Once again, the outrageous murder of a young working-class black man, and the acquittal of his murderer in a bourgeois court, reveals the true brutal character of the “democratic” USA.
Time and again, the United States has demonstrated its repressive and supremacist character – armed police murder wantonly and without justification, time and again the state that these armed hooligans (police) serve goes out of its way to protect these criminals, even when its actions enrage and shame the entire planet!
Michael Brown was murdered in cold blood on the threshold of adulthood by a tool of the US imperialist state. He was an irreplaceable human being torn from the world of the living. Michael’s murderer, Officer Darren Wilson, was allowed to walk free by a so-called “grand jury”. What kind of judgement was this? What kind of justice? It is our belief that the real judgement is now taking place out on the streets of Ferguson and across the entire United States!
What kind of a ‘justice system’ is it where a murderer can walk free because he is white and wears a uniform? It is the justice system not of the people, but of those who rule despotically over the people; for although our rulers may claim to be ‘democratic’ and declare their state to be a ‘neutral’ body, the true nature of ‘American democracy’ is revealed when poor and oppressed people stand up for themselves and ask for justice in a bourgeois court. American democracy is democracy for the rich, it is bourgeois democracy, or as Lenin termed it, bourgeois dictatorship. It is democratic for the ruling class, and dictatorial towards the poor. It is the rule of the US financial elite, armed to the teeth to preserve their privileged position. It is a state of a minority organised against the people.
Working people cannot trust a justice system built to serve the class interests of their rulers. We should be under no illusion: the capitalist state is run by the rich, and it is run for the rich. Whenever anything threatens the power of the rich, the so-called “freedoms” of the US citizens – upon which imperialist countries like Britain and the US are supposed to be built – are cast aside like an old rag doll under the pretense of ‘security’ and ‘order.’
It is time we understood that the puppets used by this dictatorship of the rich are our enemies too. The police, the national guard and the military all exist to defend the power and privileges of the ruling elite against the interests of the mass of workers. Whilst recognising this fact, we also recognise that many of these puppets have no long-term interest standing with imperialism against the masses, they have been bribed by imperialism to be a Judas to their class, but if they continue to work only for gold and silver and refuse to be won over to the proletarian revolution they shall be smashed in battle! The criminal actions of capitalist imperialism are becoming so blatant that it will also, eventually, (and certainly if revolutionaries conduct proper illegal work inside these state forces) lead to the complete destruction of the fighting will of these puppets and their complete demise.
Darren Wilson is guilty of cold-blooded murder, and the state that he serves is guilty of exercising a brutal dictatorship against its own people, of inflicting a bloody terror upon the poorest and most marginalised communities of the United States.
The state machine has the blood of countless innocents on its hands, and it must be defeated in battle. Mao Zedong once said, “Without a people’s army, the people have nothing.” Red Youth is sure that the many excellent revolutionaries organised across the United States in various militant, revolutionary, communist organisations are doing everything in their power to bring knowledge and education to the masses. For as Lenin pointed out workers are the gunpowder, knowledge and education are the spark! Red Youth sends militant greetings to our comrades in America, lets light an inferno under US imperialism!
Justice for Mike Brown!
Down with the capitalist-imperialist dictatorship!
Red Salute to the people of Ferguson, the US working class and their revolutionary detachments!
Jorge Luis Garcia, from the Cuban Embassy, speaks to British workers, members and supporters of the CPGB-ML, gathered to celebrate the 97th Anniversary of the October Revolution in Saklatvala hall in November 2014.
He explains that Cuba not only brought the October Revolution to the Americas, but outlines some of the practical ways in which the Cuban revolution serves the people of Cuba, the Americas and the world, showing its internationalism and in this way paying tribute to the spirit and essence of Socialism, that was first brought to the world by the earth shaking events of November 1917.
Cuba has sent 641 doctors to help the people of West Africa suffering from the Ebola outbreak, while the US response has been to send soldiers.
He makes reference to the hostility of the USA toward Cuba, and that the Cuban government continues to campaign for the release of the Miami 5 – three of whom remain incarcerated illegally in the USA, after 16 years!
Che Guevara’s daughter will address a Vigil outside the US Embassy (Grosvenor Square, London, W1A 2LQ – on Friday 3rd December 2014, between 6-7.30pm) to highlight the plight of the remaining political prisoners, held in US Jails.
We ask all our members and supporters in the region to make every effort to attend!
These 5 brave sons of Cuba travelled to the US to expose and bring to light the terrorist activities of CIA sponsored Cuban exile groups who perpetrated bombings and acts of terror against the Cuban people, in a vain attempt to enforce ‘regime change’, and restore the parasitic and decadent order of comprador capitalist rule.
But the Cuban people remain strong, confident in their gains and willing to face their adversities squarely on their own feet; they realise that nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.
Cuba, he says, may be a small country without huge financial reserves, but Cuba is rich in ‘human capital’. The generosity and bold spirit of Cuba is evident to all who learn of her international medical aid program, and her courageous and successful defiance of US imperialist aggression.
Long live Socialist Cuba! Long live the October Revolution!
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Here we are at a grassroots demo,
but here come Labour, they got the memo!
Rousing us all with their ‘working class’ chanting,
another blast of their Anti-Tory ranting.
The Tories ARE scum but have we forgotten,
that Labour and its policies have always been rotten?
No, you cry – Labour gave us NHS!
They did. This is true. Yes, oh yes!
The Soviet Union had free healthcare,
the Commies in Britain knew this to be fair.
Labour were sweating at the Communists strength,
they pondered and plotted and worried at length.
They gave us our healthcare, our fabulous concession,
we were pacified – they sold it! – this should be our lesson.
Labour brought Atos, PFI, higher tuition fees,
it brought OUR NHS down to its knees,
and my favourite – the policy it backed to the max,
then a U-turn for votes… its own pet – Bedroom Tax!
A vote for Labour results in as much action,
as an Olympic runner with both legs in traction.
Thatcher is dead but what do we gain,
by voting for Imperialists again and again?
Red Ed? Really? Enough of this crap.
There’s less Socialism in Labour than MPs with the Clap!
This Parliamentary system is a complete farce,
Us masses need a massive kick up the arse.
These MPs are getting fatter and fatter,
on the spoils of our labour and what do we matter?
But we can draw strength through our collective might,
for our emancipation we ALL have to fight!
So fists in the air, one and all,
Let us always remember there is only ONE war.
It’s going to take time, won’t happen over night,
but if we’re committed and organised our future’s in sight.
UKIP and the far right are a sickening joke,
and what use the Greens under reactionary yoke?
For Reformists and Revisionists sound the death knell,
Our ONLY alternative is the CPGB-ML!
The 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) was held over two days, 8-9 November in London. The Congress marked the occasion of the 97th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution with a public celebration in the evening which was addressed by the Ambassador of the DPR Korea, comrade Hyon Hak Bong, and comrade Jorge Luis Garcia from the Cuban Embassy. Joti Brar from the Proletarian editorial board spoke first and the evening finished with a rousing speech from comrade Harpal Brar.
The 7th Congress received the reports of the various party committee’s and discussed a number of significant issue’s such as rising nationalism, deepening crisis and the class composition of British society in the 21st century. Congress also endorsed a number of documents which will be made public in due course, and announced the publication of a new book on the history of the first imperialist World War. Congress noted the continuing growth and development of our party nationally, pledged to continue to support and promote our youth and cadres in their ongoing ideological development, and recognised the leading role young communists play in the leadership of our Party.
The 7th Congress was attended by many working class red youth’s, all of whom are active members of the party and youth section and many of which lead our party branches and organisations in their various cities and regions. All the comrades demonstrated their commitment to the Party, their class and the ideology of Marxism Leninism.
Here’s some photo’s for those comrades who were unable to attend (we missed you greatly) taken during the speeches, contributions and discussion and a couple from the evening celebration. Red Youth has pledged to continue the work in the regions, to build up the party branches and ensure we are able to hold even more Marxist Leninist educational classes, discussion groups, public meetings and events in all corners of Britain in 2015!
On 8th November 2014, British workers, members and supporters of the CPGB-ML, with representatives from socialist Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, celebrated the 97th Anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution (1917 – 2014).
Harpal Brar introduces Jorge Luis Garcia, and Hyon Hak Bong. The DPR Korean ambassador then goes on to outline the current imperialist manoeuvres for isolating and strangling the DPR Korea under the guise of ‘protecting human rights’, by moving hostile resolutions through the UN, paving the way for further hostile diplomatic, political and ultimately military intervention and interference in the Korean peninsula.
Comrade Hyon points out the flagrant hypocrisy of the USA, that racist and oppressive prison of nations and hangman of progressive movements and revolutions, which arrogates to itself the right to exploit, police and oppress the entire globe, denouncing the free workers living under socialism – who have abolished economic and class exploitation, and whose entire social and economic policy is dedicated to serving the interests of their own people and the workers of all countries.
The CC of the Workers’ Party of Korea send greetings to the people of Britain on the occasion of the 6th congress of the CPGB-ML.
We say with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, as outlined in their great work, The communist manifesto: “Workers of all countries unite! You have nothing to loose but your chains – you have a world to win!”
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A meeting and social celebrating the historic achievements made possible by the October revolution in Russia. This year, we will be marking the 97th anniversary of the October revolution by looking at just how it was the Bolsheviks were able to turn the imperialist war into a civil war for the overthrow of capitalist imperialism, and what lessons we can learn from their success.
We will also be looking at ‘What the Soviet Union did for us’ — how so many of the ‘democratic values’ that we are taught to associate with western capitalism actually came to workers in the West as a result of the October revolution.
Speeches will be followed by food and drink, and a chance to socialise with like-minded comrades. An inspiring evening to remind us all why we need socialism and what we have to do to get it!
The following letter to our blog was written by a young comrade from the Midlands who recently left the YCL to join Red Youth. His reflections are those born from the frustrations of working in a party castrated by revisionism. We will stress now, before you read his observations, that Red Youth certainly doesn’t have all the answers and we’re up against it trying to build a revolutionary youth organisation in a country where no revolutionary mood prevails amongst the masses, for the time being. These are the same objective conditions which both the YCL and CPB have to contend with. Our strength (and their weakness) lies in our correct analysis of these conditions; a thorough and rigorous critique of social democracy, its root causes and it’s influence on the British labour movement. We are pleased with the enthusiasm with which this comrade joins us in our work, but we must emphasise that ours is a long, arduous struggle which requires much patience as well as persistence. For this reason it is absolutely critical that Red Youth comrades make every effort to study Marxist-Leninist theory, to develop their political understanding and be able to take part in the work to build up the revolutionary class conscious. That struggle is a marathon, there are no quick fixes, easy avenues or cheats. Its long, hard struggle, and we welcome all those who are prepared to make that journey.
That said, despite a thoroughly positive and glowing appraisal of our party’s work to date (!) the letter highlights some of the aspects of our culture and work which set us apart, stemming from our analysis of present and past. We do not shy away from openly admitting the need for revolution and actively work towards it. Our correct understanding of the specific historical conditions that led to the ‘golden’ post-WW2 boom – as a result of the devastation of the war and continued imperialist exploitation of the Third World means that we do not shed a tear for the death of social democracy. We recognise that no amount of tinkering and reform can put an and to capitalist crisis and the drive towards imperialist wars. We recognise the inalienable right of people to fight imperialism and we stand firmly with them and openly call for the defeat of our “own” government in these wars of aggression and plunder. Capitalism cannot provide a decent and secure life to the masses of working people, it can only offer temporary concessions to a few. This is where we differ from the CPB and YCL, who have all but abandoned any talk of revolution and dream of a return to the heyday of social democracy. We agree with and participate as far as we are able in the fight for reforms and concessions under the present conditions – but we will not lose sight of our end goal, the socialist revolution. – RY
“Almost nine months ago, I joined the Communist Party of Britain in Shropshire – three weeks ago I left for the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
I’d describe my former self as the kind of communist that clung to the insole of the labour party. But why did I change my mind? What went ‘wrong’ along the way? Keen to serve a movement I was then happy and honoured to be a part of, enthused to draft new ways to create a big communist student movement in my local area; I was elevated quickly. First, to Young Communist League organiser for Shropshire, then the West Midlands, then the whole Midlands – all this over the course of 3 months, partly because I was the only YCL secretary in the Midlands. It was this elevation, that made me realise how useless and inactive the party was. Later, the real CPB would be revealed to me as the badly organised, anti-youth, anti-DPRK, anti-communist organisation it is.
The organisational inactivity of the CPB Two months after becoming Shropshire students organiser I drew up a small plan and discussed it with my branch secretary, who seemed as usual relatively pleased to accept my ideas. We had 3 comrades of eligible age for the YCL in Shropshire; a 12 year old school girl who was the daughter of a branch member, a 22 year old man, and myself. I outlined the following items:
The convening of our three young communists in a place suitable for students to hold a meeting, to debate what we stood for and what we want to achieve
The leafleting of the sixth-form college in town about the event
The setting up of a YCL Shropshire Facebook page
The ordering of copies of challenge and other youth campaigning materials to support setting up a communist youth movement in Shropshire
This was in September 2013. In February, almost five months later (and a month and a half before I joined CPGB-ML), I was still waiting for support in terms of literature, party education materials, help to find a meeting place. Until December I was still expecting this fictitious support.
But it was my promotion to Midlands district officer that was the real turning point for me. I was charged with creating the Midlands district of the YCL, organising a regional movement of youth in their late teens and early 20s for the mobilisation of Marxism-Leninism within the labour movement. This is a big task to give an enthusiastic 16 year old campaigner – nevertheless, as I put it at the time to queries of “was I sure”, I was well up for it.
I knew that we only had 175 active and non-active members in the whole of the Midlands, so I was trying to be realistic, not stretching too far to branches that may lack any bulk in membership under 30. The plan was to get together three people (aged between 11 and 29 as is within the party rulings regarding age), in each the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Shropshire branches together, and encourage them to have bi-monthly branch meetings and a monthly study group. If this proved successful over a year we would collectivise everyone within the age bracket across the Midlands and hold a YCL district launch in Birmingham. Another part of the planned strategy was to leaflet colleges in order to create education branches.
Things were looking good at first – we had in the Shropshire branch 3 eligible YCL members. In Birmingham we had one young contact who was caught up in border disputes with other branches and consequently not doing anything, and someone who was nearly 25 – this was fine at first.
In Wolverhampton there was nothing: not only was I to find at the 15th February district congress that they were one of the most inactive branches as part of our deflated Black Country initiative, but I found out a week before hand they had no members under 30.
Four months before that fateful meeting, I received a 15 year old contact in Nottingham. I thought this was excellent at the time, I thought if he could work with the largely mature Nottingham branch on youth for me I could then focus more on the further West Midlands stuff. However, I was to find that due to disorganisation this was apparently impossible. I found that the Nottingham branch, another gem of inactivity, was made up of two men in their 60s and one in their 50s, who were all apparently “to afraid to talk to him” and that the only one in four months who had made any effort to contact him other than a couple of times electronically was me.
And then they had the gall to ask me to help build the YCL in Wales from Shropshire. I was furious with the total lack of anything, but particularly after this erroneous request. I was just about ready to explode because of all this – but then there were the ideological holes to boot.
The ideological hollowness of the CPB My ideological suspicions began around December but they had nothing to do with the labour party at first. It started with the pro-capitalist coverage of the DPRK. Nothing in the Morning Star is ever really pro-capitalist no matter how wrong or counter-revolutionary, but this really was. It quoted UN statistics without checking the sources and alleged that the north ‘wasn’t socialism’ and highly ‘undemocratic’. It even contradicted their position on the country in Britain’s Road to Socialism, going far enough to publish headlines like “UN pledges to bring North Korean leaders to justice”. I thought in Britain’s Road to Socialism our message on the DPRK was quite clear, that we supported its ‘right to popular sovereignty’, that we supported it against American imperialism!
When I was approached over twitter about the contradiction between my open support for the DPRK and the Morning Star’s stance, I explained that the Morning Star was the paper of the movement. As such it couldn’t marginalise itself down to pure communist viewpoints and had to please a great deal of it’s bulked readership; including CND, Stop the War and the TUC. For a CPB member this was an adequate, well thought-out answer, but I was to find out that even this was wrong.
I e-mailed Zoe Hennessy, the YCL’s general secretary; I felt that the recent anti-DPRK bombardment in all media left or right wing was demoralising our member’s in their support for the country (particularly our young members), so I offered to write an article in support of it to put people’s minds at rest. It was the reply that was to enrage me almost as much as the organisational problems I had encountered: The Communist Party of Britain dose not endorse the DPRK. It never has done and it never will. Apparently the Morning Star is the embodiment of the CPB’s collective views on North Korea and many other things which I thought was merely content added for “the movement”.
While all this was happening an article was published around Christmas on comrade Mao Zedong to celebrate his birthday. It described someone who would “probably have been remembered as a great revolutionary if he’d died in 1952” but who’s final two political campaigns were “an utter failure”, later accusing him of harbouring a personality cult and being an unstable leader. Very celebratory…
Incidentally the paper also refused to publish anything celebrating the birthday of comrade Stalin, utterly spitting in the eye of one of the greatest contributors to Marxist theory aside from Engels or Lenin.
Conclusion So what did I decide to do next? Well I saw a rather impressive group of communists in late September at the Tory party conference demo, who seemed to sidle up to the communist party red block, and chant with us. The two groups looked fabulous together, 60 or 70 red flags were made 90 or more in a block. I saw they had a paper called Proletarian. I wanted work experience in political journalism – so I contacted the editor’s e-mail.
I secured a meeting at the office of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) in Birmingham. I wasn’t wooed at first by their opposition to the people’s assembly or the Labour Party in any measure, as things were still working for me at the point I had this meeting in October, but I saw something in them then that brought me back, and made them indelibly my new and fine comrades, people who I am proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with.
From about the February 15th district meeting, when I began to see just how pointless it was, I started looking for a new party either similar to my own thoughts or robust enough to accept my robust opinions.
I trawled through things like the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Marxist Student Federation – all of these organisations to me either appeared totally revisionist or ineffective in political strategy to the point of laughability. It was then I realised the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) was the only effective left party in Britain; the only one still growing and equipped with practical, applicable campaigning methods for the 21st century.
A party that stood for all the right things – defending the democratic legitimacy of Zimbabwe and it’s legitimate popular leader Robert Mugabe, telling the truth about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, true anti-imperialism; rather than just what seems to be more acceptable to public opinion. They don’t allow their ideological strength to make them dogmatic.
Under the CPB I was given no equipment, no literature and no support. I join the CPGB-ML and almost immediately I’m given seven newspapers, a wad of our youth programme and a wad of leaflets. I am also sold books at £2 a throw – unlike the ones the CPB sold at their district committees for between £5-£20, which were all far out of my price range on top of train fairs. I have a permanent link to my nearest branch organiser, I’m told if there’s anything I need in terms of equipment or help it’s mine providing I’ve got a good reason, we’ve already got Shropshire based members and supporters around too – so we’re all set.
Coupled with this we have a stunning two-part programme, including the mind blowing Red Youth programme “we want freedom” – which envisions a diplomatically non-volatile Great Britain, universally free education and the deployment of capital allocated to youth by youth and for youth. That’s a revolutionary youth programme, not BRS’s “lowering the voting age to 16 would be reflective of how some people think but let’s make everything else up along the way while also making nothing up and doing nothing”.
I can see the ship sinking for the “Communist Party” already. CPB membership isn’t just under 1,000 as it claims – it’s 700. They did an internal survey recently that said 200 of their members had either died or gone missing. The CPGB-ML in Birmingham alone gets several requests for membership a month. The CPB’s complete refusal of self criticism, unwillingness to reform outdated party structures, the anti-youth mentality all leads one way – decay. The CPB is dying. Every general election it loses members on the same programme, every time labour or whoever else they support are elected they fail to do anything of meaning. My old party only misleads a few students here and there (most notably in the North West where they’ve recruited about 20ish white university students) – but it’s propaganda and negation on the radical student movement reaches far further than even it knows.
For instance everything it says about almost everything apart from capitalism as a system and the British bourgeoisie back up the imperialist argument unwittingly. A British democrat, and I’ve met a few, may say that you have to vote your way out of trouble, that if you don’t like a government you have to vote for the opposition to oust them, namely; the Labour Party. According to British social democracy this is the only way to achieve change. The CPB will say that you have to vote labour to get the Tories or the Lib-Dems out and you can’t have a revolution because a) it will “alienate” people and b) we live in a western “democracy”. So revolution is an absolute last resort and therefore not appropriate or possible unless people all over the country starve on the streets and worker’s have lost all their gains.
I spent 8 months in the labour movement, trying to attract young people with the time to join the labour movement’s communist youth section – but everyone who wanted to do that just did the natural thing and joined the largely middle-class led Labour Students long before I was on the streets. We have the advantage in that all the true communist students are with Red Youth. We’re better organised, ideologically stronger, growing at a much faster rate and regularly active. My message to all in the labour movement who consider themselves Marxists, is to join our party – the true party of Lenin.”
The British State Murders with impunity: ‘to Protect and Serve’ the Capitalist Class. Not only the Met, but the whole capitalist system is inherently racist and anti-working class, and needs to be dismantled. This is the core truth that underlies Police Injustice.
RACISM
For much of Britain’s working class, long shackled by unemployment, debt and neglect, and particularly for black and immigrant workers, who are also subject to ingrained institutional persecution, incessant harassment and arbitrary arrest, the oppressive character of the British state requires no elucidation. A host of recent events make it clear that institutional racism remains rampant in Britain today.
This is but one example of many. We could just as easily look at housing, education, income or unemployment statistics.
When we look at our brothers and sisters across the sea, in the USA, we can see just how deep is the irony that that they call themselves “the land of the free and the home of the Brave.” There have been a host of racist police assaults and murders in the US, from Rodney King to Michael Brown, sparking the Fergusson conflict between the civilian population and a police force so heavily armed they may as well be invading another country.
But the fact that Black and immigrant workers live under a double oppression, is also meant to distract and appease white workers – dividing us from our common interests as workers, and distracting us from the fact that our enemy is the employing class, the capital owning class. White workers are encouraged to see immigration, instead of rich capitalists stealing wealth produced, by the working class as a whole – as ‘the main problem’. We must not be misled by the anti-immigrant, racist ranting of the Daily mail, UKIP, Labour or the Tory party.
THE BRITISH STATE
Institutions of the British state do not serve the people, and practices such as cover-ups and corruption are part of the very logic of their operations, rather than the results of ‘extraordinary’ actions by a few ‘bad apples’.
ECONOMIC VIOLENCE
The violence of the state must be seen in the context of the economic violence of a system that sabotages and destroys the lives of billions world-wide, and millions in Britain, in order to concentrate the entire wealth of humanity in a tiny number of people’s hands. The 65 richest multi-billionaires today, control as much wealth as HALF THE WORLD’S POPULATION! Between 20 and 25 percent of all 16-24 year olds across the UK are unemployed. As an index of discrimination, it merits attention that a staggering 60 percent of young black men are jobless. As a result of endemic unemployment and under- employment, declining and often derisory wages, 3.6 million British children are growing up in poverty (between a quarter and a third of all children in the UK), and that this figure is set to rise. A recent report indicates that 1,000,000 children go hungry in Britain every day. How long will British workers accept this meekly? Our ruling class are already preparing for the violence they think will arise from this unjust and appalling inequality.
They know that they would not stand for it – so why should we?
STEPHEN LAWRENCE – CORRUPTION AND RACISM IN THE MET
On 18 March 2014, it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police in 2003 destroyed a vast cache of documents connected to an ongoing corruption investigation, including documents relating to a detective involved in the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.
In an interview in the Guardian on 28 January 2012, Doreen Lawrence underlined that the police failed to find her son’s murderers, but stopped his brother 20 times as a criminal suspect! She herself was stopped a year after the murder, ‘suspected of driving a stolen car’.
MARK DUGGAN
This disclosure came just weeks after a coroner’s inquest ruled that the murder of Mark Duggan in August 2011 was ‘lawful’, despite the jury agreeing that Duggan was unarmed at the time. The two-and-a-half years following his murder have not only seen the usual attempts at cover-up and the giving of false evidence by the officers involved, but also a sustained media smear campaign against Mr Duggan and his family.
These are just some of the most high-profile cases, which need to be understood in the context of the daily discrimination and harassment suffered by black and Asian communities at the hands of the British police.
STOP AND SEARCH
One of the most striking examples of this is the disproportionate use of ‘stop and search’ powers. These attacks on the black community have been ongoing since the notorious ‘sus’ (Suspicion) powers police used to target them since the 1970s.
Despite black people being around half as likely to be using drugs as other members of the public, in 2009-10 black people in England and Wales were more than six times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs possession.
In addition to this, they are treated far more harshly by the ‘justice’ system after arrest, and are much more likely to be charged for minor offences (as opposed to being merely cautioned).
[See ‘The numbers in black and white: ethnic disparities in the policing and prosecution of drug offences in England and Wales’, release.org.uk, 2013]
DEATHS IN POLICE CUSTODY
The numbers relating to deaths in custody also display the same disturbing features at a national level. Since 1990, there have been 82 deaths of members of an ethnic minority at the hands of the Metropolitan Police. None of these have to date resulted in a conviction. There have been a further 63 in other forces in the rest of England and Wales.
While many of the black and ethnic-minority deaths have been concentrated in the Metropolitan Police area, the number of deaths in custody generally have been quite consistently higher
for ethnic minorities than for white Britons across the country. (See ‘Datablog: deaths after police contact or in police custody’, guardian.co.uk, 19 July 2012)
KILLING THE VULNERABLE
Particularly shocking is the number of black people suffering from mental-health problems who have died in police custody, often after having suffered disproportionate violence.
Typical of this racially aggravated assault and police murder are the cases of Roger Sylvester (who died after being ‘restrained’ and asphyxiated by 11 police officers in 1999, while trying to gain access to his own home), and Rocky Bennett (who expressed his desire to leave voluntary psychiatric treatment, was promptly sectioned, then ‘restrained’ and asphyxiated by a gang of police who effectively murdered him in 1998).
BRIXTON, BROADWATER FARM, & the 2011 Youth Uprisings
Add this systematic mistreatment and harassment to the wider economic inequalities that exist along ethnic lines and it is quite understandable how even a single incident can spark a drastic reaction; be it the police killings that sparked the Brixton and Broadwater Farm uprisings in 1981 and 1985 or the shooting of Mark Duggan that sparked the youth uprising of 2011.
While all this is deeply troubling, it is unfortunately not surprising. Marxists have long understood that imperialism survives by creating division among workers at home as well as abroad – the partition of the world and exploitation of its masses goes hand in hand with racism and oppression of workers in the centres of imperialism itself
As the old trade-union adage goes, “United we stand, divided we fall”. Or as Karl Marx and Frederick Engels so succinctly put it in the Communist Manifesto, “Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST PROTESTORS
The police and Army in Britain have a long history of violence against the organized working class movement, from the Llanelli railway strikers in 1911, to the British General Strike of 1926, the battle of Cable Street in 1936, the Miners Strike of 1984 – 1985, or the more recent anti G11 , Anti-NATO, or student demonstrations against sky-rocketing tuition Fees and the abolition of the EMA, that effectively barred access of the working class to further and higher education.
In December 2011, responding to increased public unrest and clearly anticipating more, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) published a report highlighting the existing legal power of police to shoot ‘arsonists’ if they are deemed to be ‘endangering life’. Whilst lip-service was paid to this tactic being a ‘last resort’, its inclusion within the report, and its subsequent promotion in the bourgeois press, is a thinly- veiled endorsement of the use of live ammunition by police against protestors who are deemed threatening to the British state.
It is a blueprint that authorises the murder of those who deviate from the usual routine and futile avenues of protest, and it must be made clear to workers that, as seductive as the rhetoric on ‘protection of the public’ is, it is a fig-leaf intended to disarm us.
The police were not concerned about the protection of Mark Duggan as they publicly executed him, or of so many of our loved ones who have died at their hands, or languish unjustly in their jails. Claims that he was armed and dangerous have been shown up as false, since the gun it was said he was carrying about his person had no trace of his DNA on it.
The police shot to kill in order to intimidate that section of the local population who are inclined to rebellion, no longer meekly swallowing the bourgeois propaganda and lies that generally serve to hold the working-class population in check.
The police are equally unconcerned about the dozens of people who have died in their custody or in immigration detention camps.
IRELAND
The British state has a long history of violence, oppression, rape and robbery in its colonial possessions, from India and China, to the Americas and Africa. Ireland is its oldest colony, and it still occupies and polices the northern part of that nation.
The British army had no compunction about freely murdering the participants of national liberation struggles in all its colonies over hundreds of years. Just as little were the British military concerned about the protection of the 14 civil rights potestors civilians they murdered in Derry in 1972, or the many others killed and wounded by them over the years of occupation, in Ireland and in Britain. The briefest of inquiry would reveal that their loyal concern lies with the protection of British capitalists’ interests and above all their private property and the perpetuation of the system of class exploitation itself.
The treatment of Harry Stanley, shot dead by police officers in 1999, for having an ‘Irish accent’ (he was Scottish), and reported carrying a shotgun (in fact a wooden table-leg, which he was carrying home in a plastic bag) is instructive in this regard, as was the police execution of Diarmuid O’Neill in 1996.
THE SOLUTION?
As ever, for workers, our only option is to Struggle. But we must realize who are our enemies and who can be won to our cause. British youth need a Marxist-Leninist education that will enable us to adopt leadership positions in our communities, break down the walls of suspicion between workers of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, unite with other communities in common struggle against our oppressors, and advance the struggle against capitalist imperialism.
The CPGB-ML stands in solidarity with all those who are fighting for justice against the tyranny, and murderous oppression of the British State. But also issues a word of caution. The imperialist leopard cannot change his spots. ‘Financial compensation’ is an insult. Police ‘apologies’ are rare, admissions of guilt or reprimand of the officers concerned almost never happen. Why? Because the capitalist’s need the strong arm of the law firmly held to our throats. In the last analysis, the only redress that can be won for the British workers, is the overthrow of the decadent, rotten, corrupt and moribund system of exploitation of one man by another and one nation by another that has landed humanity in this Sorry state of affairs.
Only the working class in power can solve these issues for themselves. We will guarantee that our society is built upon humane and just lines, that allow the development and flourishing of all individuals within our rich and diverse country and usher in an era that is truly peaceful and prosperous.
Red Youth was pleased to support a handful of the many hundreds of picket lines organised across the country today in defense of the NHS. Thousands of workers staged a 4 hour stoppage in protest against a provocative 1% pay rise (in effect a serious pay cut).
In July 2010, barely two months after a general election campaign in which the Tories promised “no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS”, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announced the new government’s plans for the biggest restructuring of the NHS since its foundation in 1948.
Yet such bare-faced contempt for the British public profoundly misjudged the fact that these days, with disillusionment with mainstream politics at record levels, only the pathologically naïve would fail to see the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 for what it really is: the final outright privatisation of the NHS.
There has been a huge upsurge of popular opposition to the proposals, with inspired campaign groups like 38 Degrees and Keep Our NHS Public spearheading the fight alongside NHS workers themselves. As usual the do-nothing tactics of the Labour party and TUC have been put thoroughly to shame by the dedication, courage, and ingenuity of these activists.
Yet all too often even the likes of 38 Degrees leave themselves exposed by a superficial analysis that, for example, sees the HASC Bill as the personal project of Lansley himself – a problem that could perhaps be removed if only Lansley could be removed, if only the government could somehow be persuaded to ‘see sense’.
Always in the background there lurks the dangerous illusion that every British worker should by now know to avoid like the plague: that if only a Labour government were in office, all would be well.
Meanwhile, Lansley has given way to Jeremy Hunt, and the privatisation drive is intensifying rather than abating. The latest proposals, if they pass into law, will make it compulsory for GPs to open up all areas of health provision to private companies – something that Lansley stated emphatically last year would definitely not happen!
Privatisation and profiteering
Those who attempt to defend the last Labour government’s record on the NHS typically point to the increase in funding from 1999. But while some of that money did go to frontline care, this actually occurred only as an accidental and temporary trickle-down side effect of the real policies driving increased spending at that time: the likes of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) that sought easy profit opportunities for big business by mortgaging NHS assets to private banking consortia.
While the huge increase in public funding for the NHS (from £49bn in 1999/2000 to £119bn in 2009/10) that this covert privatisation process entailed was temporarily sustainable during the last decade’s cheap credit boom, the capitalist economy’s catastrophic tailspin into global recession means this is quite clearly no longer the case.
This is the rationale behind the ongoing so-called ‘Nicholson Challenge’ for the NHS to make £20bn-worth of cuts in ‘efficiency savings’ by 2015. And let us remember that this target of £20bn was announced to leading NHS doctors before the ConDem government was elected – ie, by the last Labour government.
If decency and common sense governed political decisions in Britain, these savings and more could easily be made by targeting the obvious source of the gross inefficiency that has caused NHS spending to spiral out of control in the first place: ie, by cancelling PFI debt and removing all private-sector involvement in the running of the NHS.
But capitalism does not quite work that way; and so wards and whole hospitals are closed and clinical staff thrown out of work so that corporate interests can continue to profit out of the NHS.
The media spin that persists in its weasel attempts to invert this reality, blaming spiralling NHS spending on an ageing population, or rising patient expectations, or the mythical ‘inherent inefficiency of the public sector’ should fool no-one. The US healthcare system is entirely privately-owned, and is the most expensive and inefficient in the developed world, costing $6,719 per person per year while leaving 50+ million Americans uninsured and millions more seriously underinsured.
The socialist alternative
In stark contrast, socialist Cuba’s health system, entirely publicly-owned, is able to provide free comprehensive health care for all at a cost of only $362 per person per year, achieving population health statistics rivalling and even surpassing those of developed countries.
The difference? At no point in the Cuban system is there anybody who is driving up costs by making a profit. Moreover, the fact that the state is the sole provider of health care avoids the obscenely wasteful duplication, cherry-picking, and poor coordination of services that inevitably arise when multiple inter-competing private providers are involved.
Though Cuba’s healthcare achievements are relatively well-known these days, it is less widely recognised that the inspiration for the Cuban system was that of the Soviet Union; still less that the Soviet system – as the world’s first free universal healthcare system – also served as the model for Britain’s NHS itself.
Though Labour are invariably credited as the benefactors of the NHS, the fact is that the NHS was effectively a concession made by British capitalism due to the relative strength of the working class in the aftermath of the triumph of Soviet socialism in the second world war.
Many things have changed since then. The collapse of the USSR has meant that British capitalism no longer feels compelled to make such concessions to workers to deter them from revolution. Moreover, the profits from reconstruction of industry that fuelled the post-war boom have long since dried up, with capitalists increasingly turning to the option of easy taxpayer-funded bonanzas arising from the privatisation of public services: utilities, railways, education … and the NHS.
Since the end of the post-war boom, Labour governments have been just as complicit as the Tories in the slow liquidation of the NHS. It was the Callaghan administration of 1976-79 that began the process of hospital closures, while the Blair government not only kept the Tories’ internal market but further accelerated NHS privatisation by transforming NHS Trusts into ‘Foundation’ Trusts – embryonic private hospitals.
The lesson of history is clear: the problem is not merely the HASC Bill and subsequent regulations, to be resolved simply by getting rid of Lansley, Hunt or Cameron, or – God forbid – by voting Labour at the next election, but the whole rotten capitalist system, which, in its insatiable desire for profit, will continue its merciless attack on the living standards of working-class people until it itself is overthrown.
