by Andy Brooks
THE OLD ERA ended in Cuba in 1958. The revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro and his guerrilla army swept away the hated Batista regime ending decades of corruption and American domination. Today the Cubans are celebrating the 50th anniversary of people’s power – and not just on the island of socialism.
A new biopic about Che Guevara hit the screens in January to critical acclaim in Britain and throughout the world. And we will get a further taste of the Cuban experience in a festival organised by Cuba50 that will run throughout the year. Events, large or small, will take place across the country featuring some of Cuba’s brightest talents in a dazzling celebration of the island’s rich artistic, musical and cultural heritage.
In London it began last month with an exhibition of vintage and contemporary photos from the archive of the Magnum photo agency including classic portraits of Fidel and Che as well as images taken during those heady days in Havana in 1958 when the Batista regime was overthrown.
The small collection on display, some 40 images, is naturally mainly of interest to snappers and specialist collectors, but it is well worth the trek from Barbican station just to see how the eye of the Magnum photographers capture the moment on the streets. Buildings and monuments remind us of the past but only the camera can capture the moment of reality. Passion and banality is equally frozen in time – the past preserved in black and white for all eyes to contemplate.
This is just the start. Cuba 50 is supported by the Cuban Ministry of Culture, Cuban Embassy, Cuba Solidarity Campaign and a number of unions, tourist and business interests. Further details can be obtained on their website http://www.cuba50.org or writing to:
Cuba 50 c/o Unite218 Green LanesLondon N4 2HB
The Magnum exhibition is open Wednesday to Friday from 11.30am - 4pm and it carries on till the end of the month. Ring the bell to gain admission at:
Magnum Print RoomMagnum Studios,63 Gee StreetLondon, EC1V 3RS
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Capitalism does not have the answers!
by Eric Trevett
“Not since the First World War has our banking system been so close to collapse,”
Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England.
“We who have looked to the self-interest of the lending institutes to protect shareholders’ equity, myself especially, are in a state of shock and disbelief,”
Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the United States Federal Reserve.
THE ECONOMIC and political crisis of capitalism once again proves the validity of the Marxist critique of capitalism. Those in the labour movement who contended that capitalism had found a way of becoming crisis-free and that boom-and-bust was a thing of the past have been proved wrong.
The present crisis may well prove to be the most profound in the history of the capitalist system. The capitalist media try to find a scapegoat to blame for this crisis. They point to greedy bankers and even Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been held responsible. But the real reason for the crisis is endemic to the capitalist system itself.
The crisis affects every capitalist country in the world, irrespective of whether they have capitalist or social democratic governments. The proof of this is the fast rising unemployment throughout the system with notable concerns going to the wall, giving rise to a further concentration of power to a shrinking elite.
Some people are amazed when told that the crisis results from too much production, too many goods, which the purchasing power of the market is unable to absorb. There simply is not enough purchasing power in the population.
Further proof of this is to be found in the sharp competition between enterprises resulting in sharp cuts in the price of commodities. At one time the rising price of oil up to about $150 a barrel was an exception to the general malaise. But that was caused by speculators and the price of a barrel has now sunk to under $40 a barrel, with the Middle East oil producers discussing cutting production in an effort to maintain prices and profits.
The letters of regret we had from gas and electricity companies that they were having to raise their prices substantially due to a sharp rise of fuel have not been followed by letters rejoicing that they are now able to cut the price of their products substantially.
The argument that the freeing of market forces would lead to a balancing out of supply and demand has also been exposed by the present crisis. Indeed the banks and motor corporations have turned to public funds to avoid bankruptcy. That means that taxation from the working classes is to be allocated to big business ventures.
The working class is to be even more philanthropic than those Robert Tressell wrote about in the book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
In the Unites States especially this development of bailing out the motor car industry is viewed with horror because it seems to smack of socialist legislation. Of course it’s no such thing and it undermines the argument against social ownership.
Capitalism needs a constantly expanding economy to realise maximum profits and to help establish political stability. Now there is contraction in the economy tens of thousands of workers are losing their jobs and half a million families are more than three months in arrears with their mortgage repayments.
Many of the recently made unemployed are from high salaries jobs and enjoyed big bonuses and lavish expense accounts. They thought they had secure jobs but the harsh realities of capitalism have ended that belief. They are workers and as such should be encouraged to participate in the struggles of the working class generally and its organisations. the answer, of course, is socialism
The answer to capitalism in crisis is, of course, socialism. To achieve that that capitalist state machine has to be replaced by a working class state machine. In the communist movement we put the issue more sharply: that the dictatorship of the capitalist class must be ended and the dictatorship of the proletariat established in its place.
Communists do not believe the state to be neutral; the capitalist state serves the interests of the capitalist class and the working class state serves the interests of the working class – and other sections of the population by putting an end to the exploitation of one person by another and landlordism.
Before socialism can be established there is much to be done in the field of organisational and ideological work. The working class has suffered some setbacks in the recent past. The defeat of the miners and the decimation of the engineering industry has weakened the trade union movement and undermined class consciousness.
But now there is growing anxiety among working people with growing discontent with the capitalist policies of the three major political parties.
There is not enough righteous anger over the domestic policies of privatisation and against the foreign policies, including the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and the obstacles that British and US imperialism have put up against effective solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The labour movement should take advantage of the opportunities arising from the capitalist crisis to rally the working class with a renewed commitment to achieve a socialist society.
Fascists are also active in Britain, aiming to take advantage of the situation to introduce a much more dictatorial system to defend capitalism. In Germany the most reactionary sections of the capitalist class used the fascists to maintain their power, with the persecution of trade union and labour activists and any progressive elements – and of course the Jewish communities.
An important part of the work of the labour movement is to actively oppose the fascists whenever and wherever they make their play. The struggle against racism is necessary in the struggle for working class unity around a revolutionary perspective.
To further strengthen the socialist movement we should fight to restore Clause Four to the Labour Party constitution, with the additional amendment that the transfer of power from the capitalist state to the workers’ state is an essential prerequisite to build a socialist society.
Today the governments of capitalist countries are desperately trying to find ways to resolve the crisis. One method being discussed is printing more money. We should remember that this was tried in Germany in the 1920s and it led to massive devaluation of the mark, so that is not the way forward.
From the working class point of view we should not be satisfied to find a way out of the crisis for a system that is obsolete. Our aim should be socialism.
History has proved that socialism cannot be attained by spontaneous struggle alone. It is necessary to build a party dedicated to leading, uniting and helping the working class to ensure its freedom to exploitation and social poverty.
The New Communist Party has obviously got a role to play in achieving this and on that basis we appeal for support in building our party and increasing the circulation of its paper, the New Worker.
“Not since the First World War has our banking system been so close to collapse,”
Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England.
“We who have looked to the self-interest of the lending institutes to protect shareholders’ equity, myself especially, are in a state of shock and disbelief,”
Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the United States Federal Reserve.
THE ECONOMIC and political crisis of capitalism once again proves the validity of the Marxist critique of capitalism. Those in the labour movement who contended that capitalism had found a way of becoming crisis-free and that boom-and-bust was a thing of the past have been proved wrong.
The present crisis may well prove to be the most profound in the history of the capitalist system. The capitalist media try to find a scapegoat to blame for this crisis. They point to greedy bankers and even Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been held responsible. But the real reason for the crisis is endemic to the capitalist system itself.
The crisis affects every capitalist country in the world, irrespective of whether they have capitalist or social democratic governments. The proof of this is the fast rising unemployment throughout the system with notable concerns going to the wall, giving rise to a further concentration of power to a shrinking elite.
Some people are amazed when told that the crisis results from too much production, too many goods, which the purchasing power of the market is unable to absorb. There simply is not enough purchasing power in the population.
Further proof of this is to be found in the sharp competition between enterprises resulting in sharp cuts in the price of commodities. At one time the rising price of oil up to about $150 a barrel was an exception to the general malaise. But that was caused by speculators and the price of a barrel has now sunk to under $40 a barrel, with the Middle East oil producers discussing cutting production in an effort to maintain prices and profits.
The letters of regret we had from gas and electricity companies that they were having to raise their prices substantially due to a sharp rise of fuel have not been followed by letters rejoicing that they are now able to cut the price of their products substantially.
The argument that the freeing of market forces would lead to a balancing out of supply and demand has also been exposed by the present crisis. Indeed the banks and motor corporations have turned to public funds to avoid bankruptcy. That means that taxation from the working classes is to be allocated to big business ventures.
The working class is to be even more philanthropic than those Robert Tressell wrote about in the book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
In the Unites States especially this development of bailing out the motor car industry is viewed with horror because it seems to smack of socialist legislation. Of course it’s no such thing and it undermines the argument against social ownership.
Capitalism needs a constantly expanding economy to realise maximum profits and to help establish political stability. Now there is contraction in the economy tens of thousands of workers are losing their jobs and half a million families are more than three months in arrears with their mortgage repayments.
Many of the recently made unemployed are from high salaries jobs and enjoyed big bonuses and lavish expense accounts. They thought they had secure jobs but the harsh realities of capitalism have ended that belief. They are workers and as such should be encouraged to participate in the struggles of the working class generally and its organisations. the answer, of course, is socialism
The answer to capitalism in crisis is, of course, socialism. To achieve that that capitalist state machine has to be replaced by a working class state machine. In the communist movement we put the issue more sharply: that the dictatorship of the capitalist class must be ended and the dictatorship of the proletariat established in its place.
Communists do not believe the state to be neutral; the capitalist state serves the interests of the capitalist class and the working class state serves the interests of the working class – and other sections of the population by putting an end to the exploitation of one person by another and landlordism.
Before socialism can be established there is much to be done in the field of organisational and ideological work. The working class has suffered some setbacks in the recent past. The defeat of the miners and the decimation of the engineering industry has weakened the trade union movement and undermined class consciousness.
But now there is growing anxiety among working people with growing discontent with the capitalist policies of the three major political parties.
There is not enough righteous anger over the domestic policies of privatisation and against the foreign policies, including the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and the obstacles that British and US imperialism have put up against effective solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The labour movement should take advantage of the opportunities arising from the capitalist crisis to rally the working class with a renewed commitment to achieve a socialist society.
Fascists are also active in Britain, aiming to take advantage of the situation to introduce a much more dictatorial system to defend capitalism. In Germany the most reactionary sections of the capitalist class used the fascists to maintain their power, with the persecution of trade union and labour activists and any progressive elements – and of course the Jewish communities.
An important part of the work of the labour movement is to actively oppose the fascists whenever and wherever they make their play. The struggle against racism is necessary in the struggle for working class unity around a revolutionary perspective.
To further strengthen the socialist movement we should fight to restore Clause Four to the Labour Party constitution, with the additional amendment that the transfer of power from the capitalist state to the workers’ state is an essential prerequisite to build a socialist society.
Today the governments of capitalist countries are desperately trying to find ways to resolve the crisis. One method being discussed is printing more money. We should remember that this was tried in Germany in the 1920s and it led to massive devaluation of the mark, so that is not the way forward.
From the working class point of view we should not be satisfied to find a way out of the crisis for a system that is obsolete. Our aim should be socialism.
History has proved that socialism cannot be attained by spontaneous struggle alone. It is necessary to build a party dedicated to leading, uniting and helping the working class to ensure its freedom to exploitation and social poverty.
The New Communist Party has obviously got a role to play in achieving this and on that basis we appeal for support in building our party and increasing the circulation of its paper, the New Worker.
Stop the Gaza Massacre!
ISRAELI forces are pounding the Palestinians as their deadly ground, sea and air assault on the Gaza Strip enters its second week. Over a thousand Arabs have been killed and thousands more wounded, mostly civilians like the 42 killed when a UN school was shelled by Israeli artillery on Tuesday.
Palestinian doctors say many families are in need of ambulances, but medical workers were struggling to reach casualties because they were being shot at by the Israelis. Iyad Nasr of the Red Cross in Gaza City said that the military operation has worsened the hardships created by the Israeli blockade over the last 18 months.
The United Nations says 13,000 people, over 2,000 families, have now been internally displaced because of the fighting, and that is just in the north of the Strip.
Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, says that there is no crisis and that aid is getting through, but Christopher Gunness, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman, said her denials were absurd. “The organisation for which I work – UNRWA– has approximately 9,000 to 10,000 workers on the ground. They are speaking with the ordinary civilians in Gaza... people are suffering,” he said. “A quarter of all those being killed now are civilians. So when I hear people say we’re doing our best to avoid civilian casualties that rings very hollow indeed.”
terror
Israel commandos backed by tanks and helicopter gunships are spreading terror across the towns and refugees camps in the enclave that shelters over a million and a half Palestinians but there’s no real plan to this invasion and their troops are acting in chaos and confusion. Hamas militiamen and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) commandos are putting up a fierce resistance in the streets and they say their fighters now control the agenda on the battlefield.
Palestinian partisans are trying to inflict as many casualties as they can on the Zionists while hoping to take some Israelis prisoner to use as bargaining chips when the guns eventually fall silent.
PFLP officer Abu Jamal said that the resistance movements are in a high state of unity and close communication and they are operating in full confidence of victory.
The resistance say they have taken two Israeli soldiers captive and Hamas fighters claim to have destroyed seven tanks and downed one helicopter gunship.
They put Israeli losses at 11 dead and 48 wounded in the fighting so far. Palestinian rockets are continuing to land deep into Israel hitting Israeli military bases and towns including Gedera, just 30 km south of Tel Aviv.
The resistance warn that others will be aimed at the Israeli nuclear research establishment in Dimona if the fighting continues.
The Israelis put their losses at six soldiers dead and 31 wounded including Colonel Avi Peled, the commander of the crack Golani Brigade who was seriously injured in fighting Monday night. They say nothing about prisoners but they admit that they have “lost contact” with one of their men.
The Americans blocked a Libyan-backed ceasefire proposal at the UN Security Council last weekend. But international efforts to stop the war are growing following the latest Israeli atrocities. Israel has agreed to halt the fighting for three hours a day to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and Hamas is now studying an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire backed by the Americans and the European Union. deep concern
But most Arabs believe that the Israelis will carry on fighting until the new American president is sworn in later in the month and Barak Obama is saying nothing apart from expressing his “deep concern” until he enters the Oval Office on 20th January.
Once again the world sees the true face of Zionism in action against the heroic and long-suffering Palestinian masses. In Britain and throughout the world people are taking to the streets to demand an immediate end to the slaughter in Gaza and for the complete restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs. Only then will the peace return to the Middle East.
Palestinian doctors say many families are in need of ambulances, but medical workers were struggling to reach casualties because they were being shot at by the Israelis. Iyad Nasr of the Red Cross in Gaza City said that the military operation has worsened the hardships created by the Israeli blockade over the last 18 months.
The United Nations says 13,000 people, over 2,000 families, have now been internally displaced because of the fighting, and that is just in the north of the Strip.
Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, says that there is no crisis and that aid is getting through, but Christopher Gunness, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman, said her denials were absurd. “The organisation for which I work – UNRWA– has approximately 9,000 to 10,000 workers on the ground. They are speaking with the ordinary civilians in Gaza... people are suffering,” he said. “A quarter of all those being killed now are civilians. So when I hear people say we’re doing our best to avoid civilian casualties that rings very hollow indeed.”
terror
Israel commandos backed by tanks and helicopter gunships are spreading terror across the towns and refugees camps in the enclave that shelters over a million and a half Palestinians but there’s no real plan to this invasion and their troops are acting in chaos and confusion. Hamas militiamen and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) commandos are putting up a fierce resistance in the streets and they say their fighters now control the agenda on the battlefield.
Palestinian partisans are trying to inflict as many casualties as they can on the Zionists while hoping to take some Israelis prisoner to use as bargaining chips when the guns eventually fall silent.
PFLP officer Abu Jamal said that the resistance movements are in a high state of unity and close communication and they are operating in full confidence of victory.
The resistance say they have taken two Israeli soldiers captive and Hamas fighters claim to have destroyed seven tanks and downed one helicopter gunship.
They put Israeli losses at 11 dead and 48 wounded in the fighting so far. Palestinian rockets are continuing to land deep into Israel hitting Israeli military bases and towns including Gedera, just 30 km south of Tel Aviv.
The resistance warn that others will be aimed at the Israeli nuclear research establishment in Dimona if the fighting continues.
The Israelis put their losses at six soldiers dead and 31 wounded including Colonel Avi Peled, the commander of the crack Golani Brigade who was seriously injured in fighting Monday night. They say nothing about prisoners but they admit that they have “lost contact” with one of their men.
The Americans blocked a Libyan-backed ceasefire proposal at the UN Security Council last weekend. But international efforts to stop the war are growing following the latest Israeli atrocities. Israel has agreed to halt the fighting for three hours a day to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and Hamas is now studying an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire backed by the Americans and the European Union. deep concern
But most Arabs believe that the Israelis will carry on fighting until the new American president is sworn in later in the month and Barak Obama is saying nothing apart from expressing his “deep concern” until he enters the Oval Office on 20th January.
Once again the world sees the true face of Zionism in action against the heroic and long-suffering Palestinian masses. In Britain and throughout the world people are taking to the streets to demand an immediate end to the slaughter in Gaza and for the complete restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs. Only then will the peace return to the Middle East.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Solidarity with the Palestinian people
We, communist and workers parties from all parts of the world, strongly condemn the repeated murderous air strikes by the Israeli air force on Gaza which resulted in the killing of over 340 Palestinians. By these brutal attacks and other crimes by the armed forces, the government of Israel try to achieve what was impossible by imposing the wall, the siege and blockade: to break the resistance of the Palestinian people.
The policy of genocide and state terrorism by the Israeli government, supported and endorsed by the powerful imperialist forces in the USA and EU and accepted by some Arab reactionary governments is a new provocation against the peoples and the worldwide solidarity movement. We call on the workers, women, youth and other sectors, all anti-imperialist and peace loving forces to mobilize against the criminal attacks and policy by the Israeli government, to demand immediate stop and sanctions against Israel. To develop immediate solidarity actions and humanitarian support for the Palestinian people.
Our parties express firm solidarity with the resistance against the aggressions, with the progressive, anti-imperialist and communist forces in Palestine and Israel, with all those fighting for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine within the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Free and independent Palestine!
Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
Workers' Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Chile
Socialist Workers´ Party of Croatia
Communist Party in Denmark, KPiD
Communist Party of Finland
Unified Communist Party of Georgia
German Communist Party - DKP
Tudeh Party of Iran
Communist Party of Israel
Party of the Italian Communists
Communist Party of Malta
Party of the Communists, Mexico
Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930)
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Sweden
Syrian Communist Party
Communist Party of Turkey
Communist Party of Uruguay
The policy of genocide and state terrorism by the Israeli government, supported and endorsed by the powerful imperialist forces in the USA and EU and accepted by some Arab reactionary governments is a new provocation against the peoples and the worldwide solidarity movement. We call on the workers, women, youth and other sectors, all anti-imperialist and peace loving forces to mobilize against the criminal attacks and policy by the Israeli government, to demand immediate stop and sanctions against Israel. To develop immediate solidarity actions and humanitarian support for the Palestinian people.
Our parties express firm solidarity with the resistance against the aggressions, with the progressive, anti-imperialist and communist forces in Palestine and Israel, with all those fighting for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine within the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Free and independent Palestine!
Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
Workers' Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Chile
Socialist Workers´ Party of Croatia
Communist Party in Denmark, KPiD
Communist Party of Finland
Unified Communist Party of Georgia
German Communist Party - DKP
Tudeh Party of Iran
Communist Party of Israel
Party of the Italian Communists
Communist Party of Malta
Party of the Communists, Mexico
Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930)
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Sweden
Syrian Communist Party
Communist Party of Turkey
Communist Party of Uruguay
Support Frederic Kanoute!
World Federation of Trade Unions
To: Spanish Football Federation
U.E.F.A.
To: Spanish Football Federation
U.E.F.A.
The World Federation of Trade Union representing 65 million members from 95 countries all over the World expresses its full support to Sevilla striker Frederic Kanoute, who is facing a fine from the Spanish football federation for revealing a T-shirt expressing support for Palestine during a match.
Kanoute lifted his Sevilla shirt over his head after scoring in the match against Deportivo La Coruña on Wednesday to display a T-shirt on which the word "Palestine'' was printed in several languages.
He had the right to express his support to the Palestine people. A crime is being committed in Gaza with more than 700 people killed until now and the international community is doing nothing to stop it.
Frederic Kanoute deserves congratulations because he has humanity and he is showing solidarity. The WFTU demands from the Spanish Football Federation to immediately stop their actions against Frederic Kanoute and to respect the right of football players to express their opinion. We are on his side.
Send protest letters to: Spanish Football Federation E-mail: rfef@rfef.es Fax: +34 914 959 801
U.E.F.A. Email: info@uefa.com Fax: +41 (0) 848 01 2727 / F. Kanoute: oumar@kanoute.com
THE SECRETARIAT
Athens
9th January 2009
World Peace Council call on Gaza
WPC statement of urgency!
No to the Israeli invasion to Gaza -Stop the massacre of the Palestinian people!
The World Peace Council (WPC) expresses its vehement condemnation of the yesterday’s invasion of Israel into the Gaza strip in Palestine. The Israeli cruelty has no end. After the week long bombardment of innocent children, women and civilian population, the heavy armed war machinery of Israel is escalating further its aggression with a ground invasion. The hundreds of dead Palestinians, the thousands of injured by Israeli bombs are crimes against humanity and have to be put to court as such.
The Israeli regime would not be able to commit those brutal attacks without the full support of the US administration (outgoing and incoming one). The position expressed by the Czech EU- Presidency (about “defensive character of the invasion”) shows the criminal complicity of the European Union, which is far away from being more human or even less a counter pole of the USA.
The government of Israel is counting also on the internal differences and contradictions amongst the Palestinians and the Arab world. This is the moment of highest responsibility and unity against the troops of invasion and occupation. We call upon all the peace loving forces in the region to unite against the imperialist plans in the Middle East, against the “procurator” of Imperialism in the region, the reactionary and inhuman Israeli regime.
We express our deep respect and solidarity to the forces struggling for peace inside Israel and we salute their brave protests and demonstration in Tel Aviv and other cities.
The World Peace Council is calling upon the Security Council of the UN and its Human Rights Council in Geneva, to prove their minimum respect to the founding Charta of the UNO and the Universal declaration of Human Rights, by condemning clearly the Israeli aggression and imposing an end to the invasion and the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, which is the first cause for all the suffering of the Palestinian People since 60 years now.
In this moment the peoples of the world have to react with massive political protests and actions against the injustice and genocide of the Palestinian people. The WPC calls for increased solidarity and humanitarian aid of all means and will take respective initiatives in the coming days.
The Secretariat of the WPC
World Peace Council, WPC Statement of Urgency
Wednesday 7th January 2009
http://www.wpc-in.org/ , mailto:info@wpc-in.org
10 Othonos St. 10557 Athens Greece
Tel: +30-210- 3316326 Fax: +30-210-3224302
No to the Israeli invasion to Gaza -Stop the massacre of the Palestinian people!
The World Peace Council (WPC) expresses its vehement condemnation of the yesterday’s invasion of Israel into the Gaza strip in Palestine. The Israeli cruelty has no end. After the week long bombardment of innocent children, women and civilian population, the heavy armed war machinery of Israel is escalating further its aggression with a ground invasion. The hundreds of dead Palestinians, the thousands of injured by Israeli bombs are crimes against humanity and have to be put to court as such.
The Israeli regime would not be able to commit those brutal attacks without the full support of the US administration (outgoing and incoming one). The position expressed by the Czech EU- Presidency (about “defensive character of the invasion”) shows the criminal complicity of the European Union, which is far away from being more human or even less a counter pole of the USA.
The government of Israel is counting also on the internal differences and contradictions amongst the Palestinians and the Arab world. This is the moment of highest responsibility and unity against the troops of invasion and occupation. We call upon all the peace loving forces in the region to unite against the imperialist plans in the Middle East, against the “procurator” of Imperialism in the region, the reactionary and inhuman Israeli regime.
We express our deep respect and solidarity to the forces struggling for peace inside Israel and we salute their brave protests and demonstration in Tel Aviv and other cities.
The World Peace Council is calling upon the Security Council of the UN and its Human Rights Council in Geneva, to prove their minimum respect to the founding Charta of the UNO and the Universal declaration of Human Rights, by condemning clearly the Israeli aggression and imposing an end to the invasion and the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, which is the first cause for all the suffering of the Palestinian People since 60 years now.
In this moment the peoples of the world have to react with massive political protests and actions against the injustice and genocide of the Palestinian people. The WPC calls for increased solidarity and humanitarian aid of all means and will take respective initiatives in the coming days.
The Secretariat of the WPC
World Peace Council, WPC Statement of Urgency
Wednesday 7th January 2009
http://www.wpc-in.org/ , mailto:info@wpc-in.org
10 Othonos St. 10557 Athens Greece
Tel: +30-210- 3316326 Fax: +30-210-3224302
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Chill the drills: save the world
by Renee Sams
THE MELTING of the Arctic ice is one of the clearest signals of global warming and scientists are now saying that there is nothing natural about the melting. They are confident that it is primarily due to pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.
Following the recent summers of record melting in the Arctic, the oil companies are eagerly awaiting permission to drill the first well in the National Wildlife Reserve while officials from the five Arctic nations hold urgent talks over the future of the Arctic.
The scramble for oil and other natural resources, which become more accessible as the ice is more rapidly thinning, intensified recently as Norway and Germany announced a new exploration partnership. And Russia has confirmed that its state-controlled oil companies would do business in the Arctic.
high stakes
The stakes are high not only for the environment and the climate but also for world energy supplies.
For many years the oil companies have maintained that there are still large reserves left. BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, published recently claims that there is still “enough ‘proven’ reserves to provide 40 years of consumption”.
Dr Colin Campbell, former chief geologist and vice-president of a list of major oil companies, including BP, Shell, Fina, Exxon and Chevron Texaco, admits that when he was the boss of an oil company he never told the truth: “It’s not part of the game,” he said.
But scientists are now warning that world oil supplies are set to run out even faster than expected and sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit. Dr Campbell explains that the peak of regular oil – the cheap and easy to extract stuff – has already been passed in 2005.
There is still the more difficult to extract heavy oil, deep sea reserves, polar regions and liquid taken from gas, but the peak will come as early as 2011.
There are still natural gas fields in Alaska, Siberia and the Middle East that could provide fuel for about 20 years longer than the world’s oil reserves. But although it is cleaner than oil it is still a fossil fuel which emits CO2.
In recent years the considerable gap between demand and supply has narrowed and last year all but disappeared. If consumption begins to exceed supply by as little as 10 or even 15 per cent it could cripple the oi-dependent industrial countries. Yet BP still flatly denies this scenario.
None of them disagree that world oil demand is surging. The rapid development of India and China plus the West’s reliance on oil means that a lot more oil will have to come from somewhere.
The four countries with the biggest reported oil reserves are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait but there are concerns about exactly how much they really have. In Kuwait last year a journalist found a document suggesting that the country’s real reserves were only half what was reported. Iran this year brought in oil rationing measures, the first major oil producing country to do so.
Over the past few years the biofuel industry has expanded enormously and the oil giants are leading the race to produce biofuel to replace the oil as it begins to run down.
Brazil, with an industry that only began in the 70s, has become the world’s second largest producer of biofuel crops and an agricultural superpower. The country was hard hit by the oil crisis and the then military government launched a subsidised drive to develop an alternative source of energy.
The authorities maintain that biofuel made from sugar cane, as opposed to corn, produces carbon monoxide emissions 90 per cent lower than petrol and that as sugar cane covers only five per cent of Brazil’s arable land and food prices are not affected.
rainforests
Now the Brazilian government has announced a ten-year plan to slash rainforest destruction by 70 per cent, after new figures showed that the destruction was rising again after a period of slow down.
But environment minister Carlos Minc made it clear that this reduction depends on Brazil receiving enough funds from foreign governments to fight the loggers, pay for the protection of the world’s largest tropical rainforest and combat global warming.
Prominent scientists have recently predicted and computer models show that the North Pole could become ice-free as early as 2030, much sooner than the pace predicted by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The big argument the five nations are having is not how to protect the Arctic environment but about which nation can claim which parts of the Arctic, particularly areas with potentially huge reserves of oil and gas, and the shipping routesLast year Russia planted a titanium flag at the North Pole, pointing out that the Unites States had not signed the international treaty governing land claims. By hosting the five-nation meeting, Denmark is trying to move on from these issues.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lies between the Brooks Range Mountains and the shores of the Beaufort Sea and it contains the greatest diversity of animal life of any conservation area in the circumpolar region.
But even though the IPCC has found that drilling for oil and gas would cause severe damage to the fragile infrastructure of the tundra, the mega oil corporations continue to concoct schemes to open up the region for drilling.
President Bush, who became President with the backing of the oil giant Exxon, is a great supporter of opening up the Arctic for exploitation. And a recent poll showed that a big majority of the American people do not want their cars fuelled by gasoline from Middle East countries that “support terrorists”.
ethanol
Environmentalists are also calling for cutbacks in ethanol subsidies, tougher environmental regulation and a new appreciation of scientific data that may bring them into conflict with some of the policies that Obama, who supported ethanol subsidies in the Senate, is likely to put forward.
At the European Union negotiations taking place in Brussels to tackle the climate crisis, they agreed to have10 per cent of vehicle fuel sourced with renewable fuels by 2020, in spite of warnings by scientists.
Reports from the United Nations and the World Bank have warned that many biofuels produce more greenhouse emissions than petroleum-based fuel and displace farmlands from their role of providing food.
Claude Turmes, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator on the issue, said: “The 10 per cent agrifuels target has been seriously undermined”.
The United Nations Commission on Climate Change in Poznan was held from 1st to 12th December and halfway through the agenda the leading countries were still stalling over the plan they had promised.
As President-elect Barack Obama does not take office until 20th January, whether he will “chill the drills” in Alaska will not be known until he gets round to debating the issue.
The environmental lobby will continue to keep him under intense pressure to not only save the fragile structure of the Arctic but save the rest of us from the rising tides that would be the result faster melting of the ice.
THE MELTING of the Arctic ice is one of the clearest signals of global warming and scientists are now saying that there is nothing natural about the melting. They are confident that it is primarily due to pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.
Following the recent summers of record melting in the Arctic, the oil companies are eagerly awaiting permission to drill the first well in the National Wildlife Reserve while officials from the five Arctic nations hold urgent talks over the future of the Arctic.
The scramble for oil and other natural resources, which become more accessible as the ice is more rapidly thinning, intensified recently as Norway and Germany announced a new exploration partnership. And Russia has confirmed that its state-controlled oil companies would do business in the Arctic.
high stakes
The stakes are high not only for the environment and the climate but also for world energy supplies.
For many years the oil companies have maintained that there are still large reserves left. BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, published recently claims that there is still “enough ‘proven’ reserves to provide 40 years of consumption”.
Dr Colin Campbell, former chief geologist and vice-president of a list of major oil companies, including BP, Shell, Fina, Exxon and Chevron Texaco, admits that when he was the boss of an oil company he never told the truth: “It’s not part of the game,” he said.
But scientists are now warning that world oil supplies are set to run out even faster than expected and sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit. Dr Campbell explains that the peak of regular oil – the cheap and easy to extract stuff – has already been passed in 2005.
There is still the more difficult to extract heavy oil, deep sea reserves, polar regions and liquid taken from gas, but the peak will come as early as 2011.
There are still natural gas fields in Alaska, Siberia and the Middle East that could provide fuel for about 20 years longer than the world’s oil reserves. But although it is cleaner than oil it is still a fossil fuel which emits CO2.
In recent years the considerable gap between demand and supply has narrowed and last year all but disappeared. If consumption begins to exceed supply by as little as 10 or even 15 per cent it could cripple the oi-dependent industrial countries. Yet BP still flatly denies this scenario.
None of them disagree that world oil demand is surging. The rapid development of India and China plus the West’s reliance on oil means that a lot more oil will have to come from somewhere.
The four countries with the biggest reported oil reserves are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait but there are concerns about exactly how much they really have. In Kuwait last year a journalist found a document suggesting that the country’s real reserves were only half what was reported. Iran this year brought in oil rationing measures, the first major oil producing country to do so.
Over the past few years the biofuel industry has expanded enormously and the oil giants are leading the race to produce biofuel to replace the oil as it begins to run down.
Brazil, with an industry that only began in the 70s, has become the world’s second largest producer of biofuel crops and an agricultural superpower. The country was hard hit by the oil crisis and the then military government launched a subsidised drive to develop an alternative source of energy.
The authorities maintain that biofuel made from sugar cane, as opposed to corn, produces carbon monoxide emissions 90 per cent lower than petrol and that as sugar cane covers only five per cent of Brazil’s arable land and food prices are not affected.
rainforests
Now the Brazilian government has announced a ten-year plan to slash rainforest destruction by 70 per cent, after new figures showed that the destruction was rising again after a period of slow down.
But environment minister Carlos Minc made it clear that this reduction depends on Brazil receiving enough funds from foreign governments to fight the loggers, pay for the protection of the world’s largest tropical rainforest and combat global warming.
Prominent scientists have recently predicted and computer models show that the North Pole could become ice-free as early as 2030, much sooner than the pace predicted by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The big argument the five nations are having is not how to protect the Arctic environment but about which nation can claim which parts of the Arctic, particularly areas with potentially huge reserves of oil and gas, and the shipping routesLast year Russia planted a titanium flag at the North Pole, pointing out that the Unites States had not signed the international treaty governing land claims. By hosting the five-nation meeting, Denmark is trying to move on from these issues.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lies between the Brooks Range Mountains and the shores of the Beaufort Sea and it contains the greatest diversity of animal life of any conservation area in the circumpolar region.
But even though the IPCC has found that drilling for oil and gas would cause severe damage to the fragile infrastructure of the tundra, the mega oil corporations continue to concoct schemes to open up the region for drilling.
President Bush, who became President with the backing of the oil giant Exxon, is a great supporter of opening up the Arctic for exploitation. And a recent poll showed that a big majority of the American people do not want their cars fuelled by gasoline from Middle East countries that “support terrorists”.
ethanol
Environmentalists are also calling for cutbacks in ethanol subsidies, tougher environmental regulation and a new appreciation of scientific data that may bring them into conflict with some of the policies that Obama, who supported ethanol subsidies in the Senate, is likely to put forward.
At the European Union negotiations taking place in Brussels to tackle the climate crisis, they agreed to have10 per cent of vehicle fuel sourced with renewable fuels by 2020, in spite of warnings by scientists.
Reports from the United Nations and the World Bank have warned that many biofuels produce more greenhouse emissions than petroleum-based fuel and displace farmlands from their role of providing food.
Claude Turmes, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator on the issue, said: “The 10 per cent agrifuels target has been seriously undermined”.
The United Nations Commission on Climate Change in Poznan was held from 1st to 12th December and halfway through the agenda the leading countries were still stalling over the plan they had promised.
As President-elect Barack Obama does not take office until 20th January, whether he will “chill the drills” in Alaska will not be known until he gets round to debating the issue.
The environmental lobby will continue to keep him under intense pressure to not only save the fragile structure of the Arctic but save the rest of us from the rising tides that would be the result faster melting of the ice.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Joint Statement on the EU Working Time Directive
Joint Statement on the EU Working Time Directive
Communist Party of Britain
New Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party in Denmark
Communist Party of Finland
Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of Ireland
Socialist Party of Latvia
Communist Party of Luxembourg
Communist Party of Poland
Portuguese Communist Party
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Communist Party of Spain
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Sweden
Friday, December 05, 2008
The wind of history
by our European Affairs Correspondent
RUSSIA’S communists must be ready to take power. That was the message of Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov at the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) in Moscow last weekend.
“The wind of history is blowing in our sails again ... At this time of crisis the world of imperialism is starting to die. We are standing on the threshold of political and social shifts,” Zyuganov said in a two-hour speech opening the Congress attended by delegates and observers from all over the Russian Federation, as well as 88 fraternal delegations from communist and progressive movements.
New Communist Party of Britain leader Andy Brooks and Richard Bos from the Central Committee represented the Party at the Congress and took part in a number of solidarity events held during the Congress.
The CPRF was established in 1993 when the ban on communists was lifted in Russia. It is now the biggest communist movement in the country with some 160,000 members and four million active supporters. It is the second biggest parliamentary party with 57 seats in the 450-strong Duma. Zyuganov won over 13 million votes in last March’s presidential election, which the communists say was rigged by Putin’s United Russia party.
Zyuganov, 64, has led the party from its foundation and he was re-elected on Sunday along with 105 members of the Central Committee, 75 of whom are under 40.
But the CPRF general secretary said the average age of the membership was a cause for concern. Most of the activists are well over 50. People under 30 barely make up five to seven per cent of the Party. “Given the average age of its members, the party will find it hard to be active in the event of a near inevitable deterioration of the situation in the country,” he warned.
The CPRF is the direct Russian successor of the old CPSU – but not that of the CPSU’s discredited politicians who led the Soviet Union to disaster in its final years. Zyuganov dismissed claims in the Russian media that his party was drifting towards social-democracy. “We categorically reject all these allegations. We believe that they are prompted either by incompetence or by wishful thinking. Social democracy is not our path,” he declared.
The CPRF harks back to the great victories of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin. Though Zyuganov referred to the “abuses of power” and “tragic mistakes” during the political struggles of the 1930s he added: “We have no right to forget that it was in the 1930s that the powerful production and scientific base was laid which ensured the defeat of fascism and still forms the foundation of the country’s economy.”
Zyuganov condemned the corrupt Putin government whose only successes rested on windfall oil profits that were now evaporating and whose sole objective was to cling on to power at all costs. “The ruling class is an alliance of the oligarchy, the new bourgeoisie and the top bureaucrats, who between them own the bulk of the means of production and wield real power”, he said. The working class has shrunk numerically because of the policy of deindustrial-isation and the peasantry in the devastated Russian countryside fares even worse and it has become depoliticised and déclassé.
The communist party has drawn up a programme to restore the rights of working people and prevent the collapse of the Russian economy, including the renationalisation of mining, energy and other strategic sectors. But this, Zyuganov said, would be impossible to implement in the framework of the current system dominated by bureaucrats and oligarchs.
“At one time we believed that we could come to power by taking part in elections at various levels. Now, given massive election rigging and the severe pressure of the authorities on society, this is an unlikely scenario” he said while stressing that the CPRF would “use everything – parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms and methods of struggle – to weaken the ruling group and to expose its essence in the eyes of our compatriots”.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Dubya Years
Film review
by Andy Brooks
W: Director Oliver Stone, 129 mins, 2008, general release.
IN YEARS to come perhaps George W Bush will be recalled as the man who lost the Iraq War or the Republican president who nationalised the banks. Whether he will be remembered as a half-wit manoeuvred into the war for oil by corporate America or the man with a chip on his shoulder because his old money domineering father thought his younger brother Jeb was better than him remains to be seen.
But that’s the central thrust of Oliver Stone’s epic film about “Dubya’s” eight years which was timed for the November US presidential elections but scripted well before the sub-prime crisis plunged the United States and the rest of the world into the biggest slump since 1929.
It’s a star-spangled cast with Josh Brolin as Dubya, James Cromwell as President Bush the father, Elizabeth Banks as Dubya’s wife, Ellen Burstyn as his mother, Richard Dreyfuss as the sinister vice-president Dick Cheney and a brilliant portrayal by Toby Jones of Carl Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff.
Stone says he wanted to understand and not to hurt George W Bush in this biopic but his depiction of an arrogant and immensely vain politician beset with drink problems and an inferiority complex is plainly simplistic and hardly flattering. This isn’t a drama-documentary but a tragedy of sub-Shakespearean proportions laced with satirical references to Bush’s rise to power which sadly may not be readily understood by a British audience.
There are some brilliant scenes in the film like Cheney’s frank call to invade Iraq to build a new American “empire” based on the total control of the world’s oil supplies. But the running metaphor of this film is Bush’s lust for glory on the baseball field, a game he never apparently excelled in, transferred to his quest for success in the political arena.
None of the major players are introduced and while the more obvious characters are instantly recognisable like that played by Thandie Newton, a ringer for Condoleezza Rice, others like “Rummy”, Bush’s defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, or Carl Rove appear without any dramatic introduction or explanation of who and what they are.
This may not be a problem for the American audience the film is aimed at but it certainly will puzzle, confuse and disappoint the general cinema-going public this side of the Atlantic.
by Andy Brooks
W: Director Oliver Stone, 129 mins, 2008, general release.
IN YEARS to come perhaps George W Bush will be recalled as the man who lost the Iraq War or the Republican president who nationalised the banks. Whether he will be remembered as a half-wit manoeuvred into the war for oil by corporate America or the man with a chip on his shoulder because his old money domineering father thought his younger brother Jeb was better than him remains to be seen.
But that’s the central thrust of Oliver Stone’s epic film about “Dubya’s” eight years which was timed for the November US presidential elections but scripted well before the sub-prime crisis plunged the United States and the rest of the world into the biggest slump since 1929.
It’s a star-spangled cast with Josh Brolin as Dubya, James Cromwell as President Bush the father, Elizabeth Banks as Dubya’s wife, Ellen Burstyn as his mother, Richard Dreyfuss as the sinister vice-president Dick Cheney and a brilliant portrayal by Toby Jones of Carl Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff.
Stone says he wanted to understand and not to hurt George W Bush in this biopic but his depiction of an arrogant and immensely vain politician beset with drink problems and an inferiority complex is plainly simplistic and hardly flattering. This isn’t a drama-documentary but a tragedy of sub-Shakespearean proportions laced with satirical references to Bush’s rise to power which sadly may not be readily understood by a British audience.
There are some brilliant scenes in the film like Cheney’s frank call to invade Iraq to build a new American “empire” based on the total control of the world’s oil supplies. But the running metaphor of this film is Bush’s lust for glory on the baseball field, a game he never apparently excelled in, transferred to his quest for success in the political arena.
None of the major players are introduced and while the more obvious characters are instantly recognisable like that played by Thandie Newton, a ringer for Condoleezza Rice, others like “Rummy”, Bush’s defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, or Carl Rove appear without any dramatic introduction or explanation of who and what they are.
This may not be a problem for the American audience the film is aimed at but it certainly will puzzle, confuse and disappoint the general cinema-going public this side of the Atlantic.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Peace campaigning at Aldermaston
by Ray Davies
THE SUCCESS of the blockade of Aldermaston Weapons Establishment on 27th October 2008 exceeded our wildest expectations. Sunday was spent in non-violent direct action training, where the emphasis was on no drugs, alcohol, no abuse of the police, no carrying of implements which could be construed as weapons, and show respect to everyone concerned.
Amongst the 350 who turned up, there were many young people from 18-25 and many others who had never been on any actions before.
Our task was to blockade the Construction Gate, through which much of the heavy material for building the new laser facility is transported.
A perfect strategy was developed and each gate was to be manned by those who were prepared to be arrested and those who would be legal support.
We spent the evening practicing training for the following morning, and discussing the reasons why we were there.
For me it was obvious, having two young children – Tad and Carwyn, both at school, who want a future, and who represent all the young people throughout the world who also want a future.
The financial crisis crippling the country, people losing their homes and their jobs; yet this Government was determined to spend over £50 billion to build a new generation of nuclear warheads to add to the obscene number we already have and violated Britain’s policy of non proliferation.
The warehouse in which we were stopping held 150 people, and by the end of the night sleeping bags filled every nook and cranny in every available room. Other facilities in Reading and Newbury housed yet more demonstrators.
Many people came early in the morning to join the blockade. At 4:15am the whole place awoke to the loudest alarm clock I’ve ever heard. By half-past-four, everyone was having breakfast.
Outside, the police were already searching the vehicles with their torches, taking masses of photographs.
On the 20 minute journey from Reading to the AWE, it was agreed that Marcus, Hutt Diane and myself would lock on. Six others would also be arrestable, locking their arms around the four of us.
The non arrestables would rush out with the banners to create a diversion, whilst we with our tubes already locked on would rush out and blockade the construction gate.
As we approached Aldermaston, the police were everywhere, reporting our progress. Mike, our driver from London, was brilliant; he slowed down just enough to allow people to rush out to create a diversion, while we followed a few seconds later and planted ourselves flat out on the floor before the police could stop us.
It was quite obvious that we had better preparation than the police. For the first hour, the adrenalin kept us warm, but the temperature was dropping rapidly, and by 10am, legs and feet were numb with cold.
We were cheered by the fact that all the other gates had been successfully blocked. The peace campaigners who could not be arrested were absolutely wonderful, pushing bananas and cereal bars into us, keeping our energy and spirits high. We sang a croaky We shall not be moved and Down by the riverside.
Some asked, “Where is Côr Cochion?” They thought when I arrived with my red beret the night before, that I had brought the Red Choir with me.
At 10:30am two large vehicles came from the base, and out poured an army of police in riot type gear. They immediately brought out heavy screens to isolate us from the rest of the protestors.
Two Reading policemen who had arrested me at Burfield a year ago came up to me and told me that they had checked up on their notes from last year – I lived at 172 Pandy Rd Bedwas, and this information would be passed on to the appropriate authorities.
This new bunch of energetic police, armed with equipment to cut away the arm locks, were extremely polite, with “yes please”, and “no thank you sir”.
One came up to me and said, “Mr Davies, I’m just going to put my fingers down the tube, sir, to see how you are hooked on”. He rammed his two fingers into the tube and twisted it around, giving me an excruciating jab of pain, and smiled and said he was sorry.
Suddenly there was pandemonium. The inspector called everyone away from the operation, and within 10 minutes the blue plastic barriers were removed and they all disappeared from the scene.
Shortly afterwards our gate support woman told us that 20 youngsters on Tadley gate had superglued themselves together and had all been arrested – a painful operation – and the gate cleared.
Most of the police moved away. This was immediately followed by people using tall tripods and stilts, who attached themselves to Tadley Gate, blocking the entrance and stopping the traffic which had only just started moving again.
Meanwhile at the construction gate, Diane felt ill, and had to disentangle herself from the lockon; but the three of us remaining were sufficient to block the entrance. All of us had gone through the pain barrier of our need to use the toilet, and our numb hands and feet.
We were told that the base was expected to be blocked until 12 o’clock, by which time most of the base would be cleared of protesters.
The police themselves expected to finish well before then; but by three minutes to 12 the police had barely cleared the tripod from Tadley gate, and we started the countdown to 12.
The police whistle went and they all left the gate. It was a total victory for the protesters, a wonderful achievement by Trident Ploughshares, CND, and all those who participated.
We had totally blocked the whole base for three hours, and no traffic had gone through; and we partially blocked it for a further two hours.
We beat the police tactically; they had obviously underestimated the number of protesters, and did not have the resources to deal with determined peace activists.
I shall look back with a great deal of pride on this day of action and wonderful memories of fantastic people, who more than make up for the Blairs and Bushes and Camerons of the world.
THE SUCCESS of the blockade of Aldermaston Weapons Establishment on 27th October 2008 exceeded our wildest expectations. Sunday was spent in non-violent direct action training, where the emphasis was on no drugs, alcohol, no abuse of the police, no carrying of implements which could be construed as weapons, and show respect to everyone concerned.
Amongst the 350 who turned up, there were many young people from 18-25 and many others who had never been on any actions before.
Our task was to blockade the Construction Gate, through which much of the heavy material for building the new laser facility is transported.
A perfect strategy was developed and each gate was to be manned by those who were prepared to be arrested and those who would be legal support.
We spent the evening practicing training for the following morning, and discussing the reasons why we were there.
For me it was obvious, having two young children – Tad and Carwyn, both at school, who want a future, and who represent all the young people throughout the world who also want a future.
The financial crisis crippling the country, people losing their homes and their jobs; yet this Government was determined to spend over £50 billion to build a new generation of nuclear warheads to add to the obscene number we already have and violated Britain’s policy of non proliferation.
The warehouse in which we were stopping held 150 people, and by the end of the night sleeping bags filled every nook and cranny in every available room. Other facilities in Reading and Newbury housed yet more demonstrators.
Many people came early in the morning to join the blockade. At 4:15am the whole place awoke to the loudest alarm clock I’ve ever heard. By half-past-four, everyone was having breakfast.
Outside, the police were already searching the vehicles with their torches, taking masses of photographs.
On the 20 minute journey from Reading to the AWE, it was agreed that Marcus, Hutt Diane and myself would lock on. Six others would also be arrestable, locking their arms around the four of us.
The non arrestables would rush out with the banners to create a diversion, whilst we with our tubes already locked on would rush out and blockade the construction gate.
As we approached Aldermaston, the police were everywhere, reporting our progress. Mike, our driver from London, was brilliant; he slowed down just enough to allow people to rush out to create a diversion, while we followed a few seconds later and planted ourselves flat out on the floor before the police could stop us.
It was quite obvious that we had better preparation than the police. For the first hour, the adrenalin kept us warm, but the temperature was dropping rapidly, and by 10am, legs and feet were numb with cold.
We were cheered by the fact that all the other gates had been successfully blocked. The peace campaigners who could not be arrested were absolutely wonderful, pushing bananas and cereal bars into us, keeping our energy and spirits high. We sang a croaky We shall not be moved and Down by the riverside.
Some asked, “Where is Côr Cochion?” They thought when I arrived with my red beret the night before, that I had brought the Red Choir with me.
At 10:30am two large vehicles came from the base, and out poured an army of police in riot type gear. They immediately brought out heavy screens to isolate us from the rest of the protestors.
Two Reading policemen who had arrested me at Burfield a year ago came up to me and told me that they had checked up on their notes from last year – I lived at 172 Pandy Rd Bedwas, and this information would be passed on to the appropriate authorities.
This new bunch of energetic police, armed with equipment to cut away the arm locks, were extremely polite, with “yes please”, and “no thank you sir”.
One came up to me and said, “Mr Davies, I’m just going to put my fingers down the tube, sir, to see how you are hooked on”. He rammed his two fingers into the tube and twisted it around, giving me an excruciating jab of pain, and smiled and said he was sorry.
Suddenly there was pandemonium. The inspector called everyone away from the operation, and within 10 minutes the blue plastic barriers were removed and they all disappeared from the scene.
Shortly afterwards our gate support woman told us that 20 youngsters on Tadley gate had superglued themselves together and had all been arrested – a painful operation – and the gate cleared.
Most of the police moved away. This was immediately followed by people using tall tripods and stilts, who attached themselves to Tadley Gate, blocking the entrance and stopping the traffic which had only just started moving again.
Meanwhile at the construction gate, Diane felt ill, and had to disentangle herself from the lockon; but the three of us remaining were sufficient to block the entrance. All of us had gone through the pain barrier of our need to use the toilet, and our numb hands and feet.
We were told that the base was expected to be blocked until 12 o’clock, by which time most of the base would be cleared of protesters.
The police themselves expected to finish well before then; but by three minutes to 12 the police had barely cleared the tripod from Tadley gate, and we started the countdown to 12.
The police whistle went and they all left the gate. It was a total victory for the protesters, a wonderful achievement by Trident Ploughshares, CND, and all those who participated.
We had totally blocked the whole base for three hours, and no traffic had gone through; and we partially blocked it for a further two hours.
We beat the police tactically; they had obviously underestimated the number of protesters, and did not have the resources to deal with determined peace activists.
I shall look back with a great deal of pride on this day of action and wonderful memories of fantastic people, who more than make up for the Blairs and Bushes and Camerons of the world.
Friday, October 31, 2008
We must dare to invent the future!
The 25th anniversary of the Burkina Faso revolution
by Edwin Bentley
BURKINA Faso was different. Foreign dignitaries arriving in the capital, Ouagadougou, during the 1980s would be picked up at the airport in an old Renault 5 from the government’s transport pool. The minister of education of this West African country received the same wages as a schoolteacher, and Burkinabé diplomats attending United Nations meetings in Geneva would share a room in the cheapest bed and breakfast just across the border in France to save money.
No Mercedes, no shopping trips to Paris and London, no Swiss bank accounts. This was a country that had embraced its reality as an underdeveloped ex-colonial backwater, and in so doing had found the strength, unity, and dignity to look to the future with optimism.
From 1983 to 1987 the people of this West African country – previously known as Upper Volta – lived through a revolution which we can now see as a process of national liberation that shook off the shackles of neo-colonialism. The revolution was eventually crushed by its enemies, but as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Burkina Faso revolution we can celebrate its achievements and value it as a shining example for future African liberation.
Formal independence from France in 1960 had changed nothing for the vast majority of the seven million Burkinabé (as the people are called) who endured 98 per cent illiteracy in rural areas, a total absence of healthcare, feudal social structures, and rampant corruption by the tiny ruling class of some 30,000 government employees and landowners.
The Burkina Faso revolution was a mass movement, but it was lead, inspired, and represented by a young army officer, Captain Thomas Sankara. Sankara was born the son of a low-ranking colonial policeman on 21st December 1949 in the town of Yako. He always said how lucky he had been to receive a secondary education, something completely outside the dreams of the majority of his countrymen. Sankara joined the army and did much of his training overseas, particularly in Madagascar. It was there that he became politicised, as a consequence of witnessing a wave of strikes and demonstrations in 1972. Military duties back home were interrupted by further training and studies in Morocco and France. These travels lead to Sankara’s first contact with revolutionary ideas. “Thanks to reading, but above all thanks to discussions with Marxists on the reality of our country, I came to Marxism.” Together with like-minded military personnel, he formed an organised communist group within the army.
A gifted orator, strikingly handsome and with boundless energy, Sankara was invited to join the progressive military government of Jean-Baptiste Ouedragou in January 1983, and served as prime minister, but this government was overthrown by yet another coup on May 17th. Sankara and his closest collaborators Henri Zongo and Jean Lingani were arrested for a while, and on their release they worked underground to organise opposition to the reactionary regime in power. Meanwhile another of Sankara’s closest supporters, Blaise Compaoré, held out against the régime at the Army base in the town of Po. Sankara, Lingani, and Zongo and a large number of supporters escaped to Po. It was from there that the revolution started. On 4th August 1983 Blaise Compaoré and 200 soldiers marched on Ouagadougou the capital, overthrew the government and formed the Conseil National de la Révolution (National Council of the Revolution, or CNR), with Thomas Sankara as president.
From the first day of the revolution, in his broadcast to the nation on the night of 4th August, Sankara invited the people to form local Comités de Défense de la Révolution (Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, or CDR). These CDR became the method for exercising direct democratic control over the organs of state and local administration. Members were elected by direct voting by everyone in the village or urban neighbourhood. Not only within the country, but also amongst Burkinabé overseas, the CDR were the everyday instruments of democratic power.
Sankara saw his main role as one of animating and encouraging the CDR under the slogan “Raise consciousness! Act! Produce!”, helping ordinary working people to understand that they could run their country; that power really did lie in their hands, and that everyone had a part to play. Of course, there were many mistakes caused by human error and petty squabbles, but the CDR meant that for the first time every Burkinabé had a say in public life. As Sankara said, “We must dare to invent the future.”
The legal system of the country had remained unchanged since colonial days, and represented the interests of the former ruling elite. The courts and the old laws were therefore replaced from January 1984 by the Tribuneaux Populaires de la Revolution (TPR, or People’s Revolutionary Courts), with the judges all appointed from among the working people. On 3rd January, Sankara told the first session of the TPR: “There is no need for the judges to know the old laws; they only need to let themselves be guided by their sense of popular justice.” He made it clear that the main purpose of the TPR was: “To bring to light and publicly expose all the hidden social and political sides to the crimes perpetrated against the people, and to help them understand the consequences of them in order to draw lessons of social morality and practical politics.” Perhaps surprisingly to many observers, the TPR turned out to be remarkably successful in combating all sorts of crime, by helping people understand that criminal behaviour and corruption had no place in a socialist society.
On the first anniversary of the revolution, the name of Upper Volta was changed to Burkina Faso, which in the local languages means “The Land of Upright People”. Speaking during a cultural visit to Harlem in New York later that year, Sankara explained that “Upper Volta” was a purely colonial name, and that adopting a new name for the country symbolised its re-birth. He was deeply aware that all of Africa had been divided indiscriminately by the European imperialists, and that virtually none of the African countries had rational boundaries. But Sankara knew that it was impossible to turn the clock back to some imaginary pre-colonial golden age, and concentrated on accepting present-day realities and starting again to build something new.
“Starting from scratch” was certainly the core slogan of the Burkinabé revolution. The CNR never once proposed grandiose prestige projects. It focussed on low-technology plans that would lead to the greatest possible improvement in the lives of people within a sometimes non-existent budget. The country simply did not have the resources to provide schools for every child at once, so a campaign was launched to ensure that everyone who knew how to read and write would teach a certain number of others. In just the first two years of the revolution, literacy was almost trebled from eight per cent to 22 per cent, and 35,000 adults were trained as literacy instructors.
In 1983, Burkina Faso had one doctor per 48,000 inhabitants and one of the highest mortality rates in the world. The CNR rapidly moved to make basic healthcare available to everyone, and for the first time established centres for maternity and baby care. Perhaps the greatest achievement was the vaccination programme. In just two weeks in 1985, for example, volunteer health workers vaccinated 2.5 million children against measles, meningitis, and yellow fever. And these were not just Burkinabé children; foreigners crossed the borders and were vaccinated too. After only two years, by 1985 infant mortality had fallen from 208 to 145 for every 1,000 live births. By early 1987 river blindness – onchocerciasis — had been completely eliminated from the country.
Innovative technology was sometimes amazing in its simplicity, such as the mass manufacture by hand of thousands of simple clay stoves to replace the open fires that most people had used for cooking. The northern parts of Burkina Faso are in the Sahel, the very arid region on the edge of the Sahara. Because of the need to provide wood for cooking, deforestation had taken place at an alarming rate. The clay stoves were introduced to reduce wood consumption. Direct measures to protect the environment included mass tree planting; over a 15-month period 10 million trees were planted, and in the villages and settled agricultural areas each family was encouraged to plant 100 trees a year and take care of them. In towns, anyone given the tenancy of municipal housing was evicted if they failed to look after the trees for which they were responsible. In the villages, local people were entrusted with the management of forestry resources.
Agriculture employed the vast majority of Burkinabé, but feudal patterns of tenancy prevailed. The landowners were able to demand unpaid labour and tribute payments from their tenants. The CNR abolished these feudal rights, nationalised and redistributed land, and encouraged co-operatives. A National Union of Peasants was established. Irrigation was an age-old problem and there were no funds to build concrete dams, so with all available hands taking part, villages built their own simple earth dams, with reservoirs for the dry season. Agricultural production increased. For the first time ever, public housing schemes were launched. Just simple two-roomed bungalows built with mud bricks and managed by the local CDR, but something previously unimaginable.
But it was perhaps in the field of the emancipation of women that Sankara’s ideas had most impact. Sankara was profoundly influenced by Engels’ writings on the origins of social structures, and he applied them to the realities of Burkina Faso, where women did most of the manual work without enjoying any rights. He taught that women suffered doubly in neo-colonial societies. Firstly, they experienced the same suffering as men, and secondly, they were subjected to additional suffering by men! “Exploited in the fields and at home, yet playing the role of a faceless, voiceless extra. The pivot, yet in chains. Female shadow of the male shadow.”
Sankara and the CNR – which itself included women members – ensured that women were fully involved in decision making and public administration. As he said: ”The genuine emancipation of women is one that entrusts responsibilities to women, that involves them in productive capacity and in the different fights the people face.” Women played a powerful role in the CDR, served as ministers and as provincial governors. Forced marriages, polygamy, and genital mutilation were forbidden and family planning promoted.
Revolutionary Burkina Faso had close ties with progressive governments throughout the world, but maintained membership of the non-aligned movement and was the client state of no one. Sankara visited the Soviet Union in October 1986, but the closest international ties were with Nicaragua and Cuba and, in Africa itself, Mozambique. Samora Machel was something of a hero for Sankara, and the two were personal friends. Machel’s assassination by South African agents in an aircraft explosion was a cause for great sadness.
Burkina Faso was a good friend of the Polisario Front that sought the independence of the former Spanish Sahara from Moroccan occupation, and supported the cause of Palestinian liberation. The generally progressive government of Gerry Rawlings in neighbouring Ghana was friendly towards the Revolution, and there were joint military manoeuvres, but most West African countries were at best cool and often hostile towards Burkina Faso. On Christmas day 1985 troops from the neighbouring country of Mali even briefly attacked Burkina Faso following a dispute over the frontier.
Relations with Europe and North America were very difficult, but the CNR had no expectation of a helping hand from countries that were only interested in the exploitation of Africa. Sankara openly rejected aid from the imperialist countries, pointing out that hand-outs from the rich simply created a culture of debt and dependency and destroyed emerging local economies.
Burkina Faso was capable of feeding itself, and it was up to the Burkinabé to get their own house in order. Technical and social help was another matter when it came from friendly countries like Cuba, but the CNR was always aware of the impossibility of receiving no-strings help from the imperialists. When a French politician told Sankara that West Africans should be grateful for all the help they received from France, the Burkinabé leader replied that the French should be grateful for all the Africans who spent their lives sweeping the streets of Paris and cleaning the Metro!
What went wrong, when the Burkinabé revolution had clearly been such a success? Sankara himself had admitted in his speech on the fourth anniversary of the Revolution that time was needed to establish proper political structures. The CDR had functioned well, but they were clearly not a political party and the level of political education was low.
Sankara wanted everyone to take the time to catch up; revolutionary enthusiasm had to be properly channelled into a Marxist-Leninist party. This level-headedness by Sankara was opposed by ultra-leftist elements who wanted to go full steam ahead in immediately overthrowing all remaining vestiges of pre-revolutionary Burkina Faso without thought to the consequences. Some commentators have classified these people as “Maoists”, whereas they exhibited all the characteristics of Trotskyites in condemning everyone and everything and demanding immediate solutions.
These ultra-leftists, as is so often the case, made common cause with feudal landowners and the old ruling families, and with government employees who wanted to get back to the days of graft and corruption. To this alliance can be added the neo-colonialist leaders of neighbouring countries, particularly Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, who feared the export of the Burkinabé revolution, and also the French government of Mitterrand. Inevitably, Burkina Faso’s growing links with Nicaragua and Cuba also made it a target of the United States.
Sankara undoubtedly contributed to his own demise by his openness and transparent honesty in everything he did. An austere but friendly soldier who was happy to lead a spartan lifestyle, he upset those who were not prepared to make personal sacrifices and this lead to vendettas against him. Sankara was sometimes naive and assumed that everyone shared his values. Earlier that year, for example, he had sought to re-appoint schoolteachers who had been dismissed for taking a counter-revolutionary stand. In good faith, he believed that the teachers had mended their ways, but his opponents in the CNR used this decision as another way of attacking him.
On 15th October 1987, Thomas Sankara and 12 others were gunned down by an aide of Blaise Compaoré, who had been one of the leading lights of the revolution. Compaoré immediately seized power, abolished the National Council of the Revolution (CNR) and dissolved the CDR. Resistance went on for a few days, but the Revolution was over. Compaoré has been in power ever since.
by Edwin Bentley
BURKINA Faso was different. Foreign dignitaries arriving in the capital, Ouagadougou, during the 1980s would be picked up at the airport in an old Renault 5 from the government’s transport pool. The minister of education of this West African country received the same wages as a schoolteacher, and Burkinabé diplomats attending United Nations meetings in Geneva would share a room in the cheapest bed and breakfast just across the border in France to save money.
No Mercedes, no shopping trips to Paris and London, no Swiss bank accounts. This was a country that had embraced its reality as an underdeveloped ex-colonial backwater, and in so doing had found the strength, unity, and dignity to look to the future with optimism.
From 1983 to 1987 the people of this West African country – previously known as Upper Volta – lived through a revolution which we can now see as a process of national liberation that shook off the shackles of neo-colonialism. The revolution was eventually crushed by its enemies, but as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Burkina Faso revolution we can celebrate its achievements and value it as a shining example for future African liberation.
Formal independence from France in 1960 had changed nothing for the vast majority of the seven million Burkinabé (as the people are called) who endured 98 per cent illiteracy in rural areas, a total absence of healthcare, feudal social structures, and rampant corruption by the tiny ruling class of some 30,000 government employees and landowners.
The Burkina Faso revolution was a mass movement, but it was lead, inspired, and represented by a young army officer, Captain Thomas Sankara. Sankara was born the son of a low-ranking colonial policeman on 21st December 1949 in the town of Yako. He always said how lucky he had been to receive a secondary education, something completely outside the dreams of the majority of his countrymen. Sankara joined the army and did much of his training overseas, particularly in Madagascar. It was there that he became politicised, as a consequence of witnessing a wave of strikes and demonstrations in 1972. Military duties back home were interrupted by further training and studies in Morocco and France. These travels lead to Sankara’s first contact with revolutionary ideas. “Thanks to reading, but above all thanks to discussions with Marxists on the reality of our country, I came to Marxism.” Together with like-minded military personnel, he formed an organised communist group within the army.
A gifted orator, strikingly handsome and with boundless energy, Sankara was invited to join the progressive military government of Jean-Baptiste Ouedragou in January 1983, and served as prime minister, but this government was overthrown by yet another coup on May 17th. Sankara and his closest collaborators Henri Zongo and Jean Lingani were arrested for a while, and on their release they worked underground to organise opposition to the reactionary regime in power. Meanwhile another of Sankara’s closest supporters, Blaise Compaoré, held out against the régime at the Army base in the town of Po. Sankara, Lingani, and Zongo and a large number of supporters escaped to Po. It was from there that the revolution started. On 4th August 1983 Blaise Compaoré and 200 soldiers marched on Ouagadougou the capital, overthrew the government and formed the Conseil National de la Révolution (National Council of the Revolution, or CNR), with Thomas Sankara as president.
From the first day of the revolution, in his broadcast to the nation on the night of 4th August, Sankara invited the people to form local Comités de Défense de la Révolution (Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, or CDR). These CDR became the method for exercising direct democratic control over the organs of state and local administration. Members were elected by direct voting by everyone in the village or urban neighbourhood. Not only within the country, but also amongst Burkinabé overseas, the CDR were the everyday instruments of democratic power.
Sankara saw his main role as one of animating and encouraging the CDR under the slogan “Raise consciousness! Act! Produce!”, helping ordinary working people to understand that they could run their country; that power really did lie in their hands, and that everyone had a part to play. Of course, there were many mistakes caused by human error and petty squabbles, but the CDR meant that for the first time every Burkinabé had a say in public life. As Sankara said, “We must dare to invent the future.”
The legal system of the country had remained unchanged since colonial days, and represented the interests of the former ruling elite. The courts and the old laws were therefore replaced from January 1984 by the Tribuneaux Populaires de la Revolution (TPR, or People’s Revolutionary Courts), with the judges all appointed from among the working people. On 3rd January, Sankara told the first session of the TPR: “There is no need for the judges to know the old laws; they only need to let themselves be guided by their sense of popular justice.” He made it clear that the main purpose of the TPR was: “To bring to light and publicly expose all the hidden social and political sides to the crimes perpetrated against the people, and to help them understand the consequences of them in order to draw lessons of social morality and practical politics.” Perhaps surprisingly to many observers, the TPR turned out to be remarkably successful in combating all sorts of crime, by helping people understand that criminal behaviour and corruption had no place in a socialist society.
On the first anniversary of the revolution, the name of Upper Volta was changed to Burkina Faso, which in the local languages means “The Land of Upright People”. Speaking during a cultural visit to Harlem in New York later that year, Sankara explained that “Upper Volta” was a purely colonial name, and that adopting a new name for the country symbolised its re-birth. He was deeply aware that all of Africa had been divided indiscriminately by the European imperialists, and that virtually none of the African countries had rational boundaries. But Sankara knew that it was impossible to turn the clock back to some imaginary pre-colonial golden age, and concentrated on accepting present-day realities and starting again to build something new.
“Starting from scratch” was certainly the core slogan of the Burkinabé revolution. The CNR never once proposed grandiose prestige projects. It focussed on low-technology plans that would lead to the greatest possible improvement in the lives of people within a sometimes non-existent budget. The country simply did not have the resources to provide schools for every child at once, so a campaign was launched to ensure that everyone who knew how to read and write would teach a certain number of others. In just the first two years of the revolution, literacy was almost trebled from eight per cent to 22 per cent, and 35,000 adults were trained as literacy instructors.
In 1983, Burkina Faso had one doctor per 48,000 inhabitants and one of the highest mortality rates in the world. The CNR rapidly moved to make basic healthcare available to everyone, and for the first time established centres for maternity and baby care. Perhaps the greatest achievement was the vaccination programme. In just two weeks in 1985, for example, volunteer health workers vaccinated 2.5 million children against measles, meningitis, and yellow fever. And these were not just Burkinabé children; foreigners crossed the borders and were vaccinated too. After only two years, by 1985 infant mortality had fallen from 208 to 145 for every 1,000 live births. By early 1987 river blindness – onchocerciasis — had been completely eliminated from the country.
Innovative technology was sometimes amazing in its simplicity, such as the mass manufacture by hand of thousands of simple clay stoves to replace the open fires that most people had used for cooking. The northern parts of Burkina Faso are in the Sahel, the very arid region on the edge of the Sahara. Because of the need to provide wood for cooking, deforestation had taken place at an alarming rate. The clay stoves were introduced to reduce wood consumption. Direct measures to protect the environment included mass tree planting; over a 15-month period 10 million trees were planted, and in the villages and settled agricultural areas each family was encouraged to plant 100 trees a year and take care of them. In towns, anyone given the tenancy of municipal housing was evicted if they failed to look after the trees for which they were responsible. In the villages, local people were entrusted with the management of forestry resources.
Agriculture employed the vast majority of Burkinabé, but feudal patterns of tenancy prevailed. The landowners were able to demand unpaid labour and tribute payments from their tenants. The CNR abolished these feudal rights, nationalised and redistributed land, and encouraged co-operatives. A National Union of Peasants was established. Irrigation was an age-old problem and there were no funds to build concrete dams, so with all available hands taking part, villages built their own simple earth dams, with reservoirs for the dry season. Agricultural production increased. For the first time ever, public housing schemes were launched. Just simple two-roomed bungalows built with mud bricks and managed by the local CDR, but something previously unimaginable.
But it was perhaps in the field of the emancipation of women that Sankara’s ideas had most impact. Sankara was profoundly influenced by Engels’ writings on the origins of social structures, and he applied them to the realities of Burkina Faso, where women did most of the manual work without enjoying any rights. He taught that women suffered doubly in neo-colonial societies. Firstly, they experienced the same suffering as men, and secondly, they were subjected to additional suffering by men! “Exploited in the fields and at home, yet playing the role of a faceless, voiceless extra. The pivot, yet in chains. Female shadow of the male shadow.”
Sankara and the CNR – which itself included women members – ensured that women were fully involved in decision making and public administration. As he said: ”The genuine emancipation of women is one that entrusts responsibilities to women, that involves them in productive capacity and in the different fights the people face.” Women played a powerful role in the CDR, served as ministers and as provincial governors. Forced marriages, polygamy, and genital mutilation were forbidden and family planning promoted.
Revolutionary Burkina Faso had close ties with progressive governments throughout the world, but maintained membership of the non-aligned movement and was the client state of no one. Sankara visited the Soviet Union in October 1986, but the closest international ties were with Nicaragua and Cuba and, in Africa itself, Mozambique. Samora Machel was something of a hero for Sankara, and the two were personal friends. Machel’s assassination by South African agents in an aircraft explosion was a cause for great sadness.
Burkina Faso was a good friend of the Polisario Front that sought the independence of the former Spanish Sahara from Moroccan occupation, and supported the cause of Palestinian liberation. The generally progressive government of Gerry Rawlings in neighbouring Ghana was friendly towards the Revolution, and there were joint military manoeuvres, but most West African countries were at best cool and often hostile towards Burkina Faso. On Christmas day 1985 troops from the neighbouring country of Mali even briefly attacked Burkina Faso following a dispute over the frontier.
Relations with Europe and North America were very difficult, but the CNR had no expectation of a helping hand from countries that were only interested in the exploitation of Africa. Sankara openly rejected aid from the imperialist countries, pointing out that hand-outs from the rich simply created a culture of debt and dependency and destroyed emerging local economies.
Burkina Faso was capable of feeding itself, and it was up to the Burkinabé to get their own house in order. Technical and social help was another matter when it came from friendly countries like Cuba, but the CNR was always aware of the impossibility of receiving no-strings help from the imperialists. When a French politician told Sankara that West Africans should be grateful for all the help they received from France, the Burkinabé leader replied that the French should be grateful for all the Africans who spent their lives sweeping the streets of Paris and cleaning the Metro!
What went wrong, when the Burkinabé revolution had clearly been such a success? Sankara himself had admitted in his speech on the fourth anniversary of the Revolution that time was needed to establish proper political structures. The CDR had functioned well, but they were clearly not a political party and the level of political education was low.
Sankara wanted everyone to take the time to catch up; revolutionary enthusiasm had to be properly channelled into a Marxist-Leninist party. This level-headedness by Sankara was opposed by ultra-leftist elements who wanted to go full steam ahead in immediately overthrowing all remaining vestiges of pre-revolutionary Burkina Faso without thought to the consequences. Some commentators have classified these people as “Maoists”, whereas they exhibited all the characteristics of Trotskyites in condemning everyone and everything and demanding immediate solutions.
These ultra-leftists, as is so often the case, made common cause with feudal landowners and the old ruling families, and with government employees who wanted to get back to the days of graft and corruption. To this alliance can be added the neo-colonialist leaders of neighbouring countries, particularly Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, who feared the export of the Burkinabé revolution, and also the French government of Mitterrand. Inevitably, Burkina Faso’s growing links with Nicaragua and Cuba also made it a target of the United States.
Sankara undoubtedly contributed to his own demise by his openness and transparent honesty in everything he did. An austere but friendly soldier who was happy to lead a spartan lifestyle, he upset those who were not prepared to make personal sacrifices and this lead to vendettas against him. Sankara was sometimes naive and assumed that everyone shared his values. Earlier that year, for example, he had sought to re-appoint schoolteachers who had been dismissed for taking a counter-revolutionary stand. In good faith, he believed that the teachers had mended their ways, but his opponents in the CNR used this decision as another way of attacking him.
On 15th October 1987, Thomas Sankara and 12 others were gunned down by an aide of Blaise Compaoré, who had been one of the leading lights of the revolution. Compaoré immediately seized power, abolished the National Council of the Revolution (CNR) and dissolved the CDR. Resistance went on for a few days, but the Revolution was over. Compaoré has been in power ever since.
Communist Renaissance meet in Paris
by New Worker correspondent
THE POLE de Renaissance Communiste en France (PRCF) held a highly successful conference in Paris last weekend with delegates from across France gathering in a spirit of militancy and optimism. The New Communist Party of Britain was represented by Theo Russell from the Central Committee, who joined other fraternal guests from Cuba, Greece, Algeria, Spain, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Belgium and Pakistan for the second national conference of the French anti-revisionist communist movement.
The PRCF is still a party in process of formation with many potential members still inside the revisionist and openly right-wing Communist Party of France (PCF), and growing left-wing opposition within the PCF by factions demanding a return to class struggle.
Plans to drop the word “communist” at the PCF’s congress next month are expected to lead many more members leaving the party in the New Year, but its draft resolution has dropped its open attacks on the Soviet Union and former socialist states for the first time in decades, in an attempt to retain the waverers.
The PCF’s official membership has slumped from 800,000 to under 100,000, with most of those leaving “scattering” into isolation or non-communist activity.
The Communist Renaissance leadership declared the organisation of factory cells as the PRCF’s most urgent priority, noting that the PCF’s decision to close down its factory branches in the late 1980s created a space that was filled by Trotskyist unions.
not alone
Several delegates stressed that the PRCF alone cannot bring about revolution, and that change was only possible through mobilising the working class.
Delegates also condemned the reactionary role of the CGT union confederation – previously linked with the PCF – giving examples of manipulation, vote-rigging and even using lawyers to prevent strikes and telling workers “you have ignored our instructions and must pay the cost”.
Veteran anti-Nazi resistance leader Leon L’Andini told delegates that almost 20 years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall capitalism was in severe crisis, with the new situation presenting new dangers, such as attempts in Europe to criminalise communists and militants by re-writing history.
Georges Gasteau of PRCF’s national committee described the threat now posed by capitalism to all humanity as “capitalist exterminism”.
The PRCF opposes the EU in its entirety, including the Treaty of Rome itself, demands the return of troops from Afghanistan (a demand supported by the 70 per cent of French people), and France’s departure from Nato.
The conference adopted a position supportive of the People’s Republic of China and opposing counter-revolutionary interference, but also supporting workers and communists defending socialism and resisting corruption and the negative effects of capitalist production.
The conference was addressed by a representative of the NMPP workforce, a national newspaper distribution cooperative set up in 1947, which is under attack by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in an effort to break a symbol of past working class gains.
for a year
The workforce has fought for a year with the PRCF, the only political party in France to give its support. Sarkozy was accused of acting for allies in the media with close ties to the arms industry, and foreign interests such as the German Axel Springer group, hoping to move into the French market.
The PRCF’s second conference was a highly successful, militant and inspiring event and an opportunity for the PRCF and NCP to establish close ties which will undoubtedly grow stronger in the future.
photo:Theo Russell with a French comrade
Friday, October 17, 2008
It's a great idea but it will never work...
About 70 students squeezed into a lecture room at Varndean Sixth Form College, Brighton, last Thursday to hear Ray Jones, chair of the South-east District New Communist Party. This was part of a series of lectures organised by Roy Cullen of the Politics Department covering a broad range of viewpoints. The following is what Ray had to say.
WHEN PEOPLE hear I’m a communist they often say, “Oh, communism is a great idea but it will never work.” The implication is that capitalism may not be a good idea but at least it’s practical.
The reply that usually springs to mind is whether the starving in the slums of South America, India or Africa find it so practical — or for that matter the homeless on the streets of Brighton.
But after the recent financial events around the world surely we should be asking, does it really work at all!
The writing is on the wall for all those who have eyes to see. Banks have been going under or have been bailed out by governments with loans of billions of dollars. The British government has stepped in with £500 billion and the term semi nationalisation has been used, yet still it goes on. Will we see another crash like the one in 1929?
Or will it be even worse and capitalism descend into chaos?
When the final crisis will come is impossible to predict but it will come in spite of states intervening in ways that make capitalist purists’ eyes water! These methods smack too strongly of socialism for them — their god is still the Market.But capitalist governments know that they have no other choice. Its either that or be swept away in a flood of either revolution or barbarism.
This not socialism of course but merely the capitalist state propping up its system. That is the role of the state.
They will of course try to make working people pay for this problem through taxes and loss of services and we will have to resist that.
But this intervention may have progressive aspects in so far as it helps working people in this crisis (if it does); in so far as it begins to lay the foundation of a different economic system of state ownership and in so far as it suggests to the workers that perhaps private ownership is not as essential as we have been led to believe!
After all if capitalism is so efficient and so necessary why is it that when a major war or crisis breaks out every thing fundamental to the economy is nationalised?!
It would be vastly ironic if George W Bush went down in history as the president who laid the basis of socialism in the USA!
But why do capitalist crises happen?
To try to answer this it is necessary to look at the roots and nature of capitalism.
With the industrial revolution, capitalists found that they could employ people in factories producing goods to be sold on the market and at the end of the process they were left with huge amounts of money.
Where did this surplus, this profit, come from?
There are still economists today who find this a mysterious, mystical process but Karl Marx had an answer in the 19th century.
Value is added to the materials by the labour of the workers. The goods could be sold over and above all the costs of producing them because of the work, the labour power, expended on them.
Workers only spend part of their time producing enough goods to make, when sold, enough money for their own wages. The rest of the time they are in fact producing profit for the owners.
Because the owners, the capitalists, controls the process, the means of production, they are in the position of being able to cream off the profit produced by the workers for themselves.
They ensure that wages are less then the extra value put into the goods and they pocket the difference.
You often hear of manufacturers “adding value” to their goods by making them more complex. They are adding more labour time to the product which adds value and means they can put up the price.
A T-shirt with a design on is worth more, all other things being equal, than a plain one. What is different? The extra work gone into it (plus some extra costs but these tend to be small).
If the capitalist passed on this value where it is due, the workers, the capitalists would be no better off — so they try not to!
But there are limits to this exploitation of workers. The work force has to be able to maintain itself — they wouldn’t want workers dying of starvation on the job would they? That would be messy and inconvenient!
But beyond that there are limits set by the social conditions of the time: such as the demand for labour on the labour market — because workers’ labour becomes a commodity too.
But limits are also set by the strength of the workers themselves – because workers are not like pieces of cloth or sewing machines.
They are capable of understanding the situation and they are forced into collective defence of their living standards in unions and eventually for their broader rights in political parties.
And so you have the essential and continual conflict within capitalism between bosses and workers over the value added by labour power.
Surprisingly perhaps an increase in machinery and technology by itself actually decreases the profit of the capitalist because there is less labour power needed and less labour power means less value and less surplus value — that is profit.
To escape this problem the capitalist must increase the scale of the whole production process so the number of workers is increased.
Although each individual worker produces less profit there is over-all more profit produced, which helps in the short term. But then the next improvement in technology, spurred on by competition, sets the process in motion again and so on in a vicious circle.
Or the capitalists can try to decrease the workers’ share to maintain or increase their own. The profit must come from somewhere, if not from their workers at home then from workers overseas, where wages are lower.
Many British companies have shifted manufacturing abroad to areas of cheap labour — even services such as call centres have been moved.
Wars are fought to establish influence over areas of the world and enable capitalists, joined together in national states, to control resources. Iraq of course is a good example — although the US is having a lot more trouble getting the oil than it expected!
Wars also destroy commodities, weapons as well as everything else, and therefore help counteract over production — which is the bane of capitalism.
Capitalism struggles to produce more profit and in the process more goods are produced. Prices fall because less value is going into the goods and because of competition between the capitalists and the tendency to flood the market.
But wages also fall because there are fewer jobs on the labour market and competition for jobs increases. Also there is deskilling on a large scale and therefore lower wages. So the workers, the majority of the population, still cannot afford to buy the goods.
So the system goes into a nosedive, as in the 1930’s, until enough goods are destroyed in war or wasted or a new technology comes along and helps them squeeze more profit from the workers.
Millions die therefore, in war or famine, in the service of capitalism.
These problems are not brought into the system by militant workers or communists but are part of it. Part of the nature of capitalism.
It’s true that this time the crisis seems to have started in the US housing sector with mortgages being given to people who could never afford to repay them to — such an extent that the whole banking system started to go into melt down.
Banks stopped lending to each other because no one was sure who was in serious trouble and then the anarchy of the stock market came into play. And when banks cease to lend to each other this limits their ability to lend to others.
Capitalism needs the credit system to oil its wheels — but it can’t stop its abuses and out and out swindles that escalate as the crash approaches.
So businesses stagnate and eventually go under without credit. People are unemployed and cannot pay their debts or buy goods and so the whole thing snowballs.
But the US economy never really recovered from the stock market crash of 2002 when the so-called internet bubble burst.
Even the stimulus of $2 trillion in military spending over five years did not significantly increase employment and now the jobless numbers are rising swiftly in a low wage economy.
We can see the low wage economy being built in Britain with so many young people doomed to the fast food industry.
The system cannot go on forever. This may not be final apocalyptic crisis but if we do not do something about it, if we do not guide its death throws into a revolution that produces a collective, planned, rational society that is not based on exploitation, eventually the end result will be melt down and barbarism.
That is why we need a party that understands this and acts accordingly. We in the New Communist Party are trying to build that party.
This party must fight for the good of the working class as a whole — not just a section of it.
It must work to unite the class around demands that advance and benefit all workers because only a united working class can ultimately win against a capitalist class which, history has shown, will fight desperately to keep what it has.
And it must fight both for short term and long term aims. Both for immediate reforms such as:
• for better wages and conditions,
• better education,
• better health services,
• better housing,
• a better environment,
• against war,
• against authoritarianism and injustice and for more democracy (that is more say for the workers),
• against racism, sexism and homophobia, which can divide the workers.
And for revolutionary objectives at home and support for socialism in other countries such as north Korea, China, Cuba, and Vietnam.
Short term victories are possible. They are good in themselves and act as schools of struggle, but in the longer term a revolution, the overthrowing of capitalism, is necessary to right the wrongs in our society.
WHEN PEOPLE hear I’m a communist they often say, “Oh, communism is a great idea but it will never work.” The implication is that capitalism may not be a good idea but at least it’s practical.
The reply that usually springs to mind is whether the starving in the slums of South America, India or Africa find it so practical — or for that matter the homeless on the streets of Brighton.
But after the recent financial events around the world surely we should be asking, does it really work at all!
The writing is on the wall for all those who have eyes to see. Banks have been going under or have been bailed out by governments with loans of billions of dollars. The British government has stepped in with £500 billion and the term semi nationalisation has been used, yet still it goes on. Will we see another crash like the one in 1929?
Or will it be even worse and capitalism descend into chaos?
When the final crisis will come is impossible to predict but it will come in spite of states intervening in ways that make capitalist purists’ eyes water! These methods smack too strongly of socialism for them — their god is still the Market.But capitalist governments know that they have no other choice. Its either that or be swept away in a flood of either revolution or barbarism.
This not socialism of course but merely the capitalist state propping up its system. That is the role of the state.
They will of course try to make working people pay for this problem through taxes and loss of services and we will have to resist that.
But this intervention may have progressive aspects in so far as it helps working people in this crisis (if it does); in so far as it begins to lay the foundation of a different economic system of state ownership and in so far as it suggests to the workers that perhaps private ownership is not as essential as we have been led to believe!
After all if capitalism is so efficient and so necessary why is it that when a major war or crisis breaks out every thing fundamental to the economy is nationalised?!
It would be vastly ironic if George W Bush went down in history as the president who laid the basis of socialism in the USA!
But why do capitalist crises happen?
To try to answer this it is necessary to look at the roots and nature of capitalism.
With the industrial revolution, capitalists found that they could employ people in factories producing goods to be sold on the market and at the end of the process they were left with huge amounts of money.
Where did this surplus, this profit, come from?
There are still economists today who find this a mysterious, mystical process but Karl Marx had an answer in the 19th century.
Value is added to the materials by the labour of the workers. The goods could be sold over and above all the costs of producing them because of the work, the labour power, expended on them.
Workers only spend part of their time producing enough goods to make, when sold, enough money for their own wages. The rest of the time they are in fact producing profit for the owners.
Because the owners, the capitalists, controls the process, the means of production, they are in the position of being able to cream off the profit produced by the workers for themselves.
They ensure that wages are less then the extra value put into the goods and they pocket the difference.
You often hear of manufacturers “adding value” to their goods by making them more complex. They are adding more labour time to the product which adds value and means they can put up the price.
A T-shirt with a design on is worth more, all other things being equal, than a plain one. What is different? The extra work gone into it (plus some extra costs but these tend to be small).
If the capitalist passed on this value where it is due, the workers, the capitalists would be no better off — so they try not to!
But there are limits to this exploitation of workers. The work force has to be able to maintain itself — they wouldn’t want workers dying of starvation on the job would they? That would be messy and inconvenient!
But beyond that there are limits set by the social conditions of the time: such as the demand for labour on the labour market — because workers’ labour becomes a commodity too.
But limits are also set by the strength of the workers themselves – because workers are not like pieces of cloth or sewing machines.
They are capable of understanding the situation and they are forced into collective defence of their living standards in unions and eventually for their broader rights in political parties.
And so you have the essential and continual conflict within capitalism between bosses and workers over the value added by labour power.
Surprisingly perhaps an increase in machinery and technology by itself actually decreases the profit of the capitalist because there is less labour power needed and less labour power means less value and less surplus value — that is profit.
To escape this problem the capitalist must increase the scale of the whole production process so the number of workers is increased.
Although each individual worker produces less profit there is over-all more profit produced, which helps in the short term. But then the next improvement in technology, spurred on by competition, sets the process in motion again and so on in a vicious circle.
Or the capitalists can try to decrease the workers’ share to maintain or increase their own. The profit must come from somewhere, if not from their workers at home then from workers overseas, where wages are lower.
Many British companies have shifted manufacturing abroad to areas of cheap labour — even services such as call centres have been moved.
Wars are fought to establish influence over areas of the world and enable capitalists, joined together in national states, to control resources. Iraq of course is a good example — although the US is having a lot more trouble getting the oil than it expected!
Wars also destroy commodities, weapons as well as everything else, and therefore help counteract over production — which is the bane of capitalism.
Capitalism struggles to produce more profit and in the process more goods are produced. Prices fall because less value is going into the goods and because of competition between the capitalists and the tendency to flood the market.
But wages also fall because there are fewer jobs on the labour market and competition for jobs increases. Also there is deskilling on a large scale and therefore lower wages. So the workers, the majority of the population, still cannot afford to buy the goods.
So the system goes into a nosedive, as in the 1930’s, until enough goods are destroyed in war or wasted or a new technology comes along and helps them squeeze more profit from the workers.
Millions die therefore, in war or famine, in the service of capitalism.
These problems are not brought into the system by militant workers or communists but are part of it. Part of the nature of capitalism.
It’s true that this time the crisis seems to have started in the US housing sector with mortgages being given to people who could never afford to repay them to — such an extent that the whole banking system started to go into melt down.
Banks stopped lending to each other because no one was sure who was in serious trouble and then the anarchy of the stock market came into play. And when banks cease to lend to each other this limits their ability to lend to others.
Capitalism needs the credit system to oil its wheels — but it can’t stop its abuses and out and out swindles that escalate as the crash approaches.
So businesses stagnate and eventually go under without credit. People are unemployed and cannot pay their debts or buy goods and so the whole thing snowballs.
But the US economy never really recovered from the stock market crash of 2002 when the so-called internet bubble burst.
Even the stimulus of $2 trillion in military spending over five years did not significantly increase employment and now the jobless numbers are rising swiftly in a low wage economy.
We can see the low wage economy being built in Britain with so many young people doomed to the fast food industry.
The system cannot go on forever. This may not be final apocalyptic crisis but if we do not do something about it, if we do not guide its death throws into a revolution that produces a collective, planned, rational society that is not based on exploitation, eventually the end result will be melt down and barbarism.
That is why we need a party that understands this and acts accordingly. We in the New Communist Party are trying to build that party.
This party must fight for the good of the working class as a whole — not just a section of it.
It must work to unite the class around demands that advance and benefit all workers because only a united working class can ultimately win against a capitalist class which, history has shown, will fight desperately to keep what it has.
And it must fight both for short term and long term aims. Both for immediate reforms such as:
• for better wages and conditions,
• better education,
• better health services,
• better housing,
• a better environment,
• against war,
• against authoritarianism and injustice and for more democracy (that is more say for the workers),
• against racism, sexism and homophobia, which can divide the workers.
And for revolutionary objectives at home and support for socialism in other countries such as north Korea, China, Cuba, and Vietnam.
Short term victories are possible. They are good in themselves and act as schools of struggle, but in the longer term a revolution, the overthrowing of capitalism, is necessary to right the wrongs in our society.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Artic Meltdown
By Renee Sams
The scramble for the spoils of global warming has already begun with the oil giants bidding record prices for large areas of oil-bearing land and off-shore in Arctic ready for the bonanza. Canada and Russia with thousands of miles of Arctic coastline and already lining up to make sure of they get a share of the spoils
Earlier this year Royal Dutch Shell broke records with their bidding for a lease in the Chukchi Sea and the other mega-corporations are not far behind to grab a piece of the action.
Shell made bids exceeding $100 million for rights to drill a single 3-mile by 3-mile northwest Alaska for oil and gas drilling.
The Chukchi Sea is home roughly one-tenth of the world’s endangered polar bears as well as walruses and whales. Alaska’s North Slope is also home to a number of indigenous villagers who rely on the sea doe cultural and nutritional subsistence.
To make sure that the US gets all that it wants the coastguard cutter is on its way to map the floor of the Chukchi Gas as part of America’s continental shelf and their right to any oil that is found.
Fuelling the drive to the Arctic is the US Geological Survey which revealed that the area north of the Barents Sea may hold as much 90 billion barrels of oil and about 1669 trillion cubic feet of gas.
This is about 13 per cent of the world’s total reserves of oil and 30% of the total undiscovered total of gas.
America’s Arctic is on the front line of global warming. The Arctic regions are warming at a rate that is about twice as fast as the rest of the world, and climate change poses a danger to the fragile environment. For the first time in human history the North Pole can be circumnavigate.
Rising temperatures are already a threat to the remaining polar bear population which needs the ice to hunt for the seals it needs for food, the walrus, seal and penguin populations are all now in an extremely vulnerable position. .
In the Pacific there are hundreds of small islands with land that is a mere metre or two above sea level people and preparing plans to evacuate their homes before they are swept away by the rising tides. A move born of desperation.
President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific warned: “Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns. We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high
tides.
“These are not theoretical, scientific losses – they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods…For island states, time is not running out, it has run out. And our path may very well be the window to your own future and the future of our planet.”
The scramble for the spoils of global warming has already begun with the oil giants bidding record prices for large areas of oil-bearing land and off-shore in Arctic ready for the bonanza. Canada and Russia with thousands of miles of Arctic coastline and already lining up to make sure of they get a share of the spoils
Earlier this year Royal Dutch Shell broke records with their bidding for a lease in the Chukchi Sea and the other mega-corporations are not far behind to grab a piece of the action.
Shell made bids exceeding $100 million for rights to drill a single 3-mile by 3-mile northwest Alaska for oil and gas drilling.
The Chukchi Sea is home roughly one-tenth of the world’s endangered polar bears as well as walruses and whales. Alaska’s North Slope is also home to a number of indigenous villagers who rely on the sea doe cultural and nutritional subsistence.
To make sure that the US gets all that it wants the coastguard cutter is on its way to map the floor of the Chukchi Gas as part of America’s continental shelf and their right to any oil that is found.
Fuelling the drive to the Arctic is the US Geological Survey which revealed that the area north of the Barents Sea may hold as much 90 billion barrels of oil and about 1669 trillion cubic feet of gas.
This is about 13 per cent of the world’s total reserves of oil and 30% of the total undiscovered total of gas.
America’s Arctic is on the front line of global warming. The Arctic regions are warming at a rate that is about twice as fast as the rest of the world, and climate change poses a danger to the fragile environment. For the first time in human history the North Pole can be circumnavigate.
Rising temperatures are already a threat to the remaining polar bear population which needs the ice to hunt for the seals it needs for food, the walrus, seal and penguin populations are all now in an extremely vulnerable position. .
In the Pacific there are hundreds of small islands with land that is a mere metre or two above sea level people and preparing plans to evacuate their homes before they are swept away by the rising tides. A move born of desperation.
President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific warned: “Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns. We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high
tides.
“These are not theoretical, scientific losses – they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods…For island states, time is not running out, it has run out. And our path may very well be the window to your own future and the future of our planet.”
Friday, September 05, 2008
OLIVER CROMWELL
Oliver Cromwell
1599-1658
by Andy Brooks
OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the English Revolution, died on 3rd September 1658. Cromwell, the MP for Huntingdon, was the leading Parliamentary commander during the English Civil War which began in 1642 and ended in 1649 with the trial and execution of Charles Stuart and the abolition of the monarchy. The Republic of England, or Commonwealth as it was styled in English, was proclaimed soon after.
The fighting had taken a fearful toll in lives and property in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The death toll including civilians came to around 870,000, some 11.6 per cent of the pre-Civil War population. Material damage was immense, particularly in Ireland. In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became head of state, the Lord Protector. Scotland had been brought under Commonwealth control. Royalist hopes of a counter-revolution were crushed with the defeat of their forces at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
The democratic movement born from the New Model Army, the Levellers, was crushed by Cromwell’s supporters and the most militant regiments sent to Ireland – in a reconquest whose harshness is remembered to this day by the Irish people.
Attempts to set up farming co-operatives by the Diggers, another group born from the Army, were also suppressed.
The republic that Cromwell led included England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as colonies in New England and the Caribbean. During its brief life the Commonwealth became a force in Europe. Culturally it inspired the great poetry of Milton and Marvell and other radical and pacifist religious movements like the Quakers.
Oliver Cromwell died on 3rd September 1658 and was succeeded by his son, Richard. The new Protector was neither a politician nor a soldier. Unable to reconcile republican generals with the demands of the rich merchants and landowners to curb the influence of the New Model Army, Richard Cromwell resigned the following year. The government collapsed and the monarchy was restored in 1660.
Oliver Cromwell’s death had been the occasion of genuine mourning. His funeral, modelled on that of the King of Spain, was the biggest London had ever witnessed. Two years later his body was dug up and ritually hanged in public at Tyburn. Those still alive who had signed Charles Stuart’s death warrant were hunted down and hanged, drawn and quartered. A few managed to flee abroad never to return but the “good old cause” they had fought for was dead and buried. It was clear that a great revolution had taken place. It is equally clear that it was incomplete.
OLIVER CROMWELL undeniably played a pivotal role in the English Revolution and today’s bourgeois historians tend to assess the republic that Cromwell led solely in terms of his military leadership and his Puritan personality. But if Cromwell had fallen in battle during the civil war another would have taken his place. We can only speculate on what would have then have happened but we can be sure that the fundamental direction of development would have remained the same.
The short-lived Republic of England was notable because it was the outcome of class struggle; primarily that of the rising bourgeois class against the feudal elements headed by the King. It only won because of the mass support of working people, the apprentices, artisans and small farmers who swelled the ranks of the New Model Army that crushed the Royalists.
The New Model Army was a revolutionary force in itself. Though led by Cromwell and other senior officers who the rank-and-file dubbed “Grandees”, the army was a hot-bed of radical thinking which produced the Leveller movement which campaigned for social reform, a free parliament and a wide electoral franchise.
All 17th century governments claimed divine authority. Charles Stuart and his bishops turned to scripture to justify the “divine right” of kings while Puritan preachers just as easily found chapter and verse in the Bible to justify the toppling of tyrants.
But the Commonwealth claimed its authority came from the “people” – unlike Venice which was a republic solely of rich merchants or the Netherlands which was based on feudal provinces and a near-hereditary head of state from the House of Orange. The Commonwealth drew up representative constitutions, which would have been remarkable had they been implemented and it showed a degree of tolerance, almost unknown in any other part of Europe, to all Protestant sects and Jews, though not to Anglicans or Catholics who were synonymous with Royalists as far as most Puritans were concerned.
But who were these “people”? They certainly weren’t those the Levellers championed who angered Cromwell as much as the Royalists
The Leveller case was put by Colonel Thomas Rainsborough who said: “For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.”
While Henry Ireton, a Grandee, who was also Cromwell’s son-in-law, replied that: “no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom”.
Only in the Army did Cromwell accept promotion by merit alone – a radical concept for those days and one which is still not applied in the British armed forces today. But he regarded the Levellers’ egalitarianism as dangerous and absurd. Dangerous because it threatened private property. Absurd because if people who paid no taxes and without a stake in the country could vote, like poor tenants or servants, they would vote for their masters and this would lead to the restoration of the monarchy that so much blood had been spilt to end.
“What is the purport of the levelling principle but to make the tenant as liberal a fortune as the landlord. I was by birth a gentleman. You must cut these people to pieces or they will cut you to pieces,” Cromwell declared.
Nor were they the entire bourgeoisie. The merchants and landowners opposed the King’s autocracy in Parliament but were divided on what they wanted to put in its place. Some wanted to end the monarchy altogether from the start. Others, like Cromwell only came to this conclusion after Charles Stuart had shown by his deceit and readiness to plunge the country into further bloodshed that only his execution could end the conflict.
But many favoured what they called a “mixed” monarchy in which Parliament, drawn almost exclusively from the wealthy, would wield the power in conjunction with a monarch bereft of feudal privilege but retained to uphold the principle of inherited wealth.
This is what they hoped for when their “Convention Parliament” recalled the second Charles from his exile in 1660. This was what they achieved when that Parliament deposed his brother James in 1688 and put William of Orange on the throne in what they called the “Glorious Revolution”.
Today the bourgeoisie would like us to forget Cromwell and the republic he led even though the basis of their power begins with the English Revolution. But since 1649 all monarchs remember that they have a joint in their neck as the Marxist historian Christopher Hill put it. And we remember Cromwell and those epic days of the 17th century as the time when the power of a tyrant was smashed by the might of a people in arms.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Breaking the Chains of Revisionism
In 1997, on the 20th anniversary year of the founding of the New Communist Party of Britain, New Worker Editor Ann Rogers interviewed Eric Trevett, former general secretary and current president of the NCP.
ANN ROGERS: Why was the NCP formed in 1977 -- what were the circumstances that led to its formation?
ERIC TREVETT: The New Communist Party was formed to re-equip the working class and labour movement with a revolutionary party based unequivocally on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
Under the leadership of John Gollan, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) abandoned those principles. It embarked on a course which inevitably led to the liquidation of the CPGB itself, as it betrayed its trust ever more blatently.
In forming the NCP we rejected the CPGB's programme The British Road To Socialism. And what came to be called "Eurocommunism" -- a form of revisionism that had infected a number of communist parties. This was characterised by Eurocentrism, narrow nationalism and denied the leading role of the working class and the class struggle itself.
Although we did not realise it at the time, "Euro-communism" had the tacit support of counter revolutionary elements that had actually penetrated the leading bodies df the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
Prior to 1977 in Britain, a 12 year inner party struggle to defeat revisionism in the CPGB had failed. The leadership was effectively purged of sound elements. Rajani Palme Dutt was manoeuvred off the CPGB's executive committee, and the crucial post of international secretary was secured for the revisionist and anti-Soviet leadership.
That became clear In 1968 when the CPGB opposed the Soviet intervention In Czechoslovakia. But that intervention enabled the working class in Czechoslovakia to avert counter revolution and maintained globally a cohesive socialist camp that ensured world peace and helped progressive humanity everywhere as it confronted imperialism.
We rejected The British Road to Socialism because it was totally flawed. It bred illusions that there could be a constitutional, parliamentary road to socialism.
But our party reaffirmed the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Revolution, in which the capitalist state is smashed and a working class state is established, is the fundamental pre-requisite to building a socialist society.
We have always stressed that the working class has to take state power and retain its hold throughout the period of socialism. We never endorsed the CPSU's declaration by Leonid Brezhnev that under socialism the working class state machine gives way to being the state of the whole people.
Socialism is a political and economic system in its own right. It is also a transitional period between capitalism and communism, between class divided and classless society. The socialist revolution, in one or several countries, does not signify the end of the class struggle. Such revolutions positively change the national and international balance of forces in favour of the working class.
But following such revolutions, and certainly while imperialists command great economic, political and military power and ideological influence, the class struggle eventually intensifies and takes on a multitude of forms.
In those circumstances, in the countries that have experienced socialist revolutions, throughout the period of global transition to communism, the working class has to retain state power. And, at the same time, the revolutionary party of the working class has to be consistent and strict in maintaining discipline.
The collective will of the party is expressed through its congresses and this arises from its under standing of the laws of economic and social development. Its integral relationship with the working class thus enables the party to fulfil the aspirations of the working class it is duty bound to serve.
Our party operates under a major capitalist power and oppressor where there is wide acceptance of class collaboration in the labour movement. It operates in conditions where all the main political parties seek to perpetuate capitalism, share common policies regarding both the upgrading of nuclear weapons and in many areas of foreign policy.
In spite of the imposition of a massive array of anti-trade union legislation, many trade union and labour movement leaders spout their commitment to partnership with the exploiters.
Surely it is evident that a strong ideological position is essential if the party is to survive and win the allegiance of the labour movement as it serves the interests of the working class.
AR: Building a new party and launching a weekly newspaper must have been very hard. What are your memories of that time?
ET: I have never regretted being involved in the struggle for Marxist-leninist principles that led to the decision to form the New Communist Party in July 1977. And it was only when the party was established did we get down to working out and adopting fully comprehensive policies and strategies.
For instance, inside the CPGB we had either accepted or not made an issue of the party's position on Ireland, or a number of questions relating to political economy and working class unity. To be frank, the NCP's inaugural congress, held a few months after our formation, was a bit of a shambles. It reflected divergent opinions and demonstrated a shallow analysis of many issues.
We also had personnel problems. On the eve of launching our newspaper, the comrade who was to be editor got cold feet and resigned.
Nevertheless, the paper was launched under the editorship of a comrade with no journalistic experience. He set a high standard which has been enhanced by the four editors who succeeded him.
Of course, the quality of the New Worker is due to the party's strong ideological position, the dedication of the team of comrades responsible for producing the paper and the camaraderie in the party as a whole arising from its unity.
So the development of our party has been rewarding even though it has also given us more than a few headaches. We are strong in upholding vital principles and that is as it should be. We are also very clear that there should be no compromise on questions of ideology. This is of crucial importance.
AR: Unlike many larger and older parties, the NCP has survived the effects of the counter-revolution in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Does this surprise you?
ET: Not altogether. Our policy was formed out of the struggle against revisionism. The parties that succumbed to counter revolution and liquidation had already, and at leadership level, been undermined by revisionist and counter revolutionary elements. Those revisionist elements had been gathering strength nationally and internationally over a period of decades.
From time to time our party expelled revisionist elements we had good reason to suspect were working in the service of the enemy and striving to destroy our party. Many of the parties that succumbed to liquidation pressures had weakened themselves ideologically.
Some of them consciously beguiled their members by presenting revisionist ideas and policies as "new thinking" and a creative" development of Marxism. In turn, that helped the revisionists, agents and liquidators to strengthen their position organisationally at every level of the party.
The lack of a consistent and sustained attack on "Eurocommunism" by the CPSU leadership should have alerted the sound elements in the international communist movement to the pending danger emanating from the revisionist factions in the CPSU.
Instead, the emergence of the traitor Mikhail Gorbachov's administration, with its slogans of glasnost (openess) and perestroika (new thinking), meant a counter revolutionary offensive was unleashed. It was a coordinated offensive masterminded by imperialists.
The bitter lesson of that defeat for communists, working class and progressive humanity has to be taken to heart. Revisionism, if it is not defeated and rooted out, will inevitably give rise to the eventual liquidation of the party.
AR: The working class and its organisations face many difficulties today -- what do you think is the party's task and role, and do you look forward with confidence to the future?
ET: The capitalist crisis today is profound. New technology plus intensifying competition for market share is promoting action by the employers (including state intervention) to downsize the labour force.
That tendency is being marginally offset by promoting a low wage economy, cutting the provisions of the "welfare state" and generally lowering the standard of living of the majority whilst enhancing the wealth of the few.
But these actions don't resolve the crisis, they actually exacerbate it. Moreover, job insecurity has engulfed large swathes of administrative, technical and professional workers who, up until recently, were quite satisfied with their lot under capitalism. Not only did they feel their own jobs were secure, they also felt certain that their children would be assured of a good job and a high standard of living.
They, and most others in 1997, considered the problem merely to be one of administration and Tory greed. The general election reflected a massive rejection of the Tory party which has been replaced by a Labour government under pressure from the working class, but with the clear intent of working to perpetuate capitalism and complying with the dictates of the dominant section of the capitalist class.
Hence, the crisis deepens, and experience shows that social democracy -- while to some extent mitigating sleaze and responding to working class pressure with a few concessions -- continues with the same basic policies as the previous Tory government.
Labour is seen as an alternative to a Tory government, but it cannot further the fundamental interests of the working class or take measures to resolve the crisis because it will not challenge capitalism.
The reality of capitalist crisis and its profoundly new features arising from new technology, provide an increased necessity for socialism. Social democracy and reformism is not the answer to this crisis. Marxism-Leninism, revolution and socialism is the only alternative to capitalism in crisis that is practically attainable and serve the interests of the working class.
There is no other solution that can unleash the creative energy of the working class and protect the environment. So our first job is to preach socialism as we help promote cohesive struggle around urgent, immediate demands. These range from higher wages, cuts in military spending, trade union rights, public ownership of basic services, defence of health and education, and so on. It is not easy to accomplish this, of course, but we must try and make the link between the immediate demands and the revolutionary aim of establishing working class state power.
We must also build our party. A key role in that respect must be to increase the readership of our paper the New Worker, which carries and develops communist analysis.
The way ahead is difficult and complex but it will not daunt us.
We face the future. Equipped with the revolutionary ideology and party of Marxism-Leninism, we are confident that through the struggle the working class will win its full emancipation with the triumph of socialism over the reactionary forces of capitalism and imperialism, which breed exploitation, war and poverty.
ANN ROGERS: Why was the NCP formed in 1977 -- what were the circumstances that led to its formation?
ERIC TREVETT: The New Communist Party was formed to re-equip the working class and labour movement with a revolutionary party based unequivocally on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
Under the leadership of John Gollan, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) abandoned those principles. It embarked on a course which inevitably led to the liquidation of the CPGB itself, as it betrayed its trust ever more blatently.
In forming the NCP we rejected the CPGB's programme The British Road To Socialism. And what came to be called "Eurocommunism" -- a form of revisionism that had infected a number of communist parties. This was characterised by Eurocentrism, narrow nationalism and denied the leading role of the working class and the class struggle itself.
Although we did not realise it at the time, "Euro-communism" had the tacit support of counter revolutionary elements that had actually penetrated the leading bodies df the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
Prior to 1977 in Britain, a 12 year inner party struggle to defeat revisionism in the CPGB had failed. The leadership was effectively purged of sound elements. Rajani Palme Dutt was manoeuvred off the CPGB's executive committee, and the crucial post of international secretary was secured for the revisionist and anti-Soviet leadership.
That became clear In 1968 when the CPGB opposed the Soviet intervention In Czechoslovakia. But that intervention enabled the working class in Czechoslovakia to avert counter revolution and maintained globally a cohesive socialist camp that ensured world peace and helped progressive humanity everywhere as it confronted imperialism.
We rejected The British Road to Socialism because it was totally flawed. It bred illusions that there could be a constitutional, parliamentary road to socialism.
But our party reaffirmed the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Revolution, in which the capitalist state is smashed and a working class state is established, is the fundamental pre-requisite to building a socialist society.
We have always stressed that the working class has to take state power and retain its hold throughout the period of socialism. We never endorsed the CPSU's declaration by Leonid Brezhnev that under socialism the working class state machine gives way to being the state of the whole people.
Socialism is a political and economic system in its own right. It is also a transitional period between capitalism and communism, between class divided and classless society. The socialist revolution, in one or several countries, does not signify the end of the class struggle. Such revolutions positively change the national and international balance of forces in favour of the working class.
But following such revolutions, and certainly while imperialists command great economic, political and military power and ideological influence, the class struggle eventually intensifies and takes on a multitude of forms.
In those circumstances, in the countries that have experienced socialist revolutions, throughout the period of global transition to communism, the working class has to retain state power. And, at the same time, the revolutionary party of the working class has to be consistent and strict in maintaining discipline.
The collective will of the party is expressed through its congresses and this arises from its under standing of the laws of economic and social development. Its integral relationship with the working class thus enables the party to fulfil the aspirations of the working class it is duty bound to serve.
Our party operates under a major capitalist power and oppressor where there is wide acceptance of class collaboration in the labour movement. It operates in conditions where all the main political parties seek to perpetuate capitalism, share common policies regarding both the upgrading of nuclear weapons and in many areas of foreign policy.
In spite of the imposition of a massive array of anti-trade union legislation, many trade union and labour movement leaders spout their commitment to partnership with the exploiters.
Surely it is evident that a strong ideological position is essential if the party is to survive and win the allegiance of the labour movement as it serves the interests of the working class.
AR: Building a new party and launching a weekly newspaper must have been very hard. What are your memories of that time?
ET: I have never regretted being involved in the struggle for Marxist-leninist principles that led to the decision to form the New Communist Party in July 1977. And it was only when the party was established did we get down to working out and adopting fully comprehensive policies and strategies.
For instance, inside the CPGB we had either accepted or not made an issue of the party's position on Ireland, or a number of questions relating to political economy and working class unity. To be frank, the NCP's inaugural congress, held a few months after our formation, was a bit of a shambles. It reflected divergent opinions and demonstrated a shallow analysis of many issues.
We also had personnel problems. On the eve of launching our newspaper, the comrade who was to be editor got cold feet and resigned.
Nevertheless, the paper was launched under the editorship of a comrade with no journalistic experience. He set a high standard which has been enhanced by the four editors who succeeded him.
Of course, the quality of the New Worker is due to the party's strong ideological position, the dedication of the team of comrades responsible for producing the paper and the camaraderie in the party as a whole arising from its unity.
So the development of our party has been rewarding even though it has also given us more than a few headaches. We are strong in upholding vital principles and that is as it should be. We are also very clear that there should be no compromise on questions of ideology. This is of crucial importance.
AR: Unlike many larger and older parties, the NCP has survived the effects of the counter-revolution in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Does this surprise you?
ET: Not altogether. Our policy was formed out of the struggle against revisionism. The parties that succumbed to counter revolution and liquidation had already, and at leadership level, been undermined by revisionist and counter revolutionary elements. Those revisionist elements had been gathering strength nationally and internationally over a period of decades.
From time to time our party expelled revisionist elements we had good reason to suspect were working in the service of the enemy and striving to destroy our party. Many of the parties that succumbed to liquidation pressures had weakened themselves ideologically.
Some of them consciously beguiled their members by presenting revisionist ideas and policies as "new thinking" and a creative" development of Marxism. In turn, that helped the revisionists, agents and liquidators to strengthen their position organisationally at every level of the party.
The lack of a consistent and sustained attack on "Eurocommunism" by the CPSU leadership should have alerted the sound elements in the international communist movement to the pending danger emanating from the revisionist factions in the CPSU.
Instead, the emergence of the traitor Mikhail Gorbachov's administration, with its slogans of glasnost (openess) and perestroika (new thinking), meant a counter revolutionary offensive was unleashed. It was a coordinated offensive masterminded by imperialists.
The bitter lesson of that defeat for communists, working class and progressive humanity has to be taken to heart. Revisionism, if it is not defeated and rooted out, will inevitably give rise to the eventual liquidation of the party.
AR: The working class and its organisations face many difficulties today -- what do you think is the party's task and role, and do you look forward with confidence to the future?
ET: The capitalist crisis today is profound. New technology plus intensifying competition for market share is promoting action by the employers (including state intervention) to downsize the labour force.
That tendency is being marginally offset by promoting a low wage economy, cutting the provisions of the "welfare state" and generally lowering the standard of living of the majority whilst enhancing the wealth of the few.
But these actions don't resolve the crisis, they actually exacerbate it. Moreover, job insecurity has engulfed large swathes of administrative, technical and professional workers who, up until recently, were quite satisfied with their lot under capitalism. Not only did they feel their own jobs were secure, they also felt certain that their children would be assured of a good job and a high standard of living.
They, and most others in 1997, considered the problem merely to be one of administration and Tory greed. The general election reflected a massive rejection of the Tory party which has been replaced by a Labour government under pressure from the working class, but with the clear intent of working to perpetuate capitalism and complying with the dictates of the dominant section of the capitalist class.
Hence, the crisis deepens, and experience shows that social democracy -- while to some extent mitigating sleaze and responding to working class pressure with a few concessions -- continues with the same basic policies as the previous Tory government.
Labour is seen as an alternative to a Tory government, but it cannot further the fundamental interests of the working class or take measures to resolve the crisis because it will not challenge capitalism.
The reality of capitalist crisis and its profoundly new features arising from new technology, provide an increased necessity for socialism. Social democracy and reformism is not the answer to this crisis. Marxism-Leninism, revolution and socialism is the only alternative to capitalism in crisis that is practically attainable and serve the interests of the working class.
There is no other solution that can unleash the creative energy of the working class and protect the environment. So our first job is to preach socialism as we help promote cohesive struggle around urgent, immediate demands. These range from higher wages, cuts in military spending, trade union rights, public ownership of basic services, defence of health and education, and so on. It is not easy to accomplish this, of course, but we must try and make the link between the immediate demands and the revolutionary aim of establishing working class state power.
We must also build our party. A key role in that respect must be to increase the readership of our paper the New Worker, which carries and develops communist analysis.
The way ahead is difficult and complex but it will not daunt us.
We face the future. Equipped with the revolutionary ideology and party of Marxism-Leninism, we are confident that through the struggle the working class will win its full emancipation with the triumph of socialism over the reactionary forces of capitalism and imperialism, which breed exploitation, war and poverty.
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