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.
