If you value and support the aims and objectives of Red Youth and the marxist leninist political work which we do, please consider donating towards our fundraising efforts to send delegates to this years World Festival of Youth and Students in Ecuador. Comrade Katt Cremer is a central committee member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist) and is running a half marathon in memory of our beloved comrade Godfrey and in order to help raise money for our delegation to Ecuador this year. Please donate and support our work!
“In honour of my dad, Godfrey Cremer, who sadly died of cancer last year, a number of us are running half marathons across the country raising money to help send a delegation of young people to an international festival for peace and solidarity being held in Ecuador in December.
Five years ago he and I ran a half marathon around Bristol. Neither of us asked for sponsorship when we did it. This is an opportunity to make up for that lack of foresight and to raise some money for a cause that would be close to his heart.
On 15 September I’ll be running the same course in Bristol we ran together in 2008.
Please give as much as you can, it all adds up and so no matter how small or large, please contribute and spread the campaign to others you know.
More information about where the money is going:
Every four years thousands of young people from over 120 countries come together to share ideas and information to advance the struggles for peace and solidarity.
This December Ecuador is hosting the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students under the slogan ‘Youth unite against imperialism, for a world of peace, solidarity and social transformation!’
Red Youth is coordinating a delegation of young people from Britain to take part in the festival and give them the opportunity to share their experiences and learn from others in our common struggle for a better world.
The money raised will assist with travel expenses to enable as many young people to go as possible. This will be a really useful experience for all those who we are able to send over and so please dig deep and think of all those miles being run for a good cause!
Your support is very much welcomed and appreciated!”
On Saturday the 7th September the Wigan Diggers festival came around for its 3rd consecutive year. The festival was set up to celebrate the life of Wigan born Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1676). Last years festival was a great success with around 2000 people attending. The organisers worked hard this year to make it even better than the year before. There was an excellent line up of music, stalls and activities. We got the local community involved; we got a local primary school in which the children created an excellent art piece.
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and Red Youth comrades attended this years festival and one of our comrades was involved in the organisation of the festival. We had a stall there which allowed us to speak and have plenty of discussions about recent events with a lot of peoples’ discussions focused around Syria. Plenty of books, leaflets and pamphlets were available on the stall.
Overall we are very pleased with the festival, and we are sure it will grow to become one of the biggest events of its kind in the North West.
The revolution will continue until the people’s basic demands for bread, work and an end to cooperation with zionism and imperialism are met.
The recent overthrow of Mohamed Morsi falls nothing short of this description. With food and oil supplies on the down and poverty on the up, it only took a year and 4 days before the Egyptian majority called for the removal of the man who had promised an end to these things.
Morsi’s pledge of full support to the counter-revolutionary movement against the Syrian government by – and therefore to the interests of imperialism and zionism – tipped the iceberg for the nations majority, and triggered the final demand for Morsi’s removal.
“The Egyptian people no longer fear the might of the state. They are prepared to face, if need be, its batons, bullets, armoured personnel carriers and cavalry charges in order to bring about fundamental changes in their lives.
Authoritarianism in Egypt is gasping. State force has lost its power of deterrence. The more vicious the violence it inflicts, the more resistance it inspires and the more protesters it brings out on to the streets. The coming battles, it is to be hoped, will bring forth the kind of leadership that is capable of freeing the Egyptian masses from the clutches of both the local kleptocratic ruling elites and their imperialist masters.”
Birmingham CPGB-ML hosted a successful BBQ and social on Saturday. As well as being a good chance to grab some food and catch up with some of our comrades in the Midlands, the day also payed host to a selection of speeches and discussions on imperialism, in light of recent events in Syria. We were privileged to hear talks from members of the Indian Workers Association, Harpal Brar (editor of Lalkar and chair of CPGB-ML) and the DPR Korea ambassador for the UK, Hyon Hak-Bong. Comrades from the IWA opened the talks with a short speech urging us to combat recent racist actions by the government. These actions include the ‘Go Home’ vans and a string of immigration crackdowns, clearly biased towards punishing black and Asian communities over anyone else. Attendees were also urged to sign a petition against Theresa May’s proposed immigration bond legislation, which would demand immigrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and several other countries to pay a £3000 bond to visit the UK (full details of the proposed bill can be found here). Coverage of this proposed legislation by mainstream media has been minimal, so we urge comrades to pass on this information to others, particularly those who may be affected by the legislation. The IWA also expressed its support for Syria in its struggle against Western imperialists during the current conflict. Harpal Brar addressed the recent events in Syria with a rousing speech highlighting the hypocrisies of Western imperialism, both in Syria and around the world. He remarked on the West’s long history of imperialism and how it was willing to exploit the accusations against Assad (which still remain unconfirmed) to further its goals in the Middle East. Comrade Harpal spoke further on the West’s damning of chemical weapon use , whilst still retaining one of the largest stocks of chemical and nuclear weapons. I’m sure many of us can remember the use of white phosphorous by Israel in Gaza not long ago, which went unquestioned and unnoticed by the West. Western media’s role in the demonizing of Assad was also noted, and that the media’s portrayal of the conflict was a key reason that so many supported intervention in Syria, which chose to ignore the obvious imperialist motives of the intervention. Comrade Harpal concluded his speech by noting that imperialist wars would remain a tool of capitalists, who continue to exploit the proletariat, both abroad and at home. Finally, the day closed with words from the DPRK ambassador, comrade Hyon Hak-Bong. Developing on much of what Harpal had said, comrade Hak-Bong addressed imperialist aggression in relation to his own country. He spoke of how the DPRK insists on being self-reliant in building their country to benefit the people of North Korea, who wish to remain free of imperialist intervention, which is often lead by the USA in the Korean Peninsula. The ambassador also addressed the matter of relations with South Korea and spoke very highly of the successful steps they had taken previously in peaceful negotiation with their neighbors and put any deterioration in relations down to recent South Korean leadership, who had not been as participatory in these talks as previous leaders had. Comrade Hak-Bong also spoke of recent nuclear tests made by the DPRK and although it was regrettable that it had come to this stage, he insisted the DPRK’s nuclear program was only in place to deter attacks from the imperialists and to provide security to the Korean people. He continued to say that the DPRK would gladly dismantle its weapons, but the process must be not be unilateral and all countries must participate in the procedure. Again, comrade Harpal’s earlier point about the West’s hypocrisy concerning weapons was highlighted and the ambassador agreed that it was inappropriate for the West to demand demilitarization of foreign countries whilst it still possessed the largest nuclear stockpile. The ambassador finished his talk with a short Q&A in which he spoke on the DPRK’s censorship policy in regards to internet use. He said that while much of the internet was free from censorship in North Korea, some content that was deemed detrimental to the DPRK and its people was blocked. All comrades in attendance expressed solidarity with countries such as Syria and the DPRK, who are struggling against imperialism. Several points came up in discussion with some of the comrades in attendance that I feel are worth repeating here. Many agreed that although war was always a last resort, occasionally it was appropriate for socialists and revolutionaries to support wars, but only wars that champion liberation or revolution, not imperialist and capitalist gains. Others highlighted that it was in our interests as socialists to support all progressive and revolutionary activity, whether it be bourgeois democratic revolution or peoples’ uprising, and that a strong united force across countries was needed if the working class were to triumph. Discussion also focused on the attitude of some ‘anti-war’ movements, whose damning of Assad and his ‘regime’ seemed based in the fantasies of Western media and more in-line with the attitudes of imperialists, not those of anti-war supporters. Some comrades expressed the sentiment that if imperialism was to be defeated and if people wanted the war in Syria to come to an end, then they should throw their support behind Assad and the Syrian people, not Al-Qaeda associated rebels and terrorists.
DEFEAT THE MURDEROUS IMPERIALIST PREDATORY
WAR AGAINST THE SYRIAN PEOPLE !
Having failed miserably in its attempts to overthrow the Syrian government through its jihadist terrorist mercenaries, imperialism is in the final stages of its preparations for a direct military onslaught against the people of Syria and their lawful and popular government. By a concerted campaign, orchestrated by its political and ideological representatives, duly assisted by its gigantic propaganda machine – a veritable host of TV and radio stations and thousands of newspapers – which spews out non-stop lies about its intended victim, imperialism has built up an unstoppable momentum for yet another unlawful, unjust, bloody and predatory war. In the next few days, the Syrian people will find themselves to be the recipients of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and ‘rule of law’ delivered by cruise missiles and other deadly weapons, which are bound to cause tremendous loss of life and material damage.
The pretext for this barbarous war is the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government against its own people – a charge that cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny. Why would the Syrian government use chemical weapons when its forces are inflicting decisive defeats on the bloodthirsty brutes unleashed by imperialism, just when a UN team is in the country investigating the use of these weapons, and that too in an area where the Syrian army is present in large numbers. Even the right-wing Zionist website WND expressed the view that the chemical attack was the work of the Syrian opposition forces.
All the evidence points in the direction of imperialism staging a provocation, through the use by its proxies of sarin and other nerve gases, so as to provide imperialism with an excuse for going to war against Syria with the hope of saving the skin of its surrogates who are on the verge of a complete rout.
Faced with this murderous war, the proletariat needs to know the unvarnished truth and not be palmed off with plausible lies. The proletariat needs to know:
• that the war presently being waged by imperialism and its stooges against the Syrian people did not simply and
spontaneously erupt in March 2011, but has actually been in preparation for at least a decade.
• that this war has nothing to do with humanitarianism, rule of law or democracy, which are merely catchwords that
imperialism uses to hide its real aims … it is a war for domination, for booty, plunder and brigandage;
• that in an effort to subvert the revolutionary movements of the people of the Middle East and the Maghreb, the
combined imperialist powers of Nato first targeted Libya and overthrew its government, murdering its undisputed
leader, Muammer Gaddafi, and are now intent on repeating their ‘humanitarian’ blitzkrieg against Syria;
• that Syria has become the target of imperialist subversion and aggression for pursuing independent economic
and foreign policies, for opposing the war in Libya, for its support for the Iraqi resistance, for its support for the
cause of the liberation of Palestine from zionist occupation, and for its alliance with Iran and the Lebanese resistance
movement, Hizbollah; in short, for its position in the axis of resistance that today stands in opposition to the
Zionist-imperialist axis of evil;
• that in the end this war is directed against China and Russia – the two countries which stand in the way of imperialist
domination of the world.
The proletariat must therefore condemn imperialism and its stooges in the most resolute terms and give its wholeheartedsupport to the Syrian people and their leadership, who are bravely defending the independence, sovereignty, honour and dignity of their country against imperialist brigandage.Those who claim to be socialist must take to the working masses the message of non-cooperation with imperialism’s predatory and criminal wars by refusing to play any part in moving materials, making munitions, pointing guns or
broadcasting imperialism’s warmongering propaganda lies.
From the very beginning of the counter-revolutionary rebellion in Syria, inspired, funded and aided by imperialism, we in the CPGB-ML have consistently called for the defeat of imperialism and the victory of the Syrian people led by President Assad, for we are firmly convinced that: “The revolutionary movement in the advanced countries would actually
be a sheer fraud if, in their struggle against capital, the workers of Europe and America were not closely and completely united with hundreds upon hundreds of millions of ‘colonial’ slaves who are oppressed by capital” (Lenin, The Second Congress of the Communist International, 1920).
We make a last-ditch appeal to our opponents in the working-class and ‘anti-war’ movement, especially the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition, who have hitherto deployed one excuse after another, one dishonest pretext following another, to undermine the anti-imperialist Syrian government, just as they did in the case of Libya, to join us in our
correct stance, if they do not want their hands to be dripping with the blood of the Syrian people, just as will be the hands of the imperialists. Failure to do so, whatever their intentions, objectively puts them in the camp of imperialism.
No cooperation with imperialism’s wars!
Victory to the Syrian people led by the Ba’ath Party and its progressive allies!
Death to imperialism and its Zionist and Arab stooges!
29 August 2013
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) www.cpgb-ml.org 01924 218 737 info@cpgb-ml.org
The following is taken from the article on Russia Today concerning protests aimed at exposing media bias against Syria in the war for public opinion.
The New York Times’ website has been disabled for the second time in under a month, with the newspaper attributing the outage to a “malicious external attack” widely thought to have come from hackers affiliated with the Syrian Electronic Army.
“Many users are having difficulty accessing the New York Times online,” the paper wrote on its Facebook page. “We are working to fix the problem. Our initial assessment is the outage is most likely the result of a malicious external attack. In the meantime we are continuing to publish key news reports.”
Multiple screenshots online reveal that when a user attempts to visit www.nytimes.com, the only message that appears is “Hacked by the SEA.” The hacker collective regularly infiltrates media organizations it perceives to be aligned against the Assad government.
The Times has continued publishing news articles on http://news.nytco.com since the main site began experiencing outages at approximately 3:00 pm EST.
This was the NYT homepage for a few minutes earlier pic.twitter.com/p8zJA96Nmn
— Megan Hess (@mhess4) August 27, 2013
The SEA also claimed in a series of tweets that it hijacked the domain for Twitter, redirected the social media traffic to its own server and rendering the site unstable.
Twitter spokesperson Jim Prosser confirmed to journalist Matthew Keys that site technicians are “looking into claims” from the SEA.
Hi @Twitter, look at your domain, its owned by #SEA :) http://t.co/ZMfpo1t3oG pic.twitter.com/ck7brWtUhK
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) August 27, 2013
The SEA, a shadowy group of hackers sympathetic to the Syria’s President Bashar Assad, has launched cyber-attacks on a number of media outlets in recent months including the associated Press’ Twitter feed, which falsely reported that US President Barack Obama was injured in an attack on the White House.
The Times’ page was last unavailable on August 14, although the several-hour outage was later blamed on “a failure during regular maintenance.”
“While it may seem a little bit like they’re doing it for lulz because it is kind of random, it is ideologically motivated in the sense that these are all supporters of the Assad regime,” Eva Galperin, a global public policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Verge. “And they’re looking to get a message out about what they feel is bias in the media against Assad.”
This string of attacks comes as US leaders have publicly discussed the possibility of launching an attack against the Assad government, which they say used deployed chemical weapons on the Syrian people as the nation’s civil war passed the two-year point. US Secretary of State John Kerry has called Syria’s use of chemical weapons “undeniable” and “a moral obscenity” as government sources said a cruise missile strike was imminent.
With the news full of stories about “fracking” Red Youth national committee member and undergrad Physics student Geoff Bray explains a few of the basics as he see’s it:
What is Fracking?
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is an relatively new and increasingly controversial technique used to extract (primarily) natural gas from previously used or unusable formations of rock.
The process can be said to resemble an induced earthquake, aiming to break the surface of the formations, enabling a flow of fluid that is then extractable for its use as fuel and of course its profitable sale on the market. By directing a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and hundreds of chemicals into a drilled well, small fractures are created in the surface of the impermeable formations. Wells that have ceased to flow can also be stimulated by fracking enabling continual extraction of the resource. Hydrochloric acid amongst other chemicals assists in causing initial cracks to appear in the surface, sand holds open the cracks, allowing a continual flow of gas or oil. From here, it is the vast array of other chemicals that make the whole process work – over 700 known chemicals alongside “propietery” chemicals are undisclosed as a ‘special recipe’.
A study by TDEX (the Endocrine Disruption Exchange) stated that 93% of the hundreds of chemicals tested and identified in their study are hazardous to health. 43% are what are known as endocrine disruptors – chemicals that interfere with development and function. BTEX(an acronym that stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) compounds are amongst the hundreds identified. These carcinogens can substantially damage both the nervous and digestive systems are can find their way into humans by contamination of soil and groundwater.
Fracking and the impact on the environment
Despite the colossal expansion of the US fracking industry, there is clear evidence that fracking causes environmental damage. Both water and air-pollution have been linked to the fracking fluid and natural by-products of the extraction.
Wastewater from the process has been identified in the TDEX study as radioactive and intoxicated with the presence of Barium and the BTEX compounds, being potentially cancerous to those exposed to or in contact with it.
Government officials and managing directors on both sides of the Atlantic have started to make a reputation for themselves in blaming “poor-workmanship”, bad maintenance and structural faults for the intoxication of drinking water. Such a statement shows that for the directors and barons of finance capital excuses are easily found for damage inflicted on our natural resources, in the eyes of capitalism, humanity and nature are secondary to profit – extracting gas and making cash comes before the welfare of society and the environment.
Fracking and Britain
Tremors have also been reported in Britain. April 2011 saw a 2.3 magnitude earthquake hit Blackpool, caused by fracking. The Financial Times this year attempted to resolve concerns claiming that fracking “very rarely causes earthquakes that can be felt from the surface.” But stating they can rarely be felt from the surface does not deny that indeed, hydraulic fracturing is continually causing tremors beneath the surface and having vast geophysical impact.
Californian anti-fracking activists have gained significant support over this cause. 11 earthquakes have hit the west-coast state since the beginning of 2010, all recording magnitudes over 4.0 and peaking at over 7.0 on the Richter scale. It is thought that the introduction of hydraulic fracturing could jeopardise the safety of millions by unnaturally aggravating the likelihood of natural disasters.
Although clearly less recognizable in terms of collateral damage, it should not be under-estimated that Britain will not face the same geophysical alterations as California and the rest of the US. For America, it means more earthquakes at higher magnitudes. For Britain, it could mean the regular arrival of significant magnitude’s of earthquakes as a part of Britain’s geology.
Rigged Research?
Recent ‘studies’ carried out in Pennsylvania on the Marcellus shale has brought with it results of ‘zero-contamination’ in water-supplies and a green light for fracking. These results have been immediately disputed, for it is thought they paint a significantly different picture than that found across the majority of fracking sites. The well in question from the study is over 7000 feet below the surface, whilst the water supply remains within the first 1000 feet. This situation is not a true reflection of the majority of fracking sites, with most falling within the 2000 feet margin. It is precisely for such reason that the data has been collected from this site and not those that are far more likely to be immediately contaminated.
As anyone aware of the effects of various radioactive materials will atest, it should not be presumed that contamination would not be an issue for wells of such distance. In the immediate sense there is almost no risk of such, but in the long-term, the quantitative build up beneath the surface of these volatile compounds will ultimately lead to a hazardous qualitative change in the water supplies.
Academic research andwell-respected universities are also continuing to present contradictory reportsas companies press ahead with plans to frack, the University of Pittsburgh states, “No proof of groundwater contamination in Pennsylvania from hydrofracking doesn’t guarantee the water’s clean.”
The insight comes from the fact that Pennsylvania is one of 2 US states that “doesn’t require monitoring for water quality in individual well supplies” –this in addition to the unknown mixture to be found in the ‘secret recipe’. It has been stressed that further research is required before any kind of confirmation of zero-contamination.
The thirst for capital
The British Geological Survey, a government report, revealed an estimation of 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in the north of England alone – double that previously estimated. Upon this discovery, the Energy Minister went on to describe shale gas, rather timely, as “an exciting new energy resource”.
The estimation see’s an extractable figure comparable to almost 450 years of current gas usage in Britain. At the same time, around half of Britain’s gas is imported, so it is easy to see why the proposal has made it past the first hurdle.
Public reaction to all this news however is somewhat less excitable than the politicians and corporations. Private energy corporations will prosper from this investment into fracking and will turn over much greater quantities of gas than are presently extractable from the North Sea. In so doing it will be these corporations who prosper at the expense of the public. Gas prices for the public will not plummet, only the price the corporations are paying for it before they sell it on to us!
In typical fashion the media has not been deaf to the overtures of the industry, beginning to harp on about how the supply of natural gas in the North Sea is running out, doing so in such a way as to make one think that society itself will come to an end. But as it stands, the North Sea has not drained its last drop, nor is it the only source of energy for Britain. Besides importing resources from lands far greater enriched than our own, alternative and renewable energy production is still a far more valid option. Hydrogen power is labelled “too expensive”, although putting it into mass-production would of course bring down the price. Nuclear energy is significantly more stable and secure than fracking, but is denied in fullest due to its controversial nature, even though it makes up 1/6 of the energy in Britain.
Capitalism and the environment
Evidentially, capitalism will manipulate science to obtain the results it wishes to declare, before distributing the newfound ‘truth’ via it’s faithful ally, the corporate media. The data published in accordance with Marcellus shale is an outright diversion from the overall picture and overall impact of hydraulic fracturing.
Not only will capitalism manipulate and utilise science; it will outright deny and stoop to any level to discredit any science that stands in the way of searching out avenues of profitable investment. Ignorance to global warming, pollution, contamination and nuclear fallout brings humanity to its knees and the planet ever closer to its demise. The scientist, alike every other worker, has long been alienated from his work and transformed into a mere pawn of monopoly capitalism in its drive towards domination and exploitation.
Environmental damage is no concern, nor is the welfare of all humanity for imperialism. Whichever method makes the most profit is carried forward, regardless of any poisoning of water supplies, or the hazardous presence of chemicals such as mercury, uranium and radium and the significant danger this could all pose to the public.
Without an end to capitalism, we will never see an end to the inhumane savagery and environmental destruction that troubles our planet. No amount of reasoning is possible with monopoly capitalism, for its incentive is singular – maximum profit. Without meeting this demand, there is no negotiation, and since the exploitation of the earth brings about the most profitable resource – energy – we will never see an end to this parasitic mechanism until the control of these industries are put into the hands of the workers.
We reproduce below the comments of YCL member and CPB sectarian comrade, Devonshire lad George Waterhouse to Red Youth requests to join in with this magnificent anti-imperialist festival. These comments were posted via facecbook:
George Waterhouse “A fantastic, mass party. Noted as the best defenders of the traditions of the carnation revolution and leaders of the Portuguese labour movement who have held several recent general strikes.
But wouldn’t the PCTP Maoist lot be more up your street?”
Paulo Cannon “When is the ycl going to sort the Brit prep committee for ecuador festival or you gonna keep banging on about mao?”
Yesterday at 00:58 · Like · 1
George Waterhouse “Nothing to do with me you cunt”
18 hours ago via mobile · Like
George Waterhouse “Lets be honest you lot will completely ignore emails and meetings from the BPC and just use the family fortune send Ranjeet again.
To be involved in the BPC means to be organised professionally, respond to emails, attend meetings, help with fundraising. I have not idea about this festivals BPC but from my experience on the last one you lot simply refused to get involved and then whinged about it.
Last time there were representatives of trade unions-the RMT, Unite, student broad left, some trot group, the new communist party, the YCL, domiciled CPs in Britain-Sudan, Iraq, Iran..etc but Britain’s “only thoroughly non-revisionist communist party” (lol!) couldn’t be bothered to get involved.
But I get the idea that you prefer to ignore all emails and meetings and then play the ‘everyone’s picking on us’ card. It’s your political style!”
Police, spies, surveillance and the capitalist state
The latest revelations about police spying should come as no surprise to those who recognise the role of the state as an instrument of class rule.
When Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death in 1993, the high-profile failure of the police to carry out anything resembling a proper, competent investigation into this racially-motivated crime led to unprecedented scrutiny and public exposure of the institutional racism which remains firmly entrenched in Britain’s police force today.
The brave and tireless work undertaken by a number of anti-racist campaigners and support groups, alongside the dogged persistence of the Lawrence family, proved extremely unpopular with the police and government top brass, who, whilst publically maintaining they were doing all they could to help the Lawrence family, covertly worked to undermine and discredit both the family and the campaign for a proper investigation.
Peter Francis, whistleblower
Now, an ongoing investigation by the Guardian newspaper has revealed an extensive and long-term programme of covert surveillance and political policing, which was led by a force known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). This gang of mercenary sociopaths infiltrated a wide variety of campaign groups, in many instances for years at a time, and many of its officers formed sexual relationships with campaigners and activists under false pretences. Some even fathered children with the partners they were living with under these assumed identities.
Peter Francis, who has worked with the Guardian for the last few years, was one of these officers, and is the source of the latest revelations regarding the surveillance of the family of Stephen Lawrence and the attempts to undermine and discredit the campaign his family waged for justice. On 24 June the Guardian reported:
“A police officer who spent four years living undercover in protest groups has revealed how he participated in an operation to spy on and attempt to ‘smear’ the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, the friend who witnessed his fatal stabbing and campaigners angry at the failure to bring his killers to justice.
“Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer turned whistle-blower, said his superiors wanted him to find ‘dirt’ that could be used against members of the Lawrence family, in the period shortly after Lawrence’s racist murder in April 1993.
“He also said senior officers deliberately chose to withhold his role spying on the Lawrence campaign from Sir William Macpherson, who headed a public inquiry to examine the police investigation into the death.
“Francis said he had come under ‘huge and constant pressure’ from superiors to ‘hunt for disinformation’ that might be used to undermine those arguing for a better investigation into the murder. He posed as an anti-racist activist in the mid-1990s in his search for intelligence.
“‘I had to get any information on what was happening in the Stephen Lawrence campaign,’ Francis said. ‘They wanted the campaign to stop. It was felt it was going to turn into an elephant.
“‘Throughout my deployment there was almost constant pressure on me personally to find out anything I could that would discredit these campaigns.’
“Francis also describes being involved in an ultimately failed effort to discredit Duwayne Brooks, a close friend of Lawrence who was with him on the night he was killed and the main witness to his murder. The former spy found evidence that led to Brooks being arrested and charged in October 1993, before the case was thrown out by a judge.
“Francis was a member of a controversial covert unit known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). A two-year investigation by the Guardian has already revealed how undercover operatives routinely adopted the identities of dead children and formed long-term sexual relationships with people they were spying on.
“The past practices of undercover police officers are the subject of what the Met described as ‘a thorough review and investigation’ …
“Francis has decided to reveal his true identity so he can openly call for a public inquiry into undercover policing of protest. ‘There are many things that I’ve seen that have been morally wrong, morally reprehensible,’ he said. ‘Should we, as police officers, have the power to basically undermine political campaigns? I think that the clear answer to that is no.’”
It’s not just a ‘Met’ thing
Anyone with the misconception that it’s just the Met police who are institutionally racist and underhand should look no further than the case of Christopher Alder. Christopher, a black male and former soldier, died on the floor of a Hull police station as he choked on his own vomit in 1998.
As he died, police stood about watching, made monkey noises and laughed and joked. All this was caught on CCTV. An inquest found that Christopher was “unlawfully killed”, but of course no police officer has ever stood trial, and the report into his death found that the police had been merely “unwittingly racist”.
Following on from the revelations of spying in the Met, an internal search of police records by Humberside police ‘discovered’ information to suggest that Christopher’s sister Janet, who bravely campaigned for justice after his death and continues to campaign against racism, injustice and police crimes, was spied on by the Humberside force.
Janet has not only exposed the actions of the police inside the station on the night of her brother’s death, she’s helped many other campaigners to call into question the appalling racism inherent in the police force and challenged the state-sponsored myth that the police are merely there to ‘serve and protect’ the community!
Janet has had to endure further misery at the hands of police, including the trauma of burying her brother again after his body was ‘discovered’ in a morgue some 11 years after he was supposedly buried. An unfortunate mistake? Perhaps not.
The latest findings concerning the surveillance of Ms Alder by the cops have led to the instigation of yet another IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) investigation and, perhaps, after a few years, there will even be an apology.
But whilst the state seeks to manage this most recent exposure of police criminality, subversion and interference, we must make it clear that the role of the police under the bourgeois dictatorship (democracy for the rich, dictatorship for the rest of us) is to protect the interests of the ruling class, manage the plebs and ensure the status quo is preserved.
Marxism and the state
Although the bourgeois class (the capitalist ruling class) prefers to maintain its rule by consent (whether through apathy or bribery), it is quite ready to resort to naked force, or covert intrigue and espionage, to maintain its class rule over the proletariat (the working classes).
The history of the police is the history of the class struggle. From its earliest days to its modern incarnation the police have always been a tool of the capitalist class to protect their property and their hold on power.
All revolutionary movements – and even those movements and campaigns which do not have conscious revolutionary goals but which bring into question and expose the injustice of bourgeois rule – present a challenge to the capitalists’ hold on state power. All of these are therefore legitimate targets for the police and law courts as far as the capitalists are concerned.
Whether it’s the mighty Bolsheviks or the Youth against Racism in Europe (another of the former targets of the Special Demonstration Squad), the bourgeoisie knows that its system is riddled by internal contradictions; that the majority of the people would benefit from socialist revolution; and that anything which brings them closer to social revolution, anything which challenges the idea of the total supremacy and ongoing hegemony of the rule of the financial elite, the banks and barons of finance capital, is a danger that has to be dealt with.
From the very beginning, the police have been used as an instrument of class rule. In 1820s’ London, Bow Street Runners (the forerunners of modern policemen) infiltrated the revolutionary movements of the British working class, most famously in the Cato Street conspiracy.
Outraged by the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, in which unarmed workers had been chopped down by the army, and under the heavy weight of autocratic rule, a group of revolutionaries called the Spencean Philanthropists were betrayed by police agents in their ranks.
The group’s members were captured, and they were hanged and beheaded at Newgate after a trial in which police agents were the key witnesses. How very democratic! Right from the start, the police were involved in maintaining the rule of the bourgeois class by any means necessary – not in helping Victorian grannies across cobbled Cockney streets!
Fast forward and cross the Atlantic to the civil-rights movement of 1960s America and we find a network of police spies and agent provocateurs sent into the movements of the revolutionary workers and students such as the Black Panthers, Young Lords and Students for a Democratic Society.
A huge programme of surveillance, murder and covert operations known as Cointelpro (Counter Intelligence Programme) saw the false imprisonment of many of the best leaders of the working class and oppressed masses, and the eventual subversion of their once-revolutionary organisations.
Everywhere, the class struggle rages on. At times it is more open and the clashes are sharper, at other times less so. Everywhere, the workers and the poor organise to advance their interests or to protest at their poor treatment and conditions. And everywhere, the ruling class, through its lackeys, dupes and flunkeys inside our movement, and by its use of paid police agents and provocateurs, works to ensure that our movement is discredited and undermined. And when it is deemed to be necessary, the ruling class has no hesitation in using lethal force to protect its privilege.
Whether your name is Pat Finucane or Fred Hampton – if you’re getting in the way of the profit-takers you may well find yourself going the same way as the Spencean Philanthropists. That the police continue to conduct undercover investigations – spying, counter-intelligence and reconnaissance work – comes as no surprise to those advanced workers who make a study of their history and use Marxism Leninism as their guide to action.
What is to be done?
A struggle against the bourgeois class is possible. Whilst the means of terror, subversion and murder in our rulers’ hands are unparalleled, the great appear great merely because we are on our knees!
Lenin and Stalin, the leaders of the Russian Bolsheviks, forged a disciplined and centrally-organised party of revolution that waged a determined struggle against the Russian king (the tsar) and the Russian capitalists, as well as against the regime’s paid agents, spies and traitors, and they were able to overcome all obstacles in their path and build up a new type of society – one where the police, army and state machinery was in the hands of the Russian workers and peasants.
And because the communists were successful in carrying out a workers’ revolution, because they were able to use state power against the old bourgeois class and build a socialist society, our bourgeoisie continues to moan and wail about the ‘police state of Bolshevik Russia’, to decry the ‘terrible crimes of the KGB’ and to squeal about the ‘oppression of the Stasi’ and ‘secret police’ in the former socialist countries!
This is all done to distract the workers from the real facts. That the Met Police, the LAPD – indeed, all police forces in the capitalist world, are in the hands of the capitalists and conduct daily outrages against the poor and oppressed – the majority of the people – on behalf of the minority, the rich.
The police are just one tool by which this tiny class exerts its rule over the masses. What our rulers really despise about the KGB, the Stasi and other socialist police forces is the fact that for the first time in history the workers had taken hold of the reins of power and expropriated the scum that for so long had murdered and set up for hanging, deportation or destitution those who dared to challenge the ruling class and fight for a better world.
Whilst the police and state security apparatus is huge, it is not as large as the working class. Moreover, it relies on workers to do its dirty work. Without our cooperation, our rulers would have no power at all and their machinery of repression would be useless!
We are the majority; we must harness the power of this mighty class; we must unite and lead the working masses in a revolutionary struggle against imperialism and capitalist dictatorship. We have allies in this mission, and they are the people who currently wage struggles in their own countries to be rid of the British, American and French invaders, corporate looters, spies and agents. We must unite with these brave fighters against our common enemy and build a new, socialist society!
