70th Anniversary of the Second World War

The Falsifiers of History Have the Aim of Covering Up Their Own Preparations for Fascism and War

by Chris Coleman
National Spokesperson of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

September 3rd marks the 70th anniversary of the declaration of war by Britain and France against Nazi Germany, following Hitler’s invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939. On the occasion of this 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, the imperialists and their apologists – as did the leaders at Gdansk on 1st September – have lost no time in attempting once again to rewrite history. They have as an aim to cover up their plans for state arrangements at home which serve their dictatorial rule, and internationally their preparations for a new inter-imperialist war for the redivision of the world. The focus of their falsifications, as ever, is the role of Stalin and the Soviet Union in the lead up to the war, in particular the gross slander that Stalin “connived” with Hitler, carved up Poland and set off the war. The truth is the precise opposite.
The Second World War was a terrible catastrophe for the entire humanity. There is no doubt such a tragedy could have been avoided, or at the very least limited in its devastation. Facts, readily verifiable from the documents of the time, make clear the causes of the war. It was the ruling circles of Britain, France and the USA who re-financed and re-armed Germany to be the dominating force in Central and Eastern Europe and egged Hitler on to “Go East”, to realise his cherished dream of taking over territories such as the Ukraine and destroy the Soviet Union and Bolshevism. Faced with Hitlerite aggression, the Soviet Union called on Britain and France to sign a collective mutual assistance pact with military clauses. They refused, choosing instead to sign the Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, an act of betrayal which sealed the fate of Europe, ceding Czechoslovakia and its powerful armaments industry to Hitler, and giving him the green light to go east and attack the Soviet Union. The Polish government, imperialist itself, took the same stand, for which it was to pay so dearly. Appeasement was not a sign of weakness, as is claimed, but of connivance. The imperialist mentality was to fear communism more than fascism, to follow a short-sighted and self-serving policy which brought the most terrible devastation on the peoples of the world, including their own.
It is also fact, readily verifiable, that the Soviet Union, following the policies of Lenin and Stalin, was a factor for peace in the lead-up, the waging, and the aftermath of the Second World War. It was, after all, the October Revolution which brought the First World War to a close. It was the collective security proposals of the Soviet Union which could, if taken up by the imperialist powers, have prevented, or at least limited, the Second World War. Faced with the refusal of Britain and France to take up these proposals, the Soviet Union had no alternative but to sign a Non-Aggression Pact with Germany in order to give it time to prepare for the inevitable Nazi invasion of its territories. It was also forced to move its Red Army on 17th September 1939, into Ukrainian and Byelorussian territories seized by Poland in 1919-20, thus saving millions from the slaughter visited upon the rest of Poland, and moving its forward defensive line several hundred kilometres west. When the inevitable invasion came, in June 1941, the war took on an anti-fascist character. Millions upon millions were inspired on the world scale to participate in destroying the fascist menace. This was the main factor in the victory of the anti-fascist forces over Nazism. The policy of the Soviet Union was based on steadfast opposition to aggression, invasion, occupation and annexation, to the imperialist redivision of the world and inter-imperialist war. Despite all the waverings, the cynicism, the treachery, the obstruction of the governments of Britain, France and the USA and others, they stuck to their stand. They made huge sacrifices in order to do this, and with great proletarian generosity ensured that the war effort progressed and victory over fascism was ensured. It was not down to the failure or weakness of the policy of the Soviet Union that this victory over fascism in 1945 was not consolidated and the opportunity for peace and democracy cast aside, with the imperialist powers reverting to their old policies, which had brought such disaster to the world’s people, including their own, of “containment of communism” as their main aim, along with renewing their support for and practice of fascism worldwide.
Why the falsifications of this indisputable history? Everything points to the fact that the attack on communism today is not so much on what it is or has been, but on what it can do. In the 20th century communism solved the problems that faced humanity. It led and inspired people to make huge advances and win great victories. The crises later in the century were due to its abandonment, not its legacy. Now in the 21st century, despite the raised consciousness of the people, the result of the achievements of the 20th century, and the opportunity which that presents to take matters into their own hands, in the last 25 years of retreat of revolution the forces of reaction have been and are determined that the people will take no such initiatives, that they will leave the solution of the problems which face humanity in the hands of those who created them, in the hands of today’s so-called “benevolent despots”. Thus communism must be attacked. Its ideology and politics must be discredited. History itself must be falsified and rewritten.
The attack, the falsifications, come not merely in the form of lies, but as total disinformation which distorts the whole progress of humankind, the basis of change, motion and development, how a new society has been and is being created, and if not challenged deprive the people of any perspective, of an outlook on their lives.
As the late Hardial Bains pointed out in his important work Modern Communism,the attack is not just on communism but on all real change. History, he says, has been turned on its head, with the worst crimes of the Hitlerite fascists attributed to the communists in general, and to Stalin in particular. This disinformation is intended to disorient the workers, women and youth and provide them with no prospects whatsoever. It is also to divert the attention of the world’s peoples from the crimes being committed today by the imperialists and world reaction in the name of democracy.
The question must be put: How can one believe the stories of those who commit such dreadful and dastardly acts these very days? Guantánamo, Fallujah, Gaza, the bombing of villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan are facts of history too. How can the solution of the world’s problems be left in the hands of those who cause them, who are leading the peoples into such terrible catastrophes?
It is vital that the falsifications of history, such as of the causes and lessons of the Second World War, are exposed and combated. This is necessary not as something in itself, but as part of providing all the information, the perspective, the outlook – which only Modern Communism can do – to enable the working class and people to discuss and plan the way forward, what kind of new society is needed, how to take matters into their own hands, to bring about democratic renewal and bring into being a pro-social anti-war government, and solve themselves the problems facing society.

Joint Appeal on the new Irish referendum

• Joint Appeal of the Communist and Workers’ Parties in Europe on the new Irish Referendum
  
  Solidarity with the Irish NO Vote
  
  The rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish people in the referendum that was held last year, as well as the previous rejection of EU Treaties and the EU Constitution by other peoples in several EU member-states, has created great difficulties for the governments and a series of political forces that serve monopolies as well as the EU, this interstate imperialist union that has the interests of great capital as its driving force.
  
  For that reason, refusing to accept the result of the vote of the people, Brussels, with the support of the bourgeois political parties in Ireland, are obliging the Irish people to vote again, hoping that they can be frightened and bullied into changing their decision.
  
  The Lisbon Treaty, like the Maastricht and Nice treaties before it, consolidates and reinforces the EU imperialist strategy in favour of the interests of monopoly capital.
  
  This treaty in particular:
• Reinforces the militaristic character of the EU, enhances the powers of the High Representative for Foreign Policy, and establishes a closer collaboration with NATO and the US.
• Limits the sovereign rights of member-states and recognizes the supremacy of EU law over national law.
• Elaborates new policies for the exploitation of workers and the demolition of labour and social rights, following on from the judgements of the Court of Justice of the European Communities in the Vaxholm, Laval, Ruffert and Luxemburg cases based as they were provisions on previous treaty.
• Abolishes the veto in 50 sectors for the benefit of the powerful countries in the EU, also increasing the relative voting strength of the bigger states.
• Decisively reinforces police and repressive powers at central level and in each member-state separately, in the direction for the creation of a single European policy of internal order and security.
• Strongly restricts and hits individual and people’s political rights and liberties and includes the combat against “radical” ideologies to the existing “anti-terror” package of the EU.
• Reinforces the rapacious and threatening international role of the EU in its dealings with developing countries, dictating terms of trade and economic policy, and opening up their resources to exploitation by European multinational corporations.
• Further undermines the ability of member states to take sovereign independent action on key social, economic and political issues and, hence, any reference of the traditional “Irish policy of neutrality” would be devoid of any practical significance.
  
  The worker’s and people’s forces are now more aware of the fact that the EU has nothing to do with the interests of the peoples. It is a union of unemployment and underemployment, of the abolition of labour and social insurance rights, of the wage and pensions freezes, of the commercialisation of health, social welfare, education and culture. The peoples of Europe have accumulated experience since it has been proved in practice that the EU and its treaties not only constitute any shield against capitalist crisis, but on the contrary, they reinforce the profits of the capital that causes the crisis.
  
  The communist and workers parties of Europe express our solidarity with the Irish people and we urge them once more, to decisively oppose the anti-democratic and anti labour class direction inherent in the EU, to reject EU militarism and the threat to peace and people’s rights it represents. We urge them to defy the EU ultimatums; not to believe the promises for regulations, improvements and “protocols on the respect of rights beyond the treaty” that do not change the reactionary character of the treaty.
  
  We call upon workers across the member states of the EU:
• To show their active solidarity with the Irish people.
• To support them through messages of solidarity and any other form, as this is a common struggle and its result will have an impact upon workers across the EU.
  
  Europe of multinationals has rallied behind the forces of the “yes” vote; we, the communist and workers parties call upon workers to rally and stand in solidarity with the Irish working class and the other popular forces of the country.
  
  We call upon the Irish people to hold their nerve and vote “NO” once more and give the decisive blow that will signal the rejection of the reactionary treaty. This result will pose new obstacles to the attack of EU imperialists and will give a new impetus to the struggles of the working class and the poor popular strata throughout Europe.
  
  ======================
  
  The Parties
  
  Communist Party of Belarus
  Workers’ Party of Belgium
  Communist Workers’ Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina
  Communist Party of Britain
  New Communist Party of Britain
  Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia
  Communist Party in Denmark
  Communist Party of Denmark
  Communist Party of Estonia
  Communist Party of Finland
  Communist Party of Greece
  Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party
  Communist Party Ireland
  Workers’ Party of Ireland
  Socialist Party of Latvia
  Communist Party of Luxembourg
  New Communist Party of the Netherlands
  Communist Party of Norway
  Communist Party of Poland
  Portuguese Communist Party
  Communist Party of the Russian Federation
  Russian Communist Workers' Party – Revolutionary Party of Communists
  Communist Party of Slovakia
  Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
  Communist Party of Sweden
  Communist Party of Turkey
  
  
  
  

The big squeeze

Review:

By Andy Brooks

We Sell Our Time No More by Paul Stewart, Ken Murphy et al, pbk, illus., 272pp Pluto Press London £19.99

First of all a word of warning. Despite the snappy title this is not a rank-and-file saga about struggle on the shop floor but rather an academic study of the problems facing workers in the face of a renewed employers’ assault on their terms and conditions.
Written by a team of academics and some union officials this book is packed with historical analysis and useful statistics based on research covering two decades. More precisely this book is a detailed analysis of the unions’ response to “lean production” in the British motor industry. Two of the main contributors, Paul Stewart and Ken Murphy, are pillars of the Automotive Workers’ Research Network. Ken Murphy worked for General Motors for over twenty years and Paul Stewart is Professor of the Sociology of Work and Employment at Strathclyde University in Scotland.
Lean production, devised in Japan and pioneered by Toyota, claims to be an approach which produces world class performance and employee satisfaction. In fact all it consists of is a management programme to replace traditional work-practices with a system that cuts “waste” and tries to use every minute of the workers’ time in the productive process in methods which they call “team work”, “quality circles”, “flexibility” and “just-in-time” production.
It’s a very old game called squeezing as much as you can out of the worker and paying as little as possible in return. In the past organised labour not only regulated pay and conditions but also managed to win significant improvements on the shop floor. Now with the unions crippled by anti-union legislation management has been able to pump up production and impose draconian cuts in pay and conditions.
The book focuses on the unions’ official response and rank-and-file resistance at Vauxhall-GM and Rover/BMW using survey data and discussions with shop-stewards on the front-line. This book is an invaluable aid in the struggle for union officials in manufacturing and beyond as well as providing an important resource for students of industrial relations. It can be readily obtained from any high-street bookshop or ordered from your library.

Oliver Cromwell 1599 - 1658

OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the English Revolution, died on 3rd September 1658. Cromwell, the MP for Huntingdon, was the leading Parliamentarycommander during the English Civil War which began in 1642 and ended in1649 with the trial and execution of Charles Stuart and the abolition of the monarchy. The Republic of England, or Commonwealth as it was styled in English, was proclaimed soon after.

The fighting had taken a fearful toll in lives and property in England,Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The death toll including civilians came to around 870,000, some 11.6 per cent of the pre-Civil War population. Material damage was immense, particularly in Ireland.In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became head of state, the Lord Protector. Scotlandhad been brought under Commonwealth control. Royalist hopes of acounter-revolution were crushed with the defeat of their forces at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.The democratic movement born from the New Model Army, the Levellers, was crushed by Cromwell’s supporters and the most militant regiments sent toIreland – in a reconquest whose brutality is remembered to this day.Attempts to set up farming co-operatives by the Diggers, another group bornfrom the Army, were also suppressed.

The republic Cromwell led included England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as colonies in New England and the Caribbean. During its brief life the Commonwealth became a force in Europe. Culturally it inspired the great poetry of Milton and Marvell and other radical and pacifist religiousmovements like the Quakers who are still with us today.

Oliver Cromwell died on 3rd September 1658 and was succeeded by his son,Richard. He was neither a politician nor a soldier. Unable to reconcilerepublican generals with the demands of the rich merchants and landownersto curb the influence of the New Model Army, Richard Cromwell resigned thefollowing year. The government collapsed and the monarchy was restored in1660.Oliver Cromwell’s death had been the occasion of genuine mourning. His funeral, modelled on that of the King of Spain, was the biggest London had ever witnessed.Two years later his body was dug up and ritually hanged in public at Tyburn. Those still alive who had signed Charles Stuart’s death warrant were hanged, drawn and quartered. And the “good old cause” they had fought for was buried with them. It was clear that a great revolution had taken place. It is equally clear that it was incomplete.

1939 -- the outbreak of war

By Eric Trevett

ON SUNDAY 3rd September 1939 families and neighbours throughout Britain were clustered around their radio sets waiting for Neville Chamberlain – the prime minister who had previously announced it was “peace in our time” – to state whether we would be at war with Germany. At 11am he confirmed that we were at war with Germany over the issue of Germany’s invasion of Poland on 1st September; the Nazi government had not responded to Britain’s ultimatum to withdraw from that country.
With war declared a whole lot of things happened quite quickly. More than one-and-a-half million women and children were sent into evacuation from the big cities; rationing was introduced; street names were painted over and the blackout was introduced with no lights to be shown from houses or shops after dark and cars had their dipped lights further light restricted.
And conscription was introduced in stages; at the start of this period there has been one-and-a-half million unemployed. Women were also conscripted – into non-combatant roles in the armed forces and into factory work and the land army – to a much greater extent than in the First World War.
And then nothing happened. There were no air raids and people were encouraged to take advantage of the good weather and go on holiday.
Of course elsewhere a lot was happening but not so much in this country. British planes showered Germany with leaflets indicating it would be a good idea if peace was restored.
By contrast the Germans were preparing to launch their offensives against western European countries.
The period from September 1939 to May 1940 was known as the phoney war. The only acts of war between Britain and Germany took place at sea, where Germany sank a number of merchant ships and British warships pressured the German pocket battleship Graf Spee into blowing itself up.
Meanwhile at home agitation had been growing for a more aggressive war policy. Prime Minister Chamberlain was discredited by his appeasement policies throughout the 30s, which among other things allowed Germany to increase its armed forces seven-fold from 1933.
Agitation for a more aggressive policy towards Nazi Germany resulted in Chamberlain effectively being forced out of office and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and accepted leader of the country for the duration of the war.
It was recognised that this was an imperialist war but at the same time it was also recognised that Hitler had to be stopped and in the circumstances that could only be achieved by the force of arms.
One of the big problems facing Britain was that although France had six million men under arms it still expected the war to be conducted in much the same way as the First World War – in other words a new war of position, trench warfare, in which front lines of combatants would move back and forth, losing thousands of men to take a few yards of land.
In light of this they built the Maginot Line, named after the French Minister of War who commissioned it. It was an impregnable fortress but the defences were not extended to the sea. The Line was highly armed and equipped and would probably have stopped any invasion directed against it.
The only problem was that the Germans did not see a need to breach it; they circumvented it as they drove through Holland, Belgium and France.
The German breakthrough was at the Ardennes Forest, which the French had deemed to be impenetrable and who therefore put poorly trained and inexperienced soldiers in that area.
British troops were also involved along the Belgian frontier and they too had to retreat in some disorder under the onslaught of the German offensive.
The Germans has mastered the art of modern warfare in a strategy that became known as blitzkrieg. It was a heavy bombing attack by war planes backed up by masses of tanks and armoured cars moving fast and the deployment of land troops to mop up and round up the defeated defending soldiers, who became prisoners of war.
Such was the effectiveness of this strategy that there was only nominal resistance in Belgium and Holland; France capitulated within five weeks.
The retreat as far as Britain was concerned culminated in the evacuation of the expeditionary force at Dunkirk, thanks to the mobilisation of a host of smaller ships as well as the naval contingent. Nonetheless thousands of British troops were made prisoners of war and a great deal of heavy war weaponry was lost.
Churchill proved to be an effective war leader; his resolute and confident assertions in his speeches gave inspiration to the people. He was a good war leader but he was also a treacherous ally, as events later proved. He made a valuable contribution to achieve Britain’s rearmament and capacity for waging effective warfare against the Nazi forces.
He personally saw the German threat as being greater to British interests, in particular to the British colonies, which were being targeted by the Germans. But he also flirted with the idea of going to war with the Soviet Union over the issue of Finland.
Soviet preparations for defending itself against German aggression required access to territories in Finland in order to protect Leningrad. The Finnish government would not agree to this and the Soviet-Finnish war happened.
The British ruling class and media urged all the support it could muster to support Finland. Some aid went and an expeditionary force was standing by when Finland agreed to the Soviet terms for access to the territory required to defend Leningrad.
Undoubtedly some ruling class elements thought this could be a way of declaring war on Russia and resolving the problems with Germany to attack a common enemy. That possibility had now been eliminated.
After the fall of France Churchill said the battle for Europe is over and the Battle of Britain has now begun. It is not altogether clear whether Nazi Germany ever intended to invade Britain. There was only one element of blitzkrieg, namely air power, that could be effectively used and in the struggle for air supremacy over Britain it was Britain who had the initiative. First of all radar enabled our forces to have advance warning of attacks, the number, type and direction of aircraft involved. British pilots were able to take off in the minimum of time and engage the enemy and they were able to engage for longer. The German fighter Messerschmitt 109s fighting over London had only 11 minutes to engage before they had to return to base for refuelling, though their bombers had bigger fuel tanks.
Another factor was the effectiveness of the planes themselves and their well-trained pilots.
The Battle of Britain was won in the air and Churchill made his famous speech: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
What Germany had achieved at this stage of the struggle was a relatively pacified rear whilst it mobilised its forces for the war against the Soviet Union – the war in which, as Churchill stated, the Soviet Red Army tore the guts out of the German war machine.
We shall look at that struggle at a later date.

Sex workers -- a queer perspective

By Thierry Schaffauser
GMB Sex Work and Entertainment Branch

WHEN THE sex workers’ movement was born in the 1970s it was women only and most of them were identified as straight. It is only in the last few years that more and more trans and male sex workers have been involved in the movement and that activists have brought new ideas influenced by “queer” theories.

Identity

Queer workers can very easily compare the similarities between LGBT phobias and the “whore” stigma. In both cases, we have to hide our identity or even to lie sometimes to avoid violence and repression. We are told that we need to be cured or rehabilitated.
The only way to be recognised is to accept the dominants’ rules, and sometimes some of us indeed accept and act as the victim the system expects us to be. The alternative is to take a big risk and claim your pride or at least refuse to accept the imposed shame. But those who refuse to be “rescued” will then expose themselves to repression. Being LGBT could send you to prison. Being a sex worker can also jeopardise your citizen’s rights such as parenthood, housing and protection from the police – and according to the way you work you risk getting jailed.
As homophobia serves as a gender police for men, whorephobia does the same for women. We are what we must not become when we are taught what a man or a woman is. We are those who betray their sex. The insult “queer” is the only limit to men’s sexuality and actions. The insult “whore” is also an instrument to control women’s freedom. Each time a woman transgresses the gender rules, she knows she will face the whore stigma. That’s why so many people will distance themselves from these identities even if it means fighting against us as persons.

Solidarity of minorities

Being a queer sex worker helps you to understand the intersection between different discriminations. We are working class women, queers, drugs users, HIV positives, transgenders and migrants. Our enemies often say that we do sex work because of a lack of choice. And indeed, as minorities we often don’t have the same choices and sex work appears as one of our only options. But when sex work is so repressed and criminalised, what is described as a lack of choice can also been seen as an economic strategy to get the resources we would never have in a system which excludes us.
As a migrant, I know I can work in any country and will always find clients. As a young queer I know I could leave my family and escape from a father’s authority. Without sex work I would never have been able to pay my tuition fees and have the same access to education. So instead of criminalising further the sex industry in thinking it will force us to do something else, why is the problem never looked at from the opposite side?
There are people who indeed have a lack of choices, but rather than taking away the sex work option in criminalising always more our clients or ourselves, we could once think about giving more options and more choices in fighting for minorities’ rights. But it is probably easier for the Government to claim being feminist in targeting prostitution while at the same time cutting single mothers’ benefits, deporting migrant workers and doing nothing against women’s economic apartheid.
Sex workers have a lot to bring to the labour movement. We have to build tools to avoid exploitation. Many of us used to work in hard low-paid jobs before choosing sex work and thus avoid now exploitation from a boss. We can choose when we want to work and not to wake up early in the mornings. We always ask to be paid first and we can have better incomes. But other sex workers work for escort agency managers or brothel keepers and can’t benefit from the same social protection as other workers gained thanks to our ancestors. This is the result of our division. Many workers keep thinking that we are not proper workers. The system divides us between the public and the private sector, the intellectual workers and the manual workers, and those who like sex workers are not even considered as workers. The system pushes you to think that at least you are not selling your body and that you are better than these prostitutes. But what are you selling?
The idea of separating our mind and our body doesn’t come from nowhere but from religion. Women used to be burnt as witches for selling their soul to the devil. Now they say sex workers sell their body. The consequence is always to reduce us to non-political objects who can’t make decisions for ourselves. The abolitionist ideology was born in the 19th century by the meeting of social Christian philanthropists and upper class feminists. Their will to reform us was for our own good for sure, but like when they wanted to educate the working classes or when they thought they brought civilisation to the colonies, they maintain a hierarchy between those who are the helpers and those who need the help.
What sex workers want is that you treat us as equals because we share the same struggle for our liberation, not as an under proletarian class who need to be saved. The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the workers themselves.

Images of the Miners' Struggle

None of us will ever forget the miners’ strike of 1984/85 and snapshots that capture the sacrifice and struggle of the mining communities are now available as greeting cards from Past Pixels, a new venture in publishing images of labour movement history.
The set is a personal selection by the photographer, Martin Shakeshaft, from a collection of sixteen postcards that have already been published. These high quality black and white images remind us of the epic scale of the struggle of the mine workers and their supporters to defend an industry, jobs and communities. The five greeting cards include shots of pickets, marching miners and a cheerful Arthur Scargill cycling down the street in Treorchy in the Rhondda Valley.
Martin Shakeshaft is a well-known photo-journalist and a member of the NUJ and the British Press Photographers’ Association and some of his work is on permanent display in the National Museum of Wales. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the miners’ strike he revisited some of the locations of his original images which were displayed in a touring exhibition entitled “Look Back in Anger”. These images are featured on the reverse of the greeting cards.

The set contains:

1. Alan ‘Massum’ Jones. The march back to work, Maerdy – 5th March 1985
2. Maerdy Women’s Support Group, Ferndale, The Rhondda – 27th August 1984.
3. Orgreave Coking Plant, near Sheffield – 18th June 1984.
4. Arthur Scargill, NUM President, Treorchy, the Rhondda – 16th June 1984.
5. Early morning picket, Celynen South Colliery – 6th November 1984.

The set of five cards costs £4.00 including postage and packing. Make cheques payable to “Past Pixels” and send to Past Pixels, PO Box 798, Worcester, WR4 4BW. Alternatively you can buy them online via their website.

photo. Maerdy Women's Support Group. Martin Shakeshaft

Justice long overdue

THE DECISION of the Scottish Government to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds has been denounced by US President Barack Obama and his FBI boss Robert Mueller who called it “a mockery of justice”. Scottish Labour former First Minister Henry McLeish says Mueller’s intervention was “totally out of order” and “none of his business” but Gordon Brown’s silence has fired speculation that the release of the dying Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was part of a secret deal to secure lucrative new oil deals in Libya.
The Scottish National Party administration has quite rightly said that the release of al Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, was fully justified under Scottish law. Alex Salmond’s government was equally totally justified in pointing out that while Scotland had a strong relationship with the United State it did not always depend on the two countries coming to agreement.
But this was no random act of mercy. Al Megrahi’s decision to drop his appeal was clearly prompted by promises of freedom. His release a week later was clearly timed for the run-up to the 1st September celebrations in his country to mark the 1969 Libyan Revolution. It is inconceivable to believe that the devolved Scottish government, which is ultimately answerable to the Westminster Parliament and the Crown, could have made this decision without prior consultation with the Prime Minister.
The Libyan Arab Airlines manager who sat in the dock with al Megrahi was acquitted by the special Scottish court that sentenced al Megrahi to life imprisonment in 2001. Al Megrahi always denied the charges at the trial and still protests his innocence. He is seen as a martyr in Libya and his incarceration was always seen as a barrier to improving relations with oil-rich Libya.
This was recognised by former premier Tony Blair, who met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2007 to conclude a $900 million oil and gas deal and sign up to a law, extradition and prisoner transfer agreement that clearly was focused on the only significant Libyan in British custody. British Petroleum and Shell have got their eye on the vast and still untapped oil and gas reserves that lie under the Libyan desert and many other British companies are eager to get a slice of the action in the new multi-million dollar Libyan construction programme that includes new ports, airports, holiday resorts, water nano-filtration plants and 27 new universities.
We may never know if the British Government was behind his release. Only Gordon Brown can say whether it was an act of altruism by the Scottish Government or part of deal to boost Anglo-Libyan trade and the Prime Minister is saying nothing. The New Communist Party has actively backed the campaign for justice for Megrahi and for Libya from the very beginning and we will continue to do so. We will continue to demand that the record be set straight and the machinations of the CIA be fully exposed.
By abandoning his appeal al Megrahi has given up any chance of clearing his name and resolving the mystery of the downing of Pan Am Flight 103. To this day no one has claimed responsibility for the destruction of the plane that cost the lives of 259 passengers and crew along with eleven Scots killed when parts of the aircraft hit the ground.
The trial was seriously flawed and the “evidence” produced by the CIA suspect. Many believed al Megrahi would have been able to clear his name at the appeal. In Libya and throughout the Arab world many believe he was innocent. This view is shared by many campaigners in Britain who had grave doubts about his trial. Clemency or natural justice - whatever the motive the release of the Libyan was right and long overdue.

A long standing Injustice

New Worker editorial 21st August 2009



ABDELBASET Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi last Tuesday abandoned his appeal against conviction for the Lockerbie bombing in order to make it easier for the Scottish law courts to allow him to return to Libya on compassionate grounds before he dies, aged 57, of prostate cancer. It another cruel twist to the mountain of injustices that have been heaped on this innocent man that he must surrender his long battle to clear his name - a legal battle that would take longer than his life expectancy - in order to be allowed to return to his home.

His incorrect conviction has in effect been a death sentence because he is dying from a cancer that is easily treatable and curable if the Scottish prison system had given him basic medical care and caught it in its early stages.

Two-hundred-and-seventy people died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the skies of Lockerbie in southern Scotland in December 1988.

At first the British and American security services blamed unspecified Palestinian terrorists. There had been warnings before the Lockerbie bombing of a possible revenge attack after an American warship in the Gulf shot down an Iranian airliner the previous year, killing all the civilians on board. An intelligence report from the US State Department on 2nd December 1988, 19 days before the Lockerbie bombing, warned: “Team of Palestinians not associated with the PLO plans to attack American targets in Europe. Targets specified are Pan Am and US military bases.”

For a while the imperialist leaders used accusations of being involved in the bombing to try to bully several Middle Eastern countries. Eventually they settled on brow-beating Libya by claiming the bombing was the work of two Libyan intelligence agents - Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fimah.

At first the Libyan government refused to hand them over and US imperialism subjected the country to economic and cultural sanctions. Then it bombed the capital, Tripoli, the bombers taking off from Britain. In the bombing raid Colonel Gaddafi’s infant adopted daughter was killed; they had been trying to kill Gaddafi himself.

The Libyan government finally demanded some evidence that the two accused were involved in the bombing. Up until then the US government had never even considered presenting a shred of evidence. Now the CIA went into overdrive to cook up some evidence. They leant heavily on stooges to identify Megrahi and Fimah as people who had bought clothes in Malta that were found in the suitcase that contained the bomb; one vital witness who originally described the purchaser as over six-foot and aged about 50 while Megrahi then was five-foot-eight-inches and 37. The list of dodgy “evidence” is very long.

But the two men were eventually handed over to be tried in 2000 in a special court by a panel of Scottish judges with no jury. The evidence was so bad that they could not bring themselves to convict both of the accused. The CIA had to be content with one sacrificial lamb.

The magazine Private Eye wrote: “The judgement and the verdict against Megrahi were perverse. The judges brought shame and disgrace, it is fair to say, to all those who believed in Scottish justice, and have added to Scottish law an injustice of the type which has often defaced the law in England. Their verdict was a triumph for the CIA but it did nothing at all to satisfy the demands of the families of those who died at Lockerbie - who still want to know how and why their loved ones were murdered.”

Since then Megrahi has been held in prison in Scotland; his wife moved from Libya to Scotland to be able to visit him regularly and they have both been separated from their home and the rest of their family.

The New Communist Party and the New Worker have actively backed the campaign for justice for Megrahi and for Libya from the beginning and we will continue to do so. He may no longer be in a position to fight to clear his name but that does not mean the fight will end. Along with millions of other progressives in Britain and around the world, we will continue to demand that the record be set straight and the machinations of the CIA be fully exposed.

Voices for Scottish Independence

REVIEW

By Robert Laurie


Communist Party of Scotland Independent Scotland – A Left Perspective pp. 38. Available from CPS/Alert Scotland, PO Box 7311, Glasgow G46 9B2. £2.00 plus 50 postage and packing.

On the 9th November last year the Communist Party of Scotland held a conference aimed at “uniting the left in Scotland around a number of shared political positions on Scottish independence”. This pamphlet is the result of that conference. Well produced and reasonably priced it provides an account of the views of various groups, mostly on the left, seeking Scottish independence.
A firmer editorial pen might have cut out the contributions which are clearly not relevant to the subject of the cause of Scottish independence: there is a contribution from a Communist Party of India (Marxist) representative describing the reasons for his party recently leaving India’s governing coalition. Given the conference was about independence the CPIM could have more productively made some observations about India’s complex national questions such as the status of Kashmir. Another irrelevant piece is that from a speaker from Action for Southern Africa, the successor to the Anti-Apartheid.
There is also a brief piece on the short history of the Scottish Workers Republican Party. Presumably the author considers this to be an example to be followed, but his outline merely demonstrates how irrelevant the SWRP was to the Scottish working class. It was founded in 1922 by John MacLean, a popular Marxist speaker and writer who refused to join the recently formed Communist Party of Great Britain which he absurdly saw as the product of a cunning plot by the British Government to create a tame dead end organization to ensnare genuine revolutionaries.
What of the main contributions? A Scottish Green Party representative presents a shopping list of policies on renewable energy, and poverty related issues but fails to make clear why an independent Scottish government would improve things or a British wide government cannot do the same. Mike Danson, a Professor Economics at the University of the West of Scotland sees the example of the capitalist Scandinavian countries as an inspiring model. Another academic, Chris Harvey, who has returned from being Professor of British and Irish Studies at the University of Tübingen to be a Scottish Nationalist list MSP seems to think imagine that the Scottish economy can be rescued by German banks funding huge Scottish tidal energy projects which could power much of Europe. Strangely none of the speakers has anything to say about the European Union. Although all speakers denounce “Thatcherite” neoliberalism they are silence about its Brussels variety.
The main Communist Party of Scotland’s speaker Maggie Chetty attacks the Labour Party for betraying its values but then goes on to praise the good work down by race relations bodies which it established, lamenting only that they are inadequately funded. She praises France and Spain for being “more successful than we have in resisting Coca Cola and Big Mac culture which is a very venal aspect of America’s cultural imperialism”. This is unfair to Scotland. The traditional Scottish diet of Irn Bru and haggis and chips keeps these deplorable American influences at bay.
Was the conference a success? Not entirely. While it briefly brought together speakers from both the rump of the Scottish Socialist Party and its breakaway Solidarity the war between these two tiny sects continues. At the recent Euro-Elections Solidarity joined the Communist Party of Britain in the No2EU alliance. The CPB are roundly denounced earlier in the pamphlet for acting as a “Trojan Horse in the heart of the Labour Movement”.

The Victory of the Korean People

Statement from the New Communist Party of Britain

25th July 2009



On 27th July 1953 the guns fell silent on the Korean peninsula. US imperialism and its lackeys had been defeated. The Korean people, led by Kim Il Sung and the Workers Party of Korea, had preserved the independence of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and forced the greatest imperialist country in the world to the armistice table.
The heroism of the Korean People’s Army and the Korean people had beaten off the might of US imperialism and its satellites.
The imperialists had hoped to smash Korean socialism in 1950. Their legions believed that carpet bombing and terror would crush the spirit of the Korean revolution that had liberated the country from Japanese colonialism. They were proved wrong.
American imperialism. flying the false flag of the United Nations, believed that Democratic Korea could be isolated and crushed. But the socialist world rallied to assist the Korean people in their just struggle. The Korean people did not stand alone. The Chinese Volunteers and the assistance from the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies of eastern Europe was a concrete demonstration of proletarian internationalism while the peace movement across the world, not least in Britain and the United States, exposed the crimes of the imperialists and mobilised world public opinion to end the war.
But the consequences of the Korean war remain unresolved. Though the Americans had pledged to end the partition of Korea to end the fighting Korea remains cruelly divided and the DPR Korea continues to be subjected to a US embargo in breach of international law.
Throughout his life Kim Il Sung worked tirelessly to fulfil the dream of the entire Korean nation for the peaceful re-unification of the country. His proposal for a reunified Confederal Democratic Republic of Koryo based on the principle of “one country/two systems” remains on the table. Korean leader Kim Jong Il has striven to normalise relations with the south Korean authorities to end tension on the peninsula and pave the way to reunification.
All these efforts have been thwarted by US imperialism that seeks to retain south Korea as a protectorate and military base as part of their efforts to dominate the region. Americans imperialism reneged on their commitments forcing the DPR Korea to resume its nuclear research. American imperialism stepped up its military threats and economic blockade forcing the DPR Korea to develop and test its own independent nuclear deterrent.
Now US imperialism stands isolated and exposed. The DPR Korea has stood firm breaking the diplomatic and economic embargo in the 1990s and the people have closed ranks around the Workers Party of Korea with renewed determination to defend their independence and socialist system.
Today communists throughout the world join their Korean comrades in reflection on the anniversary of the victory of the Fatherland Liberation War to pay tribute to the sacrifice made by the generations before us in the struggle for socialism and the emancipation of the working class.





Andy Brooks
General Secretary
New Communist Party of Britain

Joint Letter on the Korean War

Comrade Kim Jong Il
General Secretary, Workers’ Party of Korea
Chairman of National Defence Commission, DPRK
Pyongyang
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea


25th July 2009 (Juche 98)

Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il,

Our organisations participating in this celebration to mark the 56th anniversary of the end of the Korean War and the historic victory of the Korean people send you the warmest congratulations and heartfelt best wishes.

The Korean War was an illegal war of aggression organised by the US imperialists under the flag of the United Nations. US imperialism is the most barbaric force that humanity has encountered, armed to the teeth with nuclear and other weapons and operating on the fascist dictum "might makes right". It seeks to blackmail any people who affirm their collective right to existence, just as the DPRK is leading the Korean people in doing.

Just as hundreds of millions of people opposed the US-led illegal war of aggression against the Korean people in 1950, so today the working class and people of Britain, as well as all the peace loving people of the world, must not permit Anglo-US imperialism to justify another Korean War.

We participating organisations, on behalf of all democratic forces in Britain, are indeed proud to be called Friends of Korea. We declare our great admiration for the historic victory of the Korean people, and the heroic advance in rebuilding their country, and in their fervent aspiration to once again reunify the Korean Peninsula under the precept of “By our nation itself”. We also celebrate on this occasion your tireless and peerless work, your leadership, and the collective spirit of the whole Korean people under your guidance in defending their socialist system and fighting for complete freedom and independence.

We expresses our utmost confidence that the Korean people through their own efforts will oust the US occupation troops from the south of their country, and reunify their country through their own efforts, peacefully and without outside interference.

We regard the Korean people’s victories as our victories, as we struggle for the same ideals and against the same enemies. As ever, we assure our comrades in the DPRK that we fight shoulder to shoulder with them in their struggles now and in the future also.

With warmest fraternal regards

Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche Idea
UK Korean Friendship Association
New Communist Party of Britain
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Socialist Labour Party

A sinister game in China

The hidden hand of US intelligence was seen in the attempt to destabilise Iran in the wake of the presidential elections in the Islamic Republic. Now the imperialist lie machine has gone into full swing over the riots in Xinjiang.
All sorts of nonsense is being parroted by the BBC and the American media about Xinjiang which has been a part of China since 60 BC. . They claim that the Uygur people are represented by the largely fictitious “World Uygur Congress” and not the people’s government of the region. We’re told that Xinjiang is being flooded with Chinese immigrants and that mainly Muslim Uygur people are oppressed and clamouring for independence.
What they don’t say is that separatist groups, connected to imperialism, have been waging a terror campaign against the people’s government of Xinjiang and that they were clearly behind the riots that have so far caused 184 deaths, most of them Han Chinese victims of Uygur racist violence. Thousands more have been injured, hundreds of vehicles burnt, shops looted and other public facilities destroyed in the regional capital, Urumqi. Fortunately the firm action of the Chinese government has restored calm and security to Urumqi and the rest of Xinjiang
The “World Uygur Congress” (WUC) was set up in Munich in 2004 as a coalition of a number of anti-communist émigré groups including the Uygur American Association and the “East Turkestan National Congress”. It was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, whose main sponsor was US Congress and it is led by Rebiya Kadeer, who likes to be called the “spiritual mother” of the Uygurs.
Others have different opinion. Ismail Amat, the former chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, called her the “scum” of the Uygur community last weekend. The “spiritual mother” has a revealing past. Though of alleged humble origins she started off as a petty exploiter, denounced during the Cultural Revolution and then rising to riches during the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. In the early 1990s she was worth millions, running businesses in China, Russia and Kazakhstan and was named by Forbes magazine in 1995 as the eighth richest in People’s China.
Her introduction to open subversion came through her second husband Sidik Rouzi, who fled to America in 1996 where he works for “Radio Free Asia”, an American propaganda station set up by the CIA in 1950 to broadcast lies to the people’s republics of Asia. And her downfall came when she was arrested and jailed in 1999 on charges of harming national security and leaking state secrets. She left for the United States shortly after she was released on medical grounds in 2005. Kadeer has met former United States President George Bush in June 2007 and British Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials in October the same year.
There is no doubt that the riots were plotted by Uygur separatists outside the country to split the unity of different ethnic groups in the region. The ring-leaders were attempting to provoke ethnic violence between the Uygur and the Han Chinese as part of their campaign for “independence”. The real agenda, which the Tibetan Dalai Lama clique also serves, is to break-up China and establish weak client successor states for plunder by imperialism and the big corporations. US President Barack Obama can strut around the world posing as the humane face of capitalism for all he likes but behind the scenes it’s business as usual for American imperialism.

Communists condemn OSCE resolution

Joint Statement of communist and workers’ parties
We strongly condemn the adoption on 3 July, 2009 at the regular Parliamentary Assembly session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vilnius (Lithuania) of a new anti-communist resolution titled «Divided Europe Reunited» which contains a gross distortion of history and denies the role of the Soviet Union in the victory over fascism. The resolution equates communism and fascism. Those who do so fail to remember that it was the Soviet Union that made the largest contribution to the liberation of Europe from fascism. The authors of the resolution -those falsifiers of history- pretend to have forgotten who gave away Czechoslovakia in 1938 in Munich which led to the elimination of the state independence of the country and to the fascist enslavement of the Czech and Slovak peoples.

Those who voted for the adoption of this resolution actually justify and encourage “a witch-hunt” against communists in several countries of the OSCE where communists are persecuted, their youth organisations prohibited and the parties prosecuted for the use of their traditional symbols.

Furthermore, the resolution offers great opportunities for the prosecution of communist ideology and the adoption of measures against communist parties.

At the same time, we witness the actual rehabilitation of the Nazis in a number of countries, including the country that hosted this session of the OSCE PA.

We cannot allow anyone to insult the memory of anti-fascists, participants in the Resistance movement, who lost their lives in the fight against Nazism.

The aggravation of anti-communism in Europe is not a transient phenomenon. It shows the fear of the ruling class over the exacerbation of the capitalist crisis and of the urgency of the demand to abolish capitalist exploitation and the need for fundamental society change acquire.

The working class, all workers, regardless of the extent of agreement or disagreement with the communists, must repulse decisively anti-communism bearers, as history has proven that anti-communist attacks foretell the onset of a general offensive against the social and democratic rights of the people.

Let us reply to the provocateurs and anti-communists through our joint struggle for workers' rights, for socialism.

PADS, Algeria
Communist Party of Argentina
Communist Party of Armenia
Communist Party of Bangladesh
Communist Party of Belarus
Workers' Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Brazil
Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Bulgaria
Party of the Bulgarian Communists
Communist Party of Canada
Socialist Worker`s Party of Croatia
AKEL, Cyprus
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
Communist Party in Denmark
Communist Party of Denmark
Communist Party of Estonia
Communist Party of Finland
Unified Communist Party of Georgia
German Communist Party
Communist Party of Greece
Hungarian Communist Workers' Party
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India [Marxist]
Tudeh Party of Iran
Iraqi Communist Party
Communist Party of Ireland
The Workers' Party of Ireland
Party of the Italian Communists
Party of the Communist Refoundation
Jordanian Communist Party
Socialist Party of Latvia
Lebanese Communist Party
Socialist Party of Lithuania
Communist Party of Luxembourg
Party of the Communists of Kirgizia
Communist Party of Macedonia
AKFM, Madagascar
Communist Party of Malta
Party of the Communists, Mexico
Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Communist Party of Norway
Communist Party of Pakistan
Peruan Communist Party
Philippine Communist Party -PKP 1930
Communist Party of Poland
Portuguese Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
Communist Party of Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Russian Communist Workers' Party – Revolutionary Party of Communists
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Party of the Communists of Serbia
Communist Party of Slovakia
South African Communist Party
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Spain
Party of the Communists of Catalonia
Communist Party of Sri-Lanka
Communist Party of Sweden
Syrian Communist Party
Communist Party of Turkey
Communist Party of Ukraine
Union of Communists of Ukraine
Communist Party of Uruguay
Communist Party, USA
Communist Party of Venezuela

Other parties that also support the joint statement:

Pole of Communist Renaissance in France
Union do Povo Galego (UPG)

Joint Letter to Kim Jong Il

Joint Letter to Comrade Kim Jong Il

The following letter was sent to Kim Jong Il, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on June 11, 2009.

Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il,

Our organisations participating in this seminar on the occasions of the ninth anniversary of the historic June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and the 45th anniversary of the start of your work at the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, send you our warmest congratulations and heartfelt best wishes.

These occasions are a testament to your achievements in the field of Party-building, and in the historic task of re-unifying the Korean peninsula.

The Workers’ Party of Korea is imbued with the humanity and concern for the whole society which you have embodied, and which serves to unite the people around the cause of independence and socialism, in contrast to the bestiality and brutality of imperialism which stands for war and reaction, and which is arousing the opposition of the whole of progressive humanity. Those who take up responsibility for revolutionary leadership are greatly to be cherished, and it is an immense testament to your qualities that you have taken up this responsibility within the Central Committee of the WPK for these 45 years.

We express our firm solidarity with the entire Korean people, who desire above all else the reunification of their homeland and the end of tension and the danger of war on the Korean peninsula. The Joint Declaration of June 15, 2000, remains the way forward for the Korean people themselves to reunify their country, being a tremendous blow to the schemes of Anglo-US imperialism to keep the Korean nation divided. It was a vindication of your far-sighted stand on the reunification of the one Korea, advancing further along the road laid down by President Kim Il Sung. Despite the set-backs which have been caused by the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors to the Korean nation, the reunification movement has been striving to open the way for independent, peaceful reunification under the principle of: "By our nation itself". We in Britain will do all we can to contribute to building the movement for the peaceful reunification of Korea also.

These are very dangerous times for the DPRK and the peoples of the entire world. US imperialism, closely supported by the British government, has shown itself to be the worst violator of human rights in its quest for global hegemony and would even like to deny the Korean nation its right to exist. We wish to emphasise that it is US imperialism which is the threat to world peace and security with its nuclear monopoly and aggressive policies.

Our organisations express once again our admiration for your work and leadership, which inspires us to greater heights and to work harder. We regard the Korean people’s victories as our victories, as we struggle for the same ideals and against the same enemies. We assure our comrades in the DPRK and the Korean people that we fight shoulder to shoulder with them in their struggles now and in the future also.

With warmest fraternal regards,

Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche Idea
UK Korean Friendship Association
New Communist Party of Britain
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Socialist Labour Party

People's China in Perspective

By Eric Trevett


A reply to a letter published in last week’s New Worker

WE HAVE published Peter Savage’s letter in full and it reflects the position of many in the left of the labour movement but we find it necessary to refute the basic foundations of it. We must also stress that our ideological position is taken independently of any other party and we do not base our analysis on patronage from anyone.
The history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been very turbulent. Up to and following the revolution the CPC strategy for developing socialism included strengthening relations with the Soviet Union.
But the rupture between the parties arose from Krushchov’s so-called secret speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. The CPC was correct in saying – which very few others apart from the Albanian Party of Labour saw at the time – that Krushchov’s speech was a betrayal of Marxism-Leninism and they condemned Krushchov correctly as a capitalist roader.
There was a direct link between Krushchov’s speech at the 20th Congress and the weakening of working class state power in the Soviet Union, which was further weakened by the ridiculous claim that the dictatorship of the proletariat had given way to the state of the whole people.
This pandered to the counter-revolutionary movement in Soviet society and with Gorbachov coming to office the counter-revolution was achieved. The CPSU was dissolved and socialism was abandoned.
As a consequence socialism was dismantled throughout Eastern Europe and the unity between the nations in the Soviet Union itself gave way to nationalism and a hierarchy scrambling to establish privatisation in the hands of the opportunists.
Whilst the Chinese communists were correct in condemning Krushchov, they took up a subjective analysis in which they perceived the Soviet Union as a greater threat than that of United States imperialism. This led to China playing a negative role in the struggle of the Afghan people for the improvements in their lives that were being achieved under the leadership of the Babrak Kamal government.
The CPC policy of that time squandered the budding relationship it enjoyed among the developing countries at the Bandung conference of 1954.
The CPC’s domestic policies were also undermined by the efforts of so-called self sufficiency during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which embraced the ideas of backyard steelworks and so on.
The New Communist Party stands by the critical analysis it made of the CPC at that stage of its development.
The reason why it would be wrong to report the attacks made then by myself and the late Comrade Ernie Trory today is that the basis for such an analysis no longer exists.
Communists and communist parties have to make an ongoing analysis of global and domestic events and these take into account the developing situation.
In upholding the principles of Marxism-Leninism it is necessary sometimes to make major changes in policies. The basic mistake made in evaluating the situation of the CPC’s direction and international policies is to regard socialism in that country as being fully developed.
In fact China is a developing country with a communist leadership and its perspective for achieving a fully socialist state will stretch over decades.
In the shorter term its aim is to raise the living standards of the people, strengthen its trade relations with other countries and attract inward investment and new technology. It is also developing the size and influence of the working class, strengthening its state control and influence among the population, which is still largely peasant dominated.
In a way the tactics of the CPC are not dissimilar to those adopted by Lenin and Stalin in dealing with the kulaks and temporarily making concessions to them in order to boost production to feed the growing urban industrial proletariat.
The working class in the Soviet state was numerically small but highly concentrated in strategic areas. The industrial working class there developed on a mass scale because of commodity production, which was achieved by mechanical engineering and which required a labour-intensive quality to its development.
The Chinese problem is that to raise the level and number of its working class is complicated by its commodity production taking a much more capital intensive form.
You have only to see the use of robotics in the car industry to appreciate that.
The strategy of the CPC is to maintain working class state power with the Party maintaining and developing its influence. This includes countering the tendency of the peasants to look backwards to private ownership of land instead of looking forward to collectivisation, which provides a surer basis for prosperity.
The Chinese have taken advantage of their low wage economy and used divisions among the imperialist powers, while the country’s political stability can only be assumed by its expanding economic conditions.
The role of China, which is emerging as a major power, is extending international trade relations and expanding its internal market cannot be ignored, and therefore the Chinese are achieving access to a great deal of modern technology.
This fundamental change in the economic strategy has allowed China to achieve great advances and improvements in the interests of the Chinese people. This is all the more valuable when it is realised that the achievement has been made in spite of the population of China increasing by about 50 million every five years.
The advance on the domestic front has been accompanied by a major change in its foreign policy over the past few years as it strengthens its standing with Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, some African countries, the Middle East and so on.
China has greatly assisted in the economic development of Cuba, Democratic Korea and the other remaining people’s democracies following the collapse of the Soviet Union. China has helped to thwart US imperialist intentions to stir up hostile actions against other developing countries that are making a stand against imperialism.
We live in a country where the survival of capitalism is dependent to some degree on denigrating China and negating the positive influence it now exercises in the world arena.
We stand by the analysis made by myself and Ernie Trory and the articles published at the time. But in the present stages of China’s global and domestic development it would be fundamentally wrong to say they apply to the current situation.
The position taken by Peter Savage is much too negative to be consistent with the current analysis.

A slap in the face for imperialism

Anglo-American imperialism and the rest of their pack at the United Nations are wailing at Democratic Korea’s latest nuclear test. None of this would have happened in the first place had the Americans honoured their agreement with the DPR Korea to build light-water reactors as they promised in 1994. None of this would have happened had the imperialists worked sincerely to resolve the nuclear issue and ease tension on the Korean peninsula during the Six-Party talks in Beijing. Instead the imperialists chose to continue to diplomatically and economically isolate north Korea in the hope of bringing down the socialist system of the DPRK.
With sickening hypocrisy the United States, with the blood of millions of Iraqis and Afghans on its hands, poses as the arbiter of “human rights” and “democracy” throughout the world.
Millions of Palestinian Arabs live under brutal Israeli occupation or languish in refugee camps but the imperialists do nothing. When Israel attacked Lebanon in July 2006 the imperialists did nothing to stop the fighting until it became clear that Israel was losing. When the people of Gaza defied the might of the Zionist war-machine in January the imperialists did nothing to stop it at the United Nations.
Democratic Korea has had no choice but to develop its nuclear energy programme and its own independent nuclear deterrent. The DPRK threatens no one. But it is surrounded by enemies. An American nuclear armada is stationed off the coast of Korea while tens of thousands of US troops prop up a puppet regime in the south. More troops are based in Japan, a willing vassal of US imperialism. The imperialists and their puppets do little to mask their true intentions which are to perpetuate the criminal partition of the Korean peninsula and restore the rule of the hated capitalists and landlords in the free north.
The DPRK nuclear test has demonstrated the resolve of the people of north Korea to defend their socialist system come what may. We whole-heartedly support them.


Boycott the European elections
The farcical European elections take place next week but in Britain hardly anyone knows who their MEPs are or what they do. In fact they do next to nothing apart from draw their colossal wages and expenses for taking part in a charade that is paid for by the workers of Europe.
In this election Labour and the two major opposition parties are united, in differing degrees, in support of European integration – the building of a European capitalist super-state revolving around British and Franco-German imperialism. The anti-EU opposition ranges from fringe left parties to the neo-nazi BNP, all scrabbling after the juicy perks that a seat in the EU parliament provides. The most successful is the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a rabid independent Tory front that is defending its nine British seats and has high hopes of gaining more from the backlash over the Commons expenses scandal. UKIP claims to fight to get Britain out of the EU. But what have UKIP’s nine MEPs achieved over the years? Absolutely nothing apart from drawing their Euros.
In Britain there is indifference and often outright hostility to the undemocratic institutions of the European Union. This was shown by the conscious decision of the vast majority of the electorate to boycott the 2004 European Parliament elections. Little more than a third of the electorate bothered to vote despite the blandishments of the media, the appeal of proportional representation to minority parties and the cajoling of the bourgeois parties. In many working class areas the turnout was even lower.
The European Parliament, like the Commission, has become a byword for undemocratic practices, corruption, nepotism and waste and fraud on a massive scale. The elections themselves are nothing more than a bogus public relations exercise for a body that possesses no meaningful executive powers at all. They don’t deserve the credibility of a vote at all. Boycott the EU elections in June!

Demand serious action on pensions!

By Renee Sams

THE BROWN government has at last increased the basic pension, which has now crept up to the grand sum of £95.25 a week. This means that at least one in four pensioners still lives below the official poverty line.
Millions of pensioners will have to rely on the means-tested benefits, an unpopular, demeaning and costly way of keeping retired people in the poverty trap.
Those who were relying on occupational pensions to provide them with a decent pension are facing a future without a pension as they are closed down. The funds lost £billions when the stock markets went into free fall and now are unable to pay out.
A large number of pensioners also invested their savings in expectation of a good return but the lowering on the Bank of England interest rate to 0.5 per cent has put paid to a lot of hopes.
There are people however who have no worries about their lives in retirement; one of them is bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin, who received his knighthood for services to banking and was the architect of the RBS loss of £24.1 billion.
The bank was only saved by a multi-billion pound bail out by the Government with, of course, the taxpayers’ money.
He won’t be joining in the pensioners’ demand for at least a pension at the official poverty level of £151 per week.
His pension of £693,000, funded by the taxpayers, which is a staggering £13,000 a week, will ensure that he can live a life of luxury and enjoyment for the rest of his life.
Taxpayers’ money also came in handy to save the banks facing collapse caused by the reckless gambling of bankers greedy for ever higher bonuses.
The Government pumped in almost £1,200 billion of our money to save the banking system which will cost us dearly in public spending cuts and is prepared to stand by with more money if more banks are in danger of collapse.
Some members of Parliament, once elected, were seduced by ambition and greed and found that a life of luxury could be funded by the lax system of expenses they were allowed.
They made use of the system to pay off mortgages on their second homes but apparently absentmindedly let the loan payments carry on after the mortgage was paid up.
Since the pensioners’ lobby of Parliament on 22nd October 2008 two important Bills have become law, the Pension Reform Bill and the Welfare Reform Bill.
Despite a large number of pensioners, including some trades unionists, calling on their MPs to oppose the Bill it was passed with members of all three parties voting for it.
The word “reform” is one of the most used and abused words in the English language, particularly by health service consultants, senior managers and politicians.
Originally the word was meant to “improve” but in the mouths of ministers and politicians it has come to mean the privatisation and the break up of once public organisations. The results have been continually worsening services and ever rising costs.
Working people showed their discontent with the situation that is making thousands worse off, with demonstrations in the City, centre of banking and finance, Docklands, Trafalgar Square, and towns all over the country on 1st April.
Thousands of people demonstrated on a variety of issues including, peace, for better pensions, for justice and democracy, jobs, food and healthcare before private gain.
Many pensioners were active on that day across the country in a number of towns; precisely at 11 am pensioners’ organisations and action groups voiced their anger at receiving a pension well below the official poverty level.
They will have a chance to express their anger again at the Pensioners’ Parliament organised by the National Pensioners’ Convention.
It is even more important this year because the Government is about to establish a new forum to be called the UK Forum on Ageing and the second reason for its importance is that at it centre is health and social care.
Introducing it in the House of Commons, Minister Rosie Winterton said: “This will bring together representative views of older people at a national level, and will build links with forums in the devolved nations, the English regions and at local level.”
She explained that “the Government will set up a new structure with a designated regional co-ordinator for older people’s engagement in each English region” and “This will build on existing arrangements for older people and address weaknesses in the current structure.”
Sceptical pensioners feel that this may turn out to be another example of pensioners being told what is best for them and who best represents them. If it is, then it will need mass protests and demonstration of the kind that took place in April but on a far larger scale.
The National Pensioners’ Parliament will be held on 2nd -4th June in Blackpool.

NCPB and RCPB(ML) joint statement on DPR Korea satellite launch

The Launch of an Experimental Communications Satellite by the DPRK Is its Sovereign Right

Joint Statement of the New Communist Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), April 21, 2009


On April 5th , the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) successfully launched an experimental communications satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-2, into orbit by means of carrier rocket Unha-2. The satellite is part of the DPRK's long-term plan for the development of outer space. Both carrier rocket and satellite were made and developed by the DPRK using only their own resources and technology, in keeping with the guiding philosophy of self-reliance.
The DPRK points out that the satellite is of decisive significance in promoting scientific research into the peaceful use of outer space and solving scientific and technological problems for the launch of practical satellites in the future. The successful satellite launch was conducted against the backdrop of a national drive aimed at bringing about a renewed revolutionary surge throughout the DPRK to "open the gate to a great prosperous and powerful nation without fail by 2012, the centenary of birth of President Kim Il Sung, under the far-reaching plan of General Secretary Kim Jong Il".
Despite the fact that it is the DPRK's sovereign right to engage in peaceful scientific experimentation and to create the conditions for its own prosperity, the US, Japan, South Korea and Western European powers, including Britain, demanded that the DPRK be condemned. They have persisted in spreading the misleading impression that the DPRK was testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The US puppet government of south Korea branded the launch "reckless". The US and Japan reacted to the news of the satellite by escalating the warmongering and disinformation campaign against the DPRK and demanding its further international isolation.
US President Barack Obama during his visit to Prague on April 5 used the occasion to condemn the DPRK with high-sounding rhetoric: “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.” If Obama’s call for nuclear disarmament meant something, why then was he in the Czech Republic to promote a US missile base? If his words meant something, why does the US not withdraw its arsenal of one thousand nuclear weapons from the south of Korea, together with its tens of thousands of troops, in order to promote peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, and end its threats of aggression against the DPRK? To anyone that cares to see through the rhetoric to the objective reality, the spectacle of this representative of the armed international might of the US calling upon the blockaded and sanctioned DPRK to be peaceful and follow the rules is ludicrous and shameful.
Bill Rammell of the British Foreign Office added his voice to the clamour in arrogantly condemning the launch, and blustering that the British government was “seeking at the Security Council the most united and robust international response”.
In line with these outlandish statements of the big powers, the UN Security Council on April 13 approved a “Presidential Statement” condemning the launch and linking it with the nuclear issue, as well as adjusting the sanctions imposed on the DPRK in October 2006. This is an abuse of the Security Council to violate the sovereign right of the DPRK.
In response, the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement, pointing out that throughout its history the Security Council had never before taken issue with satellite launches. It rejected the unjust action of the Security Council as infringing upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and seriously hurting the dignity of the Korean people. It pointed out that since the six-party talks have now turned into a platform to force the DPRK to disarm and to bring down its social system, the DPRK would no longer participate in the talks nor be bound by any agreement there, including the disablement of its nuclear facilities, which it will now take measures to restore.
Our Parties vigorously condemn the warmongering and chauvinism of the US and Britain. We call on all democratic and peace-loving people, irrespective of their political viewpoints or other considerations, to reject the infantile hysteria and outright disinformation being generated against the DPRK over this issue, and to take a stand in defence of its sovereignty and independence. In our view, this is a duty of the working class and people in order to contribute to the peace and security not only of the Korean Peninsula but world-wide.



New Communist Party of Britain
PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ.

Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
170 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2LA

Kim Il Sung: a life dedicated to the people

by Andy Brooks - General Secretary NCP

IT HAS LONG BEEN a Marxist tradition to elevate the lives of comrades whose daily work was an example to others, developed and advanced Marxist-Leninist theory or led the struggle for liberation. Kim Il Sung was all of these. A fighter, a thinker and a leader, Kim Il Sung was an outstanding communist of the 20th century whose name will forever be remembered as the founder of the modern Korean communist movement that began amongst the patriotic youth of Korea when he was a student in the 1920s.

Kim Il Sung was born into a world dominated by the great colonial powers of Europe, the United States and Japan. In Korea the old feudal rulers had been ousted by the Japanese imperialists and the peninsula turned into a colony of Japan.

Wherever there is oppression there is always resistance and Korean patriots tried to fight-back in whichever way they could. Some nationalists, those representing the landowners and bourgeois elements looked to Nationalist China and America for help. Others were inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.

In the 1920s the Korean communist movement was riddled with divisions that had left them isolated from the masses. Kim Il Sung condemned those who simply hoped to rely on outside forces or those who strove for the recognition of others, as a disgrace to the Korean nation.

Kim Il Sung saw the uselessness of the sectarians, flunkeyists, dogmatists and factionalists who called themselves communists in the 1920s. So he decided to form a communist movement from the youth and the grassroots of the villages and factories.

Kim Il Sung stressed that a revolutionary movement was not something to carry on with the approval of others but a work to be done out of one’s own conviction. Problems should be solved by oneself, he said, and only when the struggle was waged well would others recognise it.

In words as relevant today as when they were written Kim Il Sung said: “Factionalism is a product of bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideologies, particularly of self-heroising, fame-seeking and careerism. It has nothing in common with the revolutionary ideas of the working class”.From student leader to guerrilla commander Kim Il Sung grasped the fundamental principles of Marxism and applied the lessons of the Great October Russian Revolution to the concrete conditions of the Korean people, who were slaves of the Japanese Empire. The “Young General”, as he soon was called, gathered a group of young communist men and women prepared to take on the might of the Japanese army.

Over the years that small band of heroes grew into a people’s army that humbled the Imperial Japanese Army in 1945 – a victory that led to the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And it was that People’s Army that fought US imperialism and its lackeys to a standstill during the Korean war and forced the American imperialists on their knees begging for an armistice in 1953.

Kim Il Sung was a great commander in war and a great leader in peace. In the north of Korea, so brutally partitioned by imperialism, he built a modern communist movement dedicated to serving the working people of Korea and he led the people in the mass struggle to build a new life after they had won their freedom in 1945.

The Workers Party of Korea with Kim Il Sung at the helm led the battle for land reform, education and socialist construction in the 1950s and 60s and then pushed forward on the engineering, technical and scientific fronts to build a modern socialist republic where every individual worker is master of his or her own life.

In western Europe communists understood the economic case for scientific socialism but ignored the philosophical aspects of the teachings of Marx and Engels. Though the role of mass action was clearly understood, the role of the individual was often ignored. Though the achievements of the Soviet Union led by Lenin and Stalin were studied, they were often not properly understood.

Kim Il Sung not only grasped Marxism-Leninism but he applied it to the concrete conditions of the Korean people. He knew that once the masses realised their own strength they would become unstoppable. He knew that serving the people was the be-all and end-all for the Korean communists and for the Workers’ Party of Korea that he launched in 1945. He developed Korean style socialism into the Juché idea – which elevates the philosophical principles of Marxism-Leninism as well as its economic theories – and focuses on the development of each individual worker, who can only be truly free as part of the collective will of the masses. In the western world Juché is simply described as “self-reliance” but it is much more than that. Kim Il Sung said that working people could only become genuinely emancipated if they stood on their own feet. But the Juché idea doesn’t negate proletarian internationalism. The Soviet Union, People’s China and the people’s democracies of eastern Europe all closed ranks behind Democratic Korea during the Korean war. The Korean people responded with their trade and assistance whenever they could, while Korean experts and advisers helped the Vietnamese, the Arabs and the Africans struggling to break the chains of colonialism and continue to do so today.

In the world communist movement Kim Il Sung steered a careful path during the Sino-Soviet ideological conflict remaining on good terms with the Soviet and Chinese parties.

Unlike British communist leaders in the past, and indeed many others in Europe and beyond, Kim Il Sung stressed that Marxism-Leninism goes far beyond simple economic formulas and the Soviet “model”.

Kim Il Sung knew that material prosperity and ideological strength were of equal importance to the people. He called this the twin towers. Though both couldn’t advance simultaneously, when progress in one was made the other had to be advanced to catch up.

This was pointed out by Stalin in the 1930s when he told Soviet shock workers, the Stakhanovites, that working people had benefited concretely from the revolution. All previous revolutions had failed but: “Our proletarian revolution is the only revolution in the world which had the opportunity of showing the people not only the political results but also material results” Stalin declared.

“It is a good thing, of course, to drive out the capitalists, to drive out the landlords, to drive out the Czarist henchmen, to seize power and achieve freedom. That is very good. But unfortunately, freedom alone is not enough, by far. If there is a shortage of bread, a shortage of butter and fats, a shortage of textiles, and if housing conditions are bad, freedom will not carry you very far. It is very difficult, comrades, to live on freedom alone. In order to live well and joyously, the benefits of political freedom must be supplemented by material benefits”. Stalin said.

But Stalin’s revisionist successors abandoned the ideological tower and failed to even maintain the material benefits for the Soviet masses.

And after the counter-revolutions in the Soviet Union and the eastern European socialist countries, an enormous setback for communism globally, when parties were becoming demoralised and failing around the world, Kim Il Sung stopped the rot by summoning a global conference of communist and workers’ parties in Pyongyang in 1992.

When Kim Il Sung passed away his successor, Kim Jong Il, told the Korean people and the world that they could “expect no change from him” and with Kim Jong Il at the helm, the Workers’ Party of Korea has won great victories in recent years. Natural disasters have been overcome.

Diplomatic isolation has been broken, the intrigues of US imperialism have been exposed and Korean rockets reach for the stars.

Kim Il Sung, the great leader of the Korean revolution, died in 1994 but his work lives on in the Workers’ Party of Korea and in the colossal achievements of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea today.

joint statement of communist and workers' parties on the 60th anniversary of Nato

The 4th April 2009, is the 60th anniversary of the foundation of NATO, the imperialist organisation which is under the leadership of the USA.
NATO was created allegedly in order to confront the USSR, the first workers’ state in the world that withstood and confronted successfully the attack of the Nazi plague, giving a new impetus to the struggle for national and social liberation all over the world.
At the same time, the capitalist governments of the USA, Canada and Western Europe needed a military political mechanism to repress and intimidate the peoples. This need was served by the foundation of NATO.
Its goal was to confront and obstruct with the use of arms any type of progressive changes. For that reason, but also for ensuring the interests of imperialism, NATO supported the reactionary regimes and dictatorships in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, while it played a leading role in the partition of Cyprus.
Its action was and still is based on anticommunism and all types of fabrications and provocations against the revolutionary communist movement and the peoples’ struggle for peace, social justice and socialism.
NATO’s history in its role as world “sheriff” of imperialism is linked to violations of international law. It is marked with the blood of victims of its direct or indirect interventions throughout the world.
Especially nowadays the character of NATO as a military mechanism, as a basic tool of imperialist action inside the member states as well as outside their borders for the establishment of the “new order” has been fully exposed.
The argument that NATO was an allegedly defensive treaty is a lie and empty propaganda aiming at concealing the real goals and role of this aggressive organisation. Following the summit in Rome in 1992 and in 1999 in Washington, NATO has adopted a new doctrine that provides the possibility of intervention throughout the world, in the name of new threats, under the pretext of combating terrorism, the protection of natural sources’ flow etc. During this period NATO moved on with its new structure which is based mainly on the aggressive “rapid deployment forces”.
The USA along with the EU organised the dissolution of Yugoslavia and in this way NATO triggered off the war in Bosnia, realized the dirty war against Serbia, with the 78 days of bombing in 1999 that levelled the country to the ground and led to the NATO and EU occupation of Kosovo and its “independence” from Serbia.
The wars of NATO in the Balkans and Afghanistan, the participation in the war in Iraq, the interventions in Pakistan and in South Asia demonstrate the brutal nature of imperialism. NATO was always the main supporter for Israel in its aggression against the Palestinian people and other Arab peoples. NATO, also, played, and still plays a role in the siege imposed on Gaza. Contrary to peoples’ will, NATO attempts to draw to its web Ukraine and Georgia. It encourages in every possible way their armament, supporting the most reactionary circles of these countries. The imposition of a “new order” have as an enemy the states and the peoples that react to the imperialist aggressiveness. Therefore, it escalates the armament and develops new threatening weapon systems, such as the so-called antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
NATO’s programme “Partnership for Peace” promotes its expansion with new country-members. It was implemented in all former socialist countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe that later became members of the NATO. Nowadays, pressure is being exerted to the government of the Republic of Cyprus to join this programme and be integrated in the Euro-Atlantic plans. The government and the people of Cyprus strongly resist because an approval would give an indulgence for the invasion of the Turkish army in Cyprus conducted with the approval of the USA and the NATO, as well as acceptance of the de facto occupation of part of the island by the Turkish troops that continues till nowadays.
Imperialism-USA-NATO-EU are closely related concepts. Despite their contradictions and their antagonisms, both the EU and USA turn against the peoples, since the EU in the Euro-treaty considers NATO as its main pillar and fully accepts its role. The EU army is linked with the NATO and France has returned to the latter’s military arm.
On the 60th anniversary of its establishment, NATO attempts to present itself as “innocent as a dove”, with an unprecedented propaganda of distortion of history, through the media manipulated by the system, the universities funded by research programmes of NATO etc.
NATO appears to be all-powerful, but it is not. The world economic crisis of capitalism strengthens the imperialist aggressiveness while at the same time it shows its limits. Imperialism cannot exist without controlling new markets, without broadening its influence, without capturing and oppressing other peoples, along with the peoples of its own states, for the expansion of monopolies’ activity.
There is a counterweight to NATO; it’s the anti-imperialist forces all over the world, the global anti-war, anti-imperialist, peace movement that in coordination with the workers’ movement and the other social movements of women, the youth, in defence of nature of natural resources and the movements of solidarity struggle against imperialism and demand from the collaborators of the “predatory alliance” the immediate dissolution of the NATO.
This is the “one-way road” for the peoples. We have to stop the imperialist aggressiveness, contribute to the defeat of imperialism that constitutes a prerequisite for a peaceful world.
Nowadays, the verbal condemnation of NATO’s crimes and threats is not enough. There needs to be a wide anti-war, anti-imperialist peace movement that will rally the workers, the youth and broad social and popular forces.
The peoples through their struggle can actually set obstacles to the criminal plans of the NATO and the other imperialist forces and win.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties call the peoples to intensify their struggle:
Against the military expenditure.
Prohibition of NATO programmes at the universities.
The immediate return of all troops and other missions that participate in imperialist operations outside our countries.
The emancipation of our countries from the imperialist wars, countries’ occupation and imperialist interventions.
The removal of all foreign military bases from our countries.
The disengagement of our countries from the NATO.
The dissolution of NATO.

LONG LIVE THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE PEOPLES

DOWN WITH THE NEW ORDER OF THE IMPERIALISTS

The parties

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
Communist Party of Bangladesh
Communist Party of Belarus
Worker’s Party of Belgium
Workers' Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazilian Communist Party
Communist Party of Brazil
Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain
Party of the Bulgarian Communists
Communist Party of Canada
Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
Communist Party of Cuba
Communist Party of Bohemia Moravia
Communist Party in Denmark
Communist Party of Estonia
Communist Party of Finland
German Communist Party (DKP)
Communist Party of Greece
Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India [Marxist]
Communist Party of Ireland
Party of the Italian Communists
Jordanian Communist Party
Socialist Party of Latvia
Lebanese Communist Party
Socialist Party of Lithuania
Communist Party of Luxemburg
Communist Party of Malta
Party of the Communists, Mexico
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Communist Party of Pakistan
Communist Party of Poland
Portuguese Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
Communist Party of Russian Federation
Communist Party of Soviet Union
Communist Workers Party of Russia-Party of Communists of Russia (RKRP-RPC)
Union of Communist Parties –CPSU
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Party of the Serbian Communists
Communist Party of Slovakia
South African Communist Party
Communist Party of Spain
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Sri-Lanka
Syrian Communist Party
Communist Party of Syria
Communist Party of Sweden
Communist Party of Turkey
Communist Party of Ukraine
Union of Communists of Ukraine
Communist Party of Uruguay