Here’s a few photo’s from this years wonderful Durham Miner’s Gala:
School is a tool
The divide between capitalists and workers, both politically and economically, is continuing to expand rapidly as we sink further into economic crisis.
Adding to the relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class in the material sense is the impoverishment of our minds. The most glaring example of our lack of class consciousness or of a Marxist understanding amongst Britain’s workers is all too apparent when we compare the prevailing social peace in the face of massive cuts in Britain with the dramatic fight-back that has been unfolding in the streets of Greece, Turkey and Spain in recent weeks and months. It is clear that we are suffering from a total malnourishment in theory and understanding.
The education of workers regarding the alternative to capitalism is hardly touched upon by our labour movement, and within the state schooling system it is conducted in no meaningful way whatsoever.
The education system works in tandem with the ‘justice’, media and religious establishments (to name but a few) to acclimatise us all to monotonous subordination and despair. The idea that another world is possible is never on the horizon. All of these institutions, it should be noted, are currently being removed from state control and placed into the hands of private owners in the hope that our parasitic ruling class can wring a few more drops of profit out of public institutions that have been bled white.
The purpose of schooling under capitalism is to train us for disciplined labour in the imperialist workforce – to instil us with the stamina to run on the hamster wheel of pointless employment (if we’re fortunate!) until we drop dead, or until we make it to some ever-receding ‘retirement’ age (assuming there will even be such a thing as a state pension by the time we make it to the age of 70!)
The modern curriculum seems to be saturated with mathematical equations whose usefulness is never made clear to us, with religious instruction that is utterly inane, and with repetitious emphasis on how to speak and spell ‘properly’ … even while we are given instruction in the works of William Shakespeare, who was famous for being the originator of so much English slang! How contradictory!
Our schools, and the whole grading and assessing system they buy into, teach us that we are only as good as the grades we receive on results day and the marks we are adjudged to have earned from our teachers. They teach us that the girl across the hall from you is better than you because the A* that she has received is better than your dismal C!
This is a system that inevitably benefits the bourgeoisie, and it is no coincidence that it does so. To earn your A* you must learn to be an excellent parrot – no individuality or criticism is permitted. Regurgitate your textbook onto your exam paper in order to demonstrate how Stalin killed all and sundry before brunch on an icy Russian winter’s morning. A* and place at university assured … along with access to a higher-paying job and a nicer level of life than might be open to some of your less fortunate friends.
But is the great Albert Einstein not proof that the current existing methods of assessment are incorrect, idealist and unfair? Poor old Albert was considered to be an ‘underachiever’ in school too!
Schools are not there to not teach us how to think critically, to pose alternative theories or to explore beyond the curriculum. Everyone has their own ways of thinking, their preferred learning strategies and their unique mix of abilities, yet we are taught, assessed and ranked through the same means.
The present exam system is a hegemonic ideological state apparatus enforced by the bourgeoisie. The whole purpose of exams is not to maintain standards but to ‘reward’ those with the right class background along with the most pliable working-class students with access to university places and jobs. It sets a pattern that is preparing us for our roles in society, all the while covertly teaching us to look down on people who earn less than we do because they must surely be ‘less intelligent’ or ‘less deserving’.
It’s important for us to realise that most people don’t get the grades they worked for so much as the grades their parents paid for. The entire public-school system is set up to make sure that A grades and access to Oxbridge are achieved as standard by anyone with a modicum of intelligence and pliability. Small class sizes, extra coaching, extra-curricular activities, internships, business and academic contacts and exam technique are all part of the package that ensure that the richest parents can expect their children to ‘achieve’ as expected.
To get the same grades as a state comp student requires far more discipline and motivation, especially if you come from a poor family where books and knowledge are not on tap at home and in which such attainment is not expected or planned for, either by your family or by your teachers. Yet still, to win this coveted prize requires students from all backgrounds to crush their critical faculties and teach themselves to become mouthpieces for the prevailing system – something that is far harder to do if your life experience is constantly teaching you that the system is not the ‘fair’, ‘democratic’ ‘meritocracy’ it pretends to be!
If schools endorsed the theories of Karl Marx, if they educated students on his revolutionary literature and explained the materialist conception of history, how quickly do we think the ‘great minds’ at the Department of Education would cry aloud that dictatorship and all the rest of it have long been done away with?
It is not that Marx’s theories are not relevant today or, as the bourgeoisie would have us believe, that ‘Marxism is dead’. Quite the opposite. The bourgeoisie are fully aware that his teachings are correct and that Marxism will never die while class society continues to exist. Indeed, they themselves desire to understand Marx’s ideas, the better to debunk them. Not a great house or public school in the country would be without complete without the works of Marx and Lenin on its shelves – but try finding them nowadays in your local library!
Unfortunately, all that working-class youth are likely to find on comprehensive or academy school shelves is Animal Farm, the objective of which is to hammer home that nonsensical view that ‘communism doesn’t work because everyone is naturally greedy and people won’t work together’. This ‘truth’ is handed down to us just 20 minutes before the next teacher tells us what a wonderful ‘Big Society’ we have in Britain, and how we all worked in common to bring understanding to the natives during the colonial era. What happy times.
Working-class youth needs to educate itself; to set its own programme and curriculum – one which reflects our life, our struggle and our conditions. Young people should educate themselves in the most advanced theory, Marxism Leninism. The CPGB-ML urges the youth of this nation to read the revolutionary and emancipating works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin so that they can prepare themselves to break out of the poverty and ignorance that has been assigned to them.
The youth of today is the wealth of tomorrow. Don’t let our school and our warped and class-ridden assessment system determine what you do with your life. Join the CPGB-ML, join Red Youth and be the change you want to see in the world. As Chairman Mao put it: “Dare to struggle; dare to win!” Or as Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto 165 years ago: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”
Free political prisoners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6JsmqyHFYI#at=18
Red Youth and Birmingham CPGB-ML supported the call of West Mids PSC to support a demo to raise awareness of the plight of political prisoner’s. The purpose was to raise the profile of Irish and Palestinian political prisoner’s in particular. Despite West Mids PSC declaring its support for the rally, it seems on the day the weather got the better of them. Perhaps a BBQ took precedence, or maybe some other vital work, like verbal masturbation at some University/college Professor’s house… maybe they were too busy spreading rumours of anti-semitism to other ultra-left, trotskyite groups who make out they are anti-racist/anti-imperialist. Either way, true anti-imperialists staged an excellent march and rally. Shame on those who profess their devotion to the liberation of the Palestinians but declare actual Palestinian revolutionaries and fighters against imperialism to be anti-semitic. These people whistle loud but are never seen out in Birmingham unless its a state-sponsored/TUC love-in.
Keep our NHS public
Yorkshire red youth helped out at the Leeds Keep Our NHS Public over the weekend and a fantastic demonstration was held outside Virgin media (just one of the companies looking to benefit from the privatisation of the NHS). Further demonstrations will be taking place this coming weekend and the national conference is in London on 13 July. Check out http://www.keepournhspublic.com and be sure to support the campaigns!
Friday 5 July – Coventry “happy birthday NHS” Upper Precinct (by Costa) 12.30pm
Friday 5th July – “hands around the Trafford” demo outside Trafford General 1pm www.savetraffordgeneral.com
Saturday 6 July – “happy birthday NHS” demo Bolton @ 11.30-12.30pm Fred Dibnah statue
and many many more here
Privatisation and profiteering
Those who attempt to defend the last Labour government’s record on the NHS typically point to the increase in funding from 1999. But while some of that money did go to frontline care, this actually occurred only as an accidental and temporary trickle-down side effect of the real policies driving increased spending at that time: the likes of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) that sought easy profit opportunities for big business by mortgaging NHS assets to private banking consortia.
While the huge increase in public funding for the NHS (from £49bn in 1999/2000 to £119bn in 2009/10) that this covert privatisation process entailed was temporarily sustainable during the last decade’s cheap credit boom, the capitalist economy’s catastrophic tailspin into global recession means this is quite clearly no longer the case.
This is the rationale behind the ongoing so-called ‘Nicholson Challenge’ for the NHS to make £20bn-worth of cuts in ‘efficiency savings’ by 2015. And let us remember that this target of £20bn was announced to leading NHS doctors before the ConDem government was elected – ie, by the last Labour government.
If decency and common sense governed political decisions in Britain, these savings and more could easily be made by targeting the obvious source of the gross inefficiency that has caused NHS spending to spiral out of control in the first place: ie, by cancelling PFI debt and removing all private-sector involvement in the running of the NHS.
But capitalism does not quite work that way; and so wards and whole hospitals are closed and clinical staff thrown out of work so that corporate interests can continue to profit out of the NHS.
The media spin that persists in its weasel attempts to invert this reality, blaming spiralling NHS spending on an ageing population, or rising patient expectations, or the mythical ‘inherent inefficiency of the public sector’ should fool no-one. The US healthcare system is entirely privately-owned, and is the most expensive and inefficient in the developed world, costing $6,719 per person per year while leaving 50+ million Americans uninsured and millions more seriously underinsured.
The socialist alternative
In stark contrast, socialist Cuba’s health system, entirely publicly-owned, is able to provide free comprehensive health care for all at a cost of only $362 per person per year, achieving population health statistics rivalling and even surpassing those of developed countries.
The difference? At no point in the Cuban system is there anybody who is driving up costs by making a profit. Moreover, the fact that the state is the sole provider of health care avoids the obscenely wasteful duplication, cherry-picking, and poor coordination of services that inevitably arise when multiple inter-competing private providers are involved.
Though Cuba’s healthcare achievements are relatively well-known these days, it is less widely recognised that the inspiration for the Cuban system was that of the Soviet Union; still less that the Soviet system – as the world’s first free universal healthcare system – also served as the model for Britain’s NHS itself.
Though Labour are invariably credited as the benefactors of the NHS, the fact is that the NHS was effectively a concession made by British capitalism due to the relative strength of the working class in the aftermath of the triumph of Soviet socialism in the second world war.
Many things have changed since then. The collapse of the USSR has meant that British capitalism no longer feels compelled to make such concessions to workers to deter them from revolution. Moreover, the profits from reconstruction of industry that fuelled the post-war boom have long since dried up, with capitalists increasingly turning to the option of easy taxpayer-funded bonanzas arising from the privatisation of public services: utilities, railways, education … and the NHS.
Since the end of the post-war boom, Labour governments have been just as complicit as the Tories in the slow liquidation of the NHS. It was the Callaghan administration of 1976-79 that began the process of hospital closures, while the Blair government not only kept the Tories’ internal market but further accelerated NHS privatisation by transforming NHS Trusts into ‘Foundation’ Trusts – embryonic private hospitals.
The lesson of history is clear: the problem is not merely the HASC Bill and subsequent regulations, to be resolved simply by getting rid of Lansley, Hunt or Cameron, or – God forbid – by voting Labour at the next election, but the whole rotten capitalist system, which, in its insatiable desire for profit, will continue its merciless attack on the living standards of working-class people until it itself is overthrown.
Join us now and help us make it happen!
29th June, Armed forces day
A day when people come together to celebrate British imperialism
This year it was like any other, events up and down the country filled with flag waving members of the working class, and in Manchester a delusional youth cadet force who believe that they are fighting for “our freedom”. CPGB-ML north west regional members arrived in Manchester to leaflet on topics like the NHS and the Bedroom tax; comrades always do this at the public area of Piccadilly gardens. When we went into Piccadilly gardens comrades hadn’t even given out a leaflet when members were harassed by private security. One very brave private security guard of 30 squared up to one of our 16 year old youth members and pushed him back out of Piccadilly gardens without even asking them to leave. We oppose all thuggish behaviour by these corporate ‘police’. To make things worse some women then came to our comrades shouting abuse at them, comrades tried to explain that they were campaigning on the NHS but the women were adamant they were there “disrespecting the soldiers”! When comrades asked how they were “disrespecting the soldiers” no reply was given and they just walked off looking upset that there were no ‘lefties’ to bash, insult or scream at. A man who claimed he was an ex-soldier then squared up to our younger comrades and made threats, with the public passers-by watching, the comrade refused to leave the public space which only made this man even more angry! Once more our members patiently explained they were giving out NHS leaflets which were even handed to him! He either had difficulty reading or he had no time for reasoned argument and seemed not to care a jot! Our comrades were pushed, and one young member had his glasses broken!
We would like to take this moment to say thanks to the elderly women and other members of the public who stepped in and confronted this mad man and these thugs. The behaviour of the cadets was as shocking as it was pitiful as they stood laughing at the man being confrontational, with one member of the public even turning to the cadets and saying “Shame on you”.
When the situation died down we spoke to the cadets who claimed they support freedom and that soldiers fight for freedom! Despite their love of freedom they insisted they had a right to have us thrown out of a public space! The hypocrisy from these brave defenders of freedom is plain for all to see!
We say this quite clear
Shame on you British Army
And shame on you British Cadets
The working class shall defend our freedoms!
NHS commissioning groups a cruel 1 April ‘joke’
Superman or Stalin – who's the real Man of Steel?
Another year, another Hollywood superhero blockbuster. A film about someone with superpowers who takes down petty criminals, local gangs and the occasional super villain. The bourgeoisie has to keep us spoon fed on this kind of “culture”.
But what about real super heroes? Men and women who have given their lives in the struggle against fascism, for medicine, for science and reason over idealism and superstition. Where are the films about these heroes? Where are the Blockbusters which reflect the real life superhuman struggles of working class and oppressed people to take control of their own destiny?
Champions of the working class, men like Stalin and the Bolsheviks are the heroes for red youth. Stalin realised, unlike Superman, that the bourgeoisie’s constant willingness to cause death and destruction and poverty to pursue their own economic interests was a much worse form of criminality than the occasional act of petty theft or super villain smugness. He understood that the real super villain, the rel arch criminal was the system of imperialism itself which commits daily genocide by allowing thousands to perish of hunger and disease whilst a tiny set of parasites lives off our backs. Fundamentally, Stalin understood that ceasing to make greed a virtue in society would mean less greed, and that taking care of people’s basic needs – such as food, education, and housing – formed the foundations of a healthy, fulfilled society. Thus, he followed the Marxist train of thought: that the rule of the bourgeoisie is the rule of the greedy and corrupt, and that the removal of the bourgeoisie from their position of power and the elimination of their influence meant the removal of greed and corruption.
To understand and act on this required no special powers, only an understanding of Marxism-Leninism and the determination to create a society that worked for the proletariat rather than against them.
Party for your future
A recent production by Red Youth
Save the Children issue new report: hunger = illiteracy
All the good intentions in the world can’t cure hunger and illiteracy. Numerous reports and scientific discoveries by NGO’s and Charities prove quite clearly that capitalism is bad for your health, sanity, education and all round wellbeing! The latest report from Save the Children reaffirms what we already knew – but if we’re serious about ending hunger and illiteracy then we need to end the system which creates these evils; monopoly capitalism viz. Imperialism! The following has been written by a Red Youth and Communist Party activist as comment on the news story reported by the BBC here.
Last year, in May 2012, Save the Children declared in their pamphlet “Nutrition in the First 1,000 Days” that “The focus is on the 171 million children globally who do not have the opportunity to reach their full potential due to the physical and mental effects of poor nutrition in the earliest months of life.” A year on, Save The Children has issued a new report indicating a direct link between malnutrition and illiteracy and has vowed to take their message, with the backing of some recognized big-wig authors, to London on June 8 for the G8 “summit on global nutrition”. Leading campaigner Julia Donaldson has declared, “Leaders attending this summit have a golden opportunity to stop this. They must invest more funding to tackle malnutrition if we are to stop a global literacy famine.” (BBC, Authors back ‘malnutrition hits literacy’ study – 28/5/13)
All socialists and progressives will be quick to agree with both the general findings of the report and condemn the scourge of hunger and illiteracy. Indeed we commend and salute the authors for bringing such crimes against humanity to the attention of the world’s media. But what must be understood is that this “golden opportunity” perceived by Save the Children, Ms. Donaldson and many supporters, is doomed to abject failure and is nothing but badly misguided good faith on their part. We expect absolutely nothing more than bureaucratic blubber and crocodile tears from the leaders of the G8; for malnourishment and illiteracy are not mere unfortunate side effects of imperialism’s worldwide operation, they are in fact the integral and logical results of monopoly capital’s drive for maximum profit and the inevitable product of a system that protects the private individual accumulation of wealth, a wealth that has been created through hard work of millions of workers in the fields, farms and factories, a wealth stolen and concentrated in the hands of the few.
Illiteracy & imperialism
Illiteracy has historically been one of capitalism’s primary tools in the suppression of class struggle and their ongoing monopoly on knowledge and technology. In the imperialist epoch this process has taken on the form of the technological enslavement of developing nations to their imperialist master’s. No phone networks without Vodafone, no electricity grid without Siemen’s, no medicine without Glaxo Smith-Kline etc etc. No wonder the technological developments that occur in China, Iran, DPR Korea and other independent nations bring the fury of the western governments and their media; incredulous at developing technology in these countries, particularly annoyed by the increasing technical development of the military in these countries, enabling them to defend their sovereignty and independence against imperialist aggression. Does the west really worry that China is ‘exploiting’ Africa? The same west that colonised Africa, stole the land from her people’s and enslaved and transported millions! Worries about their exploitation by China?! Perhaps they are more concerned that Chinese phone networks, Chinese mines, Chinese technicians and engineers are delivering the kind of technological improvements to Africa that will enable her people’s to stand on their own two feet, free of the IMF and World Bank!
Illiteracy & Culture
The indoctrination of British youth, the promotion of materialistic, self-obsessive behavior has driven the working class into blind and submissive moral acceptance of the domination of the idea’s, norms and behavior of the ruling class, helped along by the powerful privately-owned corporate media working in the interests of capital it has become cool to champion “The Apprentice” and decidedly uncool to go against the grain. Empathy with one another and our common struggle has been contaminated with selfish greed, alienating humans from their natural empathy towards one another, our common struggle and our desire to cooperate in a social environment to fix common problems. These natural instincts are replaced by senseless competition and mutual distrust, a pitting of one against another in a battle for survival and a race to the bottom.
The seemingly endless cycle of exploitation of working-class families will continue for as long as the working-class allows itself to be subjected to the orders of the exploitative class. The daily grind and increasing hardships create a no win situation for imperialism. To increase profits to the maximum it must impoverish and drive down the living standards of the masses of people – but in so doing it creates it’s own gravediggers. The only way to put an end to the poverty and neglect facing the 170 million + children talked about in the report, as well as their families, is to put control of production into their hands – into the hands of the working-class. The working class must seize state power and wield it in its own interests.
Socialism and class politics points the way
Take the example of the Cuban revolution. To this day, Cuba is labeled a third world country, despite boasting average literacy attainment far higher than that of its former oppressor, the USA, and maintaining the welfare of the people despite an endless list of items embargoed by the imperialists, banned from entering the country by US imperialism and it’s allies! Against imperialism, against the odds, Cuba has defied what capitalism says is possible and proven that an organised, disciplined and clearly defined working-class agenda is the only way to put an end to the demons of hunger, destitution, illiteracy and cultural oppression that haunt the world’s working class and the oppressed nations.
If Save the Children imagine that their discovery of c+h=i [children+hunger=illiteracy] is new they should look to the example of the Black Panther Party (BPP), who introduced food before school programmes in the 1960’s! Thousands of poor children in their community, who were suffering terrible poverty and malnutrition, and who would normally go to school without a meal were fed by the BPP programmes. The Panthers realised way back in 1960’s America that a hungry child can’t concentrate properly in school, that hunger prevented them from learning and developing, that an empty tummy inevitably led to illiteracy and unemployment! It’s not rocket science.
The way forward
Only the direct actions of the working-class can change the world. No amount of charitable donations and hand-me-downs from the G8 leaders will ever free children from the slavery they face at the hands of imperialism. Only a scientific, socialist approach to running society, a system and state run by the workers themselves can execute the demands of working-class.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win!
Africa Liberation Day – La lutta continua!
We reproduce here the greetings sent by the CPGB-ML to the celebrations for Africa Liberation Day arranged by the AAPRP and Ajamu in London.
“Dear Cde Maxine, comrades of the AAPRP, AJAMU and participants in the celebration of Africa Liberation Day.
I’m sorry I cannot be with you in person today.
Allow me, none the less, to wish you success for the meeting and please pass on our warm fraternal greetings and firm proletarian solidarity from the communist party on this 65th anniversary of African Liberation Day.
Obama’s formation of an Africa Corps, and the renewed determination of the NATO imperialist powers to dominate the continent of Africa, remind us how important it is to mark this occasion, and renew our struggle to rid the world of the scourge of imperialism – the enemy of all working and oppressed people.
At this moment, African workers, like all the oppressed masses of humanity, struggle against aggressive imperialist plunder – whether against the policies of economic domination, IMF ‘restructuring’ and slow starvation, or against policies of political destabilisation and direct military intervention, where the path of independence has been boldly taken.
NATOs genocidal campaign against anti-imperialist Libya, and recent imperialist interventions in Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, and Sierra Leone, and ongoing intrigue and manipulation in other states – Uganda, Rwanda, Egypt, Tunisia, etc. remind us of the truth if these words.
As imperialism’s economic, diplomatic and military might falls on the brave and independent people of Syria, where in the media do we read of USA’s ongoing genocidal proxy war for the plunder of COLTAN (without which silicone valley, the computer and mobile phone industries would grind to a halt) from the long-suffering Congolese people?
These 5 million victims apparently warrant no moral outrage; they are the everyday sacrifice made on the high alter of capitalist profit and highlighting their plight does not serve the imperial strategic agenda.
Imperialism seeks domination, not democracy! Let us never forget it.
Lenin said that the struggle against imperialism would be a sham and a fraud unless inseparably bound up with the struggles for national liberation of the toiling millions of ‘colonial salves’.
In our allegedly post-colonial era, following the fall of the Soviet Union and the renewed aggression and arrogance of Anglo-American imperialism in particular, the pressure of imperialism on its former colonies is greater than ever.
Let us then remember the words of Amilcar Cabral, founder of the PAIGC:
“I should just like to make one last point about solidarity between the international working class movement and our national liberation struggle. There are two alternatives: either we admit that there really is a struggle against imperialism which interests everybody, or we deny it. If, as would seem from all the evidence, imperialism exists and is trying simultaneously to dominate the working class in all the advanced countries and smother the national liberation movements in all the underdeveloped countries, then there is only one enemy against whom we are fighting. If we are fighting together, then I think the main aspect of our solidarity is extremely simple: it is to fight.”
Let us resolve to build unity in our struggle against capitalist imperialism, against neocolonialism, and admit that if a better world is possible, it is OUR duty to forge the means for bringing it into being.
Workers of all countries unite – we have nothing to loose but our chains! We have a world to win!
Meet the cpgb-ml at three London events this weekend
Come along and meet up with the various cpgb-ml / red youth contingents over the weekend at these events in London.
Save the NHS – London Demonstration
18 May 2013 (12noon)
Jubilee Gardens (near the London Eye), London SE1
Demonstration called by a wide variety of campaign groups opposing the cuts and planned closures of services across the captial.
Come and join the CPGB-ML contingent on the demonstration.
More info: http://www.savelondonnhs.org.uk/
Picket of the US Embassy
18 May 2013 (2.00pm – 4.00pm)
US Embassy, 24 Grosvenor Square, London W1A 2LQ
Support the Syrian people, headed by President Assad!
Oppose imperialist interference!
Stalin Society: Film showing – Chapaev
19 May 2013 (2.00 – 5.00pm)
Kings Cross Neighbourhood Centre, 51 Argyle Street , London WC1H 8EF
The film is based on the book with the same title by Dmitri Furmanov, a Bolshevik commissar who fought together with Chapayev during the civil war in Turkestan. It is a striking example of how people were transformed in the Soviet Union. It details, with tenderness and humour, the life of Chapayev – from a bandit with an disorganised band of followers into a responsible leader within a disciplined Red Army force.
Made in 1934 this film became one of the most popular of Soviet films. In Russian with English subtitles.
ALL WELCOME
More info: http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk