Blame capitalism!

By Eric Trevett

YOUNG people entering the labour market have high hopes of getting a good wage in a job with reasonable prospects. But for many these hopes are soon replaced with doubts as to whether they can get a job at all. This particularly affects working class youth; due the policies of successive Tory and Labour governments a range of options has been closed.
Just after the Second World War, between 1945 and 1960 jobs were easy to come by. There was a shortage of labour power in the economy and it was possible to leave a job in the morning and get another before the end of the day. Apprenticeships were plentiful and skilled tradesmen were vital to the economy.
Backed by the trade union movement, living standards rose dramatically and in spite of its right-wing leadership the Labour government was pressed into nationalising industries like coal and rail and attempts to introduce pay freeze policies on workers’ wages were thwarted.
Another important advance was the trade union action that achieved the 40-hour, five-day working week.
The situation is very different today. Capitalism is in profound crisis. The coal mining industry has been destroyed and the de-industrialisation policies of the Tory and right-wing Labour governments have closed literally hundreds of factories up and down the country.
As a result the choice for youngsters today, especially working class youngsters, is much narrower than it has ever been.
The present government’s policy for cuts means that many more jobs are to be lost and a sharp rise in unemployment figures is inevitable.
The Post Office and the railways are now thinking to reduce their labour forces substantially, while the government has indicated it will cut 30,000 jobs from the civil service.
In December 1999 there were 1.2 million claiming unemployment benefits – 4.1 per cent of the workforce. Latest figures from the Office of National Statistics put unemployment at 2.51 million, which is eight per cent of the workforce.
Simultaneously with cutting jobs the Government is adopting tough policies against those unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed.
Young people today are increasingly worried about their work and future. Those who go to university are tending to end up with huge debts on their shoulders. Many of them find it impossible to find jobs that give them a living wage that will also service their debts.
According to the Independent one in six students now regret going to university at all. A survey by the graduate-recruiting company High Flyers revealed that just over one-third of those leaving university this summer can expect to find a graduate job. Competition is especially fierce as they are up against many students who graduated the previous year who have still not found graduate-level jobs.
Currently there are 300,000 graduates leaving university each year – twice as many as in the 1990s. And even in a good year there are only 150,000 good graduate jobs available. With a policy of cutting back on services there will now be even fewer jobs available.
David Willetts, the Universities Secretary, says the jobs market continues to be very tight for young people.
Working people generally are being expected to pay for their retirement and at the same time are being urged to purchase more to get out of the economic crisis.
As the Government introduces more inflationary policies the purchasing power of wages and benefit payments will fall. But it is rumoured that as well as this there will be actual cuts in wages and pensions and some bourgeois papers have predicted that 50,000 homes will be repossessed this year.
Make no mistake about it; the full scale attack on the living standards of the working people is to be spearheaded by this Tory government, covered with a thin veneer of liberal concern.
Another prime target is the National Health Service, the last bastion of the 1945-51 government’s reforms.
Middle management jobs are also under threat. Sections of people who would not describe themselves as working class will find themselves on the dole. Therefore it will be possible and is essential to involve these sections of workers in the overall campaign of resistance, around the demands of a right to a job and a living wage.
We must never lose sight of the bankers’ responsibility for the present debt. They have received tens of billions of pounds in bail-outs in taxpayers’ money. Following their public apology on television they have been giving themselves hand-outs of millions of pounds in bonuses. No doubt they think this is a very good joke.
We need to be very clear that the joke is very much at our expense and we must use this fact to engender hatred against the bankers and the capitalist system as a whole.
As the campaign of resistance is developed by demonstrations, resolutions, deputations, leafleting and general agitation we have to note that the youth and sections of the working class movement are not equipped ideologically to see the need to support the trade unions and labour movement organisations.
The TUC in cooperation with the National Union of Teachers and other progressive organisations serving the expanse of education should make it possible for trade union members to be invited into classes and seminars of students.
In the localities, trades councils, where they exist, should be encouraged by the TUC to take initiatives in the organised campaign against the cuts and for progressive policies.
The movement as a whole should campaign for the restoration of the Labour Party constitution, the removal of which opened the door to the right-wing governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and their continuation of the Thatcher and Major governments’ privatisation policies. The campaign for the restoration of Clause Four is important because it is part of the campaign for the renationalisation of the economy.
As the Government’s cuts policy is so all-embracing we must help to engage ever wider sections of people in the struggle. Volunteer organisations should be encouraged to make representation for funding for the extra work they are expected to be doing. Pensioners’ organisations have an integral part to play. And indeed all the older activists in the struggle have a duty to help the younger generation to have confidence in the continuing fight.
The Co-op guilds, Women’s Institute and other women’s organisations should be drawn into the struggle against the cuts, which affect not only the working class but wide sections of the middle strata. Churches and their congregations will not be unaffected by the Tory attack on living standards and can be mobilised for progressive policies.
The broadening out of the progressive movement will also lead to greater influence for the peace movement, with its demand for the end of the Trident programme and the removal of nuclear weapons from Britain, as a contribution to a nuclear-free Europe and world. This would entail expelling United States troops from Britain and their nuclear weapons that are stockpiled here. And there will be more pressure behind the demand for the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan and any other imperialist occupations and an end to imperialist invasions.
Of course the problem is bigger than this Tory attack on living standards; it is basically the capitalist system itself and any ideological struggle, as it involves increasing millions of people, must have socialist consciousness injected into it by the movement.
There is no possibility of getting socialism through bourgeois democracy or without a revolutionary leadership that has the capacity to lead the working class to state power.
It is important that the movement closes ranks around the Marxist-Leninist party. The collapse of the Soviet Union came about because the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other parties, influenced by Khrushchev, abandoned these principles and prepared the way for the counter-revolution led by Gorbachov.
That setback for the working class, nationally and internationally, was not the result of Marxism-Leninism but of opportunism and revisionism.
The only Marxist-Leninist party in Britain is the New Communist Party and its paper, the New Worker has an important role to play in this urgent situation.

Sinn Féin: peace process moves forward but much remains to be done

Sean Oliver, Sinn Féin Co-ordinator for England, Scotland and Wales, talks to Theo Russell about the effects of the economic crisis in Ireland and the future of the peace process following the elections in the north and the change of government in London.

Theo Russell: How has the economic crisis affected the north of Ireland in comparison with the Republic?

Sean Oliver: There’s a much larger public sector and state employment in the North than in the south, partly because of the history of the conflict and the lack of investment, so we haven’t been as badly off as the South so far.
The spending cuts just announced include £128 million for the north, with possibly big cuts in health spending which accounts for 40 per cent of the overall Executive budget, so we are going to be hit.


TR: What is Sinn Féin’s strategy for tackling the crisis?

SO: We are attempting to grow the private sector in the North, developing indigenous industries, the social economy and local business people, but we are also saying that what we need is an all-Ireland economy.
At the moment we have two separate economies competing for investment, with 1.5 million people in the north and 4-5 million in the south, two tax systems, and two currencies, which makes things very complex, especially in the border areas.
At the moment we are completely dependent on the block grants from London. In the past the Unionist parties have said no to local taxation powers, with a Sinn Féin motion calling for fiscal powers for the Assembly failing due to unionist opposition.
In the last years of direct rule there was an attempt to introduce water charges, and there has been pressure for privatisation, but this has been ruled out by Conor Murphy, the Sinn Féin Regional Development minister with responsibility for utilities.
We have seen substantial sums invested in infrastructure in the North by the Irish government, and work is ongoing on major improvements to the route linking Dublin and Donegal. The Unionists have always opposed “interference” from Dublin in the north’s politics, but they don’t seem to have any problems when it comes to handing out money.

TR: What’s your assessment of the Westminster election results in the north?

SO: Sinn Féin topped the polls, not for the first time - we also achieved this in the 2009 European elections - and we are also the biggest party in Belfast, in terms of votes.
In South Belfast former Belfast mayor Alex Maskey pulled out of the contest to attempt to maximise nationalist representation by giving a clear run to the SDLP candidate. Many hoped that the SDLP might do the same in Fermanagh-South Tyrone, allowing Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin a clear field, but the SDLP didn’t respond.
This episode damaged the SDLP’s image, many SDLP supporters were unhappy, and their vote fell by 50 per cent in Fermanagh-South Tyrone.
Michelle Gildernew eventually won the seat for Sinn Féin by four votes, after three recounts – and this was despite all three Unionist parties - the new UUP-Tory alliance (UCU-New Force), DUP, and Traditional Unionist Voice - not standing candidates to give independent Unionist Rodney Connor a free run against her.



TR: How do you see the future of Unionist politics developing after the leaders of both the main parties lost their seats?

SO: There is an ongoing debate among Unionists about re-aligning Unionism in the face of Sinn Féin’s growing electoral success. The DUP had a good result in the election apart from the loss of Peter Robinson’s seat, where Unionist voters rebelled over revelations over his luxury lifestyle, expenses claims and suspect business dealings.
The rejectionist Traditional Unionist Voice led by Jim Allister (which broke away from the DUP after they went into power-sharing with Sinn Féin) did very poorly compared to their 2009 performance, lacking any strong candidates other than their leader, as well as any clear alternative programme, and failed to win a seat.
The DUP had a much more positive campaign, dropping its anti-Sinn Féin rhetoric and offering devolution as the best option on offer, in contrast to the TUV’s negative “doom and gloom” message. After this election hopefully the DUP will feel under less pressure from the rejectionists.
Up to now the DUP hasn’t really prepared it’s constituency for change or consulted its members about change, with Paisley going into devolution in a very sudden, and to some unexpected, way. But now things are very different and they are realising this is the real world.
The loss of the last remaining UUP seat at Westminster was the end of an era. The UUP were the rulers of a one-party state for 50 years, and the bigger unionist party right up to the early 2000s.
North Down MP Sylvia Hermon was previously one of the UUP’s strongest assets. She refused to stand under a Tory banner as her natural leanings were closer to Labour. She stood this time as an independent and was re-elected.

TR: Was the electoral pact between the UUP and the Tories a blunder on David Cameron’s part?

SO: When the ‘Ulster Conservative Unionists - New Force’ came to appointing candidates, almost all of them were UUP and hardly any Conservatives stood in the North.
The Conservatives’ Northern Ireland spokesman, Owen Paterson, presented Tory policies as a “new politics for the UK, with no sectarianism or Orange-Green tribalism”.
But then it was revealed that he had been talking to both the main Unionist parties about unionist unity. The secret talks he organised caused major damage for the Unionist-Tory alliance and he was seen as lining up with the Orange Order and Unionism. (The secret talks led to several prospective Conservative Westminster candidates resigning).

TR: Do you expect any problems with the peace process with the new government in London in place?

SO: Sinn Féin has met with Cameron and Paterson, and has made it very clear that there is no option to change the Good Friday Agreement, an international agreement guaranteed by both the Irish and British governments. Given his role in the ‘secret talks’ debacle with the unionists, Martin McGuinness has commented that Paterson is now on “a steep learning curve”.
After the 2011 Assembly elections there is a strong possibility that Sinn Féin could be entitled to hold the position of First Minister in the Executive. Although the First Minister and Deputy First Minister posts are in reality co-equal, the title is still psychologically important to unionism. In this situation the Unionists may consider the attraction of uniting into a single party, but there would be many obstacles to be cleared on their way to that.

TR: What are Sinn Féin’s priorities for its work in Britain at the moment?

SO: We were very pleased with the success of the London Irish unity conference (on February 20 this year), but we see that as just the beginning of a process of putting Irish unity on the political agenda. We want to follow up on the issues which arose at the conference, as well as to develop our work outside London, and continue working with the Irish community and progressive forces.

TR: How does Sinn Féin see the peace process going forward?

SO: Developing relations with the Unionist community is a major priority, working in the Assembly and Executive and with the Unionist community. The north-south process is still ongoing, and twelve years after the Good Friday Agreement the all-Ireland Parliamentary and Civic Fora still haven’t been set up, so those are also important priorities.

TR: What’s your assessment of the dissident republican groups at the moment?

SO: The dissident groups still have the capacity to carry out armed actions, but they don’t have any significant popular support and haven’t stood candidates in elections since 2007. There are now a plethora of dissident organisations, with a small number of people moving between them. They also have links with anti-social and criminal elements involved in drug dealing.
I also believe that some sections of the British security establishment can’t come to terms with people like Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly being in government, and share the same interest as the ‘dissidents’ in damaging the political institutions. It is widely suspected by many nationalists that some of these groups have been infiltrated to the highest level.
In another development, the INLA and Irish Republican Socialist Party ended their armed campaign last year and also declared support for the peace process and institutions.

TR: What is the current situation regarding crime and policing in the north?

SO: Drugs are a big issue for everyone, while extortion and gangsterism remain big problems in working class Unionist communities. There are more nationalists joining the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland), but, rather than acting as a recruiting sergeant in the nationalist community, Sinn Féin’s position is that the PSNI needs to prove itself.
We are now in also daily contact with the PSNI dealing with issues in local communities, and part of all of this we recognise that they too are on a learning curve, with some in that organisation finding it a new experience to adapt to ‘normal’policingwork.

Let us commemorate 65th Anniversary of the Victory!

joint statement of communist and workers parties







On 9th May we commemorate the 65th anniversary of the victory over Nazi-fascism - the most violent and brutal expression of the monopoly domination in a capitalist system in deep crisis – which led humankind to one of the worst catastrophes in its history, with the barbarity of concentration camps and the Second World War’s procession of death and destruction for the peoples.

The communists were in the frontline from the very first moment, mobilising and organising workers and peoples in the resistance. The anti-fascist struggle, to which millions gave their lives, was marked by the firm and determined action of communists.

The heroic contribution of the USSR, of its Red Army and of its people, which suffered around 27 million deaths, was decisive for the victory over the fascist hordes.

It was with the Victory in 1945 and the formation of the socialist camp that millions of men and women undertook their emancipation, freeing themselves from exploitation, oppression and colonialism, with the working class movement winning enormous social and political victories, on a progressive path never before attained in human history.

In the current situation, in a time of capitalism’s deep crisis in which the offensive carried out by several imperialist organisations, like NATO and the EU, is hitting so seriously the toiling masses, humankind is again facing great danger resulting from imperialism’s deepening contradictions, from the arms’ race, from the reinforcement of aggressive military alliances and from the attempt to forcefully impose the brutal increase of exploitation, precariousness in labour relations, dismissals and unemployment, poverty and the negation of the most basic necessities for millions of human beings.

We therefore appeal to the commemoration of the 65 years of the victory over Nazi-fascism, as an important action in the struggle for peace and against the monumental falsification of history and anticommunism – which, as history proves, is always anti-democratic – that, by trying to place fascism and communism on an equal footing and erase the communists’ decisive role in the peoples’ liberation from the yoke of Nazi-fascism, seeks to prosecute, to make illegal and to suppress, not just the actions of the communists but of all democrats who oppose capitalist domination and exploitation, with the purpose of pursuing and repressing all of those who, in any way, resist and fight in an organised manner against monopoly and imperialism.

For us, communists’ evoking the 65 years of the victory is to reaffirm our deep belief in the struggle for social emancipation, in the justice of our values and liberating ideals. It is a reaffirmation of our determination to fight the causes and the forces which were at the root of the fascist horror; we reaffirm our unshakeable confidence that the future does not belong to those who oppress and exploit, but to the workers and peoples who resist and fight for humankind’s emancipation from the shackles of the exploitation and for a society in which the workers fully enjoy the fruits of their labour and in which social progress, peace and welfare prevail. The future belongs not to capitalism, but to socialism and communism.

8th May 2010



The Parties

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
Communist Party of Armenia
Communist Party of Azerbaijan
Communist Party of Australia
Communist Party of Belarus
Workers Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Brazil
Communist Party of Canada
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
Communist Party of Chile
Socialist Workers Party of Croatia
Communist Party of Cuba
Communist Party in Denmark
Communist Party of USA
Communist Party of Finland
New Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Britain
German Communist Party
Unified Communist Party of Georgia
Communist Party of Greece
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Hungarian Communist Workers Party
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Communist Party of India
Tudeh Party of Iran
Iraqi Communist Party
Communist Party of Ireland
Communist Party of Israel
Communist Party of Kazakhstan
Communist Party Kyrgyzstan
Lebanese Communist Party
Communist Party of Luxembourg
Party of the Communists, Mexico
Palestinian Peoples Party
Communist Party of Pakistan
Peruan Communist Party
Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930)
Portuguese Communist Party
Communist Party of Poland
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Union of Communist Parties - CPSU – Russia
South African Communist Party
Communist Party of Spain
Party of the Communists of Catalonia
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Syrian Communist Party
Communist Party of Sweden
Labour Party (EMEP) Turkey
Communist Party of Ukraine
Communist Party of Uruguay
Communist Party of Venezuela

May Day

Africa Before the Slave Trade

Medieval West African art at the British Museum

By Edwin Bentley


ALMOST a defining characteristic of humanity is our ability to justify and explain away our actions, however outrageous and harmful they may be. When money is involved, that ability has no limits. From the establishment of the first permanent Portuguese trading post in Elmina in what is now Ghana in 1471, Africa has continuously served as a place from which Europe can take out whatever it needs without any obligation to offer anything in return.

Africa was certainly very different from Europe, but those first European visitors had little interest in finding out about the totally unfamiliar, often frightening, always amazing cultures they encountered. Making money was, quite literally, the only concern. Africa offered huge possibilities for vast fortunes as capitalism replaced the old feudal order in Europe, and the merchant class became the powerbrokers of society.

The transatlantic slave trade developed as a huge international business. This was the trade that created from plantation agriculture in the Americas the capital needed to launch the Industrial Revolution in Britain.

The Atlantic slave trade in large part created racism as we know it today. Kwame Nkrumah emphasised that slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery. Slavery as such was always an economic, not a racist, proposition. But because the European ruling class treated and used Africans as beasts of burden and commodities, they inevitably became less than worthy of respect in European eyes. Put simply, Africans were classified as savages because the European capitalists used them as savages.

In defence of the international slave trade, European apologists claimed that slavery benefited the Africans, who were said to be sunk in misery from which they were incapable of rising. The African was presented as fundamentally sub-human, in need of the white man, whom he always acknowledged to be his superior.

Direct European colonialism in Africa only started in the latter part of the 19th century, and the old arguments that had previously justified slavery were used to propagate the idea that Africa had to be brought under European rule because the Africans were incapable of ruling themselves and needed to be civilised. Europe was, in fact, supposed to be doing Africa a tremendous favour as British and French troops razed villages to the ground, hanged and shot anyone who resisted, and destroyed local economies to clear vast areas for the cultivation of export crops and the industrial exploitation of mineral resources!

When the British army marched into Benin City in Nigeria in 1897, to assert British rule by looting everything of value, hanging local rulers and burning every building, the greatest trophies stolen were hundreds of medieval bronze plaques (actually made of brass). These were sold off and dispersed throughout Europe, and a good number are at present in the British Museum. Not surprisingly, the colonial authorities refused to accept that these works of art could have been created by Africans, but the Benin bronzes have since become powerful
emblems of West African culture.

However well-known the “bronze” casts and sculptures of Benin may be, an earlier African civilization had mastered the art of perhaps even more impressive depictions of the human form. This was the Yoruba kingdom of Ife, which flourished as a powerful city-state from 800 AD onwards. Ife is still regarded as the spiritual home of the Yoruba people of present-day Nigeria, a place where their culture started. It is literally a meeting place between heaven and earth, in the same way that Christians and Jews will venerate Jerusalem. The founder of Ife, Oranmiyan, came to be venerated as a man-God and father of all Yoruba people.

By the time of the British military invasion and destruction of the West African states in the 1890s, Ife had long sunk into decline. It had been eclipsed by Benin and Oyo. But the city retained its spiritual and cultural importance, even though it had never had military power or a standing army. The king of Ife – known as the ooni – had precedence as custodian of Yoruba identity and also of the legitimacy of the kings of the Edo state of Benin, who were originally from Ife. However powerful they became in their own right, kings of Benin always paid tribute to the ooni, as did the Yoruba rulers of Oyo.

Ife was the centre of worship of the creator gods Oduduwa and Orishinla, and the city was surrounded by religious shrines and sacred groves in the forest. The whole life of Ife was dominated by the cult of the gods in which everyone participated. Human and animal sacrifice was practised. Clay figures were kept on the altars of religious shrines as reminders of sacrifices that had been offered to the gods. Some of these were of animals, such as sheep and goats, but a good number depicted human victims, often with ropes around their necks waiting to be strangled.

Ife was a monarchy, but the ooni was always answerable to the council of chiefs and elders. His main role was as a cultural and religious figure, descendant of Oranmiyan the founder. The court of the ooni provided employment for a very large number of craftsmen and artists, who were organised in trade guilds to preserve their skills. Trade was essential, as the source of wealth, even reaching out across the Sahara desert to the Mediterranean. Slavery was a feature of everyday life, but slaves were integrated into families and clans, and the children of slaves were free.

The current exhibition “Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa” at the British Museum is the first opportunity in this country to experience treasures drawn largely from Nigerian museums, and organised jointly with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments. Anyone visiting this exhibition will seriously question the endlessly repeated statement that the Benin bronzes have to be kept in the British Museum because Africans are incapable of conserving their own patrimony.

The artistic heyday of Ife culture extended from the 11th to the 14th century, and the chief relics of this period are the many figures of the human form made of brass, copper, and terracotta. The style is completely life-like, and generally life-sized. The brass heads that figure so prominently in this exhibition were cast using the lost wax process. Firstly, the figure was carved out of wax. This was covered in soft clay, and then heated until the wax melted and could be poured out, leaving a clay mould. The craftsmen then repeatedly poured small amounts of molten brass into the clay mould, swirling it around to cover the inside with a uniform thin layer of metal. When it had all cooled, the clay was chipped away, leaving the hollow figure. Files and grinding stones were then used to put the finishing touches.

Anyone familiar with Benin metal work may come to the Ife exhibition expecting formal, almost caricatured human figures. But almost everything here is quite overwhelmingly naturalistic, the figures somehow filled with life and spirit. The finest sculptures of Greece and Rome amaze us with their anatomical exactness. But these African figures, whether of brass, copper, or terracotta, go one step further – they portray living, breathing human beings so perfectly that the viewer can understand the personality, the thoughts and the state of mind, of the subjects portrayed.

The first European study of the art of Ife was carried out at the beginning of the 20th century by the German archaeologist Leo Frobenius. Not surprisingly, with the racist attitudes of the time, Frobenius found it impossible to consider this as African art. At first, he thought that the work was Portuguese, and then came up with the theory that what he had found were relics of the land of Atlantis, rescued before it sunk beneath the waves! It was only with the excavation of eighteen metal figures in 1938 that the indigenous origin of Ife art became universally accepted.

Exquisite art can be enjoyed for its own sake, but the current exhibition at the British Museum also presents many aspects of the social and religious life of the city’s inhabitants. Readers of the New Worker will see much evidence of the structure of Ife society. The mere existence of these works of art testifies to a developed human society with plentiful supplies of food, extensive external trade, a centralised hierarchical administration and a profound sense of identity. Small details of daily life shed much light on our idea of medieval Africa – I was particularly fascinated by the fact that the roads of the city were paved with countless pieces of broken pottery, arranged in fishbone patterns like a mosaic. A section of this paving is on display here.

This exhibition can be enjoyed on so many levels; firstly, simply as great art. But it does even more urgently call our attention to the unsettling fact that civilisation is not simply European. The history of the world is more than just what white men did. This Yoruba art affirms the universality of human life, of the desire to explain and take control of our surroundings. Ife would have been a strange, apparently even barbaric society to European minds. But it was not inferior, simply very different. In Europe we rightly venerate the memory of the Greeks and the Romans, of Michelangelo and the Renaissance, and the science and technology of recent centuries. “The Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa” reminds us that we are also heirs of the human experience throughout the world. The Yoruba craftsmen of 800 years ago shared that same human life, and they had an extraordinary, perhaps unsurpassed, ability to preserve it for the future.

The exhibition “Kingdom of Ife” is at the British Museum until 6th June. Admission is £8. A very worthwhile audio visual guide with personal headphones is available for an additional £4.50. Allow at least two hours to see and appreciate everything.

For Peace! No to Nato!

joint statement of communist and workers parties

In a context that is marked by an ever-deeper structural crisis of capitalism, by deeper exploitation of the workers and peoples, by inter-imperialist rivalries and by complex processes of realignment of forces on a world level, imperialism is embarking on new anti-democratic thrusts and militarist interventions, and is advancing with coercive solutions trying to perpetuate itself and defend its class interests.
The militarist offensive unleashed by the imperialist powers and by NATO has a global and multi-faceted nature.
Imperialist war is being intensified globally under the pretext of combat against terrorism. Imperialist blocs, like NATO, are being consolidated. The militarization of the European Union is being speeded up with the fraudulent adoption of the Lisbon Treaty that encompasses the concept of the European Union as NATO’s European pillar. There is an ongoing arms race and investment in new and deadlier weapons. Military spending reaches record levels, particularly in the U.S. and the European Union. NATO's areas of influence and imperialist military-strategic alliances, namely through the so-called “Partnership for peace” are being expanded in Asia, in the territory of the former Soviet Union, as well as in Africa.
The world-wide network of US and NATO-member countries' military bases is being expanded. Military forces are being deployed from Latin America to Africa; from the Middle East, Indian Ocean and Central Asia to Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Black Sea.
The occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq continues, whilst new military aggressions are being launched against various countries. Plots and interference continue in Latin America and in various countries of the African continent. Provocative maneuvers are multiplied, as in Lebanon. The Palestinian issue remains unsolved, likewise the issue of Western Sahara, while imperialist crimes continue with impunity. Provocations against the People's Republic of China, that the arms sales to Taiwan by the U.S. is a particularly serious example, and threats against countries such as Iran and Syria are being stepped up.
There are growing attacks against the sovereignty of States, notably with changes of borders, of which the self-proclamation of the independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo is a serious example. The International Law that emerged from the correlation of forces resulting from the defeat of Nazi-fascism in the Second World War is being seriously undermined and is the target of a process that aims its destruction.
In the name of “security” and the “war on terrorism” securitarian thrusts are revived; xenophobic nationalism and religious and cultural intolerance is being instigated; crimes against human rights, such as social, economic and democratic rights and the right to political and social participation and organization, are being committed; anti-Communist campaigns are being promoted and the forces that stand up against imperialism's offensive and defend the social and national rights of peoples, are persecuted.
The reality of the world at the beginning of the 21st Century belies the campaigns to rehabilitate the image of US imperialism which were undertaken with the election of Barack Obama. The nature and goals of US and NATO policies are clear: the control over natural and energy resources; control of technology; the expansion of markets; military and geo-strategic domination. In other words, a response, based on the use of force, to the relative weakening of the position of the USA in the international framework.
The rhetoric of “multilateralism” and “dialogue” is exposed by the war-mongering and interventionist policy of the US, the European Union and NATO, by the ongoing imperialist offensive and the real risk of new military conflicts, from the Middle East and Central Asia to Latin America. Despite the antagonisms between the USA and EU, both turn against the people’s social and national rights. War and aggression are but the other side of the coin of imperialist economic globalization, and NATO is a key player in its strategy of hegemonic domination and persecution of those forces and countries that stand up in opposition. NATO plays a central role in the militarization of international relations and in the arms race and is the main driving force of conflicts and tensions today. Alluding to «new global threats» - a concept that has replaced the old pretext of the «communist threat» - NATO imposes a large-scale escalation of wars and weapons – of which the war in Afghanistan is a key aspect.
NATO will hold a Summit in Portugal, this November. It seeks to renew its strategic concept, which represents a new and highly dangerous qualitative leap in that Organization's role, mission and goals.
With its new strategic concept, NATO seeks to put in its written doctrine that which is already a reality in practice: the geographic extension of its intervention and projection of force to the entire planet; the expansion of the nature of its missions to issues such as energy, environment, migrations and internal security of the States; to reaffirm itself as a nuclear military bloc, despite the rhetoric about nuclear disarmament, by envisaging the use of nuclear weapons in military attacks; to further develop the military-industrial complex and military research and demanding an increase in military expenditures from all its members; to include in its missions acts of direct interference and occupation, under the guise of peace-keeping missions; to profound the instrumentalization of the UN in order to pursue its purposes and strength its role as the armed arm of imperialism.
Imperialism appears to be all-powerful but it is not. As the facts are proving, the major threats arising from imperialism's force-based response to the crisis of capitalism are being confronted by the progressive and even revolutionary struggle of the peoples. In various parts of the world, the peoples are taking into their own hands the defense of their rights and of their countries' sovereignty and independence. They are resisting in the most diversified ways. They are imposing defeats to imperialism's strategy of domination.
In this context, expressing our profound conviction that, through the struggle it is possible to defeat the war-mongering and militaristic goals of NATO and build a future of peace, progress, social justice in which each people can freely decide on their own future, inseparable from the struggle for Socialism, we the Communist and Workers' Parties that are signatories to this statement:

 Demand an end to the arms race, nuclear disarmament beginning by the major nuclear powers in the world as is the case of the USA, elimination of all chemical and biological weapons and an end to foreign military bases.

 Call upon the workers and peoples of the whole world, on the popular and anti-imperialist forces, on the working-class movement and other social organizations to mobilize and strengthen their struggle, for peace, against war and NATO. We reaffirm our long-standing support for the peace movement. We congratulate the World Peace Council for its 60th anniversary and for its campaign against NATO.

 Declare our intention to mark the 65th anniversary of the victory over Nazism and Fascism as an important day of struggle for peace and against the monumental historical distortion that attempts to erase the crucial role of Communists in the liberation of peoples from the yoke of Nazi-fascist and to equate Nazism with Communism.

 Reaffirm our solidarity with the peoples that resist imperialism’s occupations, aggressions and interference and that are waging difficult battles for their self-determination and independence, namely the peoples of the Middle East, like the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian peoples, and Central Asia. We demand the immediate withdrawal of all the military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and from all the other imperialist interventions around the world.

 Demand the dissolution of NATO and support the peoples’ sovereign right to decide on the disengagement of their countries from this aggressive alliance. We reaffirm our frontal opposition to the militarization of the European Union and its militarist and interventionist policy, to the expansion of NATO and to the deployment of the new US and NATO “anti-missile shield” in Romania and Bulgaria. We express our solidarity with the Cypriot people (Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots) in its struggle against the Turkish occupation and for the reunification of its homeland, for a just solution to the Cypriot issue.

 Demand an end to the provocations and interference in Latin America and Caribbean. We express our solidarity with Socialist Cuba and with the peoples, the political forces and national governments with a democratic, progressive, popular and anti-imperialist character, such as Bolivarian Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. We demand the release of the five Cuban patriots unjustly imprisoned in the USA. We reiterate our support for the struggle of the people of Honduras for democracy and against the coup regime, so that the people may determine the future of their country. We demand the recall of the Fourth US Fleet deployed to South and Central America and the closing down of US military bases in the region, namely Guantanamo and the bases in Colombia. We denounce the USA’s military intervention in Haiti and we demand from the United Nations that the Haiti mission be civilian in nature. We demand that the actions of solidarity and cooperation with the Haitian people contribute to the strengthening of the independent national State and to the economic and social progress in the Country.

 Express our solidarity with the peoples of Africa in their struggle for the right to development and with the people of Western Sahara for their right to self-determination. We demand an end to imperialist interference and militarization of the continent, namely in Somalia and its shores, in the whole region of the Horn of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Sudan. We reaffirm our commitment to continue the struggle against the US military Command for the continent (AFRICOM).

 Express our support for the peace movement, the class-based trade union movement, the youth, women and other organizations which, in Portugal, are promoting the campaign for peace and against NATO. We pledge to do everything we can to support and mobilize for the actions of struggle against NATO and its new strategic concept which are scheduled for November of this year in Portugal.

The Parties:
• Portuguese Communist Party
• South African Communist Party
• Workers Party of Belgium
• Communist Party of Brazil
• Communist Party of Cuba
• Progressive Party for the Working People (AKEL)
• Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
• Communist Party of Greece
• Communist Party of India (Marxist)
• Communist Party of India
• Lebanese Communist Party
• Communist Party of the Russian Federation
• Communist Party of Spain

• PADS Algeria
• Communist Party of Australia
• Workers Party of Bangladesh
• Communist Party of Bolivia
• Brasilian Communist Party
• Communist Party of Britain
• New Communist Party of Britain
• Communist Party in Denmark
• German Communist Party
• Hungarian Communist Workers Party
• Tudeh Party of Iran
• Iraqi Communist Party
• Communist Refoundation – Italy
• Party of the Italian Communists
• Communist Party of Luxembourg
• Party of the Communists of Mexico
• Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
• Communist Party of Norway
• Peruan Communist Party
• Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain

Communist women in conference

Report on the seminar of Communist and Workers’ Parties on the 100th Celebration of International Women’s Day: The Role of Communists in the Struggle for the Parity and Emancipation of Women.


by Daphne Liddle
New Communist Party of Britain delegate at the seminar

HOW CAN communists work most effectively to achieve parity and freedom for women? That is the question that delegates from some 27 communist and workers’ parties debated in a chamber in the European Parliament building in Brussels on 27th March, at the same time as a debate in the main chamber debated what help would, or would not, be given to Greece to resolve that country’s economic plight.

But the same global economic crisis and its consequences dominated the discussions in both chambers. And Greece figured large in both debates. But while the weakness of Greece’s bourgeois government and its ability to resolve the economic crisis dominated the debate in the main chamber, in the smaller chamber it was the strength and vitality of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) that enabled the debate in the smaller chamber to happen.

The Seminar of Communist and Workers’ Parties to mark and celebrate the 100th International Women’s Day was organised and funded by the KKE, with local logistical support from the Belgian Workers’ Party (Partie du Travail Belgique, PTB).

Delegations came from the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia as well as Hungary and the Czech Republic. They also came from Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Iran, France, Portugal, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain and of course Greece and Belgium.

The Cuban ambassador to the EU, Senor Rodriguez, dropped in to convey his government’s good wishes to the seminar and representatives from the Pole de Renaissance Communiste en France were special guests.

Parties from Cuba, the Philippines and Brazil were unable to attend but sent written contributions. A couple of intended delegates failed to get visas, reflecting EU bureaucratic obstruction. Most delegates were women, many of them from high elected office in their own parties and countries. But a couple – those from Hungary and Belarus – were men, reflecting the common view of all these parties that women’s equality is a class issue rather than a gender issue and is of equal concern to male communists.

The seminar was opened with an address from Aleka Papariga, the general secretary of the KKE. She began by reminding the seminar that 100 years ago the second International Conference of socialist women had adopted the proposal of Clara Zetkin to celebrate 8th March every year as the anniversary of working women’s sacrifice on 8th March 1857 in New York.
Comrade Papariga said the anniversary was an opportune moment to evaluate the progress of women’s emancipation over the last century. And: “At the same time, it is urgent to discuss according to which strategy and tactic will we tackle with the deterioration of the women’s position under the conditions of the capitalist crisis, as a special issue and integral element of the life of the worker’s families of the working people in general.”

She pointed out that most of the advanced bourgeois countries have been forced – under pressure from the organised working class and from the great advances in women’s rights in socialist countries – to make some concessions to women’s right. This has led to official recognition of women’s equality in law, though not always implemented as it should be. Meanwhile women in some parts of Africa and Asia continue to suffer forms of oppression dating back one or two centuries. “This phenomenon marks the uneven development of capitalism and cannot be attributed to several cultural or traditional particularities of so-called patriarchism or androcracy,” she said.

But, Comrade Papariga said, the current crisis exposes the historical limits of the capitalist system and the rights of women and children are now deteriorating. “Nowadays, we are not witnessing only the abolition of our rights, or the deterioration of our life; we also face the danger of a dramatic increase in the gap between our contemporary needs and the situation that will be formed in the near future.”

She explained that although the role of the workers’ and people’s movements was to fight for socialism and that this, when attained, would be a giant advance for women’s rights, there is “no contradiction between the struggle for socialism on the one hand, and the urgent need to attract working, popular forces, both men and women to the organised class oriented struggle for their acute problems on the other.

“It has to do with the orientation, with the ability and the quality of the guidance so as to orient the daily struggle to the overthrowof monopolies state power, of the bourgeois political power in order for the people to become the owners of the wealth.”

She added: “The women’s question as a historical phenomenon constitutes a complex of economic, political and cultural inequalities and discriminations which are evident in all social relations including the relationships between the two genders and emanates from the class relations of exploitation.

“The founders of scientific socialism-communism, Marx and Engels, analysed the women’s question on its true basis; they proved its class nature, they showed its reflection in the legal, political, ideological, cultural superstructure ofevery exploitative socioeconomic system as well as the preconditions for its solution.

“The women’s question objectively constitutes part of the contemporary strategy against the crisis that will lead, even after its overcoming, to a slight recovery compared to the past, to a new cycle of crisis under the conditions of acute intra-imperialist rivalries.”

The KKE “refuted the EU misleading theories that gender equality means equality in all aspects of life. This position leads to the unjust and non-scientific equation of the productivity of both genders, to the underestimation of maternity and its needs. We revealed the lies that women themselves demand part-time and temporary employment and flexible working relations because they need time for their families.”

This is why the seminar used the term parity for women, rather than equality. It is because the bourgeois granting of exact equality, not taking into account women’s extra needs because of their roles as mothers and carers, still leaves them disadvantaged.

Comrade Papariga went on to give a history of the women’s struggle in modern Greece and a report of the 8th March big demonstration organised in Athens and many other towns and cities by the PAME Greek Women’s Federation. “These demonstrations turn a new page in the alliance of progressive labour and the women’s movement,” she said.

Nina Ostanina, delegate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), a deputy in the Russian parliament, the State Duma, and central committee member of the CPRF spoke of Russia’s proud history of pioneering full equal rights for women. “The idea of equality between women and men in Russia was realised long ago; our Party on this day once again recalled that this wonderful holiday was obliged for its very existence to the great revolutionary woman, Clara Zetkin, and the Bolsheviks-Leninists, who committed the socialist revolution in distant 1917, for the first time realised in practice the idea of women’s equality in economical, social and political spheres.”

But although the equality in law remains, nowadays “most of the problems associated with discrimination against women are hidden and very difficult to be recognised by the authorities.”
“In the structure of Russia’s government there is no longer an institute, which would have been assigned responsibility for the fight against discrimination against women in all its forms,” Comrade Ostanina added.

She reported the efforts of the All-Russia Women’s Union “Hope of Russia”, initiated by women members of the CPRF faction in the State Duma, which makes itself a thorn in the flesh of the state power and sustains links with progressive women’s organisations around the world, in defiance of the government’s policy of sending its own tame stooges to international women’s meetings.

Comrade Ostanina also reported that communists in the State Duma have rejected the programme of anti-crisis measures “where in the ‘manual control’ mode it is supposed to bail out 295 particular companies, the owners of which are close to oligarchs and the money is allocated to major banks.”

The CPRF has submitted to the State Duma a draft for a federal law on state measures for state support for families with children during the crisis period.

Bumairam Utashevna Mamaslitova from the central committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan, who is an elected member of the Jogorku Kenesh (parliament) and chairs the Social Policy Committee, spoke of the social and economic problems caused to her country since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

She spoke of the rise of violence against women and their loss of equality. She has succeeded in getting a law passed in the parliament criminalising violence against women – but getting it implemented fully is still a work in hand.

Tskhondia Tsitsino from the United Communist Party of Georgia reported that her country is now the poorest country in Europe, with 40 per cent of families below the poverty line, with very high unemployment. The service sector has fared a little better and employs mostly women, leading to women being the breadwinners in many families.

It is a very patriarchal society and many women have emigrated but when they do they are often exploited even more than before. Trade unions are weak with a lack of experience in fighting capitalism. Now there are long hours – 12-hour shifts – no days off and very low pay.
There is a high rate of trafficking and sexual exploitation of women; hundreds of thousands of women are victims, forced into prostitution in conditions of virtual slavery.

Gyula Thurmer, president of the Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party reported: “Hungarian women have lost a lot during the last 20 years. They have lost not because they are women. They have lost because Hungarian workers have lost socialism and capitalists took over both political end economic power.”

He added that “capitalism has many times declared the principle of equal pay for equal work. But it did not realise it. The gap between the salaries of women and men is larger than in the socialist period. Generally, Hungarian women get 18 per cent less money for the same work.”
Comrade Thurmer reported that the whole Roma community and Roma women in particular are facing a very hard time: “Capitalism turned the Roma problem into an enormous social issue threatening Hungary with serious consequences. There are at least 800,000 of the Roma minority in Hungary. Capitalism created enormous problems for both Roma men and women. By the end of the socialist period 75 per cent of Roma men and 50 per cent of Roma women could find work. Today only 15 to 18 per cent of men have regular work, and only a miserable number of women can work.

“By the end of socialism 90 per cent of Roma girls and boys finished the eight classes of elementary school. The number of Roma girls in secondary schools was even higher than the number of Roma boys. Today only about 65 per cent of the Romas finish elementary school. The future seems to be worrying.”

Comrade Dr Marie Nassif-Debs of the Lebanese Communist Party outlined the problems the women’s movement faces in her country from its class and ethnic divisions.
She said: “Indeed the political regime in Lebanon is a class-infested regime, where the bourgeoisie holds the reins of power through its alliance with the residuals of political feudalism. In other words, the political feudal families have lost the economic and financial position as the owner of the lands and what and who was on it. But these families still exert political influence and feudalistic leadership without any materialistic control.

“This bourgeoisie hides behind a vertical division in society which allows its members to continue to exert their influence and to reproduce this fundamentally flawed and unjust system. What we mean by the vertical division is the sectarian and religious divisions that render Lebanon a group of fiefdoms and princedoms and makes its political system like a confederate union between 18 sects that constitute Lebanon. And at the forefront are the six main sects (that is the Maronites, Roman Orthodox and Roman Catholic sects for Christians; and Sunnis, Shias and Druze sects for Muslims).

“The sects in general do distinguish between males and females and do discriminate against women and even between one female and another. In this context the sects have one thing in common: they all agree on the subordinate, inferior role of women in society, albeit to varying extents. They also agree on denying women any leadership role to the various sectarian authorities, especially in the political sphere and within the decision-making circles.”

Comrade Nassif-Debs’ friend, Hanad Badwa of the Syrian Communist Party and a civil engineer, spoke of a very different situation in her country – next door to Lebanon.
Syria still boasts the culture and traditions of the progressive but short-lived United Arab Republic that included Nasser’s Egypt and is now governed by a Baathist-led popular front that includes the communists. Women there have achieved a much greater level of equality and respect.

Selam Gurkan, vice president of the Turkish Party of Labour (EMEP) delivered a harrowing report of the inequality and double exploitation of women in Turkey. Women mostly work in the unregistered sector, especially in agriculture. Being unregistered means they have no protection of labour laws. They are categorised as family workers, have no regulated working hours. They work from sunrise to sunset for very low w ages and are at risk from frequent accidents at work.
The Turkish government denies that it is being affected by the global crisis but unemployment is rising steadily and the wages and conditions of all workers but especially women are getting worse. Violence against women is also increasing.

“For the Kurdish woman, whose identity is despised, language forbidden, child, husband, brother killed, it is made impossible to exist in her own language and identity, to develop her culture, to access education, health and other public services in her mother tongue,” said Comrade Gurkan.
Lydie Neufcourt of the Belgian Workers’ Party reported the battle her party is fighting against huge job cuts that are hitting the service sector jobs where women workers predominate. She reported a 23 per cent wage gap in Belgium and low wages and fixed-term contracts predominate in the “feminised” sectors. Women are also forced into part-time jobs.
In particular she reported the current battle against the giant Carrefour supermarket chain against plans to cut 5,000 jobs.

Willy Berend of the New Communist Party of the Netherlands reported that the fight for women’s rights in her country had been hampered by the old, revisionist Netherlands Communist Party where bourgeois feminists had predominated.

“In a communist party, the struggle for emancipation of women should always be a part of the anti-capitalist struggle,” she said. “In the former Dutch Communist Party it became more a struggle from women against men and vice-versa, and the class struggle became less important. It changed into an emancipation party instead of a communist party. The party’s secretary even said a few years later that she never was a communist….

“The NCPN thinks a strong fight for emancipation of women means first of all strengthening the communist and workers’ parties. The anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist struggle is the best base for all forms of emancipation.”

The New Communist Party of Britain statement called for prioritising the battle for equal pay and universal high-quality childcare to give women economic independence.

There were many other experiences of the struggle reported and views expressed; Clara Zetkin and Fredrick Engels’ work, The Family, Private Property and the State were quoted many times. Many more informal discussions happened during the breaks, at the hotel, travelling to the EU conference centre and back and at a dinner provided by the PTB comrades on the evening before the seminar.

The New Worker, it seems, is well known and respected among the representatives of these communist and workers parties.

This is a continuing struggle but there are a lot of very good women and men comrades out there with clear heads and a sound Marxist-Leninist understanding of how to wage this part of the class struggle in many different circumstances and conditions. It was very encouraging.

photo: Greek communist leader Aleka Papariga opens the debate

The revolutionary party, bourgeois elections and social democracy

By Neil Harris

The revolutionary party

TO ASK what revolutionaries do between revolutions is not an idle question, not least because Lenin’s definition of a revolutionary situation still holds true:

“The fundamental law of revolutions, which has been confirmed by all revolutions and especially by all three Russian revolutions in the 20th century, is as follows: for a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the ‘lower classes’ do not want to live in the old way and the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph.”

While revolutions do not just happen – they have to be made – we cannot make something happen just because we want it to. A number of objective factors have to coincide, and as we have come to realise, such situations are rare.
An earthquake may only last a few seconds but under the surface the build-up of pressure between tectonic plates has taken decades, if not centuries, to reach crisis point. The aftershocks continue for months, if not years, afterwards.
So it is with the class struggle. The day-to-day battles between workers and bosses, which seem so trivial, periodically explode into revolutions and counter revolutions. In the same way the aftershocks of these conflicts roll out across the world.
When the Paris Commune of 1871 was drowned in the blood of 50,000 executed revolutionaries, the carnival of reaction that followed engulfed Europe and seemed to signify the death of socialism forever. At that time who but Marx and Engels in their London exile could foresee the changes to come? Some 30 years later the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 would be carried out in the name of the Commune, just as the failed revolutions of 1848 had proved to be the inspiration for the Communards themselves.
The aftershocks of 1917 were to spread across the world and echo today in Beijing, Pyongyang and Havana.
So it is with counter revolutions – the ripples from fascism’s triumph in Italy and the defeat of the German revolution in 1919 to 1923 were to have their influence on the victory of German fascism, which in turn would hit Spain in the years leading up to the Second World War.
In our own time the counter revolutions of 1989, which saw the collapse of socialism, first in eastern Europe, then in the Soviet Union itself, were at least as disastrous as the defeat of the Commune. Certainly the cost in human life from the wars and reduced life expectancy has been far worse – millions of workers have died. Hailed by the bourgeois philosopher Francis Fukiyama as “the end of history”, what he actually meant was the end of the class struggle. In the beginning, at least, he seemed to be right.
Vast new markets were opened and an equally enormous labour force – cheap, demoralised and stripped of their unions, ripe for exploitation. Best of all, the rich saw raw materials of one sixth of the Earth’s surface, suddenly were available for imperialist plunder for the first time in 70 years. Oil, gas, gold, diamonds, bauxite, iron and steel – the new treasures of the east making the opening of the Wild West seem cheap in comparison.

Scores of new billionaires appeared overnight, bloated with loot, while at the same time several hundred million of the “new poor” were impoverished beyond belief by their first contact with capitalism.
Worst of all, the bankrupt world capitalist system became equally bloated with super profits from these new opportunities, bankrolled for another 20 years, long past the point when it would otherwise have collapse under the weight of its own debts.
No one could be surprised that the liquidation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) would be followed by the collapse of communist parties around the world, some of them millions strong, all of which had modelled themselves on the ideological factions within the CPSU.
Some, like the French party, echoed the revisionism of Krushchov and Brezhnev, revising away the revolutionary heritage of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Others, like the so-called euro-communist Communist Party of Italy, modelled themselves on the reformist trend in the CPSU, seeking a third way between capitalism and socialism and which was to come to power with the Gorbachov clique.
That both trends should lead to the liquidation of their parties was inevitable, for as Lenin said: “Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary party”. Quite simply, in the age of capitalist ownership of the means of production, all thought, all politics are determined by capitalist thought and politics unless it is rooted in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the capitalist system.”
The absence of revolutionary theory opened the door to the capitalist theory that dominates society.
As a result, all those communist parties that thought there could be some sort of accommodation with capitalism, historic or otherwise, are no longer with us, swept away in the tidal wave of revision.
Just as dramatic was the collapse of the Trotskyite left, never large, consisting of some hundreds of thousands rather than millions. Strident, vocal and encouraged by the bourgeoisie, they devoted all their energies to attacking socialism wherever it existed from the position of a self-styled left opposition. The collapse of the Soviet Union removed their only justification for existence and they were faced with the same stark ideological choice as the rest of us – revolution or reform. With very few exceptions they chose electoral politics and as a result the parties of the fourth international shrank with the same speed as those of the third.
The crisis on the Left has not stopped there. The collapse of the Soviet Union should have been the moment of triumph for the parties of the second international, the parties of social democracy.
Since 1917 they were the bitter enemies of communism – positioning themselves as critics of the Russian revolution from the right. At home they made an accommodation with their capitalists, arguing that gradual reforms were preferable to revolutionary change. On foreign policy they sided with their own imperialists’ interests and were to be correctly described by Lenin as “social imperialists – socialist in words, imperialist in deeds”.
For the imperialists the deal was simple – after 1917 they faced the prospect of losing everything. For the cost a few concessions and an occasional social democrat government they survived.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War the deal was off – the imperialists had no further use of their quislings. They forced the social democrats back, winning concession after concession at the expense of the workers. Each time the social democrats moved further to the right until they had given up any pretence of arguing for socialism, democratic or otherwise. In Britain Blair and Brown were only too happy to trade clause four to take “power” in 1997.
The social democrats’ reward has been electoral defeats one after another: in France, Germany and eve their heartlands of Holland and Scandinavia.
Both left and right critics of the Soviet Union were two sides of the same coin. Both existed only as parasites on the strength of the international working class after 1917. The paradox is that before 1917 the social democrats were everywhere too weak to take power. After 1989 the imperialists were too strong to need them. The defeat of the working class in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe was to be a defeat for the whole working class of the world in the same way that the defeat of the British miners in 1985 was not just a defeat for them but for all workers in Britain and beyond.
So what remains in the rubble to build on? After an earthquake the great plates beneath the Earth’s surface immediately start to push and grind again, just as before. It is the same with the class struggle – it never stops. If workers are not moving forwards they are moving back until the fight begins again.
For revolutionaries there has been an instinctive coming together of the world communist movement in a series of international meetings. In the aftermath of 1989 that was only natural. The struggle continues and in the battle against bourgeois ideas the party of Lenin has proved to be our best and only weapon.
That party is one in which the theoretical principles of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, dialectical materialism and proletarian internationalism are united in the organisational discipline of democratic centralism. This is what distinguishes us from either social democracy or Trotskyism and is why we survive.
There is no doubt that materialism and dialectics best explain the world and how it changes. The economic theories of Marx and Engels are just as valid today as they were in the 19th century. Surplus value is still the mechanism by which capital reproduces itself and the collapse of capitalism in 2008 has its ancestry in the banking collapses of the 1880s, 1900s and 1930s.
Lenin’s analysis of the state, imperialism and finance capital is just as useful in the era of “globalisation” as it was in the early days of the 20th century. These are our ideological weapons and the disciplined party is the means of using them in practice.


Bourgeois elections

Since its formation in 1977, the New Communist Party has always refused to stand in bourgeois elections, not as a tactical boycott but as a matter of principle. Those who founded the party did so after a long battle with revisionism in the old Communist Party of Great Britain, going back to the 1950s. Part of that ideological struggle developed out of the old party’s shift away from workplace organisations for revolution to territorial branches based on election campaigns.
But it went deeper than that. For us there is a distinct difference between the state, which Marx described as “the organising committee of the bourgeoisie” and parliamentary government, which is merely an apparently democratic veneer, hiding the violent and coercive nature of the state underneath. The security services, police and army are only too ready to use force when capitalism is threatened.
For Marx and Engels, “Political power, properly so-called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another”. This dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the reality of our society and to replace it requires the overthrow of the bourgeois state and its replacement with a proletarian state and a proletarian dictatorship in its place. That is the reality of political power.
At one level, standing in bourgeois elections is a compromise with capitalism we are not prepared to make. At another, it fosters illusions amongst the working class that winning seats in Parliament brings the possibility of reforming capitalism, when in fact only governments acceptable to the bourgeoisie are able to win “power”. As ever the choice is between reform and revolution, social democracy and communism.
However, whether we like it or not, elections happen and it would be foolish to pretend they do not matter. The last campaign for the US presidency cost over $1,000 million, the bulk of it contributed by the bourgeoisie and their allies. It is rare that such people give their money away for nothing. When bourgeois politicians campaign for votes the campaign is not for the support of millions of voters but for the support of small numbers of the ruling class and their allies in the media.
As Andy Brooks, general secretary of the New Communist Party, has put it: “Bourgeois elections are the battle by the smallest number of people to manipulate the maximum number of votes.”
In Britain, Cameron and Brown have probably spent more time courting the support of one man, Rupert Murdoch, than they will devote to winning the votes of the whole electorate. In bourgeois elections the contest is actually between different factions and interests in a divided bourgeoisie, which is then projected as being a contest for the interests of the people as a whole.

The nature of social democracy

When workers realised that on their own they were powerless against the boss, they started to organise in unions to protect themselves. Unions arose out of the class struggle and are part of it. Their fluctuating strength reflects the class consciousness of the working class and its ability to confront the ruling class. Because they are a product of the class struggle there is nothing revolutionary about unions and nothing about them that threatens the existence of capitalism itself, only the level of exploitation and the amount of surplus value.
Because trade unions are created by workers as a means of self-defence in the class struggle it should be no surprise that the majority of trade union leaders are reformist and social democrats and often betray the interests of their members.
This is why communists are active in the unions, battling to make them democratic, militant and class conscious. The aim is to convert that class consciousness into a revolutionary consciousness – to fight not just for higher wages but to seize and control the means of production itself, or as it has often been said, not to fight for a bigger slice of the cake but the whole cake and the equipment that made it as well.
That is why social democratic, reformist unions are still a working class asset and why communists support them in spite of their leaderships. The battle against the bosses is a daily education in the class struggle and how to fight it.
In the same way, the co-operative movement remains a working class asset and we also support it. Created in the 19th century as an alternative to the revolutionary struggle, co-operatives have always been dominated by the liberal and religious wing of the working class movement. Co-operators believe that they can somehow withdraw from the market and through that replace it. This form of reformism is based on idealism and wishful thinking. Nevertheless co-operatives are another working class defence mechanism in the class war. Co-operative assets have been built up through workers’ sacrifices over many years and in opposition to capitalism. They are non-capitalist concerns and deserve our support. For this reason communists are active in the cooperative movement, campaigning for democratic co-ops and fighting for a revolutionary position in relation to capitalism.

The Labour Party

By the early 20th century trade unionists realised that even combined in unions the workers were no match for the ruling class and its control over the state. Social democracy arose when workers organised in unions began to seek political power themselves and created political parties to promote their interests.
Once again, social democracy arose out of the class struggle – most of its votes and members are workers. There being nothing revolutionary about the class struggle itself, there is equally nothing revolutionary about social democracy, which exists only to reform capitalism and as a defensive measure in the class struggle.
There are broadly two kinds of social democrats:
• Right social democrats who believe that capitalism is the best system and simply requires some reforms to remove its more unpleasant side effects. So, the economist Keynes believed that increased Government expenditure could eliminate unemployment and Beveridge who believed that social welfare expenditure would eliminate poverty. Both were wrong; unemployment and poverty are part of the system itself.
• Left social democrats oppose capitalism and believe that it must be replaced with socialism but believe it is possible to do so by gradual democratic reforms. As we have seen, the nature of the bourgeois state makes this impossible. Most social democratic parties contain a mixture of left and right in varying proportions. Sometimes well-meaning, sometimes not, all social democrats remain a prisoner of capitalism.

Where do communists stand in relation to the Labour Party?

Since our formation, the New Communist Party has always called on the working class to vote Labour and will continue to do so except in the case of European Union elections, which, as an undemocratic sham, we call on all workers to boycott.
We call on the working class to vote Labour not because we have any illusions that it is anything other than a social democrat party or that its leaders can ever be won to revolutionary politics. On the contrary, even if our campaign for a democratic Labour Party that opens its doors to left-wing parties like ours to affiliate as autonomous, independent groups were to succeed, it would still be a social democratic party.
We support Labour in elections because it still has a mass membership of working class trade unionists, affiliated through their unions. This mass membership and the votes the party receives as a result are what make it a class-based party in spite of its opportunist, petty-bourgeois leadership.
Workers vote Labour because they are still social democratic in outlook themselves, not out of misguided belief that the Labour Party is socialist. It is social democratic ideas that must be fought, not the institutions of the working class.
In 1848 Marx and Engels asked themselves the same question, although their reference to “party” predates our understanding of the term.
“In what relation do the communists stand to the proletariat as a whole?
“The communists do not form a separate party, opposed to other working class parties.
“They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
“They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.”

The Climate after Copenhagen

By Renee Sams

THE UNITED NATIONS climate summit in Copenhagen last December, after much debate, failed to come to any agreed action on climate change. There was a proposal that governments should pledge by a 31st January deadline by how much they were going to take action to protect the climate but nothing seems to have come of that.
It is now 21 years since the first scientific assessment of climate change was published and 18 years since the Rio Earth Summit at which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed.
Twelve years have passed since Kyoto Protocol was agreed and two years since the Bali Action plan, all milestones that were to provide ways forward to curb emissions of “greenhouse gases” but so little has been done that we are still heading inexorably towards a catastrophic climate change.
Despite the voices of large campaigns like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, supported by millions of people calling for action to save the planet, the political leaderships of the richest countries have ignored them yet again.
Although governments are unwilling to take on the challenge of the environment, some big corporations, seeing new opportunities for profit, have welcomed it and now renewable energy is growing by leaps and bounds.
For example, General Electric (NYSE) has switched business away from financial engineering to eco-engineering. Silicon Valley, pioneer Vinod Khosia, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, raised $2 billion in two funds on clean technologies. Sales of hybrid vehicles are growing at a breakneck pace and Toyota and Ford are trying to satisfy the demand with new models. and electric cars are also coming on the market.
Great improvements have been made in the latest electric cars but smaller, more efficient and longer lasting batteries will be needed if electric cars are to become the family car of the future.
Falling grain prices have brought biofuel back in the picture as a viable economic issue and Big Oil is now taking it seriously; Royal Dutch Shell is investing a staggering $12 billion in biofuels.
In the US President Obama, although supporting biofuels, has now put $83 billion into guarantees that will allow two new nuclear reactors to be built, the first in the United States in nearly three decades. He is trying to calm the fears of the anti-nuclear movement with the promise that by using beryllium as an additive that not so much dangerous radioactive waste will be produced.
But the dangers of trucking any radioactive waste around the country are well known and the anti-nuclear movement is angry and will campaign against any new reactors. They are also angry that taxpayers’ money is being used to build nuclear reactors because Wall Street bankers will not risk investing their millions in the unpopular nuclear business.
The Pentagon is also going for biofuels in a big way and they expect that by 2011 they will have a fuel suitable for military jets that will only cost $2 per barrel. This is despite warnings from scientists from the Global Invasion Species Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, together with other group about the dangers of invasive crops being used to make biofuel.
“Most of the newer biofuel crops are what scientists call invasive species that have an extraordinary high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land and created economic and ecological havoc in the process.
“Some of the most commonly recommended species for biofuel production are also major invasive alien species” the paper said, adding that “these crops should be studied more thoroughly before being cultivated in new areas”.
Wind farms are being built all over the world, and in this country the Chancellor Alistair Darling earmarked some £525millions in 2009 for the construction of five off-shore wind farms and dozens of turbines on shore.
The £525 millions will be streamed into the Renewables Obligation Scheme to make is more attractive to commercial companies to sell more wind energy. It is estimated that about 20GW of new wind farm sites could be built in the next ten years.
The use of solar power is also increasing; the sunny southern states in the US are producing a lot of solar power for domestic use and President Obama has now given preliminary approval of $4 billion in Federal loan guarantees to help build the world’s largest solar power complex in the Mojave desert in California.
The use of rivers to provide energy is not new and water driven power stations have got larger; the biggest now is China’s Three Gorges Dam project, which displaced over 1.2 million people. The Three Gorges Dam is over six times as long as the Hoover Dam, between Arizona and Nevada, and almost 50 per cent larger than Washington State’s Grand Coulee Dam.
Run-of-River projects use the natural downward flow of rivers and micro turbine generators to capture the kinetic energy carried by the water. Typically, water is taken from the river at a high point and gravity fed down a pipe to a lower a part where it emerges through a turbine generator and re-enters the river. This kind of project is relatively cheap and has very little environmental impact.
As the oil runs out, a lot work has been done to find a substitute to make diesel and the latest development is algae, a third generation biofuel which solves many of the problems that plants cause with a lot of water use and fertilisers. Algae has a small footprint, it doesn’t use much land or water, it can be grown anywhere and as a bonus it eats CO2.
Producing algol oil close to where it is going to be used is more economic than piping or shipping oil thousands of miles and unlike oil it is a renewable resource, capable of providing consistent amounts of oil as fossil fuel reserves grow harder and more costly to find and exploit.
Many big corporations are now investing in the research and development of algae biofuel including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, although it will be a few years before Algadiesel is ready for mass sale in family cars.

Putting the individual human voice into the Palestinian narrative

By Karen Dabrowska

THE HUMAN individual voice has been lost from the Palestinian narrative and Dina Matar is determined to put it back.
Her latest book: What it Means to be a Palestinian, Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood is a narrative of narratives, a collection of personal stories, remembered feelings and reconstructed experiences by different Palestinians whose lives were changed and shaped by history. Their stories are told chronologically through particular phases of the Palestinian national struggle, providing a composite autobiography of Palestine as a landscape and as a people.
The book begins with the 1936 revolt against British rule in Palestine and ends in 1993 with the Oslo peace agreement that, according to Matar, changed the nature and form of the national struggle.
It is based on in-depth interviews and conversations with 80 Palestinians male and female, old and young, rich and poor, religious and secular in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Occupied Territories. Presented as remembered and personal narratives and as “social” histories, these conversations provide a deep and intimate account of what it means to be Palestinian in the 21st century.
Speaking about her book, at the University of Westminister's Communication and Media Research Institute in London at the end of February, Matar explained that she was re-writing history from the perspective of the person using the oral history method.
"This is a bottom up history of Palestine where the Palestinians represent themselves. The best way to talk about what it means to be Palestinian is to let the people themselves talk. I wanted to write in a way that is accessible to many readers not just an academic audience", Matar said.
She is convinced that memory can speak truth to power. There is no such thing as a single Palestinian memory but Palestinian memories are political at heart.
During her presentation at the University of Westminster Matar focused on extracts from her book.
Ellen Khouri, one of the interviewees told her: "I had many identities and I still do, but none of them is the right one, none fits".
The late Shafiq Al-Hout who lived in Lebanon after being exiled from Palestine asked: "What can you say to someone whose normal existence has been taken away from him? It took me a while to have a bed and a room to call my own. It might not seem that hard to you but believe me, living in a room with so many for eight years is hell.
And yet it is nothing compared to other experiences. I have been through a lot and you can read about my experiences and my journey into exile in my book. And now that I am an old man and more reflective I can tell you that my experiences taught me that you can survive anything. You can survive loss but not non-belonging".
The book also describes the experiences of veterans of the Palestinian struggle. Leila Khalid, the first woman to hijack an aeroplane, spoke about leaving Haifa and eating oranges in her uncle’s house. Her mother scolded her and told her "our oranges are in Haifa not here".
And there is an interview with an artist who spent 15 years in prison, in solitary confinement. "The Israelis thought we would come out of prison like rotten tomatoes but we came out as apples", he said.
A member of Islamic Jihad recalls an interview with an Israeli army officer who asks him where the Israelis should go if they leave Jaffa and Haifa. "I don't know", he replies. "Ask Hamas".

Dana Matar is a lecturer in Arab Media and International Political Communication at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Before turning to academia, she worked as a foreign correspondent and editor covering the Middle East, Europe and Africa with various agencies. She is a co-editor of The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. She has published journal and book articles on the Palestinian Diaspora in Britain and news, culture, politics, Arab women and media and Hezbollah. Her new book will be published in October

A teacher in China

By Anne Leggett

LAST YEAR I went as a volunteer teacher to help improve the spoken English of middle school teachers in rural Southwest China. I heard about The Amity Foundation Summer English Programme (SEP) when I chose to replace a friend who could not go for health reasons. The Amity Foundation – an NGO based in Nanning – was founded in 1985 by Chinese Christians as a response to the nation’s call for reform and openness. It aims to promote education, social and health services and rural development.
There was much to prepare: inoculations, form filling, an informal introductory vetting interview in March; a later get-together in May to decide who would teach which ability level; what resources we would bring and to discuss lesson plans. The team leader and her husband had been on the SEP twice before and had previously lived some years in Macau and Hong Kong.
The main problem with Chinese teaching of English is that lessons have concentrated heavily on reading/writing rather than oral/aural skills. The school textbooks have been revised relatively recently to introduce the latter, and so now the teachers have to provide more than explanations of grammar rules and methods for passing written tests. Furthermore it is difficult to supervise and co-ordinate group activities when teaching in a more creative, spontaneous and interactive style in classrooms of up to 80 pupils!
Another problem is the lack of native English teachers in that vast country to help improve their speaking and listening fluency. Our responsibilities were:– to give conversation and discussion based lessons appropriate for teachers in their 20s to 40s; to give some ideas for word games, dialogue activities, jazz chants, rhymes and so on useful for middle school learners, whilst being aware that our suggestions might not work in the Chinese classroom and also to ask questions and learn about Chinese culture.
We left Heathrow on 3rd July and arrived at Shanghai (Pudong) Airport, 11 hours and nearly 6000 miles later, at about 8am on the 4th July. On arrival, four white-coated and masked health personnel boarded and checked our forehead temperatures with hand-held sensors to the amusement of the Chinese passengers. If anyone had tested positive for swine flu we would all have had to be put in quarantine.
We travelled to Nanjing for our orientation programme and we were kept there a full week to make sure we were not harbouring swine flu! We stayed at the International Conference Hotel in the scenic forested Zhongshan or Purple Mountain area which contains the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, Ming Tomb and a long avenue of stone statues of elephants, dromedaries, dragons, warriors and scholars. The Chinese enjoyed free use of the Ming Tomb Park and did their exercises against the stone animals or even hung upside down from them! By Purple Glow Lake, we saw one man standing on his head whilst singing at the top of his voice and just missed photographing him to everyone’s amusement.
In the Cloud Brocade Museum, I watched the complicated process of connect-warp break-weft weaving using two people – one aloft – on a large jacquard loom. Just four inches of brocade can be woven in a day! We watched a silk dress fashion show, were presented with a book to remind us of the glorious colours, patterns, skill and 4000-year history of silk-making. We visited two Amity-initiated special needs centres: a bead-making workshop, set up in 2002, for learning disabled people aged 16-40, and a centre set up in 2007, to assess and train autistic children under seven years old.
Some interesting facts to emerge from our orientation lectures were:– 10 per cent of the 1.3 billion population are migrants; five of the most polluted cities in the world are in China; HIV/AIDS prevalence is apparently low at .05 per ecnt; about 83 million are disabled; the one child policy, introduced in 1979, has contributed to doubling the percentage of people over 60 to nearly 20 per cent in the last decade, prompting the fear that China will get old before it gets rich; about one to two per cent are Christians; retirement age is 60 for men and 55 for women. Having benefited from 30 years of reform and foreign investment, China appears to be weathering the recession much better than Europe and the USA with economic growth predicted for the next few years. However, it is still a third world economy with much poverty in rural areas – school enrolment, although free there, is just 40 to 70 per cent.
On Sunday 12th July, our team of four flew for nearly three hours to Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang. Then followed a bumpy two and a half-hour ride 100km north to a very green Shanglin. There was evident poverty – some people were walking barefoot. There were motor bikes and bicycles, but very few cars on the road and little sign of public transport. There was not much industry apart from manganese and aluminium extraction and there was also rice, tea and fruit growing. We saw corn drying in the sun and small rice stacks. When we got to the small town of 45,000 inhabitants, we saw Daming Mountains nearby – green to the top. Walking there was a favourite pastime for many of the teachers. On arrival, the education officials gave us a great welcome and a banquet.
The following day began at 8am with ability placement interviews, followed by an opening ceremony. My first lesson was about introductions and so I divided the teachers into pairs and then groups of four to encourage English dialogue.
During our discussion lessons, I discovered that:– a Japanese might be more useful than English, given China's proximity to and major trade dealings with Japan; anxieties included lack of organised care; there were more advantages than disadvantages to the one child policy; people can travel freely; the teachers earned approximately £120 per month; although the teachers would have liked a higher salary, they were aware that, “With money you can buy books, but not knowledge; a clock, but not time; medicine, but not health; a bed, but not sleep.”
I chose certain witty limericks to lighten the lessons and help the class escape from the burdensome chore of endless grammar and new vocabulary. I explained limerick construction and we gathered suitable rhymes to produce a group effort. We had great fun finding similar and different proverbs. Many were similar, for example: “While the tiger is away, the monkey can play”. The teachers loved word games and were good at homophones, antonyms, synonyms and anagrams.
The afternoon sessions were reserved for more relaxed and informal learning. The teachers watched the film Narnia, but the 2009 Springwatch programme would have been more appealing to wildlife enthusiasts. There was a talk on Shakespeare’s plays made accessible in an amusing way and another talk about Beijing and London. More energetic afternoon sessions included rounders, which they had never played before, football and Scottish country dancing. The word games sessions went very well because the Chinese are extremely competitive. It was a sobering thought that these teachers would have to supervise stimulating activities with a group of 60-80 pupils with no assistant to lend a helping hand!
Best of all was the talent show. Some performed a beautiful combined mime and dance which was a thank-you and farewell to us. Others did some very authentic Indian dancing. There was a demonstration of a martial art using a nunchaku (two thick sticks joined together by a chain).
As well as working hard, we did have time to sightsee. The first Friday evening, we enjoyed watching a graceful tea ceremony. The cups were washed with the first brew and we drank the third brew, trying out three teas. Women, but not men, have to hold their little finger out when drinking! Whilst enjoying the relative coolness of the night air under the mango trees, we came across a group of erhu players who warmly invited us to sit down and drink tea whilst they played three pieces for us – one was a horse race and the last a gentle goodnight. On the way back we were accosted by our lovely cook who offered us roasted peanuts.
Being foreign workers, we were expected to register at the police station. The atmosphere was very relaxed and informal. I think we were the only Europeans there in a place rarely, if ever, visited by tourists. Two members of our team had to see the doctor and were given good prompt orthodox treatment – one for a skin rash on the leg and the other for mild shingles. There are no GP surgeries in China. Patients see doctors in the hospital. I learnt that short sight is a common problem – many of the teachers wore glasses.
One of the most impressive aspects of my visit was the unfailing kindness and helpfulness of our hosts. They ate with us, helped us with teaching resource requirements and provided us with a ready and willing translation service at all times. The tradition is to look after guests in a protective way, perhaps a bit smothering for some people.
We had an unexpected extra invitation to stay one night in Nanning after the Friday closing ceremony in Shanglin. The Nanjing officials wanted us to admire their prosperous capital with fine buildings, impressively lit up at night, spacious avenues and park with many tropical trees. Nanjing is very green and sedate – a complete contrast to Shanghai.
The hardest part of my stay was not being able to communicate. I had a wonderful introduction to China, felt very privileged to be able to go there and would like to go back, but when I can say more than ni hao and zai chien’ – a “hello” and ”goodbye”!