for workers' power from below
Steve Hedley, the left candidate for the role of RMT London Transport Regional Organiser, has been elected after winning some 60% of the vote.
An RMT activist for over two decades, who has been sacked five times for standing up to management, Steve has a strong record of building the union and encouraging member involvement.
We wish him all the best in his new position.
Through the first half of 2009 we are holding reading group meetings every three weeks, with the texts focussing on different conceptions of communism and the organisational forms needed to get there. Click here to see the full list of dates, subjects and texts.
The next meeting is on January 19th, on the subject of “Self organisation and communism from below”.
All meetings start on Mondays at 7pm, and the venue is in central London. We aim to have inclusive and undogmatic discussions, and all are welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to register your interest.
The series will run parallel to a series of forums on “capitalism and the working class today”, starting on January 26th: more details to follow.
On December 18th a campaign was launched to free the “Shministim” – Israeli high school students who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in the army occupying the Palestinian Territories. The website december18th.org features videos of the jailed conscientious objectors, and you can also send a letter of protest to the Israeli Defense Minister.
There will be a demonstration outside the Greek Embassy in London on Thursday 18th December showing solidarity with workers and students in Greece, after the murder of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by the police and a series of strikes and protests against the government.
The solidarity protest will take place 4-6pm on the 18th. The Embassy is located at 1A Holland Park, London W11 3TP. The nearest Tube stop is Holland Park: see map below.
by Ernie Haberkern
“The “New Question” posed by the experience of the Labor government is not, then, whether socialism can be established by parliamentary means or only by extra-parliamentary means. It is this: Can the working class reach socialism only by its own efforts, by its direct class rule over the economic and political life of the country, or can socialism be attained without workers’ control and simply by an expropriation of the bourgeoisie carried out, one way or another, under the control and direction of a more or less benevolent workers’ bureaucracy? The spread of Stalinism has raised the same question in one way; the Labourite government in another way. If it is not the most vital question of our time, it is certainly one of the most vital. Not a few Marxists have abandoned the basic convictions of the founders and teachers of scientific socialism by replying, in effect, in the affirmative: Yes, the road to socialism lies or may lie through the domination of society by a workers’ bureaucracy or a bureaucracy that arose out of the labor movement. They have concluded that the Stalinist revolution is the socialist revolution, that Stalinist society is progressive, that the Titoist state is socialist, and the like. As for ourselves, we remain unreconstructed in our belief that the emancipation of the working class, that is, socialism, is the task of the working class itself and no one else. The experience of the Labor government, especially when considered, as it must be, in the light of the social and historical significance of the rise of Stalinism, has not modified our belief in the slightest degree and we see no grounds in the realities of British society to warrant such a modification.”
Max Shachtman, The New International, January/February 1951
This article, in which the author repudiated his long-held position that nationalization by itself was a progressive step towards socialism, argues that nationalization of private capital by the state bureaucracy, even when carried out by a party based on the working class is not a step forward. The article even goes so far as to argue that the Attlee government, if it continued on this path, was heading towards a social system that would differ little, if at all, from Stalinism.
Shachtman was rediscovering Marx and Engels’ views on the subject of statification. Continue reading “marx and engels on the state and society”
Below are a few photos taken at the Hands Off the People of Iran conference on Saturday 13th December. Much of the event was filmed: a video of John McDonnell speaking about sanctions is featured here, while Yassamine Mather on the Iranian trade unions is here.
Our group now has a Flickr page with photos from meetings, demonstrations and so on, which can be found here.
by David Broder
On Saturday 13th December I attended the conference of Hands Off the People of Iran, a solidarity campaign not only opposed to military attacks, “surgical strikes” and sanctions against Iran, but also supporting struggles against the régime waged by the workers’ movement, women’s and student organisations.
Just over sixty people attended, which was slightly down on last year, no doubt largely because the threat of a US or Israeli military attack on Iran seems lesser now that the US government and its allies are making deals with Islamist élites in order to extricate themselves from Iraq.
After a report on the last year’s activities, there was a general discussion on the current situation, led by Torab Saleth. This particularly focussed on the seemingly more “pragmatic” attitudes to foreign policy now held by the American ruling class, as symptomised by their majority support for Barack Obama in the recent presidential election and the weakening of the neo-conservative voice on Capitol Hill. Torab and several speakers from the floor warned that the situation could change suddenly, particularly given the continuity shown by Obama’s appointments, the risk of the US ruling class lashing out under pressure from the recession, and even the possibility of an Israeli “surgical strike” without Obama’s approval. A further consideration is, of course, the weakening of the Iranian economy with the collapse in world oil prices.
In any case the situation is in many ways unpredictable because (i) the Obama administration and the Iranian régime are not utterly irreconcilable and could easily reach accommodation: the latter supports the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and aggressively implements IMF neo-liberal reforms (ii) nor are their relations purely “rational” or reflective of greater economic or strategic dynamics. Continue reading “hands off the people of iran conference report”
Three videos on the subject of the week-long occupation of the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago. This won a huge pay-off worth $1.75 million for the workers concerned, who lost their jobs due to the recession.
Workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago won a large pay-off this week after an occupation of the factory where they worked. Gregor Gall argues that in the current economic climate, occupations should play a major role in the fight against mass redundancies.
A recession is well and truly here if you look at the newspapers and see the daily tally of redundancies and closures. Indeed, ITN has begun doing its daily count on its late evening bulletin – just as it did in the grim 1980s.
Most economic analysts believe the recession will be long and deep, not short and slight. So there is agreement that the number of unemployed will be between 2m-3m by sometime next year unless there is a fight to stop redundancies.
It is not just the redundancies and closures that cause untold misery but the way in which they are carried out in terms of notification and compensation result in further heartache.
Faced with mass redundancies and plant closures, how should workers and unions best respond?
by Terry Brotherstone, from The Guardian
Brian Pearce, who has died aged 93, was one of the most acute scholars of Russian history and British communism never to have held an academic post. Of the historians who broke with the Communist party of Great Britain (CPGB) after the Khrushchev “secret speech” and the suppression of the Hungarian revolution in 1956, he was the most insistent on the need for historical analysis of the party’s record.
A prodigious translator from both Russian and French, Pearce won the Scott-Moncrieff prize three times – in 1976 for Marcel Liebman’s Leninism Under Lenin, in 1980 for Roland Mousnier’s The Institutions of French Monarchy Under Absolutism, and in 1991 for Paul Veyne’s Bread and Circuses. Literary translation was his main source of income after he stopped working for the CPGB, for which he did various journalistic, cultural relations and translation jobs after leaving the civil service in 1950.
Expelled from the party in 1957, he had continued to work as a teacher of English at the Soviet Embassy, but the next year Harry Pollitt, the CPGB’s former general secretary, saw him there. “Soon my pupils … very embarrassed, made excuses for terminating their lessons,” Pearce recalled. Continue reading “obituary of brian pearce”
A lecture by Tamas Krausz, a communist based in Budapest, about the 1956 Hungarian revolution, its workers’ councils and forms of workers’ self-management
1. Prehistory[1]
The history of the workers’ councils of 1956 cannot be understood without the history of the Hungarian working class. The intellectual-political and socio-cultural development of the Hungarian working class has been shaped by diverse and complex historical processes in the interwar period. The counter-revolutionary system of Horthy destroyed and criminalized the 1918-1919 revolutionary tradition of the workers’ councils of the Hungarian working class, it banned the communist party and it declared in the name of the sanctity of private property that communal property – which was defined as the essence of socialism from Marx and Lenin till Zsigmond Kunfi, Justus and Lukács – was a sinful idea. Continue reading “the workers’ councils of 1956 – by tamas krausz”
by S. Parsa
Up to 2000 left wing student activists demonstrated this weekend in various parts of Iran, on the annual “Student day” (16 azar/6 December). The Freedom & Equality Seekers, the main left student group in Iran, protested in universities of Tehran, Urumia, Mazandaran, Shiraz, Isfahan and also in the Kurdish regions.
Behrouz Karimizadeh, an active member of the group Freedom and Equality Seeking Students, who now resides in London, has told us that their group was under much pressure this year: “Last year over 70 of our members were arrested. This year we were under a lot of threats and pressure and decided instead not to call for demonstrations ourselves”. Many of the official demonstrations were only called by the Tahkim Vahdat organisation (Office for Strengthening Unity), and their post-graduate group Advar. Both of the groups are semi-governmental and the only officially recognised and legal student bodies in Iran.
the freedom and equality group’s slogans at mazandaran university read “freedom of women means freedom of society”; “student movement: in solidarity with workers’ and women’s movements” and “free thinking is our right” Continue reading “socialist iranian students demonstrate”
Around 10,000 people turned out in London today for the Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration held on the same weekend as the United Nations Climate Change Convention being held in Poznan, Poland.
Starting near the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, the march snaked its way through central London before a rally in Parliament Square in front of the Houses of Parliament.
Most far-left groups were present and there was a large contingent of radical and socialist-minded people. Most prominent however were the placards of the Green Party, calling for a “Green New Deal” of environmentally-friendly state economic intervention akin to that proposed by US President-elect Barack Obama. In the bottom-right photo below the statue of Nelson Mandela can be seen holding a placard to this effect. Speakers included the Green European Parliament member Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, continuing the apparent vogue for the Liberal Democrats to be given a platform and allowed to portray a “left face” at anti-war and environmental protests.
We did not produce a special leaflet for the event, but sales of our new paper were brisk. We only have a few copies left, so do write to us – uncaptiveminds@gmail.com – if you would like one.
PCS activist Christine Hulme has been added to the platform for Monday‘s ‘uncaptive minds’ forum on the 1970s class struggle. She will be leading off the discussion alongside John McDonnell MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP and RMT activist Steve Hedley.
Unfortunately, Joe Marino will now be unable to attend, for health reasons.
The meeting begins at 6:30pm on Monday 8th December. The venue is in central London – email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or phone 07595 245494 to find out more details.
