Dolores Ibárruri

Posted on 2nd March 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

Red Youth salutes the revolutionary women of the world! Our young cadre will be publishing short pieces all this week to celebrate our revolutionary heroines in the run up to International Women’s Day. Today, Austin, aged 15 from Leeds, discusses Dolores Ibárruri.

Red Youth will be meeting to celebrate International Women’s Day on 9 March, at 1.00pm, at the CPGB-ML party centre 274 Moseley Road, Highgate, Birmingham.

No passaran! (They shall not pass!)

– La Pasionaria

Dolores Ibárruri was an inspirational leader, a revolutionary fighter and an influential speaker who was heavily involved in the resistance movement against the fascist rebellion by General Franco that sparked the Spanish Civil War.

Dolores was born in Gallarta, Spain on 9 December 1895 into a family of miners. She experienced horrendous poverty as a child and her dream of becoming a teacher was never realised, owing to her parents’ inability to finance her education. Instead, she became a seamstress and then a housemaid.

Her husband, an active trade unionist and revolutionary socialist, was imprisoned for his part in the general strike of 1917, and, as a consequence, her financial situation deteriorated. She spent her nights reading Karl Marx and other books she found in the library of the local workers’ centre, and his works influenced her to become a communist.

In 1920, Dolores was elected onto the provincial committee of the newly-founded Basque Communist Party and, ten years later, she was promoted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). During these years, Dolores had six children. Of her five daughters, four died very young. Her only son died at the battle of Stalingrad, leaving just one daughter to survive into adulthood and old age.

Comrade Ibárruri was a regular writer for the party’s newspaper, Mundo Obrero, signing off her works with the pseudonym La Pasionaria (Passionflower) – a name she coined when she wrote her first article against religious hypocrisy for a miners’ newspaper in 1918. She used her journalism as a platform to campaign against the unfair treatment of women in the country and to improve their lot through socialist revolution. In 1931, she was appointed the paper’s editor and moved to Madrid.

That year also saw the beginning of the second republic in Spain. King Alfonso III left the country when a majority of seats at the election were won by anti-monarchist candidates. During the first five years of the republic, communists continued to be persecuted, however, particularly after the fascistic, semi-feudal coalition of right-wing forces that made up CEDA won the 1933 election. Dolores was jailed four times in this period.

In 1936, the policy of the united front was adopted by communists all over Europe, and the Spanish Popular Front emerged victorious in the February election. The communists gained enough votes for a single seat in parliament – and it was taken by Dolores. The Popular Front’s electoral programme had included a commitment to freeing all political prisoners, so, without waiting for any other authorisation Comrade Ibárruri went straight to the jail to see her comrades released:

As soon as the victory of the Popular Front in the elections became known I, already an elect member of parliament, showed up at the prison of Oviedo the next morning, went to the office of the director, who had fled in a mad panic because he had behaved like a genuine criminal toward the Asturian prisoners interned after the revolution of October 1934, and there I found the administrator, to whom I said, ‘Give me the keys because the prisoners must be released this very day.’

He replied, ‘I have not received any orders,’ and I answered, ‘I am a member of the republic’s parliament, and I demand that you hand over the keys immediately to set the prisoners free.’ He handed them over and I assure you that it was the most thrilling day of my activist life, opening the cells and shouting, ‘Comrades, everyone get out!’ Truly thrilling.

I did not wait for parliament to sit or for the release order to be given. I reasoned: ‘We have run on the promise of freedom for the prisoners of the revolution of 1934. We won – today the prisoners go free.’

However, in the face of the newly-forged alliance between social democrats, republicans and communists, the fascists struck back, backed up by military aid from Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. They launched a full-scale rebellion under the leadership of General Franco against the newly-elected progressive government.

Imperialism, which was seriously threatened by the developments in republican Spain, sought to strangle the country’s progressive forces by sending aid to the fascists while preventing aid getting through to the government. In this way, it hoped to hold back the rising tide of working-class militancy and communism.

At a time when fascism – the most nakedly brutal form of monopoly capitalism, in which all pretence of democracy was being discarded in favour of an iron dictatorship aimed at keeping down the workers’ anger at a time of deep capitalist crisis – was on the rise and spreading throughout Europe, the western media was publishing propaganda against, no, not Germany, Italy or Spain, but against the Soviet Union.

The ‘collectivisation famine’ lie was published in 1935 by the Hearst press at a time when socialism was proving itself to be the only sane solution to the worsening capitalist crisis and the rise of fascism. Instead of hailing the achievements of the industrialisation and collectivisation programmes in the USSR under Stalin’s leadership, the ‘democratic’ capitalists chose to demonise socialism and to support the rise of fascism.

The British, French and US imperialists, while claiming to uphold democracy, refused to help the Spanish government against Franco. They drew up a ‘non-intervention’ agreement that pretended to be neutral, but was in reality aimed at cutting off supplies to the republic. This did not help Dolores and the revolutionaries in Spain who were defending their nation against the fascists.

However, with a little help from its friends – namely, the Soviet Union and Mexico – the People’s Army (the resistance movement formed by the anti-fascists in Spain) was supported by the formation of the International Brigades.

The call went out from the Comintern (the Communist International) to revolutionaries in Europe, the Americas and all over the world that volunteers were needed to fight with their brothers and sisters in Spain against fascism. Meanwhile, Comrade Ibárruri was very active on the committee that transferred funds from the Comintern to the republican army.

As well as giving every possible support to the formation of the brigades, the Soviet Union helped directly by sending food, medicine, equipment and advisors to the resistance forces, even as it was also busy preparing itself for the biggest and most catastrophic war the world had ever seen. The Soviet Union’s leaders understood that the war in Spain and the rise of fascism were both symptoms of the deepening capitalist crisis, and that the crisis was bound to lead to a bigger conflict if not stopped by revolution.

Throughout the civil war, Dolores was extremely active, and she coined many of the republicans’ most famous slogans. As chief propagandist for the republican forces, she ended a radio speech in 1936 with the famous words, “The fascists shall not pass! No pasaran!” This passionate slogan became the battle cry for the republican army, who defended the city for three long years.

Later, at a meeting for the women of Spain, she famously stated: “It is better to be the widows of heroes than the wives of cowards!” And, in 1936, at rallies in both France and Belgium to mobilise support for the republican army, she cried:

The Spanish people would rather die on its feet than live on its knees!

However, the republican army was threatened from within by the formation of POUM (Worker’s Party of Marxist Unification), a coalition of Trotskyite and anarchistic parties. The POUM objected vigorously to the influence of the Soviet Union within the republican army, and did much to undermine the discipline of the republican forces. POUM was dubbed the fascist “fifth column” after Emilio Mola, a fascist general, stated in an interview in 1936 that he had four columns of soldiers heading towards Madrid and a fifth one (the POUM) behind enemy lines.

The POUM’s endless demands for ultra-revolutionary sounding measures such as self-governming workers’ co-ops in the cities and immediate collectivisation in the countryside were not only a diversion from the urgent struggle against fascism but an outright service to fascism. Trotskyism in the Service of Franco, written by George Soria and based on first-hand observation and on the study and analysis of official documents and papers, explains how this came about.

In the end, the republican army could not hold off the might of Franco’s army, which was financed heavily by Germany and Italy, and the republicans eventually lost the civil war. On 1 November 1939, Dolores made a powerful speech to over 13,000 people at a farewell parade in Barcelona expressing her gratitude to all the volunteers who had come to the aid of the republican government from the people of Spain:

From all peoples, from all races, you came to us like brothers, like sons of immortal Spain; and in the hardest days of the war, when the capital of the Spanish republic was threatened, it was you, gallant comrades of the International Brigades, who helped save the city with your fighting enthusiasm, your heroism and your spirit of sacrifice …

Today many are departing … You can go proud. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality in the face of the vile and accommodating spirit of those who interpret democratic principles with their eyes on hoards of wealth or corporate shares which they want to safeguard from all risk.

At the end of the war, Dolores fled to the Soviet Union, where she lived a happy life, despite the difficulties and tragedies of the war.

Her son fought for the Red Army but sadly died at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. Delores remained active within the PCE and became the party’s secretary general in May 1944. She lived in Moscow for many years, receiving the Lenin Peace Prize in 1964 and the Order of Lenin Prize in 1965.

When General Franco died, Dolores moved back to Spain and in 1977 she was once more elected as a deputy to the Cortes (Spanish parliament).

On 12 November 1989, at the age of 93, Dolores Ibárruri died of pneumonia. Although only one of her daughters survived her, her legacy lives on in countless generations of the men and women workers all over the world that she inspired with her bravery, her steadfastness and her indomitable spirit.

La Pasionaria is remembered as a woman who never capitulated to fascism; who fought for rights for women and who tied those rights to the need for socialism. She was a revolutionary fighter, an activist, a writer and a speaker. Her inspiration is a shining star whose light guides us in our struggle against imperialism and reaction, and for liberation and socialism.

La Pasionaria statue in Glasgow, Scotland

Constance Markiewicz

Posted on 1st March 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

Red Youth salutes the revolutionary women of the world! Our young cadre will be publishing short pieces all this week to celebrate our revolutionary heroines in the run up to International Women’s Day. Today Jamie, aged 25, discusses Constance Markiewicz.

Red Youth will be meeting to celebrate International Women’s Day on 9 March, at 1.00pm, at the CPGB-ML party centre 274 Moseley Road, Highgate, Birmingham.

I did what I thought was right and I stand by it.

– Constance Markiewicz

Revolutionary socialist was not an obvious vocational choice for Constance Markiewicz. The eldest daughter of Arctic explorer Sir Henry Gore-Booth, an Anglo-Irish protestant landlord, and Lady Georgina Gore Booth, Constance was born into relative privilege.

She was a talented artist and studied at the prestigious Académie Julian in Paris, where she met her future husband, Count Kazimierz Markiewicz, a Polish nobleman.

Yet, within this affluent upbringing, there lay confronting experiences that began to shape Constance’s political outlook:

Her father, a wealthy landlord, offered free food to local people during the agonising and genocidal British imperialist-engineered Great Famine between 1840-52.

Constance and her sister Eva were childhood friends of the poet WB Yeats, who was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

She had interactions with progressive movements, including suffragettes, as a student in London and Paris.

The creation of the Gaelic League – a formally apolitical group concerned with the preservation of Irish culture, but which comprised many nationalists and future political leaders – offered further exposure to radical ideals.

And, as is claimed in folklore, Constance rented a small cottage in the countryside outside Dublin. The previous tenant, poet Padraic Colum, left behind copies of revolutionary journals such as The Peasant and Sinn Fein, which promoted Irish freedom from British imperialism.

These experiences inspired a transformation from a life of privilege to a commitment to economic, political and social equality for all.

The years 1908-09 saw a rapid development of Constance’s political activities: she joined Sinn Fein and Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland); travelled to Manchester to support the suffragettes’ successful attempt to oppose Winston Churchill’s election to parliament; and – of vital importance to the cause of Irish liberation – created a paramilitary youth movement, Fianna Éireann, to educate teenage boys and girls on the use of firearms.

Soon after, in 1913, Ireland experienced the most severe industrial dispute of its history. The Dublin Lock-out was the culmination of a series of industrial struggles that aimed to win trade-union rights for workers. Irish workers lived in some of the worst conditions in all of Europe; the mix of slum housing, poor sanitation and little access to health care made the rapid spread of disease, including tuberculosis, inevitable. In this context, the workers, lacking any representation, were brutally exploited by the industrial capitalists.

James Larkin, the talented organiser and orator, recruited many into the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), and demanded improved conditions. Whilst wealthy capitalists locked unionised workers out of their jobs, starving them, and employed blackleg labour from Britain and elsewhere in Ireland, the struggle had two crucial legacies: it developed the culture of industrial action and trade unionism in Ireland; and introduced socialist ideals firmly in the context of Irish nationalism and the question of Home Rule.

Constance Markiewicz supported the workers throughout the seven-month lock-out by organising voluntary food production and distributing it amongst the hungry and destitute families. This activity was self-funded by selling many of her own possessions.

Markiewicz also encountered the legendary Marxist James Connolly during this period. Connolly had formed the Irish Citizens Army (ICA) to defend the workers from police brutality; several hundred had been savagely beaten by the authorities during the lock-out. She quickly joined the ICA and injected it with her interest in culture – designing a military uniform and creating songs to professionalise and inspire the army.

The Irish Citizens Army went on to play a central role in the Easter Rising of 1916. This extraordinary event, again, placed socialism and the demand for equality at the heart of the national independence movement.

Markiewicz did not assume a secondary or subservient role – as early 20th-century society may have expected – but served as an armed lieutenant, directing her own unit, supervising the barricades, personally wounding a British sniper and holding her position for six days.

The rebellion was suppressed by British bombs and the leaders surrendered after the military had destroyed large parts of Dublin. However, as with the Dublin Lock-out three years earlier, the Easter Rising’s success was not its immediate material gain, but the legacy of inspiring generations of Irish men and women to fight for freedom against British imperialism.

It also demonstrated to the people of Europe, notably the Bolsheviks of Russia, that turning your guns on your real enemy – imperialist, colonialist states – and away from other working-class people during the first world war (1914-18) was a most revolutionary act.

Markiewicz was sentenced to death, along with other leaders, including Connolly, for her role in the rebellion. This was later converted to life imprisonment after the British feared that executing a woman would prompt further social unrest. In court she proclaimed: “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me.”

In the 1918 general election, after being released as part of an amnesty, Constance Markiewicz was elected as MP for Dublin St Patrick’s constituency. This made her the first woman ever elected to the House of Commons. She, in accordance with Sinn Fein policy, refused to take a seat in the British parliament.

Markiewicz Election Success — Procession to celebrate Markiewicz’s election

The remarkable life of Constance Markiewicz continues to inspire countless young people. Whilst the capitalists tolerate – and even manipulate and revere – ‘charitable’ women, they despise revolutionary ones. They fear nothing more than women who are committed to education, organisation and liberation.

Markiewicz infused national independence with socialism; republicanism with feminism; and charity with empowerment. She is an example to revolutionaries everywhere.

Why should you be celebrating International Women’s Day?

Posted on 28th February 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

Red Youth salutes the revolutionary women of the world!

We’d like to take the time over the coming week – until International Women’s Day on 8 March – to discuss why women’s liberation is a key part of the struggle against capitalism, and to remember some inspiring female comrades, past and present, who struggled for the liberation of their people, the liberation of the working class, and who recognised that special attention had to be paid, within these struggles, to the liberation of women, from their subordinate role in society, and the special and additional oppression that women face due to their sex alone.

Women hold up half the sky

– Mao Zedong

Red Youth will be meeting to celebrate International Women’s Day on 9 March, at 1.00pm, at the CPGB-ML party centre 274 Moseley Road, Highgate, Birmingham.

Without the participation of women there will be no revolution!

It will soon be International Women’s Day, a day now used by many capitalist governments in an attempt to portray themselves as ‘progressive’ or ‘egalitarian’.

Formerly known as ‘International Working Women’s Day’ it was celebrated by communists the world over – in the Soviet Union, China, Spain, Germany, and countless other countries – to pay tribute to the efforts and struggles of labouring women.

However, in an unsurprising turn, it was robbed of its core message by the UN, when it was officially decreed that 8 March would be a day for capitalist governments to not only remove the focus on working women, but also to demonise non-western nations in the name of ‘progressivism’.

But there can be no end to misogynistic culture under capitalism, as misogyny is simply too profitable. Mainstream cinema, the cosmetics industry, fashion, general advertising, television, the music industry, and pornography are all hugely lucrative industries that require a culture of misogyny to sustain their existence.

We, as communists, will honour International Women’s Day by acknowledging that capitalism is not the origin of misogyny, but that misogyny cannot be eradicated within capitalism. It is a day to celebrate the achievements of heroic communist women and to think deeply about the way in which misogyny will be rejected both in a future socialist society and within current communist organisations.

Be a revolutionary, not a cheerleader!

Most importantly, it is the role of communists to oppose the idea that women are inherently passive and inherently weak in their attitude, mind, and spirit. A good illustration of how deeply ingrained these attitudes are in capitalist societies is Wang Zheng’s account from Some of Us, a collection of memoirs from women who grew up during the Cultural Revolution:

Not long after I arrived in the United States, I met an American woman at a friend’s home. She told me with apparent pride that her daughter was a cheerleader. I did not know what kind of leader that was. Hearing her explanation, I could not bring myself to present a compliment, as she obviously expected.

I just hoped that my eyes would not betray my disdain as I thought to myself, ‘I guess this American woman has never dreamed of her daughter being a leader cheered by men.’ I feel fortunate that I was “brainwashed” to want to be a revolutionary instead of a cheerleader.

In capitalist society women are expected to be the ‘cheerleaders’ for both working men when they are generating profit for the ruling classes and echoing the media’s misogyny, and for capitalist men when they gather ever greater profits off of the backs of the workers of the world.

It is our duty to ensure that while capitalism is destroyed, alongside it goes misogyny, so that such prejudices will never again blight human progress.

Red Youth is having a meeting in Birmingham on 9 March to discuss and celebrate the role of revolutionary women in the struggle to defeat capitalism, imperialism, and fascism, and how women’s liberation is intrinsically linked with workers’ liberation and communism.

Join us to celebrate International Women’s Day!

Meeting: Sunday 9 March at 1.00pm

Venue: 274 Moseley Road, Highgate, Birmingham, B12 0BS

Celebrate International Women’s Day!

Posted on 27th February 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

Celebrate Interational Women's Day — “Not a single great movement of the oppressed in the history of mankind has been able to do without the participation of working women”

Red Youth will be meeting to celebrate International Women’s Day on 9 March, at 1.00pm, at the CPGB-ML party centre 274 Moseley Road, Highgate, Birmingham.

Comrades Ella and Joti will ask what 45 years of women’s liberation has done for us, and why there are still so few women involved in politics in 21st-century Britain.

As the crisis deepens, the situation of women is becoming worse and not better. The few areas in which women could find some support are being ruthlessly cut. While taxation rises, wages plunge in inverse proportion to rising unemployment.

Experience shows that it is only under socialism that women’s needs can really be given priority, for it is only under socialism that the whole of production is geared to serving the needs of working people in general rather than the interests of profit, which always grudges every penny spent on wages and social facilities.

Women workers must stand shoulder to shoulder with the revolutionary proletariat as a whole to overthrow capitalism and establish and build socialism. And it stands to reason that the revolutionary proletariat must always put attending to the needs of the working-class women as one of their most urgent priorities, both in their demands on the capitalist class and in the measures that they implement as soon as they seize state power.

Join us to celebrate International Women’s Day!

At: 1pm on Sunday 9th March 2014

Venue: 274 Moseley Road, Highgate, Birmingham, B12 0BS

From Mao to Now meeting held in Liverpool

Posted on 22nd February 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

Members and supporters of the Communist Party met in Liverpool to listen to a talk given by Comrade Keith Bennett of the CPGB-ML on the topic of China-From Mao to now. A lively discussion was followed with active participation from the audience.

Comrades talked about the outstanding achievements of Chairman Mao and his support for class struggle around the world, in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea during the Korean War and in Vietnam.

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Baseless UN report on human rights in DPRK is a propaganda tool against socialist Korea and China

Posted on 19th February 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), part of the UN Human Rights Council, released a damning 372-page report on 17 February 2014 alleging “wide-ranging and ongoing crimes against humanity” in the country.

Michael Kirby presenting Report on Human Rights in the DPRK — UN report presented by Michael Kirby urges western intervention against the DPRK.

The report claimed to have supporting documents revealing widespread torture, enslavement, murder and enforced starvation in a system of political prison camps, known as kwanliso.

It also urged the international community to “accept its responsibility to protect the people of the DPRK … because the government has manifestly failed to do so”. In fact, the chairperson, Michael Kirby, an Australian judge, has written to Kim Jong Un stating that he may be held personally responsible and faces referral to the International Criminal Court.

It also recommended introducing further sanctions against the DPRK and increased pressure on China to withdraw its support from its longstanding ally.

International media endorsed the report’s findings and the story occupied the central headlines in newspapers and broadcasts across the world. Commentators, politicians, and academics – promoted as ‘experts’ on the Korean peninsula – compared the situation to that of Nazi Germany and demanded international action.

The reaction has been a stage-managed cacophony of emotive and uninformed propaganda, and it constitutes an extremely serious, imperialist-orchestrated assault on the DPRK’s people and government.

As in the cases of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, the imperialists know that to lay the ground for a genocidal assault, the minds of the people must be conditioned to accept the casualties that will result from such a war as ‘necessary’ – as the ‘lesser evil’.

We note that the ‘report’ is used as the basis for a call for military action against the DPRK. Such a war would not be the first genocide that the USA, clothed in ‘UN’ colours, has committed on the Korean Peninsula. Peace-loving, democratic and progressive people the world over must be mindful of history and guard against this psychological warfare. We have seen just how many lives it costs – and that the cost is also our own freedom.

A careful and critical analysis of the report, which has not been conducted by mainstream academics and journalists, reveals serious concerns with its methodology.

Despite its unanimity, the report does not contain a single piece of evidence taken from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. There are no photographs, no video recordings, and no credible documents of evidence of any of the alleged incidents or sites that the report describes.

The report’s findings are based on the testimonies of 80 people – including alleged defectors and ‘experts’ on DPR Korea – at public hearings in Seoul, Tokyo, London, and Washington – the capitals of the very countries that have committed the worst crimes against Korea over the last century and more. The report’s authors also claim to have been informed by ‘secret interviews’ with approximately 240 others.

The important question to ask ourselves is: why has this report been commissioned? We know that imperialism has no interest whatsoever in upholding international law or in protecting the rights of minorities – or even of the masses. Quite the reverse, in fact! There is every reason for us to feel suspicious when the biggest bandits and war criminals on the planet are shouting in a heavily-orchestrated chorus about the ‘crimes’ of their enemies.

And, indeed, there is an established history of slander and falsifications made against socialist, anti-imperialist and non-aligned countries by the so-called ‘international community’ (aka the club of imperialist powers).

Recent history shows us many cases of ‘witness’ and ‘expert’ testimonies claiming to have ‘overwhelming evidence’ of heinous crimes that have been false. In each case, the uncovering of the ‘crime’ has served a propaganda purpose and provided moral justification for an imperialist war crime.

In 1990, in an emotional testimony given before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a witness claimed to have seen Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait removing hundreds of babies from incubators – stealing the equipment and watching the children die. The allegation was corroborated by Amnesty International, circulated throughout international media and used as moral justification for the US-led invasion of Iraq in the Gulf war of 1991.

False testimony used to Justify Iraq War - there were no "babies thrown from incubators by Iraqi troops" — False testimony used to justify Iraq war – there were no “babies thrown from incubators by Iraqi troops”.

In 1992, however, it was revealed that the witness was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and a member of ‘Citizens of a Free Kuwait’ – a government propaganda campaign group. An investigative journalist report later found that Iraqi troops had no part in the death of babies in the country.

It was a total fiction; a journalistic crime perpetrated at the behest of the Anglo-American billionaire class, with purely cynical and anti-popular motives from start to finish.

This shameful propaganda practice is hardly without precedent. In 1964, the United States invented the Tonkin Incident to justify going to war with North Vietnam.

In 2002, in the September (‘dodgy’) dossier, Tony Blair claimed that Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ capable of being deployed against British bases in Cyprus within 45 minutes. In 2011, the United Nations claimed that Muammar Gaddafi provided ‘viagra-like’ drugs and ordered troops to sexually assault Libyan women.

These accusations were taken up and amplified by the international media and by ‘non-governmental’ agencies such as Amnesty International, and provided moral justifications for war. They were all proven to be completely untrue, but the damage caused was irreversible.

This list is certainly not exhaustive. It is simply ‘routine’ imperialist psy-ops military practice. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident fabricated to 'justify' War against Vietnam — Gulf of Tonkin Incident fabricated to ‘justify’ war against Vietnam.

Indeed, in the Korean peninsula there exists an entire industry of falsification. Stories of crimes against humanity – the more wild and ridiculous the better – are printed as fact. They contain no evidence and rely on information from unverifiable sources.

A central part of this industry of falsification, fantasy and illusion is the use of ‘defectors’ from DPR Korea. It is alleged that there are tens of thousands of defectors – now living in south Korea, Japan, the United States and Europe – although this is incredibly difficult to verify.

Whilst defections do happen in all systems, there has always been a sizeable ethnic Korean population in China, since national borders never conform entirely to the distribution of national-ethnic populations.

Indeed, Koreans, as an oppressed nationality under Japanese occupation between 1905 and 1945, and as one of China’s own many nationalities, were involved from the early stages in the struggles of the Chinese communist party and of the Red Army – the forerunner of today’s People’s Liberation Army.

Koreans fought alongside their Chinese comrades during both the Long March and the anti-fascist war waged to liberate both Manchuria and Korea from the brutal rule of Japanese imperialism. They were fighting heroically against the Japanese long before Pearl Harbour brought the USA into WW2.

There is also a community of more recent economic migrants in the north-eastern provinces of China – drawn in part by the growing Chinese economy and driven to a degree by the effects of the vicious sanctions regime imposed by US imperialism on the DPR Korea, , as well as being the natural result of the regular interchange between the countries.

The authorities in south Korea, along with all sorts of imperialist agencies, have been agitating within these communities and offering huge financial incentives to those willing to publicly allege atrocities committed by the DPRK government. There are a number of examples of high-profile defectors signing publishing deals for books and films and winning celebrity status in south Korea.

Anti-communist propaganda industry grinds on in south Korea, while citizens are imprisoned for speaking out in favour of the communist north

In fact, the first individual to testify at the public hearings of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK was Shin Dong Hyuk, the co-author (along with an American ‘ghost writer’) of Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.

This is an infamous book that contains gripping – though unverified – stories of terror and brutality that would not be out of place in a (needless to say fictional) Hollywood blockbuster. It is without fact or verifiable evidence and has, naturally, been made into a film. Indeed, Shin has changed his story on numerous occasions. As in the heyday of anti-Soviet writing, the burden of proof remains astoundingly low when it comes to anti-communist propaganda!

Lucrative Anti-communist Propaganda Industry in S Korea - Killing the Truth — Lucrative anti-communist propaganda industry in south Korea – killing the truth.

Shin was instructed during the UN public testimony that if he did not have enough time to submit evidence he could instruct the panel to consult his book. When asked why he and his family were imprisoned he said he could not remember, but he thinks his family may have collaborated with ‘the south’ during the war, although, of course, the war ended long before he was born.

There is no way that Shin can prove his lurid claims, but the material incentive for making them is clear. He now divides his time between homes in Seoul and New York and enjoys international stardom.

Shin’s media success encouraged dozens of others to come forward and make all sorts of equally lurid accusations against the DPRK. However, they are finding that the industry is becoming saturated. Once promised thousands of dollars, book and film deals, and celebrity status, ‘defectors’ are now finding that what awaits them is a life of debt, unemployment and exclusion from south Korean society.

So much so, that here has been a change in direction – even recognised by the south Korean government – as hundreds of people claiming to have suffered ‘terrible abuses’ and to have escaped from the DPRK in fear for their lives are now attempting to re-defect back to the north.

In an interview with Public Radio International, a man who allegedly helped dozens of ‘defectors’ settle in south Korea says that many, including himself, want to return to the DPR Korea. Speaking from Seoul, Son Jeong Hun said that in his experience “eighty out of a hundre defectors want to go back to north Korea”.

The road home, however, is perilous. It was, after all, the US and its south Korean fascist puppets who divided the country, and who built the wall perpetuating that separation. They have made it a crime to speak out in favour of the communist north – and one that is regularly punished by imprisonment.

Indeed, in the very same week that this report was published, a south Korean MP has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for sympathising with the north – no outcry from the ‘human rights’ lobby here.

In another interview, one of the ‘double defectors’, as they are dubbed, explained that, after being duped by the offer of large sums of money, she experienced subhuman treatment in the south.

Pak Jong-suk, a double defector, speaks at a press conference in North Korea on June 28 during which she admitted to defecting to the South and lambasted the capitalist system she experienced. Pak said she defected to see her father, who lived in the South, and called her decision “foolish.” [YONHAP] — Pak Jong-Suk, a double defector, speaks at a press conference in north Korea on 28 June, during which she admitted to defecting to the south and lambasted the capitalist system she experienced there. Pak said she defected to see her father, who lived in the south, and called her decision “foolish”. [YONHAP]

It must surely seem peculiar to even the most sceptical observer that hundreds of people who claim to have defected from a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship that is supposed to be committing ‘heinous crimes against humanity’ actively seek to return to that state.

Moreover, it is claimed that many more would return to Pyongyang if it wasn’t for repressive acts of the south Korean authorities. It is illegal for any citizen of south Korea to publicly sympathise with the north and many people have been imprisoned for doing so. Repatriation to the DPRK is, as mentioned above, also criminalised by the repressive south Korean regime.

There is not a single shred of first-hand evidence of crimes against humanity in the DPRK. There are also serious concerns, as detailed in this article, about the credibility of the second and third-hand accounts provided in the report.

It is remarkable that a UN commission has published a report condemning a sovereign state and recommending economic sanctions – and alluding to other interventions – on such flimsy evidence. But that is the reality that socialist, independent and non-aligned states face because they do not bend to the influence of the imperialist states that control the United Nations.

It was, let us not forget, under a UN flag that 4 million Koreans were slaughtered in he US-led genocide between 1950-53.

There is, on the other hand, a huge array of first-hand, independently-verified evidence to prove the claims of atrocities and crimes against humanity committed on the Korean peninsula by imperialism.

International war crimes tribunal charges United States with “criminal and even genocidal conduct”

In 2003, fifty years after the official cessation of the conflict, an international war crimes tribunal sitting in New York found that the United States – supported by British troops – committed atrocities against civilians during the Korean war. Despite the denial of visas to key individuals who wanted to testify, the evidence collected was overwhelming.

In 1950, US-led massacres killed approximately one quarter of the population of Sinchon county – 35,383 people – mostly non-combatants, elderly people, women and children.

US and ROK Massacres - 4.7 million killed during 'Korean War' 1950-53 — US and ROK massacres – 4.7 million killed during ‘Korean war’, 1950-53.

In October 1950, US troops forced 900 people into a building and set it alight. In another area, 1,000 women were drowned.

The 2nd Battalion, 7th US Cavalry regiment murdered up to 500 civilian refugees in No Gun Ri that same year.

After the initial attack, the refugees fled into a culvert and a tunnel beneath the bridge. US forces set up machine guns at either end of the culvert and tunnel. For over three entire days the machine gunners killed those who tried to leave, killing, according to the TRCK, an additional 300:xxvii “‘There was a lieutenant screaming like a madman, fire on everything, kill ‘em all,’ recalls 7th Cavalry veteran Joe Jackman. ‘I didn’t know if they were soldiers or what. Kids, there was kids out there, it didn’t matter what it was, eight to 80, blind, crippled or crazy, they shot ‘em all.’”xxviii Soldiers with small arms would, as time passed, approach the culvert to pick off any survivors. A survivor, 12 at the time, said: “The American soldiers played with our lives like boys playing with flies.”xxix Bruce Cumings believes that there was a concerted effort to ensure that there were no surviving witnesses. — After the initial attack, the refugees fled into a culvert and a tunnel beneath the bridge. US forces set up machine guns at either end of the culvert and tunnel. For over three days the machine gunners shot down those who tried to leave, killing, according to the TRCK, an additional 300. “‘There was a lieutenant screaming like a madman, fire on everything, kill ’em all,’ recalls 7th Cavalry veteran Joe Jackman. ‘I didn’t know if they were soldiers or what. Kids, there was kids out there, it didn’t matter what it was, eight to 80, blind, crippled or crazy, they shot ’em all.'” Soldiers with small arms would, as time passed, approach the culvert to pick off any survivors. A survivor, 12 at the time, said: “The American soldiers played with our lives like boys playing with flies.” Bruce Cumings believes that there was a concerted effort to ensure that there were no surviving witnesses.

In 1948, a quarter of the population of Jeju island was exterminated because it did not support the US-backed regime.

a communist revolt on Jeju island off the south coast of the Korean Peninsula, beginning on April 3, 1948. Between 14,000 and 60,000 individuals were killed in fighting between various factions on the island or were executed. The brutal suppression of this rebellion by the South Korean army resulted in many deaths, the destruction of many villages on the island, and more rebellions on the Korean mainland. — A communist revolt on Jeju island off the south coast of the Korean Peninsula, beginning on 3 April 1948. Between 14,000 and 60,000 individuals were killed in fighting between various factions on the island or were executed. The brutal suppression of this rebellion by the south Korean army resulted in many deaths, the destruction of many villages on the island, and more rebellions on the Korean mainland.

The tribunal concluded that, between 25 June 1950 and 17 July 1953, over 4.6 million Koreans perished – including 3 million civilians in the north and 500,00 civilians in the south. The evidence overwhelmingly supported the charge that the United States was guilty of “criminal and even genocidal conduct”.

US ‘war hero’ and ‘democrat’ General Douglas MacArthur boasted of bombing Korea ‘back into the stone age’

A variety of evidence – from eye-witness testimonies to physical documentation – showed “the systematic levelling of most buildings and dwellings by US artillery and aerial bombardment; widespread atrocities committed by US and ROK forces against civilians and prisoners of war; the deliberate destruction of facilities essential to civilian life and economic production; and the use of illegal weapons and biological and chemical warfare by the US against the people and the environment of northern Korea”.

It showed that the US used weapons banned by the articles of war, including bacteriological and chemical weapons. US planes had dropped canisters containing organisms infected with plague, cholera and other epidemic diseases.

We bombed Pyongyang 'back into the stone age' - Boasts US General McArthur — We bombed Pyongyang ‘back into the stone age’, boasted US General McArthur.

Napalm was used by the US military on an industrial scale against the Korean people.

And from Pyongyang to Fallujah, the US has never looked back.

The tribunal also found “gross and systematic violence committed against women in northern and southern Korea, characterised by mass rapes, sexual assaults and murders”.

Furthermore, there is evidence of numerous other atrocities having been committed against Korean civilians by both the US and their south Korean puppets in the decades after the war.

In 1980, the National Security Law was implemented by the US-backed military dictatorship in south Korea and was used to imprison up to 1 million civilians. Following an uprising in which the city of Kwangju was temporarily liberated, up to two thousand demonstrators, including workers and students, were massacred, and thousands more were injured.

The United States has also enforced economic sanctions on the DPRK since the 1950s. This has deprived the country of materials essential for civilian life including petroleum, medicines and a host of technologies to improve urban and rural infrastructure and food production.

Moreover, the artificial partition of Korea deprives the DPRK of much fertile land. This has caused difficulties in the production of food, particularly in periods of natural disasters. The imperialists have then politicised food-aid – withholding vital supplies during periods of crisis unless political demands were met.

History repeats itself – first as tragedy, then as farce

The United Nations, through its Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK, is not only falling below international standards of research by promoting unverifiable sources as credible evidence; it is attempting to provide the moral justification for further economic and military intervention against the country.

The language employed – affirming that it is the responsibility of western powers to protect the people of Korea – is reminiscent of the justifications for colonialism, slavery and the genocide of indigenous populations by the imperialist powers.

It is psychotic behaviour to depict one’s victims as perpetrators, but that is the perverse situation on the Korean peninsula. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – the victim of mass extermination by imperialist attack in the 1950s and of enforced hardship and attempts at inflicting mass starvation through economic sanctions ever since – is once again being accused of the very crimes that have in fact been perpetrated against its people by a series of colonial overlords and would-be overlords over a period of 100 years.

The most brutal, methodical and destructive occupation of Korea has in fact been led and perpetrated by the hypocritical ringleaders of the UN ‘accusers’ – by US imperialism itself. It would be farcical were it not so deeply offensive.

This report is an orchestrated political assault by an entity that provides the legal and moral framework for imperialism. The great capitalist powers, and in particular the United States, use the United Nations to facilitate their hegemony over Africa, Asia and Latin America. In this, however, they are becoming increasingly frustrated by the rise of China.

The United States committed genocide in Korea to stunt the growth of socialist revolution and to stop the development of socialist and non-aligned countries. Despite the collapse of the USSR, due to the own-goals of Khrushchevite revisionism, it has singularly failed in its primary objective.

The imperialist powers now face an increasingly confident, multipolar world, led by China, and seek to confront this rising tide of political and economic resistance with aggressive economic, political and – frequently – military interventions.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend!

The report is therefore not only an attack on socialist Korea, but also on China and other independent and emerging states.

It is attack also on the discontented working (and increasingly under- and unemployed) people of Europe, Japan and the US. For our enemy is here at home. The British capitalist may speak our language, but he is most decidedly not our friend. Imperialism is our mortal enemy.

To succumb to the Union Jack-boot, the butcher’s apron and the bowler-hatted marching drum is to lose any chance of building an alternative to the perpetual crisis, slavery and war of our ruling class’s system of wage slavery, hypocrisy, poverty, war and greed.

Despite the emotive and hysterical accusations, it is clear that those who stand against atrocities and crimes against humanity should stand firmly with the DPR Korea and China. Resist the ‘humanitarianism’ of imperialism. Resist the ‘democracy’ espoused by the genocidal maniacs and the free-market fundamentalists; by the servants of ‘the city’, of monopoly capital.

Why is Tony Blair now joining the Sunday Times rich list? As a reward for leading British people by the nose to the high altar of their own exploitation and wage slavery, and cajoling us into complicity in plunder, rape and mass murder in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and around the world.

No price is too high to pay for their profit? We say ‘Enough’!

Fight modern-day slavery; fight imperialism! Defend the DPRK!

No to imperialist war!

Capitalism and the demonisation of foreign nationals

Posted on 26th January 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

We reproduce below a letter to Red Youth from a young comrade from south-east England focusing on the racial segregation that is driven into the British public through capitalism’s most insidious tool – the private media.

Such contributions are an essential part to the building of a organised mass-movement against the imperialist ruling class. Only by uniting as a class, rather than reacting as artificial divisive groups, can we defeat the parasitic forces of imperialism and secure a peaceful and prosperous future for all.

“Capital is an international force. To vanquish it, an international workers’ alliance, an international workers’ brotherhood, is needed. We are opposed to national enmity and discord, to national exclusiveness. We are internationalists.” (Lenin)

Dear Red Youth,

It is often thrown around in our society that immigrants are to blame for the unemployment of millions of British people. In fact, such things are disseminated daily in the press, acting as the mouthpiece of the capitalist government. People rely on these mouthpieces for news, and therefore are willing to accept most things printed in them, regardless of whether or not the press has committed various atrocities to breach the privacy rights of thousands, such as hacking into and snooping around texts, e-mails, phone calls, etc., with people seeing it as “gossip” that’s perfectly acceptable to get in on and swallow up.

The Daily Mail (or the ideological compass for UKIP) once reported that “29,000,000 Bulgarian and Romanian people” are apparently going to immigrate to the UK when the border restrictions are lifted in 2014! This is nothing short of nonsense straight off the bat given that the combined population of both Romania and Bulgaria just passes 28.5 million people! Are all of the people from both countries suddenly going to immigrate to the UK, leaving the countries completely empty?

But what we must analyse further is why people immigrate to the UK.

The first point is simply wanting a better life elsewhere. There seems to be such a problem with this in Britain, and what often follows is nothing short of racist rhetoric, usually blaming such immigrants for the downfall of Britain, the loss of the apparent “British culture” we once had, and an array of other fallacious appeals that rely on a memory of Britain that never existed.

Capitalism, and in particular its highest state of oppression imperialism, is one of the main reasons as to why people come to the UK, and often it is to escape war zones and poverty implemented by the colonial warmongers themselves armed with weapons and drones funded by international corporations such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola to name just two. Their funds are just as criminally gained through deforestation to clear paths for factories, farms and capital outputs, and for building factories that pollute the air and rivers of the East and the world.

This example of imperialism’s thirst for super profits and maximising avenues of profitable investment at the expense of the people is just one of many.

The war on Iraq waged by western imperialism through its stooges Blair and Bush was under the guise that the Iraqi government was stockpiling weaponry capable of decimating the west “within 45 minutes”. These claims were found to be baseless, and no such weaponry was ever found once Hussein had been successfully overthrown and executed.

In the pursuit of these make believe aims, two million Iraqi lives were lost— the lives of innocent men, women and children. And what has happened since? Interestingly enough, it should be noted that, since the overthrow of Hussein and the failure to find weaponry, many U.S.-based oil reserves – protected by the American army – have been established in Iraq, as Iraq was (and, for that matter, still is) known as the fifth largest oil reserve in the world. This should come as no shock that invasion happened, as it was in the real pursuit of the benefit and profit of large and expansive oil companies, based mainly the west. And what were the cost of these huge profits and the concentration of capital? It was blood of many thousands of men, women and children.

Imperialism is monopoly capitalism, it is capitalism in its highest form, and it is the gravest threat to the welfare and lives of all people.

Because of these hideous affairs, it should serve as no shock that people wish to flee their countries which have been turned into a war zone. Iraq is just one of the few examples, and even older examples would include India at the height of the British Empire. On more than one occasion, starving Indian workers and peasants were met only with gunfire and steel, not with the help that they required despite serving Britain’s manufacturing needs after having their raw materials and natural resources practically torn from their own lands. This is, as stated, the highest development of capitalism. One country isn’t enough for the endless demands of the profiteers, so they look to export capital to other areas where they are able to extract super profits from the toiling colonial slaves, British colonialism and imperialism spanned a large portion of the planet at one point, colonising many countries.

Furthermore, what of the claims that immigrants come to the UK for welfare?

It is a fact (not a myth, but a fact) that immigrants to the UK have helped build this nation for centuries, there are NO “indigenous” Brits, and with fewer than 10 per cent of recent immigrants actually claiming welfare (equates to around 600,000 out of approximately 9,000,000 foreign nationals residing in this country) a huge majority of foreign nationals are happy to work, pay taxes, bills, and contribute to our on-going cultural development, contrary to popular belief.

The media does not make things so easy as that however. To those who acknowledge this fact an equal supply of misguiding lies make claims that “they take jobs away from British people” to further drive racial division between the working class and further maintain the rule of the exploiting capitalists.

It is not foreign nationals who should bear the brunt of racist nonsense and be blamed for the downfall of Britain, but the bourgeois class who have driven us down into the ground regardless of the length of the dole ques.

Right back at the start of this letter, I stated that it is the capitalist mouthpiece (i.e. the mass media) that is quick to disseminate anti-immigrant propaganda. Millions upon millions of newspapers — which recycle the bourgeois nonsense — are printed and sold daily. From this, think of the sheer amount of people that this information is reaching; it would stretch to nearly every single corner of the UK, resulting in millions in the form of profit for the owners of the media empires. And often it is known for the bourgeois press to recycle and exaggerate sheer nonsense for the sake of “attracting customers”, profits and sales, and expansion.

To conclude, it must always be borne in mind that, if it serves the relevant interest of the bourgeoisie, more often than not, they will repeat it. This is why, often, complete fallacies are recycled and spouted within capitalist press — it serves their interests, and it serves to make profit, so their logic would be: why not? A lot of the time, the press will exaggerate, twist and distort things out of shape to their liking, because it also serves to help maintain their class domination.

In reality, the reasons as to why immigration even happens en masse is often down to the sheer atrocities of capitalism, creating war zones and unsafe environments abroad for the sake of capital, profit, expansion, etc. And, often, war zones lead to the establishment of military-protected oil zones, factories, and workshops. Imperialism makes life unbearable for the vast masses of the planet. Imperialism brings the workers to the proletarian revolution!

JOIN THE STRUGGLE! JOIN RED YOUTH TODAY! – Statement of Aims

Foreign students targeted by Capitalism (Prol. 50) – http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=868&from=results

“Immigration: the colour of money” (Prol. 41) – http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=709

The Morning Star and the "single, divisive individual"

Posted on 14th January 2014 by Red Youth Red Youth

For some months now, Red Youth has been receiving requests to contribute financially towards an advert in the Morning Star, ostensibly to commemorate the birth of JV Stalin. This advert was being prepared by Second Wave Publications, a small left-wing publisher.

In the course of their efforts to publish this advert, comrades at Second Wave ran into a stumbling block in the shape of the editor of the Morning Star, Richard Bagley. We publish below the correspondence that has followed between a supporter of the advert – CPB Morecombe Bay & Lancaster branch secretary Norman Hill – and Mr Bagley, along with the original advert. Our readers may in this way judge the issue for themselves, while becoming better acquainted with the present editorial policy of the Morning Star.

It is our opinion that both the political outlook of the designers of the advert and the editorial policy of the Morning Star represent considerable obstacles to the struggle of the working class in its fight against capitalist crisis and for socialism.

On the one hand, Second Wave seeks to ‘celebrate’ Stalin in such a grossly abstract and amateurish manner that it would be better to spare him the shame, whilst the Morning Star would rather not discuss the matter at all, lest it expose their total capitulation to barely-concealed opportunism, economism and social democracy.

Any celebration of the life of Josef Stalin must be closely connected to, and make absolutely clear, the world-historic significance of the man, his work, and his achievements in the building of socialism if it is to have any relevance to the working class today.

The building of the Bolshevik party and the victory of the great October socialist revolution in 1917; the successes in the building of the world’s first-ever socialist society; the dramatic rise in the standard of living for millions of Soviet citizens, who had in just a few short years left feudal and primitive social conditions behind for good; the victory of the USSR over fascism; the firm leadership given by JV Stalin during these and other challenging and cataclysmic struggles … all this barely scratches the surface of the significance of Stalin and the Soviet experience for us today.

Here is a man who in death, as in life, inspires the most furious and passionate hatred of the bourgeoisie and its troto-revisionist hangers on. And the inspiration for this hatred rests not with the man, his personality or habits, but with his politics and with the achievements associated with those politics – namely, the defence of the principles of scientific socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Under the leadership of JV Stalin, the whole world watched with awe as the peoples of the Soviet Union set new heights for heroism and progress, abolished the exploitation of man by man, destroyed the feudal and capitalist relics of Russian tsardom, united the formerly colonial subjects of the Russian empire into a mighty force for socialism, liberation and progress which touched every corner of the globe and made the single greatest contribution to the ending of colonial subjugation for millions of starving, wretched and oppressed people.

Quite shamefully, Richard Bagley, rather than admit to and celebrate the above, seeks to belittle the role and contemporary relevance of the builder of socialism and inspirer of the defeat of fascism, asserting that he is merely a “single, divisive individual” who “died sixty years ago”. A more clumsy, ignorant and painfully dismissive statement we could not expect to be confronted with in another 60 years!

Even the most crass of bourgeois historians could not be found guilty of such outstanding stupidity. Comrade Bagley, a titan of the international working-class movement, brushes aside the earth-shattering contribution of Josef Stalin in such a matter-of-fact way it almost leaves one breathless.

But whilst such craven capitulation to the troto-revisionist fraternity is really quite tragic, it is to be expected. For, perhaps unbeknown to our friends at Second Wave Publications, comrade Bagley is not the only titan running the show; he is but a mouthpiece for his bosses back at Ruskin House – Griffiths, Haylett and the whole bunch of similarly dismissive Khrushchevite mummies who occupy the leadership of the Communist Party of Britain.

This sour and ageing gentry long ago abandoned all fidelity to Marxism Leninism, taking themselves over to the side of social democracy with a zeal and enthusiasm, the magnitude of which can only be matched by their combined egos. Such anti-communist comments as those made by Mr Bagley furnish further proof, if any were needed, that the party of Harry Pollitt and Willie Gallacher is certainly not the party of Bagley, Haylett, Griffiths and co.

How can such men claim any allegiance to communism? Or, rather, how arethey able to convince the rest of their party that they stand in the tradition of the old CPGB? Are the members so insipid? Are they so in awe of their full-time officials? The statement by the illustrious editor of their paper could not be further from these words of Harry Pollitt: ”Stalin – the man who really believed in the working class and evoked from it all that creative genius and energy which has astounded the world for over 30 years and will do more so in the future.”

How poor Comrade Pollitt would hate to hear that the inheritors of the Daily Worker/Morning Star, rather than being inspired to further creative genius by the life work of Comrade Stalin, instead choose to skulk away, brushing him aside and doing their best to pretend that Stalin and Soviet socialism never existed!

It is not Stalin who has no relevance to the working class in its fight against austerity but Bagley and company. It is not Stalin who is divisive but Bagley and all the rest of the revisionists and Trotskyites who work so hard to keep every class-conscious worker tied to the imperialist Labour party and divided from their comrades-in-arms in the oppressed countries.

Bagley has absolutely nothing to teach us about the struggle against austerity and war. Rather, it is Stalin whose words ring out today, as clear, true and full of hope and promise as ever:

“Either place yourself at the mercy of capital, eke out a wretched existence as of old and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon – this is the alternative imperialism puts before the vast masses of the proletariat. Imperialism brings the working class to revolution.”

————————————————————————————————————————

—- Forwarded Message —–
From: N Hill
To: Richard Bagley
Sent: Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 23:41
Subject: Stalin Commemorative Birthday Advertisement

Dear Editor,

You have censored an advertisement commemorating the birthday of Josef Stalin on the grounds that publication of the proposed half-page advertisement would ‘bring the paper into disrepute’.

I am interested to know how you arrived at this conclusion: was it based purely upon intuition or was it based upon factual evidence arising from some previous event? If the latter, please provide details.

Please provide me with some reason/s for your decision to censor the advertisement despite a fee and date of insertion having already been agreed with your advertising department some weeks before you made your decision (and then immediately departing for your holiday – leaving no time for an appeal to be made for you to reconsider).

You will be aware that a commemorative birthday advertisement was published in December last year without any problem so has there been a change of policy that has been kept secret from shareholders of the PPPS and the leadership of the Communist Party of Britain?

Norman Hill – in personal capacity

Secretary Morecambe Bay and Lancaster CPB,

Treasurer Northern District Committee CPB,

PPPS shareholder,

Communist Party member and Morning Star reader, supporter and promoter for 34 years.

From: N Hill
To: Richard Bagley
Sent: Friday, 13 December 2013, 9:39
Subject: Fw: Stalin Commemorative Birthday Advertisement

Dear Editor,

This is a second request for reasons leading you to conclude the advertisement would ‘bring the paper into disrepute’ and to subsequently censor it.

A response will be appreciated.

Norman Hill

From: Richard Bagley
To: N Hill
Sent: Friday, 13 December 2013, 13:09
Subject: Re: Fw: Stalin Commemorative Birthday Advertisement

Comrade,

Apologies for the delay in replying to your email of December 10th but we are currently short-staffed at the paper.

I recognise your long-standing support for the paper so I welcome your request for more information on this issue.

As a long-term supporter you will be aware that each year PPPS members endorse the editorial link between the Morning Star and the Communist Party of Britain’s programme Britain’s Road to Socialism.

My role as editor, alongside many other responsibilities, is to ensure that the content of the paper reflects and assists the development of the strategy highlighted in that document, with the aim in the first instance of forging a popular democratic anti-monopoly alliance.

That is the central political role of the Morning Star as a daily newspaper with the historic and current goal of wide circulation.

Content destined for the paper’s pages cannot be allowed to fundamentally undermine this strategic objective.

The advert that you refer to does not pass this test.

I hope that this clarifies the issue.

In solidarity,

Richard Bagley
Morning Star Editor

From: N Hill
To: Richard Bagley
Dear Editor,

I thank you for your reply and I am sorry to learn that the paper is short-staffed – I hope this is but a temporary situation.

I have always been aware of the editorial link between the paper and CBP’s programme, the BRS, and I fully acknowledge the paper’s invaluable work in helping to build a broad democratic alliance against multi-national monopoly capitalism – this is why I have purchased a daily copy since 1978, became a shareholder of the PPPS and why I have sought at every opportunity to sell and to promote the Morning Star despite periods of financial hardship and, sometimes, open hostility from not only the main class enemy but from members of the labour movement, too. So I am dissatisfied with your reply.

Please explain how publication of the proposed birthday commemoration advertisement would, in your opinion and based upon what evidence, ‘fundamentally undermine the paper’s strategic objective of reflecting and assisting the development of the strategy highlighted in the BRS and the paper’s aim of forging a popular democratic anti-monopoly alliance’ and how, precisely, it ‘does not pass this test’.

I am also curious to know why, when a date for insertion and fee had been agreed with your advertising department in early October, you only decided to ban its publication in early December (before immediately departing on holiday).

In comradeship,

Norman Hill

From: Richard Bagley
To: N Hill
Date: 13 December 2013 16:47:45 GMT
Subject: Re: Fw: Stalin Commemorative Birthday Advertisement

Comrade,

I find it incredible that you are unable to see how the advert submitted would conflict with the paper’s primary goal of forging a popular anti-monopoly alliance. I have said all I am going to say on the matter.

With regards your second point, the advert was rejected when it was brought to my attention. It would appear highly unusual for a fee to be agreed three months early – and indeed, as I understand it, there was an attempt to secure space for the advert at a 30 per cent discount. I can see no reason why the paper would agree to offer such a large discount.

I can only assume that the individual approaching our advertising department was misled, or they have misled you.

In solidarity,

From: N Hill

To: R Bagley

Editor,

Two tragic bereavements in as many months have left me with little stomach for a war of words with you so I simply ask (for the third time), can you please explain why you were of the opinion that publication of the proposed half page advertisement commemorating the birthday of Josef Stalin would have ‘brought the paper into disrepute’ and subsequently prevented it from being printed? On what evidence did you base your opinion? And why was a commemorative advertisement accepted last year without any problem? If you were so concerned about upsetting the perceived fragile sensibilities of a section of the readership why could you not have printed a disclaimer to cover your own back?

These are straightforward questions and ones which I believe deserve a straight forward response. For example, it is not necessary for me to know that the question causes you astonishment or to be presented with the ethos of the Morning Star – which I have known for half my lifetime – or to read the Work Description of the editor of the paper; I just want non-pompous answers to my questions so I may confidently return to subscribing to, funding, and promoting the Morning Star in the knowledge that it is not being steered in a history-denying bourgeois direction.

Norman Hill

From: Richard Bagley
To: N Hill
Date: 25 December 2013 13:58:23 GMT
Subject: RE: Stalin Birthday Ad – Morning Star

Dear Norman,

I am sorry to hear about your recent bereavements and I hope this reply will not distress you further.

I have however no intention of engaging with your detailed interrogation on this issue.

If you choose to define your support for the paper in relation to this advert’s acceptance or not then that is your choice.

It appears, Norman, that you have made up your mind that the paper is a ‘history-denying’ and ‘bourgeois’ publication based on the non-publication of one advert related to a single, divisive individual from Soviet history who died 60 years ago. (Emphasis added by Second Wave)

I have explained why this decision was taken in the light of the very real class challenges that we face in the present, and our party’s strategic policy which requires maximum unity in the face of the worst onslaught on working-class people in 80 years and with no end in sight.

Assessment of Stalin’s legacy and contribution to Soviet history belongs in Communist Review not the pages of the Morning Star, a non-theoretical journal which has enough of the current to focus on without engaging in diversionary and abstract debates on events 60 years ago because it is some people’s peculiar obsession or at the heart of a few individuals’ political compass. (Emphasis added by Second Wave)

I don’t see how anything other than the advert’s publication would put your mind at rest.

This will not happen.

Regards,
Richard Bagley
Morning Star Editor

The Morning Star and the “single, divisive individual”