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No. 31 / OCTOBER 19 / REDFLAGONLINE.ORG / £2 GBP CONTENTS

RED FLAG. Box 7750, London, WC1N 3XX TEL.: +44 (0) 20 7274 9295 MOB.: +44 (0) 7478 330061 Contents PUBLISHERS: League for the Fifth International (Britain) Issue 31 / October 2019 EDITOR: K Tait EDITORIAL BOARD: R Anderson, J Dewar, P Main, D Stockton, A Editorial Yorke

CONTACT 03 Last chance to stop Brexit EMAIL: [email protected] Domestic INTERNET: www.redflagonline.org PRODUCTION 04 Labour: fight for free movement starts now TYPESET: Red Flag COVER: R Schofield PICTURE: REUTERS 05 Domestic violence is the biggest killer of women PRINTED BY: Wherethetradebuys.co.uk ISSN: 2398-6859. Printed in the UK. Domestic Please recycle. 06 Postal workers declare war on Royal Mail SUBSCRIPTIONS 07 GM carworkers: permanent contracts for all! ONLINE: www.redflagonline.org/subscribe CHEQUE: payable to ‘Red Flag’ Black History RATES UNITED KINGDOM: Annual (10 issues) = £30, Six months (6 08 CLR James: inspirer of Black nationalism issues) = £20, Solidarity rate = £50 / £30 EUROPE: Annual (10 issues) = €30, Six months (6 issues) = 11 Haiti’s Black Jacobins €20, Solidarity rate = €50 / €30 USA & CANDA: Annual (10 issues) = $50, Six months (6 12 Haiti 2019: State of Rebellion issues) = $30, Solidarity rate = $100 / $60 ROW: Contact us. International CIRCULATION Bulk orders are available at a discount for supporters and 13 The global war on migrants labour movement organisations. Contact us for details. 14 Workers step up protests against Macron 15 USA abandons Kurdish ‘allies’ to Turkish invasion 16 Kashmir nationalists march on Indian border 17 USA: Democratic primaries heat up 18 Israeli elections shatter illusion of two-state solution

LEAGUE FOR THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL. An international 20 The late arrival of Iraq’s Arab Spring? communist organisation fighting for the formation of a new world party of socialist revolution. 21 ABC of Marxism: F is for Fascism CONTACT 22 Review: Superior by Angela Saini EMAIL: [email protected] INTERNET: www.fifthinternational.org 23 Who we are and what we fight for SECTIONS: ArbeiterInnenmacht (Germany), ArbeiterInnen Standpunkt (Austria), Arbetarmakt (Sweden), Liga Socialista (Brazil), Workers Power (Britain), Revolutionary Socialist Movement (Pakistan), Socialist Party of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka), Workers Power (USA)

02 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 EDITORIAL This is the last chance to stop Brexit

AS WE GO TO PRESS, THE PUNCH AND JUDY throw the remnants of the welfare state on the mercy show of Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiations is moving of Donald Trump and his ‘marvelous’ trade deal, is into its final act with exchanges of a “Oh yes we will! that Johnson has been far more successful in uniting - Oh no you won’t” type flying between London and the Leave Camp behind him and marginalising Nigel Brussels. Farage, than anyone has on the Remain side. Certainly on neither side is this real negotiation: Jeremy Corbyn has paralysed Labour in the middle just an attempt to shift the blame for the inevitable of the road as yet another, albeit ‘softer’, Brexit party. breakdown. This is a position most of its members intensely dislike Michel Barnier and the EU team, plus Irish premier but once again were too loyal to him to stop it in Leo Varadkar, have made it perfectly clear that none of Brighton. This prevents Labour winning votes from Johnson’s fanciful rewrites of the backstop will work. the Lib-Dems, the nationalists, and the Greens. It will The “offer” of a partial exemption of the Six Counties discourage the youthful activists who Momentum from a full exit from the customs union, but under a rallied to Labour in 2017. DUP veto, was clearly more an insult than an offer. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats are impertinently Mysterious ‘sources’ in Number Ten have been refusing to consider backing Corbyn as prime minister issuing communiqués through The Spectator that of an interim government to postpone the Brexit date negotiations are about to break down and that Johnson and hold a referendum. This does not bode well for and Dominic Cummings, will find a some sort of legal Labour (or the Corbyn leadership’s survival) in any chicanery to get round the Hilary Benn Act requiring early general election. the prime minister to ask the EU a for a delay. Instead With the present balance of forces and with Brexit they will try to trigger a general election. The ‘source’ as number one, two, and three issue in a snap election, says: those who think Jeremy Corbyn can just “play a “To marginalise the Brexit Party, we will have to blinder” with radical domestic policies, as he did in fight the election on the basis of ‘no more delays, get 2017, are living in a fantasy. Brexit done immediately… We’ll either leave with no By playing the game exclusively in parliament and deal on 31 October or there will be an election and the law courts - by smothering any clear message as to then we will leave with no deal… So the main effect of what Brexit will mean, the Labour leadership has dealt it will probably be to help us win an election by uniting itself a losing hand. the leave vote and then a no deal Brexit.” The only escape from this mess is to shift the This is Cummings’ ‘cunning plan’. We must see if the balance of class forces on the streets. The hopefully parliamentary majority against No Deal has an equally huge Peoples Vote demonstration on 19 October could cunning plan of their own. Somehow we doubt it. begin to do so but only if Labour and the trade unions Cummings and his master are doubtlessly throw off their diplomatic abstention from the struggle encouraged by the soaring lead the unspeakable Blimp and come forward as advocates of staying in the EU, is getting in the opinion polls. The latest Opinium yes - but staying to fight. survey, conducted on the 3 and 4 October, puts the French workers are even now fighting Emanuel Conservatives on 38 percent with Labour languishing Macron’s neoliberal reforms with strikes and mass on 23 percent of the vote. The poll suggests that demonstrations (see page 14). They are not just our Johnson has got the support of 60 percent of Leave allies but our class sisters and brothers. We need to voters whereas Labour has 39 percent of Remainers, fight together fight against the EU’s neoliberal rulers with the Lib-Dems on 30 percent. and treaties, that crucified Greece with austerity and The problem those who oppose Brexit because it privatisation and begin the revolutionary struggle for is a reactionary move to disrupt our links with our a socialist Europe. fellow workers in the EU, that will intensify racism, and

JUNE 2019 / REDFLAG / 03 DOMESTIC Socialists secure conference win on free movement, but the real fight starts now BY URTE MARCH

AT THE LABOUR PARTY’S conference in Brighton, the internationalist Left scored a significant victory on conference floor with the passage of a motion on immigration which, in principle, commits Labour to maintaining and extending freedom of movement; a radical break from Labour’s previous enthusiasm for immigration controls. The motion also mandates Labour to reject any points-based or capped immigration system, and to commit to abolishing detention centres, extending the right to vote to all UK residents regardless of citizenship, and scrapping any limitations on Labour's ambivalent attitude to migrants divides our movement migrants’ access to public funds. That the motion reached conference floor and passed near- before this was confirmed. In body for debating and approving working class principles. unanimously is an achievement an interview on Radio 4, Diane national party policy and holding indicative of a mood of radicalism Abbott confirmed that Labour the party leaders accountable. Brexit amongst CLP delegates, so long is still committed to a work visa By contrast, Labour’s A policy committing Labour as proposed policies do not system, directly contradicting establishment has always had a to maintaining and extending challenge their loyalty to the the immigration conference much looser relationship with the freedom of movement is in obvious cult of Corbyn. The motion was motion and thus the mandate concept of democracy; they insist, contradiction to Labour’s stance on prioritised for debate despite from hundreds of thousands of in deeds if not in words, that it is Brexit, in addition to threatening a failing to secure backing from Labour members. Despite coming unreasonable for party policy to negative reaction from the “average Momentum in the priorities ballot, to power on the promise to build be bound by something as fickle as voter” in a climate of heightened a mark of the declining influence of a “democratic, membership-led members’ views. For them, the most racism and xenophobia. Though Momentum’s organising apparatus, party”, Corbyn’s willingness to important expression of democracy Labour now promises to put any which is increasingly outflanked ignore conference decisions fits is not in the party’s relationship with Brexit deal to a public vote, since by independent, issue-based right into a long tradition of Labour its members, but in the electoral vote 2016 its position has been to deliver campaigns. leaders stretching back from Blair of the public at large. This reflects Brexit, with an active commitment Even the trade union block to Kinnock to Gaitskell. the fundamental contradiction to ending freedom of movement. In vote, where opposition based The struggle over conference at the heart of the Labour Party: these conditions, it is inconceivable on narrow sectional interest sovereignty within Labour is as though the party’s success is based that Labour’s central apparatus might have been expected, sided old as the party itself. The Left has on support from workers, its would countenance support for overwhelmingly with the motion. continually fought to subordinate fundamental social function is to free movement, which would fatally The fight over Brexit policy already the party leadership and apparatus reconcile their interests with those undermine the electoral calculation behind them, the party machine to the collective will of the of the class that exploits them. on which the party has chosen to chose not to expend political membership, based on the principle Similarly, its fundamental strategy stake victory in the next election. capital on another conference floor that a party aspiring to govern in is rooted in acceptance of the Campaigners for free bust-up, and quietly conceded the the interests of “the many, not the bourgeois parliamentary system, movement and migrants’ rights motion’s passage. They did so safe few” should operate through a including its highly flawed first- must first acknowledge that it is in the knowledge that the motion’s direct representational link to the past-the-post electoral system. This impossible to win this in isolation contents could simply be ignored working class. Annual conference, electoralism means that its political from Brexit, which is a symptom of a from the moment conference as a gathering of elected delegates and trade union leaders will always world-wide rise in nationalist, anti- closed. directly representing all members view the question of immigration migrant sentiment. The struggle and affiliates, is the most democratic from the point of view of the most for freedom of movement must be Electoralism mechanism for maintaining this backward voters or the bosses, just one part of the struggle to shift Not even a full day had passed link and should be the supreme and never from the standpoint of Labour to a bold internationalist

04 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 DOMESTIC

approach in every aspect of its councillors, directly accountable using the old Blairite argument that as an example. Campaigners for the policy. Capital organises itself to the membership and subject the procedure would take up too free movement motion have already internationally, indeed globally, to mandatory open selection. much of the party’s resources in the made a start by launching a public to maximise its exploitation of Here, too, Corbyn’s Labour has run-up to an election. letter exposing the leadership’s workers and the working class, and abandoned its ambitions. Support Full accountability of treachery and organising public all those dependent on employment for mandatory reselection was a key representatives is the firstmeetings on the topic. by capital need also to think and act plank of both Corbyn’s leadership pre-requisite to ensuring the At the same time as socialists internationally. If Labour is really campaign and Momentum’s implementation of conference fight for democratic reforms and to fight for extended freedom of platform, the promised reforms policies. But in any electoralist socialist policies within Labour, they movement, it must first commit have since been significantlyparty, even one with roots in the should seize opportunities to expose to maintaining the freedom of watered down. working class, the idea that such how parliamentary democracy is movement which currently exists Both Momentum and Corbyn accountability is more important rigged in favour of the ruling class, within the EU. Anything less is backed a compromise rule change at than supposed electoral popularity, in whose service the entire state is an unprincipled concession to last year’s conference which lowered always influenced by hostile media organised. To guarantee the long- nationalism and chauvinism. the vote threshold necessary for anyway, will always be seen as a self- term sustainability of socialist constituency members to ‘trigger’ defeating threat to “unity”. policies, and raise the prospect of Democracy an open selection by rejecting a To overcome this, mass extra- a transition to socialist society, we More broadly, supporters of confirmatory vote, but conceded on parliamentary movements exerting will need a new kind of democracy: freedom of movement and other the overall principle of mandatory pressure on the leadership are working-class democracy, with all radical policies passed at conference reselection. In recent weeks, the essential; the Left anti-Brexit representatives subject to immediate must renew the fight for a truly Corbynite majority on the NEC has campaigns, which have at least recallability, as the foundation of a democratic Labour party, with suspended open selections in areas forced Labour to concede support workers’ government. representatives, both MPs and where sitting MPs have stood down, for a second referendum, can serve

WOMEN UN report confirms domestic violence is single biggest killer of women

BY REBECCA ANDERSON from their male partners in the form of coercive We live in a system that profits from and control: controlling their phone and social media institutionalises the degradation of women. usage, denying them access to friends and support Capitalism needs women to work for free in the THE UNITED NATIONS HAS REPORTED THAT DOMESTIC networks, sexual control, isolation, threats and home – cooking, cleaning and looking after the kids – violence is the biggest killer of women across the financial abuse. and can’t afford to provide the level of free childcare world. The report looks at data from 2017, during According to a recent Merseyside study, 63 needed to free women from this additional burden. which time 87,000 women were murdered, 58 per per cent of coercive control cases involve physical The Office of National Statistics reported in 2016 that cent of them by their partner or a family member. violence, while other research found that 95 per cent in Britain, women still do the majority of childcare in The person most likely to kill a woman is her of domestic violence cases involved coercive control. the family – more than double that provided by men. current or former partner. This means when women Coercive control was only made a crime in 2015 Sexism ideologically justifies women’s unpaid go on dates, they are meeting the person most likely and already the number of cases has tripled. The labour and subservient position in the family. It to murder them. eventual release of Sally Challen, imprisoned for teaches us from a young age to expect women While more men are murdered than women, it murdering her husband after years of his controlling to take on caring roles and our socialisation is women who have most cause to fear their intimate behaviour, has raised awareness. Here is what she encourages gendered behaviour, like “toxic partners. The study found that 82 per cent of people said: masculinity”. killed by their partner were women. “I was expected to do everything. I cooked. We need to root out sexism wherever we find Domestic violence appears to have increased in I cleaned. I washed. He controlled my friends. He it, fight for refuges to help women leave abusive the five years between 2012 and 2017, with domestic made it very difficult for me to get close to anyone. relationships and for higher, equal wages and violence the cause of 48 per cent of murders He didn’t want anyone coming round. When we benefits to give women more financial independence perpetrated against women in 2012, rising to 58 per got married, he took my salary and would pay me a from their partners. cent by 2017. weekly allowance, which never seemed to change.” But we need to go further and demand the right to participate in society on an equal basis Coercive control Basis of women’s oppression to men, which means free childcare, laundrettes However shocking these statistics may be, they form The link between violence and femicide on the and workplace canteens so that domestic work is just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of thousands one hand and domestic servitude and financial performed by society rather than individuals and, of women suffer years of humiliation and abuse dependence on the other is laid bare. inevitably, women.

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 05 TRADE UNIONS CWU strike: Postal workers declare war on Royal Mail bosses BY URTE MARCH Tory-appointed postal regulator But no official had to tell these Agreement blocks strike action Ofcom to bring forward a review workers to act; these inspiring until after weeks of mediation. So of the Universal Service Obligation walkouts show that rank and file it will be November at the earliest AS HUNDREDS OF ROYAL that underpins the postal service, solidarity and unity, rooted in the before we are on strike. But that MAIL staff walkout in Merseyside almost certainly to cut daily shopfloor, are the core of the union. gives us plenty of time to build a and Warrington against racism and deliveries down to five days and at It is that force that needs to become massive solidarity movement from victimisation in early October, it least 20,000 jobs with it. organised into a rank and file the other unions and Labour. This must be dawning on management To their credit CWU postal movement able to control the strike is our biggest battle in decades; we that postal workers are up for a fight. union officials have applauded and extend it beyond what CWU need to organise on the scale that First 50 workers at Bootle and the mass solidarity action in the leaders are willing to do. can win. Seaforth delivery offices walked out North West, with General Secretary It is quite possible that the Activists and reps can take over a manager’s racist comment Dave Ward tweeting “A new era of union could face a court injunction steps to organise and control the to a Muslim worker on 3 October. trade unionism is being born and if a Christmas strike loomed. If the strike at the local level, with regular Then the suspension of three we stand at the forefront of it”. GS officials try to drop the strike, as meetings to plan strategy, demand Warrington drivers for refusing to Postal Terry Pullinger has argued they did in 2007 and 2017, snatching necessary action from our leaders, cross the picket line brought out repeatedly for workers to back the defeat from the jaws of victory, the and organise action without them hundreds more. More disputes, in union, as this is “the fight of our rank and file need to take control. where we can. Nottingham for example, are in the lives”. The slew of walkouts shows But militant members, reps pipeline. This has definitely raisedthat postal workers have many and branches should go further For the past month hundreds awareness of what is at stake and centres of strength that are capable and organise a national rank and of offices across the country have inspired workers. But the hard work of mounting unofficial action on a file meeting to build a movement been holding gate meetings to back of hundreds of workplace reps and national scale, but only if the rank capable of developing a strategy its dispute. Then staff came out militant activists has been most and file are organised on that scale to win, whatever comes, and of again as ballots were issued on 24 important. too. Unfortunately, the Four Pillars carrying it out. September, lining up outside the offices for mass mailings of their return ballots to ensure a massive turnout and yes vote. Facebook and Instagram were PRIVATISATION HITS HOME awash with photos and videos postal workers holding up their ballots with the yes box ticked and posted. Regular social media updates spreading news of the actions have Why are postal bosses so helped keep up the ferment. Fight for our future! determined to pick this fight? The dispute to defend the 2018 “Four Pillars” agreement is about RICO BACK IS PUSHING A FIVE-YEAR shareholders since 2013. always be back, no matter how many the whole future of the company plan called “Journey 2024”, to build As the quick profits dried up from times they are defeated - so a victory and the workforce. Royal Mail’s Royal Mail Group into a multinational asset stripping and efficiency gains should be the first step in the fight for new anti-union CEO Rico Back is parcel giant. This will go hand in hand became limited by the 2018 Four renationalisation. ripping it up and pushing the union with a “relentless focus on efficiency” Pillars agreement, RM profits and the We will have the chance to elect to one side to impose restructuring. to hike profits. The Universal Service share price fell last year. Enter new a Labour government in the coming His moves point to breaking up Obligation that is the final shield CEO Rico Back and the new strategy. months, and demand it reverses the company in order to take on the legally protecting the public service, Royal Mail has expanded GLS the privatisation that has led to this workforce in smaller chunks, and to customer rights and the workforce into Canada and the US, buying dispute. They should seize Royal Mail sell some or close other operations, itself will be the victims of these up parcel companies. It remains without a penny in compensation to while opening the workforce to global ambitions. the largest UK postal operator, and the millionaire financiers who have zero-hours contracts. Tens of Privatisation was a con. Investors these chancers are using it as a squeezed the company for profit, and thousands of jobs are threatened. piled in, in 2013, to take advantage of bridgehead to build a multinational who made a mint buying its stock The logical endpoint is GLS, the Tory-Lib Dems’ undervaluation. operator in the global parcels cheap and selling dear. As part of Royal Mail’s non-unionised Hedge funds and millionaires made market… over the bones of the old the fight for a democratic economy, European arm with spurious self- staggering profits of £100 million, public service. we should campaign for the whole employment contracts, and14 hour selling 42% of shares in the first Ultimately our terms and sector to be nationalised and merged work days, dubbed “modern day day to cash in on the skyrocketing conditions are incompatible with into a quality delivery infrastructure, slavery” by one undercover reporter. share price. Alongside speculation, £1 the profit motive. In a casualised under workers’ and consumers’ The public are also victims, as billion in dividends have gone to big delivery market the privatisers will control. the company connives with the

06 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 TRADE UNIONS GENERAL MOTORS ON STRIKE: PERMANENT CONTRACTS FOR ALL!

BY JEREMY DEWAR

CAR WORKERS IN THE US ARE entering their fourth week of all- out strike action as we go to press. The largest auto strike since 2007 is solid so far. In fact the strikers have elicited solidarity action from Mexican GM workers, and have now been joined by others in South Korea. On 16 September, 48,000 workers walked out of 33 assembly plants across the Mid-West and Southern states. Their grievances are legion and they are demanding the end of many practices that have crept in through give-backs over the A successful strike could be a gamechanger for car workers in the US past decade, such as extortionate healthcare costs, lower pay and TheWall Street Journal surmises counterparts in GM’s Silao plant, full contracts for “temps” and new that the real issue for these officials who organised an overtime ban hires, decent cost of living increases is to ensure that a new GM battery to stop the company offsetting (COLA), cuts to unemployment plant, essential for the rollout of a the effects of the strike by moving supplements and the re-opening of new generation of electric cars, is production south of the border, have four closed plants. unionised. But what is the point nobly assisted them. Five Mexican However, their union, the of unionisation if the end-result is workers have been sacked as a result; United Auto Workers, are refusing erosion of workers’ rights and pay? their reinstatement should form to tell workers what their actual Meanwhile the strikers, many part of the US workers’ demands. negotiating demands are or how the of whom have multiple family At the same time, South Korean talks are progressing. Nor are they members involved in the dispute, GM workers, organised in the looking to spread the action. have only just received their first Korean Metal Workers Union, have Fellow UAW workers from weekly strike pay of £250, barely also begun a strike in demand of a Ford and Fiat-Chrysler are regular enough to keep the wolf from the 5.7 per cent pay rise. Asian and Latin visitors to the picket lines, mindful door. Contrast this with the $35 American workers earn a fraction that a victory for their GM sisters billion profits GM has accumulated of the US workers’ pay, which is and brothers would blow a hole over the past three years and the why globalisation has led to the through the industry’s anti-worker $800 million strike fund the union closure of so many US factories. The practices. Despite the fact that they is sitting on, and one can see the officials won’t unite the strikes. But have almost identical needs and urgent need for the rank and file to cross-border rank and file combines demands and an industry-wide take control. can do that. US workers should walkout would massively up the Workers should elect strike demand the levelling up of pay and stakes, they are being strictly told to committees in every factory and GM car workers have conditions worldwide. stay at work. link them together in a nationwide spent years living with This strike has the potential combine to formulate their own of turning the tide in US labour Bureaucracy and the rank and file concrete demands, pressing the ‘give-backs’ conceded relations. But if left in the hands of The UAW officials who areunion officials to release weekly the bureaucrats, it will at best end jealously guarding their control of reports on the negotiations and during the Great in a compromise that will be eroded the dispute are as corrupt as they open up the talks to striking within years, if not months. On the come. Secretary Gary Casteel and representatives. They should also Recession. Meanwhile, UAW other hand, if the rank and file, who Treasurer Danny Trull are currently send delegations to neighbouring have already shown courage and under investigation over $1 million Ford, Chrysler and other car plants union boss Gary Jones is initiative, take control, it can mark allegedly spent on luxuries for UAW and parts factories to argue for the start of a new era, not only in the officials, while President Gary Jones solidarity action. raking in $5,000 a week! US but in Mexico, South Korea and is trousering an obscene $5,000 a In this their Mexican beyond. week. JUNE 2019 / REDFLAG / 07 BLACK HISTORY MONTH CLR JAMES INSPIRER OF BLACK LIBERATION

BY DAVE STOCKTON who was based in the small Lancashire mill time, however, James still saw this as primarily a town of Nelson, working as a professional player campaign to persuade the British to “grant” this. OVER 80 YEARS AGO, CLR JAMES’ for the cricket club. Cricket here had a huge However, his years in Britain were to see remarkable work, The Black Jacobins was working class following with crowds of 8-10,000 him change this reformist perspective into published in London. Its author openly intended at a home match. Constantine was extremely a revolutionary one, based on the agency his book to “stimulate the coming emancipation popular with the crowds and this opened lots of the exploited and oppressed in their own of Africa”. And indeed it did, playing a part of doors for James who helped him write his emancipation, whether they were the workers in developing a movement of young black autobiography. He was soon talent spotted and and farmers in the colonies or industrial workers intellectuals in London, who were paralleled by employed as a regular cricket correspondent for in the “mother country”. Liberation meant similar figures in Paris and New York. the Manchester Guardian. taking power for themselves, not receiving it as Many, influenced by Marxism and Lenin’s Having already written one novel in a gift from enlightened colonial rulers. Imperialism, began to theorise the role slavery Trinidad, James’ purpose in coming to Britain Learning from the working class had played in the emergence of capitalism; how was to become a novelist and playwright. In Nelson, he encountered a workers’ Britain and the other colonising powers had Soon, however, his interest in politics began to movement which combined trade union carved up and now ruled Africa, plundering its dominate over both sport and art. The response militancy with a tradition of socialist natural resources and the labour of its people. of left wing intellectuals to his writing was very propaganda going back to the 1880s and ‘90s. They also developed the idea of the necessity positive but it was perhaps fortunate that he first Importantly, it had already declared its sympathy for pan-African solidarity in the struggle against experienced Britain in a northern industrial for movements for independence in Britain’s both colonialism and the baleful legacy of town rather than in the radical literary salons of colonial empire. Lancashire workers had given slavery on both sides of the Atlantic. Their the capital. a warm welcome to Gandhi when the leader of location in the heartlands of the system allowed His earliest work in Britain was The Life Indian nationalism visited Britain in 1931. a cross fertilisation of ideas among militants of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British Soon after James arrived, the Lancashire from the Caribbean and North America as well Government in the West Indies (1932). Cipriani Weavers’ Association, which had faced a harsh as from Africa. One such was CLR James. was a Trinidad and Tobago labour leader employers’ lockout the previous year, was again Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in and founder of the Trinidad Labour Party. forced to engage in a strike against attempts Trinidad in 1901 into a family of teachers. There, One chapter of the book was also published by mill owners to slash wages. Unemployment he became part of a group of writers arguing for as a pamphlet, The Case for West Indian Self caused by the Great Depression, though past home rule for the Britain’s Caribbean island Government. His biographer, Paul Buhle, calls its highest point, when a quarter of the town’s colonies. it “The first important manifesto for national workers were on the dole, was still 18 per cent. In May, 1932, he arrived in Britain, invited independence in the British West Indies”. At this From 29 August, 16,000 workers in the town’s by the legendary cricketer Learie Constantine,

08 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 BLACK HISTORY MONTH

cotton mills went on strike, bringing the town to a complete halt. There was mass picketing of the mills and battles with the extra mounted police drafted in to protect strikebreakers. The strike lasted for over a month ending, if not in victory, in improved terms. As CLR later said, the workers of Nelson corrected his hitherto abstract notions of socialism and showed him what the working class could do. In just a few years, the workers of the West Indies were to repeat the lesson. He later remembered that, when he expressed his hopes in 1932 that a Labour Party in power would give the colonies their freedom, some workers replied, “you make a mistake. Ramsay MacDonald, [Arthur] Henderson, Phillip Snowden, [Herbert] Morrison, they never gave us anything and we put them there; why do you think they would give you any?” Although James joined the Labour Party, activists from the Independent Labour Party, ILP, which had broken from the Labour Party in 1931, also impressed him and he was later to join the ILP. Though he only spent ten months in Nelson these were formative in turning him decisively towards joining the working class movement and Marxism.

Discovering Trotsky and Pan Africanism It was during his months in “Red Nelson” that a friend, who ran a small printing business, leant him a copy of the recently published first volume of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. This was his first real introduction to Marxism and formed the basis for his lifelong rejection of Stalinism. The book, he later recalled, “was not only giving details of the revolution itself, but was expounding the Marxist theory of historical materialism”. It was a method he was himself to CLR James speaking in Trafalgar Square against Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia apply masterfully in The Black Jacobins in only a few years. In March, 1933, he moved to London where he subsequently met members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Leonard Here he met other more experienced black anti- the central leader and writer in Fight, the organ and Virginia Woolf. Here he carried on his colonialists such as George Padmore, of whom of the Marxist Group in the ILP. research into Toussaint L’Ouverture and the he had already heard. When he finally met He was also to become a noted and admired Haitian revolution. As early as 1931, whilst him, Padmore turned out to be the pen name speaker in the movement of opposition to still in Trinidad, he had cited the slave leader of a boyhood friend, from Trinidad, Malcolm Fascist Italy’s unprovoked attack on Ethiopia to disprove the “scientific racism” of a local Nurse. (Abyssinia) in October 1935. Mussolini had academic, who claimed blacks were genetically Padmore had been active in the Communist the impudence to declare that his invasion and intellectually inferior to whites. International’s black and anti-imperialist front occupation of the last independent state on the Friends advanced him the money to visit organisations but broke from them when, African continent, bar tiny Liberia, was “a war Paris to research the rich documentation after Hitler came to power, Stalin re-oriented of civilisation”, even a war to abolish slavery, available there, where he was guided by a the communist movement towards seeking which did indeed exist in Haile Selassie’s feudal Haitian military historian. The first product of allies amongst the imperialist democracies, regime. this was a play about the slave leader, which was Britain, France and the USA, and abandoned James became chair of the International eventually performed on 15 and 16 March 1936, a revolutionary perspective in their colonies. African Friends of Abyssinia, IAFA. He in the West End. In the starring role was none When he founded the International African travelled the country giving speeches, rejecting other than Paul Robeson, already famous as a Service Bureau, IASB, James joined. the illusions of some on the left that Britain singer, actor and civil rights campaigner. By now, James was also working with a could or would come to the aid of Ethiopia, James joined the League of Coloured small group of Trotskyists in North London or that the League of Nations should do so. Peoples, which united African and South Asian who, on Trotsky’s advice, had joined the ILP. In fact, Britain and France were trying to woo activists resident or studying in London at this James too joined the party and was soon a Mussolini to prevent him aligning himself with point, and wrote for their journal The Keys. prominent figure on its left wing. He became Hitler’s Germany.

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 09 BLACK HISTORY MONTH

On 25 August, 1935, the IAFA held a mass Later, in April 1938, the Marxist Group state with post capitalist planned property but meeting in Trafalgar Square, London, at which fused with other Trotskyists, including Ted a bureaucracy that had politically expropriated James called for the defeat of Italian imperialism Grant, Denzil Dean Harber and John Archer, the working class? and for the workers’ movement and colonial to found the Revolutionary Socialist League, Major leaders of the SWP, Max Shachtman peoples around the world to defend Ethiopia, which sent delegates to the founding conference and James Burnham, developed the view that demanding the lifting of the embargo on selling of the Fourth International and became its it was a new form of class society, bureaucratic arms to it. official section. collectivism. James went with them in the split In October, on the night of the Italian of 1940 though he was to return to the SWP after attack, 1,200 people attended an ILP rally in In America and Mexico the second world war, albeit as a proponent with London’s Memorial Hall, Farringdon, to hear In November, 1938, James left Britain for what Raya Dunayevskaya of their own theory of “state James put the case for Ethiopia alongside the turned out to be a 15 year stay in the USA. He capitalism”. Party Chair James Maxton MP and the leader had been invited by the American Trotskyist Alongside his Trotskyism, James became a of the party’s left wing, Fenner Brockway. When leader James P Cannon to undertake a coast-to major figure in the embryonic Pan-Africanist others called for the League of Nations and “the coast speaking tour on the political situation in movement that was growing up in London. He democracies” to intervene, James urged workers’ Europe, where a new imperialist war was fast met and worked with militants who were later sanctions’; international industrial action to approaching. Cannon also wanted him as a to lead their countries to independence such as stop Mussolini’s war machine. major contributor to the work of the Socialist Eric Williams (Jamaica), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya) At roughly the same time, he wrote of the Workers Party on the black question. and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana). importance of the revolutionary communist Trotsky had several times warned his It was in this connection that there was a movement linking up with the movement for American supporters of the dangers of picking weakness in the thought of CLR James. Although black liberation; “Workers of Britain, peasants up the race prejudice of many white American he understood that the theory of permanent and workers of Africa, get closer together for workers, which had led to actual pogroms in revolution explained how an economically this and for other fights ... Now, as always, let US cities after the First World War. He pulled backward country, backward because imperialist us stand for independent organisation and no punches when, in 1933, he stated; “The exploitation warped its development, could independent action. We have to break our own American worker is indescribably reactionary… successfully achieve a revolution for national chains. Who is the fool that expects our gaolers in relation to the Negroes they are hangmen and independence, he did not recognise that this was to break them?” they are so also towards the Chinese”. not an end in itself. There remained the twin To help the US Trotskyists develop a method questions of socialist measures domestically and Permanent Revolution for work amongst black workers and the urban the spreading of the revolution internationally. He criticised any reliance on the bourgeois and rural poor, James went to meet Trotsky in Without both, as Trotsky made clear in his governments of the imperialist powers and Mexico in April 1939. In preparation for this, theory of the degeneration of the Russian referred to Trotsky’s theories of Permanent he submitted “Preliminary Notes on the Negro Revolution, an isolated revolution could not Revolution and Uneven and Combined Question”. He suggested in these that the SWP survive by subjective will alone. Development as showing that the workers and should help in “the organisation of a Negro So it was that the first generation of pan- poor farmers of Africa or the West Indies need movement” to fight for civil and political rights Africanist leaders in the independent African not wait for the revolution in Europe. Indeed, by and the opening of those trade unions that still and Caribbean states, Nkrumah, Kenyatta, their uprisings they could help it develop. His discriminated against back workers. Perhaps Eric Williams, whom James had helped train, theme was always the independence of the black an equivalent of the IASB he had built with would either be succeeded by more conservative struggle from all tutelage. He wrote; “we need Padmore in Britain. politicians or become corrupted as the Haitian co-operation, but that co-operation must be Trotsky and James conducted a series of rebels had been. with the revolutionary movement in Europe and minuted conversations which together were Nevertheless, the work James did during Asia. There is no other way out. Each movement to form the basis of the revolutionary Fourth his period in Britain and in the 1940s in the will neglect the other at its peril”. International’s policies on the black question USA bore fruit in future generations of black Meanwhile, in his role as a leading British and the forms of organisation it required to be militants, who discovered in The Black Jacobins Trotskyist, first in the Marxist Group within the a pioneer of black liberation. Trotsky agreed an inspiring call to liberation for the racially ILP and later in an independent organisation, with James’ suggestion of an independent oppressed and that in Marx’s words, “ the he became convinced that the tiny number of black organisation in principle, but questioned emancipation of the working class is the task British Trotskyists, already divided, required whether it could be a mass movement in existing of the working class itself” and, in those of serious books to win socialist militants to their conditions. He even suggested that if other the Internationale, “no saviours from on high programme and compete with the Stalinists, parties formed such a movement, Trotskyists deliver”. who were issuing many books through the might enter it as a faction. James commented in medium of Left Book Club. So, in 1937, James a letter that Trotsky “is the keenest of the keen Sources wrote a sizeable book, The World Revolution, CLR James The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’ouverture and the on the N[egro] question” and that “He agreed San Domingo Revolution (Penguin paperback) London, 2001 which chronicled the original promise and then almost entirely with my memo on the Negro Leon Trotsky, On Black Nationalism and Self–Determination degeneration of the Communist International, question”. (New York, 1972) mounting a withering critique of Stalin’s Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson Against the Stream: History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain, 1924-38, policies from the sectarian Third Period to the Weaknesses London, 1986 opportunist Popular Front. Unfortunately, these positive developments Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware C.L.R. James: The Artist As Trotsky himself praised the book whilst were cut short. The Trotskyist movement was Revolutionary Christian Høgsbjerg, C.L.R. James in Imperial Britain, 2009 making some criticisms of its inadequately just about to undergo a damaging split over the Dave Renton CLR James Cricket’s Philosopher King London, dialectical methodology and its assertion that Russian Question: what was the class character 2007 Stalin actually intended to bring about the of Stalin’s totalitarian dictatorship in the USSR? Priyamvada Gopil Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance defeats his policies imposed on communist Could it still be described as a degenerate and British Dissent London, 2019 parties around the world. workers’ state as Trotsky insisted, that is, a

10 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 BLACK HISTORY MONTH HAITI'S BLACK JACOBINS

ON 1 JANUARY 1804, JEAN-JAQUES revolution, the storming of the Bastille. Spread Parisian small masters and their workmen who Dessalines declared the independence and through newspapers and pamphlets, the ideals formed the radical driving force of the French sovereignty of Haiti as the second republic in of this revolution - human rights, citizenship, revolution, supporting the Jacobin Committee the Americas and the first country to abolish liberation - reached the huge colony where so of Public Safety headed by Maximilien slavery. many were enslaved, oppressed and exploited. Robespierre. Anyone who wishes to study this revolution Equally striking were the reports that French But this most radical phase of the and the roots of the self-liberation of black peasants had burnt down the nobles’ chateaux revolution, was overthrown on July 27, 1794 - people can still do no better than to turn to and divided the estates. or 9 Thermidor; Year Two in the revolutionary a classic of Marxism, Trotskyism and Black The ordinary “field slave” could not read calendar. Thereafter a political reaction set Liberation: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint these reports, but their masters had educated in where forces that put the profits of the L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. a small number of freed former “house slaves”. bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, above the In 1938, the Jamaican-born CLR James One such was Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743- universal liberatory ideals of the revolution. first published this remarkable work, openly 1803). Freed when about 30, he had learned This soon meant measures to recover or hold intending his book to “stimulate the coming various “European skills” including medical onto such a valuable colonial possession as emancipation of Africa”. And indeed it did. As and military ones. Toussaint adopted the name Saint-Domingue. an account of a vast popular revolutionary war, L’Ouverture after the “opening” of the struggle Toussaint was never really to waver in his it is a revolutionary book. for liberty. loyalty to the original ideals of the revolution James says of its subject: “The revolt (1791- Meanwhile in France, the National and to the French Republic he believed 1803) is the only successful slave revolt in Assembly granted limited voting rights to embodied them, but with tragic consequences history, and the odds which it had to overcome free “coloureds” in May 1791, at the urging of as the revolution in France experienced a series is evidence of the magnitude of the interests the abolitionist organisation, Les Amis des of ever more reactionary coups and counter- that were involved. The transformation of slaves Noirs (Friends of the Blacks). This proved too revolutions. trembling in hundreds before a single white much for the white planters who resisted its In 1793, the British and Spanish entered the man, into a people able to organise themselves implementation. Beginning on 22 August 1791, fray. Toussaint L’Ouverture now really came to and defeat the most powerful European their slaves rose in arms, massacring plantation the fore as a general, defeating first the Spanish nations of their day, is one of the great epics of owners. (1794), and then the British (1795). Britain revolutionary struggle and achievement.” Toussaint L’Ouverture joined the rebels as a lost 80,000 soldiers to disease and the rebels, a Haiti is a part of a huge island rich in medical officer. His remarkable organisational small remnant holding on until 1798. By 1799 natural resources. The Spanish, later joined by and military capacities soon became apparent. Toussaint controlled much of the island. the French, turned it into a plantation colony He became aide-de-camp to the foremost black But in France the Thermidorian regime, where coffee and sugar plantations and mines general, Jean-Francois Biassou, and then a then the semi-dictatorships of the Directory and were worked by huge numbers of Black slaves, general of his own troops. the Consulate began to roll back the political seized from west Africa and carried off to the In September 1792, a fleet arrived from gains of the revolution, including the abolition Caribbean with indescribable violence and France with the order to enforce the decisions of of slavery. The French bourgeoisie demanded suffering. By 1789, there were half a million the National Assembly but also to restore order their human property back, and above all their slaves in Saint Domingue, the French western and the exploitation of the slaves. To combat the fabulously wealthy Caribbean colony. half of the island. The export trade from this counterrevolutionary planters and the circling After provoking the middle-class “mulattos” colony made up two-thirds of France’s entire wolves of the British and Spanish naval and (people of mixed black and white ancestry) into gross national product. military forces, the French forces headed by the waging a bloody civil war in St Domingue, the The slave colony was kept under the heel civil commissioner Leger-Félicité Sonthonax, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte launched of France and the local elite of white planters offered freedom to all black slaves who would a direct reconquest, sending 60,000 soldiers by a regime of terror and sadism. Individual join the cause of the French Republic. Thus, on to restore slavery. Toussaint, after his heroic slaves passively or actively resisting their 29 August 1793, slavery on Saint-Domingue leadership of the liberation struggle, stumbled super-exploitation were faced with horrific was abolished. at this critical stage. punishments. Groups of slaves revolted, fleeing On 3 February 1794, the Jacobin dominated He fatally hesitated over a final confrontation into the mountains, but the system remained National Assembly in Paris declared slavery with a France that he still identified with the intact. itself abolished. Toussaint found his first Jacobin phase of the revolution. Enforcing In 1789, however, news came from France of genuine allies in the Paris sans culottes, the labour discipline on the former slaves to revive

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 11 BLACK HISTORY MONTH

the economy and refusing to fully expropriate a heroic and ultimately a tragic figure. He praises France Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor the plantation owners, he provoked a black him for uniting the revolutionary forces, as well and liquidated the republic, on October 4 1804 labourers’ revolt which he ruthlessly suppressed. as winning many of the most important battles. Dessalines had himself crowned emperor of He rapidly lost the confidence of much of his When he was captured, his most powerful Haiti. army. generals, Moise and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, James ends his book with the prediction Toussaint’s misplaced trust in France led to completed the revolution, defeating the French that in colonised Africa as in the Caribbean the his own downfall. In 1802, entrusting himself to troops sent by Napoleon. example of the Haitian revolution will have its the French commander Leclerc, he was seized The Republic was proclaimed and effect. and transported to France, to die in a cold independence maintained – a huge and historic “Imperialism vaunts its exploitation of the dank prison high in the Jura mountains Before achievement which James argues speeded the wealth of Africa for the benefit of civilisation. boarding the ship to France Toussaint declared, movement for the abolition of slavery and In reality, from the very nature of its system of “in overthrowing me, you have cut down in San proves that this was not a free gift by William production for profit it strangles the real wealth Domingo the tree of Liberty. It will spring up Wilberforce and evangelicals and liberals in of the continent-the creative capacity of the again by the roots for they are numerous and Britain but the result of insurrection and the African people. The African faces a long and deep.” fear it would be repeated in all the plantation difficult road and he will need guidance. But he CLR James’s Black Jacobins sees Toussaint as colonies of the Caribbean. But alas – just as in will tread it fast because he will walk upright.” STATE OF REBELLION Haitians step up protests against corruption and poverty BY KD TAIT thousands are effectively disenfranchised because exception of the populist firebrand Jean-Bertrand they live in the tent cities erected after the natural Aristide (who has the distinction of having been disasters that plague the country, or because of a overthrown twice – by George Bush Sr and George AFTER 18 MONTHS OF ON-OFF PROTESTS AGAINST lack of infrastructure in rural areas. Bush Jr), has been the pensioner of either US or president Jovenal Moise, tens of thousands of French imperialism. Haitians have stepped up the movement calling on Poverty For now, Jovenal retains the backing of his US him to step down, with weekly protests, barricades Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemi- and UN sponsors. Meanwhile the protests remain and clashes with government forces that have left sphere. More than 20 percent of its national budget subject to the appeals of the opposition leaders dozens killed and wounded hundreds more. comes from Aid donations. 50 percent of national principally, though not entirely, made up of different The immediate spark for the protests was a income comes from remittances by the waves of factions of the Haitian oligarchs, who are the prin- corruption scandal embroiling the president and refugees who constitute some of the poorest and cipal obstacle to the establishment of democracy in his supporters who are accused of looting billions brutally exploited workers in the Americas. Despite the country. of dollars from the Petrocaribe development fund, the shock of the 2010 earthquake which killed made up income from sales of subsidised Venezue- 300,000 people, ten thousand people still live in From protest to power lan oil. tent cities, with millions more in death-trap shanty As shortages of food, water, and basic necessities But more widely, Haitians are angry that Jove- towns like Cite Soleil that are little better. grow, with 2 million children locked out of school nal, a plantation-owner from the north who made In a region generally witnessing economic by shutdowns, if the protests are to go beyond much of his pseudo-populist ‘banana-man’ moniker, and social improvements, the country tops the ushering in another cycle of the oligarchic merry- has instead presided over cuts to fuel subsidies, lists for child mortality, illiteracy and, of course, go-round, Haitian workers and farmers need to start double-digit inflation, and shortages of essential unemployment – 70 per cent of the population lack asserting control over the economy themselves. goods. regular work. Thanks to repeated US-led coups The warehouses maintained by the government In short, instead of taking on the power of Hai- and sanctions since the 1980s, GDP collapsed by a and NGOs should be placed under democratic ti’s semi-criminal oligopoly, he has maintained the staggering 40 percent between 1981 and 2012. control and their contents redistributed. The seizure neoliberal policies mandated by the IMF and World And yet Haiti is not a poor country. The fertile of material necessities and their distribution should Bank, which forces Haiti’s farmers and slum-dwell- Antibonite valley could produce enough rice to feed be defended from the government’s police and the ers to service the country’s debts while its wealthy the entire population. International conglomerates oligarchs’ gangs by popular neighbourhood militias. elite enrich themselves. extract its gold and minerals. But it is this wealth The profits from the free trade factories that send 80 Jovenal is no stranger to protest and – and the Haitian people’s persistent attempts to percent of Haitian exports as cheap clothing to the controversy. His election in 2015 was delayed for throw off the exploitation of colonial and imperial US should be expropriated. several years by allegations of ballot-rigging, and a powers – that lies at the root of the country’s politi- Only when the masses of Haiti take power multi-million dollar loan his firm received from the cal and economy dysfunction today. into their own hands, and exercise it through their government of his ally, disgraced former president One of the largest demonstrations in weeks own direct democracy - through workers’ and Michel Martelly. in front of the United Nations HQ, calling on the peasants’ councils - will they be able to finally settle He was finally elected in a re-run with a turnout ‘international community’ to abandon Jovenal. And accounts with imperialist oppression and their own of just 20 per cent, in a country where hundreds of why not? For 100 years, every ruler of Haiti, with the exploiters.

12 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 ANTI-RACISM The global war on refugees and migrants

BY GEORGE & DAVE BRODY

WITH THE BREXIT DEADLINE looming and the debate around free movement of European Union nationals reaching its xenophobic zenith, the wider plight of international migrants is all too often neglected. Nationalism and anti- migrant rhetoric are on the rise internationally, and vulnerable people, fleeing war, oppression and climate disaster, are being refused entry into safer countries. In the USA, President Donald Trump’s anti- migrant policies have led to children as young as four months old being torn from their parents. In Europe the migration from Rohingya refugees at a camp in Bangladesh in 2017 the Syrian war has led to a ramping up of Islamophobic rhetoric and persecution, fuelling the rise of the climate disaster are forced to flee to scapegoat to each successive who should support the rights of all far right. This has created a climate of semi-colonial countries, which are neoliberal administration, whose workers, not just those with British fear for those migrants lucky enough least equipped to support them. policies are the true cause of the lack citizenship. All workers should have to break into “Fortress Europe”. Here of decent jobs and vanishing social access to equal social and political in Britain, the Hostile Environment Climate catastrophe safety net. rights, regardless of their country of policy and the racist rhetoric While this human tragedy is Since the financial crash, austerity origin. surrounding the Brexit debate reflect clearly on a huge scale, it is nothing has been inflicted upon the working Refugees are often forced to the same trend. compared to what may be ahead of us class of Europe, and the anger created work in the gig economy, on zero- The human cost is staggering; as a result of the impending climate by this has been channelled towards hours contracts, and in other poorly more than 34,000 deaths have been disaster. The World Bank estimates migrants, with the rise of fascism the regulated spaces where even meagre recorded as a direct result of the so- that climate change could result in direct and inevitable result. Right employment rights do not apply; called migration crisis in Europe the movement of 140 million people wing governments from Thatcher they may not get access to protections alone, with over 1,000 deaths in the by 2050, most of these from the onwards have destroyed the British which are taken for granted by most Mediterranean in 2019. countries in the Global South, which manufacturing sector and then workers. A Labour government have contributed the least to the proceeded to blame migrants for the must strengthen workers’ rights and War’s forgotten victims emergency but which now face the economic downturn of provincial ensure that all those who work have The catastrophes from whichbrunt of the consequences. areas. access to full employment rights these people are fleeing are caused Centuries of colonialism, This destruction of industry was from day one. by the actions of the imperialist extraction of resources and not simply a vindictive Thatcherite The limited free movement Global North. The incursions into enslavement of the working class anti-union policy, but part of the of people within the EU is only a Afghanistan and Iraq, begun near the in the Global South has resulted in wider shift in the international starting point but this gain is now turn of the century, are still causing nation states which are unable to division of labour, which has seen the under threat. This right is important turmoil nearly two decades later. provide a basic standard of living for rapid expansion of manufacturing in normalising the concept that The recent devastation in Syria, in their citizens. This is exacerbated by in the semi-colonies, where workers people should be able to live and which proxy armies of the USA and a political corruption among the semi- are forced to accept even higher rates work wherever they choose, not to reconstituted imperial Russia waged colonial bourgeoisie, who allow the of exploitation than their sisters and mention to protect the rights of those war for access to natural resources natural resources of their countries brothers in the imperialist centre. 3.7 million EU citizens already living and political control, has led to the to be exploited by western capitalists in the UK. internal displacement of 6 million in exchange for dictatorial power and Labour and the unions By defending free movement people, with 5 million more fleeing personal wealth. It is the responsibility of socialists in Europe, we seek to extend it. All abroad. and trade unionists to reach out border controls are racist. Those who The bourgeois press throughout Scapegoats to workers who have bought these oppose racism and exploitation must Europe branded this human tragedy Unfortunately, a section of the racist lies and convince them of stand with those fleeing catastrophes, a “migrant crisis”, with tabloid papers working class in the imperialist the true causes of their suffering - which Britain either caused or profits referring to those fleeing the conflicts heartlands has been deluded by capitalist exploitation and neoliberal from. In fighting to make the slogan as “cockroaches” and David Cameron capitalist demagogues into blaming globalisation. We have a duty to ‘workers of the world – unite’ a calling refugees at Calais a “swarm”. migrants for increased competition stand in solidarity with migrant reality, we demand the end of borders As a consequence the majority of for public services and employment. workers fleeing the consequences of and the free movement of all people migrants and refugees of war and Migrants have provided a convenient imperialism. This includes unions, across the globe.

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 13 INTERNATIONAL Workers step up resistance to Macron, but left continues to stagnate BY MARC LASALLE

PARIS - A PROLONGED STRIKE in Accident and Emergency departments throughout the country, a successful strike on the Paris metro on September 13, with an indefinite stoppage forecast for December, a national day of action on 24 September by the CGT: this accumulation of actions shows that there is a growing polarisation in French society and that the working class is again taking the road of resistance against the attacks of President Emmanuel Macron.

Resisting ‘reform’ The hospital strike is emblematic of the changing face of working class struggles. It arose from the Healthworkers have spread the strike to more than 200 hospitals across France prolonged attack over the last decades against the health system, whose cost has been capped at because these strikers could be based on accumulating points, in 1995 obliging the government 12 percent of GDP. This resulted the sparks that light a wildfire of which “each euro contributed will to abandon the project. The first in massive hospital closures, cuts resistance against the government give the same right to a pension for signs are that, despite the technical in the number of workers and a attacks. However, the strike is also everybody”. complexity of the debate, intended generalised worsening of healthcare emblematic because it was initiated While this seems in line with to obscure the political content, nationwide. and run by rank and file workers the republican slogan of “Egalité”, workers are extremely concerned A&E has born the brunt of this who organised it separately, even it hides a massive blow against and will not abandon their rights “reform”. Millions of unemployed, though the unions do support the rights of the workers. First, without a fight. migrants and those in precarious it. This testifies to the growing the industry-specific system of On September 13, rail workers employment do not have a general inability of the bureaucratised pensions (there are over 40 of on the Paris RATP blocked the practitioner but go to hospitals for unions to respond to workers and them, most for workers in sectors whole metro and bus system, all kinds of treatment, from routine to offer to them a credible strategy. such as the railway, metro and bus with a record number, more than to urgent: the number of patients While this means that the strike drivers) will be abolished: at the 60 percent, participating in the treated went from 10 million in is quite dynamic, it reveals the moment these workers in stressful strike, the highest since 2010. On 1996 to 21 million in 2016. The weakness of the organised working jobs can retire earlier, at 55 instead September 24, CGT called for a day results are long hours of waiting for class movement and exposes the of 62. Second, most of the workers of action, with 170 demonstrations, everybody, including the very sick, struggle to all kind of dangers: will loose 10 to 30 percent of their for “jobs, wage increases, more in deteriorating conditions, leading corporatism, useless stunts (at one present entitlement, due to the public services and a solidarity- to physical attacks on nurses. They point strikers threatened to give change in the scheme, and this will based system of pension”. RATP have to work long hours; sometimes themselves injections of insulin) hit particularly precarious workers, unions are preparing an unlimited 18 hours in a row; waiting for the and the inability to effectively women and lower-waged branches. strike starting December 5. next shift, for which they are paid extend it to other sectors in the Already today, a manual worker low wages. hospitals and beyond. has a life expectancy that is seven Divisions The fight back originates from In this situation, where the years shorter than a white-collar Despite all these signs of the rank and file who built an Inter- “grace period” for Macron is clearly worker. Third, the new system will combativity, the workers’ A&E collective and were able to over, the government has launched silently introduce longer years at movement remains weak and extend the struggle to more than 200 the second round of reform of work. A penalty system is being divided. One of the major unions, hospitals. While the government his five-year presidency. Among considered, reducing the pensions the CFDT, which sees its strategic initially tried to minimise the effect other attacks, for instance against of those below the age of 64, while orientation as being a partner with of the movement and to stigmatise benefits for unemployed, the most the present legal age is 62. government and the employers, the strikers, it is now taking it more dangerous one is against the pension This is potentially an explosive actually approves of Macron’s seriously, even though its offer of system. After lengthy and opaque issue. Already in 1995, 2003 and reform and is negotiating with the a monthly bonus of €100 will not workings of a special commission, 2010, previous reforms of the government. Ominously, the CGT change anything. the results came out early this year. pensions were met with serious and FO (Force Ouvriere) organised It has only made the offer There will be a “universal system” resistance, with a long strike in separate days of actions and CGT

14 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 INTERNATIONAL

has not joined the call for the interested in posing as a victim of the New Anticapitalist Party, the dubious populists of the Gilets December 5th strike. the judicial system than in leading NPA, is, as ever, paralysed by Jaunes (yellow vests), or what little any struggles. His movement, factionalism. On one side the remains of them. Others want to Left behind La France Insoumise, (Insurgent historical majority are yearning concentrate on climate change, The once influential parties of the France) and the Communist for yet another “recomposition of women’s rights, etc. Most probably left, the Socialists and the French Party, instead of focusing on the the left” (decomposition would be this paralysis will render the NPA a Communist Party (PCF) are coming battle for the pensions are a better word), which they have negligible factor in any union and fragmented and greatly weakened, campaigning for a referendum now given the ridiculous name of a social movement in the coming as shown by the last European against the privatisation of the Paris “permanent united front”. period. Elections. The Socialist Party had airport, a campaign, conducted They hope to unite everyone Hope must lie with workers’ 6.7 per cent of the popular vote and partially on nationalistic slogans, from the left of the PS to the PCF, resistance to the Macron reforms the PCF 2.49 per cent. that is not really taking off. Mélenchon’s FI, and for good and that militants from the grass Jean-Luc Mélenchon has not While these reformist parties measure ATTAC, the campaign for roots can create coordinating yet accepted the fact that he has no will be even more polarised by a tax on financial speculation and bodies as the Inter-AE collective legitimacy as the populist caudillo the local elections in March 2020, closing tax havens. On the other has done, to mobilise solidarity of the whole left and seems more the hope of the far left after 2009, side, an activist wing, is adapting to between all the sectors in struggle.

IMPERIALISM IN THE DOCK Kurdish and Syrian forces abandoned to Turkish invasion by US 'allies' Republicans on Capitol Hill like Senator Lindsey allies have indicated benign toleration of Turkey’s BY DAVE STOCKTON Graham, plus the US security establishment and armed occupation plans. forces, are plainly dismayed by Trump’s precipitate Doubtless the SDF fighters will soon be caught DONALD TRUMP HAS JUST SIGNALED A DRAMATIC shift capitulation to the Turkish president. between the hammer and the anvil of the Turks and in US policy in northern Syria, betraying his erstwhile However, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman the Russo-Syrian forces. War in these conditions will allies the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in which has said “the Department of Defense made clear to Turkey be a horrific bloodbath not only for the grotesquely the Kurdish YPG militia are the dominant force. The - as did the president - that we do not endorse a Turkish outnumbered SDF fighters but for the huge numbers of 60,000 SDF fighters had provided him - and Obama operation in Northern Syria”. Not endorse but, of course, refugees. Additionally, if western Kurdish parts of Syria before him - with the boots on the ground that defeated not oppose either. In fact, it is likely that Turkey’s plans will are occupied, Assad, Putin and even Erdoğan will be the ISIS ‘caliphate’. The SDF have said they will defend have been cleared with Trump. emboldened to move against the statelet of Rojava too. north-west Syria “at all costs”: those costs are likely to Still, to cover himself, Trump issued the frankly This would conclude the brutal endgame of the Syrian be very high. deranged threat: “If Turkey does anything that I, in my Revolution and civil war. However, only the unwariest will be surprised that great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I This outcome shows the murderous folly of relying US imperialism brutally casts aside its allies the minute will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey on or becoming proxies for either of the rival imperialist they are of no further use to them. After a late-night (I’ve done before!).” blocs. Likewise, the ambitious regional powers, Turkey, phone call between the US president and Turkish Turkey has actually produced a map showing a “safe Iran and Saudi Arabia, have also used, and cruelly strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the White House zone” some 300 miles long and 18 miles wide into which it abused for their own nefarious objectives, forces that issued a cryptic statement: plans to drive two million of its 3.6 million Syrian refugees. were seeking to liberate their peoples. “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its This would produce something like the Israelis have The dilemma they face is that there are few long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United created in Gaza. The zone would be just about as safe too, organised forces worldwide who could come to their aid States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in for its unwilling occupants, since attacks on “terrorists” in materially significant terms. Syrian and Syrian Kurdish the operation, and United States forces, having defeated from the air will certainly continue. forces certainly deserve the support of socialists and the ISIS territorial ‘Caliphate,’ will no longer be in the One major worry for the US and the EU is the anti-imperialists worldwide in their resistance to the rival immediate area.” thousands of Islamic State prisoners in SDF-run butchers Erdogan and Assad, as well as the war criminals With breathtaking cynicism Trump posed as an detention camps. The SDF have said that if and when in the White House and the Kremlin. antiwar politician, tweeting he was “getting out of these they are forced to defend themselves they would Socialists must demonstrate worldwide against ridiculous endless wars” and that “Turkey, Europe, Syria, withdraw guards from the camps and recently liberated a Turkish invasion and where possible organised Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the areas, which contain some 20,000 foreign nationals that workers should impose sanctions on ships, trade and situation out.” their home countries, especially in Europe and North communications to signal their solidarity. In addition, The US has begun withdrawing 1,000 troops from America, are refusing to take responsibility for. solidarity with refugees from the region must be seriously positions along the Turkish-Syrian border. A Turkish Though the blood-soaked Syrian dictator Bashar stepped up. We demand that Europe and Britain open its onslaught could begin at any time. Their declared al-Assad has denounced any invasion of Syrian territory borders and provide safe passage, housing and work for objective is to occupy a long strip of Syrian territory. as a violation of his country’s sovereignty, his Russian all victims of their bloody colonial adventures.

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 15 KASHMIR Tens of thousands join Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front march on border REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST MOVEMENT (PAKISTAN) The Revolutionary SINCE OCTOBER 3, MORE than Socialist Movement 30,000 people have joined the Azadi is our sister section (Freedom) March in Kashmir. The protest is organised by the Jammu in Pakistan Kashmir Liberation Front, JKLF. Its declared goal is to pass the Line of Control, LoC, which separates the Indian and Pakistani occupied parts of Kashmir, and go on to Srinagar, which lies in the Indian- occupied region of Kashmir. The Azadi March overcame the first hurdle that the Pakistani administration had placed in its way at Bandi Syedaan. Negotiations have begun between the JKLF and police so that more hurdles that police and other forces have placed to stop the march from proceeding may be overcome in a peaceful manner. The Azadi March began on October 3 from Bhimber in response to the JKLF’s call. It passed through Kotli, Tata Pani, Hajera, Rawalakot and Bagh, and arrived in Muzaffarabad the same night. It then proceeded further towards Chakothi, which is where the JKLF has announced it will The aim of the JKLF march is to cross the heavily militarised 'Line of Control' in Indian-occupied Kashmir break through the cease-fire line or the Line of Control to force its way to Srinagar. have been presenting the march and Pakistan-administered parts JKLF leader Syed Shoukat Jafri as if it were a terrorist conspiracy, of Kashmir, and breaking through announced on October 6 that there an attack, for which Indian armed the cease-fire line is an expression were more than 30,000 protesters forces are fully prepared. At the of that right. We support this march marching with them at that point. same time, on the Pakistan side of and oppose the hurdles being He reported that they had staged the LoC the state has placed hurdles placed in its way as well as all kinds a sit-in in Bandi Syedaan. The in the way of the march, suggesting of violence against the protesters. police and other Pakistani forces that such a protest “plays into the We appeal to the Pakistani and clearly intend to stop the protesters hands of the Indian narrative”. Indian working class to defend the from proceeding further at any The JKLF has responded that it is democratic right of the protesters cost. However, the protesters are doing neither – it is a movement to participate in this march. We unwavering and they are not in its own right. The protesters also believe that the Jammu- prepared to back down. They plan have also articulated the wish for Kashmir People’s National Alliance to march ahead towards Chakothi independence more clearly this and other groups must join hands tomorrow, October 7, where the time. The size of the protest has to agree a clear strategy for the plan is to break through the LoC. forced the media to report their struggle and that they should At the sit-in, different leaders demands, no matter in whatever form committees at the local level addressed the crowd, announcing light, on both sides of the LoC. so that the movement can be their intention not only to breach The RSM believes that the strengthened in a democratic way the cease-fire line, but to liberate call of the JKLF to break through against the occupations of Kashmir the state of Jammu-Kashmir and the LoC with this march is their by both India and Pakistan and for make it independent. democratic right. We defend a socialist, independent Kashmir Meanwhile, the Indian media, the right of Kashmiris to free as part of a Socialist Federation of acting as their state’s mouthpiece, movement between both Indian- South Asia.

16 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 US PRIMARIES DEMOCRATIC CONTEST HEATS UP

BY ANDY YORKE

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS hoping to evict Donald Trump from the White House have turned to the Democratic Party’s contest to determine their next presidential candidate for the 2020 election. While Trump has been blocked from enacting many of his pledges, he has done tremendous damage from the Oval Office: detention prisons locking up immigrant chil- dren on the Mexican border; a tril- lion dollar tax cut for business and the rich; a bullying foreign policy with trade wars that have hit the US economy; and installing a con- servative majority on the Supreme Court, with the first abortion case Sanders, Warren, or neither? slated to be heard next year. This – and the fact that he gained 3 million less votes than ic establishment’s candidate and and he supports fracking. most meagre reforms on top, they Hillary Clinton in 2016 – should one of the most moderate, has es- Now Trump’s attack on his son’s can blackmail voters to the polls put him in a weak position. How- tablished his lead over Sanders and business dealings in Ukraine have by pointing out the alternative is ever, he was in a similar place last Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth exposed how Biden’s family have Trump. time round and still managed to Warren, though the gap is narrow- used his name and connections for Yet Hillary Clinton lost using win over a hundred million votes. ing. decades to enrich themselves, from precisely this same strategy. And So this time he will ramp up the running hedge funds to sitting on with a growing wedge of younger, racist, nationalist demagogy even Biden: Clinton throwback the boards of firms. This dynastic more multiracial and left wing vot- further to rally his base and win a Biden is a paid-up Washington in- cronyism, especially pronounced ers, it is a dead-end. second term. The question is what sider, Obama’s Vice-President and among the Democrats, with the The last three Democratic pres- kind of opposition he will face? a senator since 1973. In short he is Clintons as the model (Republicans idents – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton Without question, Bernie Hillary Clinton’s successor. Despite are usually already rich), will hurt and Barack Obama – won elections Sanders, the “democratic socialist” his tagline of “middle-class Joe” Biden. thanks to union grassroots organis- Senator who came close to beating from the Pennsylvania industrial Indeed the House Democrats’ ing, but all three broke promises to Clinton in the 2016 Democratic town of Scranton, and his playing bid to impeach Trump over his reform or repeal anti-union laws. primaries (and terrified the party heavily to the unions, he is little attempt to bribe Ukraine into in- Meanwhile, at the state level, Re- establishment in the process), has different from the rest of the Wash- vestigating Biden’s family has to be publicans have introduced “right set the political parameters of the ington establishment. seen in this light. Trump may have to work” laws, which have not only Democrats’ contest. Policies that He supported the Iraq war, broken the law by abusing his pres- decimated union organisation but would have been considered fringe pushed neoliberal policies from idential powers, but many voters also eaten away the Democrat vote. five years ago are now mainstream. NAFTA to the 2008 bank bailout may view impeachment proceed- But the Democratic establish- The $15 minimum wage is now that have hit workers so hard and ings as the Democrats protecting ment, a prominent part of the US Democratic policy, while his call played a key role in Bill Clinton’s their own, which of course they are. corporate elite, don’t give a damn for Medicare for All (extending the law and order bills in the 1990s that about workers’ rights. They are government funded health pro- made the US prison population the America’s second corporate party there to defend America Inc. and gramme to everyone, not just the biggest in the world. The Democratic National Commit- enrich themselves in the process. retired) and the Green New Deal Biden kicked off his campaign tee’s strategy of pitching to the “cen- Many have pointed out that are now the points of reference in at the Teamsters Local 249 in tre” and “moderate voters” failed in this should be a golden age for the debate, with other candidates Pittsburgh with the President of 2016, as many working class and the Democrats. With a more mul- queuing to sign up to them. the Steelworkers union at his side. poor Democrat voters just stayed tiracial, less conservative elector- The same is true of other key But this was immediately exposed at home, despite their repulsion of ate each passing year, they should Sanders’ wedge-policies: student as hypocritical humbug when his Trump. dominate politics. Trump’s victory debt cancellation, union rights and first fundraiser ($2,800 a plate) was Yet they hope to revive triangu- in 2016 showed, however, that it is hiking taxes on the wealthy, all na- hosted by the chair of a union-bust- lation. They calculate that if Biden the Democrats’ status as the USA’s tionally popular. This is not just the ing law firm. Ironically, of all the puts forward a policy only a few second capitalist party that is the biggest field of Democrat candidate main candidates, his record of vot- degrees away from the Republicans problem. They put pro-business wannabees but also the most “pro- ing for AFL-CIO union positions on law and order, imperialist for- policies first, impoverishing their gressive”, surfing in Sanders’ wake. in Congress is the weakest. He has eign policy and a deregulated Wall own voters in the process. So far Joe Biden, the Democrat- failed to sign up to Medicare for All Street bonanza, then sprinkle the Not surprising, since s/he who

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 17 US PRIMARIES

pays the piper calls the tune. In ticularly that of finance, in order jecting free trade deals in favour of of Israeli action in Gaza in 2014. 2016 four billionaire Democrats to stabilise capitalism. Against her protectionism. The material roots of his sup- gave as much to Super PAC cam- “structural change”, Sanders em- And even though he now wants port for most of America’s wars lie paign funding machines as the un- phasises the “political revolution”, a temporary halt to deportations in the huge arms industry located ions combined. According to Open mass mobilisation to force through and an end to Trump’s raids on in his state Vermont. This is why he Secrets, for every dollar the unions change. workplaces and communities to supports the F-35 fighter-jet pro- spent in 2016 election contribu- Warren’s policy positions have find “illegal” workers, back in 2007 gram (cost $1.5 trillion) because tions to the Democrats, business evolved to track Sanders, offering he spoke and voted against a law it means “hundreds of jobs in my spent $20. more acceptable, weaker versions that would have given millions of city”. Compare that to the British of the Green New Deal, Medicare them legal status. He said: Of course “democratic social- Labour Party, which is overwhelm- for All and union rights. In a CNBC “If poverty is increasing, and if ists” in Europe also plead this as a ingly funded by the unions and interview, Warren made clear her wages are going down, I don’t know reason; “jobs in my constituency”. individual members. That is the differences: “I am a capitalist. I be- why we need millions of people In this way, in exchange for crumbs difference between a liberal, busi- lieve in markets. I love what mar- to be coming into this country as from the table of US imperialism, ness party that subordinates the kets can do.” She sees corruption guest workers who will work for the principles of international soli- unions and a (capitalist) workers and “crony capitalism” everywhere lower wages than American work- darity are being sold cheaply. Marx- party based on them. Working class but advocates the same system, bet- ers and drive wages down even low- ists have always pointed out that independence, breaking that link ter rules. er than they are right now.” the strategy of social reform rests to the Democrats and fighting for The Green New Deal is a good Even now as against more radi- on the wealth imperialist powers the unions to initiate a new party of example. Put forward by Alexan- cal figures like AOC, he only wants accrue from their exploitation of labour and the oppressed must be dria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) to reform not abolish the Immi- the natural and human resources central to socialist strategy in the it calls for a transition to a car- gration and Customs Enforcement of what used to be called the third USA. bon-neutral economy by 2050. agency (ICE). world and now go by the euphe- Most Democrat candidates have Despite his formal status as mism “developing countries”. Sanders or Warren? adopted various cut-price versions. an independent and his claims to What America needs is not So far 19 Democrats have thrown Warren’s is one of the lowest-costed be a democratic socialist, when some sort of populist makeover their hat in the ring, but only Eliz- at £3 trillion. It includes greening push comes to shove, he supports for its second big business party, abeth Warren and Bernie Sanders the military (!) and relies on the the Democrats. His appeal for his but a new, working class party that have come close to Joe Biden at market to deliver. In her own words supporters to fall in behind Hillary can campaign for socialism, in and around 15 per cent (until recently it is part of her programme of “eco- Clinton in 2016 squandered the outside of elections; one that wages Biden was polling nearly double nomic patriotism”. movement of millions who cam- the class struggle in the workplaces, that). For a while Black California Sanders’ plan, on the other paigned and voted for him. And fighting killer cops and right-to-life Senator Kamala Harris stood her hand, comes in at $16 trillion and even if he were to become presi- bigots, defending undocumented ground before evidence emerged includes sharing new technology dent, he would simply be a prisoner workers and refugees. showing her support for the death with poorer countries. It proposes of a mainstream Democratic Con- That is why Socialists should penalty and her reporting of un- to fund the transition by cutting gress. demand Sanders, AOC and the documented juveniles to immi- military spending and reversing In short, he is not trying to other “democratic socialist” poli- gration. Like the other candidates, militarisation globally. Sanders’ build even a reformist democratic ticians break now from the Dem- Harris is now pushed back to 5 per GND statement does not seek to socialist party that would not only ocrats and stand as independent cent or below. accommodate to patriotism, in- support him but fight for its pro- candidates, pledged to form a new Like them her attempts to stead arguing for the need “to face gramme from the municipalities working class party. As long as they square her moderate record with down the greed of fossil fuel exec- to the White House. Instead he is accept the Democratic Party whip, attempts to keep up with Sanders’ utives and the billionaire class who leading his movement into an end- socialists should not vote for them. agenda have failed to convince stand in the way of climate action. less and futile battle to take over the Doing so means voting for a bour- Democrat voters. Two more na- We need a president who welcomes party, seat-by-seat, state-by-state. geois party and sacrificing the el- tional debates in October and No- their hatred.” Another huge problem is his ementary political independence vember will narrow the field, with As the New York Times put it, unblemished record of supporting American workers need. the first state primary held in Iowa Warren “is a team player who is US imperialism. In 1996 he vot- A new working class socialist on 3 February 2020. seeking to lead the party—not stage ed for Iran and Libya sanctions. party must draw in the millions of With Biden and Harris polling a hostile takeover of it”. In other In 1998 he voted for the Iraq Lib- people of colour, trade unionists, downwards, the (so far) amicable words, if Biden continues to fal- eration Act and more sanctions and women who have demonstrat- rivalry between Sanders and War- ter, the Democratic establishment estimated to have led to the death ed against Trump. It must also in- ren has caused a major debate in could turn to her to stop Sanders. of 500,000 Iraqi children. He vot- clude the great numbers of young the Democrat circles. Warren is on ed for the US bombing of Kosovo, people who have supported Sand- the up, pulling ahead of Sanders in A working class party and after 9/11 voted for the au- ers. In this way we can also give the polls and considerably narrow- However, Sanders has problems thorisation for the use of military new impetus to the current revival ing the gap with Biden, because she of his own. That some sections of force that gave George W Bush the of labour on every front, industrial is seen as the left liberal alternative workers in the de-industrialised go ahead for the Afghan and Iraq as well as political. to the democratic socialist Sanders, “rust belt” of the Midwest respond wars. Though he voted against the gaining favourable press coverage to his attacks on neoliberalism and use of force in 2003 he voted for the and rising campaign contributions globalisation as well as to Trump’s war and appropriations to pay for it READ MORE (like Sanders, mostly small donors). demagogy is no problem. Any so- every year between 2002 and 2008. WORKERS POWER (US) organises But while she excoriates Wall cialist candidate would try to win On Israel Sanders has con- supporters of the League for the Fifth Street and puts forward real re- them to a working class rather than demned IDF atrocities but this has International in the United States. Visit forms, these are in the traditional an American chauvinist outlook. not stopped him voting for billions their website to find out more. liberal, progressive mould of re- The problem is that Sanders’s an- in arms to supply them with means www.workerspower.net stricting corporate power, par- swers overlap with Trump’s – re- of repression and voted in support www.fifthinternational.org

18 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 INTERNATIONAL Israeli election re-run shatters illusion of 'two-state' solution

BY ROBERT TELLER

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU called the 17 September Knesset election in the hope that it would give him the majority he needed to create a new coalition and remain prime minister. He was not motivated simply by the desire to hang on to power but because as PM he would be immune from facing serious court charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. In the event, the Blue and White list (Kachol Lavan) headed by the former Chief of the Israeli General Staff, Benny Gantz, became the largest block by the narrowest of margins - 25.95 percent of the votes and 33 seats against Netanyahu’s Both the leading candidates are committed to the solving the Palestinian national question by force 25.10 percent and 32 seats. Even with the help of allied parties, neither No illusions in Gantz political expression of the peace according to the Oslo Accords, are camp has a majority of deputies. The feud between Netanyahu and movement and advocates the “two already under sole Israeli control. Despite suggestions in the Gantz cannot hide the fact that the state solution”. The United List of 85 percent of this area may not be western media that Gantz is a programmes of Likud and the so- Arab Parties, with 11 percent, is the entered or used by Palestinians. 46 centrist, he is no progressive when called centre-left Blue and White third strongest faction in the Knesset. percent of the Jordan Valley is a it comes to the oppression of the List are largely the same - specifically However, 10 of its 13 MPs have militarily restricted area. This also Palestinians. He was the commander regarding Israeli control of the Jordan declared their support for a Gantz- includes the Israeli settlements. In of the Israeli forces in both the valley, the status of East Jerusalem, led government, in order to block fact, it has long been under de facto murderous Gaza wars of 2012 and the incorporation of settlements on Netanyahu. Israeli sovereignty. The annexation 2014 and expressed satisfaction that the West Bank and the rejection of The election results show how far would be the logical conclusion of “parts of (it) were sent back to the the Right of Return. to the right Israeli politics has shifted. the occupation policy since 1967 Stone Age.” Although he wants to When Netanyahu announced his More than three-quarters of the votes and could at the same time be oust Netanyahu, he is prepared to annexation plan, Gantz and Blue and were cast for right-wing to far-right accompanied by a further expulsion form a coalition with his party, Likud, White responded: parties. Even if the Likud loses its of the Palestinian population. on condition that its leader does not “Blue and White have made clear leading role in a government, core For 25 years, the two-state serve in the government. that the Jordan valley is part of Israel elements of its Zionist-expansionist solution served the purpose of The latter has again been charged forever. Netanyahu drafted a plan to programme shape the entire political legitimising the occupation regime in with forming a government, but this cede the Jordan valley in 2014. We landscape. the West Bank as a merely temporary will prove fruitless for as long as no are happy that the prime minister has ‘solution’. Its international treaty potential coalition will accept his come around to adopt the Blue and Failure of the two-state solution recognition as not forming part of leadership. As after the April election, White Plan to recognise the Jordan With the announcement that he Israel was the illusory basis for a this will probably not be achieved valley.” would annex the Jordan Valley, future Palestinian state. The question because of the demand for the Together the Netanyahu and Netanyahu is burying the so-called of how “the only democratic state in abolition of the exemption of ultra- Ganz blocks won 51 percent of the two-state solution, despite this the Middle East” can deny democratic Orthodox Jews from compulsory vote. A further 19 percent were cast being in breach of existing treaties rights to half of its population was military service, made by Avigdor for parties of the religious ultra-right. and international law. Of course, answered with reference to this future Lieberman, leader of the right wing Then there was the 7 percent gained the Palestinians, who make up 85 Palestinian state, justifying the lack of secular party, Our Home Israel by Our Home Israel, which draws on percent of the population of the legal, human, and national rights for (Yisrael Beiteinu). support from voters from a Soviet Jordan Valley, occupied since 1967, the Palestinians with the “temporary” As long as no party abandons its immigrant background. have always been denied the right character of the occupation. election pre-conditions for joining The once mighty Israeli Labour to self-rule and been kept under With the annexation of the a government, repeated returns Party (HaAvoda), has been reduced strict military occupation under the occupied territories, the character to the polls are likely. Without a to a bit player with 5 percent, now pretext of assuring Israel’s security. of the state constitution of Israel, majority in the Knesset, Netanyahu’s only a whisker above the 4 percent The territory marked forwhich denies civic rights to part goal of obtaining immunity from received by the list headed by Meretz annexation by Netanyahu consists of its population on the basis of its prosecution by changing the law has (Vigour) which sees itself as the largely of the “C-areas”, which, ethnic origin, would become even also failed.

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 19 REVIEW

clearer and be extended to a larger institution of the ‘Oslo system’, the advance to the Jordan and with it the to suspend all agreements with territory and its population. The autonomous Palestinian Authority, carefully constructed dividing lines Israel, which the latter never fulfilled failure of the two-state solution and has been responsible for the co- between 1948 Palestine on the one anyway. the annexation of parts of the West administration of the West Bank as hand and the inhabitants of Gaza, The only alternative to the racist Bank will dispel any doubt that Israel an extended arm of the occupation. East Jerusalem and the West Bank on status quo, that is, the Zionist one- is actually a racist apartheid state. With the proposed annexation, the other, will disappear. state solution, is a socialist, secular the Palestinian Authority, which But this will oblige the Zionists to workers’ state in Palestine/Israel with Annexation and expansion emerged from the Oslo process as the expel all, or most, of the Palestinians, equality for both nationalities, Arab In addition, a successful annexation receiver for the bankrupt PLO, would a difficult task even under Donald Palestinians and Hebrew-speaking of the Jordan Valley would in finally have served its purpose. Its last Trump’s world disorder, or it will Israelis. It must include the Right of all probability only represent an official act would be to switch off the require an Apartheid state, naked and Return for the Palestinian refugees intermediate step towards the lights and hand over the keys. unashamed. However, any such plans and the socialisation of the land for incorporation of the entire West Under any governing coalition by the Zionist right will undoubtedly all those who want to work it. Bank. Already today, right-wing the expansionist policy will continue. encounter the bitter resistance of the This can only be achieved extremist Avigdor Lieberman is It will go hand in hand with the Palestinians. through the overthrow of the Israeli drumming for this ‘solution’ whose further siege and starvation of bourgeoisie by methods of class logical end would be the expulsion of the population of Gaza, which is Perspectives struggle, by Palestinians and by the remains of the Palestinian people economically far less attractive for The leading Palestinianprogressive Israeli workers and the and their “non-violent”, step-by-step, annexation, as well as continuing representations and the Fatah-led socially oppressed. Determined genocide. aggression against Lebanon and government, which to this day hold international resistance can play a The so-called two-state solution Iran. These reactionary projects will on to the illusion of the two-state decisive role in this. That is the task, is finally being banished to the realm win support from the USA and tacit solution, will contribute little more and the duty, of all left, progressive of dreams. With the annexation agreement from Saudi Arabia. to this resistance than useless appeals and democratic forces around the of the Jordan Valley, any hope of a In this respect, the Zionist to the ‘international community’ world. Palestinian state alongside Israel can right in Israel is in the process of and the Israeli state to continue the only be an object of ridicule. reshuffling the cards regarding‘peace process’. Fatah Prime Minister For 25 years, the central Palestine. ‘Democratic’ Israel will Mohammad Shtayyeh is threatening UPRISING IN IRAQ Is this the long-overdue Iraqi Spring?

BY DAVE STOCKTON done little or nothing to improve life for the country’s into one demanding the downfall of the government citizens. of Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi. Iraqi IRAQ IS ONCE AGAIN THE SCENE OF MASSIVE “It has been 16 years of corruption and injustice,” governments since 2003 have been coalitions where protests. In the capital and in southern cities the Guardian reports Abbas Najm, a 43-year-old rival parties cooperate to loot the states resources. thousands-strong demonstrations have been unemployed engineer, on one demonstration as In many respects this movement recalls the early dispersed with tear gas, and police snipers using saying. days of the Arab Spring, which Iraq largely “escaped” live ammunition. A huge rally in Sadr City in Demonstrators deny any links to parties or due to ongoing warfare. Baghdad – a district with 3.5 million people, was militia groups that they see as part of the country’s In response, the government has desperately savagely broken up. UN officials in the city have many problems. Indeed, in the southern city of promised two packages of social reforms but once condemned “a senseless loss of life”. Reuters Nasiriyah, protesters torched the offices of six the masses are determined to get rid of the corrupt reports that 110 people have been killed and 6,000 political parties that had tried to take advantage of gang of politicians clerics and generals such feeble wounded. The government has restricted access to the situation. Reports suggest the intervention by remedies are unlikely to quiet things for long. Facebook and WhatsApp in a vain attempt to stop the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is not welcomed. A Events in Iraq, alongside ongoing protests the mobilisations. demonstrator is quoted as saying; “These men don’t across Egypt against the brutal dictatorship of The issues which initially triggered the upheaval represent us. We don’t want parties anymore. We general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, show that time and are mass unemployment and the absence of the don’t want anyone to speak in our name.” again, the millions of young people in the region, most basic public services: this in in the seventeenth Iraq, the fifth largest oil producer in the whose Spring was blighted by the chilling frost year since US and British forces overthrew the world, suffers from the rampant corruption of the of counter-revolution in country after country, are regime of Saddam Hussein. Appalling as the government and administration while its 40 million driven by deep socio-economic pressures and a dictator’s totalitarian regime was, the “freedom” the people exist in terrible conditions - 22 per cent is yearning for freedom to revolt. Western allies brought with their tanks and “shock absolute poverty and deprivation according to UN The real question is can they find the strategies and awe bombing” has meant social collapse, figures. 25 per cent of young people are unemployed and the leadership to make a revolution that puts endless war and extra-judicial killings. according to the World Bank. power into their hands, creates a working class Events show that the victory over ISIS, loudly This, quite as much as the use of live democracy and makes counter-revolution, by the trumpeted by the United Sates two years ago, has ammunition on crowds, has turned the movement generals, capitalists and imperialism, impossible.

20 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 MARXIST ABC F IS FOR FASCISM THE TERM ‘FASCIST’ WAS FIRST adopted by Benito Mussolini, whose movement swept to power in 1922, crushing Italy’s trade unions and powerful workers’ parties. During the 1920s and 1930s, fascist movements sprung up throughout Europe, including the British Union of Fascists, founded by Oswald Mosley. There have been other fascist movements in Europe since World War Two, even though they have sometimes been forced to hide their true nature faced with conditions of relative prosperity and even repression. As the semi-colonial working class has flexed its muscles, we have seen the emergence of semi-colonial The experience of the rise of fascism in the 1930s provides lessons today's movement can learn from forms of fascism – including clerical fascism – again drawing on different their economic interests. Meanwhile, the fascists bide on them and their supporters who ideologies than the European-style The crisis years of the 1920s and their time. Because of the strength are drawn not to fascism’s intellectual nationalism which formed the core 1930s offered the working class in of parliamentary democracy after rigour but to its muscular message of fascism in the 1930s. several key countries the opportunity the second World War, and because on the streets. But what all these movements to make a socialist revolution. in countries like Britain and France That is why we have to organise have in common is not just violent Misleadership and betrayal ensured nationalism was counterposed to both mass defence squads, tooled racism or nationalism. They were that vital opportunities were lost. fascism in the last war, the modern up with whatever is necessary, to and are mass populist movement Fascism swept to power. Fascism fascists have to hide their true aims. deny the fascists control of streets designed to be “shock troops” of was the price the working class paid They deceitfully accommodateand working class areas. We have the most reactionary sections of the for failing to take power itself. themselves to democratic sentiments to build a workers’ united front to ruling class against the organised Fascism aims not just to repress of the masses they wish to attract. stop fascism wherever it rears its workers’ movement, mobilising workers or co-opt their leaders into Some, like Jean-Marie Le Pen head. While we shed no tears if these forces through a kind of fake running the system. Fascists aim in France, have built “fascist front” fascists are repressed by the police “socialism”. to smash to atoms the organised parties, which publicly distance and courts, it cannot be part of Though they have often drawn workers’ movement. For that you themselves from street violence our strategy to rely on or call for their members from the most need masses of people. You need during a preparatory period, but that repression. The state and the unorganised layers of workers, their mass demonstrations of reactionary maintain links with the more overt fascists are different parts of the main base is the urban middle class. sections of the working class and fascist paramilitaries. Others, same defence mechanism of the Of course, there have been middle class to surround the like the British National Party, capitalist system. strike breakers before the twentieth headquarters of workers’ parties see their main opportunity as the Above all else revolutionary century – and organised racists too. and trade unions, as happened in assembling of a hardened “cadre” socialists have to address the But the onset of a new imperialist Germany on the eve of the fascist of street-fighters, using elections as political crisis that drives desperate epoch – one of nationalist rivalry, victory. opportunities for recruiting thugs people into the hands of the fascists. recurrent economic crises and You need police agents in every and terrorising local communities. The failure of the Labour Party to war – demanded a new weapon of block of flats, every school or factory. provide concrete answers to the last resort for the capitalist class. You need these agents organised and Working class action problems of housing, education The capitalists’ preferred weapon rewarded by a mass party structure. In all its forms there is only and jobs in the East End of London against the working class were the To gain power you need tightly knit one answer to fascism. Mass allowed the fascists to grow. To police, the judiciary, the army and terror squads which can walk into working class action, at the undermine the fascists, socialists the secret service. But they were also meetings of hundreds of defenceless earliest opportunity, to physically need to provide alternative answers, aware that the new mass workers’ workers, beat up their leaders, and morally smash the fascist not simply quote the crimes of Hitler movement might not easily be kidnap and torture activists. organisations. and Mussolini. defeated by state repression alone. Today fascism is growing in Some object that fascists have to Labour – old and new – has no In fascism they created a mass Europe. But right wing nationalism be defeated in argument and should answers to the capitalist crisis. It is movement to destroy all elements is also growing and it is by far the be extended democratic rights in rooted in the capitalist system. Only of independent working class most immediate danger. In Europe order to expose them. This is wrong. revolutionary socialism can provide democracy within capitalism. Under far right conservatives pander to Fascists use democratic openings radical answers to the crisis, by fascism even democracy for the right wing national-ism with the merely to advertise themselves; but targeting the real enemy that stands ruling class is severely curtailed or excuse that they are “undermining their aim is to destroy democratic behind the fascists boot-boys: the abolished in the service of defending the fascists” by doing so. rights. The “battle of ideas” is wasted bosses and their capitalist system.

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 21 REVIEW The fake science of the far right REVIEW OF SUPERIOR: THE RETURN OF RACE SCIENCE BY ANGELA SAINI, 4TH ESTATE, 2019

the age of colonialism onwards. genetics, all this was replaced Function Saini shows how these theories by Neanderthals’ brains being While Saini does give a strong, were used to justify slavery and surprisingly large, allegedly continued attack on the use of conquest where the revolutionary indicating intelligence. scientific language to cloak racist bourgeois ideologies based on This changing of exteriortheories and policies, and shows Liberty, Equality and Fraternity justifications serves the same racist the sources of funding in a fraction could not. divisions. In later chapters Saini of the ruling classes of whichever Saini is spot on when she shows that disproved theories time the theories were created summarises the material motives are conclusively replaced with in, she does not attempt at all to behind the Europeans’ reluctance to new ones that enable the same give an explanation for why these engage with aboriginal Australians: oppressions and attitudes. theories are taken up by sections of “Bewilderment - or rather The chapter on India gives a the subordinate classes. an unwillingness to try and concrete, non-Western example of a The use of these theories to understand the continent’s original region which is still fundamentally provide cover for continuing inhabitants – suited Europeans in split by racist theories about the inequality and division by the the eighteenth century because qualities of people in the various rich, to give reasons why wealth it also served the belief that they castes. It is also a country where is divided the way it is that are were entering a territory they could the far right, in the shape of “natural” lies at the rotten heart of justly claim for themselves.” Hindu nationalist prime minister these racists’ endeavour: As we move into the post-1945 Narendra Modi, is on the rise. “The logical consequence of BY TOM SHERWOOD modern era, the book really gets It also shows how the same insisting that IQ gaps between races interesting. Saini builds a good view sets of pseudo-scientific theories must be biologically determined of how these theories were sustained are used to continue to cloak the is that nothing in human society ANGELA SAINI’S THIRD BOOK, by a tiny number of academics and division and oppression of the can really be changed. In an age in Superior, is a logical follow-on from propagandists, who refused to Indian peoples in the same ways which some like to believe that we her second, Inferior, on the failure accept the post-war consensus that as the approaches to Black and have transcended the old rules of of science in relation to women. race and racism were unscientific minority ethnic people in Europe. social inequality, when the playing She is a science journalist and BBC and ungrounded in material facts. The interconnected nature of the field is supposed to be level, when scientific presenter. The interconnected nature of the world is flagged up as theories women have the vote, when black The book’s thesis is that rather funding of these various groups is from around the world are spread Americans have civil rights and than being new, the use of scientific also pushed to the front as the same much faster with the power of the colonialism is over, they believe language for racist ends is almost names appear again and again in Internet. that biology is all that’s left to as old as the concept of race. The different fields and organisations. explain the disparity that remains.” rise and fall of the use of scientific The continuing thread of Saini continues, “Inequality racism is linked to the state of the Superior is the ideological need for [according to scientific race right in general and far right in these theories to support the people theorists] must be natural”. The particular. Eugenics and related propagating them: i.e. the notion of gene must be out there, we just fields were banished from the public white supremacy. Scientific data haven’t found it! eye in response to the atrocities of and studies are cherry-picked for In an article in The Guardian the Nazis, only to return in a new specific results that happen to Saini wrote, “There is no gene that guise when the right is globally reflect the prejudices of the authors. exists in all the members of one ascendant. “there is no gene that racial group and not another. We These are not new theories or Pseudo-science are all, every one of us, a product of even theorists, rather a continuation exists in all the members The flexibility of this so-called ancient and recent migration. We of suppressed but not eradicated “science” is epitomised by have always been in the melting pot work that has been quietly of one racial group and the transformation of Homo together.” rebuilding its strength. Saini brings Neanderthalensis. Until recently This is a good scientific riposte out this continuity and interlinking not another. We are all, the Neanderthals were portrayed as to the fake scientists of “race”. But of groups and researchers through relatively unintelligent compared it doesn’t answer why inequality meticulous research. every one of us, with Homo Sapiens. The theory exists. It doesn’t point to the real was used as justification for the a product of ancient and Origins division of society into social subordination the Australian classes and rival capitalist nations, The work is divided into chapters, aboriginal people to clever, social recet migration. We have which underpins all racist theory. which lay out different theories or Europeans. If this book serves to lay bare the phases in the process of science With the discovery in 2010 always been in the myths of racial superiority then being used to justify racially driven that European people have a it can clear the way for a better exploitation. The early book is larger proportion of Neanderthal melting pot together.” understanding of the real enemy, focused on historical theories, from capitalism and imperialism.

22 / RED FLAG / OCTOBER 2019 WHO WE ARE WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE FIGHT FOR REVIEW OF SUPERIOR: THE RETURN OF RACE SCIENCE BY ANGELA SAINI, 4TH ESTATE, 2019

Red Flag is a revolutionary communist current fighting The imperialist powers justify their systematic planned with the participation of all, to meet the needs of for a workers’ government, a democratically planned exploitation and plundering of African, Asian and South humanity and the ultimate source of all wealth, the earth. economy, and a socialist republic. American countries with racism, with false humanitarian Only a socialist revolution, which defeats and breaks up concerns, or claims to be waging a war on terror. This the institutions that support and defend private ownership FOR SOCIALISM propaganda serves to divide the working class at home and of the economy, can achieve this goal. A revolutionary party Capitalism is an anarchic economic system, based on soften it up for wars abroad. must lead the working class, organising itself in workers’ production for profit, which has plunged the world into crisis In opposition to this we unconditionally support the councils and a workers’ militia, to bring this revolution to in 2009, throwing millions of working class families into struggles of the semi-colonial countries against imperialism. victory and establish the rule of the majority. destitution and threatens to do so in the future. We fight for the withdrawal of British troops from NATO and There is no peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism. Today we stand on the precipice of climate catastrophe, all foreign bases, including Northern Ireland. In any armed The struggle against global capitalism for socialist cannot be which is already devastating the lives of millions of conflict, Britain acts as an imperialist power. Against this, we completed in a single, isolated country. All these struggles the world’s poorest people. Only by taking control of are for the defeat of our “own” army and for the victory of the must be waged internationally. energy production, agriculture and manufacturing on an oppressed. Workers, the young, the socially and racially oppressed, international level can we shift away from fossil fuels, reverse However, we politically oppose the nationalists and across Europe and the world, need to come together to fight global heating and limit the effects of mass extinction. Islamists who lead the struggles of the oppressed and seek for a new world party of socialist revolution. Learning from The system of capitalist competition is not confined to replace imperialist oppression with their own. Against this, the strengths and the weaknesses of the four Internationals to the economy. The growing tensions and rivalry between revolutionary communists fight for the strategy of permanent socialists have built since 1864, this must be the Fifth different capitalist powers, particularly the USA and China, revolution – for the anti-imperialist, democratic struggle to International. It has huge but vital tasks. threaten to break out into war. Brexit is an expression of the become a socialist revolution, led by the working class at the realignment of the major, imperialist powers into rival, ever head of the people, the rural and urban poor. JOIN OUR STRUGGLE more nationalist blocs, which is why we oppose it. Marx argued that a nation that oppresses another can Marx said it is not enough to understand the world, “the never itself be free. Red Flag supports the national rights point is to change it” through revolutionary action. Red Flag AGAINST REFORMISM & STALINISM of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews, calling for the right is an organisation of activists, fighting to apply and update The Labour Party, even under Jeremy Corbyn, is not a socialist of all Palestinian refugees to return to Israel/Palestine and the doctrine of revolutionary Marxism for today’s conditions, party. It seeks to manage capitalism, not abolish it. one democratic, secular state for both peoples. We support through our magazine, website, meetings and campaigns. While we support reforms that benefit the working the right to self determination for all oppressed national We intervene into the mass organisations of our class class and its struggles, and urge the Labour Party to make minorities, from the Kurds to the Tibet, Rohingya and Kashmir. and progressive struggles, from Labour and the unions to the real inroads into bourgeois property, wealth and privilege, a social movements, helping to build and democratise them, Labour government can only take strides towards socialism WE FIGHT FOR LIBERATION taking part in their debates so as to win them to an effective if it bases itself on workers’ councils of action and arms the We fight against the oppression that capitalism inflicts on anti-capitalist strategy, based on the class struggle. working class at crucial moments. Only then would it become people because of their race, sex, age, sexuality, gender At the heart of a revolutionary programme is a system a real workers’ government. identity or disability, and for their liberation. These systems of transitional demands, which serve as a bridge from today’s Likewise the trade union leaders limit their struggles to of ideological and institutional oppression ultimately serve struggles to the socialist revolution, being based on workers’ what is acceptable within capitalism, while bureaucratically capitalism. We support self-defence against all bigoted self-organisation, mass action and anti-capitalist policies, the sabotaging strikes and movements that threaten to transcend violence. preconditions for a real workers’ government. these limits and therefore their own privileges. We fight racism and fascism. We support free movement We do not claim to be “the party”, as so many groups on We are for a rank and file movement in the unions to and oppose all immigration controls. We support no the left do. We believe that a revolutionary party is missing oust this bureaucracy, democratise the unions and win them platform for fascists, driving them off our streets and out of in Britain and needs to be built. The model for the party to a revolutionary action programme based on a system of our communities. We campaign in the Labour movement should be the Bolshevik party that led the Russian revolution transitional demands, which serve as a bridge from today’s to support anti-racist and anti-fascist movements and to victory, the only successful workers’ revolution in history. struggles to the socialist revolution. Central to this is the protests, and for a national labour and trade union stewards’ Such a party must be as democratic as possible in terms of fight for strike committees to be in charge of disputes and for organisation to defend our movement. debate and decision-making, but as centralist as necessary workers’ control of production. Capitalism needs women to perform unpaid labour in the struggle to be effective and win. The misnamed Communist Party of Britain claims to in the home to replenish the ranks of workers for future Like Trotsky, we believe this cannot be done in one stand to the left of the Labour Party. But its model of socialism exploitation on a daily and generational basis. The need to country alone, isolated from revolutionaries in other is derived from the USSR, where a privileged bureaucracy uphold the oppressive ideals of the patriarchal family means countries. Red Flag is the British section of the League for formed a Stalinist dictatorship against the proletariat, not of the oppression of not just women but all LGBT+ people in the Fifth International. There have been four revolutionary the proletariat. It supports a national, parliamentary road to bourgeois society. communist international parties. The League exists to argue socialism, which leads it to support Brexit and the trade union We need a working class women’s movement to lead and agitate for a Fifth. bureaucracy. the fight against sexism within the labour movement and In Britain we stand for an action programme to organise society at large, and caucuses of all oppressed groups to revolutionary workers and youth: WE ARE INTERNATIONALISTS combat oppression in the left and labour movement. • No to Brexit – for a socialist united states of Europe We oppose all wars of conquest and oppression, while • Labour to power on an anticapitalist programme supporting liberation struggles and popular revolutions, OUR GOAL IS REVOLUTION • For a workers’ government and a socialist republic by means of mass action by the working class, urban and We stand for the expropriation of the capitalist class and the rural poor, young people, and winning over the rank and file abolition of their ownership of the means of production. We If you are a class struggle fighter, if you are an soldiers. are for its replacement by socialist production, democratically internationalist - join us!

OCTOBER 2019 / REDFLAG / 23 WWW.REDFLAGONLINE.ORG ISSN 2398-6859

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