We’re reproducing here the page from our online Marxist education programme which can be found on the tabs above or via this link. Every member and supporter is encouraged to work their way through the links, and a number of comrades each year have the opportunity to complete a cadre development programme in Marxism-Leninism within Red Youth. Its vital that we arm ourselves with revolutionary theory:
each one, teach one!
All beginnings are difficult, so said Karl Marx. But if you take it one step at a time, study patiently and diligently, with friends and comrades where possible – you’ll get the rewards. Understanding Marxist philosophy starts here:
“So many things have changed today
The world moved in a different way
Aided by the faint and weary
Who failed to delve Marxist theory
And almost cast a sad death knell
On your: “Long live the YCL!”
(from the poem Willie McGuire, see below)
Billy was born on the 12th July 1930 in Spring Garden Lane in the ‘Town End’ of Sunderland, where he lived with his mam and dad, Liz and Nicky and his older sisters. They lived in two rooms of what can only be described as a slum, a fact which Billy never shied away from: he was proud of where he came from. They didn’t use the back room for living in, as there was a crack in the wall so big you could see the shared tap in the yard outside. Before he was one year old, Billy contracted pneumonia and his mam was told by the doctor to let him ‘sleep away’ as nothing could be done. Having lost two children already, Liz wasn’t going to let that happen and borrowed the money to buy some medicine, eventually nursing Billy back to health. Her strength and determination and love for her bairns was to have a lasting impact on Billy’s life.
When he was four, the family, now including his baby brother, moved to the newly built council estate of Marley Potts in 1934. Billy remembered this being like ‘going to paradise’, having a proper house of their own with a garden and surrounded by fields: a far cry from the slums of Sunderland’s east end!
Despite the fact they had nowt, his mam always made sure they had boots on their feet and food in their bellies, unlike many of his contemporaries. Billy always remembered the happy times growing up in Marley Potts: his mam’s wonderful cooking and the strength with which she looked after her family in the difficult days of the ’30’s.
The family continued to grow and soon Billy had three more brothers. Sometimes they exasperated him when he was off being one of the ‘big lads’, but he’d always step in and fight anyone who threatened his brothers and they grew up a tight-knit and loving family.
Billy passed his 11 plus and won a place at Monkwearmouth Central School, initially he didn’t take up his place as the cost of a uniform was prohibitive. News of his achievement soon spread round the estate and his mam was finally persuaded to send him to the school after a visit from a neighbour: a Boer War veteran who felt Billy, having earned his place, deserved the opportunity to benefit from it. Money for a school cap was found and this ‘uniform’ was accepted by the school! Billy developed a lifelong love of reading and eventually, through much cajoling, persuaded his mam to let him have a library card: which was a big responsibility as any lost or damaged books would have to be paid for. Billy left school at 14 and served his time as a blacksmith with the River Wear Commissioners. These were tough times during the war and with his dad away in the army and his sisters working as part of the war effort, Billy took on the responsibility of bringing some money into the household.
Billy worked as a chain-maker on the docks: maintaining the chains was a job that had to go on despite the weather and he was often called on to retrieve damaged chains from the top of the dock cranes in snow and howling gales. It was tough work and he was equal to the task.
Though not a popular pastime in the 1950’s, Billy became interested in weightlifting: the start of a lifetime interest in health and fitness. Through this he met Nick Rowell who opened Billy’s eyes to politics and helped his nascent political and social views to coalesce into a firm-held and passionate belief in social justice. They were part of a group of likeminded mates who would swim in the North Sea in all weathers: diving off the pier and swimming across the bay. They would then play handball or football on the beach to warm up. On one such occasion a mate of Billy’s left his trunks on the sea wall to dry and when he came back they were frozen solid and stuck to the stone! In 1958 Billy won a medal for his weightlifting, being crowned North East Strength Champion in the ten stone class.
Billy’s political views lead him to join the Communist Party in 1959 and he became involved in trade unionism: working as a shop steward he fought tirelessly for decent working conditions (a subject he wrote about in his semi-fictitious novel ‘Shed no Tears for the Defeated’ which was published earlier this year). Billy stood as a Communist Party candidate for Sunderland Council in 1968 and again in 1973. When the CPGB split in 1977 he and his friends in Sunderland joined the NCP not wanting to move away from their original beliefs. [Billy went into the NCP in the belief that it represented a revolutionary alternative to the CPGB’s revisionism. Experience over a number of years showed him, however, that the NCP, because of its incurable and cretinous support for social democracy, was no better. Being totally disillusioned and disgusted by the NCP’s political line, he joined the CPGB-ML and, although in failing health, helped it in every possible way he could, especially by sending his poetry to be published in the Party’s journal or the fraternal paper, LALKAR. He was interviewed by Ranjeet Brar on behalf of the CPGB-ML; that interview will shortly be appearing on Proletarian Television. Like his family, we too, members of his extended family, will sorely miss him – Editor].
He was a well-known figure in the trade union movement, serving on the Sunderland Trades Council and never lost his passion for championing the rights of working people or his belief that if we all pulled together to fight for a better world we could achieve a fairer and more balanced society.
Billy married Londoner, Pat Cattermole in 1967, whom he’d met on holiday in Bulgaria, and in 1968 the first of his two sons, Bob, was born with Will arriving two years later. The boys were a great source of pride to him and he strove to pass on his passion for social justice to them as well as encouraging them to make the most of their education and strive for a better life.
During his life Billy embraced many hobbies, including oil painting and writing and had a number of letters, articles and poems appear in various publications over the years. He also had a love of music ranging from the popular songs of his childhood, through folk music to classical: especially the great Russians composers of the 19th Century.
Billy’s love of travel lead him to visit what would have been considered at the time as some very exotic places and he became a tour guide for Yorkshire Tours, leading coach loads of tourists to Moscow, Leipzig, Dresden, Leningrad, Prague and Budapest.
During the Miners’ Strike, Billy actively supported the NUM on the picket line and at meetings. He continued to have a strong empathy with the miners, attending Durham Miners’ Gala many times over the decades.
In later years Billy continued with his political activities and, after retirement, spent a lot of time writing, having his first novel published earlier this year at the age of 83.
We will remember him as a principled and proud man, whose passionate political and social views dominated his life. He was at times a hard man, certainly stubborn, but with a deep well of affection for his family. We will all miss his judgement and his strong presence in all our lives.
Comrades who want to know more can read this obituary in Lalkar and a review of his
book Shed no tears for the defeated is also published. Copies of this book can be purchased from sales@cpgb-ml.org or from ebay.
POEMS
Here are a few of comrade Billy’s poems as they appeared in Proletarian over the years:
Poem: What peace is there? published in Proletarian 2005
What peace is there?
When bombs are falling all around
With children buried underground
And women agonised and crowned
By thorns of terror unbound?
What peace is there?
What peace is there?
Where boys in refugee camps grow
And with their slings they learn to throw
Missiles of hate at tanks to show
Repugnance of their common foe?
What peace is there?
What peace is there?
Where men must bend their lives to war
And win their lives by tooth and claw
To force usurpers to withdraw
Then work to build and reach their star?
What peace is there?
What peace is there?
There where the Prince of Peace was crowned
And pulverising shells are found
Where right of might is renowned
Where principles in blood are drowned?
What peace is there?
W Hunt-Vincent
Poem: Willie McGuire in Proletarian October 2014
The sight of young men from southeast Ukraine preparing themselves for war, to defend their birth-right, as seen on TV, brings to mind a young Scotsman who spoke his last words to Harry Pollitt as he lay in a hospital bed in Spain in the 1930s.
Willie McGuire, Willie McGuire
What was it set your heart on fire?
From distant Dundee home to go
Where Jarama and Ebro flow
Brave through the Spanish gates of hell
Cry out: “Long live the YCL!”
You died to give this world a chance
To crush the grisly fascist stance
Of those who make a world of want
You fought to end the age of cant
With gun in hand while comrades fell
Cried out: “Long live the YCL!”
So many things have changed today
The world moved in a different way
Aided by the faint and weary
Who failed to delve Marxist theory
And almost cast a sad death knell
On your: “Long live the YCL!”
Willie McGuire, Willie McGuire
Your fight in Spain will ere inspire
Young people from around the globe
Who proudly don the red, red robe
Stained by the blood of heroes who fell
Now: “Long live a New YCL!”
By William Hunt-Vincent
Poem: I Wonder If Those Days Are Coming Back by William Hunt-Vincent in Proletarian 2007
Now I remember
I remember the days of long gone by
When I was young and my spirit was high
I remember
When I roamed the streets in my old sand shoes
And nazis were just coming in the news
I remember
And I wonder if those days are coming back
Now I remember
On a cold and bitter frosty morning
I walked to school shortly after dawning
I remember
There in the old school yard a sight that hurt
Charlie Brown was dressed in his sister’s skirt
I remember
And I wonder if those days are coming back
Now I remember
Charlie’s father was always on the dole
And dole had eaten poor Sunderland’s soul
I remember
His friends hid the boy who wanted to die
To keep his shame from the cruel world’s eye
I remember
And I wonder if those days are coming back
Now I remember
When we all played around the Southwick Green
Scrambling in the gutter for orange peel
I remember
How we dodged the rattling old tram cars
And our fathers hung about outside bars
I remember
And I wonder if those days are coming back
Now I remember
When everything was cheap upon the stall
But man’s labour was cheapest of all
I remember
How the people struggled and laughed and cried
And this town of Sunderland nearly died
I remember
And I wonder if those days are coming back
Now I remember
And as I try to think of ways and means
To prevent the return of bad old scenes
I remember
We must come together, you and me
To once and forever set ourselves free
I remember
We must see that those hard days never come back
Racism is a potent weapon used by the ruling class to divide the working class so as to render the latter powerless in its struggle against capitalist exploitation and all the ills that flow from it – unemployment, inadequate housing, poor education, with health provision and social services under relentless attack. Racist propaganda aims to portray the foreigner and the immigrant as the enemy, responsible for all the ills of capitalism, and thus direct the wrath of the working class against the ills and inequities of capitalism against those who are the worst victims of capitalist exploitation and predatory imperialist wars. While ever-present in bourgeois society, racism assumes monstrous proportions in periods of economic crisis, as has been the case since 2008, which set off the worst ever economic crisis, as well as in the run-up to elections, when bourgeois parties try to gain electoral advantage by setting up their divisive stalls through whipping up anti-immigrant and anti-refugee hysteria. The next British general election, due in May 2015, is no exception. This time round, spurred on by the electoral successes of the anti-immigrant and anti-EU Ukip (United Kingdom Independence Party), the major bourgeois parties – Conservative, Labour and LibDem – have turned up the volume of their racist propaganda.
Ukip’s electoral success
Ukip won the greatest share of votes in the last election to the European Parliament held on Thursday 22 May 2014 on an anti-EU and anti-immigration platform, causing panic in the Conservative camp. With a fairly large number of Conservative parliamentarians harbouring great sympathy for the Ukip programme, Prime Minister David Cameron, in an effort to appease the Eurosceptic battalions in his party, was obliged to promise, if his party won the election, an in-or-out referendum in 2017 on British membership of the European Union. Further, he asserted that he would recommend a British exit from the EU unless he could secure better terms for Britain, which would require treaty revision. That will not happen, for such a revision requires the agreement of all other member states, quite of few of which are opposed to such an outcome. For its part, Ukip has successfully exploited the chasm that separates Cameron’s rhetoric from reality and has lured two Conservative MPs to defect to its camp – Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless.
The Clacton and Strood by-elections
Having defected to Ukip, Douglas Carswell resigned his parliamentary seat, forcing a by-election in his Clacton constituency from where he won, with a 35% swing over the Tories. This was quickly followed by the defection to Ukip of another Conservative MP, Mark Reckless. Following in the footsteps of Carswell, he too resigned his seat, forcing a by-election in the constituency of Rochester and Strood. With a swing of 42% to Ukip, Reckless won on 20 November by a majority of 2,900 votes, securing 16,867 votes (42.10%), while the Conservative candidate polled 13,947 (34.81%) and Labour 6,713 (16.76%). The LibDems, with 349 (0.87%) were reduced to total irrelevance, with their share of the votes sinking below the 1.2% the Liberals received at the Glasgow Camlachie by-election in 1948.
More than Douglas Carswell, who is a figure of some stature and intellectual depth, the defection and victory of Reckless, a much-derided nonentity, sent shockwaves through the Conservative Party. If Ukip can win in Rochester, which was the 271stmost winnable seat on its list, it can hardly augur well for the Tories. Their defeat in Rochester was all the more glaring considering that Cameron had made it a point of prestige, reportedly saying that he wanted to kick Reckless’s fat arse off the green benches of the Commons and insisting that he would throw the kitchen sink at winning the seat. Cabinet members and Conservative MPs were instructed to visit the constituency in support of their candidate. Notwith-standing a record number of 97 ministerial visits, including five by Mr Cameron, as well as by 246 Tory MPs (80% of their number in the Commons), each of whom made at least one visit, and a logistically impressive mail drop to each household across the constituency on the morning of the poll, the Tories failed to win the seat where they had a majority of 10,000 at the last election.
Profusion of racist propaganda
In sheer desperation, the Conservative candidate, Miss Kelly Tolhurst, sent a barely disguised racist letter, approved by the Tory headquarters, mentioning “uncontrolled immigration” and the fact that local people felt unsafe on their high street owing to crime, linking the two issues in a way that made it appear that it was the immigrants who were responsible for crime on the high street. Even some right-wing Tory MPs were reportedly ‘incandescent’ about the letter, characterising it as ‘deeply unpleasant’.
For his part, Reckless maintained that Ukip stood for the repatriation of migrants after Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, a statement which Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, was forced to dismiss, with Reckless insisting that repatriation had been the party policy up to then. A mere few days later, Farage went on to say that children born to immigrant parents in the UK ought also to be regarded as immigrants.
While the prime minister slyly hints that Britain is in danger of being overwhelmed by migrants, some of his colleagues are only too overt on the subject. His Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, explicitly asserted on the Andrew Marr Show that Britain’s towns were being “swamped” by migrants, with their residents “under siege” from “large numbers of migrant workers and people claiming benefits”. On instructions from the Party leadership, Fallon retracted his remarks but by then his utterances had achieved their intended purpose of fanning the flames of racism. Be it said in passing that Fallon received public support from several MPs, including David Blunkett, former Labour Home Secretary.
Ukip and Labour
In addition to being a threat to Tory electoral fortunes, there are signs that Ukip is eating into Labour votes as well. In October, Ukip came within 617 votes of winning in Heywood and Middleton (Greater Manchester), a safe Labour seat in the Party’s former industrial heartlands. Ukip asserts that it, not Labour, represents the concerns of the working class. The truth is that none of the bourgeois parties, including Ukip, care about, let alone represent, the interests of the working class. Ukip’s main policy plank – anti-EU an anti-immigration – is hardly a recipe for the liberation of the working class from the horrors of capitalism.
In an effort to placate the eurosceptic wing of his party and win the coming General Election, David Cameron is concentrating on securing EU agreement for draconian restrictions on in-work and out-of-work benefits for migrants from the EU, such as the denial of universal credit to those who are unemployed, denial of tax credits, social housing and child benefits to those who have been in Britain for less than four years; and those unable to secure work for six months are to face deportation. If implemented, these proposals can only result in the subjection of migrants to further exploitation and degradation.
Not desiring to lag behind, the Labour Party too is busy burnishing its anti-immigrant image, notwithstanding the assertion by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, to the effect that Labour will not pander to ” those who deny the positive contribution that immigrants have always made to our country”. It is precisely to such people that Labour is busy pandering. In October, Labour leader Ed Miliband, saying that immigration was the top concern of his Party, went on to declare that Labour would work for EU reforms, which would entail barring migrants from new member countries for a longer period, and deny child benefit and tax credit for children resident outside of Britain. In November, Ms Reeves announced an extension of the restriction on out-of-work and in-work benefits.
Writing in Why Vote Labour 2015, Shadow Immigration Minister, David Hanson, with admirable candour, stated: ” There is nothing in labour history, values, or traditions that require us to be in favour, in principle, of unlimited immigration”, adding that “…we have and always will be for managed immigration”. Dead right! Like the other bourgeois parties, Labour is, as it always has been, in favour of managing immigration to suit the interests of British capital, for the purpose of every single measure to draw a line between migrant and indigenous workers, as by limiting or denying state benefits to the former, is to hand them on a platter to the capitalist class as material for super-exploitation. This in turn puts downward pressure on the wages and conditions of non-migrant labour and gives rise to resentment against the unfortunate foreign victims of such measures, while the capitalist class laughs all the way to the bank.
ONS figures
At the end of November, the ONS (Office for National Statistics) published figures revealing that in the year to June 2014, net migration to the UK rose to 260,000, compared with 244,000 in June 2010 when the Conservative and LibDem coalition government came into office promising to reduce migration to the ” tens of thousands” by 2015. According to the latest figures, immigration for the year 2014 rose to 583,000, up from 502,000 in the previous 12 months.
Ukip seized upon these figures, with Nigel Farage accusing the Tories “of a total scandal or a long-standing con trick”.
Ukip migration spokesman, Steven Woolfe, said:
” Today’s astronomical migration figures show an abject failure by this Government to control immigration, despite countless promises to the public.
“‘The eye-watering increase places immense strain on employment prospects, schools, hospitals and housing.”
It is not immigrants who are placing strain on employment prospects, schools, hospitals and housing; it is the inexorable workings of capitalism which produce these strains, for even if every immigrant were to be thrown out of the country, within a very short time capitalism will see to it that a certain portion of the population is superfluous to its requirements. This is the truth that none of the bourgeois political parties dares to speak.
In an attempt to out-Ukip Ukip, a Labour spokesman greeted these figures thus:
“Every quarter, the net migration figures shred Theresa May’s reputation a little bit more. A failing immigration system presided over by a failing Home Secretary and Prime Minister”.
In addition, the ONS figures drove home the simple fact that the government’s fixation on EU migrants, driven by Ukip, bears no relation to reality. Of the 583,000 people who came to Britain from abroad, a good deal fewer than half, or 247,000, came from the EU. In other words, as usual, greater migration is from outside the EU which theoretically is within the government’s remit to control, which goes to show that all the anti-EU noise by the government, as well as other bourgeois parties, is merely a side show to distract the attention of the masses and deluding them into believing that an exit from the EU will solve all problems. Moreover nothing is ever mentioned about the 315,000 plus people who EMIGRATE from the UK every year! It is equally deceptive to assert that an end to all immigration will solve the problems of unemployment, for imperialism is bound to continue causing job losses through the export of capital and increased labour productivity on a vast scale without any help from net immigration.
Refugees
As regards the influx of refugees, they are the victims of wars waged by imperialism, or the civil strife inspired, aided and abetted by imperialism – from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and many other places. Their number, for the first time since the Second World War, stands at a record 50 million. These are people who have been forced in their millions, literally at gunpoint, to flee from their countries, devastated by predatory imperialist wars waged by Anglo-American imperialism, yet they are denied refugee status by the ruling classes of the very countries which are responsible for their sad plight. In 2014 alone, 3,000 people have died in the course of attempts to reach Europe via the Mediterranean. Those lucky enough to survive the journey are subjected to extremely harsh treatment by the police forces of the countries of their intended destination or of the transit countries. One has only to cast a cursory glance at the refugee shacks in the French port of Calais to gauge the immorality and inhumanity with which imperialism treats the victims of its wars.
The US and British inspired civil strife in Syria alone has forced 3.3 million Syrians to become refugees abroad, with another 7.6 million internally displaced, with no end in sight as yet as leading imperialist powers continue to fuel the war with weapons and money funnelled through their surrogates – the Gulf autocracies and the Turkish government of Erdogan.
The British working class is honour bound to defend the right of the victims of its ‘own’ ruling class to seek and gain asylum in Britain. Any other stance would be the height of meanness and a total violation of the basic principles of proletarian internationalism.
Labour – not a working-class Party
If the Labour Party were truly a party of the working class, which it decidedly is not, its spokesmen would not be promising the recruitment of 1,000 extra UK border guards to keep immigrants out. They would not be complaining, as the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper did recently, that during the Coalition government ”the number of people stopped and turned away at the border has halved. A smaller proportion of the people absconding at the border are being found”, adding that “we recently discovered 175,000 failed asylum seekers may not be removed because the Department has ‘limited resources’”. How is this stance any different from that of Ukip?
If indeed Labour had the interests of the working class at heart, it would instead be pinning the blame for all the major ills of our society on capitalism – not on the victims of this system. However, it is not a party of the British proletariat, notwithstanding the shrill assertions of its apologists – ‘left’-wing social democrats, renegade revisionists and counter-revolutionary Trotskyites. Rather than looking after the interests of the working class, it stands, just like the other bourgeois parties, for attacking the working class at home and waging war against the oppressed peoples abroad. And to continue to do that, it needs a divided working class, to which end it is not at all disinclined, just like the other bourgeois parties, to use the weapon of racism.
Migrants are not scroungers
Far from being scroungers, who lead lazy lives on state benefits, repeated studies have shown that just the opposite is the case. The latest study on the subject by two distinguished migration experts at University College, London University, published in November, brings out clearly that between 2000 and 2011, European migrants made a net contribution of £20bn to public finances; of this, £5bn was from East European migrants, educating whom would have cost Britain £6.8bn had their education not been paid for by their countries of origin. If they appear to be contributing to poor housing, bad schools and inadequate health provision, that is mainly due to the fact that, being at the bottom of the pile, they end up in deprived and rundown places which are not provided with decent services and facilities – a fault that is neither theirs nor of the people already eking out an existence in such places.
Disillusionment with bourgeois parties
The rise of Ukip is a reflection of the disillusionment of the electorate with the three major bourgeois political parties, none of which have any real solutions to the problems facing the working class. Having spent gargantuan amounts rescuing the robber barons of finance capital, with the Treasury empty and budget deficits uncomfortably high, wages stagnant despite the economy being allegedly in its sixth year of recovery, the government is busy attacking the working class through continuing austerity as well as waging war abroad. In the absence of a truly revolutionary party of the proletariat, whatever resistance the working class has to offer is channelled into the dead end of support for the Labour Party which promises to implement similar austerity measures only over a slightly longer period sprinkled with ‘kindly’ rhetoric. Thus we find ourselves in the dreadful situation whereby the ruling class not only attacks the working class and wages war on the oppressed people but also, through its agents in the working-class movement, controls the anti-austerity and anti-war campaigns whose function, it would appear, is to pacify the anger of the working class and mobilise them as vehicles for the election of a Labour government. The People’s Assembly against austerity and the Stop the War Coalition perform precisely these dishonourable roles – furious denial by the revisionists and Trotskyites notwithstanding.
A hung parliament likely
Meanwhile, to stop the Ukip bandwagon gathering momentum, Conservatives and Labour are busy putting out the same sort of vicious propaganda against migrants and refugees. Only the results following the coming general election will show if they have scuppered the chances of Ukip emerging as a third major force in the British parliament, eclipsing the LibDems. What is most likely, though, is that the next parliament, like the present one, would be hung, with no party commanding an absolute majority. Whether Labour or the Tories get the most seats will depend on the performance of the SNP (Scottish National Party) in Scotland. If the latter manages, as predicted, to rout Labour in Scotland, and Labour lost quite a few of its 41 seats in Scotland it would thus be deprived of the chance of emerging as the largest party in parliament.
Overthrow imperialism
Be that as it may, the working class needs to understand that no bourgeois party has a solution to its problems, for the solution lies outside the bounds of imperialism. There will be no peace on earth, and no end to attacks on the working class, as long as imperialism continues to exist. The overthrow of imperialism alone will bring about the liberation of the working class in the imperialist countries and the vast masses of oppressed people abroad. Unless and until the working class grasps this obvious truth, it is bound to be driven from pillar to post between the Conservatives, Labour and some other outfit like Ukip. Those who are really interested in serving the working class and the oppressed peoples have a duty to work for the building of a truly revolutionary party of the proletariat, without whose leadership the working class cannot accomplish its historical mission of achieving socialism through the overthrow of capitalism.
Europe not overpopulated
Before concluding this article, it is worth emphasising that neither Britain nor the rest of Europe are overpopulated. The European Commission has just published a report on the subject entitled The 2015 aging report: underlying assumption and projection methodologies. It states that in a Europe defined by aging societies, shrinking workforces and stagnant living standards, immigration, while being a political problem, is part of the solution.
The EC report forecasts that immigration into the UK up to 2060 will be to the tune of 9 million people, while net immigration into the EU will total 55 million, of whom 70% will be destined for just four of the EU’s 28 member states: 15.5 million to Italy, 9.2 million to the UK, 7 million to Germany and 6.5 million to Spain. That these projections are likely to be exploited by xenophobic parties such as Ukip in Britain , the Front National in France and the Northern League in Italy, has little to do with the reality of a Europe characterised by an aging and shrinking workforce.
The EC report goes on to say that Africa’s share of the global population is forecast to rise from 15% in 2010, while that of Europe will fall from 7.2% to 5%, despite net migration flows. Overall the EU’s population is forecast to rise to 523 million in 2060 form 507 million in 2013.
According to these projections, Britain will become the EU’s most populous country, with the number of people rising form the present 64.1 million to 86.1 million in 2060, with the French population rising from 65.7 million to 75.7 million, while that of Germany will register a decline from 81.3 million to 70.8. Largely owing to immigration, the UK would wield extra weight in the EU – if, that is, the EU is still in existence by then and the UK continues to be a member of it.
Conclusion of the EC report
European societies are aging so fast that, even with net migration, the EU will in 2060 have only two working-age people for every person over the age of 65, instead of the present four.
Nobody knows whether these projections will actually come to be realised. One thing, however, is clear, i.e., that in the sober analysis of the European ruling classes, immigration is more of an economic necessity than a political choice.
As usual, bourgeois thinking on the subject is marked by a kind of schizophrenia. On the one hand the bourgeoisie whips up racist and anti-immigrant hysteria, the better to divide the working class by diverting the latter’s gaze away from capitalism as the real cause of its misery and laying the blame on the doorstep of immigrants, while on the other hand it at the same time produces well-founded reports that emphasise the necessity of increased immigration.
Overpopulation and immigrants are not the problem. Capitalism alone stands in the way of fraternal harmony, rising prosperity and a peaceful world. Let the working class realise this truth, rise to the occasion and accomplish its historical mission of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with socialism. Let those who claim to be socialists, Marxist-Leninists, make sure that it is this message, and this alone, that permeates the working-class movement.
Just prior to the Christmas holidays the CPGB-ML were pleased to host a showing of the documentary-film ‘Palestine: What Hope Peace?’ in Manchester with a live Q&A from the film’s creator Kerry-Anne Mendoza. There was a stall where people could pick up our latest Gaza leaflets as well as stickers, postcards, a copy of Harpal Brar’s excellent ‘Imperialism & War’ book and copies of the CPGB-ML pamphlet on George Habash, and one of our North West comrades provided an introduction to the event before handing over to Kerry-Anne to say a few words as this was a platform for her project.
We were very keen to show the film as the CPGB-ML has stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people since our inception and we have been consistent in our stance as a party unlike many of those groups who are only interested when Palestine makes the headlines! Kerry-Anne Mendoza is a talented and dedicated author, journalist, film maker and activist as those of you familiar with her work and as blogger of the Scriptonite Daily website will know. By travelling to us in Manchester Kerry-Anne gave us a rare and valuable insight into what is really happening in Palestine via both her own eyewitness experience and from first-hand interviews with the people of Gaza. This is the kind of truth that we will never get from the BBC with its shameful censorship and insidious campaign of disinformation and lies.
I’m pretty sure I’m preaching to the converted here as regards the mainstream media though! You only have to look at news coverage to see that it is the Israeli ‘victims’ who dominate the narrative while the numerous deaths of Palestinian civilians are pushed to one side or glossed over – Palestinians merely ‘die’ while Israeli’s are ‘murdered’.
A recent and pertinent example of this skewed reporting is when three Israeli teenagers were killed by an unspecified person(s). Yet despite the fact that the bodies had been found, Zionist leaders whipped up a media shitstorm sending mobs baying for blood and vengeance by reporting that the three teens were still ‘missing’. This, apart from being seen as some bizarre justification for burning alive 16-year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, also provided an excuse for the ransacking of homes in the West Bank by occupation forces and the kidnapping of hundreds and killing of ten Palestinian people.
In ‘Palestine: What Hope Peace?’ Kerry-Anne provides us with a harrowing look at what the people of Palestine are facing day in and day out. Rather than relying on image upon image of maimed and bloodied corpses in the kind of sick, almost eroticised voyeurism and glorification of death that saturates online social networking sites, Kerry-Anne has opted to approach the situation from the point of view of a western outsider (herself!) and her reaction to what she is seeing. But she also combines this with the views of the people who live with this every day.
The images of the dead and death that are shown do not linger — in fact it is because they don’t linger that they are all the more real to us. Kerry-Anne told us that the reason she wanted to show herself as an outsider and how frightened and upset she was is because often the people she met in Gaza were so numb and so shell-shocked that the full impact of what is happening to them is almost lost. They are desensitised to a point, living under the constant threat of death, a barrage of bombs. Yet somehow they are maintaining a sense of normality even under conditions that worsen with each new attack. This is the most terrifying of all – that a community of people can live this life as though it were ‘normal’.
As well as the human element this film is set very firmly within the historical context and the history of this apartheid. Kerry-Anne spoke to us afterwards about the Israeli people who are ‘resisting’ the attacks, she said that most of these people who say they want ‘peace’ actually just want ‘quiet’ — they want no blood but are happy for the segregation, the walls and the oppression and racism to remain. People need to be aware that the Palestinians are not terrorists, they don’t have advanced weapons or an army — when Israel claims to be defending itself in actual fact what it is really defending is the illegal occupation of a country.
After the event Kerry-Anne had the chance to network with the various Palestinian campaign groups from the Manchester area and as a result another showing of the film is planned which will coincide with a tour of the film’s final cut with dates already scheduled for January and February 2015 – well worth seeing!
What we all need to bear in mind is that Palestine is not something far away that does not affect us, it is one part of a whole – every single issue is linked from Gaza, to the NHS and Bedroom Tax, Nato to fracking, fascists in the Ukraine to police brutality – these are all symptoms of the imperialist disease. This is why we have to stand in solidarity with the brave Palestinian people who are rising up against the imperialist occupiers. We need to stand against the minority of capitalists in power, those who care only for domination and maximising profit for themselves and to the detriment of the masses. We have to stop all parts of the imperialist war machine from functioning in whatever way we can be it by boycotting Israeli goods or mass action.
On Saturday 20 December the CPGB-ML and Red Youth held a public meeting in Birmingham to celebrate the successes of the Korean revolution and reaffirm our solidarity with the Korean people in their stand against imperialism. We were joined by two representatives of the DPRK embassy, who among other things informed us about the progress made since the death of Kim Jong Il three years ago — numerous housing, infrastructure and recreational projects have been completed over the past few years. It is clear that despite setbacks and continued imperialist threats and blockade, the Korean people remain determined to build a prosperous socialist country. A representative from Red Youth also read out our message to the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, which is reproduced below, and after the meeting our members got to chat with our Korean comrades over some food and drink.
Dear comrades,
Red Youth send our warm greetings and a militant red salute to comrades of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League on the occasion of the third anniversary of the passing away of comrade Kim Jong Il.
It is with great sorrow that we remember the loss of one of Korea’s finest sons and loyal pupil of comrade Kim Il Sung. But it also gives us the chance to remember the astounding achievements made by the Korean people under the leadership of the Worker’s Party of Korea, guided during extremely dark and difficult times by comrade Kim Jong Il.
After the successful liberation and socialist reconstruction of Korea under comrade Kim Il Sung, the Workers Party of Korea and the Korean masses continued to wage a brave fight against imperialism and comrade Kim Jong Il was in the front line. Of particular importance in the DPRK’s ongoing struggle against imperialist aggression and interference was the development of its nuclear deterrent – a crowning achievement of Democratic Korea’s scientific progress.
The importance of the DPRK’s nuclear capability has been clearly demonstrated by world events in recent years; with US and NATO imperialists invading, bombing and seeking to subjugate those nations who dare to stand up to imperialisms plunder of the world – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria are just the latest victims of imperialisms destructive deeds.
Kim Jong Il’s leadership in the period following the collapse of the USSR and in conditions of a resurgent imperialist offensive proved to be correct. The Korean People’s Army has proven to be a capable defender of socialist Korea’s sovereignty and the freedom of the Korean people. Without a doubt the imperialists will not dare to raise a hand against the DPR Korea, fearful as they should be of a strong rebuke.
Today, thanks to comrade Kim Jong Il’s guidance, the DPR Korea stands as a beacon of hope in a world that has seen two decades of unbridled imperialist aggression. It proves to the people of the world that imperialism is a paper tiger, that it can be defeated by the effort of the world’s oppressed people and that a future free of exploitation, misery and war is possible.
Comrade Kim Jong Il is an especially shining example to the youth – not only the youth of Korea but the world over, including the revolutionary minded youth in Britain. Like his father before him, comrade Kim Jong Il became politically active at an early age and dedicated his whole life to serving his people and greatly contributing to the global struggle against imperialism.
Red Youth will always support the right of the youth and the masses to determine their own future, free from imperialist interference, and we take inspiration from the struggle to build a unified socialist country. In our drive to educate the youth of this country in the science of Marxism Leninism, we also do what we can to counter the lies spread by the imperialist media to the people of Britain. Little by little our people too are starting to see through the veiled imperialist propaganda, to reckon with the double standards and hypocrisy of “our” ruling class.
Red Youth will continue to educate our members on the history and present day reality of Korea, teach them about the achievements of the Korean masses led by the Worker’s Party of Korea and explain how they represent the victories of progressive humanity as a whole! The history of the DPRK is living proof that workers and peasants can overthrow their oppressors, seize power and take control of their lives. Imperialism is a decaying system; it is ready to be placed in the museum of antiquities. Socialism is alive and well today thanks to the Korean people’s ongoing efforts and represents the future of all humanity!
Long live the fraternal relations between Red Youth and Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League!
As the crisis of global capitalism deepens, more and more working people in the centres of imperialism, a lot of whom have been living relatively secure (although not necessarily fulfilling) lives, are being pushed down further into real poverty once again. A parliamentary inquiry has just brought to light the extent of the effects of the economic crisis and rising food prices on some of the most poor sections of the working class of Britain. Among other things they found that:
“The rising costs of housing, food and fuel have had an adverse impact on households’ ability to buy and cook meals. Since 2003 food, fuel and housing costs have all increased at a greater rate than earnings, with food (46.4%) and fuel costs (154%) increasing by a significantly greater amount than both earnings (27.9%)and overall inflation (37.7%). Oil and food price spikes will have contributed disproportionately to these increases. This is likely to have had a greater negative impact on living standards for the poorest households.”
Some key stats from the report:
4 million people at risk of going hungry
272 food banks across big cities and towns
500,000 children live in families that can’t afford to feed them
Meanwhile the political representatives of the ruling class how out of touch and indifferent they are to the working people of the country. Below are some comments made by Tory politicians (which is of course not to say that the other mainstream parties are any better):
Michael Gove MP claimed Food Bank users were “Not able to manage their finances”
A former Tory Minister claimed “the moment they [Food Bank users] have got a bit of spare cash they are off getting another tattoo”
David Cameron PM said Food Banks are “Part of what I call the Big Society”
One Tory MP claimed that Food Bank usage can “become a habit”
Another Tory MP said people use Food Banks because of an “inability to manage money and to budget, addiction to alcohol or substance misuse…”
Tory Minister, Lord Freud, suggested “food from a food bank is by definition a free good and there’s almost infinite demand”
A senior Tory Councillor said Food Banks enabled poor budgeters to “have more money to spend on alcohol, cigarettes”
A Tory MP jibed “how many folks can still find funds to pay for alcohol and cigarettes but not food”
West Oxfordshire Conservative Future chairman “I have seen some ‘food bank users’ in the pubs of Witney… #priorities.”
Iain Duncan Smith MP accused the Trussell Trust of “Scaremongering”
Another thing this inquiry has laid bare is the amount of irrational waste that is produced by the anarchy of capitalist production and its focus on profit rather than need:
“Just 2% of edible surplus food generated by food retailers, manufacturers and suppliers that is fit for consumption, is currently redistributed. 98% of this surplus food is currently turned into compost or energy, or disposed of in landfill.”
Capitalism is proving once again that it is incapable of providing humanity with its basic needs — it merely gives us increasing impoverishment, homelessness and hunger at home, and continued misery, starvation, lack of clean water and shelter for hundreds of millions more around the globe.
It is clear that capitalism has outlived its usefulness. The longer working people allow it to linger on, the more we will suffer.
That is why those who profit from the system are trying to convince the working masses that there is nothing wrong with capitalism; that the only problem is the greed of a few ‘fat cats’. But this is like trying to blame blowflies and maggots for the rotten flesh off which they are feeding. Instead, our attention needs to be focussed on getting rid of the stinking corpse of the capitalist system itself.
Working people must take possession of all means of production now owned by the capitalist class (factories, machines, raw materials etc) in order to start producing goods that directly meet the needs of the people, as opposed to the current system, in which even the most basic necessities of life are only produced or distributed if there is a profit to be made.
The capitalist state has been perfected as a machine to prevent us challenging capitalist relations of production and it must be smashed. In its place we need to build a workers’ state, whose main jobs will be to plan production rationally and to stop the old exploiters returning to continue their reign of misery and war. This is the only way out of the mists of darkness.
The financial crisis is not of our making; our work can and will create sufficient wealth for everybody to be able to live well. If capitalism will not produce or distribute because there’s no profit to be made, then the working class must step into the breach to take over production for itself.
By spreading understanding about the real nature of the crisis among workers, our party seeks to help empower our class to fulfil its historic mission of killing off capitalism once and for all and building a new socialist society and a bright future for all our children – free of war and free of want.
A college student from Coventry has been attending the protests up at Warwick Uni, he’s a member of Red Youth and these are his reflections from the last week.
I’m a 17 year old French-Syrian student and my college is around the corner from the University of Warwick in Coventry. On Wednesday 3 December a group of students at Warwick University protested for free education – not only against tuition fees but also for a new system of education as a whole and the ensuing events have caused a real stir amongst students in Coventry.
The protest was organised by Warwick for Free Education (WFEE), which was founded only a few months ago by a group of students. Due to this and their relatively small size not many people will have heard of them, but they have attended several protests in London and Birmingham to protest against cuts to education.
I attended the big meetings last week which were held up at the University. I learnt that the Russell Group, of which Warwick is a member, supports raising fees to £16k a year. This doesn’t really surprise me, I already know how capitalism strives for maximum profit and that its current massive crisis of overproduction drives the commodification of every last aspect of society in a desperate search for a way out. I know this because I am a student of Marxism Leninism and a member of Red Youth since the summer.
Last Wednesday evening, when WFFE held a peaceful sit-in at the senate house near Warwick Arts Centre, police were called and together with the University’s own hired thugs proceeded to break up the gathering with completely disproportionate force.
A statement issued by WFFE describes the events: “Several police cars turned up and a police riot van as well as a police dog. We formed a human chain but they broke through using CS spray (active agent in tear gas) on many activists at close quarters, a taser gun was held up and threatened, it was also suspected to be used. Activists were punched, pushed onto the floor, dragged, rammed by their throat into the wall and kneed in the face. We were staging a peaceful protest and it was totally unprecedented; we were sitting in a circle talking in university space.” Read it here: (http://warwick4freeducation.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/police-brutality-on-warwick-campus/)
Obviously for the university a smooth operation of their business is what matters, not the safety of their students. We’ve seen what police brutality has done in the past years in the UK and what it is doing now in the country of the terrorists, the USA.
After speaking to students I learnt that when people saw blue lights and police cars parking at the university everyone was confused. Security initially said to a student that police were there for an unrelated incident. Of course, this wasn’t the case as soon it turned out:
The following days, WFFE organized demonstrations, protesting against the police brutality. The demos were big with what seemed to me like 1000 people attending. Speakers had the opportunity to read out letters written by the students who got arrested. They also encouraged students to get politically active and to join solidarity movements, to know about Palestine, Ferguson and other crimes done by the real terrorists. She also kept shouting that Police will be liquidated because of their crimes, i.e their crimes will cause them to be abolished and that revolution will come soon, the meetings were followed with chants: “HANDS OFF CAMPUS, NO JUSTICE NO PEACE”, and a song was even sung to mock the coward thugs.
Police say that their mission is to help people, are people getting any help from the police? Does even anyone feel safe when they see a police car? Because I seriously don’t, I feel paranoid, I get some sense of fear, how could anyone feel safe? I have a friend who got his door broken by West Midlands Police here at Coventry in Spon End, just because the police had “suspicions”. Once, me, him and couple other friends were walking back from a concert, whilst walking a police car just started following us and harassing us just because it was midnight and we were the only ones out. Eventually, these thugs left as we kept on shouting ‘ what are you doing? What do you want?’
From my own experiences I don’t trust the police and I can well imagine that the police enjoyed attacking students as they’re easy targets. I stand with the students who got attacked at Warwick University and I will continue to support their campaign and protests until they get some justice.
End all victimization of young people by the police!
Please think about giving a donation this Christmas to the work of the Marxist Leninist party of the British proletariat. The CPGB-ML is Britain’s only truly revolutionary communist party. Our printing press is completely independent and our analysis is consistently anti-imperialist. We need your help in order to continue our work!
At present, the party is collecting funds for a new printing press. The machine we will buy will be second hand and fairly old, but even so we need £30,000 to buy it. We’ve now raised around £22,000 from members, supporters and friends and a Christmas push is now in order!
Unlike nearly all other ‘left’ parties, we operate and run our own press, which has required great sacrifices from comrades in the past, but which gives us the ability to be cheap, flexible and fully independent.
Any contribution, big or small is gratefully received, our ebay is selling calendars for 2015 at £6 each, all the proceeds will go towards the press, alternatively, you can transfer funds directly to our bank account [details below] or send your contributions in the post by cheque or postal order.
Another contribution of one of our newer members, explaining why they joined. This time from a comrade from the South East.
On the 26th of July, 2014, at the annual anti-imperialist barbecue, I joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
I inhabit a conservative town in a reactionary corner of south-eastern England, and know of no other communists nearby. I might easily have grown to maturity as another reactionary – why then did I come to the CPGB-ML?
I first encountered Marxism at the age of eleven years, shortly after entering secondary school, when, quite by chance, I encountered Friedrich Engels’ profound work The Principles of Communism on the internet. Gripped by that work, I have educated myself ever since that day on the workings and relations of society and have become firmly convinced that Marxism-Leninism is the only correct and scientific expression of the accumulated experience and class interests of the exploited working class, the proletariat. I have, therefore, long recognised the practical need for a sincere Communist Party armed with the advanced theory of Marxism-Leninism. However, there is in Great Britain today a plethora of different groups and ‘parties’ calling themselves communist, and therefore there was a large amount of material to sift through. While researching communist organisations in this country, I encountered, to name but a few, the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the odious Socialist Workers’ Party. What I found greatly disturbed me, for it seemed that all the parties and organisations I came across, particularly the Communist Party of Britain which advocates the absurd and revisionist notion of a parliamentary road to Socialism, were completely divorced from the real nature of society in this country, and thus could not know the genuine interests and tasks of the working class and its movement.
I was greatly relieved and inspired when I discovered that there was one organisation, one party, which cut through the thick layers of pseudo-socialist and revisionist rubbish, which was unrelenting in its fight against opportunism, and which was clearly and obviously acquainted with the objective reality of modern Britain and the true interests of the working class – this was, of course, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
Over time, I studied the material of this Party, reading Lalkar, Proletarian, the books of Comrade Chairman Harpal Brar et al, etc. and became convinced that the theory and general line of the CPGB-ML were correct. However, one question remained: an advanced theory is all well and good, but as Stalin said, revolutionary theory “becomes sterile if not accompanied by revolutionary practice.” Indeed, all Marxist-Leninists, unlike the revisionists, Trotskyites, social democrats and the like, know that correct theory comes and can only come from practice, from accumulated historical experience and practice as it is now. So then, was this Party an active one?
Clearly, the communists are up against the odds in their work of attempting to build a genuinely revolutionary Marxist organisation in the United Kingdom. The super-profits plundered from the oppressed countries through merciless imperialist exploitation make it possible for the ruling class of this country to bribe significant sections of the working class, to bind them materially to capitalism. This phenomena of the embourgeoisification of workers was first observed by Marx and Engels in England towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the theory and practice regarding it was formulated and systematised by Comrade Lenin in such works as Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, in which he noted that it was basically this embourgeoisified section of the working class which provided the social and economic basis of opportunism and revisionism. Indeed, since Lenin’s day, as imperialism has become ever more decadent and moribund, this labour aristocracy, as it was called, has only grown, its influence has only increased and become more pervasive, and it is aided in its deception of the working class and its movement by decades of relentless and shameless social democracy and Khrushchevite revisionism. We see, then, that to build a sincerely and thoroughly anti-revisionist, anti-imperialist, revolutionary Communist Party in the conditions which exist in the United Kingdom is no easy task, and the Communists attempting it are faced with an enormous task.
With the above taken into account, the CPGB-ML is indeed incredibly active in its work. Day by day the party is growing in number, and having attended party meetings and talked to party comrades myself I can testify for the fact that it is the only communist party in the country which is really attracting active support from real British workers and a not insignificant number of young people. Increasingly, sincere Comrades from other organisations, realising that their own groupings have been castrated and robbed of their revolutionary heart by social democracy, Trotskyism and revisionism and opportunism of various kinds, are defecting to the CPGB-ML, which is the only party consciously striving to create and develop conscious links with the masses, which it does by selling its newspapers and journals, attending protests and demonstrations, issuing leaflets, conducting workers’ educational programmes, and, simply but effectively, talking to the masses, actually learning from them, as well as through various other activities.
Surely, the party can only intensify its work and spread its influence, and surely as the crisis of capitalism develops, as the British working class its jolted from hardship to hardship by its despotic imperialist rulers, the Marxist movement can only develop, grow, and spread, so that we may reasonably speak of having active cells and cadre in all corners of the country, ready to make their contributions with all their zeal and effort to the cause of the proletarian revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism.
So then, we may say, backed by the experience of the struggle of the proletariat and the truth of Marxism-Leninism, that this Party is the only thoroughly and consistently anti-imperialist, anti-revisionist and politically active communist organisation existing in Great Britain, it is the party of British socialism, and it is for all these reasons that I have joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
Long Live the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)!
£6 each, all the proceeds will go towards the press, alternatively, you can transfer funds directly to our bank account [details below] or send your contributions in the post by cheque or postal order.