course, has to go. But whoever takes his place will have to dump the old imperialist agenda if Labour is to have any hope of winning the next election.


The cowardly BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is one of our supposed “national treasures” whose aims are to educate, inform and entertain the public that funds it through the licence fee. Under the motto “Nation shall speak peace unto Nation” the BBC claims to be a pillar of impartiality and a reliable source of independent news at home and abroad. 
That was never the case back in the 1920s when the Corporation was founded. It’s certainly not the case now.
The BBC’s role has always been to serve the ruling class and defend British imperialism. During the Second World War the BBC’s policy of credible reporting easily outshone that of the Nazis. When the war ended the BBC continued to serve the ruling class and defend British imperialism. It totally failed to report a famine in Bengal that resulted in around 10 million deaths and was the result of a deliberate British imperialist policy of deprivation, and defended colonial efforts to maintain the Empire throughout the post-war era. 
During the Cold War the Beeb cashed in on its war-time prestige to churn out sophisticated anti-communist propaganda at home and all around the world in the service of Anglo-American imperialism. It was said that while news from the Voice of America and Radio Moscow were “95 per cent truth and five per cent lies” the BBC had the edge with “ninety-eight per cent truth and only two per cent lies”.
Those days are now long gone. Although the state-owned broadcasting service still promotes some serious dramas, its news and current affairs output is just cheap, dumbed-down, third-rate bourgeois propaganda.
The BBC consistently supported Nato aggression against Serbia, Iraq and Libya, and imperialist efforts for regime-change in Syria and Venezuela, whilst turning a blind eye to Ukrainian fascist war-crimes in the Donbas and routine Zionist atrocities against the Palestinians. Obscure Russian, Chinese and Korean dissidents are treated like latter-day Gandhis while communists and other left leaders in the Global South are vilified or simply ignored. 
This is the BBC that led the pack that demonised Jeremy Corbyn when he was the leader of the Labour Party. This is an international news outlet that crackdowns on their own journalists for sharing posts that include facts about Israeli atrocities in Gaza. This is the broadcaster that totally ignored the massive Palestine solidarity demonstration that rocked London last weekend. Some 600,000 people marched through the heart of the capital in support of the heroic Palestinians who still refuse to budge in the face of Israeli terror. But you wouldn’t know about it if you only relied on the BBC for home news.
Meanwhile this august body, which turned a blind eye to all sorts of degenerates like the late Jimmy Saville, can force out Gary Lineker for daring to publicly denounce the Zionist genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Lineker was a legend on the pitch. A top scorer in the League he made his England debut in 1984, earning 80 caps and scoring 48 goals over an eight-year international career, which made him England's second-highest goal-scorer on his retirement. Now he’s an immensely popular sports broadcaster. It’s the Beeb’s loss and Lineker’s gain. He’ll soon be back amongst the highest echelons of the sports media. As for the BBC no-one will miss it. The sooner it goes the better...


Back from the brink

Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi communists all called for restraint following clashes over Kashmir that, once again, took India and Pakistan to the brink of all-out war. The latest round of fighting was triggered by the sectarian killing of Hindu tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The Indian government blame the Kashmiri Resistance Front, which they say is a front for Pakistani intelligence. The Resistance Front vehemently denies any involvement in the deadly attack. They say it was an Indian “false-flag” provocation designed to provide a pretext for more Indian aggression and they’re calling for an independent investigation into the massacre.
Pakistan called for an independent investigation into the massacre which was rejected by the Indians who instead launched coordinated airstrikes and artillery attacks on what they called the “terrorist infrastructure” across the cease-fire line that has divided Kashmir since 1949. Pakistan responded by downing five Indian war-planes and a surveillance drone. Fortunately both nuclear powers have pulled back from further action that could have spelt disaster for millions of people in Pakistan and India. But a cease-fire isn’t going to end the Kashmir crisis that has led to  four all-out wars with Pakistan since independence. 
The crisis goes back to the shambles of the partition of the British Raj in 1947. Faced with the overwhelming demand of the Indian masses for independence after the Second World War Britain had no choice but to bring down the curtain on direct colonial rule and that of the feudal Indian kings who ruled the “princely states” of the Indian Empire.  
But the British ruling class believed that sectarian divisions would preserve their interests after independence.  Millions upon millions died in communal rioting, partition, the establishment of the supposedly secular Indian Union and the Muslim state of Pakistan (which then included Bangladesh) and the first Indo-Pakistan war that followed.
Kashmir's decision to join the Indian Union was made by their feudal prince without consultation with the people – a fact recognised by one of the first decisions of the United Nations, which agreed on a referendum to allow the population to vote on whether they wanted to join India, Pakistan or establish their own independent state.
India is led by a reactionary high-caste party that relies on the support of anti-Muslim Hindu movements to keep them in office. The decision of the Modi government to abolish the Indian-Kashmiris right to their own constitution and parliament fulfils the long-term objective of the Hindu supremacists who want to end all pretence of secularism in the Republic of India.
A cease-fire line divides Kashmir – one-third under Pakistani control while India administers the rest. The vast majority of the population are Muslims with close ties to Pakistan. There can be no doubt that any popular vote would lead either to union with Pakistan or independence. The Indians have never accepted this and now they think Pakistan is too weak to stop them annexing Eastern Kashmir outright.
Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers and another full-scale war could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange that would leave millions dead. We must support all efforts to ensure that this does not happen.
But the key demand must be the end of partition. We must uphold the original UN resolution and support the just demand for a referendum to let the Kashmiri people decide if they want to be part of India, Pakistan, or in an independent state of Kashmir.

A symbol of China’s Dulong people in London

by New Worker correspondent

David Francis and the blanket
A traditional Dulong blanket from China's least populous ethnic minority made its debut at the opening of the China National Pavilion during the 2025 London Craft Week which ran until 18th May. The China Pavilion is themed "Tian Gong Kai Wu" after a renowned 17th-century Chinese encyclopedia widely regarded as the world's first systematic record of Chinese craftsmanship and agricultural knowledge. 
The Dulong primarily reside in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in south-west China. The Dulong blanket, woven by Dulong women, is a cultural symbol of their community.
The Dulong display was supported by the Mothers' Needlework initiative, launched by the China Ping An Group and the Art and Design Press. The programme aims to promote women's employment and alleviate poverty.
At the opening Zhao Fei, from the Chinese embassy, highlighted the shared heritage of craftsmanship in both China and Britain. He noted that both countries have splendid craft traditions, and expressed hope that this year's London Craft Week would deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the two nations.
Qian Zhu, president and editor-in-chief of Art and Design magazine, said that Dulong blankets and its related textiles generate annual sales of approximately 500,000 yuan (£51,600) in the UK. For an ethnic group with a population of just 7,000, the growing domestic and international recognition of Dulong textiles is a significant achievement.
David Francis, a lecturer in Curating Asian Art at SOAS, University of London, whose research includes ethnic minority communities in China said he was excited to see textiles he had encountered in China now being exhibited in London. He emphasised the importance of integrating traditional craft with contemporary design to resonate with modern audiences.

Friday, May 23, 2025

Stop the genocide against the Palestinian people


Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties
 
The Communist and Workers’ Parties condemn the new crime against the Palestinian people, which is being carried out before the eyes of the whole world and has been brought about by the intensification of the barbaric military aggression and the criminal Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.
The genocide that Israel is committing in the Gaza Strip, with thousands of dead civilians, children and elderly people, with millions of people deprived of food, water, electricity and medical supplies, with the complete destruction of hospitals and with millions of people displaced, is supported by the USA, NATO, the EU and all those bourgeois regimes that support Israel or keep silent about this inhuman crime.
We express our full solidarity with the Palestinian people and defend their right to a free homeland, to be masters in their own land. We condemn the decades-long Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the killings, imprisonment, persecution and settlements.
We demand an end to the Israeli occupation, the creation and recognition of an independent Palestinian state, the cessation and dismantling of the illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories, the release of prisoners from Israeli jails and the return of refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194.
We salute the massive internationalist solidarity with the Palestinian people that has been expressed in many countries and we call on the workers, the peoples and the youth in all countries tointensify the struggle to stop the massacre in the Gaza, to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to express their solidarity with the just struggle of the Palestinian people in a decisive way.

Everyone on the path of struggle!
Freedom for Palestine!
 
SolidNet Parties
    1. Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism  (PADS)
    2. Communist Party of Australia
    3. Party of Labour of Austria
    4. Communist Party of Bangladesh
    5. Brazilian Communist Party
    6. Communist Party of Britain
    7. New Communist Party of Britain
    8. Communist Party of Canada
    9. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
    10. Communist Party of Denmark
    11. Communist Party of El Salvador
    12. German Communist Party
    13. Communist Party of Greece
    14. Communist Party of India (Marxist)
    15. Iraqi Communist Party
    16. Communist Party of Kurdistan-Iraq
    17. Tudeh Party of Iran
    18. Workers Party of Ireland
    19. Communist Party of Israel
    20. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
    21. Lebanese Communist Party
    22. Communist Party of Mexico
    23. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
    24. Communist Party of Pakistan
    25. Palestinian Peoples Party
    26. Palestinian Communist Party
    27. Philippine Communist Party [PKP 1930]
    28. Romanian Socialist Party
    29. Communists of Serbia
    30. Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
    31. Communists of Catalonia
    32. Sudanese Communist Party
    33. Communist Party of Sweden
    34. Communist Party (Switzerland)
    35. Swiss Communist Party
    36. Syrian Communist Party
    37. Communist Party of Turkey
    38. Communist Party of Ukraine
    39. Union of Communists of Ukraine
    40. CPUSA
    41. Communist Party of Venezuela

     

 
Other Parties
  • Argentinian Communist Party
  • Revolutionary Brazilian Communist Party
  • Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism (Finland)
  • Revolutionary Communist Party - Communists (France)
  • Communist Revolutionary Party of France (PCRF)
  • Communist Front (Italy)
  • Communist Workers' Platform USA (CWPUSA)

Thursday, May 22, 2025

The Nazi revival and the threat of war

by Theo Russell
the forum begins

The Second International Anti-Fascist Forum which took place last month in Moscow was a very timely gathering of the best elements of the world’s communist and workers parties.
To be at this event it wasn’t enough simply to be aware of the resurgence of the far right and fascism in the advanced capitalist countries; in practice the parties present had to have good relations with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the Forum organisers, and also be prepared to attend an event in Moscow. This in turn means a correct analysis of the war in Ukraine since February 2014 and of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) which began in February 2022.
Like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40, a correct Marxist Leninist assessment of the Russian intervention in Ukraine requires a sufficient knowledge of the events leading up to it and the overall strategy of Western imperialism in the world today.
Unfortunately, some of the world’s largest communist parties have, in fact, failed this test. Led by the French communists and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), many parties declared the SMO an ‘imperialist’ operation.
This was an abject failure to understand how the Nato alliance had deliberately created a situation which effectively forced Russia to act. 
First, by 2022 fascist and specifically anti-Russian Banderite thinking had spread throughout Ukraine including the armed forces and police. Ukraine had become a living example of a 1930s-style fascist state, and in practice only an external military intervention could eradicate the resulting dictatorship.
Second, this dictatorship unleashed horrific atrocities and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, especially in the Russian-speaking regions, long before February 2022.
Third, Nato blatantly used the Minsk peace talks to pump weapons into Ukraine and train an entirely new ‘Nato standard’ military, all the while falsely claiming that the Donbas forces and Russia were breaking the agreed ceasefires. When it became clear that the placing of long-range missiles in Ukraine was the next step, the puppet regime became a mortal threat to Russia. In other words, Nato’s plan all along was to force the Russian Federation into a war.
Thus, a Marxist-Leninist analysis shows the current war in Ukraine is not between Russia and Ukraine. It is a war directed against Russia, and backed by 55 Nato and allied states.
From a Marxist-Leninist position, the Russian intervention, and the war fought before that by the Donbas People’s Republics, is a just war. It is in fact a war of liberation from the tyranny of a fascist dictatorship.
For these reasons, the Moscow Forum was an opportunity for the best elements of the world communist movement to gather and prepare tactics for the inevitable future clashes with the rising fascist tide and the threat of new wars – the products of the deepening capitalist crisis.
Leading members of the CPRF themselves made major theoretical contributions to the Forum, including general secretary Gennady Zyuganov as well as Dmitry Novikov and Yuri Afonin from the Central Committee.
During the Forum discussion on Nazism and Fascism as a Natural Continuation of Colonial Capitalism, Afonin described how fascism first arose as capitalism's reaction to the Great October Socialist Revolution, which he said “resulted in a colossal strengthening of the communist and labour movement across the planet. Capitalism found itself on the brink of historical collapse. Its response was fascism”.
He argued that the bourgeoisie of the richest capitalist countries such as the USA, Britain, France and the Netherlands, were able to maintain their rule without abandoning bourgeois democracy, due to the enormous financial resources available to them. “But in the poorer countries of the semi-periphery, the capitalists began to solve this problem with the help of fascism” – a reference to Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
“After 1945” he continued “fascist practice and fascist regimes became the lot of the periphery of the world capitalist system. The Western imperialist powers in suppressing national liberation movements in the colonies was practically no different from the practice of mass terror that Hitler's Reich conducted in the occupied territories”. 
Afonin said the Western powers established a kind of "export" of fascism to the countries of the Third World, now known as the Global South. “In the Third World they contributed to the establishment of fascist regimes dozens of times, and supported them for decades”.
He described the ‘special structures’ which were created, such as the USA’s ‘School of the Americas’ created in 1946 to train military and police officers from Latin American countries in large numbers. “Graduates of this ‘school’ took part in many coups d'état, after which fascist regimes were established” with the creation of  “death squads, mass kidnappings, torture and murder”.
“In 1965-66, during the establishment of the fascist regime in Indonesia, according to various estimates, between one and two million people were exterminated. And in Guatemala, the fascist regime, supported by the United States, exterminated about 10 per cent of the country's Indian population in the 1980s, with Indian villages being destroyed along with all their inhabitants and burned.
Afonin paid tribute to Cuba’s outstanding role in the fight against fascism in the second half of the 20th century. “Cuba gave every possible support to Latin American liberation movements that fought against fascist regimes. And this was one of the reasons why Latin American fascist dictators were eventually either overthrown by rebels or forced to resign and give way to democratic governments. 
“And in Africa, Cuban internationalist warriors helped the peoples of Angola and Mozambique defend their independence in the face of aggression from the racists of South Africa, whose regime pursued a truly fascist policy towards black Africans”.
“In the modern world”, Afonin continued, “fascism is a form of neo-colonialism used by Western imperialism. The closest example to us geographically is Ukraine. After the collapse of the USSR, it effectively fell into neo-colonial dependence on the West.
“Today, the form of this Western domination is the Zelensky regime, which meets all the signs of a fascist one. Now this regime is busy preparing to transfer all the natural resources and all the most profitable assets of its country to the United States. It is difficult to find a more obvious example of outright neocolonialism”.
He then turned to the Middle East. “Here the State of Israel is pursuing a policy towards the Palestinian people that is confusingly similar to the policy of Hitler's Reich towards the peoples it declared ‘inferior’.
“It is also worth taking a closer look at armed radical Islamism. These groups usually say they want to return society to the times of the first caliphs. But we understand that this is impossible. It is impossible to revive the social order that existed almost one and a half thousand years ago. 
“Behind this reactionary utopia lies a completely different reality. We must not forget that radical Islamism in its current form was created by Western intelligence services in the 1980s to use against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. And now we see signs that Western imperialism is using radical Islamism against its opponents. 
“The economy of ISIS territories continued to be integrated into the system of global capitalism. Oil extracted in ISIS territories somehow ended up in Western tankers, which transported it around the world. In the territories where radical Islamists established their power, polygamy, marriages with little girls and slavery were legalised. Ancient cultural monuments were barbarously destroyed and mass terror was unleashed”.
Dmitry Novikov, Deputy Chair of the CPRF Central Committee spoke at the section "Lenin's teaching on imperialism and fascism". He emphasised the new aggressive approach of the collective West in the form of the war against Russia unleashed by the hands of Ukrainian neo-Nazis, adding other examples such as Israel's bombing of Palestine, the use of Taiwan in the fight against People’s China, and the new American trade war. He warned of the danger of economic conflicts escalating into military ones. 
He recalled that the capitalist crisis after 1918 led to a powerful struggle by the labour movement. In Italy Mussolini banned strikes and reduced workers' wages, while the ‘democratic’ countries supported the regime. In Germany the Nazi party was “turned into a fist of the bourgeoisie to strike blows at the communists and the labour movement”, while American and British monopolies helped the Third Reich to rebuild military production.
Today, he said “Nato has put the supply of various types of weapons to the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime on stream. Thus, the imperialists play a key role in the formation of fascist regimes”.
Novikov pointed out that “Lenin was the first and most outstanding anti-fascist. He saw the threat of fascism back in the early 1920s and warned the European workers about it. He revealed the essence of imperialism, which is the progenitor of fascism.
“Vladimir Lenin created a party that, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, became the grave-digger of fascism and created the Comintern, whose parties took up the first battle against the brown plague”.
He recalled that after the Soviet victory over the Third Reich, many Nazis went on to serve in government structures and intelligence services of the ‘democratic’ countries, while the West supported the power of the colonels in Greece, the Pinochet junta in Chile, and other reactionary regimes.
Novikov spoke of the latest ‘innovations’ of global capital, such as using global social networks to suppress dissent (what the Cuban Communist Party calls “digital colonialism”). “In the US and Europe, people who criticise the policies of the ruling circles are subjected to moral terror by the authorities, fired from work, and banned from professions and publication in the media”.
“At present world capitalism is reviving Nazism. The threat of a new world war is growing. In these conditions, the duty of progressive forces, honest people, is to consolidate in the fight against dangerous tendencies.”
Novikov referred to the fascist tactic of “playing on the social moods of the people, to exploit the workers' desire for justice, their rejection of corruption, and the dictates of capitalist monopolies. As a result, many workers become victims of Nazi demagogy”. 
Viktor Tyulkin, leader of the Russian Communist Workers' Party, declared his party’s support for the special operation in Ukraine.
He described the collective West, led by the United States, as “the most predatory imperialist force in the world. To achieve its goal of world hegemony, the Western imperialists are striving to dismember Russia. All this began not in 2022, but in 1991,” he said 
“We should not remain silent about Nato approaching the borders of our country, about the imperialists cultivating Banderites in Ukraine. Repeating the fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya in Russia is contrary to the interests of the working class of our country and the whole world”.
Tyulkin also mentioned the responsibility of the Russian ruling class, since the roots of the current situation lie in the liquidation of socialism. “The abolition of Soviet power put Russia in a vulnerable position, and the unleashing of anti-communism continues to this day. Only under socialism will it be possible to completely eliminate the threat of fascism”.
Tyulkin also spoke of “a campaign in our country to rename settlements, squares, streets, and to glorify reactionaries, including fascist philosophers.”
Many other speakers condemned the US and Nato for the Ukrainian Nazi regime, Israeli aggression against Palestine, and American pressure on China and Cuba, and said it was unacceptable for countries which took an independent position to be branded "sponsors of terrorism" and "enemies of democracy".
The representative of the People's Socialist Party of Mexico declared that socialist and genuinely democratic forces should create a World Anti-Fascist Front. 
I N Makarov, of the Russian Scientists for Socialism movement, spoke of the struggle against bourgeois counter-revolution in Russia in the 1990s, and “the unleashing of fascist terror in Russia” in October 1993. “After tanks fired on the House of Soviets” he said, “the Yeltsinites killed hundreds of protesters defending the USSR Constitution at the Krasnaya Presnya stadium and the Ostankino TV Tower”. 
Makarov referred to the work of Gennady Zyuganov, Russia under the Gun of Globalism, which he said “asserts that the phenomenon called ‘globalism’ is simply a new form of imperialism, but has not changed its essence in the slightest. Consequently, Lenin's definition of imperialism remains relevant.”
He said that today “Russia has the mission of defeating fascism for the second time in the past 80 years. He predicted that “if the USSR's victory over Hitlerism in 1945 was followed by the collapse of colonialism, then the current defeat of Banderism will serve as a prologue to the fall of the imperialist system”.
Speakers in the section Fascism – a threat to security and cooperation in Europe spoke of the resurgence of fascism in Europe today, arguing that the European Union has, to some extent, become “the forerunner of the Fourth Reich” in which the renewed fascist movements actively use the difficult situation that has often developed in the sphere of migration policy in different countries. 
Many speakers expressed alarm over the ongoing distortion of historical truth and called for a complete rejection of all forms of decommunisation in state ideology and policy.
Emilio Lasada Garcia, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of Cuba, said “fascism in Latin America has not gone away. With its subversive actions against Venezuela, Washington today seeks to establish a fascist regime in this country, betting on the ultra-right, fascist forces.
“In the United States itself, very disturbing processes are also underway. The slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ is reminiscent of the fascist slogans of the past. In today's USA, concentration camps have been revived, where many thousands of migrants are thrown.”
Marcelo Rodriguez of the Communist Party of Argentina, said that the right-wing Argentine president Miley’s ideology –  “anti-communism, racism, and open hatred of the indigenous Indian peoples actually make it neo-fascist”.
Delegates from several Middle Eastern parties said the Zionist regime is pursuing a fascist policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, where every thirtieth resident of the Gaza Strip has already been killed and 20 per cent of residents have been expelled from their homes, most of which have simply been destroyed.
Benedict Martins of the South African Communist Party noted that the armed struggle in the Donbas did not begin in 2022, but eight years earlier. And the root of this conflict is that neo-fascism has once again raised its ugly head in Ukraine in the form of an openly Nazi Bandera ideology.
This view was echoed by Konstantina Kartsioti, a Greek communist in the Anti Imperialist Front, who said the huge Western imperialist propaganda machine was now spreading lies about Russia around the world, but that thanks to the activities of progressive forces, more and more people are beginning to understand the essence and roots of the conflict in Ukraine.

Monday, May 12, 2025

The struggle against fascism is the common and urgent task of the progressive forces all over the world

Appeal of the Second International Anti-Fascist Forum

We, the participants in the Second Anti-Fascist Forum in Moscow, reaffirm and support the Manifesto for the uniting of the world’s peoples “Safeguard Humanity Against  Fascism” adopted on April 22 2023 in Minsk by the I International Anti-Fascist Forum.
The course of events has indicated the proposition that the cause of imperialist aggressiveness in the modern world is the aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism. At the end of the 20th century the counter-revolution in the USSR and in the countries of Eastern Europe temporarily weakened the planet’s socialist pole and untied the hands of reaction. Fully in accordance with the Leninist theory of imperialism, the USA and the other capitalist predators are making a bid for world hegemony by the most heinous of methods, including the fostering of neo-Fascist regimes.
In accordance with the Fascist ideology of enslavement of the peoples the imperialist regimes have stained their reputations by barbaric aggressions against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, supported the Israeli Zionists who have unleashed the slaughter in Palestine which has practically developed into a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Threatening a new world war, international imperialism is stoking up tensions in various regions of the world and igniting new conflicts.
NATO countries  set the task of demonizing Russia, defeating it militarily and dismembering it in the same fashion as the Soviet Union. To achieve this goal an aggressive bridgehead was being created in Ukraine.  Banderovism, a form of Nazism which has formed the basis of Russophobia and the spread of Fascist ideology, was being nurtured there. By February of 2022 the US-led anti-Russian policy of the NATO military involved nearly 50 satellite countries. The economic, political and military resources of the world capital, including war mercenaries, were committed to the attack against Russia. Further strengthening of the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev and pumping it full of weapons must be prevented. The Bandera thugs and their principals in the West must be justly condemned and the Fascist regime in Kiev must be fully liquidated.
Revanchist motives are increasingly evident in the ideology and policy of the Western bloc. They are being instigated by the same forces which suffered a defeat at the hands of the Soviet Union and its Red Army in 1945. Anti-communism is one of the main signs of the resurgence of Fascism in Ukraine, the Baltics and other Western countries. This is totally in line with the practice of Hitler’s Fascists who created an Anti-Comintern Pact. Everything that is happening in the European Union is essentially a prelude to the creation of the Fourth Reich.
The peoples of the world must stem any attempts of a Nazi revenge. We demand total renunciaton of all forms of de-communisation in state ideology and policies. The struggle against neo-Nazism is the task of all the thinking, courageous and decent people of the planet. It cannot be put off until later. It must be waged here and now by all available means and by bringing together all possible allies!
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory over Hitler’s Nazism and Japanese militarism in the Second World War we declare: a final end to Fascism and the threat of world wars can be put only by putting an end to imperialism. We support without reservations the transformation of the struggle against Fascism into the struggle for the socialist renewal of all the countries on the planet.

The battle against Fascism cannot tolerate pauses and armistices!
Join the ranks of the fighters against Neo-Fascism, for social progress and socialism!
We will not allow the world to be blown up!
¡No pasarán! They shall not pass!
Long live the united front of the progressive forces!

Moscow
23 April 2025