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Socialist Fight No.17 Socialist Fight No. 17 August/September 2014 Price: Waged £2 (€3) Concessions: 50p (€1) On 18 July a protest in Mendiola, Manila City in the Phil- ippines joined the global campaign to stop the air strikes in Gaza and correctly identified both criminal regimes. Image by Jay Blackwood Made in the USA: From Ukraine to Gaza to Iraq via Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, the USA via its allies like Israel, its proxy Jihadists armies and its fascist-infested Junta in Kiev pursues its coups and wars for regime change to enhance the investment oppor- tunities of its finance houses and transnational corporations and reverse their falling profit rates. These unending wars have killed millions since WWII and WWIII is looming. It and its allied imperialisms, the EU, Japan, etc. are the central enemies of all humanity. đoàn kết là sức mạnh, Jedność jest siła, ykseys on اتحاد قدرت است ., ,Unity is strength, L’union fait la force, Es la unidad fuerza, Η ενότητα είναι δύναμη kesto, યુનિટિ થ્રૂ .િા, Midnimo iyo waa awood, hundeb ydy chryfder, Einheit ist Stärke, एकता शक्ति,है единстве наша сила, vienybės jėga, bashkimi ben fu- Ní neart go chur le ,الوحدة هو القوة ,unità è la resistenza, 団結は力だ, A união faz a força, eining er styrkur, De eenheid is de sterkte ,אחדות היא כוח ,qine céile, pagkakaisa ay kalakasan, jednota is síla, 일성은 이다 힘 힘, Workers of the World Unite! Socialist Fight Where We Stand Socialist Fight is a member of 1.WE STAND WITH KARL MARX: which subordinate the working class the Liaison Committee for the ‘The emancipation of the working to the political agenda of the petty- Fourth International with the classes must be conquered by the bourgeois reformist leaders of the La- Liga Comunista of Brazil and the working classes themselves. The strug- bour party and trade unions Tendencia Militante Bolchevique gle for the emancipation of the work- 5. We support the fight of all the spe- of Argentina. ing class means not a struggle for class cially oppressed; Black and Asian, Editor: Gerry Downing privileges and monopolies but for women, lesbians and gay men, bisexu- Editorial Board: Laurence equal rights and duties and the aboli- als and transgender people against Humphries, Carl Zacharia, Ailish tion of all class rule’ (The Interna- discrimination in all its forms and their Dease, Chris Williams, Clara tional Workingmen’s Association right to organise separately in that Rosen and Aggie McCallum. 1864, General Rules). fight in society as a whole. In particu- 2.The capitalist state consists, in the lar we defend their right to caucus Contact: last analysis, of ruling-class laws within inside trade unions and in working Socialist Fight: PO Box 59188, Lon- don, NW2 9LJ, a judicial system and detention centres class political parties. [email protected]. overseen by the armed bodies of po- 6.We recognise that class society, and Liga Comunista, Brazil: lice/army who are under the direction capitalism as the last form of class http:// and are controlled in acts of defence society, is by its nature patriarchal. In lcligacomunista.blogspot.co.uk/ of capitalist property rights against the that sense the oppression of women is Tendencia Militante Bolchevique interests of the majority of civil soci- different from all other forms of op- (Argentina) http:// ety. The working class must over- pression and discrimination. Because tmb1917.blogspot.com.br/ throw the capitalist state and replace it this social oppression is inextricably Voice of Anti-Capitalism in Guild- ford: with a workers’ state based on democ- tied to private property, and its inheri- http://suacs.wordpress.com/ ratic soviets/workers’ councils to sup- tance, to achieve full sexual, social and Signed articles do not necessarily press the inevitable counter-revolution economic freedom and equality for all represent the views of the SF of private capitalist profit against we need to overthrow class society planned production for the satisfac- itself. tion of socialised human need. 7.We fight racism and fascism. We Subscribe to Socialist 3.We recognise the necessity for revo- support the right of people to fight Fight and In Defence lutionaries to carry out serious ideo- back against racist and fascist attacks of Trotskyism logical and political struggle as direct by any means necessary. Self-defence Four Issues: UK: £12.00, participants in the trade unions is no offence! We support ‘No Plat- EU: £14.00 (always) and in the mass reformist form’ for all fascists but never call on social democratic bourgeois workers’ the capitalist state to ban fascist Rest of the World: £18.00 parties despite their pro-capitalist lead- marches or parties; these laws would erships when conditions are favour- inevitably primarily be used against Send donations to help in able. Because we see the trade union workers’ organisations, as history has their production bureaucracy and their allies in the La- shown. bour party leadership as the most fun- 8.We oppose all immigration controls. damental obstacle to the struggle for International finance capital roams the Join Socialist Fight power of the working class, outside of planet in search of profit and Imperi- Would you like to join Social- the state forces and their direct agen- alist governments disrupts the lives of ist Fight or learn more about cies themselves, we must fight and workers and cause the collapse of our work and revolutionary defeat and replace them with a revolu- whole nations with their direct inter- politics? tionary leadership by mobilising the vention in the Balkans, Iraq and Af- base against the pro-capitalist bureau- ghanistan and their proxy wars in So- Contact us at the above email cratic misleaders to open the way for- malia and the Democratic Republic of ward for the struggle for workers’ the Congo, etc. Workers have the power. right to sell their labour internationally The following are just 8 of 4.We are fully in support of all mass wherever they get the best price. Only the 26 points of the political mobilisations against the onslaught of union membership and pay rates can programme of the Socialist this reactionary Con-Lib Dem coali- counter employers who seek to exploit Fight Group which can be tion. However, whilst participating in immigrant workers as cheap labour to found at our blog here: this struggle we will oppose all policies undermine the gains of past struggles. http://socialistfight.com/ Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward! 2 Contents Socialist Fight Editorial: National Chauvinism, war Russia and China are NOT Imperialist states, hysteria and new forces……………….…...….Page 4 LCFI…………………………………………..Page 18 GMB Conference By Fergus O’Connor…..….Page 6 Eight Indices of US-led World Imperialism Socialist Public Sector Fightback By Graham Durham, On Fight…………………………………………..Page 21 Scottish Independence: By Ella Downing …..Page 7 The downing of the Boeing 777 in Ukraine...Page 22 Fascists routed in Cricklewood By Ella Downing, Reply to Steve Ballard’s “Anti-Downing”: By Gerry Greetings to Brazilian picket……………...….Page 8 Downing…………………………………...…Page 24 Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group….Page 9 Iraq and ISIS, LCFI……………………...…..Page 26 Amnesty International and Irish political prisoners Boko Haram, By Ailesh Dease…………...…Page 29 By Michael Holden.………………………….Page 10 The Chartists 1838- 1848, By Ailesh Dease….Page 31 The Chile Coup of 1973 By Yao Wenyuan…..Page 12 William Cuffay – the life and times of a Chartist American SWP supports US imperialism, By John leader, Laurence Humphries………………..Page 33 Barry…………………………………………..Page 13 Paul Klee exhibition, Reviewer: Laurence IDF’s Gaza assault By Dr. Nafeez Ahmed… Page 14 Humphries……………………………………Page 35 Statement on Occupied Palestine………...…Page 15 Borotba Statement, Socialist Fight Greetings to Bra- Eddie Dempsey’s account of the London Ukraine zilian picket in solidarity with Eastern Ukraine: events………………………………………….Page 16 ……………….…………..………..……….….Page 36 We are against the UK and Western governments’ backing for the far-right regime in Kiev. We oppose the planned NATO exercises in Ukraine. We demand that the killers of 42 people at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on May 2nd be brought to justice. We are against attacks on democratic rights and the repression of left-wing organisations. We support the antifascist resistance in Ukraine. Blog: http://ukraineantifascistsolidarity.word..., Twitter: Ukraine Antifa @UkraineAntifa, Facebook: Solidarity with Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward! 3 Socialist Fight Editorial: National Chauvinism, war hysteria and new forces he second half of 2014 promises to be a momentous period in and its National Shop Stewards Network is a complete dead end and T the development of the global economic, military and political only assists the right wing with its shamefaced chauvinism. crisis of global Imperialism. The fallout from the US subprime mortgage and Lehman collapse of 2007/8 is still working itself out Trotskyists are internationalists in wars and in the consciousness of the middle classes and working Trotskyists are internationalists not only because we care deeply class globally. The debt crisis revealed by the collapse has not gone about the fate of the victim of the Maidan fascists or the ISIS ji- away but has only been temporarily overcome by extending more hadists or the Zionist mass murders. We are internationalists be- credit preparing a bigger explosion; the burden of fictitious capital is cause we know you cannot fight the domestic class struggle effec- the driving force of revolution and counter-revolution today. Hence tively without a global perspective of world revolution. Our Eight the need for global finance capital to increase the rate of exploitation Indices of US-led World Imperialism article on p. 21 spells out the global of the working class in the metropolitan countries and rob the semi- reach of US-led Imperialism and the deadly threat it posed for every colonial world.
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