You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks…

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

dukesofopportunism_cartoonThe Communist Party of Britain (Morning Star) this month reaffirmed its position of continued backing for the imperialist Labour Party at the 2015 general election. It does so in a draft domestic resolution circulated in advance of its upcoming Congress this autumn. This resolution was forwarded to redyouth.org and is reproduced in full below.

Aiming low, the CPB’s revolutionary vision is limited to bringing down the Tory-LibDem coalition. In their draft domestic resolution they further state that a Labour government is “the only practical and viable alternative”. The reality, however, is that the Labour Party offers no alternative, let alone a viable one for the working class. As its interests align with those of the ruling class, Labour is in fact no different from the other major parties.

The CPB were not so shortsighted however as to leave their tracks completely uncovered and attempted to salvage what little credibility may remain. In continuation with the ‘demand’ to ‘reclaim’ the Labour Party, they set out that “the period up to and immediately following the June 2015 general election will demonstrate conclusively whether or not Labour can be reclaimed as the mass electoral party of the labour movement. Labour’s election manifesto will reveal whether trade union influence has produced a left or progressive programme.”

Rather than continually threatening to reconsider their relationship with the Labour Party the CPB should learn the lessons of history. The betrayals of the Labour Party as far back as the first government it formed 1924 are well documented. Firstly, it u-turned its opposition to the reparations regime; a program designed to further fragment the defeated countries of the Great War through guilt payments to the imperialists. Secondly, it immediately set about the persecution of leading members of the emerging Communist Party of India who were valiantly fighting against the British colonial rule. Even in its final week of its founding term, the Labour Party authorised the promulgation of the Bengal Special Ordinances, giving powers of indefinite imprisonment by executive order without specific accusation, trial or judicial sentence.

Clearly, the intentions of the Labour Party were never rooted in the common interests of the working class to begin with, and from there on, Labour’s love-in with imperialism has flourished…

The Attlee government, which has been called by much of Britain’s ‘left’ an example of what the Labour Party can do for the masses, is no less an example of how imperialism had branched across all fronts of society. Whilst nationalization, full employment and the National Health Service met many of the necessities of the British working class, these were only temporary concessions. At the same time the horrifying standards for overseas workers who remained under British colonial rule intensified. Tens of thousands subsequently died across the globe in revolts against the administration of British imperialism, carried out loyally by the ‘socialist’ Attlee administration.

The position of the Labour Party during the coal strike should have yet again clearly exposed its loyalty to imperialism once and for all, as labour and the TUC buckled to the Thatcher administration, the media, the police and the intelligence services. In helping to undermine the resistance of the NUM, the vanguard of the British working class was lost. Having come to power with the biggest landslide majority in history, the Blair ministry ensured the continuation of monopoly capitalism’s policy of dismantling the public sector, plummeting thousands of workers into a state of despair.

Any future Labour government would be no differently than any other, and the CPB would do well to remember that. Having already vowed to axe JSA for under-21s and to continue the ‘freeze’ policy on energy bills rather than nationalising the energy sector, it is clear that this Labour government, alike all before, are servants of monopoly capitalism.

Lenin & Britain

In early 1920, Lenin advised British Communists to support and attempt to affiliate themselves with the Labour Party in order to truly expose its character and nature to the masses. Owing to the fact that the public at the time had no experience of a Labour government, Lenin insisted on a formation of a bloc with them on the condition that the communist’s retain their liberty to expose any treacheries committed by the Labour Party.

Having followed this guidance, the former Communist Party of Great Britain was refused in its applications for affiliation in consecutive years from 1920 until 1924. In doing so, the Labour Party proved that it would prefer close relations with the capitalists to the unity of all workers.

Nothing has changed since. The Labour Party always has, is, and forever will be a representative of imperialism and the impending doom of the international working class masses, the continued global exploitation of our international brothers and the impending doom of poverty, famine and war.

Only by breaking from the Labour Party once and for all can the working class hope to build a better future. Only under the guidance of Marxism-Leninisms can we hope to rebuild the fragmented society and form a single, mass movement that puts the masses first.

Marxism will break our chains!

Draft EC Domestic Resolution

For a United, Militant and Political Labour Movement to Defeat the Ruling Class Offensive

1. The priorities for Communist Party work over the coming period will be to:
  1. Build the People’s Assembly movement, the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, the trades councils and community-based campaigns to draw many more people into the struggle against austerity and privatisation.
  2. Strengthen the National Assembly of Women, highlight the feminisation of poverty and project the alternative policies outlined in the Charter for Women.
  3. Expose and combat the agenda to privatise public sector schools and the NHS, including through support for trade union action to defend the quality of our state education and health services, highlighting the need to abolish public schools and private health care.
  4. Project a left-wing programme of alternative policies as in the People’s Charter, particularly the case for a Wealth Tax and public ownership of energy, public transport and the financial sector.
  5. Win the labour movement across Scotland, Wales and England for progressive federalism to resolve the national question in the interests of a united working class movement against British state-monopoly capitalism.
  6. Expose the right-wing character of UKIP and build a left and progressive mass movement against EU membership rooted in the trade unions.
  7. Work to ensure that the Morning Star position as the daily paper of the left, progressive and labour movements is reflected more substantially in sales and financial support.
  8. Explain the need for the trade unions to take the necessary steps to ensure that labour movement has its own mass party, capable of winning general elections and enacting policies in the interests of workers and their families.
  9. Strengthen the Communist Party through deeper involvement in local campaigning work including on the electoral front, a more systematic approach to political education and cadre development and a bolder policy of recruitment especially in the trade union movement.
2. The Communist Party warned before the end of 2008 that the financial crash and economic crisis would be utilised by the ruling class to launch an offensive against the working class and peoples of Britain. The chief forces of monopoly capital would strive to rescue their system, restore its profit base and ensure that the British state and government enforce the interests of big business at whatever cost to the mass of workers and their families.
3. Economically, the dominant section of the capitalist class, organised in the big financial institutions of the City of London, has been served by policies designed to protect its most basic interests. Thus the banks and financial markets have continued to be bailed out with public money and other supportive measures, as liabilities remain nationalised while profits are privatised. Reform and regulation of the financial services sector has been minimal where not postponed altogether.
4. The monopoly capitalists in every sector have benefited from further reductions in taxes on profits, capital gains and high incomes while nothing substantial is done to stamp out their prolific use of tax havens and other tax evasion devices. Unprecedented cuts in state expenditure have reduced tax pressures on the rich and big business, while also helping to depress wage levels generally as prices let rip across the economy. Whole sections of the public sector have either been privatised – most notably the Royal Mail – or prepared for privatisation in the case of education and the NHS.
5. The minimal economic upturn which began in 2014 was delayed by the government’s policies to redistribute even more wealth and purchasing power from the working class and the poorest in our society to big business and the rich. The recovery is flimsy and based on house price inflation, financial mis-selling compensation and consumption by the wealthy, rather than on investment in productive industry to meet growing mass demand at home and abroad. Moreover, it takes place in an unreformed British economy which retains all its most fundamental weaknesses and distortions: overdependence on financial services and armaments (where public money subsidises most of the R&D, production and export sales); underinvestment in civilian manufacturing, engineering, science and technology; absence of effective strategic planning in vital sectors such as energy and transport; and ceding of ownership of key areas of the economy to overseas monopolies so that the British capitalist class can continue to export capital and speculate in finance and property without destroying British state power’s domestic economic base. This ruthless drive to maximise monopoly profit is generating an enormous overaccumulation of capital, much of which will never be realised at its full nominal value. It is preparing the ground for future financial scandals and crashes.
6. Socially, the offensive has intensified overwork by underskilled workers who are increasingly impoverished and insecure. Mass unemployment persists as superexploited migrant labour is imported to maintain a large “reserve army” which can be drawn into employment and then expelled with ease. This has proceeded alongside the imposition of an employment model in key sectors of the economy, such as retail and finance, where zero hours contracts and other forms of precarious work have become the norm for millions of workers in Britain.Thus trade union bargaining power is undermined and wage levels depressed. This wide-ranging attack on real wages, pensions and welfare benefits has rapidly deepened poverty and inequality. In addition, the consequent reduction in working class purchasing power limits the scope for real economic recovery, thereby aggravating the problems of capital overaccumulation and helping to precipitate the next cyclical downturn in the British economy.
7. Culturally, capitalist ownership and its market anarchy favour mass production of anything that can be turned to a profit. Extreme concentrations of wealth together with neoliberal hostility to regulation have enabled many more of Britain’s cultural institutions to fall into the hands of financial speculators, business crooks and pornographers who have no interest in promoting informative, progressive, challenging, liberating or genuinely participative aspects of culture. Instead, much of capitalism’s output reflects the system’s drive for maximum profit regardless of other considerations.
8. Ideologically, the ruling class offensive has unleashed a new propaganda drive against socialist, collectivist and progressive ideas and values. Particular targets include the public services, trade unionism, social solidarity, wealth redistribution, public ownership and anything relating to socialism and communism. Mass media outlets confine news and current affairs coverage to a narrow consensus in which even Keynesian and social democratic views struggle to gain a platform, while socialism and communism are excluded altogether.
9. Politically, big business and the mass media exert enormous pressure, reinforced by the ‘first past the post’ electoral system, to maintain consensus between the major political parties. Straying from the austerity and privatisation agenda or opposing British imperialism’s world view is punished by ferociously hostile media coverage and the loss of financial support. ‘Normalisation’ of fascist parties and representatives in Britain and other parts of Europe as a legitimate part of the political spectrum, while communists are ignored or pilloried, is a particularly disturbing development. At a time when the ruling class has shown itself so unfit to rule – when the scale of corruption in business, parliamentary, media and police circles is too big to be covered up adequately – the mass media allows a platform mainly to ‘anti-Establishment’ views from the far right rather than from the left.
10. In anticipation of this all-round assault, the Communist Party proposed that a mass movement be built around a People’s Charter for Change, putting forward alternative policies to those of austerity and privatisation. Led by the RMT but backed also by the FBU, PCS, other unions and socialists, including left Labour MPs, such an initiative gathered pace in the course of 2009 as the People’s Charter was endorsed by the British TUC annual conference. But there was resistance to wholehearted campaigning in favour of the charter in advance of the 2010 general election. The initiative began to lose impetus, especially after the incoming Tory-LibDem regime more than doubled the public spending cuts proposed by the outgoing Labour government and mounted a vicious attack on pay and pension rights in the public sector.
11. Confronted with an open declaration of class war, unions in that sector understandably prioritised the defence of their members’ terms and conditions. Millions of workers responded magnificently to the call for industrial action in defence of their occupational pensions. In the private sector too, trade unionists in the construction, electrical, railway and other industries demonstrated their willingness to defend jobs, pay and trade union rights against employers backed by a government willing to drive through the biggest decline in working class living standards for 80 years. Yet the trade union movement was unable to build sufficient unity to halt or even slow the austerity offensive. Union sectarianism within the public sector and an inability to secure wider understanding of the common interests of public and private sector workers rendered the general strike call at the 2012 TUC conference inoperable.
12. Throughout this period, the Communist Party advocated trade union and working class unity, pointing out that the necessary defence of public sector pensions was too narrow a basis for the scale of resistance needed. We exposed the link between pension liabilities and covert plans for extensive privatisation. Britain’s communists insisted that winning the case in the labour movement and among the wider public for generalised strike action was far more important than immediately “naming the day.” Even more significantly, we argued that industrial militancy was a necessary but insufficient condition for defeating the Tory-led austerity and privatisation agenda. Coordinated and generalised strike action had to be planned within a political context, one which rejected the legitimacy of the Tory-LibDem regime in favour of a political alternative around which a wide coalition of forces could be mobilised.
13. In the terms pioneered by the CP’s programme Britain’s Road to Socialism, we proposed that a popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance be built in which the organised working class movement would play the leading role, drawing together all those who could be won to oppose exploitation and oppression. This would mean promoting not only industrial militancy but community campaigning, making connections between the two, engaging in the battle of ideas, stepping up the struggle to reclaim the Labour Party for the labour movement and recognising the necessity for the movement to have its own mass party. It would involve challenging the myths used to divide the working class, such as falsely identifying public sector pay and pensions, benefit claimants or migrant workers as the cause of Britain’s economic and financial crisis. It would also mean dropping any illusions that the Labour Party leadership or the European Union intends to block the ruling class offensive. Furthermore, we proposed that such a movement should develop what Britain’s Road to Socialism calls a ‘left-wing programme’, many of policies of which are reflected in the People’s Charter. The reality must be faced that such an approach was not adopted by the trade union movement as a whole, despite the efforts of communists and socialists in the course of 2012 and 2013.
14. Nevertheless, substantial elements of it have been embraced by significant forces in the labour and progressive movements since the general election. In particular:
  1. There has been growing recognition of the need for trade unions to play a more active role where possible in community organisations and campaigns, not least through reinvigorated local trades union councils, community-based union branches and support for local anti-Bedroom Tax campaigns.
  2. The launch of the People’s Assembly movement in 2013 and its subsequent adoption of the People’s Charter and other left and progressive policies represents an embryonic mass alliance against state-monopoly capitalism, bringing together several trade unions with community campaigns and sections of the Labour Party and wider left including the Communist Party.
  3. Recognising the role of a daily paper and its website in the battle of ideas, the active engagement of trades unions with the Morning Star continues to grow, with nine unions (Unite, GMB, CWU, RMT, FBU, POA, UCATT, Community and the NUM) now represented on the management committee of the paper’s cooperative society.
15. It should also be recognised that the trade union movement has not been laid low by the ruling class and its government and state apparatus, despite setbacks and defeats as well as some victories. Already in 2014 we have seen civil and public servants, railway workers, teachers and lecturers, carers, electricians, journalists, firefighters, prison officers and others taking industrial action.
16. What now needs to happen is that the labour movement and the left, including the Communist Party, assess realistically the objective conditions and trends in Britain today, take the necessary steps to overcome their own weaknesses and take full advantage of the contradictions within British state-monopoly capitalism.
17. Trade unions need to seek greater unity in the fight against austerity and privatisation to protect public services, jobs, wages and pension rights. They should also appreciate the extent to which ruling class strategy is political and ideological, aimed at weakening trade unions financially and organisationally. The escalating attack on union rights and facilities in the public sector confirms this reality. It must be resisted by the whole labour movement because it prefigures a wider offensive against trade unionism in the private and voluntary sectors as well. The Campaign for Trade Union Freedom can play a valuable role in promoting a united, militant and political response. This must include closer co-operation between unions and through trades union councils to organise unemployed, part-time, temporary, casual and migrant workers. The welcome revival of trades councils would be strengthened if more unions ensured that their local branches affiliated and played an active part in them. With more than three million workers unemployed or underemployed, the TUC, its affiliates and their sectoral organisations should consider how to go on the offensive for a shorter working week and working life with no loss of pay or pension, thereby countering proposals to postpone the retirement age still further to 70 and beyond. Nothing would do more to create jobs, boost purchasing power and improve the quality of life for millions of workers and their families.
18. The People’s Assembly must be strengthened organisationally, financially and politically as a militant movement that unites the unions, trades councils, anti-cuts groups, community campaigns and the non-sectarian left in action against austerity and privatisation, in support of an alternative left-wing programme based on the People’s Charter. A powerful movement of this kind is needed to combat the Tory-LibDem coalition and to prepare for whichever government takes office in 2015 and attempts to continue the ruling class offensive. More broad-based local groups should be established locally and coordinated regionally, with active trade union participation at every level and in every nation and region of Britain.
19. Women have been hit disproportionately hard by the ruling class austerity offensive as low-paid workers, users of public and voluntary services, single parents, carers and partners most at risk of domestic violence. Dedicated facilities for women, including victims of rape, have been cut. Yet women have also come to the fore in many local campaigns, whether to defend library and hospital services or to oppose the Bedroom Tax. This makes it still more urgent that trade unions, the People’s Assembly and other campaigning movements do everything possible to support, involve and promote women, including through the provision of dedicated structures and resources where appropriate. In particular, the fight for equal pay for work of equal value has still to be won, highlighting the need for action in favour of compulsory equal pay audits in all sectors of the economy and associated demands. The National Assembly of Women and the Charter for Women can play an invaluable role in linking local and individual campaigns to develop a women’s movement across Britain, promoting political understanding and unity in action against austerity, privatisation, militarism and war.
20. The peoples of Britain can be proud of the extent to which they are building a multiracial society in the teeth of all attempts to divide them against each other. It must remain a top priority to defend multiculturalism and secularism against all attempts to promote religious, ethnic, linguistic or national prejudice and discrimination while building a diverse but integrated working class culture based on class pride, collectivism, unity, equality and solidarity. Mobilising masses of people to deny a platform to racists and fascists wherever possible remains central to this objective. However, this must be accompanied by an explanation of why it is in the interests of workers and people generally to unite against exploitation and oppression. Allowing discrimination against any particular section of the workforce or population eventually undercuts the position of all except the exploiters. That is why the Communist Party rejects on principle the superexploitation of migrant workers, opposes all racist immigration and nationality laws and calls for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. We will continue to work for unity across the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement, based on a recognition that different approaches and priorities need not be a barrier to co-operation, coordination and unity in action wherever they can be achieved.
21. All forces of the labour and progressive movements need to be drawn together in the construction of a mass movement that can turn a defensive struggle against austerity, privatisation and imperialist war into an offensive one for social advance and socialism. The prospects for doing so will be enhanced by the degree to which clarity and unity can be won around a left-wing programme of policies that make inroads into the wealth and power of the capitalist class and its state. Substantial agreement already exists in favour of policies such as democratic public ownership of key industries and services, economic planning, sustainable energy and transport policies that severely reduce carbon emissions, a more progressive taxation system, extensive action to eliminate tax evasion, measures to boost wages, benefits and pensions, imposition of selective price controls, a big construction programme for more council housing, investment in public services and a halt to all forms of privatisation, imposition of capital controls, a major switch from military R&D and production towards civilian and socially useful goods and services. Britain’s repressive anti-trade union laws must be repealed and employment rights expanded. New emphasis needs to be put on promoting policies that guarantee fulfilling employment, training and education opportunities for young people together with equal pay and rights at work for all workers, including women, youth and migrants.
22. At the same time, communists and socialists must step up our efforts to explain how and why so many of the left and progressive policies outlined above fundamentally contradict the neoliberal approach to economic and social questions entrenched in the fundamental treaties and institutions of the European Union. There is a peculiarly British view among progressive-minded people, trade unionists and even socialists that the EU somehow represents an exercise in social progress, solidarity and peaceful co-operation. Most workers across large parts of western and southern Europe have shed such illusions in the course of bitter battles against the brutal austerity and privatisation being enforced by the troika of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Building a mass left and progressive movement with trade union support against British membership of the EU, especially in the run-up to a possible referendum, will therefore be an internationalist as well as a domestic and democratic necessity.
23. Development of a broad, militant mass movement across Britain against state-monopoly capitalism and for a left-wing alternative is the best context in which to resolve the national question in a progressive, constructive way. Instead of dividing the political class struggle against a united British capitalist class into separate Scottish, Welsh and English compartments, the Communist Party and its allies argue for maintaining working class and labour movement unity in a federal Britain. To secure such federalism on a progressive basis the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly of Wales must be granted powers to challenge monopoly capital in the interests of the workers and peoples of those two countries: powers to stop closures, to intervene industrially and to own and control productive resources. In England, a chamber of the Westminster Parliament could function as an English legislature, with the House of Lords abolished and democratic regional assemblies established by popular demand. Powers and resources should be restored to local government, while directly elected mayors and cabinet-style governance which diminish collective local democracy are scrapped. At the same time, the federal government should retain powers over currency, banking and a sufficient share of tax revenue to be able to redistribute income geographically in terms of social need and to provide a fulcrum for the assertion of democratic power against that of big business.  In this way labour, left and progressive movements across Britain would retain their united potential to overthrow the wealth and power of monopoly capital and redistribute it among the workers and peoples of all three countries.
24. The Communist Party is clear that the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition must be defeated in the forthcoming general election, which means supporting the election of the, at present, only practical and viable alternative – a Labour government. This need not require support for every Labour candidate, especially where communists and other candidates may be standing on a broad left platform against the worst Labour champions of neoliberalism and imperialism. Nevertheless, only a defeat of the Tories and LibDems in the election overall will raise people’s morale and determination to fight for left and progressive policies.
25. In the meantime, to help secure such a result, maximum pressure must be exerted on the Labour leadership to propose a winning programme. At the forefront of Labour’s manifesto should be a commitment to end the austerity and privatisation offensive. Real increases in incomes, including the introduction of a statutory living wage, would boost living standards, production, investment and employment. Selective controls on rents, fares and energy and food prices would bring relief to the many millions of people on low incomes. A massive council-house building programme would give hope to many families and young people desperate for a home of their own, as well as creating up to a million new jobs. Rolling back the privatisation of the NHS, notably in England, and putting an end to PFI profiteering would be a vote-winner, likewise a Labour pledge to take the gas, electricity, water, postal and railway industries back into public ownership. Such a left programme could be be financed by abolishing Britain’s nuclear weapons and reducing military spending to the average European level; taxing the rich, financial speculation and big business profits more equitably; and ending the tax haven status of overseas territories under British jurisdiction.
26. Nor should the connections between domestic and international matters be neglected, which is why the labour movement needs to develop its own independent foreign and defence policy in opposition to EU and NATO and in favour of fair trade, social justice, popular sovereignty, international co-operation and peace.
27. While it is unlikely that many of these policies will be accepted by the Labour leadership, arguing for them can raise the level of political understanding in the labour movement, better equipping it for vital strategic tasks ahead.
28. Since the early 20th century, the Labour Party has been the mass electoral party of the labour movement in Britain. Its class base and broad popular appeal have enabled it to win elections, form governments and introduce reforms in the interests of workers and the people generally. Labour’s federal structure, with its affiliated trade unions and working class composition, has helped to ensure the existence of a significant socialist trend within the party, as well as the stronger social-democratic one. Generations of working people have seen Labour as the main repository of their aspirations for a better life and a fairer, more humane society. But while Labour governments have sometimes improved economic, social and political conditions, they have never challenged the foundations of capitalism and imperialism and indeed have waged wars to defend colonial power against national liberation movements. The social-democratic trend in the party has always refused to pursue a strategy for taking state power and using it to replace capitalism with socialism.
29. After its first term in office, the new Labour trend led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown openly pursued a neoliberal agenda on behalf of British state-monopoly capitalism, which included dismantling the trade union and class basis of the Labour Party to make it completely safe for big business. Since then, the Miliband-Balls leadership has failed to break with neoliberalism. On March 1 2014, the Labour Party embarked on what might well be the final stage of its mutation into a non-labour party. Delegates including those from all but one of the affiliated trade unions voted to weaken, perhaps fatally, the collective basis of trade union involvement in the party.
30. The period up to and immediately following the June 2015 general election will demonstrate conclusively whether or not Labour can be reclaimed as the mass electoral party of the labour movement. Labour’s election manifesto will reveal whether trade union influence has produced a left or progressive programme. If the party moves away from austerity, privatisation and the renewal of nuclear weapons and commits a Labour government to measures in favour of public ownership, progressive taxation, public sector housing, price controls and additional rights for workers and trade unions, this will indicate that the battle to reclaim the party can possibly be won. In the ongoing drive to do so, the whole of the left and the labour movement would have a duty to support the Labour left and affiliated unions in their efforts, reinforced by an upsurge in determination and enthusiasm to implement Labour’s manifesto policies in the face of ferocious ruling class opposition.
31. Should the manifesto fail to propose a clear alternative to neoliberalism, Labour will let down its supporters and either lose the election or subsequently govern with the same feeble and reactionary policies that threw away the largest parliamentary majority in history achieved in 1997. Under these conditions, the labour movement and the left will have no option but to take the necessary steps to re-establish a mass party of labour. Staying with a party that no longer pretends to represent working class interests – and where the prospects of it doing so have all but vanished – is a recipe for permanent defeat and despair. While the initial moves towards re-establishing a labour party will have to come from a minority of unions, some of them small or non-affiliated, it will be vital to win at least one or two of the big battalions of the labour movement to this objective.
32. The proposal that unions form their own distinct party, rooted in the labour movement and affiliated to Labour like the Co-operative Party merits serious consideration. It would need to have its own policy-making conference, elected leadership and financial autonomy. Such an initiative could give unions a clearer, stronger and collective political voice both inside and beyond the Labour Party – all the more so if it does not operate bans and proscriptions. Were unions to decide later that they need to re-establish their own mass party outside the Labour Party, much of the initial preparatory work would already have been done.
33. This battle of ideas will be central to the debate that needs to be taken forward urgently about reclaiming or re-establishing the labour movement’s mass party. In particular, ways have to be found to engage the trade unions more extensively in this discussion, however difficult this may be in the run-up to the general election and during any post-victory honeymoon period. Trade union bodies at every level, up to and including the Trades Union Congress, should organise discussions, meetings and conferences to consider the crisis in the political representation of the working class, the future of the Labour Party and how more workers can be drawn into political activity and representation. As the left’s only daily paper, with six Labour-affiliated and three non-affiliated unions represented on its management committee, the Morning Star would be especially well placed to stimulate the debates and initiatives necessary to help resolve the crisis of working class political representation, whether through reclaiming or re-establishing the labour movement’s mass party.
34. However, it must be recognised that the biggest problem on the left in Britain is not so much a shortage of socialist parties as of socialists. The long decline and collapse of social democracy, the previous divisions which severely weakened the Communist Party and the adventurism and sectarianism of the far left have all contributed to a failure to defeat the New Right’s ideological onslaught since the 1970s. The left must now take on the full and urgent responsibility to reclaim the labour movement for socialism, which is a precondition for reclaiming or re-establishing a mass party which can advance beyond social democracy. This will only happen if the left and the trade unions prioritise the work of raising the political consciousness of workers in large numbers, explaining and projecting the ideas and values of socialism.
35. Strengthening the Communist Party and its influence would contribute directly to resolving the crisis of working class political representation in Britain. This is because the CP is rooted in the labour movement, organises to build mass campaigning and seeks to apply its Marxist outlook to vital strategic questions in a non-dogmatic, non-sectarian way. A bigger and more influential Communist Party, active on every front of the political class struggle, unifying in its approach, unwavering in its commitment to socialism, imbued with internationalism, would help transform the political situation in Britain.
36. Building the Communist Party would strengthen not only the party itself but every aspect of resistance to the capitalist onslaught. Attention should be given to identifying working class activists as potential recruits to the party. The unique role of the CP in developing such original analysis and a guide to action as the Charter for Women should lay the basis for attracting a new generation of campaigning women. The party must support the Young Communist League politically and with resources to help the YCL extend its work among youth and students.
37. Central to developing the role of the Communist Party must be the activity of Communists in workplaces, most of which are today unorganised or very weakly organised. The strength of the resistance to ruling class attacks in the 1970s was firmly based on hundreds of CP branches in industry. Effective and politically mature workplace organisation, especially in key sectors of the economy, is essential for redeveloping a strong, confident working class movement that can give leadership in communities and wider struggles. Placing Communists at the centre of such work must be a priority if the ruling class offensive is to be defeated.
38. Communists must raise our effectiveness as a result of improving our political education and cadre development and thus the united and disciplined approach of all comrades to our political work.
39. We need to raise our public imageand have a bolder approach to electoral struggle. Communist policies must be highlighted and tested in electoral contests, reflecting experiences in grassroots struggles. All party organisations have the capacity to be involved in elections and should put forward candidates under the party banner in local council polls. This approach can also provide an effective basis for communist participation in parliamentary and assembly election campaigns in selective constituencies. The party should also keep under consideration the construction of longer-term electoral formations in alliance with trade unions, domiciled communists, socialists, environmentalists and other progressives.
40. Key to the ideological struggle and the battle to increase Communist Party is increased sales of the Morning Star, the only paper that offers a daily outlet for communist and socialist ideas and reportage of working class issues. A more influential and financially secure Morning Star is essential to social advance. Every party member can play a role in buying and selling the Morning Star, raising donations to the paper’s Fighting Fund and winning labour movement shareholdings in the PPPS co-operative that owns it. Working with the Star editor and Management Committee we must carefully develop a strategy to ensure that the Morning Star is rightfully seen as the paper of the People’s Assembly, the unions and the broader movement.
41. Ongoing capitalist crisis expresses itself in a worsening standard of life for working people while the pampered elite enriches itself still further. Our party’s revolutionary proposals offer a decisive but achievable alternative to the austerity agenda favoured by Establishment parties. Communists should play a leading role in combining everyday struggles with the longer-term goal of opening the way to a socialist future.

Manchester meeting: the fascist coup in Ukraine

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The fascist coup in Ukraine

Presentation by Harpal Brar

Saturday 21 June 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm

Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, Manchester, M2 5NS

Harpal Brar will be giving a Marxist analysis of imperialism and war with a specific focus on the fascist coup in Ukraine.
As the ill-fated fascist provocation continues to backfire on its imperialist backers, we ask what is really happening in Ukraine, and who stands to benefit from the coup.

Ukraine – Oppose the Fascist Coup  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYHGE3wvr5A&feature=youtu.be

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Read about what life in the USSR was really like

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soviet union in spaceOur comrade Irina Malenko has now made volume 1 of her book about life in the Soviet Union available online for download. Red Youth recommends all our comrades and readers to study the book and learn more about what life was really like in the USSR. Many of our comrades are working hard with other organisations like the Stalin Society to speak the truth about what Soviet life was like and to remember and understand the great sacrifices and achievements Soviet people made and won in the 20th century. So, necxt time the teacher suggests reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm to understand what socialism or the USSR was all about – tell them to read Irina Malenko’s book – a first hand account from someone who isn’t in the pay of mi5 like good old George!

Writing about her book Irina says,

“I tried to portray the daily life in the USSR in the 1970s-1980s as it was, with all its strengths, but also weaknesses and mistakes we’ve made.

It deals with “perestroika” and “post-perestroika” issues too, as well as portraying life of a post-Soviet migrant worker in Europe.

My book is a challenge to all the wide-spread lies about “oppressive” or “dull” nature of our socialist society.

This is only part 1 of the trilogy (I have translations of other 2 parts as well), and now I also hope to write a new book – continuation of this one.

Its (slightly sarcastic) title will be “Soviética Extremista” :-) Because in the West, if you tell the truth about socialism, they immediately brand you as “an extremist”!”

And don’t forget to watch comrade Julia’s presentation on her life in the USSR!

 

Imperialism and war: Why did WW1, WW2 and every other war since REALLY happen?

Posted on by Red Youth Britain, History, Red Youth

This is a VERY important presentation on the anti-war movement: PLEASE WATCH AND SHARE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teF94iX14rA

Harpal Brar speaks at a meeting in Birmingham, on the topic of Imperialism & War. It is a topic that everyone in Britain, which remains an imperialist country, must understand.

Further meetings that you can attend: http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=events, including London, Manchester, Orgreave, Durham and Birmingham.

The introduction focuses on the recent troubles in Ukraine, its history, the collapse of the Soviet Union that has led to the Ukrainian people’s current troubles, the imperial intrigues of the EU, NATO and USA, and the political physiognomy of the current ‘Ukrainian Government’ they have installed.

But the scope of the talk is far wider, covering the fundamental economics of monopoly capitalism that lead to its political and military drive for conquest and plunder, that shape our contemporary world – including the invasions and occupations of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Yugoslavia, etc.

These are the very same forces that led to the great conflagrations of WW1 and WW2 in which the great established imperial powers battled it out with the rising capitalist powers who sought a place at the imperialist banqueting table – demanding their ‘fair share’ of the slaves, colonies, plunder and booty. But since the ‘Berlin congress’ of 1884, the territories of the world had been completely divided, and the would be ‘upstart’ German colonialist could only gain territories at the expense of the old fat British and French colonialists.

Our imperialist masters are getting ready to commemorate the 100th anniversary of their (WW1) bloodbath, with great pomp and ceremony, while doing their best to obfuscate the facts of their barbarous wars, in which fully 100 million workers paid with their lives for the imperialist capitalists’ fabulous profits. This is the ideal of our capitalist rulers’ ‘division of labour.’

Let us, the international working class, ALSO remember – that it was a massive capitalist crisis of overproduction – as we are experiencing today – that led to the ‘great’ wars. And that a mighty internationalist proletarian movement arose from these wars, that showed, under the guidance of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, that it was possible to mutiny, in the trenches, in civil society, and in government. That it was possible to go beyond mutiny to revolution – to overthrow the rotten, senile, corrupt, and moribund system that enslaves the entire planet to the greed of a tiny clique of exploiting parasites.

The october revolution and the third international that grew from it it showed definitively that it is possible to defeat and overthrow the monarchs, princes, dukes, kings and Tsars; to defeat and overthrow the capitalist billionaires and their governments. To put in place a workers’ democracy in which “he who does not work – neither shall he eat.” To end exploitation of man by man and nation by nation. To end racism, sexism, and division of the working people along national and religious lines. To forge a great unity and build an economy that serves the people.

An important discussion of opportunism in the British working class movement ends the discussion. For in order to forge unity among working people in Britain, we must overcome the divisive forces that serve imperialism in the working class movement. We must break the ties that bind so much of our ‘progressive’ and ‘socialist’ / ‘anti-war’ movement to the Labour Party. Until we break the link with Labour, all talk of anti-war, imperialist and socialist progress is doomed to failure.

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Birmingham communists stand with Russia against imperialist aggression

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

Harpal Brar Ukraine Talk

A meeting organised by the Communist Party in Birmingham, West Midlands was addressed by Harpal Brar this Sunday. The meeting was held in the party building near the city centre and began with two short film showings demonstrating the brutality of the Kiev fascists who have murdered innocent people in Odessa, Slavyansk, Mariupol and various other towns these last few weeks and the disgusting assertion by one pro-Kiev coup government Mayor that Hitler was a liberator from Stalin and the USSR.

The meeting is one of a series of meetings which in general are addressing the theme imperialism and war and it follows on from similar successful events in Liverpool and London. Other regions are preparing to host Harpal and other members of the central committee of the CPGB-ML and the next will be held in Glasgow on Saturday May 31 – further details to be announced. If you would like to have the talk in your own town, get in touch via info@redyouth.org.

The Birmingham meeting was well attended by local party comrades and friends and heard an expert summary of the Marxist teachings on imperialism and war. Comrade Harpal spoke about the reasons for war, the class contradictions which give rise to war, the different types of war and the attitude of communists towards war. He talked about the role of opportunism and social chauvinism in the anti-war movement, and importantly the meeting went on to address questions of vital significance for us here in Britain today. The comrades assembled in Birmingham expressed their opinion that in the event of US or British imperialist aggression against Russia or China, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist – Leninist) would work for the defeat of our own government and support the defense of Russia and socialist China. It was the view of the majority that war against Russia or China would be reactionary, would strengthen the forces of imperialism and would therefore need to be opposed by revolutionaries. Comrades rejected the notion peddled in some quarters that because Russia is not a socialist country we would adopt a “plague on both your houses” attitude, and that rather than take such a backward step we should declare ourselves firmly on the side of the victim of imperialist aggression.

Red salute to comrade George Bennett

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

Red Youth is sad to have to inform our comrades, readers, supporters and friends of the death of our very dear comrade George Bennett. Our comrades are welcome to pay their respects this 14 May at 4pm – 14, Morris Street, Whitechapel, London E1 2NP.

George Bennett - member of CPGB-ML and Stalin Society
George Bennett – member of CPGB-ML and Stalin Society

George was born on 8 September 1923 and came to Britain from Kingston, Jamaica as a young man.  He was no ‘pushover’ for anyone and always supported his trade union and fellow workers within his workplace (mostly the Post Office).  Equally he would stand up to racism or any form of bullying no matter where it came from or the odds against him.  From early on he sought answers to the questions of the day and found them in Marxism-Leninism.  In 1991, when the Stalin Society was formed in Britain, George was there supporting from the start.  In later life George found himself in the CPB but was not happy with the line taken by the leaders of that party on support for the Labour Party, the belittling of the Soviet Union and the role of comrade JV Stalin within it.  A good friend introduced him to the CPGB-ML and George joined after a short period of studying the party.  George described the feeling he had when joining as being “like coming home!”  George the optimist stood firm whatever the difficulties and never wavered for a second in his political beliefs or his commitment to the CPGB-ML.  His last years saw a lot of illness (mainly respiratory) but George remained his cheerful self and would always do whatever he could for the Party and the Stalin Society illness permitting.  It was a pleasure to know comrade George and we are richer for the experience.  George was a man who really disliked any ‘fuss’ regarding himself or the work that he had done for the cause, a truly modest man who just got on with things.  George passed from this life on 26 April following a stroke.  We pay him the highest accolade we can think of, he was a communist and we were proud to call him comrade.

“Confused” about Ukraine? Only if you’re a trot or hopeless liberal…

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth
Confused
Trot attempt at irony?

There were as many articles about Tony Blair on the main Stop the War website as there were about Ukraine when redyouth.org sat down to take a look today. It seems as though Stop the War puts off today’s jobs for tomorrow and substitutes yesterdays jobs for today!

When you’re incapable of giving a lead in the fight against imperialism you’ll fail to stop any war, though hopefully stop the war supporters do actually read their own website, and perhaps are capable of some self-criticism. If they are then there’s some good news, for a rhetorical article has been reproduced from RT.com entitled “Confused about whats happening in Ukraine? You’re not alone” which may go some way to pointing out the failures of STW to lead any meaningful struggle against the imperialist adventures of recent past. The tragedy is that perhaps the message is lost on STW’s leaders… Devoid perhaps of humour or sense of irony the editor of the webpage has reproduced this piece which whilst giving very few answers certainly points out many failures of the anti-war movement in recent years.

One section states:

“Syria too is rather baffling. We were and are told that radical Islamic terror groups pose the greatest threat to our peace, security and our ‘way of life’ in the West. That Al-Qaeda and other such groups need to be destroyed: that we needed to have a relentless ‘War on Terror’ against them. Yet in Syria, our leaders have been siding with such radical groups in their war against a secular government which respects the rights of religious minorities, including Christians.

When the bombs of Al-Qaeda or their affiliates go off in Syria and innocent people are killed there is no condemnation from our leaders: their only condemnation has been of the secular Syrian government which is fighting radical Islamists and which our leaders and elite media commentators are desperate to have toppled. I’m confused. Can anyone help me?”

Lets hope a few STW bright sparks can provide the author with some answers. Far from organising and mobilising public opposition to the war against Syria (or Libya), the Stop the War Coalition maintained a deadly and deafening silence for most of the conflict, and when it did speak it was to castigate President Assad or the Russians or worse still to stifle the voices of Syrian patriots, including peace-loving Nuns!… suprise, suprise its all happening again with regards to Ukraine!

The close connection of StW’s present leadership to Labour – an imperialist party which has consistently put the interests of British corporations far higher than those of workers at home or abroad, and certainly far higher than quibbles over death counts and international law – means that StW is paralysed to do anything beyond what is permitted by the Labour party’s capitalist masters. 

As a result of this subservience, the tiny clique of ‘left’-Labourites and their Counterfire/CPB flunkeys who have usurped the leadership of StW have effectively neutralised Britain’s ‘anti-war movement’, demoralising and demobilising thousands of sincere activists, and by the looks of it confusing a few to boot!

By repeating imperialist lies about the countries that are being targeted for attack, and channelling the energy of those that remain into non-threatening activities such as lobbying MPs and circulating petitions. Our ‘anti-war’ leaders are doing the vital job of making sure there is no meaningful, organised domestic opposition to imperialist war – they have tied our movement to the war chariot of imperialism. 

If YOU want answers, only Marxism Leninism can shine a light on the truth that cretins want kept in the dark. Check out these links:

Crimea goes home

Ukraine: fascist coup

Workers Party of Belgium interview

The devastating effects of the restoration of capitalism in the Ukraine 

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

Posted on 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”.

images bush blair 0908-cia-screwup-on-wmd.jpg_full_600 51YUwL2MuLL._SL500_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

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.

k19_00901090

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 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 by Red Youth Red Youth

stalin 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.

Harry Pollitt leader of the CPGB
Harry Pollitt leader of the CPGB

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:

JV Stalin“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.”

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

The offending advert
The offending advert

—- 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