The following is a reply provided to questions that have been put to us by a friendly reader.
Comrade,
Thanks for your questions. They are incisive and strike at the heart of the matter – that is, what is our agency in social change, and what is meant by ‘scientific socialism’.
You use the term ‘necessary catalyst’. Taking the word ‘catalyst’ alone: we can assume to begin with that, while revolution may be inevitable with or without Communist involvement, our involvement may bring the revolution closer, and make it easier and cleaner. If this is the case, then a suitable analogy would be with a group of researchers working on a cure for a disease. They may be convinced that a cure will be found eventually, with or without their input, but why shouldn’t they work to do it themselves, and to do it as quickly as possible for the benefit of everyone? Continue reading “Reply to a comrade on questions of philosophy and revolution”→
In early December the Greens held a meeting at the University of Manchester attended by Red Youth. The intention of the Green Party on this evening was to reach out to students, and to persuade them to join the Greens in a fight for a better future both environmentally and economically. What they didn’t tell you is that you have to be RED to be GREEN!
The evening began with a brief introduction from the leader of the Manchester Young Greens, introducing their deputy leader and MP for Dudley, Will Duckworth, and the newly elected party leader, Natalie Bennett.
As expected, the speaker’s comments were guided not by values of honesty and truth but by the typical opportunism of bourgeois politicians– say what the audience wants to hear. For the opening period, one may have even mistaken the Green Party for a socialist party (!), talking of abolishing tuition fees and giving everyone an opportunity at higher education, talking of the abolishment of poverty, talking of the need to tackle the agenda put forward by the coalition government, as well as Labour, and stressing the importance of renationalising the railways.
Behind the honeyed words that most left-wingers would agree with, there remains the fact that the Green Party is not that much different in outlook than the ‘old’ Labour Party of 20 to 30 years ago. The Green Party still adopts the system that has caused countless lives to be lost through poverty, neglect, war and oppression – namely capitalism. Just like the Labour Party of the past, they make endless promises to the masses; but the system upon which these promises rest is the very system of imperialism which gives a few crumbs to the workers in the imperialist countries whilst savagely looting the workers in the colonies. What the Green Party has not realised is that capitalism is in profound crisis and the ability of the system to hand down these crumbs is now over.
It is true that many of the policies spoken of, such as electoral reform, opposing the “oil-wars” and the abolishment of poverty, are the policies that we’d all like to see enacted. But these policies can never bring lasting social justice and can never be achieved for the majority of society, and sustained into the future, if we rely upon capitalist economics and private ownership of the means of production. It is for this reason that the Green Party should break its ties with social democracy, and instead should join the resistance against imperialism and unite with the working class and oppressed masses of the world – but don’t hold your breath! They claim to be the only viable alternative – but the rights that they seek to protect are not merely the rights of the planet, critically the Greens defend the right of private property – that is the right of individuals to own land and the natural resources which are bestowed upon individuals by mere flukes of birth or are captured, colonised stolen or forced from the hands of their indigenous people violently expropriated by capitalists, “developers” and “entrepreneurs”, as they run rampage across the planet, poisoning our soil, air and water in their pursuit of maximum profit!
After the meeting, I had a chance to have a few minutes with Will Duckworth. With time being pushed, I decided to opt for questioning him over the imperialist system and its never ending inherent rive for profit and war. He went on to say that war was not the answer, and that “selling arms and weapons to countries isn’t going to create any peace”. But after I elaborated, in the case that if it weren’t for Russian supplies to the Syrian government then the western imperialist predatory takeover may have already happened, he was unable to disagree. Ultimately its not weapons that are the problem, its in who’s hands these weapons are wielded! Based on his reaction, I would say that the Green Party is no different than a liberal-do-gooder party, saying things that they know the public will want to hear. The Greens are too afraid to stand against those real enemies of the people and the planet – the robber barons of finance capital!.
Sincerely, I hope that the Greens and many of their more progressive members make a decisive turn towards socialism, but with the fact that they still base their philosophy on the capitalist system– which is totally dependent on turning man into wage slaves – only reaffirms my conviction that the abolition of private property, the socialisation of the means of production and the taking into common ownership of the natural resources of our planet presents the only long-term sustainable future for our species and our planet!
Protests have been held across the UK in support of Gaza and the Palestinian victims of Zionist butchery. We’ll post some of the images here:
Cardiff
Birmingham
Pigs line up in Birmingham ready to police a demo of Palestinian human rights activistsBirmingham calls for an end to Zionist slaughter in PalestineBirmingham protest 16 November 2012state intimidation anyone?
A Jew that fought the Nazis tells it like it is! Listen to Jack Shapiro, anti-Zionist, anti-Nazi, communist hero tells the truth about the Gaza massacre in 2009:
The Anglo-American imperialists are attacking Syria, as they attack all independent and progressive nations in the Middle East and the wider world, precisely to shore up their failing system of world domination.
The crisis of overproduction being experienced by monopoly capitalism is more profound that it has ever known. US and their ‘allied’ NATO capitalist economic power is slumping, and their answer is a policy of ever-increasing diplomatic, financial and military stranglehold on the the nations and peoples of the world. This attempt to maintain their faltering monopoly on the worlds productive wealth, although ultimately futile, is of the greatest danger to humanity, and is really driving the entire world into a conflagration of horrific proportions. Truly the imperialists are our implacable enemies – if we don’t finish them first, they threaten to destroy human civilisation itself!
The following essay was written as a school homework assignment by a member of Red Youth and was published as the editorial to issue 50 of the magazine Proletarian.
This summer, we witnessed the spectacular event of the Olympic Games in our very own capital city. However, at the same time last year, London and Britain were shocked by the London riots, when the youth in poverty-stricken areas expressed their anger towards the state.
Exciting, wonderful, immense – all these words could describe the London Olympics. But we could also call them corrupt and hypocritical. Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis were all over the front pages of all the newspapers posing proudly with their gold medals. There was no outcry about one of the world’s largest monopoly corporations, which has contributed greatly to the western world’s obesity pandemic, being a major sponsor of the games.
And what about ATOS, a company which has stripped thousands of people of their needed benefits and humiliated many more in their benefit-stripping tribunals? Whilst many of us were watching the mainstream media promoting the Olympic Games enthusiastically, the needy people of Britain were fighting to keep their benefits from being cut back owing to a financial crisis they have not contributed to. You might think the Olympic Games were amazing and have left a fantastic legacy, thanks to the fanatic promotion job done by the media, yet, behind the scenes, a major struggle between the working class and the ruling class of Britain was going on!
In the 2011 London riots, you might have been thinking how disgracefully these lunatic rioters were behaving – stealing bottles of water and breaking shop windows down – but you were probably just regurgitating what the media were saying. Remember, media corporations such as the BBC and the Murdoch press have all been directed into stating what the ruling class wants them to say.
This was proved by the Leveson inquiry, which showed how the politicians and the mainstream media work hand in hand to mislead the public and to promote monstrosities around the world such as war. During the London riots, there was also a riot going on in Libya. But the differences were that the rioters in Libya were armed and supported from the start by the West, ie, by the USA, France and Britain. Some even called it a ‘revolution’!
But when it comes closer to home, Britain will do anything to stop the riots. They were even considering using rubber bullets. When it doesn’t suit their interests, they will do anything to stop it! People were told that all the looting would affect the economy, but it was nothing compared to all the looting done by the ruling class, which has left the country in a state of emergency and crisis.
The real trouble is caused by the oppressors, and you can’t compare their violence with that of the oppressed. For centuries, the British ruling class has perpetrated disgraceful crimes against humanity, such as the slave trade, and it still seeks to dominate today. But when, for a few days, the British working class expresses its deepest anger by rioting and looting, it is treated like a mass murderer.
You might have been thinking that this article is turning truth on its head, but all it’s really doing is contradicting the media’s propaganda, which has been used to disparage the rioters and to promote the Olympic Games. We should always look at both sides of a situation before we make up our minds about it.
