By Neil Harris
The revolutionary party
TO ASK what revolutionaries do between revolutions is not an idle question, not least because Lenin’s definition of a revolutionary situation still holds true:
“The fundamental law of revolutions, which has been confirmed by all revolutions and especially by all three Russian revolutions in the 20th century, is as follows: for a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the ‘lower classes’ do not want to live in the old way and the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph.”
While revolutions do not just happen – they have to be made – we cannot make something happen just because we want it to. A number of objective factors have to coincide, and as we have come to realise, such situations are rare.
An earthquake may only last a few seconds but under the surface the build-up of pressure between tectonic plates has taken decades, if not centuries, to reach crisis point. The aftershocks continue for months, if not years, afterwards.
So it is with the class struggle. The day-to-day battles between workers and bosses, which seem so trivial, periodically explode into revolutions and counter revolutions. In the same way the aftershocks of these conflicts roll out across the world.
When the Paris Commune of 1871 was drowned in the blood of 50,000 executed revolutionaries, the carnival of reaction that followed engulfed Europe and seemed to signify the death of socialism forever. At that time who but Marx and Engels in their London exile could foresee the changes to come? Some 30 years later the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 would be carried out in the name of the Commune, just as the failed revolutions of 1848 had proved to be the inspiration for the Communards themselves.
The aftershocks of 1917 were to spread across the world and echo today in Beijing, Pyongyang and Havana.
So it is with counter revolutions – the ripples from fascism’s triumph in Italy and the defeat of the German revolution in 1919 to 1923 were to have their influence on the victory of German fascism, which in turn would hit Spain in the years leading up to the Second World War.
In our own time the counter revolutions of 1989, which saw the collapse of socialism, first in eastern Europe, then in the Soviet Union itself, were at least as disastrous as the defeat of the Commune. Certainly the cost in human life from the wars and reduced life expectancy has been far worse – millions of workers have died. Hailed by the bourgeois philosopher Francis Fukiyama as “the end of history”, what he actually meant was the end of the class struggle. In the beginning, at least, he seemed to be right.
Vast new markets were opened and an equally enormous labour force – cheap, demoralised and stripped of their unions, ripe for exploitation. Best of all, the rich saw raw materials of one sixth of the Earth’s surface, suddenly were available for imperialist plunder for the first time in 70 years. Oil, gas, gold, diamonds, bauxite, iron and steel – the new treasures of the east making the opening of the Wild West seem cheap in comparison.
Scores of new billionaires appeared overnight, bloated with loot, while at the same time several hundred million of the “new poor” were impoverished beyond belief by their first contact with capitalism.
Worst of all, the bankrupt world capitalist system became equally bloated with super profits from these new opportunities, bankrolled for another 20 years, long past the point when it would otherwise have collapse under the weight of its own debts.
No one could be surprised that the liquidation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) would be followed by the collapse of communist parties around the world, some of them millions strong, all of which had modelled themselves on the ideological factions within the CPSU.
Some, like the French party, echoed the revisionism of Krushchov and Brezhnev, revising away the revolutionary heritage of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Others, like the so-called euro-communist Communist Party of Italy, modelled themselves on the reformist trend in the CPSU, seeking a third way between capitalism and socialism and which was to come to power with the Gorbachov clique.
That both trends should lead to the liquidation of their parties was inevitable, for as Lenin said: “Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary party”. Quite simply, in the age of capitalist ownership of the means of production, all thought, all politics are determined by capitalist thought and politics unless it is rooted in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the capitalist system.”
The absence of revolutionary theory opened the door to the capitalist theory that dominates society.
As a result, all those communist parties that thought there could be some sort of accommodation with capitalism, historic or otherwise, are no longer with us, swept away in the tidal wave of revision.
Just as dramatic was the collapse of the Trotskyite left, never large, consisting of some hundreds of thousands rather than millions. Strident, vocal and encouraged by the bourgeoisie, they devoted all their energies to attacking socialism wherever it existed from the position of a self-styled left opposition. The collapse of the Soviet Union removed their only justification for existence and they were faced with the same stark ideological choice as the rest of us – revolution or reform. With very few exceptions they chose electoral politics and as a result the parties of the fourth international shrank with the same speed as those of the third.
The crisis on the Left has not stopped there. The collapse of the Soviet Union should have been the moment of triumph for the parties of the second international, the parties of social democracy.
Since 1917 they were the bitter enemies of communism – positioning themselves as critics of the Russian revolution from the right. At home they made an accommodation with their capitalists, arguing that gradual reforms were preferable to revolutionary change. On foreign policy they sided with their own imperialists’ interests and were to be correctly described by Lenin as “social imperialists – socialist in words, imperialist in deeds”.
For the imperialists the deal was simple – after 1917 they faced the prospect of losing everything. For the cost a few concessions and an occasional social democrat government they survived.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War the deal was off – the imperialists had no further use of their quislings. They forced the social democrats back, winning concession after concession at the expense of the workers. Each time the social democrats moved further to the right until they had given up any pretence of arguing for socialism, democratic or otherwise. In Britain Blair and Brown were only too happy to trade clause four to take “power” in 1997.
The social democrats’ reward has been electoral defeats one after another: in France, Germany and eve their heartlands of Holland and Scandinavia.
Both left and right critics of the Soviet Union were two sides of the same coin. Both existed only as parasites on the strength of the international working class after 1917. The paradox is that before 1917 the social democrats were everywhere too weak to take power. After 1989 the imperialists were too strong to need them. The defeat of the working class in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe was to be a defeat for the whole working class of the world in the same way that the defeat of the British miners in 1985 was not just a defeat for them but for all workers in Britain and beyond.
So what remains in the rubble to build on? After an earthquake the great plates beneath the Earth’s surface immediately start to push and grind again, just as before. It is the same with the class struggle – it never stops. If workers are not moving forwards they are moving back until the fight begins again.
For revolutionaries there has been an instinctive coming together of the world communist movement in a series of international meetings. In the aftermath of 1989 that was only natural. The struggle continues and in the battle against bourgeois ideas the party of Lenin has proved to be our best and only weapon.
That party is one in which the theoretical principles of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, dialectical materialism and proletarian internationalism are united in the organisational discipline of democratic centralism. This is what distinguishes us from either social democracy or Trotskyism and is why we survive.
There is no doubt that materialism and dialectics best explain the world and how it changes. The economic theories of Marx and Engels are just as valid today as they were in the 19th century. Surplus value is still the mechanism by which capital reproduces itself and the collapse of capitalism in 2008 has its ancestry in the banking collapses of the 1880s, 1900s and 1930s.
Lenin’s analysis of the state, imperialism and finance capital is just as useful in the era of “globalisation” as it was in the early days of the 20th century. These are our ideological weapons and the disciplined party is the means of using them in practice.
Bourgeois elections
Since its formation in 1977, the New Communist Party has always refused to stand in bourgeois elections, not as a tactical boycott but as a matter of principle. Those who founded the party did so after a long battle with revisionism in the old Communist Party of Great Britain, going back to the 1950s. Part of that ideological struggle developed out of the old party’s shift away from workplace organisations for revolution to territorial branches based on election campaigns.
But it went deeper than that. For us there is a distinct difference between the state, which Marx described as “the organising committee of the bourgeoisie” and parliamentary government, which is merely an apparently democratic veneer, hiding the violent and coercive nature of the state underneath. The security services, police and army are only too ready to use force when capitalism is threatened.
For Marx and Engels, “Political power, properly so-called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another”. This dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the reality of our society and to replace it requires the overthrow of the bourgeois state and its replacement with a proletarian state and a proletarian dictatorship in its place. That is the reality of political power.
At one level, standing in bourgeois elections is a compromise with capitalism we are not prepared to make. At another, it fosters illusions amongst the working class that winning seats in Parliament brings the possibility of reforming capitalism, when in fact only governments acceptable to the bourgeoisie are able to win “power”. As ever the choice is between reform and revolution, social democracy and communism.
However, whether we like it or not, elections happen and it would be foolish to pretend they do not matter. The last campaign for the US presidency cost over $1,000 million, the bulk of it contributed by the bourgeoisie and their allies. It is rare that such people give their money away for nothing. When bourgeois politicians campaign for votes the campaign is not for the support of millions of voters but for the support of small numbers of the ruling class and their allies in the media.
As Andy Brooks, general secretary of the New Communist Party, has put it: “Bourgeois elections are the battle by the smallest number of people to manipulate the maximum number of votes.”
In Britain, Cameron and Brown have probably spent more time courting the support of one man, Rupert Murdoch, than they will devote to winning the votes of the whole electorate. In bourgeois elections the contest is actually between different factions and interests in a divided bourgeoisie, which is then projected as being a contest for the interests of the people as a whole.
The nature of social democracy
When workers realised that on their own they were powerless against the boss, they started to organise in unions to protect themselves. Unions arose out of the class struggle and are part of it. Their fluctuating strength reflects the class consciousness of the working class and its ability to confront the ruling class. Because they are a product of the class struggle there is nothing revolutionary about unions and nothing about them that threatens the existence of capitalism itself, only the level of exploitation and the amount of surplus value.
Because trade unions are created by workers as a means of self-defence in the class struggle it should be no surprise that the majority of trade union leaders are reformist and social democrats and often betray the interests of their members.
This is why communists are active in the unions, battling to make them democratic, militant and class conscious. The aim is to convert that class consciousness into a revolutionary consciousness – to fight not just for higher wages but to seize and control the means of production itself, or as it has often been said, not to fight for a bigger slice of the cake but the whole cake and the equipment that made it as well.
That is why social democratic, reformist unions are still a working class asset and why communists support them in spite of their leaderships. The battle against the bosses is a daily education in the class struggle and how to fight it.
In the same way, the co-operative movement remains a working class asset and we also support it. Created in the 19th century as an alternative to the revolutionary struggle, co-operatives have always been dominated by the liberal and religious wing of the working class movement. Co-operators believe that they can somehow withdraw from the market and through that replace it. This form of reformism is based on idealism and wishful thinking. Nevertheless co-operatives are another working class defence mechanism in the class war. Co-operative assets have been built up through workers’ sacrifices over many years and in opposition to capitalism. They are non-capitalist concerns and deserve our support. For this reason communists are active in the cooperative movement, campaigning for democratic co-ops and fighting for a revolutionary position in relation to capitalism.
The Labour Party
By the early 20th century trade unionists realised that even combined in unions the workers were no match for the ruling class and its control over the state. Social democracy arose when workers organised in unions began to seek political power themselves and created political parties to promote their interests.
Once again, social democracy arose out of the class struggle – most of its votes and members are workers. There being nothing revolutionary about the class struggle itself, there is equally nothing revolutionary about social democracy, which exists only to reform capitalism and as a defensive measure in the class struggle.
There are broadly two kinds of social democrats:
• Right social democrats who believe that capitalism is the best system and simply requires some reforms to remove its more unpleasant side effects. So, the economist Keynes believed that increased Government expenditure could eliminate unemployment and Beveridge who believed that social welfare expenditure would eliminate poverty. Both were wrong; unemployment and poverty are part of the system itself.
• Left social democrats oppose capitalism and believe that it must be replaced with socialism but believe it is possible to do so by gradual democratic reforms. As we have seen, the nature of the bourgeois state makes this impossible. Most social democratic parties contain a mixture of left and right in varying proportions. Sometimes well-meaning, sometimes not, all social democrats remain a prisoner of capitalism.
Where do communists stand in relation to the Labour Party?
Since our formation, the New Communist Party has always called on the working class to vote Labour and will continue to do so except in the case of European Union elections, which, as an undemocratic sham, we call on all workers to boycott.
We call on the working class to vote Labour not because we have any illusions that it is anything other than a social democrat party or that its leaders can ever be won to revolutionary politics. On the contrary, even if our campaign for a democratic Labour Party that opens its doors to left-wing parties like ours to affiliate as autonomous, independent groups were to succeed, it would still be a social democratic party.
We support Labour in elections because it still has a mass membership of working class trade unionists, affiliated through their unions. This mass membership and the votes the party receives as a result are what make it a class-based party in spite of its opportunist, petty-bourgeois leadership.
Workers vote Labour because they are still social democratic in outlook themselves, not out of misguided belief that the Labour Party is socialist. It is social democratic ideas that must be fought, not the institutions of the working class.
In 1848 Marx and Engels asked themselves the same question, although their reference to “party” predates our understanding of the term.
“In what relation do the communists stand to the proletariat as a whole?
“The communists do not form a separate party, opposed to other working class parties.
“They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
“They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.”
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
The Climate after Copenhagen
By Renee Sams
THE UNITED NATIONS climate summit in Copenhagen last December, after much debate, failed to come to any agreed action on climate change. There was a proposal that governments should pledge by a 31st January deadline by how much they were going to take action to protect the climate but nothing seems to have come of that.
It is now 21 years since the first scientific assessment of climate change was published and 18 years since the Rio Earth Summit at which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed.
Twelve years have passed since Kyoto Protocol was agreed and two years since the Bali Action plan, all milestones that were to provide ways forward to curb emissions of “greenhouse gases” but so little has been done that we are still heading inexorably towards a catastrophic climate change.
Despite the voices of large campaigns like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, supported by millions of people calling for action to save the planet, the political leaderships of the richest countries have ignored them yet again.
Although governments are unwilling to take on the challenge of the environment, some big corporations, seeing new opportunities for profit, have welcomed it and now renewable energy is growing by leaps and bounds.
For example, General Electric (NYSE) has switched business away from financial engineering to eco-engineering. Silicon Valley, pioneer Vinod Khosia, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, raised $2 billion in two funds on clean technologies. Sales of hybrid vehicles are growing at a breakneck pace and Toyota and Ford are trying to satisfy the demand with new models. and electric cars are also coming on the market.
Great improvements have been made in the latest electric cars but smaller, more efficient and longer lasting batteries will be needed if electric cars are to become the family car of the future.
Falling grain prices have brought biofuel back in the picture as a viable economic issue and Big Oil is now taking it seriously; Royal Dutch Shell is investing a staggering $12 billion in biofuels.
In the US President Obama, although supporting biofuels, has now put $83 billion into guarantees that will allow two new nuclear reactors to be built, the first in the United States in nearly three decades. He is trying to calm the fears of the anti-nuclear movement with the promise that by using beryllium as an additive that not so much dangerous radioactive waste will be produced.
But the dangers of trucking any radioactive waste around the country are well known and the anti-nuclear movement is angry and will campaign against any new reactors. They are also angry that taxpayers’ money is being used to build nuclear reactors because Wall Street bankers will not risk investing their millions in the unpopular nuclear business.
The Pentagon is also going for biofuels in a big way and they expect that by 2011 they will have a fuel suitable for military jets that will only cost $2 per barrel. This is despite warnings from scientists from the Global Invasion Species Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, together with other group about the dangers of invasive crops being used to make biofuel.
“Most of the newer biofuel crops are what scientists call invasive species that have an extraordinary high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land and created economic and ecological havoc in the process.
“Some of the most commonly recommended species for biofuel production are also major invasive alien species” the paper said, adding that “these crops should be studied more thoroughly before being cultivated in new areas”.
Wind farms are being built all over the world, and in this country the Chancellor Alistair Darling earmarked some £525millions in 2009 for the construction of five off-shore wind farms and dozens of turbines on shore.
The £525 millions will be streamed into the Renewables Obligation Scheme to make is more attractive to commercial companies to sell more wind energy. It is estimated that about 20GW of new wind farm sites could be built in the next ten years.
The use of solar power is also increasing; the sunny southern states in the US are producing a lot of solar power for domestic use and President Obama has now given preliminary approval of $4 billion in Federal loan guarantees to help build the world’s largest solar power complex in the Mojave desert in California.
The use of rivers to provide energy is not new and water driven power stations have got larger; the biggest now is China’s Three Gorges Dam project, which displaced over 1.2 million people. The Three Gorges Dam is over six times as long as the Hoover Dam, between Arizona and Nevada, and almost 50 per cent larger than Washington State’s Grand Coulee Dam.
Run-of-River projects use the natural downward flow of rivers and micro turbine generators to capture the kinetic energy carried by the water. Typically, water is taken from the river at a high point and gravity fed down a pipe to a lower a part where it emerges through a turbine generator and re-enters the river. This kind of project is relatively cheap and has very little environmental impact.
As the oil runs out, a lot work has been done to find a substitute to make diesel and the latest development is algae, a third generation biofuel which solves many of the problems that plants cause with a lot of water use and fertilisers. Algae has a small footprint, it doesn’t use much land or water, it can be grown anywhere and as a bonus it eats CO2.
Producing algol oil close to where it is going to be used is more economic than piping or shipping oil thousands of miles and unlike oil it is a renewable resource, capable of providing consistent amounts of oil as fossil fuel reserves grow harder and more costly to find and exploit.
Many big corporations are now investing in the research and development of algae biofuel including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, although it will be a few years before Algadiesel is ready for mass sale in family cars.
THE UNITED NATIONS climate summit in Copenhagen last December, after much debate, failed to come to any agreed action on climate change. There was a proposal that governments should pledge by a 31st January deadline by how much they were going to take action to protect the climate but nothing seems to have come of that.
It is now 21 years since the first scientific assessment of climate change was published and 18 years since the Rio Earth Summit at which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed.
Twelve years have passed since Kyoto Protocol was agreed and two years since the Bali Action plan, all milestones that were to provide ways forward to curb emissions of “greenhouse gases” but so little has been done that we are still heading inexorably towards a catastrophic climate change.
Despite the voices of large campaigns like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, supported by millions of people calling for action to save the planet, the political leaderships of the richest countries have ignored them yet again.
Although governments are unwilling to take on the challenge of the environment, some big corporations, seeing new opportunities for profit, have welcomed it and now renewable energy is growing by leaps and bounds.
For example, General Electric (NYSE) has switched business away from financial engineering to eco-engineering. Silicon Valley, pioneer Vinod Khosia, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, raised $2 billion in two funds on clean technologies. Sales of hybrid vehicles are growing at a breakneck pace and Toyota and Ford are trying to satisfy the demand with new models. and electric cars are also coming on the market.
Great improvements have been made in the latest electric cars but smaller, more efficient and longer lasting batteries will be needed if electric cars are to become the family car of the future.
Falling grain prices have brought biofuel back in the picture as a viable economic issue and Big Oil is now taking it seriously; Royal Dutch Shell is investing a staggering $12 billion in biofuels.
In the US President Obama, although supporting biofuels, has now put $83 billion into guarantees that will allow two new nuclear reactors to be built, the first in the United States in nearly three decades. He is trying to calm the fears of the anti-nuclear movement with the promise that by using beryllium as an additive that not so much dangerous radioactive waste will be produced.
But the dangers of trucking any radioactive waste around the country are well known and the anti-nuclear movement is angry and will campaign against any new reactors. They are also angry that taxpayers’ money is being used to build nuclear reactors because Wall Street bankers will not risk investing their millions in the unpopular nuclear business.
The Pentagon is also going for biofuels in a big way and they expect that by 2011 they will have a fuel suitable for military jets that will only cost $2 per barrel. This is despite warnings from scientists from the Global Invasion Species Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, together with other group about the dangers of invasive crops being used to make biofuel.
“Most of the newer biofuel crops are what scientists call invasive species that have an extraordinary high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land and created economic and ecological havoc in the process.
“Some of the most commonly recommended species for biofuel production are also major invasive alien species” the paper said, adding that “these crops should be studied more thoroughly before being cultivated in new areas”.
Wind farms are being built all over the world, and in this country the Chancellor Alistair Darling earmarked some £525millions in 2009 for the construction of five off-shore wind farms and dozens of turbines on shore.
The £525 millions will be streamed into the Renewables Obligation Scheme to make is more attractive to commercial companies to sell more wind energy. It is estimated that about 20GW of new wind farm sites could be built in the next ten years.
The use of solar power is also increasing; the sunny southern states in the US are producing a lot of solar power for domestic use and President Obama has now given preliminary approval of $4 billion in Federal loan guarantees to help build the world’s largest solar power complex in the Mojave desert in California.
The use of rivers to provide energy is not new and water driven power stations have got larger; the biggest now is China’s Three Gorges Dam project, which displaced over 1.2 million people. The Three Gorges Dam is over six times as long as the Hoover Dam, between Arizona and Nevada, and almost 50 per cent larger than Washington State’s Grand Coulee Dam.
Run-of-River projects use the natural downward flow of rivers and micro turbine generators to capture the kinetic energy carried by the water. Typically, water is taken from the river at a high point and gravity fed down a pipe to a lower a part where it emerges through a turbine generator and re-enters the river. This kind of project is relatively cheap and has very little environmental impact.
As the oil runs out, a lot work has been done to find a substitute to make diesel and the latest development is algae, a third generation biofuel which solves many of the problems that plants cause with a lot of water use and fertilisers. Algae has a small footprint, it doesn’t use much land or water, it can be grown anywhere and as a bonus it eats CO2.
Producing algol oil close to where it is going to be used is more economic than piping or shipping oil thousands of miles and unlike oil it is a renewable resource, capable of providing consistent amounts of oil as fossil fuel reserves grow harder and more costly to find and exploit.
Many big corporations are now investing in the research and development of algae biofuel including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, although it will be a few years before Algadiesel is ready for mass sale in family cars.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Putting the individual human voice into the Palestinian narrative
By Karen Dabrowska
THE HUMAN individual voice has been lost from the Palestinian narrative and Dina Matar is determined to put it back.
Her latest book: What it Means to be a Palestinian, Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood is a narrative of narratives, a collection of personal stories, remembered feelings and reconstructed experiences by different Palestinians whose lives were changed and shaped by history. Their stories are told chronologically through particular phases of the Palestinian national struggle, providing a composite autobiography of Palestine as a landscape and as a people.
The book begins with the 1936 revolt against British rule in Palestine and ends in 1993 with the Oslo peace agreement that, according to Matar, changed the nature and form of the national struggle.
It is based on in-depth interviews and conversations with 80 Palestinians male and female, old and young, rich and poor, religious and secular in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Occupied Territories. Presented as remembered and personal narratives and as “social” histories, these conversations provide a deep and intimate account of what it means to be Palestinian in the 21st century.
Speaking about her book, at the University of Westminister's Communication and Media Research Institute in London at the end of February, Matar explained that she was re-writing history from the perspective of the person using the oral history method.
"This is a bottom up history of Palestine where the Palestinians represent themselves. The best way to talk about what it means to be Palestinian is to let the people themselves talk. I wanted to write in a way that is accessible to many readers not just an academic audience", Matar said.
She is convinced that memory can speak truth to power. There is no such thing as a single Palestinian memory but Palestinian memories are political at heart.
During her presentation at the University of Westminster Matar focused on extracts from her book.
Ellen Khouri, one of the interviewees told her: "I had many identities and I still do, but none of them is the right one, none fits".
The late Shafiq Al-Hout who lived in Lebanon after being exiled from Palestine asked: "What can you say to someone whose normal existence has been taken away from him? It took me a while to have a bed and a room to call my own. It might not seem that hard to you but believe me, living in a room with so many for eight years is hell.
And yet it is nothing compared to other experiences. I have been through a lot and you can read about my experiences and my journey into exile in my book. And now that I am an old man and more reflective I can tell you that my experiences taught me that you can survive anything. You can survive loss but not non-belonging".
The book also describes the experiences of veterans of the Palestinian struggle. Leila Khalid, the first woman to hijack an aeroplane, spoke about leaving Haifa and eating oranges in her uncle’s house. Her mother scolded her and told her "our oranges are in Haifa not here".
And there is an interview with an artist who spent 15 years in prison, in solitary confinement. "The Israelis thought we would come out of prison like rotten tomatoes but we came out as apples", he said.
A member of Islamic Jihad recalls an interview with an Israeli army officer who asks him where the Israelis should go if they leave Jaffa and Haifa. "I don't know", he replies. "Ask Hamas".
Dana Matar is a lecturer in Arab Media and International Political Communication at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Before turning to academia, she worked as a foreign correspondent and editor covering the Middle East, Europe and Africa with various agencies. She is a co-editor of The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. She has published journal and book articles on the Palestinian Diaspora in Britain and news, culture, politics, Arab women and media and Hezbollah. Her new book will be published in October
THE HUMAN individual voice has been lost from the Palestinian narrative and Dina Matar is determined to put it back.
Her latest book: What it Means to be a Palestinian, Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood is a narrative of narratives, a collection of personal stories, remembered feelings and reconstructed experiences by different Palestinians whose lives were changed and shaped by history. Their stories are told chronologically through particular phases of the Palestinian national struggle, providing a composite autobiography of Palestine as a landscape and as a people.
The book begins with the 1936 revolt against British rule in Palestine and ends in 1993 with the Oslo peace agreement that, according to Matar, changed the nature and form of the national struggle.
It is based on in-depth interviews and conversations with 80 Palestinians male and female, old and young, rich and poor, religious and secular in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Occupied Territories. Presented as remembered and personal narratives and as “social” histories, these conversations provide a deep and intimate account of what it means to be Palestinian in the 21st century.
Speaking about her book, at the University of Westminister's Communication and Media Research Institute in London at the end of February, Matar explained that she was re-writing history from the perspective of the person using the oral history method.
"This is a bottom up history of Palestine where the Palestinians represent themselves. The best way to talk about what it means to be Palestinian is to let the people themselves talk. I wanted to write in a way that is accessible to many readers not just an academic audience", Matar said.
She is convinced that memory can speak truth to power. There is no such thing as a single Palestinian memory but Palestinian memories are political at heart.
During her presentation at the University of Westminster Matar focused on extracts from her book.
Ellen Khouri, one of the interviewees told her: "I had many identities and I still do, but none of them is the right one, none fits".
The late Shafiq Al-Hout who lived in Lebanon after being exiled from Palestine asked: "What can you say to someone whose normal existence has been taken away from him? It took me a while to have a bed and a room to call my own. It might not seem that hard to you but believe me, living in a room with so many for eight years is hell.
And yet it is nothing compared to other experiences. I have been through a lot and you can read about my experiences and my journey into exile in my book. And now that I am an old man and more reflective I can tell you that my experiences taught me that you can survive anything. You can survive loss but not non-belonging".
The book also describes the experiences of veterans of the Palestinian struggle. Leila Khalid, the first woman to hijack an aeroplane, spoke about leaving Haifa and eating oranges in her uncle’s house. Her mother scolded her and told her "our oranges are in Haifa not here".
And there is an interview with an artist who spent 15 years in prison, in solitary confinement. "The Israelis thought we would come out of prison like rotten tomatoes but we came out as apples", he said.
A member of Islamic Jihad recalls an interview with an Israeli army officer who asks him where the Israelis should go if they leave Jaffa and Haifa. "I don't know", he replies. "Ask Hamas".
Dana Matar is a lecturer in Arab Media and International Political Communication at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Before turning to academia, she worked as a foreign correspondent and editor covering the Middle East, Europe and Africa with various agencies. She is a co-editor of The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. She has published journal and book articles on the Palestinian Diaspora in Britain and news, culture, politics, Arab women and media and Hezbollah. Her new book will be published in October
A teacher in China
By Anne Leggett
LAST YEAR I went as a volunteer teacher to help improve the spoken English of middle school teachers in rural Southwest China. I heard about The Amity Foundation Summer English Programme (SEP) when I chose to replace a friend who could not go for health reasons. The Amity Foundation – an NGO based in Nanning – was founded in 1985 by Chinese Christians as a response to the nation’s call for reform and openness. It aims to promote education, social and health services and rural development.
There was much to prepare: inoculations, form filling, an informal introductory vetting interview in March; a later get-together in May to decide who would teach which ability level; what resources we would bring and to discuss lesson plans. The team leader and her husband had been on the SEP twice before and had previously lived some years in Macau and Hong Kong.
The main problem with Chinese teaching of English is that lessons have concentrated heavily on reading/writing rather than oral/aural skills. The school textbooks have been revised relatively recently to introduce the latter, and so now the teachers have to provide more than explanations of grammar rules and methods for passing written tests. Furthermore it is difficult to supervise and co-ordinate group activities when teaching in a more creative, spontaneous and interactive style in classrooms of up to 80 pupils!
Another problem is the lack of native English teachers in that vast country to help improve their speaking and listening fluency. Our responsibilities were:– to give conversation and discussion based lessons appropriate for teachers in their 20s to 40s; to give some ideas for word games, dialogue activities, jazz chants, rhymes and so on useful for middle school learners, whilst being aware that our suggestions might not work in the Chinese classroom and also to ask questions and learn about Chinese culture.
We left Heathrow on 3rd July and arrived at Shanghai (Pudong) Airport, 11 hours and nearly 6000 miles later, at about 8am on the 4th July. On arrival, four white-coated and masked health personnel boarded and checked our forehead temperatures with hand-held sensors to the amusement of the Chinese passengers. If anyone had tested positive for swine flu we would all have had to be put in quarantine.
We travelled to Nanjing for our orientation programme and we were kept there a full week to make sure we were not harbouring swine flu! We stayed at the International Conference Hotel in the scenic forested Zhongshan or Purple Mountain area which contains the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, Ming Tomb and a long avenue of stone statues of elephants, dromedaries, dragons, warriors and scholars. The Chinese enjoyed free use of the Ming Tomb Park and did their exercises against the stone animals or even hung upside down from them! By Purple Glow Lake, we saw one man standing on his head whilst singing at the top of his voice and just missed photographing him to everyone’s amusement.
In the Cloud Brocade Museum, I watched the complicated process of connect-warp break-weft weaving using two people – one aloft – on a large jacquard loom. Just four inches of brocade can be woven in a day! We watched a silk dress fashion show, were presented with a book to remind us of the glorious colours, patterns, skill and 4000-year history of silk-making. We visited two Amity-initiated special needs centres: a bead-making workshop, set up in 2002, for learning disabled people aged 16-40, and a centre set up in 2007, to assess and train autistic children under seven years old.
Some interesting facts to emerge from our orientation lectures were:– 10 per cent of the 1.3 billion population are migrants; five of the most polluted cities in the world are in China; HIV/AIDS prevalence is apparently low at .05 per ecnt; about 83 million are disabled; the one child policy, introduced in 1979, has contributed to doubling the percentage of people over 60 to nearly 20 per cent in the last decade, prompting the fear that China will get old before it gets rich; about one to two per cent are Christians; retirement age is 60 for men and 55 for women. Having benefited from 30 years of reform and foreign investment, China appears to be weathering the recession much better than Europe and the USA with economic growth predicted for the next few years. However, it is still a third world economy with much poverty in rural areas – school enrolment, although free there, is just 40 to 70 per cent.
On Sunday 12th July, our team of four flew for nearly three hours to Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang. Then followed a bumpy two and a half-hour ride 100km north to a very green Shanglin. There was evident poverty – some people were walking barefoot. There were motor bikes and bicycles, but very few cars on the road and little sign of public transport. There was not much industry apart from manganese and aluminium extraction and there was also rice, tea and fruit growing. We saw corn drying in the sun and small rice stacks. When we got to the small town of 45,000 inhabitants, we saw Daming Mountains nearby – green to the top. Walking there was a favourite pastime for many of the teachers. On arrival, the education officials gave us a great welcome and a banquet.
The following day began at 8am with ability placement interviews, followed by an opening ceremony. My first lesson was about introductions and so I divided the teachers into pairs and then groups of four to encourage English dialogue.
During our discussion lessons, I discovered that:– a Japanese might be more useful than English, given China's proximity to and major trade dealings with Japan; anxieties included lack of organised care; there were more advantages than disadvantages to the one child policy; people can travel freely; the teachers earned approximately £120 per month; although the teachers would have liked a higher salary, they were aware that, “With money you can buy books, but not knowledge; a clock, but not time; medicine, but not health; a bed, but not sleep.”
I chose certain witty limericks to lighten the lessons and help the class escape from the burdensome chore of endless grammar and new vocabulary. I explained limerick construction and we gathered suitable rhymes to produce a group effort. We had great fun finding similar and different proverbs. Many were similar, for example: “While the tiger is away, the monkey can play”. The teachers loved word games and were good at homophones, antonyms, synonyms and anagrams.
The afternoon sessions were reserved for more relaxed and informal learning. The teachers watched the film Narnia, but the 2009 Springwatch programme would have been more appealing to wildlife enthusiasts. There was a talk on Shakespeare’s plays made accessible in an amusing way and another talk about Beijing and London. More energetic afternoon sessions included rounders, which they had never played before, football and Scottish country dancing. The word games sessions went very well because the Chinese are extremely competitive. It was a sobering thought that these teachers would have to supervise stimulating activities with a group of 60-80 pupils with no assistant to lend a helping hand!
Best of all was the talent show. Some performed a beautiful combined mime and dance which was a thank-you and farewell to us. Others did some very authentic Indian dancing. There was a demonstration of a martial art using a nunchaku (two thick sticks joined together by a chain).
As well as working hard, we did have time to sightsee. The first Friday evening, we enjoyed watching a graceful tea ceremony. The cups were washed with the first brew and we drank the third brew, trying out three teas. Women, but not men, have to hold their little finger out when drinking! Whilst enjoying the relative coolness of the night air under the mango trees, we came across a group of erhu players who warmly invited us to sit down and drink tea whilst they played three pieces for us – one was a horse race and the last a gentle goodnight. On the way back we were accosted by our lovely cook who offered us roasted peanuts.
Being foreign workers, we were expected to register at the police station. The atmosphere was very relaxed and informal. I think we were the only Europeans there in a place rarely, if ever, visited by tourists. Two members of our team had to see the doctor and were given good prompt orthodox treatment – one for a skin rash on the leg and the other for mild shingles. There are no GP surgeries in China. Patients see doctors in the hospital. I learnt that short sight is a common problem – many of the teachers wore glasses.
One of the most impressive aspects of my visit was the unfailing kindness and helpfulness of our hosts. They ate with us, helped us with teaching resource requirements and provided us with a ready and willing translation service at all times. The tradition is to look after guests in a protective way, perhaps a bit smothering for some people.
We had an unexpected extra invitation to stay one night in Nanning after the Friday closing ceremony in Shanglin. The Nanjing officials wanted us to admire their prosperous capital with fine buildings, impressively lit up at night, spacious avenues and park with many tropical trees. Nanjing is very green and sedate – a complete contrast to Shanghai.
The hardest part of my stay was not being able to communicate. I had a wonderful introduction to China, felt very privileged to be able to go there and would like to go back, but when I can say more than ni hao and zai chien’ – a “hello” and ”goodbye”!
LAST YEAR I went as a volunteer teacher to help improve the spoken English of middle school teachers in rural Southwest China. I heard about The Amity Foundation Summer English Programme (SEP) when I chose to replace a friend who could not go for health reasons. The Amity Foundation – an NGO based in Nanning – was founded in 1985 by Chinese Christians as a response to the nation’s call for reform and openness. It aims to promote education, social and health services and rural development.
There was much to prepare: inoculations, form filling, an informal introductory vetting interview in March; a later get-together in May to decide who would teach which ability level; what resources we would bring and to discuss lesson plans. The team leader and her husband had been on the SEP twice before and had previously lived some years in Macau and Hong Kong.
The main problem with Chinese teaching of English is that lessons have concentrated heavily on reading/writing rather than oral/aural skills. The school textbooks have been revised relatively recently to introduce the latter, and so now the teachers have to provide more than explanations of grammar rules and methods for passing written tests. Furthermore it is difficult to supervise and co-ordinate group activities when teaching in a more creative, spontaneous and interactive style in classrooms of up to 80 pupils!
Another problem is the lack of native English teachers in that vast country to help improve their speaking and listening fluency. Our responsibilities were:– to give conversation and discussion based lessons appropriate for teachers in their 20s to 40s; to give some ideas for word games, dialogue activities, jazz chants, rhymes and so on useful for middle school learners, whilst being aware that our suggestions might not work in the Chinese classroom and also to ask questions and learn about Chinese culture.
We left Heathrow on 3rd July and arrived at Shanghai (Pudong) Airport, 11 hours and nearly 6000 miles later, at about 8am on the 4th July. On arrival, four white-coated and masked health personnel boarded and checked our forehead temperatures with hand-held sensors to the amusement of the Chinese passengers. If anyone had tested positive for swine flu we would all have had to be put in quarantine.
We travelled to Nanjing for our orientation programme and we were kept there a full week to make sure we were not harbouring swine flu! We stayed at the International Conference Hotel in the scenic forested Zhongshan or Purple Mountain area which contains the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, Ming Tomb and a long avenue of stone statues of elephants, dromedaries, dragons, warriors and scholars. The Chinese enjoyed free use of the Ming Tomb Park and did their exercises against the stone animals or even hung upside down from them! By Purple Glow Lake, we saw one man standing on his head whilst singing at the top of his voice and just missed photographing him to everyone’s amusement.
In the Cloud Brocade Museum, I watched the complicated process of connect-warp break-weft weaving using two people – one aloft – on a large jacquard loom. Just four inches of brocade can be woven in a day! We watched a silk dress fashion show, were presented with a book to remind us of the glorious colours, patterns, skill and 4000-year history of silk-making. We visited two Amity-initiated special needs centres: a bead-making workshop, set up in 2002, for learning disabled people aged 16-40, and a centre set up in 2007, to assess and train autistic children under seven years old.
Some interesting facts to emerge from our orientation lectures were:– 10 per cent of the 1.3 billion population are migrants; five of the most polluted cities in the world are in China; HIV/AIDS prevalence is apparently low at .05 per ecnt; about 83 million are disabled; the one child policy, introduced in 1979, has contributed to doubling the percentage of people over 60 to nearly 20 per cent in the last decade, prompting the fear that China will get old before it gets rich; about one to two per cent are Christians; retirement age is 60 for men and 55 for women. Having benefited from 30 years of reform and foreign investment, China appears to be weathering the recession much better than Europe and the USA with economic growth predicted for the next few years. However, it is still a third world economy with much poverty in rural areas – school enrolment, although free there, is just 40 to 70 per cent.
On Sunday 12th July, our team of four flew for nearly three hours to Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang. Then followed a bumpy two and a half-hour ride 100km north to a very green Shanglin. There was evident poverty – some people were walking barefoot. There were motor bikes and bicycles, but very few cars on the road and little sign of public transport. There was not much industry apart from manganese and aluminium extraction and there was also rice, tea and fruit growing. We saw corn drying in the sun and small rice stacks. When we got to the small town of 45,000 inhabitants, we saw Daming Mountains nearby – green to the top. Walking there was a favourite pastime for many of the teachers. On arrival, the education officials gave us a great welcome and a banquet.
The following day began at 8am with ability placement interviews, followed by an opening ceremony. My first lesson was about introductions and so I divided the teachers into pairs and then groups of four to encourage English dialogue.
During our discussion lessons, I discovered that:– a Japanese might be more useful than English, given China's proximity to and major trade dealings with Japan; anxieties included lack of organised care; there were more advantages than disadvantages to the one child policy; people can travel freely; the teachers earned approximately £120 per month; although the teachers would have liked a higher salary, they were aware that, “With money you can buy books, but not knowledge; a clock, but not time; medicine, but not health; a bed, but not sleep.”
I chose certain witty limericks to lighten the lessons and help the class escape from the burdensome chore of endless grammar and new vocabulary. I explained limerick construction and we gathered suitable rhymes to produce a group effort. We had great fun finding similar and different proverbs. Many were similar, for example: “While the tiger is away, the monkey can play”. The teachers loved word games and were good at homophones, antonyms, synonyms and anagrams.
The afternoon sessions were reserved for more relaxed and informal learning. The teachers watched the film Narnia, but the 2009 Springwatch programme would have been more appealing to wildlife enthusiasts. There was a talk on Shakespeare’s plays made accessible in an amusing way and another talk about Beijing and London. More energetic afternoon sessions included rounders, which they had never played before, football and Scottish country dancing. The word games sessions went very well because the Chinese are extremely competitive. It was a sobering thought that these teachers would have to supervise stimulating activities with a group of 60-80 pupils with no assistant to lend a helping hand!
Best of all was the talent show. Some performed a beautiful combined mime and dance which was a thank-you and farewell to us. Others did some very authentic Indian dancing. There was a demonstration of a martial art using a nunchaku (two thick sticks joined together by a chain).
As well as working hard, we did have time to sightsee. The first Friday evening, we enjoyed watching a graceful tea ceremony. The cups were washed with the first brew and we drank the third brew, trying out three teas. Women, but not men, have to hold their little finger out when drinking! Whilst enjoying the relative coolness of the night air under the mango trees, we came across a group of erhu players who warmly invited us to sit down and drink tea whilst they played three pieces for us – one was a horse race and the last a gentle goodnight. On the way back we were accosted by our lovely cook who offered us roasted peanuts.
Being foreign workers, we were expected to register at the police station. The atmosphere was very relaxed and informal. I think we were the only Europeans there in a place rarely, if ever, visited by tourists. Two members of our team had to see the doctor and were given good prompt orthodox treatment – one for a skin rash on the leg and the other for mild shingles. There are no GP surgeries in China. Patients see doctors in the hospital. I learnt that short sight is a common problem – many of the teachers wore glasses.
One of the most impressive aspects of my visit was the unfailing kindness and helpfulness of our hosts. They ate with us, helped us with teaching resource requirements and provided us with a ready and willing translation service at all times. The tradition is to look after guests in a protective way, perhaps a bit smothering for some people.
We had an unexpected extra invitation to stay one night in Nanning after the Friday closing ceremony in Shanglin. The Nanjing officials wanted us to admire their prosperous capital with fine buildings, impressively lit up at night, spacious avenues and park with many tropical trees. Nanjing is very green and sedate – a complete contrast to Shanghai.
The hardest part of my stay was not being able to communicate. I had a wonderful introduction to China, felt very privileged to be able to go there and would like to go back, but when I can say more than ni hao and zai chien’ – a “hello” and ”goodbye”!
Friday, February 26, 2010
US prison labour -- a return to slavery?
By Ray Jones
THE UNITED States holds 2.3 million people in Federal and local prisons – many of them black or Hispanic. This is half a million more than People’s China even though China’s population is five times the size of that of the United States.
The US holds 25 per cent of the world’s prisoners while only having five per cent of the world’s population. This not due to some terrible crime wave; in fact crime in the US has actually been going down while the number in prison has gone up.
Jail sentences have become longer, especially for possession of small amounts of drugs, and the “three strikes” rule means that for a minor offence – if it’s the third one – you can end up behind bars for life.
The laws themselves can have an anti working class, anti black, bias. For example, Federal law demands five years inside without parole for possession of five grammes of crack cocaine but to get five years for possession of cocaine powder you need to have 500 grammes. Why the difference? Well, crack is more common in black and Hispanic areas while cocaine powder is the preferred drug of the white middle class.
There is evidence to suggest that the drive behind this is economic, tainted with racism.
Prison labour in the US can be said to have its origins in slavery. After the Civil War when slaves were officially freed many were forced to enter the sharecropping system, where they orked somebody else’s land in return for a small share of the crop.
Those who in anyway breached their contracts or were convicted of minor crimes were arrested and then “hired-out” by the authorities to pick cotton, work in mines or build railroads. In the Deep South almost all those “hired-out” were of course black.
In 1885 Texas forced prisoners, mostly black, to haul granite to build the new state capital. The skilled stone cutters’ union protested at the use of prison labour and boycotted the building site and in reply the contractor brought in scab stone cutters all the way from Scotland to break the strike.
In Briceville, Tennessee, in 1891 coal mine owners insisted on banning union membership and miners were locked-out while convicts were brought in to scab. The response of the miners was to attack the stockade where the prisoners were held and set them free. The company then gave in and the miners were rehired and no more prison labour was used.
By the end of the 1900s most states had ended the use of contract prison labour; partly due to the public out cry at the brutality often involved and partly due to corruption, as firms bribed authorities to get the cheapest labour. But the infamous chain gangs of the South continued until the 1950s and were even resurrected in the 1990s in Alabama and Arizona to work on roads.
Federal Prison Industries Inc., trade name UNICOR, is a government-owned corporation that was formed in 1934 on the overt grounds that idleness in prisons was a problem and that prisoners would benefit from learning skills and labour discipline. UNICOR now has a sales total of about $2.4 billion and rising.
The number of private prisons run for profit has increased from five in 1998 to over a hundred today.
According to US law prison industries are restricted in what and when they can sell to the general public and indeed most of UNICOR’s sales go government agencies such as the military. All military helmets, bullet-proof vests – along with more mundane things such as shirts and pants – are made by prison labour and agencies are obliged to give prison manufacture priority.
But the prison industry is allowed to sell to the public under certain conditions – if they pay the “prevailing wage” for the work and if part of that wage goes as restitution to victims of crime.
Also there is a Federal minimum wage that currently stands at $7.25 per hour and most states have their own minimum which is usually a little higher (although in at least one case it is lower!). In those states which don’t set their own minimum, these are largely in the poorer South, the Federal rate is supposed to apply.
Prison work is, according to law, voluntary.
These regulations are designed to protect small and medium businesses and free labour from unfair competition and prisoners from sinking into virtual slavery. But more and more they are being circumvented in the drive for profit. Both unions and some small businesses have been fighting a running battle against the exploitation of prison labour but it is hard going.
One morning, for example, members of the Teamsters union (transport and general workers) turned up outside a notorious low-paying firm to leaflet the early shift in an attempt to organise the company. To their amazement the shift turned up in a prison van!
Providing services is not restricted by law so many call centres are now staffed by prisoners.
When radical lawyer Tony Serra ended up in a Federal prison for non payment of taxes he was put to work in the prison garden for 19 cents-per-hour and noted that other inmates were paid as little as five cents-per-hour for much harder work.
Inmates in Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana have been de-boning chickens for four cents-per-hour for a private company.
Although many prisoners do volunteer to work to escape from mind-crushing boredom and in the hope of a little pocket money, there are often repercussions for those who refuse to. They can end up spending more time behind bars or even in solitary confinement so how far many can be said to freely volunteer is open to serious doubt.
Those who do “volunteer” are often short-changed and end up working for a pittance, especially in private prisons. Deductions from wages for victim compensation, travel, room and board (!) and other fees can reduce the final amount to just a few cents.
Work for prisoners is of course desirable, for their own sakes and for society’s. But it must be humane and done in a way which incorporates them into the organised working class – capitalism obviously is going to have serious problems in organising either of these imperatives.
THE UNITED States holds 2.3 million people in Federal and local prisons – many of them black or Hispanic. This is half a million more than People’s China even though China’s population is five times the size of that of the United States.
The US holds 25 per cent of the world’s prisoners while only having five per cent of the world’s population. This not due to some terrible crime wave; in fact crime in the US has actually been going down while the number in prison has gone up.
Jail sentences have become longer, especially for possession of small amounts of drugs, and the “three strikes” rule means that for a minor offence – if it’s the third one – you can end up behind bars for life.
The laws themselves can have an anti working class, anti black, bias. For example, Federal law demands five years inside without parole for possession of five grammes of crack cocaine but to get five years for possession of cocaine powder you need to have 500 grammes. Why the difference? Well, crack is more common in black and Hispanic areas while cocaine powder is the preferred drug of the white middle class.
There is evidence to suggest that the drive behind this is economic, tainted with racism.
Prison labour in the US can be said to have its origins in slavery. After the Civil War when slaves were officially freed many were forced to enter the sharecropping system, where they orked somebody else’s land in return for a small share of the crop.
Those who in anyway breached their contracts or were convicted of minor crimes were arrested and then “hired-out” by the authorities to pick cotton, work in mines or build railroads. In the Deep South almost all those “hired-out” were of course black.
In 1885 Texas forced prisoners, mostly black, to haul granite to build the new state capital. The skilled stone cutters’ union protested at the use of prison labour and boycotted the building site and in reply the contractor brought in scab stone cutters all the way from Scotland to break the strike.
In Briceville, Tennessee, in 1891 coal mine owners insisted on banning union membership and miners were locked-out while convicts were brought in to scab. The response of the miners was to attack the stockade where the prisoners were held and set them free. The company then gave in and the miners were rehired and no more prison labour was used.
By the end of the 1900s most states had ended the use of contract prison labour; partly due to the public out cry at the brutality often involved and partly due to corruption, as firms bribed authorities to get the cheapest labour. But the infamous chain gangs of the South continued until the 1950s and were even resurrected in the 1990s in Alabama and Arizona to work on roads.
Federal Prison Industries Inc., trade name UNICOR, is a government-owned corporation that was formed in 1934 on the overt grounds that idleness in prisons was a problem and that prisoners would benefit from learning skills and labour discipline. UNICOR now has a sales total of about $2.4 billion and rising.
The number of private prisons run for profit has increased from five in 1998 to over a hundred today.
According to US law prison industries are restricted in what and when they can sell to the general public and indeed most of UNICOR’s sales go government agencies such as the military. All military helmets, bullet-proof vests – along with more mundane things such as shirts and pants – are made by prison labour and agencies are obliged to give prison manufacture priority.
But the prison industry is allowed to sell to the public under certain conditions – if they pay the “prevailing wage” for the work and if part of that wage goes as restitution to victims of crime.
Also there is a Federal minimum wage that currently stands at $7.25 per hour and most states have their own minimum which is usually a little higher (although in at least one case it is lower!). In those states which don’t set their own minimum, these are largely in the poorer South, the Federal rate is supposed to apply.
Prison work is, according to law, voluntary.
These regulations are designed to protect small and medium businesses and free labour from unfair competition and prisoners from sinking into virtual slavery. But more and more they are being circumvented in the drive for profit. Both unions and some small businesses have been fighting a running battle against the exploitation of prison labour but it is hard going.
One morning, for example, members of the Teamsters union (transport and general workers) turned up outside a notorious low-paying firm to leaflet the early shift in an attempt to organise the company. To their amazement the shift turned up in a prison van!
Providing services is not restricted by law so many call centres are now staffed by prisoners.
When radical lawyer Tony Serra ended up in a Federal prison for non payment of taxes he was put to work in the prison garden for 19 cents-per-hour and noted that other inmates were paid as little as five cents-per-hour for much harder work.
Inmates in Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana have been de-boning chickens for four cents-per-hour for a private company.
Although many prisoners do volunteer to work to escape from mind-crushing boredom and in the hope of a little pocket money, there are often repercussions for those who refuse to. They can end up spending more time behind bars or even in solitary confinement so how far many can be said to freely volunteer is open to serious doubt.
Those who do “volunteer” are often short-changed and end up working for a pittance, especially in private prisons. Deductions from wages for victim compensation, travel, room and board (!) and other fees can reduce the final amount to just a few cents.
Work for prisoners is of course desirable, for their own sakes and for society’s. But it must be humane and done in a way which incorporates them into the organised working class – capitalism obviously is going to have serious problems in organising either of these imperatives.
Joint Statement on EU summit
Joint Statement of Communist and Workers Parties of the EU Countries
The EU Summit of Heads of States of February 11 signals a new severe attack against the working class and the peoples of Europe. The resolutions of the Summit, in accordance with the “EU 2020 Strategy” which promotes and deepens the Lisbon Strategy, intensify the anti-people policy of the European Union and the bourgeois governments by means of hard measures against the working class and the people. They seek to reinforce the profitability of the European monopolies both within the European Union and in the international imperialist competition.
The EU strategy for an exit from the crisis is based on the imposition of sweeping changes in social security systems, on the increase in retirement ages and on drastic cuts in salaries, pensions and social benefits as a whole. This attack bears the stamp of the liberal and social democratic forces which have supported the strategy of capital in cooperation with the European Union.
The deficit and public debt and the supervision of the economies of several member-states including Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and other countries are used for the ideological intimidation of the working people throughout Europe.
The transnational companies and the banks made immense profits through the exploitation of the workers and from state subsidies tax reliefs, both before and during the crisis. They now compete for the lion’s share of the new lending. Once again they place the burden on workers, the poor and small and medium family farmers and the self-employed by means of scaremongering and intimidation.
The spirit of resistance is intensified among the European workers who are not ready to bear the cost of crisis for which they are not liable in the least. In Greece, Portugal and other countries, workers, civil servants and small and medium farmers are holding public demonstrations and going on strike against the austerity measures taken. The Communist and Workers Parties signatories are playing a protagonist role in this movement, being in the front line of the class struggle.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties call on the working class and peoples in each country to organize their counterattack and to condemn the parties that support the EU anti-people offensive; to strengthen the ranks of the class oriented labour movement; to reject social partnership that promotes antipeople policies, and give a strong response to the anti-people assault, demanding instead: full and stable employment with full rights for all, substantial increase in salaries, the abolition of all anti-welfare and anti-labour laws, a reduction in retirement ages and exclusively free Education, Health and Welfare. Workers can live better without capitalists; it is they who produce the wealth and therefore they should enjoy it.
=====================================================
The Parties
1. Workers' Party of Belgium
2. Communist Party of Britain
3. New Communist Party of Britain
4. Communist Party of Bulgaria
5. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
6. AKEL, Cyprus
7. Communist Party in Denmark
8. Communist Party of Estonia
9. Communist Party of Finland
10. Communist Party of Greece
11. Hungarian Communist Workers' Party
12. Communist Party of Ireland
13. Workers' Party of Ireland
14. Party of the Italian Communists, Italy
15. Socialist Party of Latvia
16. Socialist Party of Lithuania
17. Communist Party of Luxembourg
18. Communist Party of Malta
19. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
20. Communist Party of Poland
21. Communist Party of Romania
22. Communist Party of Slovakia
23. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain
24. Communist Party of Sweden
As Norway is an associated member of the EU,
Communist Party of Norway also endorses the statement.
Other Parties
Pole de Renaissance Communiste en France
The EU Summit of Heads of States of February 11 signals a new severe attack against the working class and the peoples of Europe. The resolutions of the Summit, in accordance with the “EU 2020 Strategy” which promotes and deepens the Lisbon Strategy, intensify the anti-people policy of the European Union and the bourgeois governments by means of hard measures against the working class and the people. They seek to reinforce the profitability of the European monopolies both within the European Union and in the international imperialist competition.
The EU strategy for an exit from the crisis is based on the imposition of sweeping changes in social security systems, on the increase in retirement ages and on drastic cuts in salaries, pensions and social benefits as a whole. This attack bears the stamp of the liberal and social democratic forces which have supported the strategy of capital in cooperation with the European Union.
The deficit and public debt and the supervision of the economies of several member-states including Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and other countries are used for the ideological intimidation of the working people throughout Europe.
The transnational companies and the banks made immense profits through the exploitation of the workers and from state subsidies tax reliefs, both before and during the crisis. They now compete for the lion’s share of the new lending. Once again they place the burden on workers, the poor and small and medium family farmers and the self-employed by means of scaremongering and intimidation.
The spirit of resistance is intensified among the European workers who are not ready to bear the cost of crisis for which they are not liable in the least. In Greece, Portugal and other countries, workers, civil servants and small and medium farmers are holding public demonstrations and going on strike against the austerity measures taken. The Communist and Workers Parties signatories are playing a protagonist role in this movement, being in the front line of the class struggle.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties call on the working class and peoples in each country to organize their counterattack and to condemn the parties that support the EU anti-people offensive; to strengthen the ranks of the class oriented labour movement; to reject social partnership that promotes antipeople policies, and give a strong response to the anti-people assault, demanding instead: full and stable employment with full rights for all, substantial increase in salaries, the abolition of all anti-welfare and anti-labour laws, a reduction in retirement ages and exclusively free Education, Health and Welfare. Workers can live better without capitalists; it is they who produce the wealth and therefore they should enjoy it.
=====================================================
The Parties
1. Workers' Party of Belgium
2. Communist Party of Britain
3. New Communist Party of Britain
4. Communist Party of Bulgaria
5. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
6. AKEL, Cyprus
7. Communist Party in Denmark
8. Communist Party of Estonia
9. Communist Party of Finland
10. Communist Party of Greece
11. Hungarian Communist Workers' Party
12. Communist Party of Ireland
13. Workers' Party of Ireland
14. Party of the Italian Communists, Italy
15. Socialist Party of Latvia
16. Socialist Party of Lithuania
17. Communist Party of Luxembourg
18. Communist Party of Malta
19. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
20. Communist Party of Poland
21. Communist Party of Romania
22. Communist Party of Slovakia
23. Communist Party of Peoples of Spain
24. Communist Party of Sweden
As Norway is an associated member of the EU,
Communist Party of Norway also endorses the statement.
Other Parties
Pole de Renaissance Communiste en France
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Revolutionary leader Kim Jong Il
NEXT WEEK millions of Koreans will be celebrating the birthday of Kim Jong Il — the leader of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Korean communist movement that liberated the country from Japanese oppression during the Second World War and beat off the combined might of Anglo-American imperialism and their lackeys during the Korean war.
Communists in Britain and comrades throughout the world will be joining them in holding events demonstrating their solidarity with the Korean revolution and the Workers’ Party of Korea that has led the Korean people, under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to victory after victory in a struggle that began in the 1920s and continues to this day across the divided Korean peninsula.
The modern Korean communist movement was founded by Kim Il Sung and the young militants around him to fight the Japanese colonialists and build a revolutionary communist movement that would give the Korean workers and peasants a new life under socialism. Building a guerrilla army that took on the might of the Japanese Empire, Kim Il Sung mobilised the masses in a struggle that ended in victory in 1945 and the establishment of a people’s government in the north of the country.
The Workers’ Party of Korea, with Kim Il Sung at the helm, led the battle for land reform, education and socialist construction in the 1950s and 60s and then pushed forward on the engineering, technical and scientific fronts to build a modern socialist republic, where every individual worker is master of his or her own life. The DPRK stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the peoples of the Third World struggling to break the chains of colonialism and gave technical and economic aid to their new republics to defend their freedom and independence.
When Kim Il Sung passed away his successor, Kim Jong Il, told the Korean people and the world that they could “expect no change from him” and under his leadership, the Workers’ Party of Korea has won great victories in recent years. Natural disasters have been overcome. Imperialist diplomatic isolation was broken and the intrigues of US imperialism have been exposed. Democratic Korean scientists mastered the secrets of the atom to guarantee the DPRK’s defence and energy needs and now Korean rockets reach for the stars.
The tragedy of Korea is that it has been divided since the Second World War and that division is entirely due to the United States, which has propped up a servile regime in south Korea to maintain American imperialism’s military, strategic and economic dominance of north-east Asia.
A monstrous concrete wall divides Korea. Tens of thousands of American troops remain are stationed in the south, backed by a US nuclear armada that threatens the DPRK and its neighbours. The communist movement is outlawed in the south and contacts with the north are tightly controlled by the repressive regime.
The Democratic Korean government has worked tirelessly to end the partition of the country. It has called on the United States to normalise relations with the DPRK. A proposal for the re-unification of Korea based on the principle of “one country-two systems” — similar to the one that led to the peaceful return of Hong Kong and Macau to the People’s Republic of China — remains on the table.
Democratic Korea threatens no one, but the imperialist campaign to demonise and isolate the people’s government continues as a smokescreen to cover US plans to dominate the entire Pacific basin.
While we join the Korean people in their celebrations we must redouble our efforts to build solidarity with the DPRK and raise the demand for the withdrawal of all American troops from south Korea and an end to the partition of the country.
Communists in Britain and comrades throughout the world will be joining them in holding events demonstrating their solidarity with the Korean revolution and the Workers’ Party of Korea that has led the Korean people, under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to victory after victory in a struggle that began in the 1920s and continues to this day across the divided Korean peninsula.
The modern Korean communist movement was founded by Kim Il Sung and the young militants around him to fight the Japanese colonialists and build a revolutionary communist movement that would give the Korean workers and peasants a new life under socialism. Building a guerrilla army that took on the might of the Japanese Empire, Kim Il Sung mobilised the masses in a struggle that ended in victory in 1945 and the establishment of a people’s government in the north of the country.
The Workers’ Party of Korea, with Kim Il Sung at the helm, led the battle for land reform, education and socialist construction in the 1950s and 60s and then pushed forward on the engineering, technical and scientific fronts to build a modern socialist republic, where every individual worker is master of his or her own life. The DPRK stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the peoples of the Third World struggling to break the chains of colonialism and gave technical and economic aid to their new republics to defend their freedom and independence.
When Kim Il Sung passed away his successor, Kim Jong Il, told the Korean people and the world that they could “expect no change from him” and under his leadership, the Workers’ Party of Korea has won great victories in recent years. Natural disasters have been overcome. Imperialist diplomatic isolation was broken and the intrigues of US imperialism have been exposed. Democratic Korean scientists mastered the secrets of the atom to guarantee the DPRK’s defence and energy needs and now Korean rockets reach for the stars.
The tragedy of Korea is that it has been divided since the Second World War and that division is entirely due to the United States, which has propped up a servile regime in south Korea to maintain American imperialism’s military, strategic and economic dominance of north-east Asia.
A monstrous concrete wall divides Korea. Tens of thousands of American troops remain are stationed in the south, backed by a US nuclear armada that threatens the DPRK and its neighbours. The communist movement is outlawed in the south and contacts with the north are tightly controlled by the repressive regime.
The Democratic Korean government has worked tirelessly to end the partition of the country. It has called on the United States to normalise relations with the DPRK. A proposal for the re-unification of Korea based on the principle of “one country-two systems” — similar to the one that led to the peaceful return of Hong Kong and Macau to the People’s Republic of China — remains on the table.
Democratic Korea threatens no one, but the imperialist campaign to demonise and isolate the people’s government continues as a smokescreen to cover US plans to dominate the entire Pacific basin.
While we join the Korean people in their celebrations we must redouble our efforts to build solidarity with the DPRK and raise the demand for the withdrawal of all American troops from south Korea and an end to the partition of the country.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
European communist & workers' parties statement
4th European Communist Meeting on Education
Brussels, February 5, 2010
There is only one historical truth, the one written by the peoples!
The 4th European Communist Meeting education was held in Brussels on February 5th. This year the meeting engaged with the distortion of the history of the Second World War in the process of education.
The meeting was organised by the Communist Party of Greece and took place in the building of the European Parliament.
25 representatives from European communist and workers parties participated in the meeting. During the meeting the participants presented facts from school and academic books about the falsification of the Second World War history; they unveiled the goals of this campaign and referred to their experiences from the action against the ideological manipulation of the youth.
The meeting issued the following joint statement:
=============
Joint Statement
We, the undersigned parties, condemn the fierce anticommunist campaign that is under way throughout Europe. Imperialist organisations such as the EU, NATO, as well as OSCE, the Council of Europe and almost all of the European bourgeois governments have launched and escalate an anticommunist campaign of lies and slander with the strategic goal being to contaminate workers and people’s consciousness with blatant anticommunism. Their objective is to erase the unprecedented contribution of socialism in the 20th century and assert the alleged permanence of the capitalist system. In conditions of capitalist crisis anticommunism is the spearhead for the promotion of the most severe offensive against workers. This offensive by the EU, the bourgeois class and the governments that support them (liberal and social-democrat) aims to ensure maximum profitability for capital. They promote anticommunism as regards all historical events distorting the socialist and even the national democratic revolutions, the class struggle and historical development. They aim especially at young people so they may not learn the historical truth and adopt the antisocialist propaganda.
The falsification of History –and especially the history of the USSR- has but one purpose: impeding European workers and peoples just to conceive the possibility and necessity to overthrow the unbearable capitalist system and replace it by socialism.
One of the central targets of this ideological and political attack is the distortion of World War II history. An attempt is made to identify openly socialism-communism with fascism without any historical basis when it is clear that Nazism and Fascism are based on an ideology of hatred and xenophobia, while communism and socialism are based on an ideology of solidarity and social justice. The two are distinct and opposite ideologies. Particular efforts are made to distort the causes of World War II declaring the 23rd of August as a day of anticommunist remembrance. The attempt to violate historical truth continues through the conscious depreciation of the indispensable role of the USSR in the great Anti-fascist Victory and in the post-war developments. The anti-socialist propaganda and the recent events on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Demolition of the Berlin Wall fall into line with the same reactionary direction of falsification of the historical truth.
The historical truth cannot be erased. The contribution of socialism to the defeat of fascism, to the people’s rights, to the confidence for the future and to people’s achievements in the socialist countries is indisputable. We must also underline the impact of these achievements in favour of the working class in the capitalist countries forcing the capitalists to make concessions towards the struggle of the peoples. Despite any weaknesses and problems, the achievements of socialism are today a pipe dream for the people when capitalism cannot and is not going to solve the problems that afflict people.
We will support with all our strength the struggle to defend and highlight the historical and scientific truth at schools, institutions and universities. We demand the eradication of anti-communism from the school-books and academic teaching. It is necessary that the young generations should be taught and learn the historical truth about World War II, the laws of nature and human society. In particular, they should learn Darwin’s theory of evolution and the Marxist theory of class structure, class struggle and of the analysis of capitalism as an economical system. The role of Communist and Workers’ Parties as well as of the Communist Youth Organizations in this issue is vital as regards the work in wide masses, in particular of young workers and students. To this effort may contribute not only the enlightening but also the scientific work of scientists, educators, academic and social personalities. The working class and the poor popular strata can fight for a society without exploitation, for socialism.
We strongly condemn the persecution and banning of Communist Parties and Communist Youth Organizations; we express our full solidarity with all the victims of anticommunist attacks and of the witch hunt. It becomes evident what the “democracy” of the EU, capital and the multinationals means. It has class content, is democracy for the few and exploitation and oppression for the many.
1. Workers' Party of Belgium
2. Communist Party of Britain
3. New Communist Party of Britain
4. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
5. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
6. AKEL-Cyprus
7. Communist Party of Bohemia Moravia
8. Communist Party in Denmark
9. Communist Party of Denmark
10. Communist Party of Estonia
11. German Communist Party (DKP)
12. Communist Party of Greece
13. The Workers' Party of Ireland
14. Socialist Party of Latvia
15. Socialist Party of Lithuania
16. Communist Party of Luxembourg
17. Communist Party of Malta
18. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
19. Communist Party of Poland
20. Portuguese Communist Party
21. Communist Party of Russian Federation
22. Communist Workers' Party of Russia - Revolutionary Party of Communists
23. Communist Party of Slovakia
24. Union of Communists of Ukraine
As guest: Pole de Renaissance Communiste en France
Friday, January 29, 2010
All For Sale
The anti-crisis programme of the Government of Russia
by Denis Mironov
THE RUSSIAN government has published its anti-crisis measures for 2010 on its official website but apart from a few news briefs the programme has largely been ignored by the mass media in Russia. In the cities the number of people who have access to online computers is only 22 per cent. Throughout the country as a whole no more than seven per cent are on the internet. At best this plan will be known only to one in five of the population.
It is even more difficult to understand the language of the governmental document. It is a vinaigrette of words; a porridge of general phrases and mysterious expressions that are possibly clear only for the initiated. Only the official statistics can be trusted.
For instance the programme states that “support of social stability and the guarantee of high-grade social protection of the population along with support of the revival of economy, the guarantee of stability of the positive tendencies become the basic priorities of actions of the government in the new year....” At this point the average Russian citizen will certainly yawn and read no further.
But the devil, as they say, is in the detail. If you study this document very attentively, you will suddenly realise that what may seem trifles really do concern us, the ordinary citizens.
General provisions
“The driving force for the steady growth of the Russian economy is named as investment and credit. Not industry nor manufacturing; not agriculture or even trade, but the banks and stock exchanges.
“The economy is still dominated by those factors that provoked its fast and rapid fall in the first place, notably a dependence on global commodities' export prices, low domestic demand [read – a poverty stricken population] and Russian industry's inability to satisfy it [in other words, nothing works], as well as a weak financial system and a lack of long-term loans. The initial stage of the government's anti-crisis policy, in late 2008 and 2009, did include a pro-modernisation component, but was largely aimed at cushioning the economy and the population from the consequences of the crisis, and at preventing irreparable damage to the country's industry and technology.
“This means that as things stand, further growth will be unstable because short-term internal economic risks have not been removed, slower than expected because it will depend on the revival of the global economy, and it will reproduce the economic model the government sought to abandon before the crisis.”
Three reasons why the overcoming the crisis “will be unstable and slower” are specified. Firstly, that the internal risks of the Russian economy in the short-term period have not been eliminated. Secondly, the position of Russia “depends” on the restoration of the world economy and finally that the “restoration” will only reproduce that model of the economy that we had before the crisis began. Therefore we “risk”; we "firmly depend”, and finally we go back to where we started from and where we didn’t want to be in the first place.
The document assures us that “in the Russian economy there is a potential for a fast return to a growth trajectory”. But then adds “The economic crisis has seriously affected Russia's starting position on this modernisation drive, with practically every sector of the economy experiencing some negative effects. Instead of laying down the foundations for innovative growth, the first stage of the Concept (2009-2012 – the long term economic plan for the Russian economy that runs until 2020) will to a considerable extent be spent on restoring the pre-crisis position.”
No, the statements do not match or add up!
Inflation
According to the government inflation will run at between 6.5 and 7.5 per cent throughout 2010. This is difficult to believe. Even according to official data, inflation had topped 15 per cent in 2009. How it will be halved this year is not explained apart from some crystal-ball gazing like: “The comparatively favourable conditions on the global market combined with the Russian government's effective anti-crisis measures will ensure the consolidation of these positive trends, and a positive dynamic in most macro-economic indicators in 2010” while suggesting that: “At the same time, positive economic changes were accompanied by a rapidly falling inflation rate, indicating that the growth is sustainable and not based on the appearance of new bubbles in the markets.”
“Bubbles”, dear readers, is an expression used in the official governmental document. We will remind them that inflation is an average increase in the prices of the goods over a set period of time. The fixed salaries for state employees and the armed forces, pensions and children’s grants are all based on these very average indicators. It’s not “bubbles” for us.
Unemployment: policy of restraint
The document says that: “In 2010 the forecast number of unemployed people registered with employment agencies will be maintained at the 2009 level (2.2 million)”.
That is certainly the number of people who have registered at the employment offices. But according to official returns at the end of 2009 a further 5.8 million people (7.6 per cent) had no employment and were actively seeking work. According to methodology of the International Labour Organisation they are classified as unemployed. Altogether eight million – an army! How many more millions are part-time or temporary workers; people seeking full-time work in Russia? What will happen if the “social boat” in which all of us float starts to rock? Who will look after them? The internal troops?
How will the economy revive? Well the government paper says that “One of the key goals is stabilising the banking sector and ensuring that companies have access to commercial loans on reasonable terms. To this end, the following policies will be pursued: – consistent cooperation with large and leading companies in key economic sectors aimed at restructuring their debt as obligations under development programmes, developing new products and completing major projects of national importance….”
It’s not clear how this “restructuring is going to take place. No matter. This is more important…
“Government support will only be provided to companies which have detailed business development programmes agreed with partner banks. The programmes should contain measures to ensure financial strength in the short term as well as long-term strategies to boost and maintain competitiveness.”
You see, there can be no economic recovery without the banks!
The paper recognises the most difficult economic and social situation that exists in so-called "mono-towns" or “one-company towns” in Russia where the vast majority work for one employer. There are 400 such cities in Russia. But they won’t all get assistance.
“The government has approved a list of one-company towns to be included in these rehabilitation programmes” but it doesn’t say how many are on this list or who the lucky beggars will be. However the Ministry of Regional Development says approximately 200 will be allocated 10 billion roubles in the form of grants. It is not a lot for such a huge country!
It then adds “the programmes will not concentrate on supporting jobs in ineffective companies, but rather will focus on reorganising these major employers, creating alternative jobs, and diversifying the local economy. This will be done though SME support programmes in one-company towns: industrial estates will be built and business incubators set up”. But how can this be possible if, as it also says, “the social and economic situation has worsened practically in all directions”?
Well it’s all down to “modernisation”. The document talks about “creating the necessary economic conditions to shift economic policy away from anti-crisis concerns towards addressing the modernisation challenge. Such conditions include macro-economic stability and seeing an improvement in those economic institutions that guarantee the expansion of economic activity (the application of laws, minimising bureaucratic obstacles, and a tax system that stimulates growth)” – the Russian government's implementation of measures aimed at speeding up the process of economic modernisation. This means encouraging innovation and investment in the economy, developing infrastructure (transport, energy and telecommunications), the additional stimulation of domestic demand for Russian-made products, improving the situation in depressed areas and the creation of new regional "growth hubs".
This is clearly just verbal gymnastics…but let’s be serious. Let’s look at what really concerns the Russian citizen.
The anti-crisis programme has highlighted the major factors that have contributed to the recession in Russia as the “weak financial system” and absence in the economy of “long money”, that is to say long-term investments and credits.
It states “The long-term stability of the banking system and the Bank of Russia's policy of reducing inflation will allow long-term loans to be issued. However, they alone cannot supply sufficient funds to facilitate economic modernisation. Therefore, it will be necessary to turn to the financial markets.”
And this how…
“The most important sources of long-term loans, the pensions and insurance systems, will be utilised. The state policy for the long-term development of life insurance will be drawn up. The wider use of savings as a source of long-term loans through increased bank deposit periods will be considered.
“It is envisaged that foreign investors should have a role in creating long-term investment resources. This will be accomplished by attracting and supporting long-term foreign investment through setting up joint investment funds involving foreign investors in strategic sectors that require modernisation, including agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, affordable housing and infrastructure.
“The government will reduce the share of state property in the economy in order to attract domestic and strategic foreign investment. This will be done through privatisation by means of open public proceedings on the basis of tenders and auctions, including the floating of privatised companies' shares in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) and SPOs (Secondary Public Offerings).”
So now the government is defining where it sees the financial sources that need to be tapped to fund the recovery – pensions, insurance, personal savings and more privatisations… Now we see where the Russian Government plans to get the money!
And this is how:
“One distinct challenge for modernisation will be the restructuring of the state sector: stepping up privatisation and reforming budget-funded organisations.
“Efforts to restructure the state sector, develop and implement programmes for improving corporate governance of joint-stock companies of mainly state ownership and state corporations will be accelerated, as will the privatisation and restructuring of state-sector enterprises.
“Lowering costs and increasing efficiency in the budget will become key aspects of making budget spending more effective. A programme will be adopted and put into effect to cut out ineffective expenses and surplus functions, optimise the network of budget funded organisations, and to reorganise most budget-funded organisations along new lines involving tenders for social services.”
This new economic policy is simply a new stage of privatisation. On 16th September 2009 deputy-premier Igor Shuvalov presented the report to the Russian parliament on the practical realisation of anti-crisis measures.
“We are entering a stage when it is necessary to begin new structural privatisations,” he declared. “We need to transform a considerable quantity of the state unitary enterprises into joint-stock enterprises … it is necessary to structure this practice in a new fashion, and we will continue this work.”
In Russia state unitary enterprises are commercial organisations that use state land but have no legal right of ownership of the state property they use in their business.
There we have it. The directors of State enterprises do not want to be simple “operative managers” of public property. They wish to become its proprietors – for ever!
The author is a writer and journalist and a member of Communist Party of Russia.
by Denis Mironov
THE RUSSIAN government has published its anti-crisis measures for 2010 on its official website but apart from a few news briefs the programme has largely been ignored by the mass media in Russia. In the cities the number of people who have access to online computers is only 22 per cent. Throughout the country as a whole no more than seven per cent are on the internet. At best this plan will be known only to one in five of the population.
It is even more difficult to understand the language of the governmental document. It is a vinaigrette of words; a porridge of general phrases and mysterious expressions that are possibly clear only for the initiated. Only the official statistics can be trusted.
For instance the programme states that “support of social stability and the guarantee of high-grade social protection of the population along with support of the revival of economy, the guarantee of stability of the positive tendencies become the basic priorities of actions of the government in the new year....” At this point the average Russian citizen will certainly yawn and read no further.
But the devil, as they say, is in the detail. If you study this document very attentively, you will suddenly realise that what may seem trifles really do concern us, the ordinary citizens.
General provisions
“The driving force for the steady growth of the Russian economy is named as investment and credit. Not industry nor manufacturing; not agriculture or even trade, but the banks and stock exchanges.
“The economy is still dominated by those factors that provoked its fast and rapid fall in the first place, notably a dependence on global commodities' export prices, low domestic demand [read – a poverty stricken population] and Russian industry's inability to satisfy it [in other words, nothing works], as well as a weak financial system and a lack of long-term loans. The initial stage of the government's anti-crisis policy, in late 2008 and 2009, did include a pro-modernisation component, but was largely aimed at cushioning the economy and the population from the consequences of the crisis, and at preventing irreparable damage to the country's industry and technology.
“This means that as things stand, further growth will be unstable because short-term internal economic risks have not been removed, slower than expected because it will depend on the revival of the global economy, and it will reproduce the economic model the government sought to abandon before the crisis.”
Three reasons why the overcoming the crisis “will be unstable and slower” are specified. Firstly, that the internal risks of the Russian economy in the short-term period have not been eliminated. Secondly, the position of Russia “depends” on the restoration of the world economy and finally that the “restoration” will only reproduce that model of the economy that we had before the crisis began. Therefore we “risk”; we "firmly depend”, and finally we go back to where we started from and where we didn’t want to be in the first place.
The document assures us that “in the Russian economy there is a potential for a fast return to a growth trajectory”. But then adds “The economic crisis has seriously affected Russia's starting position on this modernisation drive, with practically every sector of the economy experiencing some negative effects. Instead of laying down the foundations for innovative growth, the first stage of the Concept (2009-2012 – the long term economic plan for the Russian economy that runs until 2020) will to a considerable extent be spent on restoring the pre-crisis position.”
No, the statements do not match or add up!
Inflation
According to the government inflation will run at between 6.5 and 7.5 per cent throughout 2010. This is difficult to believe. Even according to official data, inflation had topped 15 per cent in 2009. How it will be halved this year is not explained apart from some crystal-ball gazing like: “The comparatively favourable conditions on the global market combined with the Russian government's effective anti-crisis measures will ensure the consolidation of these positive trends, and a positive dynamic in most macro-economic indicators in 2010” while suggesting that: “At the same time, positive economic changes were accompanied by a rapidly falling inflation rate, indicating that the growth is sustainable and not based on the appearance of new bubbles in the markets.”
“Bubbles”, dear readers, is an expression used in the official governmental document. We will remind them that inflation is an average increase in the prices of the goods over a set period of time. The fixed salaries for state employees and the armed forces, pensions and children’s grants are all based on these very average indicators. It’s not “bubbles” for us.
Unemployment: policy of restraint
The document says that: “In 2010 the forecast number of unemployed people registered with employment agencies will be maintained at the 2009 level (2.2 million)”.
That is certainly the number of people who have registered at the employment offices. But according to official returns at the end of 2009 a further 5.8 million people (7.6 per cent) had no employment and were actively seeking work. According to methodology of the International Labour Organisation they are classified as unemployed. Altogether eight million – an army! How many more millions are part-time or temporary workers; people seeking full-time work in Russia? What will happen if the “social boat” in which all of us float starts to rock? Who will look after them? The internal troops?
How will the economy revive? Well the government paper says that “One of the key goals is stabilising the banking sector and ensuring that companies have access to commercial loans on reasonable terms. To this end, the following policies will be pursued: – consistent cooperation with large and leading companies in key economic sectors aimed at restructuring their debt as obligations under development programmes, developing new products and completing major projects of national importance….”
It’s not clear how this “restructuring is going to take place. No matter. This is more important…
“Government support will only be provided to companies which have detailed business development programmes agreed with partner banks. The programmes should contain measures to ensure financial strength in the short term as well as long-term strategies to boost and maintain competitiveness.”
You see, there can be no economic recovery without the banks!
The paper recognises the most difficult economic and social situation that exists in so-called "mono-towns" or “one-company towns” in Russia where the vast majority work for one employer. There are 400 such cities in Russia. But they won’t all get assistance.
“The government has approved a list of one-company towns to be included in these rehabilitation programmes” but it doesn’t say how many are on this list or who the lucky beggars will be. However the Ministry of Regional Development says approximately 200 will be allocated 10 billion roubles in the form of grants. It is not a lot for such a huge country!
It then adds “the programmes will not concentrate on supporting jobs in ineffective companies, but rather will focus on reorganising these major employers, creating alternative jobs, and diversifying the local economy. This will be done though SME support programmes in one-company towns: industrial estates will be built and business incubators set up”. But how can this be possible if, as it also says, “the social and economic situation has worsened practically in all directions”?
Well it’s all down to “modernisation”. The document talks about “creating the necessary economic conditions to shift economic policy away from anti-crisis concerns towards addressing the modernisation challenge. Such conditions include macro-economic stability and seeing an improvement in those economic institutions that guarantee the expansion of economic activity (the application of laws, minimising bureaucratic obstacles, and a tax system that stimulates growth)” – the Russian government's implementation of measures aimed at speeding up the process of economic modernisation. This means encouraging innovation and investment in the economy, developing infrastructure (transport, energy and telecommunications), the additional stimulation of domestic demand for Russian-made products, improving the situation in depressed areas and the creation of new regional "growth hubs".
This is clearly just verbal gymnastics…but let’s be serious. Let’s look at what really concerns the Russian citizen.
The anti-crisis programme has highlighted the major factors that have contributed to the recession in Russia as the “weak financial system” and absence in the economy of “long money”, that is to say long-term investments and credits.
It states “The long-term stability of the banking system and the Bank of Russia's policy of reducing inflation will allow long-term loans to be issued. However, they alone cannot supply sufficient funds to facilitate economic modernisation. Therefore, it will be necessary to turn to the financial markets.”
And this how…
“The most important sources of long-term loans, the pensions and insurance systems, will be utilised. The state policy for the long-term development of life insurance will be drawn up. The wider use of savings as a source of long-term loans through increased bank deposit periods will be considered.
“It is envisaged that foreign investors should have a role in creating long-term investment resources. This will be accomplished by attracting and supporting long-term foreign investment through setting up joint investment funds involving foreign investors in strategic sectors that require modernisation, including agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, affordable housing and infrastructure.
“The government will reduce the share of state property in the economy in order to attract domestic and strategic foreign investment. This will be done through privatisation by means of open public proceedings on the basis of tenders and auctions, including the floating of privatised companies' shares in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) and SPOs (Secondary Public Offerings).”
So now the government is defining where it sees the financial sources that need to be tapped to fund the recovery – pensions, insurance, personal savings and more privatisations… Now we see where the Russian Government plans to get the money!
And this is how:
“One distinct challenge for modernisation will be the restructuring of the state sector: stepping up privatisation and reforming budget-funded organisations.
“Efforts to restructure the state sector, develop and implement programmes for improving corporate governance of joint-stock companies of mainly state ownership and state corporations will be accelerated, as will the privatisation and restructuring of state-sector enterprises.
“Lowering costs and increasing efficiency in the budget will become key aspects of making budget spending more effective. A programme will be adopted and put into effect to cut out ineffective expenses and surplus functions, optimise the network of budget funded organisations, and to reorganise most budget-funded organisations along new lines involving tenders for social services.”
This new economic policy is simply a new stage of privatisation. On 16th September 2009 deputy-premier Igor Shuvalov presented the report to the Russian parliament on the practical realisation of anti-crisis measures.
“We are entering a stage when it is necessary to begin new structural privatisations,” he declared. “We need to transform a considerable quantity of the state unitary enterprises into joint-stock enterprises … it is necessary to structure this practice in a new fashion, and we will continue this work.”
In Russia state unitary enterprises are commercial organisations that use state land but have no legal right of ownership of the state property they use in their business.
There we have it. The directors of State enterprises do not want to be simple “operative managers” of public property. They wish to become its proprietors – for ever!
The author is a writer and journalist and a member of Communist Party of Russia.
Friday, January 08, 2010
The Economic Crisis and the Question of Peace
By Eric Trevett
AT TIMES of profound capitalist crises there is an increasing struggle for markets and spheres of influence and in the last century this resulted in two world wars. The rivalry between the imperialist powers was especially strong.
War is a terrible thing but it is also very profitable to the arms manufacturers and it will have been noted that in the 1930s crisis impending war brought the mass unemployment in the major countries to a temporary halt.
Whether we are coming out of recession or not the crisis remains a serious one for the working class. Again the lesson of history teaches us that coming out of a recession does not mean a return to relative prosperity. The Wall Street collapse in 1929 was followed by a decade of depression, and in spite of the New Deal that the Roosevelt administration organised there was a further slump in 1938.
It was only when the United States economy went on a war footing that the high unemployment was resolved through conscription to the armed forces.
This is why the US so-called war against terrorism is so dangerous. We are in the midst of a war in Afghanistan and we have a puppet government in Iraq under the tutelage of the US armed occupation.
Now it is Iran’s turn to be under pressure from the imperialist powers. The US, looking for regime change here, has not ruled out the use of military force. And the Yemen is also under threat with the US and Britain closing their consulates there.
In Europe as a whole the antagonisms between France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Spain and so on have increased as the struggle for markets intensifies. It may well be that membership of the European Union will enable these countries to avoid another catastrophic world war. But the prospects for doing this are threatened by the aims of sections of the British and American ruling classes and there may well be a full scale war in the Middle East.
A major aim of such as war would be to bring the oil under the US and British imperialists’ control – under the control of their private monopolies.
If such a policy is envisaged, the imperialist powers, particularly Britain and the US, would prefer the war to be non-nuclear. This is why they are so keen on condemning Iran for its nuclear power programme. The tactic of scaring people into believing Iran has weapons of mass destruction is again being pursued and the danger is that strategy of lying and deception could possible lead to open war with Iran and other countries becoming acceptable to the people here.
The anti-Muslim campaigns in the press and media may also be designed to disguise the real threat that imperialism is contemplating very dangerous steps in response to its political and economic crisis.
People in Britain are generally honest and are rather gullible, thinking their leaders never lie. It is quite clear they were lied to over Iraq and its so-called weapons of mass destruction, which “could strike at random within 45 minutes”.
The imperialists have never had any regard for the sanctity of their promises and lying come naturally to them, as the native American people found out in the 19th century in the US, and more recently the Iraqi people found out – and the peoples of the world found out.
The peace movement has to face the fact that this is the scenario that is being constructed at the present time. The peace movement has responded positively and consistently against the so-called war on terrorism, which has allowed Iraq to be largely destroyed, with hundreds of thousands killed and wounded – but a “good deal” signed over the oil issue. This deal is not at all good for the people of Iraq, nor indeed for the people of Britain and the US but only for sections of the ruling class in these countries.
In Britain the working class living standards are going to be attacked and it is necessary to step up the campaign against the replacement of Trident. We should make efforts to contact the armed forces at every level. When we call for the main point, the withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, the peace movement proves itself to be the best friend of the armed forces. We need to point this out to them.
And we need to point out clearly that the service and sacrifice of those troops in Afghanistan and Iraq makes them into the agents of imperialism.
AT TIMES of profound capitalist crises there is an increasing struggle for markets and spheres of influence and in the last century this resulted in two world wars. The rivalry between the imperialist powers was especially strong.
War is a terrible thing but it is also very profitable to the arms manufacturers and it will have been noted that in the 1930s crisis impending war brought the mass unemployment in the major countries to a temporary halt.
Whether we are coming out of recession or not the crisis remains a serious one for the working class. Again the lesson of history teaches us that coming out of a recession does not mean a return to relative prosperity. The Wall Street collapse in 1929 was followed by a decade of depression, and in spite of the New Deal that the Roosevelt administration organised there was a further slump in 1938.
It was only when the United States economy went on a war footing that the high unemployment was resolved through conscription to the armed forces.
This is why the US so-called war against terrorism is so dangerous. We are in the midst of a war in Afghanistan and we have a puppet government in Iraq under the tutelage of the US armed occupation.
Now it is Iran’s turn to be under pressure from the imperialist powers. The US, looking for regime change here, has not ruled out the use of military force. And the Yemen is also under threat with the US and Britain closing their consulates there.
In Europe as a whole the antagonisms between France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Spain and so on have increased as the struggle for markets intensifies. It may well be that membership of the European Union will enable these countries to avoid another catastrophic world war. But the prospects for doing this are threatened by the aims of sections of the British and American ruling classes and there may well be a full scale war in the Middle East.
A major aim of such as war would be to bring the oil under the US and British imperialists’ control – under the control of their private monopolies.
If such a policy is envisaged, the imperialist powers, particularly Britain and the US, would prefer the war to be non-nuclear. This is why they are so keen on condemning Iran for its nuclear power programme. The tactic of scaring people into believing Iran has weapons of mass destruction is again being pursued and the danger is that strategy of lying and deception could possible lead to open war with Iran and other countries becoming acceptable to the people here.
The anti-Muslim campaigns in the press and media may also be designed to disguise the real threat that imperialism is contemplating very dangerous steps in response to its political and economic crisis.
People in Britain are generally honest and are rather gullible, thinking their leaders never lie. It is quite clear they were lied to over Iraq and its so-called weapons of mass destruction, which “could strike at random within 45 minutes”.
The imperialists have never had any regard for the sanctity of their promises and lying come naturally to them, as the native American people found out in the 19th century in the US, and more recently the Iraqi people found out – and the peoples of the world found out.
The peace movement has to face the fact that this is the scenario that is being constructed at the present time. The peace movement has responded positively and consistently against the so-called war on terrorism, which has allowed Iraq to be largely destroyed, with hundreds of thousands killed and wounded – but a “good deal” signed over the oil issue. This deal is not at all good for the people of Iraq, nor indeed for the people of Britain and the US but only for sections of the ruling class in these countries.
In Britain the working class living standards are going to be attacked and it is necessary to step up the campaign against the replacement of Trident. We should make efforts to contact the armed forces at every level. When we call for the main point, the withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, the peace movement proves itself to be the best friend of the armed forces. We need to point this out to them.
And we need to point out clearly that the service and sacrifice of those troops in Afghanistan and Iraq makes them into the agents of imperialism.
Review
EXHIBITION: REVOLUTION ON PAPER- MEXICAN PRINTS 1910-1960. BRITISH MUSEUM, ROOM 90
By Edwin Bentley
THE MEXICAN revolution, which started in 1910 and which was to last in one form or another for some 20 years, started as a local rebellion among peasant farmers and grew to embrace a wide range of progressive causes. This revolution most certainly was not a unified, planned, single-minded action by a highly organised political party. Rather, it was a series of frequently chaotic popular struggles against an economic model that had handed Mexican industry, agriculture and railways over to foreign investors. It was a revolt of women against the stifling conservatism of a totally male-dominated society. It was an uprising to overthrow the power of vastly wealthy landowners who blocked all attempts at land reform. The revolution also dealt heavy blows to the Catholic Church, which had acted as an obstacle to progress and had identified itself with the powers of reaction. It was a time to rediscover a national identity that went back centuries before the Spanish conquest, a time to celebrate and elevate the position of indigenous peoples.
Mexican society flung its windows open to all the exciting new ideas that were blowing around the world in the early 20th century, and adapted them to form a distinctive national character. This identity was to last until the 1990s and the re-introduction of unrestricted market capitalism and the economic anarchy that is so optimistically labelled “de-regulation” and “free trade”. Mexico’s identity centred around national sovereignty in all things, state control of major industries and public services, an often aggressive secularism, equal rights for men and women, and at least a basic social welfare provision.
The Mexican revolution did not lead to socialism, but it did create a nation that supported progressive causes throughout the world. Apart from the USSR, Mexico was the only country to give unqualified support and recognition to the Spanish Republic, welcomed at least 20,000 Republican refugees, and never had diplomatic relations with the Franco regime. In fact, relations with Spain were only re-established in 1977.
However it is certain that the revolution was stalled and prevented from going further by the liberal bourgeoisie that had benefited most from the overthrow of the old order. The Communist Party, founded in 1919, was illegal for much of the period. The new ruling class was made up of lawyers and professionals who were certainly social progressives, but had a real fear of the masses seizing power. They had no hesitation in using force to put down trade union militancy.
It is perhaps not surprising that they were happy to grant asylum to Leon Trotsky at the same time as clamping down on Marxist-Leninists. David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of the artists featured prominently in this exhibition, was even arrested and expelled from Mexico for his alleged involvement in one of the many plots to assassinate Trotsky, who was certainly not welcomed with open arms by Mexican revolutionaries! As the years and decades progressed, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party sank into a mire of corruption and patronage and became a self-serving elite.
It was in the field of art that the Mexican revolution made perhaps its greatest impact on the imagination of the world. Vast murals, monumental buildings, paintings, ceramics, and textiles, and an enthusiastic promotion of completely free artistic expression in all fields made Mexico the centre of innovation. The indigenous culture of Aztecs, Olmecs, and Mayans was fused with European styles to create a dynamic resurgence of national identity.
Printmaking was just one aspect of the cultural awakening of Mexico, but it was an art form immediately accessible to the masses it celebrated. What we see in this exhibition is an affirmation of the dynamism of the downtrodden sections of society once they stop regarding themselves as defenceless victims. This art is empowering and glorifies the dignity of every human being. The enemies of humanity are not invincible; they are paper tigers, parasites that shrivel away when they can no longer leech from the people they oppress.
In this exhibition there are some striking images of the great Emiliano Zapata, who lead the movement for agrarian reform and became a symbol of the revolution. A symbol, certainly, but one appropriated and glorified by the Mexican state to help the people forget that so many of Zapata’s demands had in fact not been delivered.
Readers of the New Worker will find particularly interesting the prints that openly promote class awareness and the struggle against fascism. Many of these are from the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) – People’s Graphic Art Workshop – formed in 1937 by Luis Arenal, Leopoldo Méndez and Pablo O’Higgins as a movement inspired by the triumphs of socialism in the USSR. TGP members had access to printing equipment at the workshop and anyone was free to come along and try out their skills. The collective produced prints for posters, flyers and portfolios which were produced on cheap paper. Their prints often supported the campaigns of workers and trade unions in Mexico. For example, Pablo O’Higgins and Alberto Beltrán collectively made a poster advertising the first Latin American Petrol Workers’ conference, which is on display here. Other printmakers here address subjects such as corruption, the link between capitalism and fascism, and labour conditions. There is one particularly striking and shocking print of a building worker falling to his death from rickety scaffolding
The TGP was particularly committed to the fight against international fascism. Angel Bracho’s striking red and black poster, Victoria! (1945), which celebrates the Red Army’s victory over the Nazis in 1945, is a key example of the TGP’s anti-fascist stance. There are posters calling people to lectures on the fascist threat, and one attacking Japanese militarism with a violent caricature of Emperor Hirohito. A further print that really remains in my mind is of the great Marshal Timoshenko, who organised the Soviet defences to resist the Nazi invasion. Here, Timoshenko is presented as a true hero of the working class throughout the world.
This exhibition helps us all to celebrate our international struggle, as well as providing a powerful lesson in how vested interests can control, manipulate, and eventually suffocate true revolutionary advances. The Mexican revolution promised so much. We must rightly acknowledge its achievements, while also learning from its eventual failure.
Admission to this exhibition is free. It is on until 5th April 2010, after which it will be touring the country
By Edwin Bentley
THE MEXICAN revolution, which started in 1910 and which was to last in one form or another for some 20 years, started as a local rebellion among peasant farmers and grew to embrace a wide range of progressive causes. This revolution most certainly was not a unified, planned, single-minded action by a highly organised political party. Rather, it was a series of frequently chaotic popular struggles against an economic model that had handed Mexican industry, agriculture and railways over to foreign investors. It was a revolt of women against the stifling conservatism of a totally male-dominated society. It was an uprising to overthrow the power of vastly wealthy landowners who blocked all attempts at land reform. The revolution also dealt heavy blows to the Catholic Church, which had acted as an obstacle to progress and had identified itself with the powers of reaction. It was a time to rediscover a national identity that went back centuries before the Spanish conquest, a time to celebrate and elevate the position of indigenous peoples.
Mexican society flung its windows open to all the exciting new ideas that were blowing around the world in the early 20th century, and adapted them to form a distinctive national character. This identity was to last until the 1990s and the re-introduction of unrestricted market capitalism and the economic anarchy that is so optimistically labelled “de-regulation” and “free trade”. Mexico’s identity centred around national sovereignty in all things, state control of major industries and public services, an often aggressive secularism, equal rights for men and women, and at least a basic social welfare provision.
The Mexican revolution did not lead to socialism, but it did create a nation that supported progressive causes throughout the world. Apart from the USSR, Mexico was the only country to give unqualified support and recognition to the Spanish Republic, welcomed at least 20,000 Republican refugees, and never had diplomatic relations with the Franco regime. In fact, relations with Spain were only re-established in 1977.
However it is certain that the revolution was stalled and prevented from going further by the liberal bourgeoisie that had benefited most from the overthrow of the old order. The Communist Party, founded in 1919, was illegal for much of the period. The new ruling class was made up of lawyers and professionals who were certainly social progressives, but had a real fear of the masses seizing power. They had no hesitation in using force to put down trade union militancy.
It is perhaps not surprising that they were happy to grant asylum to Leon Trotsky at the same time as clamping down on Marxist-Leninists. David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of the artists featured prominently in this exhibition, was even arrested and expelled from Mexico for his alleged involvement in one of the many plots to assassinate Trotsky, who was certainly not welcomed with open arms by Mexican revolutionaries! As the years and decades progressed, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party sank into a mire of corruption and patronage and became a self-serving elite.
It was in the field of art that the Mexican revolution made perhaps its greatest impact on the imagination of the world. Vast murals, monumental buildings, paintings, ceramics, and textiles, and an enthusiastic promotion of completely free artistic expression in all fields made Mexico the centre of innovation. The indigenous culture of Aztecs, Olmecs, and Mayans was fused with European styles to create a dynamic resurgence of national identity.
Printmaking was just one aspect of the cultural awakening of Mexico, but it was an art form immediately accessible to the masses it celebrated. What we see in this exhibition is an affirmation of the dynamism of the downtrodden sections of society once they stop regarding themselves as defenceless victims. This art is empowering and glorifies the dignity of every human being. The enemies of humanity are not invincible; they are paper tigers, parasites that shrivel away when they can no longer leech from the people they oppress.
In this exhibition there are some striking images of the great Emiliano Zapata, who lead the movement for agrarian reform and became a symbol of the revolution. A symbol, certainly, but one appropriated and glorified by the Mexican state to help the people forget that so many of Zapata’s demands had in fact not been delivered.
Readers of the New Worker will find particularly interesting the prints that openly promote class awareness and the struggle against fascism. Many of these are from the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) – People’s Graphic Art Workshop – formed in 1937 by Luis Arenal, Leopoldo Méndez and Pablo O’Higgins as a movement inspired by the triumphs of socialism in the USSR. TGP members had access to printing equipment at the workshop and anyone was free to come along and try out their skills. The collective produced prints for posters, flyers and portfolios which were produced on cheap paper. Their prints often supported the campaigns of workers and trade unions in Mexico. For example, Pablo O’Higgins and Alberto Beltrán collectively made a poster advertising the first Latin American Petrol Workers’ conference, which is on display here. Other printmakers here address subjects such as corruption, the link between capitalism and fascism, and labour conditions. There is one particularly striking and shocking print of a building worker falling to his death from rickety scaffolding
The TGP was particularly committed to the fight against international fascism. Angel Bracho’s striking red and black poster, Victoria! (1945), which celebrates the Red Army’s victory over the Nazis in 1945, is a key example of the TGP’s anti-fascist stance. There are posters calling people to lectures on the fascist threat, and one attacking Japanese militarism with a violent caricature of Emperor Hirohito. A further print that really remains in my mind is of the great Marshal Timoshenko, who organised the Soviet defences to resist the Nazi invasion. Here, Timoshenko is presented as a true hero of the working class throughout the world.
This exhibition helps us all to celebrate our international struggle, as well as providing a powerful lesson in how vested interests can control, manipulate, and eventually suffocate true revolutionary advances. The Mexican revolution promised so much. We must rightly acknowledge its achievements, while also learning from its eventual failure.
Admission to this exhibition is free. It is on until 5th April 2010, after which it will be touring the country
Monday, December 21, 2009
Happy New Year!!
All the best for 2010
the next issue of the New Worker will be out on Friday 8th January 2010
Christmas: It's all very well for the rich!
CHRISTMAS comes but once a year, we are endlessly told by our rulers to encourage us to make the most of a welcome break from a year of work, for those of us who still have a job, and to make the most of it for those struggling to survive on our miserable benefits regime in the midst of the worst slump since 1929.
The great and the good will make their annual obeisance to the birth of the Jesus, whom they all claim to uphold but whose teachings they ignore for the other 364 days of the year while encouraging the masses to celebrate the “Prince of Peace” in an orgy of eating, drinking and consumer spending.
For a week or so we can put our feet up to live a life that the rich enjoy every day of their parasitical lives. We will be told to think about those needier than ourselves and many of us, will indeed, give generously to beggars or charities. But what we should be thinking about is those much wealthier than ourselves and the rotten capitalist system they uphold and how they’ve got the money to spend every day of the year like Christmas, living off the backs of workers forced to make do with the miserable crumbs left at the rich man’s table.
For some the “needy” now include the worthless banks, whose executive bonuses are at long last are facing a modest increase in income tax. For others “goodwill to all men” is reduced to respect for our “betters” and certainly for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan struggling against imperialist occupation. Meanwhile over in Copenhagen, the masters of imperialism can wring their hands at the plight of global warming while trying to avoid any serious contribution to reversing climate change and attempt to pin the blame for it on the struggling nations of the Third World.
But all’s not well for the bourgeoisie. Their end- of-decade prophesies are full of gloom and doom. Gone are the days of the neo-cons who said that communism was finished and that this was going to be the “New American Century”. Gone are the gurus of capitalism who preached the greatest virtue was the possession of the largest amount of money, argued that socialism was finished and that capitalism was the only game in town. They still defend capitalism but cannot point to a single capitalist country where it does work and turn to neo-Keynesianism and talk about “quantitative easing” as they scrabble around trying to head off financial collapse.
Capitalism, of course, does work for those at the top. That, in the final analysis, is all it is, a system designed to perpetuate the rule of the landowners, industrialists and capitalists. And so it will continue until we end the system altogether.
The entire wealth of the world comes from workers in factories and peasants tilling the land. Yet outside the remaining socialist countries working people only receive a miserable fraction of the wealth they produce through their labour. At the same time the ruling elite live the lives of Roman emperors through the capitalist system that guarantees them ease, health and everything money can buy – all off the backs of the workers. Socialism will end this rotten system once and for all. The sooner the better!
The great and the good will make their annual obeisance to the birth of the Jesus, whom they all claim to uphold but whose teachings they ignore for the other 364 days of the year while encouraging the masses to celebrate the “Prince of Peace” in an orgy of eating, drinking and consumer spending.
For a week or so we can put our feet up to live a life that the rich enjoy every day of their parasitical lives. We will be told to think about those needier than ourselves and many of us, will indeed, give generously to beggars or charities. But what we should be thinking about is those much wealthier than ourselves and the rotten capitalist system they uphold and how they’ve got the money to spend every day of the year like Christmas, living off the backs of workers forced to make do with the miserable crumbs left at the rich man’s table.
For some the “needy” now include the worthless banks, whose executive bonuses are at long last are facing a modest increase in income tax. For others “goodwill to all men” is reduced to respect for our “betters” and certainly for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan struggling against imperialist occupation. Meanwhile over in Copenhagen, the masters of imperialism can wring their hands at the plight of global warming while trying to avoid any serious contribution to reversing climate change and attempt to pin the blame for it on the struggling nations of the Third World.
But all’s not well for the bourgeoisie. Their end- of-decade prophesies are full of gloom and doom. Gone are the days of the neo-cons who said that communism was finished and that this was going to be the “New American Century”. Gone are the gurus of capitalism who preached the greatest virtue was the possession of the largest amount of money, argued that socialism was finished and that capitalism was the only game in town. They still defend capitalism but cannot point to a single capitalist country where it does work and turn to neo-Keynesianism and talk about “quantitative easing” as they scrabble around trying to head off financial collapse.
Capitalism, of course, does work for those at the top. That, in the final analysis, is all it is, a system designed to perpetuate the rule of the landowners, industrialists and capitalists. And so it will continue until we end the system altogether.
The entire wealth of the world comes from workers in factories and peasants tilling the land. Yet outside the remaining socialist countries working people only receive a miserable fraction of the wealth they produce through their labour. At the same time the ruling elite live the lives of Roman emperors through the capitalist system that guarantees them ease, health and everything money can buy – all off the backs of the workers. Socialism will end this rotten system once and for all. The sooner the better!
What's wrong with Christmas?
by Daphne Liddle
WHAT IS IT about the traditional commercial Christmas that really annoys us communists and atheists? We do not subscribe to the sentimental legends about the sweet little baby Jesus nor are we tree-worshipping druids. We know that capitalism survives by selling as many commodities as it can. So why do we feel so offended by the excess of sales pressure at this time of year? Why do we feel that some deep internal sensibility inside us is being exploited; expectations aroused and then disappointed and betrayed?
The Victorians, and especially Charles Dickens, must take a lot of the blame for creating the myth of a golden age of Christmas – a time of families coming together for a great merry feast in some vast warm indoors, where the cold and snow are shut out and where children are wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the sudden splendour of the decorations. It always snows exactly on Christmas Eve, like an extra decoration/plaything sent from above to transform dingy cities into a sparkling paradise and provide the materials for shaping snowmen and snowballs. There is carol-singing, holly and ivy everywhere and endless mountains of food and drink.
For most working class Victorians this was very far from reality. They would be lucky to get the whole day off work and lucky to have any kind of roast meat for dinner.
But it was during the Victorian era that Christmas cards and Christmas trees were introduced and the possibility of making profits out of selling stuff that people would not otherwise buy.
In northern latitudes there has always been some sort of festival in midwinter around the solstice – a celebration because days had stopped getting shorter and darker and had started to get longer and lighter. Warmer would have to wait for some time around March or April but that was a different festival.
And there is something innate in human beings that needs regular cultural feasts and festivals. Human beings – like bees, ants, starlings, herd animals, chimpanzees and many other species – cannot survive as solitary individuals. We may get the odd Ray Mears or Behr Grylls who can survive alone in the wilderness but hermits and anchorites do not found dynasties. Passing your genes on to the next generation requires living in a social context. Human children require a lot of bringing up and it takes a group/tribe/village environment to give them a reasonable chance of survival. So we are all descended from long generations of people who were part of society – who contributed and received from the collective.
And deep inside us all there is a need to take part in the traditions and rituals that bond society together. This is the essence of culture. We need to belong.
The sellers of trinkets, baubles, Barbie dolls, useless gizmos and gadgets know this and their advertising campaigns tap into this deep need inside us and then betray.
Their message is that if we do not spend every available penny on the rights cards, a big enough tree, enough lights to festoon the entire house and garden, we will not be a proper part of the group – and our children will be disappointed and feel left out.
We are pressured into buying mountains of food that cannot possibly eaten and dozens of “must-have” presents for distant relatives and friends to prove we have really thought of them, albeit fleetingly. The gift they really need and want is a proper slice of our time and attention but modern pressures of work make this the rarest and most precious commodity of all.
Wage slavery and debt slavery cut our cultural bonds with family and friends as working hours expand to take up all our time and our only bonds are with our employers and banks/credit card providers. And even at work our opportunities to make a cultural bond with fellow workers are taken away with the demise of tea breaks and lunch-hours.
And the excess spending of Christmas pushes us further into debt bondage every year, keeping our noses firmly fixed to the grindstone and our shoulders to the wheel more effectively than any Roman slave-master’s whip. We feel guilty about debt; put it down to our own foolishness and worry about it alone in the night. We don’t want to admit that the sales pressures have worked on us and we have spent more that a sensible person should.
We have so little time left for family social bonding that when we do get together with them at Christmas we hardly know them and we feel awkward and guilty for neglecting them. We feel alienated and alone – and increasingly cynical.
Thus ultimately the sales pressure of Christmas, instead of satisfying our need for belonging to the group/family/tribe actually isolates and alienates us from this and turns us into millions of lonely individuals. And we wonder why our society is becoming dysfunctional!
The advertisers particularly target children. They come into this world ready primed to absorb and bond with the culture of the society in which they find themselves. If their friends have a particular toy or brand of trainers their need to be part of the group – and the advertisers – tell them they must have the same and that urge is very strong. It can exert enormous pressure on parents, especially those feeling guilty because work pressures have not allowed them enough time to spend with their children.
Commercial pressures turn Christmas buying into a competition, pitting one household against another in the amount they can spend on their children at Christmas. Failing to satisfy your child’s demands is a crime against their youth and innocence. Parents are expected make sacrifices – of their money and their reason – to try to satisfy the insatiable. Thus people are in reality further alienated from each other by this competitiveness and parents are alienated from their children.
The satisfaction the presents bring to the children is shallow and fleeting. Too soon they become as cynical and disillusioned as their parents.
Women are under enormous pressure to provide a proper Christmas feast, even though they know a lot of it will end up in the bin.
The capitalist Christmas ends abruptly on Christmas Day with the declaration of the start of the January sales. And once the whole thing is over – with all its pressures, extra work and social disappointments – most working people heave a sigh of relief and hurry back to their workplace and the mind-numbing routine monotony.
Just occasionally at Christmas we catch a glimpse of the real thing. I remember a few years ago in Woolwich main shopping centre – a very run-down area with high unemployment and a high proportion of locals on benefits, by-passed by the worst commercialism – a drama group staged a bit of street theatre in fantastic costumes with music and dancing. It was not hot stuff to the adults but the children running about were too young to have seen anything like it before. They were genuinely entranced and captivated by it and gleefully joined in; because of this their parents were smiling too. It was quite unexpected and no money was involved. It was real.
When workers and their families get together a relax a little, when the joking and laughing break out, that is real; that is the sort of happiness that capitalism can never provide; it involves no money and no profits.
What would the ideal socialist mid-winter festival involve? That is hard to prescribe; it is the sort of thing that will happen spontaneously given the right conditions and circumstances.
But those conditions must include an end to huge commercial pressures; it must cost very little to stage. It must allow workers a lot more time to relax and unwind. It is impossible to find joy if you are exhausted. It must allow all generations to come together to give each other time and attention. And it must involve genuine fun – though that it a quality impossible to define or command. All we can do is to give it the right soil to grow in.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Imperialism and the slump of 2009
Andy Brooks, NCP General Secretary, moves the Main Resolution at the 16th Congress of the New Communist Party of Britain in London on 5th & 6th December 2009
Dear friends, comrades and honoured guests
We meet again at a time of intensifying struggle in Britain and across the globe. We meet while the British ruling class and the bourgeoisie throughout the capitalist world are struggling to recover from the greatest slump since 1929.
We have seen sweeping changes across the world over the past three years.
The Zimbabwean government refused to bow to imperialist demands to reverse the land reforms, held an election and formed a coalition government without imperialist interference.
The Nepalese people overthrew the hated monarchy in 2008. Russia defeated an imperialist attempt to build a Nato bridgehead in the Caucasus when it crushed the Georgian aggressors. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the second socialist country today to possess nuclear weapons, stood firm in the face of threats of the US imperialism and by so doing so forced the Americans to negotiate face to face to ease tension on the Korean peninsula.
The Iraqi and Afghan resistance forced the imperialists onto the defensive and have made the long-term occupation of their countries untenable.
Though the “new world order” and “globalisation” have been put on hold by the new Obama administration in the United States, the primary contradiction in the world today is still between American imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate.
Though the most reactionary and aggressive sections of the US ruling class suffered a setback in the 2008 presidential elections when their Republican candidate was defeated, the Obama administration has not abandoned US imperialism’s dream of world domination but has merely changed tack to take into account the changed economic climate and the growing resistance throughout the world to open US hegemony.
US imperialism, weakened by the slump that began with the near collapse of the banking system last year, is on the defensive but it is not in retreat.
US imperialism wants to hold on to what it’s got. US forces continue to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is still under threat. Cuba still suffers from the US blockade and the Americans are working to prop up the remaining reactionary regimes in what they like to call their own “backyard” to halt the advance of popular democracy in Latin America. Israel continues to deny the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs and Korea, Cyprus and Ireland remain partitioned.
We have taken part in the biggest anti-war movement this country has ever seen — a movement that mobilised millions throughout the Western world and led to the defeat of the most reactionary circles of the ruling class in Britain and the United States. Bush has gone and so has Blair and along with them has gone the dream of the “New World Order”, the “Project for a New American Century” and the “New Middle East”.
The neo-conservative economic model has been dumped and the bourgeoisie is once again turning to Keynesianism to stave off economic melt-down and head off mass social unrest in the imperialist heartlands.
We meet as working people rally to defend their jobs and livelihoods in the Royal Mail, the civil and national health service and local government. We meet in the run up to a general election next year with a resurgent Tory Party promising to resume its all out offensive against trade union rights should it return to power, while the neo-nazi BNP attempts to stoke up anti-Muslim and anti-ethnic minority hatred in its bid to politically legitimise a racist and fascist bloc within the ranks of the bourgeoisie.
All of this is reflected in the analysis of the draft main resolution which is the product of the intense discussion that has taken place in the Party Cells, Districts and the Central Committee over the past 11 months. Now this document comes to the highest authority of the Party, the Congress, for debate and to chart our course for the next three years.
We have always maintained that peace is the central issue in all our campaigns. In Britain the labour and peace movement must step up the fight to bring about the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan and indeed from every other part of the world.
At the same time the labour and peace movement must mobilise to stop this Labour government or whatever takes its place next year from spending more billions on the needless and useless replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system and then develop the campaign to scrap all British nuclear weapons and close down all US bases on our soil.
In the past the ruling class has always closed ranks during times of economic crisis. But this slump has only sharpened the divisions between those who believe that the future for British capitalism lies in greater European integration, those who think British imperial interests are still best served through the alliance with the United States and those who believe that British imperialism can extract the maximum benefit by playing off one against the other by acting as a trans-Atlantic “bridge” between American imperialism and that of France and Germany. And the latter course was the traditional path of all Labour and Conservative governments from the late 1950s to 1997.
The Tories directly represent the ruling class while the right-wing leaders of social-democracy collaborate with whichever the section of the ruling class that they believe is the dominant one.
After the 1997 Labour victory Tony Blair put all his bets on the Americans siding with the most reactionary elements within the British ruling class in the belief that victory in Iraq would give British imperialism a significant slice of the spoils when the “new world order” was established. That dream died on the streets of Baghdad along with Blair’s hopes to see out a third term in office. His successor, Gordon Brown, would still like to straddle the Atlantic as the arbiter between US and Franco-German imperialism but that bridge was burnt in Iraq and this Labour Government is now increasingly looking towards the European Union for its salvation.
The bourgeoisie, as always, do not want the general election debate to go beyond the issues in which they themselves have differing opinions. Our task is to fight for working class based politics and argue the case for socialism. Everyone knows that Britain is an immensely wealthy country and that economic basis for socialism has existed here for over a 100 years. But we are no nearer to socialism than we were in the 1900s. The fact is that the class as a whole is still committed to social democratic reform. This is not because the class is collectively stupid but because they know, quite correctly, that the British ruling class could restore the entire public sector and the entire Welfare State and more by simply disgorging a fraction of the profits they make at home and abroad.
Our electoral policy is to vote Labour in all elections apart from the bogus European parliamentary polls which we boycott. This is not because we supported the venal reactionary policies of “New Labour” or have been taken in by Brown’s neo-Keynesian reforms.
It’s not because we think a Labour government can solve the problems of working people. We know that isn’t possible in a bourgeois “democracy”. Our policy, which has been discussed and elaborated from Congress to Congress since 1977, exists because it is based on the concrete conditions that exist in Britain today.
In our view a Labour government with the yet unbroken links with the Labour Party, the trade unions and the co-operative movement, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.
Our strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions to create a democratic Labour Party that will carry out the demands of organised labour when in office.
Working people have made some gains since Labour returned to office in 1997, gains that would not have happened under the Tories, like the peace process in Ireland, devolution in Scotland and Wales and creation of the Greater London Authority.
Though the anti-union laws have not been repealed they are largely in abeyance and the Brown Government tacitly accepts the principle of consulting the unions, even if it rarely takes the advice it is given.
Let’s be clear about bourgeois democracy. We believe that the working class can never come to power through bourgeois elections but that doesn’t mean that we turn our back on working class demands for social justice and state welfare.
We believe that social democracy can never lead to people’s democracy but that doesn’t mean that we turn our back on social democratic movements that represent millions upon millions of working people in Britain in the unions and within the Labour Party.
We believe that the class collaborationist ideas of social democracy can and must be defeated within the working class. But it cannot be defeated by imitating it in the countless variations of the British Road to Socialism upheld by the revisionist, pseudo-communist and Trotskyist movements in Britain today.
The fact that these platforms do not work; that they are rejected time and time again by the same working class these programmes claim to advance, never deters these pseudo-revolutionaries who believe they can change the consciousness of the masses through rhetoric and wild promises.
Now we can all play that game and conjure up imaginary legions beyond the British working class to take us down the revolutionary road. We can all invent a class that is seething with anger and mobilised for revolutionary change that is just waiting for the correct party with the correct formula to lead them to victory. As communists we have to work with the working class that exists and not the phantom of romantic ultra-leftism.
Standing left candidates without mass support against Labour divides the movement and the class and ignores the obvious fact that the only realistic alternate governments are those of the Tories and the Liberal Democrats that have been and would be much worse than any Labour government.
Since the 1920s communists have been isolated from the mainstream of the labour movement largely due to hostility from the right- wing within the movement and partly due to the sectarian and revisionist policies of the old CPGB.
We have worked since our foundation in 1977 to end these artificial and anti-working class barriers and that is why we affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee in 2005 and focus much of our work in building that movement.
We will support social reform and our immediate programme outlined in this document charts our demands and details how it could be achieved by a left social-democratic government and how it all could be paid for through taxing the rich and scrapping Britain’s weapons of mass destruction.
But our major task is to build the revolutionary core within the class. The communist movement is based upon the revolutionary principles of Marxism- Leninism. Its purpose is to equip the working class so that it can establish working class state power and then build a socialist society.
Bourgeois democracy is a fraud. It is democracy for the exploiters and dictatorship in all but a formal sense for the exploited. Bourgeois elections, when they are held, are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes.
We have continued to make political and organisational progress over the past three years. Our general position on the Labour Party, Ireland, peace and national liberation is known throughout the British labour movement and the international communist movement.
Our New Worker supporters’ groups continue to grow like the fund-raising which has sustained the New Worker and enabled us to go into colour production. Over the past three years we produced more pamphlets that in any over similar period since our establishment in 1977.
We stand for peace and socialism. Peace because only the oppressors and exploiters want war. Socialism because it is essential to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis and war.
Socialism is the only solution to climate change, pollution and global warming. Let us work together to build the movement that will ensure that this century becomes the era of socialism.
Dear friends, comrades and honoured guests
We meet again at a time of intensifying struggle in Britain and across the globe. We meet while the British ruling class and the bourgeoisie throughout the capitalist world are struggling to recover from the greatest slump since 1929.
We have seen sweeping changes across the world over the past three years.
The Zimbabwean government refused to bow to imperialist demands to reverse the land reforms, held an election and formed a coalition government without imperialist interference.
The Nepalese people overthrew the hated monarchy in 2008. Russia defeated an imperialist attempt to build a Nato bridgehead in the Caucasus when it crushed the Georgian aggressors. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the second socialist country today to possess nuclear weapons, stood firm in the face of threats of the US imperialism and by so doing so forced the Americans to negotiate face to face to ease tension on the Korean peninsula.
The Iraqi and Afghan resistance forced the imperialists onto the defensive and have made the long-term occupation of their countries untenable.
Though the “new world order” and “globalisation” have been put on hold by the new Obama administration in the United States, the primary contradiction in the world today is still between American imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate.
Though the most reactionary and aggressive sections of the US ruling class suffered a setback in the 2008 presidential elections when their Republican candidate was defeated, the Obama administration has not abandoned US imperialism’s dream of world domination but has merely changed tack to take into account the changed economic climate and the growing resistance throughout the world to open US hegemony.
US imperialism, weakened by the slump that began with the near collapse of the banking system last year, is on the defensive but it is not in retreat.
US imperialism wants to hold on to what it’s got. US forces continue to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is still under threat. Cuba still suffers from the US blockade and the Americans are working to prop up the remaining reactionary regimes in what they like to call their own “backyard” to halt the advance of popular democracy in Latin America. Israel continues to deny the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs and Korea, Cyprus and Ireland remain partitioned.
We have taken part in the biggest anti-war movement this country has ever seen — a movement that mobilised millions throughout the Western world and led to the defeat of the most reactionary circles of the ruling class in Britain and the United States. Bush has gone and so has Blair and along with them has gone the dream of the “New World Order”, the “Project for a New American Century” and the “New Middle East”.
The neo-conservative economic model has been dumped and the bourgeoisie is once again turning to Keynesianism to stave off economic melt-down and head off mass social unrest in the imperialist heartlands.
We meet as working people rally to defend their jobs and livelihoods in the Royal Mail, the civil and national health service and local government. We meet in the run up to a general election next year with a resurgent Tory Party promising to resume its all out offensive against trade union rights should it return to power, while the neo-nazi BNP attempts to stoke up anti-Muslim and anti-ethnic minority hatred in its bid to politically legitimise a racist and fascist bloc within the ranks of the bourgeoisie.
All of this is reflected in the analysis of the draft main resolution which is the product of the intense discussion that has taken place in the Party Cells, Districts and the Central Committee over the past 11 months. Now this document comes to the highest authority of the Party, the Congress, for debate and to chart our course for the next three years.
We have always maintained that peace is the central issue in all our campaigns. In Britain the labour and peace movement must step up the fight to bring about the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan and indeed from every other part of the world.
At the same time the labour and peace movement must mobilise to stop this Labour government or whatever takes its place next year from spending more billions on the needless and useless replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system and then develop the campaign to scrap all British nuclear weapons and close down all US bases on our soil.
In the past the ruling class has always closed ranks during times of economic crisis. But this slump has only sharpened the divisions between those who believe that the future for British capitalism lies in greater European integration, those who think British imperial interests are still best served through the alliance with the United States and those who believe that British imperialism can extract the maximum benefit by playing off one against the other by acting as a trans-Atlantic “bridge” between American imperialism and that of France and Germany. And the latter course was the traditional path of all Labour and Conservative governments from the late 1950s to 1997.
The Tories directly represent the ruling class while the right-wing leaders of social-democracy collaborate with whichever the section of the ruling class that they believe is the dominant one.
After the 1997 Labour victory Tony Blair put all his bets on the Americans siding with the most reactionary elements within the British ruling class in the belief that victory in Iraq would give British imperialism a significant slice of the spoils when the “new world order” was established. That dream died on the streets of Baghdad along with Blair’s hopes to see out a third term in office. His successor, Gordon Brown, would still like to straddle the Atlantic as the arbiter between US and Franco-German imperialism but that bridge was burnt in Iraq and this Labour Government is now increasingly looking towards the European Union for its salvation.
The bourgeoisie, as always, do not want the general election debate to go beyond the issues in which they themselves have differing opinions. Our task is to fight for working class based politics and argue the case for socialism. Everyone knows that Britain is an immensely wealthy country and that economic basis for socialism has existed here for over a 100 years. But we are no nearer to socialism than we were in the 1900s. The fact is that the class as a whole is still committed to social democratic reform. This is not because the class is collectively stupid but because they know, quite correctly, that the British ruling class could restore the entire public sector and the entire Welfare State and more by simply disgorging a fraction of the profits they make at home and abroad.
Our electoral policy is to vote Labour in all elections apart from the bogus European parliamentary polls which we boycott. This is not because we supported the venal reactionary policies of “New Labour” or have been taken in by Brown’s neo-Keynesian reforms.
It’s not because we think a Labour government can solve the problems of working people. We know that isn’t possible in a bourgeois “democracy”. Our policy, which has been discussed and elaborated from Congress to Congress since 1977, exists because it is based on the concrete conditions that exist in Britain today.
In our view a Labour government with the yet unbroken links with the Labour Party, the trade unions and the co-operative movement, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.
Our strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions to create a democratic Labour Party that will carry out the demands of organised labour when in office.
Working people have made some gains since Labour returned to office in 1997, gains that would not have happened under the Tories, like the peace process in Ireland, devolution in Scotland and Wales and creation of the Greater London Authority.
Though the anti-union laws have not been repealed they are largely in abeyance and the Brown Government tacitly accepts the principle of consulting the unions, even if it rarely takes the advice it is given.
Let’s be clear about bourgeois democracy. We believe that the working class can never come to power through bourgeois elections but that doesn’t mean that we turn our back on working class demands for social justice and state welfare.
We believe that social democracy can never lead to people’s democracy but that doesn’t mean that we turn our back on social democratic movements that represent millions upon millions of working people in Britain in the unions and within the Labour Party.
We believe that the class collaborationist ideas of social democracy can and must be defeated within the working class. But it cannot be defeated by imitating it in the countless variations of the British Road to Socialism upheld by the revisionist, pseudo-communist and Trotskyist movements in Britain today.
The fact that these platforms do not work; that they are rejected time and time again by the same working class these programmes claim to advance, never deters these pseudo-revolutionaries who believe they can change the consciousness of the masses through rhetoric and wild promises.
Now we can all play that game and conjure up imaginary legions beyond the British working class to take us down the revolutionary road. We can all invent a class that is seething with anger and mobilised for revolutionary change that is just waiting for the correct party with the correct formula to lead them to victory. As communists we have to work with the working class that exists and not the phantom of romantic ultra-leftism.
Standing left candidates without mass support against Labour divides the movement and the class and ignores the obvious fact that the only realistic alternate governments are those of the Tories and the Liberal Democrats that have been and would be much worse than any Labour government.
Since the 1920s communists have been isolated from the mainstream of the labour movement largely due to hostility from the right- wing within the movement and partly due to the sectarian and revisionist policies of the old CPGB.
We have worked since our foundation in 1977 to end these artificial and anti-working class barriers and that is why we affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee in 2005 and focus much of our work in building that movement.
We will support social reform and our immediate programme outlined in this document charts our demands and details how it could be achieved by a left social-democratic government and how it all could be paid for through taxing the rich and scrapping Britain’s weapons of mass destruction.
But our major task is to build the revolutionary core within the class. The communist movement is based upon the revolutionary principles of Marxism- Leninism. Its purpose is to equip the working class so that it can establish working class state power and then build a socialist society.
Bourgeois democracy is a fraud. It is democracy for the exploiters and dictatorship in all but a formal sense for the exploited. Bourgeois elections, when they are held, are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes.
We have continued to make political and organisational progress over the past three years. Our general position on the Labour Party, Ireland, peace and national liberation is known throughout the British labour movement and the international communist movement.
Our New Worker supporters’ groups continue to grow like the fund-raising which has sustained the New Worker and enabled us to go into colour production. Over the past three years we produced more pamphlets that in any over similar period since our establishment in 1977.
We stand for peace and socialism. Peace because only the oppressors and exploiters want war. Socialism because it is essential to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis and war.
Socialism is the only solution to climate change, pollution and global warming. Let us work together to build the movement that will ensure that this century becomes the era of socialism.
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