An antidote to the corrosive effects of Varoufakis’ snake oil on class sonsciousness
We keep coming across this performer of conjuring verbal tricks Yanis Varoufakis and his latest snake oil branded “cure against techno-feudalism”. After his Guardian-acclaimed numbers as an acrobat somersaulting in the Eurogroup’s stage and his melodramas as “erratic Marxist” shunned by the Brussels baddies (which brought millions of Greeks to real tears),Yanis embarks on the role of his career as juggler of Communist allure. Continue reading “Beware of the “erratic Marxist” Greek bearing his toxic gifts”→
Against Intersectionality: A Warning to Young Communists
In the last few years communists have struggled against the bourgeois academic onslaught of identity politics, with us, the CPGB-ML, going so far as to pass a motion at the last congress making open advocacy of identity politics grounds for expulsion. The reasoning of this is simple: identity politics is bourgeois and divides groups of people, particularly workers, through dichotomy, pitching black people against white people, men against women, able bodied people against disabled people, etc.
This dualistic dead end does not unify workers on common ground, namely that of class, and by extension socialism. Furthermore, it lends itself to leaving the common enemy of workers, the bourgeoisie, utterly unscathed. In fact it merely operates as a means of deflecting the blows of working people away from capitalism and instead leads them to the path of entrenching chauvinism, prejudice and cannibalising their own class, rather than uniting it upon economic lines.
The further danger with identity politics, including intersectionality, is that, whilst utterly depending on bourgeois content (i.e. the prevailing capitalist cultural and academic concepts and ideological framework), it all too often dons the garments of socialist form, yet obscures, relegates or outright discards class.
Never before has a man carried so high the aspiration for freedom, for the peace and self-determination of the oppressed peoples than Joseph Stalin. His unconditional devotion to the emancipation of the mankind, his ability to mobilise an entire nation to advance towards modernity and to stand up against the odious beast of fascism make him one of the greatest leaders in human history.
Anna Louise Strong perfectly describes this ability in her brilliant book The Stalin Era :
“He had a deep sense of what I can only call the will of the people, he had matchless technique in releasing that will in action. Finally, he had the conviction and was able to give it to others, that his action carried mankind forward to a better day.”Continue reading “Stalin and the Will of the People”→
It is with shock but no surprise that we see once again the sacrifices of the USSR in the Patriotic War presented as ‘geopolitical competition’ (a criminal mischaracterisation); the socialism of the Soviet Union denigrated under a meaningless schematic, ‘bureaucratic state capitalism’; and Leon Trotsky held up, not as bureaucrat extraordinaire, but as Bolshevik par excellence – the hard-done-by champion of workers’ democracy and international revolution. This potted history of the Soviet Union takes us, in roughly six hundred words, through a well-worn looking glass. Continue reading “Counterfire Trots still banging the anti-Stalin drum”→
Many opponents of Marxism-Leninism, the revolutionary science, lampoon MLs for our support for non-socialist governments, such as those of Syria, Iran and Zimbabwe. They try to paint us as ‘red fascists’ who kneejerk support any government opposed to the US. Many comrades new to the left are confused as to why we support these governments, and that can lead to promising young comrades being sucked in by Trotskyites and Anarchists, and taken off the path of truly revolutionary socialism. This is of course, a big problem and a great shame, and so we have written this piece to serve as a resource to explain this complicated issue.
Below we publish a letter from a young comrade who had the opportunity to witness revisionism in action, as Rob Griffiths of the Communist Party of Britain was invited to speak at his school.
While it is disappointing that such a rank opportunist and arch revisionist was given the opportunity to speak, it is not surprising given that the decaying husk of the CPB simultaneously presents itself as the revolutionary party of the working class while also being devoid of any revolutionary content, effectively serving the ruling class.
Bob Griffiths misleading the youth of Britain about what communism means
Comrades from the CPGB-ML and Red Youth attended the Palestine Solidarity Campaign AGM 2016 on Saturday 23 January, joining hundreds of members from branches, affiliated trade unions, and other organisations.
The annual report largely focused on the acheivements of the wider Palestine movement, including the impact of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement and lobbying MPs & Parliament. There was frustration that the British government is not seriously tackling the issue, but excitement that it had been raised frequently by members of the public and the PSC at hustings, and contacting MPs and candidates directly, and that they had been able to organise fringe meetings at the Labour, Conservative, and SNP conferences.
On 19 September the National Front held a demonstration in Wigan against immigration and the recent refugee crisis. Prior to this demonstration their local organiser, Daniel Lewis, called for homosexuals to be gassed in response to the Manchester gay pride festival.
The National Front was met by counter-protesters from parties such as the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), Left Unity, SWP, and other organisations were present such as Hope Not Hate.
Red Youth and CPGB-ML attended the Wigan Diggers festival on Saturday, remembering another aspect of the people’s British history, rather than the bourgeois narratives that seek to erase the rich heritage of workers in this country and abroad.
It is vital to revive the knowledge of our rebellious history and traditions in order to inform and enthuse our current working class struggle. Throughout the ages oppressed peoples have fought valiantly against their oppressors, and in victory or defeat they have left us a legacy we must continue!
The Wigan festival celebrates Gerrard Winstanley, from Wigan, and the True Levellers (known as the Diggers), a radical Protestant movement that sought to utilise common land for the benefit of the poorest elements of society, who could not survive without subsistence farming, at a time when food prices were exceptionally high. They arose during the civil war in the 17th century and presented perhaps the most radical ideology of their time.
Winstanley and the Diggers based their ideology on certain passages in the bible, which is best summarised in one of their most memorable quotes: “the Earth was made a common treasury for all”. While it was not possible for them to have developed a socialist theory on the exploitation of the peasantry and labourers at the time, as neither the material conditions nor the schools of philosophy resulting from them existed at the time, it was a noble and notable proto-socialist movement based on a philosophy of primitive agrarian communism.
Ultimately, the Diggers drew the aggression of landowners and the government, with their communities and communal property coming under violent attack from landlords before being ordered off the land by the courts, with the threat of armed reprisal if they did not comply. While the rest of British society adapted to parliamentarianism and the development of the bourgeoisie, the True Leveller movement dissipated.
The Wigan Diggers festival is a fantastic celebration of working people’s history, and Red Youth and the CPGB-ML are proud to continue to support it.
