Dan and Angela of Red Youth speak at the celebration of the Great October Socialist Revolution, shortly before heading up the Red Youth / CPGB-ML delegation to the world festival of Youth and Students in Quito, Ecuador, in December 2013.
Speaking to a packed meeting at Saklatvala hall, in Southall, West London, they describe the attacks of the capitalist class on British workers during the past 5 years of crisis, and the lessons that young British Students and Workers can draw from the inspirational struggle of the Russian workers led by the Bolsheviks leading up to the October revolution in 1917, and their success in overthrowing that decadent parasitic and moribund Capitalism in crisis, that continues to blight our lives today.
In constructing the Soviet Economy, to serve the needs of the masses of working people of those lands, the Soviet people demonstrated that it IS possible to build an alternative world; of peaceful development, cooperation and solidarity, abolishing racial and sexual discrimination, and ending crisis, famine, war, and the crippling and inhuman exploitation of man by man and nation by nation.
The meeting, putting to bed 2013 and looking forward to the great leap we will make together in 2014, is planned to celebrate the outstanding revolutionary life and contribution of Comrade Mao Zedong, and has been planned to coincide with the 120th anniversary of his birth.
Please put the date in your diary, and mobilise friends and comrades for what we can expect to be an inspiring and informative meeting, and an enjoyable end-of-year social!
The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, following a protracted revolutionary struggle led by the Communist Party of China, was the second greatest event of the world proletarian revolution following the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution, significantly shifting the global balance of forces in favour of the then existing camp of socialism and people’s democracy led by the Soviet Union of JV Stalin.
The lessons of the Chinese revolution, led by Comrade Mao Zedong, an outstanding Marxist Leninist, also carry huge significance for the revolutionary struggles in all colonial, dependent, semi-colonial, semi-feudal and oppressed nations in a number of areas, including especially, but not limited to, the peasant and agrarian questions, the armed struggle and the people’s army, and the united front against imperialism. Their continued validity and applicability has been clearly demonstrated most recently with the triumphant advances of the Nepalese revolution.
In nearly 60 years since the founding of the People’s Republic, the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party, and guided by the science of Marxism Leninism, and its concrete application to their specific conditions, Mao Zedong Thought, have weathered and overcome all manner of challenges and difficulties and have scored enormous achievements in rebuilding their country along socialist lines, so that what was, in 1949, one of the poorest, most backward and most wretched societies on earth, is now advancing as a great world power, increasingly in the front ranks of global economy, culture, science and technology.
In the course of this process, the lives of the Chinese people have been improved immeasurably, with hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty. Only the progress registered by the Soviet Union in the era of Comrade Stalin can compare with this actual, material contribution to the liberation and betterment of humanity.
The growing strength and power of China is increasingly acting as a check on the unbridled aggression and hegemonism of US imperialism. China renders significant assistance to other socialist and progressive countries and, by establishing relations of equality and mutual benefit with China’s booming economy, countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere are increasingly able to resist imperialist blackmail, safeguard their independence, develop their economies and improve their peoples’ standard of living.
Faced with this situation, US imperialism, which has only ever attempted to disguise its hostility to the People’s Republic of China for opportunist and cynical reasons, is increasingly expressing renewed open hostility to China, openly labelling the country as the biggest potential threat to US global interests in the 21st century. The US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Yugoslav War, the spy plane incident in the South China Sea, the campaigns against China’s friendly relations with countries such as Burma and Sudan, the counterrevolutionary turmoil in Tibet and the related attempts to sabotage the Beijing Olympics to be held this August are all manifestations of the unrelenting hostility of US imperialism, along with other imperialist powers, including Britain, to the People’s Republic.
Congress completely condemns all manifestations of imperialist hostility towards the People’s Republic of China. We rejoice at all the achievements of the Chinese people in building a modern, strong and powerful country under the leadership of their Communist Party.
As Lenin pointed out, the struggle against imperialism would be a sham without the struggle against opportunism. In Britain, nearly all the opportunist forces in the working-class and progressive movements line up with their ‘own’ bourgeoisie, as well as with US imperialism, to a greater or lesser extent, in their hostility towards People’s China. Congress resolves that the CPGB-ML will continue and intensify our struggle against this opportunism as an integral and essential part of our revolutionary work.
Following the treachery of the Khrushchevite revisionists, the Communist Party of China took a leading role in the great international struggle against modern revisionism. Our party also traces its origins to this struggle. The treachery of modern revisionism, and, finally, the counterrevolutions in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe in 1989-1991 created complex and difficult conditions for the building of socialism in China.
In introducing elements of a market economy, the Chinese comrades have pointed out that their country is today only in the primary stage of socialism. Alongside China’s undeniable achievements, serious problems have arisen, including, but by no means limited to, wealth, income and regional disparity, corruption, grave shortcomings in public education and health care, and environmental degradation. The leadership of the Communist Party of China itself openly acknowledges these problems and their gravity.
Join us to celebrate and mark the life, work and struggle of Comrade Mao Zedong on the 120th Anniversary of his Birth
Harpal Brar, Chairman of the CPGB-ML, gives a presentation summarising Marx’s teachings on the state. Key quotations and ideas are drawn from Marx and Engel’s seminal work, “The Communist Manifesto”, Engels’ “Origin of the Family, private property and the state”, Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program”, Engels’ “Anti Duhring”, Marx’s “18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” and “The Civil War in France”, and Lenin’s “The State and Revolution.”
It’s an excellent introduction to Marxism, and totally exposes the commonly peddled fallacy that workers can simply vote for socialism – or a social democratic party, such as Labour in Britain – in order to solve their problems.
Workers cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery (the capitalists’ parliament, army, police force, judiciary, etc.) and use it to achieve their own ends. Bourgeois rule, connections and interests run through these institutions, like the lettering in a stick of Brighton Rock.
The capitalists’ ‘democratic’ state must be smashed, and the working class must have a state of its own, to ensure society and the economy are actually organised in our own interests.
This workers’ state – the dictatorship of the proletariat – will then wither away over a historical epoch, as its functions cease to be necessary, in the transition to the higher stage of communism, when the economic formula “from each according to their ability; to each according to their need” will be applied to production and distribution of goods, well-being and culture.
Exxon Valdez oil-spill, Alaska, 1989 – 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled
The only possible alternative to private profiteering at the expense of the planet is communism – you have to be Red to be Green! But if we are to steer ourselves away from the cataclysmic climate change that looms, it is vital that we identify our most immediate enemy: the first genuine obstacle in the path of building socialism … and that obstacle is imperialism.
The past two months have seen an endless stream of print and audiovisual propaganda force fed to the British public concerning the arrest and detention of a collection of European Greenpeace activists, who have been dubbed the ‘Arctic 30’ by the imperialist press.
The stereotypical allegations of human-rights and environmental abuse against the Russian Federation, however, bring with them only imperialism’s trademark stench of hypocrisy and greed.
Hypocritical acclaim for ‘environmental campaigners’
Arctic oil exploration
The state of the Arctic is of grave concern, and acts as a barometer of global environmental damage. It is an issue dear to the hearts of the world’s people, which explains why imperialism has made it a key propaganda plank in its portrayal of a ‘backward’ Russia (along with its alleged persecution of female punk bands, etc).
Global warming has led to a significant reduction in the Arctic sea-ice volume, which in 2012 stood at just one-fifth of what it was in 1979. Oil spills (such as that from the Exxon Valdise in 1989), particularly from the heavily-polluted Alaskan region of the US, have contributed to the degradation of our planet’s environment.
Now, the decreased ice covering of the Arctic region, alongside technological advances, has led to some oil stores that were previously seen as being inaccessible are now open to drilling.
As part of the drive to take advantage of this new bonanza, Britain has declared its ambition to become a ‘hub’ for Arctic oil exploration. The Foreign Office stated recently that “The UK government will promote the UK as a centre of commercial expertise with direct relevance to many industries that are growing in the Arctic.”
Meanwhile, the US is aggressively pursuing Arctic oil exploration, and is busy bartering to acquire Canadian territory in its most immediate vicinity.
Quite clearly, neither US nor British imperialism have any moral capital or high ground from which to sermonise when it comes to the question of environmental degradation in general or the matter of Arctic energy exploration in particular.
Imperialism is the harbinger of environmental destruction, and has rarely shown any concern for the effect of its fanatical profiteering. Whether it be pollution from manufacturing and extraction processes, the safety of workers, or the survival of flora, fauna and human inhabitants that live near mines, plants and factories – particularly in the oppressed world or among poor, working-class communities – the piratical exploitation of the capitalist system is legendary.
As for humanity on a broader scale, or the threat that climate change could pose to the very existence of the human race – the finance capitalists stand utterly helpless before, and unwilling to alter, the cynical cash calculations of an exploitative system that should have been discarded long ago.
Right to protest
Much of the ‘outrage’ presented in the corporate media has been around the alleged denial by the Russian Federation of its citizens’ ‘right to protest’.
One does not have to think too hard to imagine how the US or Britain would react to a group of Russian and Chinese activists disrupting the polluting activities of Shell or BP in the Gulf of Mexico or the Arctic – or, indeed, the Nigerian people in the Niger delta. It would meet them with military engagement, and terminate them with extreme prejudice.
This bare-faced hypocrisy is made all the more obvious, coming at a time when British councils, for example, are being given the powers to make any peaceful protest or demonstration illegal under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill.
Of course, that’s not the limit for the imperialists when it comes to oppressing the masses and protecting what they consider to be rightfully theirs, using the good-old British bobbies domestically, and the army abroad. The countless genocidal wars of plunder waged from Korea to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are an ongoing and revealing testament to the depraved and inhuman ‘logic’ of imperialist greed.
Imperialism’s true position
Ultimately, the story pushed by western media is no more than one propaganda piece in a many-pronged attack, which is being aimed at the Russian Federation for its key part in frustrating US domination – and particularly its recent defence of the legitimate government of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.
Imperialism holds no green credentials, but it is becoming increasingly adept at spinning its anti-popular crusades by manipulating the growing global concern for our environment. BP, Shell, Exxon, Texaco – all these companies are now ‘green’ we are told. But China and Russia? Increased consumption by the masses of the oppressed world? Well, these are clearly a ‘dire threat to the environment’, opine the tame media pundits of imperialism in a globally-orchestrated cacophony that many on the left seem powerless to resist.
Imperialism continues to seek domination, not democracy, in order to sustain its decrepit, decaying interests and rule. A little more critical and independent thought on the part of those who pose as ‘leaders’ of the anti-war and working-class movements in Britain would not go amiss.
In this regard, returning to the basics of Marxist and Leninist teachings should be the departure point for all who would not loose their bearings in the rapids of these revolutionary times.
Genuine global change
In order to bring about the changes so badly needed by our society and the environment, we must build socialist states, built on satisfying the needs of the broad masses of humanity in a planned, organised and sustainable way. We must make humanity the master of production – rather than the anarchy of capitalist production being the blind ruler that frustrates all reasonable control over human endeavour, as is currently the case.
Working people have an overriding need and deeply-held desire to preserve our miraculous, lone blue planet as the source of all nourishment and shelter. There is no question of a communist movement or society leaving ecological questions unaddressed.
The most critical task before the environmental movement and all who cherish our planet, however, is to identify the most immediate enemy that stands in the way of safeguarding it!
In the last analysis, the imperialists are the ones who put the needs of short-term profit, of preservation of the current class-based economic inequalities, and the unjust and barbaric madness that stems form them, above all other concerns.
They think that vast personally amassed riches will enable them to buy their individual way out of all the problems they have created for the masses of humanity. They are the callous kings of capital – the financial oligarchs, the imperialists and their servants. They are the ones who declare a system – socialism – that embodies the needs and interests, the political rule, of the vast masses, to be the most evil end that could befall humanity. They are our implacable enemies, and the greatest danger to human civilisation.
“Their wealth is built upon our poverty – their joy upon our misery!”
As it was essential for the Bolsheviks to overthrow the tsars before advancing on the path to the overthrow of capitalism, it is essential that we identify our most immediate target.
That target is imperialism, and only with the overthrow of this rotten, decadent, parasitic and corrupt system, can we set out on the path to save humanity from poverty, unemployment, mass starvation, famine, misery, war and environmental disaster – whether desertification, pollution, over-fishing or climate change.
We must refuse to be led by the nose into following the capitalists’ lead – either by coercion or by accepting spurious claims of ‘environmental concern’. Let us remember that our ruling class’s new-found concern for ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘the environment’ does not stop it from bombing entire countries into the stone age, dumping chemical and nuclear waste into the Red Sea off the coast of Somalia, or liberally spreading depleted uranium across swathes of the globe.
We must refute all of imperialism’s predatory propaganda so that we can germinate a mass movement that aims at achieving a genuinely peaceful, sustainable and progressive society.
We must repudiate our rulers’ warmongering lies and oppose their predatory, criminal wars. All workers must unite, regardless of race, sex, religion or nationality, and bring to an end the devastation of civilisation and the destruction of our planet!
Russian poster on saleDan getting a BrazillianAmerican delegates get interviewed by Red YouthYCL comrade and Lalkar subscriber from the USAAt the rally in QuitoRed Youth comrades look back fondly to sleeping on the floor at Sak Hall!
The head of the Syrian delegation Dr Saleh Al Rashed (President of the Syrian Revolutionary Youth Union) speaks at the world festival of youth and students to the British delegation.
Despite the brutal and bloody campaign which has been unleashed against the Syrian people by imperialism the Syrians understand and continue to draw the distinction between the mass of ordinary British workers and the thoroughly corrupt and wicked parasite class that rules on behalf of finance capital.
Since the very first days of this conflict the CPGB-ML were the only organisation in Britain to stand squarely behind the Ba’ath Party, the National Patriotic Front and the Syrian Communist Party (Bagdash), as well as all the other progressive and anti-imperialist organisations united in Syria against the imperialist inspired war of intervention.
As Dr Al Rashed confirms, the Syrian people, much to the dismay of the revisionist and Trotskyite pigs who tie our anti-war movement to imperialism, have only strengthened their resolve and friendship during these hard years of life-and-death struggle, despite all personal hardship and loss. As Mao Zedong said long ago, “the imperialists pick up a rock only to drop it upon their own feet”!
The imperialists they have funded and equipped cannibals, maniacs and fundamentalists who’s sole mission inside Syria has been carnage, mayhem and destruction. Yet despite all their crimes, including the stomach-churning and cynical ‘propaganda stunt’ of gassing kidnapped children in attempt to stir up direct US military intervention, have only succeeded in bringing the Syrian people together in resistnace, forging an un-breakable bond between the radical and patriotic forces inside Syria.
Red Youth member Dan Interviews a young member of the TKP, the Communist Party of Turkey, on the impact of the Gezi Park uprising, on the party and wider Turkish society.
The uprisings and mass protests sparked by the attacks of the Turkish State and the sustained reactionary policies of the AKP government have politicised a great mass of Turkish workers, more than 10 million of whom took part in the 6 week demonstrations.
Membership of the TKP doubled during the uprisings, and the Party’s prestige, having taken on and defeated the reactionary Turkish state, has been greatly enhanced.
We wish our comrades every success in the coming period, strengthening and deepening their links with the widest section of the Turkish Masses. Gezi was just the beginning of this new phase in the struggle. Revolutionary change is yet to come.
For more information, see the following article form Proletarian (August 2013:
Turkish workers set a militant example
http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=945
Comrades from Red Youth and RCG, who make up the socialist contingent on the British delegation to Quito, distribute tonnes of literature and speak to hundreds of revolutionaries from across the world.
British communists in Quito
Hundreds of progressive youth came to speak with the British delegation all through “Europe day” at this years WFDY Festival. Comrades from the RCG distributed copies of their newspaper Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism and conducted interviews with foreign delegations, and also kindly assisted Red Youth with translation from Spanish.
Delegate Tatjana from the Socialist Party of Latvia
Many copies of Lalkar and Proletarian were sold and given away to comrades new and old. Friends from the Syrian Baath Party were delighted to catch up with CPGB-ML central committee members Ranjeet Brar and Paul Cannon and to meet Dan and Angela for the first time. Our support for the brave resistance of the Syrian people to the bloody war waged by imperialism has strengthened our friendship with both the Baath Party and the Syrian Communist Party (Bagdash) who also met privately with our delegation.
As the degenerates and warmongers, trotskyites and revisionists, conspire to keep brave peace-loving people like Mother Agnes from the anti-war platform, it is increasingly clear that only the Marxist-Leninists can provide clear anti-war political leadership. Only communists clearly come out in defence of the weak against the attacks of the strong; the trotskyists always end up assisting their imperialist puppet masters, and the spineless revisionists long ago abandoned the struggle in favour of the easy life.
Even the Ecuadorean police seem to be on our side!
The most cursory glance at the contemporary international situation shows that imperialism’s inherent tendency to wage wars of aggression has not in any way disappeared. If anything it has become enhanced, notably after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of central and eastern Europe, since when we have seen numerous wars of colonial reconquest, such as those against Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and, most recently, Libya and Syria.
Moreover, faced with what is emerging as the gravest economic crisis in the history of capitalism, the pace and intensity of imperialism’s inexorable drive to war is increasing yet further. The imperialist powers are presently at war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. They are also waging unofficial and proxy wars in Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen and other countries. They are abetting and bankrolling the Israeli zionists’ war against the Palestinian people.
Marxism Leninism is not a dogma but a guide to action. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, the great revolutionary teachers, laid out with complete clarity the attitude of the revolutionary proletariat to the struggle against imperialism and towards the national movements of the oppressed. With imperialism convulsed with crisis and hurtling towards new and ever more dangerous wars of aggression, the work of reuniting and reinvigorating the entire international communist movement on this principled and revolutionary basis is one which will brook no further delay.
It is in this spirit that many many comrades and friends purchased copies of not only our newspapers, but also our books, notably Harpal Brar and Ella Rule’s latest book Imperialism and the worst-ever crisis of overproduction. Red Youth’s slogan “Each one, teach one!” has never been more relevant.
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Comrade Paulus Mbangu from SWAPO buys HB’s latest book on imperialismPuerto Rican communists from the Federacion Universitaria Pro Independencia take copies for their libraryDelegates from across Latin America socialising with comrades from around the worldItalian Marxist Leninist poster: NATO Hands off Syria! No to Imperialism!
Red Youth and FIST with the remnants of the flag after the days events
Red Youth was proud to meet up with our comrades from the US organisation Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) during and after the opening ceremony in Quito. To huge applause from the crowd (and to the absolute horror of the US Trotskyite class traitors in Pathfinder) our comrades in FIST ceremoniously tore up the stars and stripes.
Speaking to Red Youth the FIST delegates explained that it was an act of solidarity with all those around the world standing up to US imperialism, including the workers and oppressed back home in the United States. Just like the butchers apron, the stars and stripes of the USA is a hated symbol of colonialism, flying in many occupied cities and countries around the world. After a long day at the festival our delegations spent the evening relaxing together and discussing contemporary political issues over a glass of pop.
Syrian delegation
The delegates from the Syrian Baath Party also received enthusiastic cheers as their delegation arrived carrying with them large Syrian national flags and portraits of President Assad. Other highlights for our delegation on this opening day included listening to and getting a wave from Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. Here’s a new video and a few more photo’s:
Red Youth with Syrians delegationDelegations from across the America’s including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia are in attendanceComrades from the RKUDelegates from the Workers Party of KoreaCommunist Party of Cuba arrive
Opening ceremony witness to fantastic scene’s of friendship and proletarian internationalism
Russian and Swedish comrades in the dinner hall with CPGB-ML central committee member RanjeetMeeting the localsSWAPO in attendance
In glorious sunshine the 18th Festival of Youth and Students opened in Quito, Ecuador with a wonderful display of revolutionary enthusiasm for the building of a world free from imperialism and war.
Delegations from across the America’s, Asia, Africa and Europe gathered for the opening rally which went on well into the afternoon. The Red Youth comrades were pleased to meet up with the other members of the elusive British NPC, all of whom had worked wonders to attend in the face of a concerted YCL attempt to provide little or no communication from the British Preparatory Committee. The British delegation therefore comprised Red Youth and a few of the “Young Socialists” (young Trotskyite sociopaths) and members of the Robert Clough Group (RCG).
Red Youth comrades spent the day enjoying the speeches and generally soaking up the atmosphere with our comrades from the Revolutionar Kommunist Ungdom (RKU) Sweden and friends from Russia, Belgium, India, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Argentina, Syria and Germany.
