The Battle for a Socialist Britain

 by John Maryon

During the summer of 1951 around 8.5 million people visited the Festival of Britain held on the south bank of the Thames in London. It's aim was to celebrate Britain's achievements in culture, architecture , science and industry. It also sought to encourage recovery from the horrors of the Second World War and foster national pride. Remembered for the iconic images of the Skylon and Dome of Discovery the exhibits were colourful and contemporary. People were encouraged to look forward to a brave new world marking a bright new future for Britain. I was there.
Britain still had a strong industrial base and the thriving co-operative movement played an important role in the lives of working class people. We believed that socialism was just round the corner as people were starting to benefit from new social and health care benefits. The NHS had been established three years earlier and new state industries starting to rebuild and modernise our neglected infrastructure. A powerful trade union movement was fighting for better pay, shorter hours, safer working conditions and good pensions. The slums were being replaced by beautiful new council houses. Villages still had their own butchers, bakers, post office and rural people grew all their vegetables. Most people could not afford a motor car but with cheap buses everywhere that did not matter.
We naively believed that with scientific advances and developing technology things could only get better. We envisaged a great future without wars, all sickness would be cured and unemployment become a thing of the past. In many ways the period represented a high point for the socialist ethos in Britain. Since those halcyon days the rich have much more wealthy. Medical advances have failed to conquer many terrible diseases. Imperialism has carried out forever wars. Our economy is failing, our infrastructure is falling to pieces and years of austerity have brought suffering to millions.
Communists recognise the prime cause of Britain's decline is the terminal crisis of capitalism with its irreconcilable contradictions. A crisis made worse by the greed, incompetence and detachment from reality of our so-called leaders. Most Western nations suffer the same malign affliction. The Tories sold all the family silver in a great orgy of capitalist excess when they privatised essential public services. Governments have failed to engage in long term infrastructure investment and many companies have failed to invest in Britain. Essential high tech investment has been neglected in favour of paying workers an appalling basic minimum wage to continue working obsolete systems without innovation.
The debacle has been possible because the working class has not mobilised. The mass media, including the British Brainwashing Corporation (BBC) have been able to anaesthetise people's critical thinking with lies and crude propaganda. We need an effective fightback through class struggle. Labour having abandoned it's socialist values is not in a position to introduce radical policies for change. Many small left wing parties in Britain today are mostly sectarian and prefer to talk among themselves rather than engage in alliances with others. ‘Your Party’ with the respected and trusted Jeremy Corbyn will sadly be unable to tackle the underlying causes of the crisis with a social democratic platform. And then there is the fake left that hover round the Morning Star, who claim to be communist, make a lot of noise, damage working class unity, weaken the struggle against imperialism and achieve very little of substance.
It is essential for a vanguard party committed to Marxism-Leninism to show the way forward and encourage a renewed class struggle. The chief policies of the New Communist Party of Britain are as follows:

* Tax the Rich: More money is needed to properly fund our vital public services, repair the collapsing infrastructure and to invest in green energy, sustainable development and transport for future generations. And it is the wealthy who must pay more. For decades they have amassed huge fortunes by the exploitation of working people. We believe that progressive taxation measures should be introduced to disgorge their vast wealth. Increases in top rates could shift the burden of taxation away from the workers onto the capitalists. Tax evasion by companies should be made illegal and be enforced.

*Public Ownership: Full red:blooded socialist measures are absolutely necessary. Key strategic industries, investment bodies and utilities must be owned and controlled by the people. Within the framework of a planned economy short termism, market anarchy, pollution and cyclical crisis would be avoided. And the surplus value generated spread fairly between the workers and the requirements for new public investment. By public ownership we mean full ownership rather than a loose arrangement in which many functions are out sourced and some assets remain in private hands.

*Independence: Britain needs to free itself from American hegemony and the pretence that it has a special relationship . We must say no way to their obscene demands for increasing war expenditure to five per cent of GDP. We would make peace a major policy and work with diplomacy to build trust and understanding. The war mongers who have governed our country seek forever wars that guarantee huge profits for arms manufacturers. None of the US lackeys ever talk about peace. Of course any nation should have the right to defend itself. We have no obvious natural enemies who would have any interest whatsoever in starting a war against us so expenditure should be measured and adapted to real needs. We oppose warmongering weather from politicians or the BBC who appear to have changed their stated aim of nation speaks peace to nation with the promotion of fear and mistrust.

*Freedom: Socialism with its foundations of equality and fair distribution of wealth in intrinsically more democratic than Capitalism can ever be. But we should always be on our guard against corruption and excesses in the early stages of building socialism. In Britain today many people have been conditioned into being unable to think critically. We would take back the BBC and turn it into a real voice for the people by allowing it to reflect all points of opinion and so enrich our social and cultural development. To achieve real freedom we have to struggle for it through the class struggle and the New Communist Party of Britain will always stand tall in that endeavour.

To learn more about our policies I urge you to become a regular subscriber to the New Worker and join the struggle by joining the NCP today.