May Day Joint statement of communist and workers parties

We demonstrate against capitalist exploitation and imperialist wars.

For the satisfaction of the contemporary needs of the Working class and people!

For the overthrow of the capitalist system.

For working class-people’s power, socialism-communism.

Working men and women! Workers all over the world! The communist and workers parties, , which have signed this statement, address this common message on the occasion of this crucial May Day in 2012, which is of particular importance, at a time when the workers in many countries are experiencing the consequences of the capitalist crisis, the consequences of the imperialist wars and interventions and the intensification of capitalist exploitation.  

Our message is clear: The working class has the power to reverse today’s situation. Millions must shout out from every corner of the planet: No sacrifices for our exploiters. Class awakening, unity and organization everywhere. Struggle for the overthrow of the anti-people political line, for the defence of the life of the working class family from poverty and unemployment. Everyone must struggle for a life which is worthy of our work and needs.  So that the working class becomes a force for overthrow and power.
  
 Our parties are of the assessment that: In opposition to bourgeois and opportunist theories, the reality is that the working class has not only not disappeared, but is developing, growing, not only quantitatively but qualitatively, as the basic productive force, regardless of the changes which have taken place concerning its structure and composition due to the changes in the productive process caused by technological progress.

 The working class is the motor force of social development and that its historic mission is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, the exploitation of man by man in the direction for the full eradication of the classes. There is no other social force which can fulfil this role. The reality today of the capitalist economic crisis, which has manifested itself in a synchronised way in many capitalist countries demonstrates once again that capitalism finds itself in the highest imperialist stage of its development, tortures millions of workers all across the world, gives birth to poverty and unemployment, suffers from incurable contradictions which are manifested in the cyclical crises as well as the in the wars for the expansion of the business activity of the monopolies, the division of the markets, the control of the sources of wealth. The crisis of capitalism demonstrates the historical limits of the system while the working class, which does not have the means of production at its disposal, is the “grave-digger” of the capitalist mode of production. This historic revolutionary role of the working class has its precondition that it will be organised as a class for itself. The formation and strengthening of the revolutionary party is necessary for the working class to become conscious of its mission, to shape a revolutionary strategic lead for the implacable class struggle against capital. The working class cannot have success with line of “social consensus”, and social “peace”, as is claimed by reformist and opportunist forces. The many years of negative experience demonstrate that this line led to the assimilation of the trade union movement, with social democracy and opportunist forces having the main responsibility for this. Today it is a necessity for capitalism to overturn even the most basic gains which were won in previous decades as a result of the class struggle at a national and international level. Nor can the working class struggle for the prevention of the anti-people measures, for economic and social demands and gains in conditions of capitalism can be separated with a “Chinese wall” from the struggle for the socialist-communist society. The struggle for economic, social and political demands, based on the contemporary needs of the people and working class, with the goal of rallying, concentrating and preparing working class forces for tough confrontations with the exploitative system, is not limited to the acquisition of some gains, but is linked to the goal for the overthrow of capitalist barbarity. The working class produces the wealth and must claim it in the struggle for its own power. This effort is being waged today in more unfavourable conditions due to the counterrevolution in the USSR and the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which led, temporarily, to the retreat of the movement, to the increase of illusions, which the bourgeois class fostered, that capitalism allegedly is the “end of history”. 20 years later the impasses of capitalism point to the necessity and timeliness of socialism.

We study the experience of socialist construction in the 20^th century, without having a negative and nihilistic stance in relation to its positive and irreplaceable contribution.  We seek to draw conclusions which will make our parties more capable, and which will also equip the working men and women all over the world with a revitalised consciousness and belief in working class power, in socialism-communism. Working men and women! Workers all over the world! We honour working class May Day, the sacrifices, the struggles of the world’s working class, sending everywhere the militant message of solidarity to our May Day demonstrations! 

We promise that we will contribute even more decisively to organize the proletariat and wage the class struggle in our countries, at a regional and international level in order for the power of the monopolies to be defeated, for capitalist barbarity to be overthrown, for socialism. We decisively raise our voices and call on all the workers, youth, women, radicals, progressive people to join forces against anti-communism and the imposition of double standards and measures against the communist parties by the EU and other imperialist alliances.

 We demonstrate everywhere against capitalist exploitation and imperialist wars and interventions at the expense of the peoples.  For the right of every people to choose their future without foreign imperialist interventions! Long live the world’s working class! Long live the revolutionary communist worldview, Marxism-Leninism, the scientifically based struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist system in every country, all over the world.  This is the way for the peoples to live peacefully, without the barbarity of capitalism, without wars.


 WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

1. Communist Party of Azerbaijan
2. PADS, Algeria
3. Communist Party of Australia
4. Communist Party of Bangladesh
5. Brazilian Communist Party
6. Communist Party of Britain
7. New Communist Party of Britain
8. Communist Party of Bulgaria
9. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
10. Communist Party in Denmark
11. Unified Communist Party of Georgia
12. Communist Party of Greece
13. Hungarian Communist Workers Party
14. Workers’ Party of Ireland
15. Socialist Party of Latvia
16. Lebanese Communist Party
17. Socialist People's Front, Lithuania
18. Communist Party of Luxembourg
19. Communist Party of Malta
20. Communist Party of Mexico
21. New Communist Party of Netherlands
22. Communist Party of Pakistan
23. The Phillipine Communist Party -PKP-1930
24. Communist Party of Poland
25. Romanian Communist Party
26. Communist Party of Soviet Union
27. Communist Party of the Russian Federation
28. Russian Communist Workers Party - Revolutionary Party of Communists
29. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
30. Party of Communists of Serbia
31. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
32. Syrian Communist Party
33. Communist Party of Turkey
34. Union of Communists of Ukraine

Solidarity with the land of Juché

Andy Brooks leads the NCP side in talks with Choe Thae Bok of the WPK

by New Worker correspondent

NEW COMMUNIST Party of Britain comrades joined millions of Koreans in Pyongyang this month to celebrate the centenary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung and take part in the World Congress of the Juché Idea that opened in the Democratic Korean capital on 12^th April.

NCP leader Andy Brooks, together with Peter Hendy and Theo Russell from the Central Committee, held talks with Choe Thae Bok, member of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), and took part in other events and ceremonies throughout the week.

These included the great military parade in the heart of the capital that was addressed by Kim Jong Un, First Secretary of the WPK and supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and a grand firework display along the Taedong river held on 15^th April, the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the eternal president of the DPRK.

Speaking to the people at the military parade Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un saluted the historic contribution of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to the DPRK’s development and he called upon the whole nation to stick to the path blazed by his predecessors and strive to win new victories.

The World Congress of the Juché Idea was attended by the delegations and delegates from 65 countries including the NCP and a delegation of the British Association for the Study of Songun Policy led by Chair Dermot Hudson.

The discussion over the two-day congress at the People’s Palace of Culture was opened Vishwanath, the director-general of the International Institute of the Juché Idea, and Kim Yong Nam, the President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK. This was followed by contributions from academics and progressives from all over the world on different aspects of Juché, the ideology of independence, anti-imperialism and socialism developed by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, which is the guiding light of the Korean communist movement.

Challenging hate and intolerance

By Andy Brooks

EVERYONE on the anti-fascist front knows about the regrettable split, late last year, between Searchlight and the Hope not Hate movement it founded in 2005 to mobilise opinion on the street against the British National Party (BNP).  The row that led to the walk-out by the editor, Nick Lowles, and some other contributors, clearly revolved around the direction as well as the day-to-day running of the veteran anti-fascist magazine.

            Apart from some minor delays Searchlight has continued to come out with its traditional coverage of the neo-Nazi scene in Britain and across the world.  But we had to wait until March for the launch of the new Hope not Hate magazine to see its take on mobilising “communities by providing a positive alternative to the politics of hate”. But is it an “alternative” to Searchlight?

            Yes, no and maybe. For a start it’s a 48-page full-colour glossy magazine with an in-your-face lay-out that reflects the style of Hope not Hate’s website and campaigning material. Unlike Searchlight the new magazine is the flag-ship of a broadly-based campaigning movement and also unlike Searchlight it will only come out every other month.

But there’s a familiar feel to Hope not Hate which is not surprising as it’s edited by Nick Lowles and some of the writing team will also be well-known to Searchlight readers.  A number of features follow well-worn tracks like the reports on the hidden backers of the BNP and the thuggish followers of the English Defence League. There’s also, as you would expect, some coverage of right-wing extremism in Europe and the rest of the world. But there is a different focus which goes far beyond the confines of anti-fascism.

            For instance, the first edition carries three articles on Muslim extremism. Likewise there’s a couple of “what makes an extremist” features, which largely reflect the views of bourgeois liberal social scientists while ignoring the class line which lies behind all the sectarian and racist movements in Britain that are only tolerated because they ultimately serve the interests of the ruling class.

            Islamic extremism gets almost as much as the coverage of the BNP,  which raises concerns that the journal is pandering to the same Islamophobia that the ruling class exploit and the fascists use to justify their racist doctrines. Now no anti-fascist would argue that these reactionary Muslim clerics are anything but reactionary. But they are bigots not fascists. We only have to look at the occupied north of Ireland, the extreme Zionist factions or the gay-hating bible-punching anti-abortionists to see that bigotry in the United Kingdom is not the exclusive property of the Muslim community.

 One reason these clerics have some support from the British Muslim community is because that minority community is under attack. The other is that the ruling class have encouraged all sorts of reactionary Muslim currents, in the past, to use Britain as a base to help subvert the people’s democratic government in Afghanistan during the Cold War and serve the imperialist interest in Algeria, Yemen and most recently, in the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in Libya and imperialism’s current efforts to destroy the Syrian Arab Republic.

Not everyone of Muslim origin in Britain is a practising Muslim and the community as a whole is not united around one banner but reflects the myriad sectarian divisions that exist within Islam as a whole. Furthermore the total number of nominal Muslims in Britain amounts to just five per cent of the entire population. Contrary to the ravings of the BNP and the EDL we are not on the brink of a Muslim takeover.

 But the fascist threat is always out there no matter how small they may be now. The fascist movements are the reserve army of the bourgeoisie and when the class struggle sharpens the gloves come off. As the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International correctly said in 1933, fascism in power is nothing more than the “open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital”.

Hope not Hate clearly hopes to win new readers by going far beyond traditional anti-fascist lines but whether articles that would not seem out of place in any existing liberal newspaper or colour supplement are enough to build the subscription base to sustain it over the years remains to be seen.

But judge it for yourselves. Hope not Hate is available in the bookshops at £3.50 a copy or by writing to HOPE not hate, PO Box 67476, London NW3 9RF. For £5 a month you can obtain all Hope not Hate’s publications including an annual subscription to the magazine, a 10 per cent discount on all its merchandise and an invitation to an annual Hope not Hate dinner.

Communist Party of the Russian Federation Joint Statement

LET US PREVENT THE BAN OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF KAZAKHSTAN!

The authorities in Kazakhstan are again demonstrating their anti-democratic and anti-communist character. They incubate the plans to ban the Communist party of Kazakhstan. First the party’s activity was suspended under a contrived pretext. It was done to prevent it from participating in the parliamentary elections. Now just because the party didn’t participate in the elections it is under the threat of being banned. Communist and Workers’ parties resolutely protest against persecutions of the Communist party of Kazakhstan and demand that its banning should be prevented.

We express our solidarity and support of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan!

Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Communist Party of Ukraine
Communist Party of Belarus
Communist Party of Armenia
Communist Party of Azerbaijan
United Communist Party of Georgia
Party of Communists of Republic of Moldova
Transdniestrian Communist Party
Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan
Communist Party of Abkhazia
Communist Party of South Ossetia
Communist Party of Estonia
Communist Party of Latvia
Communist Party of Lithuania

Also the parties:

PADS, Algeria
WP of Belgium
CP of Britain
NCP of Britain
CP of Bohemia and Moravia
CP of Greece
CP of India
Tudeh Party of Iran
Lebanese CP
Socialist People's Front, Lithuania
CP of Luxembourg
PPS de México
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Palestinian CP
Philippine Communist Party [PKP-1930]
Communist Workers' Party of Russia - Revolution Party of Communists [RKRP-RPC]
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
CP of Sweden

Searchlight: The magazine they couldn't ban

Review

By Andy Brooks

FEW ON the left, or indeed the extreme right, will have not heard of Searchlight. Back in 1975 when the National Front and their skinhead gangs were trying to kick their way to power Searchlight magazine was launched to expose the racist and neo-Nazi movements that were inciting racist violence on the streets. In the 1970s a number of anti-fascist movements rose to the challenge including the Anti-Nazi League and the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF). They have come and gone, much like the National Front. But Searchlight has continued to expose racist lies and the neo-Nazis who orchestrate their hate campaigns.

 A few years ago Searchlight launched Hope not Hate, a broad-based campaign that successfully mobilised unions, Labour politicians and the glitterati against the British National Party (BNP) and the English Defence League (EDL) in a campaign that played a major part in the BNP’s defeat at the last local elections.

            Sadly Searchlight and Hope not Hate have now parted company following an acrimonious row between the editor and the magazine’s founder, Gerry Gable, over the running of the magazine.

            Though there was clearly a clash of personalities the row clearly reflected concern in the Searchlight corner that Hope not Hate was embracing an exclusively “New Labour” perspective that could seriously jeopardise efforts to sustain the broad campaign needed to counter the BNP and the growing menace of the EDL.

            While the departure of the editor and a number of key writers, late last year, caused some minor delays, no monthly edition of Searchlight was lost, though recent editions were delayed and the most recent edition covers both February and March. But now the magazine is back on track packed with articles and investigations into the murky world of racism and fascism in Britain and around the world. It reports on the latest divisions within the BNP, the publishing networks of the “New Right” and carries detailed reports on race crime in Britain as well as a useful round-up on developments in the rest of Europe and the United States.

            Movements like Hope not Hate and Unite Against Fascism, as well as numerous local campaigns up and down the country, all have an important role in struggle to keep hate off our streets. But one of the vital roles of Searchlight over the years has been to expose the hidden agenda of the people leading the attempt to spread racism amongst working people in the name of a bogus “British nationalism”. They’re wolves in sheep’s clothing posing as racists when they are really neo-Nazis, who privately do little to mask their hatred of Jews or their admiration of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

            Every month, for 37 years, Searchlight has exposed the far right in Britain and abroad. It carries out investigations, reports on fascist activity and supports community-based anti-fascist organisations. It is the first port of call for activists, academics and journalists. Check it out yourself by ordering a copy from your local bookshop or send £24 for an annual subscription to: Searchlight, PO Box 1576, Ilford IG5 ONG.

           

Gamal Abdel Nasser on the Muslim Brotherhood (subt...

The leader of Egypt's Free Officer Revolution that overthrew the feudal monarchy in 1952. President of Egypt, later the United Arab Republic (UAR) from 1954 until his death in 1970. The Muslim Brothers were banned in Egypt after a  Muslim Brotherhood attempt to kill Nasser in 1954.

"Occupy Wall Street" and the American Revolution

Thomas Paine

by Chris Mahin

AS THE “Occupy Wall Street” movement continues, it may be helpful to look at history to see how those fighting for change have mobilised in earlier times. One such example is the American Revolution of the 1770s.

The American Revolution of the 1700s shows the tremendous importance of introducing new ideas into the fight against the powerful.

In 1763 Britain took control of Canada after defeating France in the French and Indian War. The Parliament in London soon began taking steps that pushed the residents of Britain’s 13 American colonies toward rebellion.

First the British government barred the colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains (this was the Proclamation Line of 1763).

Then the Parliament passed laws requiring the colonists to pay for the French and Indian War (the Stamp Act, Tea Tax, and other measures were designed to raise money to defray the cost of that war).

These steps enraged many colonists. No longer in need of British military protection against the French in Canada, they were much less willing to tolerate interference by the British government in their affairs. The colonists refused to pay the Stamp Tax and Tea Tax because their colonial legislatures had not been consulted before those measures became law. They cited a principle which the English Parliament had forced the English king to agree to in 1628 – “No taxation without representation”.

However, at first, most colonists did not favour independence. The colonists considered themselves loyal subjects of the British king, George III, who they believed was being misled by his ministers. The colonists simply wanted to change their relationship with Britain’s central government personified by the Parliament in London.

Between 1765 and the end of 1775 many protests erupted in America against different aspects of British rule. These protests included instances of bitter street fighting (the Boston Massacre of 1770) and wholesale destruction of property (the Boston Tea Party of 1773). They culminated in full-scale, bloody battles in which hundreds died (Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill).

But despite all the militancy and violence of those 10 years of protest, as long as the colonists believed only that the British government’s policy was wrong while accepting the “right” of a king to rule them, they could not break with Britain. They didn’t even try.

This was a classic case of a revolution not being able to move forward because the fighters in the revolution, while militant, were being held back by their old ideas. The situation would not change until something happened to shake up the thinking of the American people. Fortunately, something did.

On 10^th January 1776, Thomas Paine, an English radical who had lived in America for only 14 months, published a pamphlet called Common Sense.

In simple, readable language, Paine tore apart all the arguments in favour of American loyalty to the British Crown. He insisted that one honest man is worth more than all the kings who ever lived. He painted an inspiring picture of what the world would be like with an independent America to serve as an example to everyone fighting for freedom in every part of the world.

Common Sense challenged some of the basic assumptions that people in the 13 colonies had lived by for their entire lives.

Paine gave the colonists a cause – independence for America and opposition to kings and aristocrats everywhere. “The cause of America is the cause of all mankind,” he declared.

Because Paine’s ideas were, for his time, qualitatively new, they sparked great debate. His small pamphlet was circulated widely. Some 120,000 copies of Common Sense were sold in its first three months and 500,000 copies were sold in the first year after its publication.

As Common Sense was distributed throughout the 13 colonies, public opinion began to change. One by one the state delegations to the Second Continental Congress began to support the idea of proclaiming the independence of the 13 colonies from Britain.

Finally in July 1776 the Second Continental Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. This vote was a direct result of the publication and widespread distribution of Common Sense.

Perhaps those involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement can learn lessons from the American Revolution of the 1770s.

Like the revolutionaries of 1776, we live at a time when people have been hard hit by the status quo, but don’t fully understand what it is that has hit them. This means that we have to act like Thomas Paine; we have to change people’s thinking. We have to convince the American people to give up their old ideas and accept some new ideas so they can win the fight that they are waging against hunger and misery in this country.

The fundamental idea that we have to get across to people can be stated fairly simply:

We do not have to live like this. Today, no human being in the world “has” to be hungry. Today, the human race possesses the productive forces (computers and robots) and the scientific knowledge to guarantee that everyone could live a healthy and cultured existence. The only thing preventing that from happening is the strangle-hold that 445 billionaires have over the world’s economy and politics. Today, it is possible to unite our efforts against the billionaires and millionaires, end their control over society, and create a new society.

Like the people who made sure that copies of Common Sense reached every corner of the 13 colonies, we have to transmit our message far and wide. We have to ensure that there is as wide a debate as possible about the role of the corporations.

If we do that, we can begin to change the thinking of the American people – and help change history.

Zhravitsa -- cantata to Stalin 1939

The Truth v British Justice: the long hard struggle of the Bloody Sunday families

 

 Review

By Theo Russell

 

Setting the Truth Free: the inside story of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, by Julieann Campbell. Liberties Press, Dublin, rrp £13.99.

THE 38-year struggle for justice for the victims of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, like the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six campaigns, exposed the true nature of British justice – upholding class bigotry and colonial oppression.

Julieann Campbell, the niece of one of the victims who works for the Bloody Sunday Trust and Free Derry Museum, has brought together a mass of material in a remarkable new book that reveals just how hard that struggle was.

After the shootings and Widgery Report the families and wounded were branded as terrorists, received loyalist death threats, and faced constant army raids and harassment.

Even in 1997 relative Gerry Duddy was still stopped and searched at British airports, while he and Troops Out Movement stalwart Mary Pearson received multiple death threats from the National Front.

It was only after the release of the Guildford Four in 1989 that the families realised justice was possible and began to organise. Sinn Féin had run annual commemorations, but was happy to hand the campaign back to the families.

But campaigner and journalist Eammon McCann said that after the British Parliament accepted Widgery: “In my secret heart I couldn’t see any mechanism whereby that could be overthrown.”

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the biggest nationalist party in Derry, and the political establishment in Dublin, shunned the campaign for years. In 1992, when every Irish TD (Member of Parliament) and senator was invited to the launch of a new book by Eammon McCann in Dublin, only one independent TD responded.

            That year Irish president Mary Robinson laid a wreath for victims of the IRA bomb in Enniskillen, but refused to meet the Bloody Sunday relatives. When they lobbied her Dublin residence they were followed and intimidated by the Garda (police) and hecklers shouted “are you still killing children?”. The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Charlie Haughey and head of the Catholic Church Cathal Daly also shunned the families.

            In 1994 Prince Charles, Colonel-in-Chief of the Paratroop Regiment, which was responsible for the massacre,, visited Derry in an embarrassing fiasco and was forced to cancel his planned walkabout. Even in 1996 his private secretary wrote to the families advising them to “move on”.

            In 1995 the tide began to turn when Irish Taoiseach John Bruton appointed an official to liaise with the families. That year Jane Winter of British-Irish Rights Watch found the infamous memo from Edward Heath to Widgery, advising him Britain was “fighting not only a military war but a propaganda war”.

In 1997 a detailed study by Professor Dermot Walsh of Limerick University demolishing the original Widgery transcript was submitted to the British and Irish governments.

That year 40,000 marched at the Derry commemoration, pressure from US politicians mounted, and two senior Irish government officials began work on another damning assessment  of Widgery. Some of the Bloody Sunday soldiers began to speak out.

But it can be argued that a new inquiry, and the Irish peace process, only became possible after Labour took power in 1997. Martin McGuinness, interviewed for the book, praises Tony Blair for recognising a new inquiry as an important part of the peace process.

The new inquiry was announced in January 1998, and in Tony Doherty’s words: “Blair may have gone on to do a lot of terrible things in the world, but from our point of view it was the right thing to do and a very brave thing to do.”

            The inquiry caused huge stress for the families who had to re-live that terrible day, experience humiliating questioning, and were forced to commute to hearings London for two years. In the 10 years before the Saville report was published many more of the relatives and wounded had died.

            When ex-Prime Minister Edward Heath testified in 2003 he denied trying to influence Widgery and refused to apologise. Relative Kay Duddy described his “how dare you speak to me like this” attitude as infuriating.

”Soldier 027”, who testified that “there was no justification for a single shot I saw fired,” paid a price for his honesty, living under a witness protection scheme to after threats from ex-Paras who mistakenly assaulted and hospitalised his landlord.

            But most of the soldiers had either “forgotten” everything or denied any wrongdoing. As relative Paddy Nash said: “In London for the soldiers, you didn’t know where to put your rage… we saw what I call genuine sorrow maybe once or twice.”

            Head of the British Army General Michael Jackson, the senior commander at Bloody Sunday, said he had written a list identifying every victim as a gunman or bomber “in the early hours” when he had been “rather tired”.

At the last hurdle delays to publishing the report and the fear of “redactions” after inspection by MoD and MI5 personnel, led the relatives to launch a new campaign, “Set the Truth Free”. The slogan was carried on every front page of the Derry Journal and Derry News until Saville delivered.

When Saville finally published the report on 15^th June 2010 there was jubilation and enormous relief in Derry. David Cameron’s apology, shown on a screen to the crowds outside Derry’s Guildhall, was met with a huge cheer.

But key figures such as Heath and General Jackson escaped significant blame, and the report still maintained one victim, Gerald Donaghey, had been carrying nail bombs, despite evidence to the contrary. Bloody Sunday witness Joe Mahon asked: “What about Gerald Donaghey? They got their pound of flesh.”

            The relatives know Saville wasn’t everything they wanted, which includes prosecuting the soldiers. Liam Wray says: “The Prime Minister had to apologise, the Parachute Regiment will always carry that badge of shame. But judging by the news we see with the British Army in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s the true sadness, they haven’t learned from any of it.”

Joe Mahon adds: “Will the army learn? Yes, they will learn to cover things up better. They’ll learn no moral lessons from Bloody Sunday.”

For anyone who spent years marching for justice for the Bloody Sunday families, and for any student of recent Irish history, this book is a must read.

No Redemption -- images of the miners' struggle

Josie Smith. a retired disabled miner arrested outside his back gate. Photography by Keith Pattison

The history of the National Union of Mineworkers is one of struggle and sacrifice. Only two weeks ago trade unionists returned to Saltley Gate to  commemorate  the 40^th  anniversary of a key victory during the 1972 miners' strike and hear former miners leader Arthur Scargill pay tribute to the Birmingham workers who joined the mass picket that closed the gates of the coal depot and forced the Tory government to back down and meet the miners’ demands. But we also remember the hardship and sacrifice of the mining communities during the epic strike in the early 1980s  when the NUM was brought to its knees through the indifference and  hostility of the right-wing in the TUC and the determination of the Thatcher government to scrap the mining industry in this country.

            Large-scale mining may have gone but the memory of the communities that sustained the industry and the union that Scargill once led is preserved in images and documents of the time.       

            Past Pixels was set up in 2009 to make images of working class struggle more widely available to a newer generation and over the past three years it has carved a niche for itself with a series of greeting cards dedicated to the memory of the miners and their union.

            A new set of cards and posters has now come out to coincide with the opening of “No Redemption”, an exhibition of photographs by Keith Pattison, at the National Coalmining Museum in Wakefield this month.

            In August 1984 Keith Pattison was commissioned by Sunderland’s Artists’ Agency to photograph the strike at Easington Colliery for one month. Instantly engaging with the struggle, he stayed there on and off for eight, till the strike ended in March ’85, working behind the lines to record events from the miners’ point of view.

            Making, as the documentary filmmaker John Grierson said “creative use of actuality”, Pattison framed a narrative sequence of images from the optimism of August, through the deepening pessimism of winter right to the final vote to return to work.

            These photographs concentrate not on the much publicised violence of the strike, but on how the village dealt with no money, a mostly hostile press and media and the overwhelming opposition of the State. Pattison found a community which rallied together to support each other – women and children feature strongly in these images – and he shows it against the landscape which shaped it; street corners, back lanes, crowded meeting rooms, all dwarfed by the colliery. Twenty-six years on, as government cuts begin to bite and unemployment grows, as youth and students take to the streets and are met by the might of police power, these images speak directly of resistance under siege.

There’s a short commentary about the image of the back of each card and Past Pixel cards can be ordered online at http://www.pastpixels.co.uk or from an increasing number of retail outlets. Further information about all the cards can also  be obtained  by writing directly to: Past Pixels, PO Box 798, Worcester, WR4 4BW

The Iron Lady

        By Andy Brooks

 

The Iron Lady: (12A) 104 mins. Dir: Phyllida Lloyd. General release.

MOST OF the left groaned when they heard that the movie moguls were going to give Lady Thatcher the Hollywood treatment with a star-studded cast and Meryl Streep as the leading lady herself. The Tories meanwhile sat back expecting an epic of Churchillian proportions. What they actually got was a bitter disappointment.

            Margaret Thatcher is portrayed as a half-mad old crone, shunned by her children, who holds imaginary conversations with her long dead husband, which trigger flash-backs to her long-gone days of glory.

 The film has not surprisingly been dismissed as a “disgrace” by Tory grandee Norman Tebbit and “left-wing fantasy” by her children.  The focus on Thatcher’s dementia has been criticised as a cruel invasion of the privacy of an elderly woman, with some justification. Nevertheless it’s the artistic device that the whole movie revolves around.

Though it is by no means a conventional biopic, the film does tell a story. In a sequence of scenes we see Thatcher rise from her student days at Oxford to struggle to overcome Tory male chauvinism in her quest for high office, the defeat of the miners and, of course, the Falklands War. All of this is set against a background of strikes, IRA bombings and riots on the streets, using newsreel footage from the time. 

But what does the film tell us? Well it’s the tale of how one woman overcame male prejudice to become the first woman prime minister in British history, leading the country from 1979 to 1990, only to be ignominiously dumped by her own party when her popularity slipped. The moral of the story is perhaps only in its ending.

Maverick Tory MP Enoch Powell famously said: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs”. It was certainly true of Powell himself, who played the race card in his own failed bid for power. It’s equally true of Thatcher, Major and Blair as well as every British prime minister we’ve had over the past 100 years or so.

Thatcher may well be an icon to the ruling class. But so are all the others, Labour and Tory, who followed in her footsteps when they went to Downing Street. The great reforms of the post-war Labour Government were indeed partly due to the overwhelming demand from working people for a better life. But they were also the product of a bourgeois consensus on the need to boost production by pumping state money into ailing industries, while buying off and diverting working people down the dead-end of social democratic reform to head off the communist movement that had  massively grown throughout Europe during the struggle to defeat the Nazis.  This tactic was followed by the bourgeoisie throughout Western Europe during the Cold War.

 By the 1970s the bourgeoisie as a whole, in Britain and in Europe, were no longer prepared to pay their share in maintaining state welfare and that consensus ended. Thatcher simply represented the class the Tories serve and she did nothing that would not have been done by any other Tory leader at the time.

Margaret Thatcher led the Tories to victory three times in a row, spearheading a bourgeois offensive against the unions, the National Health Service and the welfare state, whose consequences we still live with today.

Yet in the Iron Lady the rage of the victims of the Thatcher era is used only as a backdrop to her life. But perhaps the portrayal of Thatcher as a lonely, neglected old woman symbolises more than immediately meets the eye.

Capitalist crisis and class consciousness

By Eric Trevett

IT IS NOT often that we agree with Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England, but we concur with his appraisal that the present economic crisis  may be more profound than that of the 1930s and that there is no way of avoiding a further recession.

This dispels the argument that the last Labour government was mainly responsible for the crisis affecting Britain. The capitalist crisis is global. And the struggle for peace and socialism has to be global too.

Now that Miliband has joined the Tory-Liberal Democrat alliance in supporting the cuts, it means that the leaders of all three main political parties in Britain are in favour of reactionary politics. Along with the right-wing press they tell us that we are all in this together. “We’ve all got to do our bit to cut the nation’s debts and achieve an expanding economy. Unity between the working class and capitalist class,” we are told, “will guarantee victory.”

   It is worth noting how this unity works. The example set to us by our “betters” is very impressive. It includes massive bonus payments for the top echelons of the banking system. It includes the major private companies owing the Treasury £87 billion in unpaid taxation. Then we have company directors pushing up their salaries by 49 per cent.

            We must not forget that expenses’ fiddling is widespread among the elite. These are indeed impressive sacrifices being made by the rich compared to the “terrible workers”, “turbulent students” and outraged pensioners who have the temerity to do something to oppose cuts in services, jobs, wages and pensions and even have the guts to go on strike. Pensioners of course cannot go on strike but they can show solidarity with those who do.

In capitalist society there are two main classes: the capitalist class, which for the moment is dominant, and the working class, which is exploited, with the poorest sections being the most numerous.

            The middle stratum is not a class but is thrown and vacillating between political allegiances – between the labour movement and the capitalist class. The big mistake labour leaders make is to prioritise making concessions to what are often petty bourgeois aspirations.

It is significant that capitalism is now being identified around the world as an enemy of the people. Many individuals who have described themselves as middle class are already beginning to develop a socialist outlook.

            The way forward is to develop a radical working class programme combating privatisation and renationalising the heights of the economy. Military spending must be reduced, the arms programme cut and Britain must become a nuclear-free zone.

 And we must restore the NHS to a standard to meet the ideals it was established to achieve and free the NHS from the shackles of Private Finance Initiative contracts.

Much of this is already the policy of the Labour Representation Committee and trade union branches and organisations should be encouraged to affiliate to it. The alternative to the right-wing policies of the party leaders represents the struggle from below.

            The crisis of capitalism is a crisis of overproduction. It is not difficult to prove this, with bargain sales no longer limited to January but now on all year round. We are offered new furniture and no need to pay for a year or more. In a relatively new feature £1 bargain shops are selling goods directly from the manufacturers.  When one thinks about the mass of goods available that are not sold, the bargain sales and other incentives to buy, it gives some idea of the tremendous amount that is produced that the market cannot absorb.

            Nationally and internationally the banks made money available for all sorts of ventures and encouraged working people  to use next year’s wages to buy things on the never-never. And with mortgage repayments they ensured that millions are in debt. This means the rising unemployment levels could be quite devastating for family life.

Since 1971 the attack on municipal housing property has featured strongly. The relatively low cost of rents had served to keep the private landlord rented sector and property values down. In privatising the municipal housing stock, the curb on prices in the private sector was removed – so much so that it is now virtually impossible for working class young people and even middle strata people to get a mortgage. But the problem for first time buyers is not just how to get a mortgage but being able to guarantee their continued employment at a high wage and make enough to sustain the payments.

            In any case we think the way forward for housing is to restore municipal property at reasonable rents relating to wage levels.

The post-war period has seen rapid advancement in the techniques of production. Over the years industrial capitalism has moved from water power to steam power to electricity and now to the new technology. It is significant that for the first time investment in equipment is not matched by investment in workers. In other words, under capitalist conditions the price of labour power is falling and the competition for advances in new technology leads to a reduction in the size of the employed labour force.

This does not mean we should oppose the introduction of new technology; on the contrary we should welcome it and realise that under socialist conditions it will prove a useful source of wealth production that frees people to enjoy greater leisure time and the chance for engaging in cultural, sporting and scientific pursuits – instead of the rat race conditions we have to endure under capitalism.

This is leading to the realisation among the working class and broader sections of the population that capitalism is obsolescent. All over the world the working class is beginning to take up cudgels once again against the capitalist class and its imperialist machinations.

            Last year’s riots in London and other places were understandable but they lacked the perspective of a socialist revolution. But socialism is the only answer to the capitalist crisis for the working class.

When the crisis of capitalism becomes acute, it not only means hardship for most of the people, it also includes the drive to authoritarian government and imperialist war as the different powers and nations seek to solve their problems at the expense of their rivals.

            The aims of the temporary alliance between the United States, British and French imperialism can clearly be seen by the strategy of destabilising the Middle East, not just for the oil although that is a major factor, but also to militarise the area with bases plainly aimed against Russia.

The imperialist powers use the strategy of divide and rule. Agent provocateurs generate hatred between the tribal and religious groups to instigate war between Middle Eastern countries. They back reactionary elements with military equipment while bashing progressive or non-compliant governments with trade sanctions and even unilateral acts of war.

The imperialists’ aim is to remove these leaderships and replace them forces that will be in favour of complying with imperialist demands and allow them more direct control of the resources of the area.

The result is, apart from the destruction of tens of thousands of people’s lives, that British imperialism is guilty of consigning many British youths to their death or serious injury – who are also the victims of imperialism.

The struggle for peace is more than a plea for mercy. It is a revolutionary demand and we stress that the working class aims of peace and socialism are indivisible.

Bringing alive our illustrious past

image copyright South Wales Area NUM. Photography by Martin Shakesaft

The great mining communities have long gone – destroyed by a Tory government determined to abandon the British coal-fields in favour of imported coal and nuclear energy. But their memory lives on in the memories of the mineworkers and the  photos and mementos of their struggle.

 Back in 2009 Past Pixels was launched to make images of working class struggle more widely available to a newer generation. Over the past two years it has produced collections of greeting cards reflecting the struggle of the British mining community including snapshots of the epic miners’ strike of 1984/85 and a collection of NUM enamel badges. Now the company has issued a new set using images of banners from South Wales mining communities.

South Wales Area of the NUM has given permission for the reproduction of all the banners in their possession. The first four banners reproduced are from the South Wales Area of the NUM, Tower Lodge NUM, Maerdy Lodge NUM and the Maerdy Women’s Support Group.

Each card provides a short history of the banner and another photograph, often with the banner in use. A proportion of the income from sales will be donated to the South Wales Miners’ Benevolent Fund, a registered charity.

Past Pixel cards can be ordered online at http://www.pastpixels.co.uk or from an increasing number of retail outlets, including the Rhondda Heritage Park where both the Maerdy Lodge and Maerdy Women’s Support Group banners are currently on display. Further information about all the cards can also be obtained  by writing directly to: Past Pixels, PO Box 798, Worcester, WR4 4BW

Scotland's Choice

DAVID Cameron’s Tory-led Coalition has decided to call the Scottish nationalists’ bluff by proposing a straight either/or referendum on independence by May 2013. The Tories say they are doing this because of pressure from major businesses, who have claimed privately that delay on the constitutional question will destabilise the Scottish economy.

North of the border most suspect that Cameron’s move is designed to forestall the Scottish National Party (SNP), whose own plans for a referendum are believed to include an option for greater fiscal autonomy, like that of the old northern Irish government, that fall short of the complete independence that the majority of Scottish voters are wary of in the current economic climate.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats, who oppose independence, favour this option that would also give the SNP, which won an overall majority in the Scottish parliament in last year’s elections, a fall-back position if the independence vote was lost.

The Tories are against giving the Scottish government any more real authority, let alone independence. But they will have to rely on Labour and the Liberal Democrats to win the argument. There’s now just one Scottish Conservative MP in the House of Commons and only 15 in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament.

The nationalists have long taken much of the Tory vote in Scotland but there are clear divisions within the ranks of the Scottish bourgeoisie on the question of outright independence. Some believe it is unattainable and others that it is undesirable at a time of global capitalist crisis. Scottish banks relied on the Bank of England to bail them out in the 2008 crash and many bankers doubt whether an independent Scotland would get an AAA credit rating these days.

Support for independence can be also found among sections of the ultra left in Scotland. But they assume far too easily that such a rearrangement of the constitutional furniture will inevitably have progressive consequences.

The degree of local autonomy won by the Scots is, in itself, no guarantee that the national traditions and culture of the Scottish people will be developed, nor will it automatically lead to the strengthening of working class power.

But the creation of national institutions in Scotland has had some positive developments. Scottish governments have developed policies, under pressure from the labour movement, that reflect more the demands of the working class for social justice. Scotland maintains free university education and personal care for the aged, frozen council tax and introduced free prescription charges and eye tests.

There can be no doubt that Scotland could, if it were carried in a referendum, hold its own as an independent state.

If and when that question is put to the Scottish electorate the New Communist Party would support a vote for independence. At our last Congress in 2009 we said: “The New Communist Party has long recognised the rights of the Scottish and Welsh nations to full national self-determination. We support Scottish and Welsh demands for the right to preserve and develop their culture and national identity. We support their right to posses and control all the physical and other resources present on their land and territorial waters.

We support the demand for genuine self-governing powers for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

“The NCP supports the demand for the encouragement of the Welsh language, which should be raised, in practice as well as in theory, to equal standing with English throughout Wales. We likewise support demands for the encouragement of Scottish Gaelic in traditional Gaelic areas.”