Defend the right to strike

As waves of strikes sweep through Britain the Tory government responds in the only way it knows how – repression. The Sunak government is moving anti-union legislation to curb industrial action in key public sectors to ensure that essential public services are maintained during industrial action.
    Rishi Sunak likes to pose as a pragmatist and a liberal conservative, and he was certainly opposed to the sham, empty popularism of Boris Johnson and the crude neo-liberalism of Liz Truss. But while he can rely on their support he’s not a member of the Tory “One Nation” faction in parliament and he clearly doesn’t want to burn all his bridges with the Neanderthal element that is clamouring for more and more anti-union laws to ban industrial action in more and more areas of the public and private sector.
    If this new legislation gets off the ground it could easily be used to crush all independent union action by allowing employers to sack strikers out of hand if they walk out and take unions to court for compensation if they do. Reducing unions to impotent staff associations that existed in some sections of the old, and now long gone, public sector or the “company unions” set up by employers specifically to keep independent unions out of their factories has always been the dream of some in the Tory camp. It is after-all what the “Victorian values” the Tories used to drone on and on about actually means.
    But we’re not going back to the days when workers eked out a miserable existence working round the clock on pittance pay while kids crawled up chimneys for pennies to stave off starvation.
    We get the usual weasel words from Labour’s leaders vowing to repeal any new anti-union legislation. We see the TUC called on its members to come together to agree on a collective response to the new threat to their existence. But what we need is total defiance – enough to kill this proposal stone dead.

On the unity of the movement

It is amusing to note that calls for a new Communist International often come from the most sectarian elements of the world movement. But world-wide contacts between communist parties can only strengthen the communist cause.
    Nevertheless a new international can only succeed, firstly if it includes and has the agreement of the ruling parties of People's China, Cuba, Democratic Korea, Laos and Vietnam. It should be based on Marxism-Leninism and the principle of equality between big parties and small parties. It must recognise the principle of a collective secretariat which reflects the views of the co-operating parties and not that of one big party. And it must recognise that in countries where there is more than one communist party -- the case in most countries these days -- the differences between them are a matter for those parties alone to resolve.
    The New Communist Party has supported many of the efforts taken since the collapse of the Soviet Union to encourage co-operation and the exchange of views between communist and workers parties throughout the world. Though the Brussels May Day festival and seminar programme organised by the Belgian Workers Party (PTB) has been dissolved the annual Solidnet conferences that began in 1998 are still going – but even that forum is now being undermined by sectarians who refuse to recognise the principled stand of the Russian, Donbas and Ukrainian communists and equates the prime mover – US-led imperialism – with the major victims; the Russians and the people of the Donbas.
    Now, more than ever, is the time for a clear call from the world communist movement for an end to the fighting and a just and lasting peace in eastern Europe. This can only come with a neutral and de-Nazified Ukraine that recognises the rights of the Donbas republics and the Crimea to join the Russian Federation and equal rights for all the people of the regions of the Ukraine.

China, democracy, justice and the communist movement

 Last month a number of communist parties including the New Communist Party took part in an online conference organised by the Communist Party of China around the theme of Democracy, Justice, Development and Progress. This is the contribution from NCP leader Andy Brooks.

First of all I would like to thank the organisers of this conference for giving me the opportunity to say a few words about our Party’s views on democracy, the issue of the day that the imperialists are once again trying to use as a smokescreen to mask their plans for world domination.
    Their latest stunt has been to hold an online Summit for Democracy, organised by the USA to provide a platform for a new propaganda offensive against People’s China and the rest of the world that refuses to submit to Western economic and political control. Whilst this virtual summit posed as a forum for free debate on democracy and human rights, the participants were all hand-picked by the White House and the outcome was therefore totally predictable.
    The attendees, including some of the worst human rights abusers in the world, such as Israel, Ukraine and, of course, the USA itself, are closing ranks around a new anti-communist campaign to prop up the austerity regimes of the ailing capitalist system that is floundering in a world-wide slump that began in 2008.
    American politicians like to pose as defenders of what they call the “free world”. During the Cold War they portrayed their country as some sort of capitalist utopia and claimed that their “American dream” summed up the hopes of working people throughout the world. It wasn’t true then and it certainly isn’t true now.
    The ruling circles in the USA rejoiced when the counter-revolutions that they had worked so long to achieve took place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They told us that socialism was finished and that history was dead. They preached about the superiority of the capitalist system. But now they cannot point to a single country where it works – least of all the USA, whose cities, where millions live in abject poverty, are plagued by drugs and crime.
    They say that socialism means dictatorship and that capitalism stands for freedom. But it is freedom only for the exploiters to continue to rob and plunder working people across the globe to ensure that a tiny handful of parasites can live the lives of Roman emperors on the backs of the millions upon millions of working people.
    They claim that they stand for intellectual freedom – but it is the freedom of the straitjacket and the dungeon. They preach this freedom with their bombers and drones, their special forces and blockades against all those who dare to stand up for themselves. We see what the ruling class mean by freedom in occupied Palestine, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.
    They talk of peace whilst spending billions upon billions on weapons of mass destruction to back up their blockades, embargoes and trade wars on countries striving to develop their own independent economies.
    They say they have free speech and democracy, but it’s democracy and freedom only for themselves. If the Western powers really were democratic, we would expect to see the majority of representatives in their bourgeois parliaments and assemblies drawn from the majority of the population – the working people. In fact, outside the ranks of the communists, you could count the number of workers in parliament on your fingers.
    Bourgeois democracy is democracy only for the exploiters. It’s dictatorship in all but the formal sense for the exploited. Bourgeois elections are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes. Parliaments may reflect the divisions in the ruling class but ultimately all these assemblies are a fraud to mask the fact that bourgeois government rests on the bourgeois state, which exists solely to serve the interests of the ruling class. Whether it’s bogus bourgeois democracy or open bourgeois dictatorship depends on the economic situation and the balance of forces in any given country.
    We meet today in a world where the primary contradiction is between US imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate. But a new economic and political counter to US‑led imperialism is being built by China, whose Belt and Road initiative provides an alternative to imperialism’s so‑called free trade agreements and “partnerships” that solely serve the interests of the trans‑national corporations of the imperialist world.
    In the past China’s wealth was the preserve of a ruthless, feudal ruling class. These days China’s wealth is being used to finally eradicate the last vestiges of poverty, raise the standard of living of everyone in the people’s republic, and help the development of the Third World through genuine fair trade and economic assistance.
    The Chinese revolution that established the people’s government on 1st October 1949 has transformed the country that was then the poorest in the world. Since then China has 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.
    People’s China, the fifth permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is the only veto-power actively supporting proposals for multilateral nuclear disarmament. Pledging never to be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict, China stands for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all atomic weapons.
    China, backed by many other countries, has repeatedly challenged the West to implement the entire non‑proliferation treaty, which was signed in 1968 not only to halt nuclear proliferation 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.
    The struggle to abolish nuclear weapons is crucial for the survival of humanity. But central to averting a Third World War is the need to eliminate the causes of war. And that is why communists have always understood that the struggles for peace and socialism are indivisible.
    Whilst millions of people scrabble to earn a living just to keep a roof over their heads, a tiny elite live lives beyond the reach and often beyond the imagination of most workers. Only socialism can end this. Only through socialism can the will of the masses, the overwhelming majority of the people, be carried out. Only socialism and mass democracy – not the sham democracy of the bourgeoisie – can end the class system and free working people from their slavery.
    The great socialist philosophers, Marx and Engels, spent much of their creative lives in Britain as practical revolutionaries. They knew they would never see socialism in their own lifetimes, but they never doubted the inevitability or the necessity for change. And the torch of freedom that fanned the fires of the Paris Commune lit the flames of the 1917 Russian Revolution that continues to blaze in Democratic Korea and Cuba, and the people’s democracies in Laos. Vietnam and above all, the People’s Republic of China.
    After 70-plus years of practice and development, China has successfully charted a path of democracy with Chinese characteristics, which suits China’s national conditions and meets its people’s aspirations. It is called the whole-process people’s democracy.
    In People’s China we see mass democracy at work. Back in 2014 Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Xi Jinping said: "The very purpose of the CPC's leadership of the people in developing people's democracy is to guarantee and support their [the people’s] position as masters of the country.”
    The people administer state affairs and manage economic, cultural and social affairs through various channels and in various ways. In practice, more than 99 per cent of Chinese citizens over the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election.
    Voter turnout is around 90 per cent in every direct election of deputies to the county- and township-level people’s congresses. The will of the overwhelming majority of the people is fully reflected in the election results. Apart from democratic elections, people have the right to participate in the management of national and social affairs in day-to-day political activities.
    This is the people’s power that enables the Chinese people to improve their lives in a concrete and realistic way. Democracy is not an ornament used for decorative purposes. It should be used to address concerns of the people.
    Whole-process people’s democracy favours substance over form. It is genuine democracy and not the shameful charade that passes for it in the West. It is, in fact, the will of the people.
    Or as the Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping says, whole-process people's democracy in China is "the broadest, most genuine, and most effective socialist democracy" safeguarding the fundamental interests of the people.

Joint statement against US development of new types of biological weapons and increased military spending

Many countries are now experiencing the second and third waves of the coronavirus pandemic, which have exposed the complete inability of local health systems, destroyed by privatization and market reforms, to cope with the epidemic. The lack of adequate hospital beds, lack of oxygen, lack of medicines and lack of vaccines have led to an excessive increase in the number of deaths. This is the result of capitalism, when millions of workers were at risk of disease, losing their health, jobs, or even their lives.

In this situation, the leading capitalist countries, instead of increasing allocations for the health system, only increased their military budgets. In 2020, military spending in the world exceeded $ 1.98 trillion, which is 2.6% higher than in the previous year. The United States, as the most important hegemon of world imperialism, spent $ 778.0 billion on armaments, which is 39% of the total global spending.

Some of these funds go to the development of weapons of offensive biological warfare. According to American scientists published in the press, the United States has spent more than $ 100 billion on the offensive biological weapons industry over the past twenty years. 13 thousand biologists in 400 laboratories in the United States are busy creating new strains of offensive killer germs that are resistant to vaccines.

In total, the US Pentagon has created 1,495 laboratories around the world, which are not accountable to the governments of the countries where they work, and their activities are not transparent. Similar laboratories have been established in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries. In a situation of increased international struggle and competition, the accumulated biological warfare agents can be used by the US military against its opponents, which will lead to disastrous consequences.

It is a matter of concern that new developments in biological weapons are underway. In particular, it became known that in Kazakhstan, a number of research institutes and laboratories built by the Americans are conducting military biological research under the Pentagon program, which is called "Camels as biosurveillance sentinels: Risk at the human-camel interface". The object of study is camels as natural carriers of a number of diseases in order to use them as containers for the spread of artificially created viruses.

The diversion or deliberate use of chemical warfare agents will hit millions of people and agriculture in Central Asia, China, and Russia. Such actions of American military biologists on the territory of Kazakhstan contradict both the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction" and the American "Law against Biological Terrorism" (Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, BWATA).

We support the immediate cessation of this research, development and production of biological and other types of weapons, and the transfer of military allocations to provide all workers and the general population with free medical care and to issue Covid-19 vaccines to everyone free of charge and without exception.

- We demand the admission of international observers of the World Health Organization (WHO) and representatives of all interested countries to military biological facilities in Kazakhstan, working under the programs of the US Pentagon.

- We demand the closure of all US military biological laboratories in all countries of the world.

- Funds spent on the development of biological and other deadly weapons should be directed to scientific research to combat the pandemic and to develop the health system.

 

Parties signing

1. Communist Party of Bangladesh
2. New Communist Party of Britain
3. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
4. Communist Party in Denmark
5. Unified Communist Party of Georgia
6. Communist Party of Greece
7. Communist Party, Italy
8. Party of the Communist Refoundation, Italy
9. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
10. Socialist Party of Latvia
11. AKFM, Madagascar
12. Communist Party of Norway
13. Communist Party of Pakistan
14. Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]
15. Communist Party of Poland
16. Communist Party of the Russian Federation
17. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
18. Communist of Serbia
19. Communist Party of Swaziland
20. Communist Party of Ukraine
21. Union of Communists of Ukraine

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FOR THE REPATRIATION AND FREEDOM OF SIMON TRINIDAD

FOR THE REPATRIATION AND FREEDOM OF SIMON TRINIDAD

The Communist Parties and Workers signed by this declaration, we demand from the Government of the United States of America the immediate repatriation and release of political prisoner Ricardo Palmera Pineda, better known as Simon Trinidad in his militancy in the insurgent organization FARC-EP.

Simón Trinidad was captured in January 2004 in Quito, Ecuador, while advancing contacts for future peace talks. It was immediately handed over to the Colombian government who sent him to the US government as a war trophy of "Plan Colombia".

Simon Trinidad, sentenced to 60 years in prison on the false and manipulated charge of "terrorist conspiracy," remains held in USP's federal high-security prison Florence ADMAX, better known as Supermax, in strict solitary confinement.

The Communist and Workers' Parties and revolutionary organizations declare that:

1. Simon Trinidad is a political and war prisoner. After the signing of the Havana Peace Agreement, between the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP insurgency, he should have been released and repatriated.
2. Due to its interference and intervention in Colombia's internal affairs and its military and intelligence activity in Colombian territory, which uses it as an aircraft carrier in the region, the US Government is the main part of Colombia's social, political and armed conflict.
3. Simon Trinidad, who has just turned 70 years old and more than 15 years imprisoned in solitary confinement, must be released immediately, for his firm commitment to peace.
4. We are committed to supporting, participating and promoting solidary actions with Simon Trinidad until we achieve the just goal of his release from the prison that keeps him truly abducted.

We recognize in Simon Trinidad an entire communist, who despite the harsh conditions to which the American imperialists subject him, stands firm in his convictions. Simon Trinidad is one of thousands of communists and revolutionaries imprisoned around the world, so our commitment and revolutionary ethics is for their liberation.

Freedom for Simon Trinidad!

August 9, 2020

PROMOTED BY COMMUNIST PARTY BRASILEIRO (PCB) COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE PEOPLES OF SPAIN (PCPE) COMMUNIST PARTY OF VENEZUELA (PCV)

 

Solidnet Parties signing the joint statement

1. Communist Party of Albania
2. Communist Party of Australia
3. Communist Party of Belgium
4. Brazilian Communist Party
5. New Communist Party of Britain
6. Socialist Worker's Party of Croatia
7. Communist Party In Denmark
8. German Communist Party
9. Communist Party of Greece
10. Palestinian People's Party
11. Paraguayan Communist Party
12. Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930)
13. Communists of Serbia
14. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
15. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
16. Communist Party of Turkey
17. Communist Party of Venezuela

 

Other Parties signing the joint statement

1. Partido de la Liberación (Caba)  (Argentina)
2. Partido Comunista de Gran Bretaña (Marxista-Leninista)
3. Partido Comunista de Chile (Acción Proletaria)
4. Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic
5. Iniciativa Comunista (España)
6. Unión Proletaria (España)
7. Partido Comunista Obrero Español
8. Pôle de Renaissance Communiste en France
9. Agora Galiza - Up
10. Freedom Road Socialist Organization (USA)

Joint Statement in support of the Bolivian Movement for Socialism (MAS)

 

MOVIMIENTO PARA EL SOCIALISMO (MAS) – Bolivia

CONVERGENZA SOCIALISTA (CS) – Italia

AN INTERNATIONAL APPEAL FOR THE NEXT IMMINENT GENERAL ELECTION THAT WILL TAKE PLACE IN BOLIVIA IN 2020

WE POLITICALLY GIVE SUPPORT TO THE “MAS” – BY MONITORING THE ELECTION

TO THE SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST POLITICAL PARTIES AND ORGANISATIONS AGAINST THE COUP D’ETAT AND AGAINST IMPERIALISM

The socialist and communist political parties and organisations, taking note of the serious illegal situation in Bolivia and that:

1.      On 20 October 2019 Bolivians voted for the presidential elections where Evo Morales ran for the third time obtaining an overwhelming victory. After the clear victory, international pressure against Morales has become unsustainable and, on 11 November 2019, the elected President is forced to leave Bolivia by the police chief’s invitation. First by going to Mexico, then to Argentina, Morales was saved from the reaction of the coup leaders. However, this fate has not spared many other politicians, unions and simple protesters for justice and democracy.

2.      After almost 14 years of presidency, Evo Morales’ forced exile - the first indigenous Bolivian President - caused a racial conflict to explode again, between the middle or rich urban classes of European descent, and those of indigenous descent, mainly workers and farmers. Evo Morales, the first native Bolivian President and union leader of the Bolivian cocaleros, a federation of campesinos Quechua e Aymara, was, and still he is today, the President to whom indigenous and farmers identify themselves, the working class.

3.      From the forced Evo Morales’s exile, racial conflicts have re-emerged between the richer eastern plains, populations largely Christian and European origin, and the poorer western highlands with mainly indigenous farmers and followers of the deep-rooted belief system called the Pachamama.

4.      Adriana Guzmán, a Bolivian representative of the "feminist community movement” and of indigenous women, said in an interview with the El Salto Diario magazine on November 14, 2019 that the violent groups, authors of those murders, come from the Union of Youth of Cruceñista , who in 2008 were already armed whose mission was to kill the natives. A fascist and racist group. There are also young university students, members of these groups, who have generated terror. Therefore, social organizations, formed by indigenous people and farmers, are attacked. Adriana Guzmán claimed that mainly Aymara and Quechua, both men and women, were attacked.

5.      Only during the first month of the coup, in November 2019, the death toll rose to 32, with over 30 serious injuries, due to the wave of violence unleashed in the country after the elections of 20 October 2019, with the forced resignation and exile of ex-president Evo Morales.

6.      The plaint blockage of the Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPFB) in Senkata have caused fuel shortages in both El Alto and La Paz. According to local union’s data, 80% of public transport has had huge shortages in city where there is also a shortage of fruit, vegetables and meat products, such as chicken.

7.      The coup has wreaked havoc and aroused fear of the return of political instability in the country, where there have been 190 coups’s attempts and revolutions since its independence in 1825, in a constant class struggle between the capital of the elites and the private sector, and rural working people.

8.      The arrival of Evo Morales in power on January 22, 2006 represented a radical and positive paradigm shift for indigenous, rural and working people, in a situation dominated by pro-US political elites. The arrival of an indigenous syndicalist and farmer allowed the circles of power to enter the sectors traditionally left behind in the decision-making process, despite their majority character in the population.

9.      The biggest success of the Morales governments has been the introduction of a new political Constitution that has declared Bolivia a plurinational state, allowing the self-government of indigenous peoples. In addition, the Magna Carta has created a Congress with seats reserved for groups of ethnic minorities in the country.

10.   Meanwhile, the interim Áñez government, which represents the conservative and Christian sector and which it strongly depresses the hope the natives’ emancipation, declared the New Year Aymara, celebrated every 21st of June, a satanic holiday and refusing the celebration of the rituals of the Andean culture.

  

DECLARE

 

a)      to politically support Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism (MAS);

b)     to strengthen the monitoring of the upcoming presidential elections in 2020 so that it will take place in full transparency and democratic spirit;

c)      to strengthen, at international level, the spirit of political solidarity towards the MAS and to all the socialist and communist political organizations in difficulty;

d)     to create an international network of mutual political support between all the signatory organizations of this appeal.

The socialist and communist political parties and organizations that sign this appeal will work together, joining forces, to achieve the above objectives.

FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS

FOR THE WORKING CLASS

FOR SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM

1.     Movement for Socialism (MAS) - Bolivia             2.     Socialist Convergence (CS) – Italy 3.     Kurdistan Communist Party - Iraq 4.     Hungarian Workers Party – Hungary 5.     Communist Party - Switzerland 6.     Liberation Party - Argentina 7.     New Communist Party of Aotearoa – Aotearoa (New Zealand) 8.     Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) - Chile 9.     Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain - Spain 10.  Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey (TIKP) - Turkey 11.  Spanish Communist Workers' Party (PCOE) - Spain 12.  Proletarian Union - Spain 13.  Association ALBA SUIZA - Switzerland 14.  New Communist Party of Britain - United Kingdom 15.  Communist Party of Norway (NKP) - Norway 16.  Workers Party of Spain (PTE) - Spain 17.  A.R.BOL Association of the Bolivian residents - Spain 18.  Communists of Catalonia 19.  Citizen Revolution Movement Europe - Ecuador 20.  Youth Union of Turkey (TGB) - Turkey 21.  Vatan Party - Turkey 22.  Communist Party of Pakistan - Pakistan