The Historical Test of Socialism at the Turn of the Century

by Li Zhuoru

 On the Centenary of the Birth of Comrade Jiang Zemin

Historical boundaries at the turn of a century are not produced mechanically by the turning of the calendar; only when the existing balance of forces undergoes a substantive shift, the mechanisms sustaining the established order begin to break down, and new social relations together with their institutional forms have not yet attained stability does a transition between epochs acquire historically discernible contours. 17 August 2026 marks the centenary of the birth of Comrade Jiang Zemin. To re-examine his life today is neither to compress a historical period dense with intersecting contradictions and consequential choices into a personal encomium, nor to substitute individual volition for the determining role of the people and their social practice; it is, rather, to explain how a communist identifies the principal contradictions within conditions directly encountered and inherited from the past, how he organizes social forces through the Party and the state, how he chooses among several possible paths a political course with enduring consequences, and how he bears the historical responsibility arising from that choice. Marx wrote: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” A political figure, therefore, can neither be construed as the sole motive force of historical development nor dissolved into an irrelevant variable within an objective process; his role acquires specific determination only through such real mediations as the political party, the state, the masses, institutions, and organizational structures, and is tested against the actual consequences generated in social practice.
Measured against this historical standard, the final decade of the twentieth century reveals, first of all, a structural reconfiguration that altered the global balance of political forces. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the upheavals in Eastern Europe, the cause of world socialism—and the international communist movement in particular—suffered grave setbacks; apologists for the capitalist system hastened to interpret the temporary preponderance of forces as the final verdict of social development and to proclaim the political retreat of a particular historical phase as the failure of socialism itself. At the same time, new contradictions unfolded within China between the development of the productive forces and existing forms of economic administration, between the expansion of the market and social equity, between opening to the outside world and national economic security, and between the differentiation of interests and the capacity for political integration. If the existing pace of development were simply maintained, socialism might weaken its own social basis through insufficient material dynamism; if capital relations were permitted to expand without constraint, reform might, in its actual operation, depart from the social purposes of socialism. Although these two dangerous trajectories moved in opposite directions, each could lead to the same result: a weakening of the socialist system’s capacity to organize production on a sustained basis, integrate society, and safeguard the fundamental interests of the people.
Precisely because this historical juncture contained the possibilities both of ossification and of degeneration, assessments of Comrade Jiang Zemin and of the period identified with his leadership cannot be subordinated to the mutually mirroring narratives of liberalism and dogmatism. The former construes the market, opening, and economic growth as the spontaneous triumph of the logic of capital; the latter directly identifies certain concrete forms of administration that had taken shape under the planned economy with socialism itself. Although ostensibly opposed, both substitute a single economic form for a concrete analysis of the relations of production, the structure of ownership, state power, and social purpose, and thereby sever the internal connections between institutional form and class content, economic mechanism and political leadership, and the development of the productive forces and the interests of the people. The historical task assumed by Comrade Jiang Zemin as the core of the third generation of the CPC central collective leadership was, under these two-sided pressures, to uphold the basic socialist orientation while overcoming the ossified links that obstructed the development of the productive forces, and thereby to re-establish a unity—among reform, development, and stability, and between the state, the Party, and the armed forces on one side and the fundamental interests of the people on the other—that could be sustained in motion, continuously adjusted, and tested in practice.

I. The Defining Element Is Socialism: From Meihualing to the Fourteenth National Congress of the CPC

The practical capacity to find a viable way forward within the movement of contradictions did not arise suddenly after he assumed posts in the central leadership; its early practical foundations were formed in a life trajectory linking national crisis, underground struggle, and industrial labour. During his youth, Yangzhou was occupied by the Japanese invading forces, and Comrade Jiang Zemin frequently visited the tomb of Shi Kefa on Meihualing to pay tribute. After joining the Communist Party of China (CPC) in April 1946, he took part in the student movement against hunger, civil war, and persecution and, under difficult conditions, provided cover for revolutionary comrades; on the eve of Shanghai’s liberation, he also organized workers in the struggle to protect the factories. The cold stone of Meihualing, the circumspection required by clandestine liaison, and the machinery still running in the factory workshops made the connection among national independence, the liberation of the people, and the preservation of society’s productive capacity part of his political experience at an early stage, not as an abstract idea detached from determinate conditions, but as a concrete problem susceptible both to perception and to action.
With the transition from national crisis to socialist industrial construction, this experience acquired the precision required by engineering and technical work. In the early years of the People’s Republic of China, Comrade Jiang Zemin participated in food production and in providing material support for the Chinese People’s Volunteers, and later directed the design of a domestically produced turbo-generator; in 1955 he undertook an internship at the Stalin Automobile Plant in Moscow, Soviet Union, returned to China to participate in the construction of First Automobile Works in Changchun, and in 1961, amid strained coal supplies, directed the conversion of power boilers to crude-oil firing. Whether a boiler could be made to operate again did not depend on the forcefulness of the wording employed, but on whether the properties of the fuel, the control of pressure, the configuration of pipelines, the condition of the equipment, and the cooperation of labour could be brought into objective alignment; a failure to ground any one of these elements in actual conditions could render the entire plan ineffective. Social governance cannot, of course, be reduced mechanically to engineering design, yet the disposition formed in this process—to proceed from objective conditions, reckon with interdependencies, organize complex systems, and test judgement against practical outcomes—subsequently remained the engineering cast of mind underlying his treatment of major political and economic questions.
When the practical criterion formed in the workshop was carried into the planning of the special economic zones and the governance of Shanghai, it was further transformed into a criterion of institutional construction. In participating in preparations for the special economic zones, Comrade Jiang Zemin did not examine whether foreign experience should be accepted wholesale, but which external forms a socialist state could select, transform, and employ in accordance with its own developmental needs and which elements might conflict with state sovereignty, economic security, and the basic requirements of the socialist system. While directing work in Shanghai, he promoted the establishment of a system of expert appraisal for major projects and required the government each year to address a number of practical questions concerning residents’ food, clothing, housing, and transport. These two aspects of his work were not separate: expert appraisal embodied the requirement that decision-making conform to objective laws, while the resolution of problems affecting people’s everyday lives embodied the requirement that state construction serve the interests of the people. The evidence here shows that, unless a macro-strategy is brought into concrete connection with technical conditions, public resources, and the life of the masses, it remains an abstract intention not yet transformed into a real force; effective political leadership consists precisely in giving concrete form to an overall orientation through a series of institutional mechanisms capable of implementation, inspection, and correction.
When this practical method was applied at a historical moment of profound retreat in world socialism, the formulation of a socialist market economy ceased to be merely a change in the terminology of economic administration and became an institutional choice bearing on the direction of socialist China’s development. In a speech at the Central Party School on 9 June 1992, Comrade Jiang Zemin indicated that he was inclined to adopt the formulation “socialist market economy”; in October of the same year, the Fourteenth National Congress of the CPC formally established the creation of a socialist market economy as the objective of reforming the economic system. Engels observed: “A nation that wants to climb the pinnacles of science cannot possibly manage without theoretical thought.” Theoretical thought, as used here, did not mean appending a retrospective explanation to an established policy, still less concealing actual contradictions by substituting one concept for another; it meant discerning, beneath the apparent opposition between planning and the market, the deeper relations that determine the character of a social system, and thereby answering the question of what structure of ownership, what form of state power, and what social purposes determine the mode of operation of the economy.
The central point of the institutional proposition thus formed was not simply to attach the label “socialist” to the market, but to use the basic socialist system and state power to determine the political boundaries and social orientation of market operation. Comrade Jiang Zemin later described the term “socialist” as the formulation’s “defining element” and made explicit that this element specified the character of the market economy. As a mode of allocating resources, the market is not, within concrete social relations, a neutral apparatus devoid of class content; nor does planning, as an instrument of economic administration, produce socialist outcomes automatically by virtue of its form alone. What is decisive is whether the dominant position of public ownership can be consolidated; whether the socialist state can effectively regulate the movement of capital and the economic cycle; toward what developmental objectives the social surplus is principally directed; whether the working people can share in the fruits of social development through employment, distribution, social security, and public services; and whether economic growth can be transformed into a real capacity to strengthen the material foundations of socialism and improve the people’s lives. The question has never been whether the market should be used, but who leads it, under what institutional constraints it operates, through which distributive relations it operates, and whose interests it ultimately serves.
Furthermore, a socialist market economy does not imply that the contradictory tendencies inherent in market relations have disappeared. The market can facilitate the mobility of factors of production, raise economic efficiency, and expand social production; without institutional regulation, however, it can also intensify income disparities, promote the commodification of public resources, and permit sectional interests to encroach upon the interests of society as a whole. The tasks of a socialist state therefore include not only establishing and employing the market, but also restricting the spontaneous forces of the market and bringing the activity of capital within limits defined by the state’s development strategy, the requirements of social equity, and the fundamental interests of the people. The socialist character of the system cannot be guaranteed by its designation alone; it must be continually realized through the actual operation of the system of ownership, the distributive system, macroeconomic regulation, public services, and political leadership.
The practical tensions contained in this institutional choice subsequently manifested themselves in the adjustment of state-owned enterprises, the construction of the social security system, the effort to withstand the Asian financial crisis, the return of Hong Kong and Macao to China, and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Reform liberated and developed the productive forces, while also creating employment pressures, widening income disparities, and generating the risk of the commodification of power; opening to the outside world expanded the scope of the international division of labour and technological exchange, while also situating national economic security within a more complex international configuration of forces. At midnight, first in 1997 and then in 1999, the five-star red flag was raised over Hong Kong and Macao respectively; the texts negotiated for China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 inscribed rights and obligations into the institutional conditions under which China entered the world market. Sovereignty did not disappear as a consequence of opening; on the contrary, under conditions of opening it had to acquire more precise expression through the legal system, industrial policy, financial supervision, macroeconomic regulation, and national strategy. Opening therefore did not abolish the functions of the state, but required the socialist state to possess a stronger institutional capacity to manage the contradictory relationship between domestic development and the world market.
Yet a simple and unequivocal answer to the question of the standard by which this major institutional choice should ultimately be tested was furnished by an episode on 5 December 1993. On that day, in Beijing, Comrade Jiang Zemin administered an oral poliomyelitis vaccine to a kindergarten child; after taking the vaccine, the child turned and kissed “Grandpa Jiang.” This brief gesture could not, of course, substitute for a scientific demonstration concerning the economic system and public policy, nor did it constitute institutional evidence in a statistical sense; it nevertheless gave the value criterion of institutional practice a directly perceptible form: the productive forces, the market mechanism, and state capacity must ultimately be embodied in the health, security, conditions of life, and future of ordinary people. The social content of the socialist market economy is not realized by its designation alone, but can be demonstrated only through development outcomes that the masses actually obtain.

II. Military Effectiveness and the Preservation of Political Character: From the Jingjiang Dike to the Cessation of Commercial Activities by the Armed Forces

If the socialist market economy answered the question of how commodity relations and market mechanisms could be used to develop the social productive forces, the cessation of commercial activity by the armed forces answered a different question: into which domains commodity relations may enter and which forms of public power they must under no circumstances be permitted to dominate. At a meeting of the four General Departments of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army held on 21–22 July 1998, Comrade Jiang Zemin announced that the commercial companies affiliated with the military and the People’s Armed Police Force must be thoroughly reviewed and brought into order and that the armed forces and the armed police would henceforth cease all commercial activity; local political and legal organs subsequently proceeded according to the same principle. This decision was not an industrial adjustment or routine business rectification in the ordinary sense, but an institutional answer to whether the people’s armed forces could be exposed to erosion by commodity relations and whether the coercive power of the state could be transformed into an instrument for the self-expansion of special interests; it thereby reaffirmed the boundary between public power and the profit-seeking mechanism of capital.
The principled significance of this decision lay in the fact that the public resources controlled by the people’s armed forces could not be converted into conditions for capital accumulation in the service of special interests within the organization. The armed forces possess weapons, land, transport, storage facilities, and administrative authority; once these resources become durably combined with profit accounting, relations of command may be disrupted by relations of interest, while public power may acquire, in its actual operation, a material basis detached from public purposes, thereby fostering rent-seeking practices, vested-interest groups, and a relaxation of organizational discipline. Lenin observed: “The role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory.” In this context, “theory” does not mean repeating the designation “people’s armed forces,” nor using their political character to obscure a concrete problem; it means discerning, behind the partial returns that commercial activity may generate, the danger of the capitalization and self-reproduction of public power, and severing the institutional conditions on which that danger depends before it congeals into organizational inertia and a stable structure of interests.
The same historical moment soon demonstrated, through another scene, where the people’s armed forces properly belonged. The July decision to end commercial activity separated the barracks from commercial interests; on 13 August, Comrade Jiang Zemin went to the front line of flood control and emergency relief along the Yangtze River in Hubei, where, standing on the dike at the hazardous Zhongshajiao section in Wulin Town, Honghu City, with a megaphone in his hand, he addressed the soldiers and civilians gathered around him, their clothing covered with mud and water; on 16 August, he ordered all troops stationed along the river onto the dikes. The words spoken on the dike did not derive their force from rhetoric, nor did the flood admit of any declaration detached from reality. Military uniforms, sandbags, boats, and lights that remained burning throughout the night demonstrated more clearly than abstract definitions that withdrawal from profit-seeking activity and deployment to the front line of flood control were two institutional expressions of the same political character of the people’s armed forces: the former removed the armed power of the state from the sphere of capital valorization, while the latter placed it at the forefront of the protection of the people’s lives and property.
Pursuing the implications of the military question further, the stability of a socialist state cannot be reduced to the concentration of administrative power; it depends on whether the ruling party can restrict the combination of public power with special interests, preserve its capacity for political integration as the social structure and relations of interest change, and ensure that the extension of its organizational base remains subordinate to its political programme. The important thought of the Three Represents therefore addressed not only how the Party’s organizational reach might be extended, but how, under conditions in which the productive forces were developing, social strata differentiating, and economic components becoming more diverse, a ruling party could broaden its connections with advanced forces in all sectors of society while preserving the Party’s character as the vanguard of the working class and maintaining the socialist orientation; and how the requirements for developing advanced social productive forces, the orientation of advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people could be constituted as a unified whole whose elements are interrelated, mutually constraining, and mutually verifying. If the development of the productive forces is detached from the interests of the people, economism may reinterpret it as capital valorization; if the extension of the organizational base is detached from the Party’s class character and socialist programme, the broadening of social connections may be transformed into a retreat from political principles.
When these theoretical determinations entered organizational life, the cessation of commercial activity by the armed forces, the “Three Stresses” education campaign, efforts to improve Party conduct and build a clean government, and the adjustment of primary-level Party organizations disclosed a common internal logic: through ideological education, organizational discipline, and institutional constraint, public power was to be prevented from becoming detached from the interests of the people, while the Party’s advanced character was to be continually reproduced under new social conditions. Stalin observed: “Of course, theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory.” A communist party that has governed for a prolonged period cannot, in other words, preserve its advanced character automatically on the strength of past revolutionary achievements, nor can it regard existing organizational forms as permanently effective institutional guarantees; as social relations change, it must demarcate anew the boundaries between public power and private interest, organizational incorporation and political principle, and economic efficiency and social purpose, while continuously eliminating, through self-education, self-restraint, and institutional correction, the factors capable of eroding the Party’s character. Theory acquires a material form capable of transforming reality only when it is converted into institutional procedures that can be implemented, inspected, corrected, and made subject to accountability.
Accordingly, Comrade Jiang Zemin’s formulation that the armed forces must be able “to fight to win while never degrading in character” did not refer to two parallel and separable requirements of military work, but to the unity of the effective capacity of state force and its political character. The requirement to “fight to win” specified the concrete capacity that the people’s armed forces had to possess in order to defend state sovereignty, the social system, and the interests of the people; the requirement to “never degrade in character” specified who must control that capacity, according to which political principles it must be employed, and to what social purpose it must remain subordinate. Without the capacity to win, the state could not effectively defend the social achievements already secured by the people; if degeneration occurred, however, the stronger that force became, the more readily it might depart from the historical mission entrusted to it by the people. The events of 1998 made this conclusion particularly clear: the commercial enterprises divested from the military establishment and the people’s armed forces rapidly assembled on the dikes defined from opposite directions—one through negative restriction, the other through positive fulfilment of public duty—the proper relationship of the state’s armed forces to capital and to the people.

III. “To Develop Our Socialist Cause Successfully”: From the Individual Cultural World to Internationalism

The institutional choices of the state and the Party did not exclude the role of personal character in political practice; personal character, however, can be converted into political influence only through organization, institutions, and social relations. In Comrade Jiang Zemin, the precision of the engineer, the erudition of the intellectual, and the organizational capacity of the political leader were brought, over the course of sustained work, into a relationship of mutual complementarity. He was able to converse with foreign guests in English, Russian, and Romanian; in preparation for delivering a speech in Spanish in Latin America, he devoted several successive weekends to working on pronunciation. He was familiar with classical Chinese poetry and took an interest in European literature and music. Language, poetry, and melody were not ornaments external to political activity; they constituted an individual condition that enabled him to understand the cultural psychology of different nations and to unite political principle with communicative capacity, thereby furnishing institutionalized interstate interaction with a more concrete cultural medium.
This cultural disposition may be illustrated by an ordinary and unassuming scene. At a small gathering, Comrade Li Lanqing was invited to play František Drdla’s Souvenir; when he momentarily forgot the melody, he shifted smoothly into Enrico Toselli’s Serenade. Comrade Jiang Zemin immediately recognized the change and, smiling, asked how Souvenir had become Serenade, before singing the latter in English. There is no need to elevate this episode into an event possessing independent political significance; it nevertheless discloses an aspect often obscured by grand narratives: rigour is not incompatible with humour, and knowledge is not confined to documents, reports, and formal speeches; political life, while maintaining principle and assuming responsibility, does not necessarily exclude human interests, memories, and feelings.
When this individual cultural world entered the sphere of international relations, socialist internationalism acquired a tangible human dimension extending beyond the procedures of protocol. Before his visit to Latin America in 2001, Comrade Jiang Zemin studied Spanish for seven or eight successive weekends, sometimes repeating the pronunciation of a single word more than ten times in order to achieve accuracy; after arriving in Havana, he greeted Fidel Castro in Spanish and opened the talks with several minutes of remarks in Spanish. Repeatedly correcting the pronunciation of a single word may appear a minor matter, yet it enabled the comradely relations between the two states to move beyond conventional protocol and gave respect an immediately audible expression. At a time when Cuba continued to endure the pressure of blockade, such respect could not substitute for political cooperation and material support between states, but it gave concrete form to interaction on a footing of equality, national dignity, and comradely solidarity as required by internationalism.
The political significance of this internationalism can be determined with greater precision only when situated within the actual circumstances of the world socialist movement after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1990 Comrade Jiang Zemin stated: “We must acknowledge that world socialism is at a low ebb; nevertheless, we must stand firm—stand firm despite the adverse circumstances—while at the same time developing our socialist cause successfully.” The force of this statement lay not in rhetorical intensity but in the clarity of its judgement. To acknowledge the low ebb was to refuse to allow subjective wishes to obscure the change that had already occurred in the international balance of forces; to insist on “standing firm” was to refuse to abandon the socialist orientation because of a temporary setback; and to require that “our socialist cause be developed successfully” was to translate the responsibility of internationalism into the concrete practice of developing the productive forces, strengthening state capacity, consolidating Party organization, improving the people’s lives, and broadening the social basis of socialism. Internationalism cannot be sustained by declarations of conviction detached from material conditions; every concrete position of world socialism can be preserved only by relying on the productive forces, state capacity, Party organization, and the support of the people.
Developing this judgement further, the significance of the Chinese path for the international communist movement lies not in furnishing a formula that can be mechanically transplanted, but in preserving the historical possibility of socialism as a real institutional choice. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, restoring the old organizational structure in which directives were issued from a single centre was neither supported by the requisite objective conditions nor compatible with the requirement that communist and workers’ parties in different countries independently formulate their own lines, policies, and strategies of struggle. Each party must determine its own path in accordance with the class structure, national history, political system, and social conditions of its country, while forming a new international solidarity in the common struggle against imperialism, hegemonism, and the monopolistic domination of capital. A national path severed from internationalism readily degenerates into state egoism; internationalism that is not mediated through concrete national conditions and class relations becomes an abstract phrase lacking a social basis and organizational force. Their unity must therefore rest on the equality and autonomy of the parties, mutual respect, and concrete cooperation, rather than on the replication of any model detached from the conditions that made it possible.
In the final analysis, the question of the historical future of world socialism must be answered by the practice of the masses, and Comrade Jiang Zemin’s own historical place can be determined only by the same criterion. Chairman Mao Zedong observed: “The people, and the people alone, are the motive force of world history.” The youth at Meihualing, the young participant in the struggle to protect Shanghai’s factories, the organizer of the boiler-conversion project in Changchun, the speaker delivering the report at the Fourteenth National Congress of the CPC, the Chairman of the Central Military Commission on the Jingjiang Dike, and the head of state offering greetings in Spanish in Havana are not isolated commemorative images; a single fundamental question connects them: by what social forces are production, the state, the armed forces, the political party, and international relations organized; by what institutional relations are they governed; and to what social purposes are they subordinated? The historical role of the individual acquires its concrete and limited determination precisely in the process of answering and practically addressing these questions.
Accordingly, what should be preserved in commemorating the centenary of Comrade Jiang Zemin’s birth is not a static portrait abstracted from the movement of contradictions, but the political character of a communist who, at the historical rupture marking the turn of the century, translated theoretical judgement into institutional choice and submitted that choice to the test of the people’s practice and the historical process. The period in which Comrade Jiang Zemin acted did not eliminate all the contradictions of socialist development, but caused them to assume new forms at a new level of development of the productive forces, amid expanded market relations and altered international conditions; his historical role lay not in bringing contradictions to an end, but in contributing, together with the Party and the people, to ensuring that socialist China did not withdraw from the process of world history during the low ebb of the international communist movement, and in preserving for the new century the material positions and institutional conditions required for further practice, cognition, and development.
This conclusion requires no embellishment, for the facts themselves are sufficient to establish it; nor can it remain confined to a commemorative text, because the historical contest between socialism and capitalism as two social systems will, in the final analysis, continue to be decided by the organized people, the developing social productive forces, and institutional practice tested in reality. To commemorate Comrade Jiang Zemin therefore means not only to look back upon the history that has already unfolded, but also to continue, under new conditions, the investigation of the actual contradictions between the market and socialism, capital and public power, Party building and the interests of the people, and the national path and internationalism, while subjecting every institutional choice anew to evaluation from the standpoint of the people and to the test of social practice. Only in this way will socialism avoid becoming a merely inherited designation and instead continue as a real social system continually constructed and developed by the masses through their practice of understanding contradictions, organizing forces, and transforming society.

 Li Zhuoru is a Special Research Fellow at the Institute of National Security Studies, Nankai University, and Deputy Secretary-General of the World Association for Political Economy

In Academia also…

Plagiarism is as old as the hills in Western  academia. Passing off the work of others as original research and cheating at exams is part and parcel of the curriculum these days.  ‘Lie, cheat and steal’ is the bourgeois ethic that underwrites everything in the capitalist world so it shouldn’t surprise us to find it in academia also. When caught out erring scholars can usually expect a moment of shame, a rap on the knuckles, a demotion or a discreet resignation before returning to the ivory towers. 
Not so for Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor who was hounded to death by endless racist attacks on his integrity in the mainstream media. They claimed that his academic achievements were faked and that his back-story didn’t add up.
This was all too much for Arday, one of the youngest black professors in Britain. He submitted his resignation. Last week he took his own life.
Jason Arday was subjected to a bourgeois media frenzy usually reserved for mass murderers and serial killers. Some aspects of Arday’s narrative may well have been massaged to advance his career. But other key claims the sociologist made about his academic research and his charity work, which were widely denounced as false, now appear to be true. 
It transpires that the witch-hunt was inspired by another Cambridge don, an American racist and Zionist, who had  previously been dismissed from Emmanuel College in a row over his views on race and intelligence. Dr Nathan Cofnas has a firm view about black people. He is a proponent of "racial realism" who wrote in February 2024 that without affirmative action, "blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment". 
But this wasn’t just an isolated case of academic bigotry and rivalry. London MP Diane Abbott says the press was out for Jason Arday from day one. 
“What you have to remember is that this wasn’t a matter of a few weeks,” the maverick Labour MP told the media. “He was first appointed as a professor in Cambridge three years ago and for those three years he has had a vicious campaign from people who just didn’t believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor”. And it doesn’t stop there. “Stop and think how many people at other top universities think exactly the same,” she said. “It wasn’t just a campaign against one professor, it was a campaign against all of us”.
Or as Jeremy Corbyn put it “in the final months of his life, Jason Arday was subject to a relentless onslaught of attacks and abuse. Jason was a human being with friends and family – but he was turned into a pawn for vicious culture wars by a cruel media industry motivated by racism and clicks. The lessons are never learned. When will the British media face accountability for its behaviour?
“Jason was much loved by those around him. May he rest in peace”.

No to Fascism!

 

The NCP joined other communists throughout the world for a keynote anti-fascist conference in Moscow in May. A 180 delegations from over 100 countries took part in the Third International Anti-Fascist Forum that was organised by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) with the aim of bringing together communist and workers’ parties from around the world to co-ordinate the increasing challenges they face from wars, economic crises, attacks on basic democratic rights, the rise of the far-right and fascism and the growing use of terrorist groups by the imperialists. This is Theo Russell’s contribution.

by Theo Russell

Dear KPRF comrades, I thank you on behalf of the New Communist Party of Britain for organising this important conference, for your wonderful hospitality, and bring you warm greetings from our comrades and activists in Britain.
In the past five years the danger of a return to the events of the 1930s has become widely recognised, with the rapid rise right wing populist movements in the rich capitalist states. 
We believe this is the result of capitalist globalisation, neo-liberal austerity policies, and the relentless decline in real wages and public social spending.
The relocation of factories overseas and closure of mines removed the basis for a stable family life and strong communities in many areas, and the number of union members with a basic political education and class consciousness declined.
The secure long-term jobs of old have been replaced by low-paid short term or “zero hours” contracts, and while ordinary workers pay ever more for basic utilities and taxes, the super-rich rapidly multiply.
The ruthless neo-liberal policies, regime changes, sanctions and wars by imperialism – which have caused the deaths of millions of people –created unprecedented migration from the poor south to the rich north.
We don’t believe the simplistic left liberal slogan “All migrants are welcome” is a realistic solution to the multiple multiple complex problems thrown up by this enormous migration. Instead, we advocate a mass struggle against these imperialist policies and massive economic support for the developing states.
In 2004 when the European Union expanded to the east, Britain was the only country to immediately open its borders to countries with wages many times lower, countries which were still recovering from the effects of the collapse of socialism. 
Since 2000 several million new citizens have arrived in Britain per decade, but instead of building new housing, health and other services for them, public funding was cut year after year.
Over 90 per cent of these migrants arrived legally because of labour shortages, but of course the far right foment the fear of hordes of “boat people “.
Most of these migrants moved to poorer areas where local councils were already struggling financially, and while local residents can wait decades for state subsidised housing, they have to house migrants seeking asylum by law. 
They also face are high levels of crime, addictions and mental health problems, and widespread despair and misery. In these areas schools, housing and health, and even the availability of places to buy healthy food, are extremely poor, where schools have to provide breakfast because their pupils get no breakfast at home and many people rely on so-called “food banks”.
According to the UN 30 per cent of children in the UK are living in poverty, almost two million people suffer from undernourishment, and we read in our media that many parents to go without food for days before payday so they can feed their children. And in 2024 this was the world’s fifth richest country in total wealth!
These communities quite rightly view the political and media classes in London with absolute hatred. 
The housing of over 12O,000 asylum claims was handed to private contractors, who placed them in the poorest districts with cheap accommodation, and didn’t even warn the local authorities of their arrival. In these areas, according to media reports, many residents can’t even dream of staying in a hotel!
It would be hard to imagine policies better designed to create anger and resentment, and the perfect conditions for fascist groups to step in and mobilise the most backward, unorganised working class elements. But we shouldn’t over-estimate the far right danger in Britain.
Last year far right gangs attacked refugees, Muslims and the police for a week across England, but in every locality far greater numbers from local communities mobilised against them. But for the police presence, the fascists would undoubtedly have suffered a crushing defeat. 
In the USA, a year after the storming of the US Capitol building in January 2021, the far right could only muster a few hundred activists in most state capitals, but recently five million people protested against Donald Trump.
While in the USA the police and national guard often defend the white racists, in Britain the far right constantly attack the police, and as a result in 2024 the far right mobs were strongly condemned by the Starmer government.
Even in the USA, where two citizens were shot dead in Minneapolis by the racist ICE police, the popular resistance movement and political backlash forced Trump to withdraw them.
While parties seeking a return to the 1930s are undoubtedly growing in many European countries, the only country where fascists have actually seized power is in Ukraine.
In the 1980s our party formulated the concept of “creeping fascism” after Margaret Thatcher launched an all-out offensive against trade union rights and the “welfare state”, and then moved to smash the coal miners. The attempts to roll back the gains of the labour movement over the past hundred years have continued relentlessly since then. 
Today there are growing attacks on basic democratic rights across Europe, particularly  aimed at the mass movement against Israeli genocide. 
However we don’t believe that  our ruling classes are considering doing away with their limited bourgeois democracy in the foreseeable future. 
In Italy, the far right government of Giorgia Meloni, once a member of a neo-fascist party, has attempted to limit the number of migrants arriving. But there has been no move to suspend basic democratic rights, nor have the fascist parties been unleashed against their political enemies.
We believe the only genuine fascist dictatorship in the world is in Ukraine, where all democratic opposition and media have been smashed, and over a million people have died to serve NATO’s plans to surround and subvert the Russian Federation.
For us the main priorities for communists today are freedom and justice for the Palestinian people, and the complete eradication of resurgent Nazism in Ukraine. If Nazism is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, its scourge will inevitably spread. We remember the watchwords of past and present struggles: No Pasaran! Sie werden nicht durchkommen! Nyet Fascismu!

Welcome aboard China's Slow Trains

 
by John Maryon

People's China has invested heavily to develop the world's largest high speed railway network, the total length of which now exceeds 50,000 km.  An impressive transport system, with speeds of 350 km/hour and which is still being expanded rapidly and with even faster trains being introduced under the current five year plan.  Rail travel is the safe green option for billions of passengers and forms the key element of a logistics system second to none. It has enabled the vast country to open up. Travel between regions has become convenient and affordable. Migrant workers can now see their families on a more regular basis. Tourism has received a massive boost. Quicker and more easy access for goods and services has improved the lives of the people. The railway system is operated as a service for everyone without the high profits that would apply in the western world. There also exists another 110,000 km of conventional rail network serving both rural and urban areas that continues to play an essential role in connecting modern China. 
China's famous slow trains serve and connect remote villages and towns and play a vital role in the rejuvenation of the rural economy.  Slow trains form a lifeline in the more remote regions and are subsidised where necessary, unlike the market driven doctrine of most western nations. The Western media has been critical of China's large scale public welfare projects which they consider to be financially unviable. Let us look at some of these railways and consider the impact they are having on people's lives in desert regions, among snow-covered plateaus, deep valleys and remote mountain passes. 
One such is the Hotan Yulong Train which connects Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with Hotan in the far south.  The full 2,000 km journey, which includes 66 stops taken at intervals of approximately 30 minutes, maintains an average speed of 50 km/hour. The full cost would be £18.15 but the one stop minimum cost ticket is only the equivalent of 44 pence. The train transports school children and intrepid travellers but also many local farmers seeking to sell their produce at the next big town. These could include fruit growers from the south of the region who had harvested fresh juicy peaches from their orchards and stacked the crates in a suitable location on the train ready for the marketplace. Depending upon the season there would also be walnuts, cherries, dates and pomegranates.  The train is the commuter service for farmers and herders so expect to meet goats, pigs, chickens and ducks on some services. 
An unusual event takes place about five times a year on the Hotan route called the Mobile Bazaar or Meshrep – meaning a gathering in the Uygur language.  It was the brainchild of the conductor and introduced with the support of local Communist Party branches. Stalls were set up on the train as it sped through the Gobi Desert to sell local produce, souvenirs and handicrafts. It was a challenge at first for some shy farmers to stand in front of a large group of people but with a little help from the train crew they were ensured of a successful day. The train also has access to wi-fi and this soon became a new first for farmers and producers as they realised its advantages and entered the modern world of e-commerce.  Bazaars are now held on a regular basis on the train. They are accompanied by local music, singing and dancing creating a festive atmosphere 
Importantly these trains enable passengers to meet people from different valleys and regions and promote a harmonious meeting of cultures and traditions. Coy glances between youngsters may signal the beginning of a romance for life. The whole train experience may also be regarded as an antidote to the schemes of those who dream of creating ethnic tension in China's remote regions. Former strangers now greet each other like old friends.The experience may be regarded as a window for cross-regional exchange. 
The Slow Trains are fast revitalising China's remote regions. Since taking their products to new customers the income of many local people has doubled and lifted them out of rural poverty.  Another train, one of 81 slow trains in China, runs through the south-west of China's beautiful mountainous Sichuan province, a home of the giant panda. The buzz of human conversation is often  accompanied by the cheeps, grunts and quacks of other companions on the way to the market. The trains have helped people shake off poverty and embrace fuller lives while serving the people with stable ticket prices, unchanged for 26 years, and providing  reliable services. 
A discussion of China's railways would not be complete without a mention of the builders whose courage and perseverance made them possible. When the Qinghia Xizang line, that is the highest in the world and crosses the Tibetan plateau, was built over 20 years ago it represented a major challenge. Facing the harsh elements in remote regions, low temperatures and a lack of oxygen at high altitudes were all overcome to link Lhasa with the rest of People's China. Today the skills and high precision required for building the many impressive structures still require great effort. 
High speed rail represents progress. The new routes are impressive and include the world's longest and highest structures. New high speed freight trains are also being introduced and tests are underway of maglev trains that may travel at up to 1000km/hour.  But the slow trains of rural China retain a special place in peoples’ hearts while continuing to form an important part of their lives. The nostalgic appeal of the rural trains acts as an antidote to the urban stress of large cities by offering a more natural slower paced experience. As festivals approach the slow trains become festooned with decorations as people enjoy the ride. Long may these unique and wonderful trains survive. 

HP sauce

No by-election can be held these days without a flurry of independent candidates to liven up an often predictable race to the House of Commons. There’s the usual posse of self-proclaimed “revolutionaries” who believe that their forlorn efforts will somehow advance the cause of socialism. There’s the remnants of the racist and fascist movements that tried to kick their way to power back in the 1970s and a whole host of cranks seeking a platform for all sorts of bizarre opinions.  And finally there are those who capture the moment to rally dissident opinion that sometimes goes far beyond the usual protest vote. 
The legendary Screaming Lord Sutch first hit the headlines in the early 1960s. He continued until his sad death in 1999. Martin Bell – the “man in the white suit” actually took a seat from the Tories in 1997 on an anti-corruption ticket and sat in the House of Commons until 2001. And George Galloway, the maverick Labour MP, repeatedly bucked the system over the years to win seats against the mainstream parties. Now we have Count Binface.
Count Binface is the street persona of Jon Harvey, a stand-up comedian who has been a familiar face at by-elections since 2017. Binface upholds the rights of every citizen to stand in elections and gets a protest vote that many left groups would envy these days. This week he excelled himself winning 26.8 per cent of the vote in the Clacton by-election (9,455 votes) that was held by Nigel Farage who bagged 22,239 votes (63.34 per cent). Labour said this was “no victory for Nigel Farage” and “shows he likely has so much to hide”.
Though there was never any doubt about the outcome the result was a clear humiliation for the Faragists. The campaign revolved around the unanswered questions about the five million pounds donation given to the Reform UK leader and the antics of a man wearing tights with a bucket over his face who claims to be an “intergalactic space warrior” from the Planet Sigma IX.
Farage’s attempt to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny of his dodgy undeclared gifts and donations by triggering a by-election have turned into a farce and he knows it. The fact that over a quarter of those who voted chose the Count says it all.
The mainstream parties had boycotted the poll in protest. Binface, however, was joined by 33 other novelty candidates in the race. Many of them turned up for the count – unlike Farage who says he’d been advised not to by the police due to “a credible threat against him” – a claim the Essex police categorically deny.
The enquiry begins again now Farage is back in Parliament. If Farage is found to have breached MPs' rules, the Standards Commissioner could impose penalties that could lead to yet another by-election in Clacton. The Tories will now have to think deeply about their next move. Farage is a skilful manipulator. He will be difficult to beat, Though Clacton is part of the Conservative heartlands in Essex they may have to look for a high-profile maverick of their own to take on Nigel Farage.

Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This week millions in Japan and throughout the world will pause to remember those who died in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the last days of the Second World War. On 6th August 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by an American atom bomb. Nagasaki was hit three days later. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, were killed instantly in the atomic blasts. Many more would later perish from flash burns and radiation sickness.
Hiroshima Day is observed on 6th August to commemorate the tragedy, honour the victims and promote global peace and nuclear disarmament. As Jeremy Corbyn says “On Hiroshima Day, we remember every single person who was killed by an indefensible act of barbarity. We mourn the human lives underneath the statistical horror of the bomb’s death toll which, together with that from the attack on Nagasaki, was more than 200,000 people. And we commemorate the hundreds of thousands of survivors — known as the hibakusha – who endured the horror of what was left behind: nuclear radiation, mass destruction and unimaginable grief”.
The claim that the atom bombs forced Japan to surrender is an enduring myth of the Second World War. The bourgeois politicians who seek to justify this monstrous war crime say that the Americans had to use the atom bomb to force Japan to surrender and bring the global conflict to an end. But Japan was already on its knees begging for an armistice.  Hitler was dead in his bunker. Japan was reeling from daily air-raids and a crippling Allied blockade. Communist-led partisans had driven the Japanese invaders out of vast tracts of China, Korea and Vietnam while the Soviet Red Army delivered the killer blow when they smashed through Japanese-occupied Manchuria in August 1945. But two Japanese cities were wiped out to show the world, and the Soviet Union in particular, what the might of US imperialism was capable of doing.
The Americans thought they had a monopoly on nuclear know-how. They thought their new nuclear weapons would give them the power to dominate the entire world. But they were wrong. Soviet scientists were also unravelling the secrets of the atom and the USSR would soon develop nukes that would more than match anything in the imperialist arsenal. 
All the veto-powers on the UN Security Council – Britain, People’s China, France, Russia and the United States have nuclear weapons. But China is the only one that pledges never to be the first to use them.
People’s China actively supports proposals for multilateral and universal nuclear disarmament. China stands for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all nuclear weapons. China, backed by many other countries, has challenged the West to implement the entire non‑proliferation treaty, which was signed in 1968 to halt nuclear arms race but also committed the signatories to work towards universal nuclear disarmament. In the meantime China calls on all the major nuclear‑weapon states to abandon their policy of nuclear deterrence.
These long‑standing demands must be projected throughout the anti-war movement in Britain. The NCP supports the efforts of the Stop the War movement, CND and other peace movements for unilateral British nuclear disarmament.
The British “deterrent” is a farce. The UK’s submarine-based Trident nuclear missile system is totally controlled by the Americans. Billions are wasted on maintaining Trident – money that could be better spent maintaining the health service and providing the education, affordable housing and decent state retirement pensions worthy of a country as rich as the United Kingdom. We must mobilise to stop the new Burnham government from spending billions more on these needless and useless nuclear weapons; scrap all British nuclear weapons and close down all US bases on our soil. 

The Age of Erdogan

by Ben Soton

From Life Itself – Turkey and Istanbul in the Age of Erdogan by Suzy Hansen, Profile Books 3036, 368pp, pbk rrp £12.99

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have dominated Turkey for over twenty years.  He became Prime Minister in 2003 and has been President since 2014. This is the story of his reign. The book covers the Erdogan years mainly through  the prism of the Istanbul neighbourhood of Karagumruk and its local muktar, Ismail.  A muktar is a local fixer, whom people often come to for advice; interestingly Erdogan once referred to himself as the Muktar of Turkey.
The author covers the changes to Istanbul over this period; which include a real-estate boom that has changed the appearance of the former capital of the old Ottoman Empire.  In 2013 Erdogan faced criticism from architects over the destruction of Gezi Park with a view to turning it into a shopping mall in the style of Ottoman military barracks.  This led to protests sparked by criticism from architects; in typical far-right populist fashion Erdogan claimed to be standing up to elites.  Meanwhile the construction boom led to serious imbalances in the Turkish economy, which led to economic problems in 2018. Early in the book Hansen gives historic reasons for the success of Erdogan and the AKP. In 1955 Istanbul was rocked by sectarian riots which led to an exodus of Greeks from Istanbul and other Turkish cities. They were replaced by conservative migrants from the countryside; some of whom had a poor understanding of city life.  Ismail recalls a new arrival depositing soil on his roof with a view to planting tomatoes and water pouring into his flat below. Now these communities have established small to medium sized businesses and become keen supporters of the AKP.  
Erdogan has created an alliance between Islam and capitalism based around state-sponsored construction projects to counter the secular Kemalist establishment they defeated in 2002 and curb the growth of the Turkish left. In the 1960s the left flourished in Turkey, as in much of Europe, often amongst radicalised students. Successful movements of the left are an alliance between workers and intellectuals but this didn’t work in Turkey where much of the urban working class are descended from rural migrants.  
The author charts the changes in the nature of the AKP which in its early days favoured a form of Pan-Islamism but has now moved towards an aggressive form of Turkish nationalism with an innate hostility to the Kurds. This can be partly explained by the AKP alliance with the far-right National Movement Party (MHP) in the Turkish parliament which further concentrated power in Erdogan’s hands.
The earthquake of 2023 sent shock-waves throughout Turkish society. Many of the buildings constructed during his tenure survived but some raised the issue of the unsafe buildings that were destroyed; especially in a country prone to earthquakes. Despite this he still survives and there is even talk of changing the constitution enabling him to remain in office after 2028.         
Erdogan’s success may be down to a weak opposition who engage in politics on his terms; or simply the repressive nature of the Turkish state. Hansen, an American academic views the world from a liberal perspective; focusing on the subjective experience of individuals.  However this does not mean that her work should be dismissed or ignored.
  

Labour holds!

The Burnham boost continues on a roll in Manchester. Labour swept the board in the Greater Manchester mayoralty by-election last week. Andy Burnham’s chosen successor, Bev Craig, won the most votes. The Faragists came a poor second, followed by the Greens while the Tories and the Liberal-Democrats trailed behind with the also-rans in the poll for the post left vacant when Burnham returned to the House of Commons to get rid of Starmer and become leader of the Labour Party. 
Her victory in what, is after-all a Labour stronghold, is perhaps not surprising. Nevertheless 
 Reform and the Greens had high hopes when the race began to replace the “King of the North” on his old turf. But their dreams of a breakthrough were dashed by Bev Craig, a seasoned Labour councillor who has led Manchester City Council since December 2021.
Bev Craig was the first woman and the first openly LGBT woman to lead Manchester City Council. She’s now the first woman elected to lead the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. She’s a supporter of Mainstream Labour, a self-styled “radical realist” faction that was set up last year to reverse the party's "clear drift to the right" under Starmer and promotes a left social-democratic platform which includes taxing wealth, introducing democratic reforms and restoring part, but not all, of the British public sector that existed until the Tory come-back in 1979. 
Labour now pips Reform in the opinion polls as the Faragist leader flays around Clacton fighting to keep his seat against a man with a bin over his head while more and more voters return to the Labour fold now that Burnham appears to uphold traditional Labour values. But does he?
Yes, no, maybe. Burnham has certainly revived Labour’s fortunes. His initial pledges to build more council houses and help pensioners have helped. So has the long over-due decision to allow maverick left MP Diane Abbott back into the party. His talk about wealth taxes, rejection of neo-liberalism and criticism of Israel – a first for a modern Labour leader – are further steps forward. Some say this is small beer compared to Attlee’s sweeping post-war programme that set up the welfare state and built the public sector and the NHS or those of the later Wilson administrations that brought the unions to the centre of government. But the Burnham agenda is a bonanza compared to Starmer who did nothing for working people.
Of course Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan served British imperialism as much as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Sir Keir Starmer. Andy Burnham and those behind him are no different.  
Burnham’s modest reforms are, however, not just sops to win votes – they do genuinely reflect the demand for change within the broader labour movement.
Getting rid of Starmer and his henchmen was a start. Now we have to get rid of the rest.
Getting back to the 1970s – the days when unions counted and workers enjoyed the highest standard of living recorded in the UK – will only come with mass pressure from the rank-and-file – the workers, the toilers the people who make this country work. We are part of that struggle and putting the communist answer to the capitalist crisis back on the street is the task of the day... 

Looking to the future with People’s China

Chinese ambassador Zheng Zeguang opens the session

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks took part in a symposium with the theme of the Communist Party of China and the World at the Chinese embassy in London in July. This is his contribution to the discussion.

by Andy Brooks

The Chinese revolution that established the people’s government in 1949 has transformed the country that was then the poorest in the world. China has now risen from being a weak semi-feudal, semi-colonial country to become a force for peace in the global arena, with the second largest economy in the world. Productivity gains, innovation and consumption needs have become the main drivers of growth. China's manufacturing, innovation and construction now serves the entire world. As China transforms it shares what it has learned with other developing countries facing similar challenges. And equally the communist party, which led and continues to lead the Chinese people’s march to socialism, is always ready to share its knowledge and experience with the rest of the communist movement around the world. 
People's China, under the leadership of its Communist Party, has made remarkable progress in the transformation of a poverty-stricken land into a leading power within a few short decades. It looks forward with confidence to the future and offers friendship and respectful relations to all the peoples of the world. 
From just over 50 members when it was founded in 1921 the Communist Party of China has grown into the world’s largest governing party, leading a nation of more than 1.4 billion people. The founding of the Party in July 1921 was the spark that united the people of China in the struggle against the landlords and capitalist oppressors, as well as Japanese and American imperialism, that led to the proclamation of the People’s Republic in 1949.
The qualitative transfer of society from obsolete capitalism to progressive socialism is the historical mission of the working class. The Chinese revolution was a momentous event – a landmark in world history like the French Revolution, the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution of November 1917. The steadfast path taken by the Communist Party of China, changing the course of history in the pursuit of national liberation, social justice and the struggle against fascism and war embraces the lofty ideal of communism. The people’s government and the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics are the products of generations of struggle led by the Communist Party of China. People’s democracy, the people’s democratic dictatorship, reflects the essence of the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism in Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
We live in turbulent times.  A time of sharpening contradictions — and the primary contradiction in the world today is between United States imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate. American imperialism fans the flames of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, blocks the return of Taiwan to its Chinese homeland and prolongs the unhappy partition of many countries including Cyprus, Ireland, Kashmir and Korea.  
Mao Zedong famously said that imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers but he also warned that they are their most ferocious when their backs are against the wall. This year we’ve seen the Americans land in Caracas to seize the Venezuelan president and drag him off to jail in New York. We’ve seen the treacherous American-Israeli “decapitation” raids on Iran that killed the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and many other senior members of the Iranian government and we hear the threats to strangle Cuba and anyone else who stands in the way of US imperialism.
But wherever there is oppression there is always resistance. People’s China and the other people’s democracies in the world stood firm with Iran when the Islamic Republic fought back and forced the Americans and their Israeli and feudal Arab lackeys to cease-fire in June. 
On the economic front China has become a beacon of hope for all the peoples of the world struggling to build their own independent economies without imperialist interference. While Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism use their military and economic might to impose their neo-colonial rule throughout the Global South the Chinese people can, and do, provide the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America with an alternative source of high technology and economic assistance without the odious strings attached that always go with deals with the West. 
And a new spirit of determination is sweeping across the world communist movement. For many years communists in the imperialist heartlands of Europe and North America looked to what many of them called the “Soviet model” and tried to create platforms to rally working people against the imperialists and oppressors. But calls for the re‑establishment of another Communist International were unrealistic. The conditions that led to the establishment of the Comintern in 1919 do not exist today. The experiences of world communist conferences sponsored by the revisionist leaderships in the CPSU after the death of Stalin were not taken into account. The vies of the ruling parties were often ignored. Now the “Brussels” conference has gone and the moribund Solidnet forum looks likely to soon follow. 
But times are changing. The close solidarity, co-operation and growing ideological dialogue and ties between the “five golden flowers of socialism” – that is China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and the DPR Korea – provides a focus for the entire world communist movement and the potential basis for a concrete platform for all the communist and workers’ parties of the world. 
We are all stepping stones to the future that Marx and Engels foresaw – a future now being built in China and the other people’s democracies around the world. 
The Communist Party of China has becoming a rallying point for the world communist movement. We welcome it. Although calls for the re‑establishment of a formal Communist International are premature, a co-ordinated international communist response is needed to rally working people against the imperialists and oppressors.
We must work to restore the momentum for revolutionary change; strengthen co-operation and united action with communist and workers parties around the world; build solidarity with the global anti-war movement and forces for liberation in the Global South to unite the class and march towards a new tomorrow – the world Marx and Engels predicted and a world that will surely come. We see it in China today. We will all surely see it tomorrow.

Burnham makes his mark

Andy Burnham starts his premiership on a high note clearing out the rubbishy ministers that revolved around Starmer and the ageing Blairite clique he relied on during his two years of misrule. He rejects neo-liberalism – the laissez-faire capitalism that gave us two global slumps and the second world war in the 20th century – and he’s even made a modest criticism of Israel over Gaza. While a package of modest reforms including a curb on bus fares throughout the country, VAT breaks for pensioners and pubs, more devolution and a national council house-building programme will boost Labour’s fortunes for the next few months.
But Burnham’s devolution specifically rules out independence for Scotland or Wales. His government still crawls to the Americans and we’re still waiting for the renationalisation of the water industry.
Labour’s move towards more Keynesian economic solutions is not a shift to the left but merely a return to the traditional right-wing dogmas that once held sway in the Labour Party before the Blairites took over. But social-democracy in whatever form cannot solve the problems of the working class. Our task, to make the case for the communist answer to the capitalist crisis, is more urgent by the day.

Enter the Binman...

Summer is known as the silly season in the press because the long parliamentary recess means they have to fill their columns with even more rubbish to make up the difference. And nothing, perhaps, could be more sillier than the epic battle between Nigel Farage and Count Binface in a run-down former sea-side resort in north Essex.
The leader of Reform hoped to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny of his dodgy undeclared gifts and donations by resigning to trigger a by-election and re-contest in his own constituency. But his dream of trouncing the Tories and his other political foes in the poll has turned sour with all the mainstream parties boycotting the election and leaving the field to Binface and a legion of others seeking their fifteen minutes of fame on the streets of Clacton today.
Count Binface is the street persona of Jon Harvey, a stand-up comic who has been a familiar face at by-elections since 2017. Binface upholds the rights of every citizen to stand in elections and gets a protest vote that many left groups would envy these days. Now the Count is playing for higher stakes on an ethical platform that challenges all that the Faragists stand for. 
Clacton-on-Sea is one of the poorest towns in Essex. Forty seven per cent of Clacton's residents over 16 are classified as "economically inactive" as they say. One in five working-age adults have never held a traditional job. High unemployment and the drugs and petty crime that go along with it have made this traditional Tory homeland the prey for the Faragists and their kind in recent years.
Some argue that the left should have joined the 30-odd others in the fray but this would be pointless given the absence of any substantial working-class movements in the constituency apart from the trade unions and the co-ops. Others say Clacton deserves more than a comic candidate to represent them. They certainly deserve someone better than Nigel Farage. At the end of the day those who bother to vote will decide. Who knows...it is, after-all, the silly season...

If wishes were fishes…

 ...we’d all cast nets they used to say, Now all we hear in the Westminster bubble are the odds on the gravy-trainers lobbying for jobs in the new Burnham government and the echoes of the media pundits on the direction that the “King of the North” will take when he moves into Downing Street. A lot of the speculation is, of course, inspired directly by the Burnham team who hope their leader’s “coronation” will lift Labour out of the pit of despair Starmer left the party in after his two years of misrule ended this month.
Burnham is an ambitious politician who did little during the Corbyn and Starmer years to hide his ambition to lead the Labour Party and the country. Now his time has come with a “Burnham bounce” that has given Labour its first lead in over a year in the opinion polls amid talk of “Manchesterism” and a “new vision” for the future. But what actually is on the Burnham table?
The answer is nobody knows. Burnham is talking about launching the biggest council house building programme since the Second World War. He hasn’t given a figure but last year he talked about building half-a-million “social homes” by 2030. If he ends the “right to buy” and the restrictions on council borrowing that has been upheld by successive Tory and Labour governments since 1979 that will drastically cut the shameful UK homeless figures and create more work for the younger generation throughout the country. Vague promises to return the water industry and the power utilities to public ownership have not been followed up with concrete plans to restore part of the public sector while talk of more power to the councils and the regions is all very well – but it’s meaningless unless these local authorities are given the power and the funds to provide the social services that people so badly need.
Burnham’s people are talking about electoral “reform” which would get the Greens and the Liberal-Democrats on track for a tactical vote alliance at the election. Your Party may be dead in the water as far as a national party is concerned but, nevertheless they look likely to keep the five parliamentary seats they hold at the next election. It could even sway the Corbynistas, if only Burnham could swallow his fear of bringing Jeremy back on board.
But all this is meaningless without a social programme – a genuine commitment to implement the union agenda, restore the welfare state and the public sector we once had. That’s what the unions have got to fight for and that’s where the struggle has only just begun.

The right to roam

by Ben Soton

Contested Commons – A History of Protest and Public Space in England by Katrina Navickas; Reaktion Books, London 2025; 384 pp. Hbk £20

The pages of the New Worker are full of articles and stories about protests be they progressive reactionary or anything in between.  But what of the places, usually outdoors spaces, where protests take place? 
Sometimes these places are the subject of protest themselves.  In Contested Commons, Katrina Navickas provides the story of these places.  Her book covers the history of public spaces and their role in popular protest.
A book like this should be welcomed at a time when the right to protest is under attack. 
First of all it challenges the “myth of the commons” – the idea that at some point in time we all had access to common land which was later on stolen by the landowners. The problem is that no such Golden Age existed.  Although enclosures of common land did become widespread from the Tudor times, there is little actual evidence that any such Golden Age ever existed. Another theme is the concept of Enclosure versus Commoning.  For instance in her section covering the anti-roads protests of the 1990s, Navickas sees the road builders as enforcing enclosure and the anti-road protesters as defending the ancient commons.     
The book is written in two halves.  The first concentrating on the rural man-made landscape; with chapters including Commons, Waste and Verges.  This section begins with examples of enclosures of common land in the 18th Century as well as the mass Kinder Scout Trespass protest in the 1930s and the Right to Roam.
The second part of the book covers urban protest with chapters named after street furniture such as, Railings, Pavements and Barricades. Railings is a reference to the protests during the  Second Reform Act of 1867, (which enfranchised urban, male property owners) where protesters used the railings surrounding Hyde Park to defend themselves from attack by the police. Barricades is a reference to the Battle of Cable Street when the people took to the streets to beat back the Mosleyites on the streets of London’s East End in 1936.  Later chapters cover events such as the Battle of the Bean Field in 1985; an event that took place during the miners’ strike which the author makes no mention of.  And it ends with coverage of the New Age Travellers of the 1990s, which she refers to simply as New Travellers.  
In a recent article in the Morning Star Ian Sinclair points out that “92 per cent of land and 97 per cent of rivers in England” are not legally accessible.  Subsequently, a book that covers issues of land ownership and common land is to be recommended.  Whilst with the legitimate right to protest under attack it is reminding us of the long history of protest in the country.   

 

Putting people first in People’s China

by John Maryon

People's China has launched its new 15th Five Year Plan which aims for high quality growth.  A far more ambitious project than merely increasing industrial and agricultural production and expanding the nations G D P.   Boosting the service sector, continuing to invest at a high rate in infrastructure, further improving health and welfare provision to meet people's needs and ensuring stability by the reinforcement of supply chains are all given priority. The country’s defences will be strengthened to resist imperialist aggression. Traditional growth strategies are being replaced by new development methods aimed at transforming the economy to higher value production levels driven by innovation. 
It is a sustainable and comprehensive programme that includes boosting domestic consumption by upgrading technology to develop new high quality productive forces and also to extend a new development pattern. This consists of two drivers for growth. First domestic circulation where production, consumption and innovation within China is used to provide a main driver for growth. Secondly international circulation with trade, Investment, technology transfer and tourism reinforcing domestic development. The plan lays the basis for the major task of achieving basic social modernisation by 2035.
With its commitment to multilateralism China has become a major contributor to global development and a defender of the international order. China has increased its influence within the Global South countries through its participation in development projects that are open and honest without interference or political pressure. Belt & Road is a symbol for win-win in international development. Such measures all contribute to stable international economic growth. China opposes unilateralism and protectionism that challenge global stability. 
A priority feature of the Five Year Plan is the construction of a unified national market. This allows for resources to be allocated efficiently, discourages the preservation of uncompetitive industries and replaces redundant capacity with new investments that drive quality and innovation. Steps will be taken to allow for remote less well developed regions to access a wider range of goods and services. 
Green and sustainable development is a cornerstone for China's development. The country will move quickly to adopt an increasing number of eco-friendly production processes and lifestyles to ensure that carbon emissions peak by 2030, paving the way for achievement of carbon neutrality before 2060. Being the world's leading industrial powerhouse and with one of the world's largest populations China is faced with an important and monumental challenge.  During the next five years green and low carbon technologies will be expanded with more wind turbines, solar panels and hydro power stations being built. The new generation of safe thorium nuclear reactors will continue their development.  An additional 60,000 km of zero-carbon transport corridors will be constructed and over 100 zero-carbon industrial parks will be built.  China's electric car numbers will continue to increase rapidly.  China now leads the world in both renewable energy capacity and manufacturing. 
The Five Year Plan puts people's welfare and fulfilment as a top priority. The country's bio-diversity will be improved further as endangered aquatic species are reintroduced into upgraded water streams and lakes. Steps will be taken to ensure that the increasing number of once rare animals can live safely with the human population. Nature reserves will be upgraded. Work will continue with large forestation projects to tame the deserts. More people living in the great cities will experience the freshness of countryside quality air. An already harmonious society will develop further with the respect given to the environment and it's creatures. 
Artificial Intelligence (A I) applications across key sectors will continue to play a major role in building a Smart Economy.  A faster achievement has been called for by the government to build more intelligent terminals and to promote an increasing number of large scale commercial applications. Unlike the capitalist system with its basic contradictions, a reluctance to invest and the constant threats of surveillance and war the people's republic is in a good position to use the technology for the benefit of everyone. Repetitive, unpleasant and hazardous tasks may be carried out automatically leaving comrades more free time to engage in sports, cultural activities, music, the arts and study. While some Western powers become excited over the prospect of using A I for war, China views it as an essential tool for the full advancement of a people oriented society. 
The Chinese revolution that established the people’s government in 1949 has transformed the country that was then the poorest in the world. China has now risen from being a weak semi-feudal, semi-colonial country to become a force for peace in the global arena, with the second largest economy in the world. Productivity gains, innovation and consumption needs have become the main drivers of growth. China's manufacturing, innovation and construction now serves the entire world. As China transforms it shares what it has learned with other developing countries facing similar challenges. And equally the communist party, which led and continues to lead the Chinese people’s march to socialism, is always ready to share its knowledge and experience with the rest of the communist movement around the world.
People's China, under the leadership of its Communist Party, has made remarkable progress in the transformation of a poverty stricken land into a leading power within a few short decades. It looks forward with confidence to the future and offers friendship and respectful relations with all good people. 

So long Keir Starmer…

It didn’t take long to get rid of Starmer after all. His pathetic resignation speech marked the inevitable end of his dismal two years in office spent crawling to the Americans and what he believed was the dominant trend amongst the British bourgeoisie. No longer of any further use to the ruling class following the overwhelming Burnham victory at the Makerfield by-election. Stabbed in the back by his phoney friends in Parliament. No one will miss him.
In the corridors of power Labour politicians and senior civil servants are already drafting plans for the new Burnham administration while union leaders lobby for the return of the water industry and the power utilities to some form of public ownership.
Burnham’s team say their man will revitalise a moribund party, head off the challenge of the Faragists and a resurgent Tory party, and lead Labour to victory at the next general election.
They like to present the “King of the North” as a new broom. But there’s nothing new about Andy Burnham, who while not a Blairite, nevertheless comes from the ‘Old Labour’ class-collaborationist tradition that still holds sway through much of the labour movement.
Economic stagnation, unemployment, homelessness, poverty, drug abuse and crime. These are the problems that face the incoming Burnham government. These are the problems of end-days capitalism. Ultimately, the only answer is socialism. But in the meantime there’s plenty of scope for a country as rich as Britain to take on board the demands of the labour movement that include the restoration of the welfare state and the public sector that Britain once possessed.
The days when people listened to the rich men who told us that the greatest virtue of humanity was the possession of the largest amount of money are over. Great mass movements are again sweeping the continents. The masses are demanding social justice, democratic rights and an end to exploitation. It’s capitalism that’s finished – not us. 
On the streets millions want a decisive break from the imperialist agenda that led to the Zionist genocide in Gaza and countless other Western war-crimes in other parts of the Global South.
The billions consumed by the arms race and the pointless nuclear “deterrent” would be better spent restoring industry to provide work for the younger generation and decent pensions for the old. Progressive taxation for the rich, who can well afford it, would pay for the “safety-net” benefits of old and guarantee free education and medical for the sick and infirmed. 
Burnham says he listens to the unions and the street, unlike Starmer and the ageing Blairites the former Labour leader surrounded himself with, Whether Burnham will actually do anything about it remains to be seen. His decision to appoint former head of Labour Friends of Israel, James Purnell, as his chief of staff gives little ground for optimism...

Communists gather in Moscow to co-ordinate tactics

 

by New Worker correspondent

Theo Russell from the NCP joined other communists throughout the world for a keynote anti-fascist conference in Moscow last month. In spite of the increasing difficulties in travelling to the Russian Federation, and the strongest imperialist sanctions ever imposed on a state, 180 delegations from over 100 countries attended the event, which took place at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, only a couple of blocks away from Red Square.
The Third International Anti-Fascist Forum, entitled The Fight Against International Terrorism, Arbitrariness, and Aggression. For Peace and Security, was organised by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) with the aim of bringing together communist and workers’ parties from around the world to co-ordinate the increasing challenges they face from wars, economic crises, attacks on basic democratic rights, the rise of the far-right and fascism and the growing use of terrorist groups by Western imperialist states.
As well as strong delegations from the existing socialist states – People’s China, DPR Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba – countries under attack from US-led imperialism, including Palestine, Iran, Lebanon and Venezuela, were also represented.
In his opening speech to a packed hall in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, CPRF general secretary Gennady Zyuganov said: “We have gathered at the Third International Anti-Fascist Forum to discuss our shared goals in the struggle for peace and security, friendship among peoples and social justice.
“This multifaceted activity of leftist forces cannot be conducted in isolation from the fight against imperialism and state terrorism, military aggression and neocolonialism, reaction and neo-fascism. The global expansion of capital continues. It achieves its goals by relying on two main pillars: physical force and the manipulation of consciousness.
"This forum is another step towards unity in the fight against global reaction. Imperialism has shed the last vestiges of its peace-making veneer. On our stunningly beautiful planet, it sows terrible poverty and state terrorism, war and death. Our shared task is to boldly expose the essence of big capital's policies. Unite leftist forces, put forward our alternative and persistently pursue our goals."
The conference was also addressed by the last leader of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Egon Krenz, who was awarded the Lenin Prize during the conference.
Greetings to the conference were received from Russian president Vladimir Putin, prime minister Mikhail Mishustin, and Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko. In his message, Putin said: "Today, as we face serious challenges, regional conflicts and growing global instability, it is essential to unite the work of all constructive forces to build a just, democratic and multipolar world. We must work together to counter the spread of destructive ideologies across the planet: xenophobia, neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and Russophobia. We must defend the historical truth about the Second World War and the true heroes who saved the peoples of Europe from extermination and enslavement. This is our duty to future generations, a solid foundation for genuine partnerships between nations."