ninety years of the communist party

by Chris Ford

This year marks the 90th Anniversary of the foundation of the Communist Part of Great Britain, which existed until its disbandment in 1991.  Without a doubt the foundation of the CPGB in 1920 was an event of great importance in the history of the workers’ movement in the UK.

Arthur McManus, Jack Murphy, Albert Inkpin and Willie Gallacher

Its creation was directly linked to the revolutionary upsurge which followed the First World War, this brought about a recomposition of the communist movement which crystallised in the Third, Communist International centred in Soviet Russia.  This period and the unity process which took place is not only of historical interest but holds many lessons for our own generation in our efforts to bring about a new recomposition of the communist movement.

from meltdown to upheaval: 11th september assembly

We are hosting an assembly on Saturday 11th September, debating the effects of the crisis, the existing resistance and the questions it raises regarding how we organise.

All welcome. We will be soliciting and publishing local and industry-specific reports in the lead-up to the event, see here for the questionnaire. More details on each workshop and timings to follow. The event is from 10am on Saturday 11th September at LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 (Aldgate East tube).

solidarity with migrant cleaners in stockholm: actions 2nd and 13th august

The Cleaners’ Defence Committee, established earlier this year to organise solidarity with migrant workers in the City of London, has called two actions in solidarity with low-paid cleaners at the plush Berns Salonger nightclub in Stockholm.

the swanky Berns Salonger hotel

These workers have been in dispute for 21 weeks, with a series of mass pickets in protest at illegally low wages, victimisation and shifts as long as 22 hours. Our protest is against the British concern London & Regional Properties, which owns the nightclub.

ruling class embarrassed by ian tomlinson charade

Adam Ford writes on the recent inquiry into the police killing of Ian Tomlinson, which resulted in a whitewash of those involved.

For the ruling class, the embarrassment caused by the transparent cover-up of Ian Tomlinson’s police killing was a necessary evil. The alternative was far worse – a very public examination of policing tactics at a time of drastic cutbacks.

light at the end of the tunnel

by Alix Arnold, from ILA no. 333, March 2010 – translation by friends of The Commune

Underground Rail Transport in Buenos Aires:
Successful Struggles against the consequences of privatisation

At the peak of the economic crisis in Argentina, workers demanded – and secured – a six-hour day, citing the hazardous nature of the work. In 2005 they fired the starting gun to a wave of wage strikes in Argentina by enforcing a 44 per cent wage increase. After that the workers of the Subte (short for subterraneo: underground trains) made sure that their casualised work-mates in the cleaning and security services would also benefit from these gains. All these struggles would not have been possible with the old union apparatus. After years of underground organising efforts the Metrodelgados have established a new union.

the day the EDL didn’t show up

Richard Price reports on last month’s English Defence League and Islamist provocations in Tower Hamlets and the left’s response. See here for an interview with a Bengali secular activist on the same theme.

In mid-May an event was announced for June 20th at the Troxy Ballroom in Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, organised by the UK-IC (UK –Islamic Conference) (1) . The list of speakers was impressive and global including the likes of the Malaysian Sheikh Hussein Lee. And bigots to a man: and, of course, they are all men.  All of them having been quoted as spouting filth supporting violence and rape against women in marriage, killing gays and violent anti-Jewish racism (2).

Sadly, instead of an immediate reaction of east London progressives to oppose this meeting, the EDL (English Defence League) (3) jumped up and said they would march against the meeting. The EDL are an odd crew, a few right wing libertarians ideologically against Islamic conservatism, a few neo-Nazis trying to ferment race riots, but what appears to be a majority who are ‘British loyalists’ i.e. working class conservatives, who support the notion of a ‘Great Britain’ and will fight for that, who, while ignoring the massive loss of power neo-liberalism has wrought on us, are panicked by the almost irrelevant threat of Islamism in the UK.  On the one hand it says it is simply against Islamism and the threat to British liberalism brought by that but its attacks on Islamism end up looking pretty much like scapegoating all Muslims, deeply dangerous in a period when we need to be united against the state as it attacks.

harsh cuts in north wales

Steve Ryan reports on Wrexham

The reality of the savage attacks on the working class has united activists in North Wales.

A meeting in Wrexham of the already established and active Shop Stewards Network debated the attacks and the response.

The cuts hit North Wales hard. Thousands rely on public sector jobs. In Wrexham there are estimated some 15,000 public sector workers, all delivering valuable services.

a communist case against boycotting israel

Adam Ford responds to a debate in our paper.

In issue 15 of The Commune, Greg Brown made his case for supporting the boycott of Israeli goods, as well as the campaign for divestment and sanctions against the Zionist state. I decided to take up the challenge and sketch a counter-argument, partly because I’d long felt ‘instinctively’ opposed to it, and wanted to work out exactly why.

After pondering the comrade’s article for a while, I realised the fundamental reason I’m not in Greg’s camp on this one. For me, an essential part of being a communist is the belief that working class unity is the only way to finally overcome the special oppressions suffered by many around the world. Women are generally more oppressed than men, for example, and dark skinned people are generally more oppressed than light skinned people, but patriarchal and racist structures are the products of material conditions – i.e. they exist because they benefit the ruling class. The character of gender oppression has changed as ruling classes has adapted to economic changes, and the same can be said of race oppression.

‘unviable’ courses thanks to MMU cuts

by Mark Harrison

In November 2009, the management of Manchester Metropolitan University announced plans to shed 127 members of ‘support staff’ from their workforce; this follows a period of manifest ‘natural wastage’, which has left the library devoid of staff. Amongst students, those of the flagship art department will be hardest hit. Artists have complained that their courses will become ‘unviable’ with the loss of technicians and studio time.

The UNISON branch secretary made a firm verbal attack against management, highlighting the Vice Chancellor John Brooks’ £250,000 annual salary and the 7% increase in his pay packet as well as the development of new sites by the university, a £1.3 million budget surplus for the year 2009-10 and the fact that the cuts were announced before Alistair Darling’s 2010 budget. The union called for a vote of no-confidence in the VC whilst condemning a growth in the number of highly paid managers and “years of mismanagement”.

hackney community college needs a community fightback

A report on the recent cuts by an hourly-paid ESOL teacher

Cuts and Compulsory Redundancies

Earlier this year 68 members of staff at Hackney Community College were issued with notification of possible redundancy. After two successful, solid strike days, negotiation and many voluntary redundancies there are now only a handful of people facing compulsory redundancy.

the cuts agenda and ‘social capital’

by Dave Spencer

When we are talking about building communism from below, we need to know our starting point – the state and the consciousness of the working class.

One of the greatest influences on the theory of this matter and on the consequent policies and actions of local government and of workers in the voluntary or “Third” sector is Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone (2000). In it Putnam introduces the term “social capital”. By this he means any type of social or community engagement whatsoever – formal, informal, to do with friends, work, the family, hobbies, faith, politics, sport, the community. In other words social capital refers to how society works at grass roots, street and community level.

organisation and class struggle: august london commune forums

August will see a series of London public meetings on different historical experiences of communist organisation and class struggle. The meetings are open to all, and are all on Monday evenings from 7pm at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street.

We have chosen three historical examples of organisations which – in our political view – represent a highly developed experience and practice, mainly due to the high points of the movement at the time. We invite you to debate the past and present of Faridabad Majdoor Samachar/Kamunist Kranti in India (2nd August); the history of   Potere Operaio in Italy (late 1960s – early 1970s; 16th August) and Big Flame in the UK (1970s; 30th August).

We will try to debate these experiences both in terms of their historic background and their current relevance for our search for an organisational practice within the proletarian terrain. Both Potere Operaio and Big Flame transformed and finally dissolved themselves at general social breaking-points of crisis, namely the 1973 and 1979 convulsions of global capital. What does that mean given that we now pose the organisational question while looking into the open void of recession (or even a double dip recession)?

More details on first meeting below.

‘the resurgence of unions in the strangest of places’…

Angela Gorrie reports on Dundee

While traditional manufacturing industries are declining in Dundee, it’s beginning to seem like workers’ struggles are on the rise.

It’s saying something when a city which once boasted to be the home of ‘Jute, Jam and Journalism’ now lists Tesco as its largest single employer. Of the 29 companies who employ more than 300 people, few can claim to be involved in any kind of manufacture. While Michelin still remains, the likes of Timex have been replaced by companies specialising in biotechnology and computer games and the city council never tire of talking up their so called ‘Cultural Quarter’.

‘some past rank and file movements’… and the future?

by Sheila Cohen

Bryan Pearce’s 1959 article ‘Some Past Rank and File Movements'[1] is an intriguing piece, not only because of its date during a period of relative quiescence in the labour movement but also because it puts its finger on almost every issue that currently confronts today’s perhaps even more quiescent – or at least less powerful – working class.

Paradoxically, the piece begins with two de rigeur quotes from Leon Trotsky which in turn muddy two of the central points Pearce’s account later indicates. This is largely because of the conflation which Trotsky, like so many other writers, makes between trade unionism in its aspect as organiser of class resistance and as bureaucratic institution through – again like almost every other writer in the field – referring to both aspects under the same rubric. Thus: “The trade unions of our time can either serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordinating and disciplining of workers… or, on the contrary, the trade unions can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat…”