A school trip to learn about war

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The following is written by a Wigan Red Youth comrade after a trip to the Imperial War Museum

A history trip to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, I was expecting the typical British war museum glorifying the British and its allies imperialist wars. I was not disappointed! The stuff on display would tie in with my college work that we are about to get started on, its called “Britain at war” mostly focusing on world war one.

Within minutes while I was walking round I reached the section about World War 2, and I overheard a women tell her child that Joseph Stalin was a “Evil man who killed millions”. My initial response to this was pitiful laughter, but sadly this is the “truth” that a lot of our youth are fed, this is the “truth” that the media, schools, universities, academics, writers and filmmakers desire to push. It not surprising since they all operate within the capitalist system – and you don’t get on very well if you don’t toe the line. Bourgeois historians perpetually reinvent lies that are passed on to the children in schools during history class. When I was home and looking back at a photo that I had taken of the picture of Stalin today I noticed the text below it read “A ruthless and paranoid dictator, his regime was responsible for the deaths of millions”. This was typical of over-simplistic and childish explanations for events of world historic significance which involved the activities of hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people. The war museum and society as a whole just accept what they are told in school and don’t go and research or investigate the truth. I have had the same experience with friends who repeat the lies often told about Stalin having made no independent investigation at all, but when you provide them with the material that proves otherwise they are simply no long interested! Such are people attitudes when you challenge their ideas in this society!

The museum was not all doom and gloom for a young communist; the horrors of war was shown in one part of the museum where there were pictures of the effects of war (Casualties etc). I noticed within the group of students a shock at the wounds of the soldiers who go and fight these imperialist wars, in which our soldiers are used as cannon fodder. Many say we should learn from history, but we continue to send working class men and women to fight the ruling elite’s wars, but every step of the way we shall oppose this and through soldiers and workers refusing to fight and abet the designs of the imperialists these wars can come to an end and the proletarian revolution come to fruition!

Each one, teach one!

More info here:

Guardian article

Lies concerning the history of the USSR

London riots vs London Olympics

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Not necessarily what they seemed.

The following essay was written as a school homework assignment by a member of Red Youth and was published as the editorial to issue 50 of the magazine Proletarian.

This summer, we witnessed the spectacular event of the Olympic Games in our very own capital city. However, at the same time last year, London and Britain were shocked by the London riots, when the youth in poverty-stricken areas expressed their anger towards the state.

Exciting, wonderful, immense – all these words could describe the London Olympics. But we could also call them corrupt and hypocritical. Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis were all over the front pages of all the newspapers posing proudly with their gold medals. There was no outcry about one of the world’s largest monopoly corporations, which has contributed greatly to the western world’s obesity pandemic, being a major sponsor of the games.

And what about ATOS, a company which has stripped thousands of people of their needed benefits and humiliated many more in their benefit-stripping tribunals? Whilst many of us were watching the mainstream media promoting the Olympic Games enthusiastically, the needy people of Britain were fighting to keep their benefits from being cut back owing to a financial crisis they have not contributed to. You might think the Olympic Games were amazing and have left a fantastic legacy, thanks to the fanatic promotion job done by the media, yet, behind the scenes, a major struggle between the working class and the ruling class of Britain was going on!

In the 2011 London riots, you might have been thinking how disgracefully these lunatic rioters were behaving – stealing bottles of water and breaking shop windows down – but you were probably just regurgitating what the media were saying. Remember, media corporations such as the BBC and the Murdoch press have all been directed into stating what the ruling class wants them to say.

This was proved by the Leveson inquiry, which showed how the politicians and the mainstream media work hand in hand to mislead the public and to promote monstrosities around the world such as war. During the London riots, there was also a riot going on in Libya. But the differences were that the rioters in Libya were armed and supported from the start by the West, ie, by the USA, France and Britain. Some even called it a ‘revolution’!

But when it comes closer to home, Britain will do anything to stop the riots. They were even considering using rubber bullets. When it doesn’t suit their interests, they will do anything to stop it! People were told that all the looting would affect the economy, but it was nothing compared to all the looting done by the ruling class, which has left the country in a state of emergency and crisis.

The real trouble is caused by the oppressors, and you can’t compare their violence with that of the oppressed. For centuries, the British ruling class has perpetrated disgraceful crimes against humanity, such as the slave trade, and it still seeks to dominate today. But when, for a few days, the British working class expresses its deepest anger by rioting and looting, it is treated like a mass murderer.

You might have been thinking that this article is turning truth on its head, but all it’s really doing is contradicting the media’s propaganda, which has been used to disparage the rioters and to promote the Olympic Games. We should always look at both sides of a situation before we make up our minds about it.

Labour, Tory same old story – fight all the cuts!

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Red Youth and cpgb-ml comrades attended an anti-cuts demo outside the Labour Party Conference on Sunday. Comrades were there to highlight the role played by all the main parties who’re in service to big business, and to argue that a simple changing of the guard is not going to get us out of the mess we’re in.

In June, a 48-year-old man tied himself to the railings of a Jobcentre, doused himself in flammable liquid and set himself ablaze. (See Guardian, 29 June 2012)

This desperate act reveals, in the most brutal of terms, that poverty in Britain is not only material deprivation, in which sky scrapers are erected and social housing bulldozed, but a multi-dimensional assault – physical and psychological – on working-class people.

Indeed, research published last month by the Centre for the Modern Family showed that one in five British families are ‘living on the edge’. (See Independent, 26 June 2012)

As retail food prices have increased by 25 percent since 2008, and the price of child care and average household bills have sky-rocketed, so too have levels of stress and mental ill health. (See Economist, 23 June 2012)

This reality is worse still in the north of England, Wales and Scotland. And, throughout the country, young people are bearing the brunt of British austerity.

Since last year’s youth uprisings, dubbed criminal rioting by bourgeois commentators, no serious attempt to tackle youth poverty has occurred. In fact, changes to benefit entitlement have pushed thousands more into deprivation; implanting feelings of failure, shame and psychological distress upon an entire generation of young people. (See BBC News Online, 11 October 2011)

It is only logical, therefore, that – with a diminutive job market, an education system that is being progressively commodified, and a vanishing NHS – class antagonisms will intensify and uprisings may become as much a part of the British summertime as corporate-sponsored sporting events.

From the student activist to the unemployed youth, in the classroom and in the street, young people are awakening to discover that our political and economic system is not designed to help realise their potential but only to exploit the labour of some and utterly discard the rest.

They are also discovering that our system is designed to enrich a tiny handful of financiers. It was revealed this month that the super-rich have between $21tr and $32tr stashed away in tax havens. (Seecnn.com, 25 July 2012)

This is not a charge from radical opponents of capitalism, but the findings of bourgeois investigation. Nor are these the dealings of shadowy businesses but the recognised and admitted practice of the world’s largest financial institutions. It is an astonishing figure, greater than the GDP of any imperialist nation, and it is the kind of wealth that could eradicate poverty for vast swathes of humanity.

There could not be a clearer example of how income disparity and material and psychological deprivation is becoming more acute in modern Britain. As welfare safety nets disappear, and government oppression increases, we should not only expect greater incidence of civil unrest but prepare to inject it with ideological direction.

Communists must seek to build and lead popular mass movements for real change; for a mere change of government will not suffice. Only an entirely new system can offer our youth a positive future.

Being a communist in Britain

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It’s now six months since our beloved friend and comrade Godfrey Andries Cremer died, on 26 March 2012. This tribute, paid to him by his life-long friend, his brother, and comrade, Harpal Brar, is the first of several moving and politically insightful contributions we intend to broadcast, made by his comrades and family.

This and the other contributions were made at his memorial meeting held in April this year, attended by well over 120 of his friends, family and comrades, who packed into Saklatvala Hall to share our sorrow at Godfrey’s passing and our joy that he has enriched our lives.

Despite our sadness, it was an inspiring and uplifting celebration of the 50 selfless and meaningful years Godfrey devoted to the finest cause in all the world – the fight for the liberation of mankind.

As we move forward and build our movement, it has been hard to accept that Godfrey is gone. We share this footage with you now as it is a valuable chance to reflect upon the past half-century of British working class and anti-imperialist history; to evaluate the struggles we have fought, and put the tasks facing us in historical perspective.

It is, consequently, an uplifting celebration of a beautiful life. Godfrey’s deep love for humanity, his profound marxist understanding, and his determination to use all his talent to serve the working class by building a truly revolutionary movement dedicated to their emancipation from wage slavery, and a communist party capable of directing that struggle, were his consistent motivating forces.

It was this higher cause and meaning that enabled him to harness his creative powers and live an outstanding and exemplary life; a life full of passion and joy, free of black despair and wasted, petty and meaningless years.

Godfrey faced his final moments with the same optimism and fortitude that characterized his life. His abiding certainty was that his life’s work was a great gift to humanity – and we salute him for it.

http://www.cpgb-ml.org

Local Paper Southall Gazette leads with tribute to Godfrey here:
http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/ealing-news/local-ealing-news/2012/04/04/ealin…

Proletarian, paper of the CPGB-ML, pays tribute to Godfrey here:
http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&…

Godfrey’s internationalist Poem “Uddham Singh and Baghat Singh”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD9eZYYrzK0

Godfrey’s popem “Zimbabwe Chimurenga!” on the Zimbabwean liberation struggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRh5oUNGyz0

Unemployment and the fight back

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Unemployment in Britain is now over 2.5 million, with young people being especially hit; people under 25 account for about 40 percent of the unemployed and according to latest figures youth unemployment stands in excess of 1 million. Any day you visit the jobcentre it is literally bursting with people competing for jobs and the chances of finding work are getting less and less. In our region so many factories, pits and traditional heavy industries have closed down that the only places to look for work appear to be Tesco, Asda and McDonald’s. This entire experience is depressing and degrading, how many times must you apply for a job and never even receive a response?!

Wales

Unemployment in Wales has been a serious problem for some years, but recent reports by the Office for National Statistics and subsequent work by University researchers show that the scale of the problem is huge. Two Welsh Council’s Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil now rank in the top ten of Britain’s worst hit areas with a study by Sheffield Hallam University claiming unemployment rates of 17% and 14.9%. The report claims that Wales is hit much harder by unemployment than official statistics for those claiming jobseekers allowance suggest. With thousands of school leavers entering the jobs market and thousands more being thrown off Incapacity Benefit by bonus hungry health ‘professionals’ at private company Atos; it leads any sensible and thinking person to ask, how are people in Wales supposed to find work?

How to fight back

In days gone by when the British working class had a strong militant communist party, mass marches, riots and street fighting with the police and state forces forced from local poor committee’s money and food to keep people from starving. All we remember of these days is the Jarrow March. But the reality of the fight for jobs back in the 1920’s and 30’s is much different from the toned down sanitised history we’ve been fed. A starting point for young workers must be to read Wal Hannington’s book Unemployed Struggles. Hannington was a leading member of the Communist Party of the time and led the National Unemployed Workers Movement. Radio 4 recently broadcast a biased history of these struggles, but the first hand accounts contained in the programme are well worth listening to and learning from. Listen to the unemployed struggles of the 20’s and 30’s.

Read Red Youth – Who stole our Future?
Watch Red Youth – Remember October!

Bradford protests against drones

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Red Youth comrades joined the rally in Bradford on Friday protesting against the use of drones in Pakistan. The rally was addressed by Yvonne Ridley and George Galloway who called for an end to the use of these devastating weapons. A short video of the rally can be seen here: Telegraph and Argus

The US has extended its predatory Afghan war to Pakistan on the pretext that the Afghan resistance is using the Pakistani frontier provinces as a sanctuary and a base from which to launch attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. By doing this, however, the US has practically obliterated the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and turned the Afghan war into an AfPak war.

US drones regularly attack places in Pakistan alleged by the US to be Taliban or al-Qaeda hideouts. The use of remote aerial attacks is imperialism’s response, on the one hand, to stubborn resistance to US occupation and aggression, and, on the other hand, to the unpopularity of the wars waged by imperialism among the populations of the warmongering imperialist countries who are demanding that troops should be brought home.

Between 2006-2009, US drone attacks killed 14 mid-level or lower-level alleged al-Qaeda leaders, but resulted in 700 civilian deaths. According to David Kilcullen, former advisor to US General David Petraeus “That’s a hit rate of two percent on 98 percent collateral.” Even Mr Kilcullen was forced to remark “It’s not moral”!

The comrades also took the opportunity to build support for the upcoming meeting on Syria in Bradford. The meeting, entitled No war on Syria! will be held on Tuesday 25 September at 7.30pm in the Khidmat Centre, 36 Spencer Road, Bradford, BD7 2EU.

My Life in the USSR

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What can we learn in the midst of the worlds deepest crisis of capitalist overproduction from the one economy and society that was immune to the great stockmarket crash and depression of the 1920s and 1930s?

Julia Hawkins, member of the CPGB-ML talks about her family and her life growing up in the soviet union.

“The media portrays Soviet Life as dull, grey and oppressive. Nothing could be further from the truth, she says. We had rich, secure, cultured and meaningful lives. As workers, we felt we owned not just our places of work, but the whole country, which was set up from top to bottom to serve our interests.

“I didn’t become political until I came to this country and didn’t realise what we had until we lost it. That is the tragedy. I realise that it is because our nation was being dismantled from the inside, by the Khruhschevite revisionists and their successors.”

I recommend that everyone should read Harpal Brar’s book “Perestroika, the complete collapse of revisionism”

http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=books&subName=display&bookId=2

join us to build a better world – and a Soviet Britain

http://www.cpgb-ml.org

Colombian military in London – Who let the dogs in?

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Breaking

London’s a city that never quite lets you forget that you’re living in the heartland of imperialism; the belly of the beast.

Whether you’re watching the victory parade past nelson’s column in trafalgar square, strolling by South Africa, Australia or India house (embassies from which the countries themselves used to be administered over the heads of their peoples), getting attacked by the metropolitan police’s “territorial support group” riot police, for having the nerve to demonstrate against Israeli war crimes, or just seeing the worlds war criminals wined dined feted and entertained in the streets of our nation’s capital.

I walked into Burger King by St Mary’s hospital and Paddington station, in West London today to be greeted by a delegation of Columbian Army officers.

They looked delighted to be tucking into a juicy burger and were no doubt taking a well earned break from suppressing their own people’s popular uprising led by the FARC-EP, and building up forces capable of invading neighbouring Venezuela for the purposes of overthrowing the popular and progressive government of Hugo Chavez, should the slightest opportunity present itself.

One can only suppose they are here in order to secure diplomatic and financial sponsorship, and a perhaps a few practical tips on the efficient organisation of death squads – I mean, counterinsurgency operations – from the British state.

‘We’ are, after all, the oldest hands at keeping the (colonial and domestic) working people in check.

The mention of the FARC proved enough to make them quite jittery, and they packed up and went on their way. The question, of course, is who let these criminals in to ‘our’ country.

The answer, of course, is the criminals who run it and keep british workers in wage slavery, subject to crisis ridden capitalism. The British Imperialists – hangmen, to our shame, of progressive and revolutionary movements worldwide

Join us to build a better world!

Why not start by coming to a meetig exposing our ruling class’ sponsorship of war crimes in Syria, next thursday 20 September 2012 – Marchmont community centre, central London.

cpgb-ml.org