We will remember them

by New Worker correspondent

Andy Brooks and Peter Hendy honour the fallen

A New Communist Party (NCP) delegation paid tribute to the sacrifice of millions of working people in the First World War on the 100^th anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918. The guns fell silent on the Western Front on 11^th November 1918, and last Sunday comrades joined diplomats and local dignitaries at the Soviet War Memorial in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park to honour the millions who died in that senseless struggle.

NCP leader Andy Brooks, along with national chair Alex Kempshall and Peter Hendy from the Central Committee, took part in the ceremony opened by Philip Matthews, the veteran chair of the Soviet Memorial Trust Fund, and Southwark mayor Catherine Rose in the park by the Imperial War Museum.

Wreaths were laid by the ruling Southwark Labour group on the council, as well as the Southwark Liberal Democrat opposition, along with diplomats from the Russian embassy and services associations. Other floral tributes were laid by representatives of the NCP, the Marx Memorial Library, the Stalin Society, the Soviet Front Red Army re-enactors group and representatives from the Russian community in London.

The ceremony ended, as usual, with the exhortation spoken by Ernie Davies of the Russian Convoy Club, followed by two minutes silence and the reveille.

Celebrating Red October

for the fund!

By New Worker correspondent

Communists all around the world celebrated the greatest event in the 20^th century last week in events to mark the 101^st anniversary of the Russian revolution that established the first workers and peasants republic, the USSR. On Saturday comrades and friends gathered to join them at the New Communist Party’s annual tribute to the Bolshevik victory in 1917.

The print shop was, as usual, was transformed into a bar and buffet for comrades to meet friends old and new and greet the honoured guests who joined us on Saturday to honour the generations who fought and built the Soviet Union.

The formal part of the event was opened by Party Chair Alex Kempshall, who introduced the speakers, all of whom were London activists well known to comrades in the room. Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association and Marie Lynam of the British Posadist movement both talked about the Russian revolution, the achievements of the Soviet Union and the relevance of the Bolshevik experience to the working class today.

NCP leader Andy Brooks spoke on the need to build the revolutionary movement in Britain to build the resistance to austerity and defeat all attempts to reverse the decision to leave the European Union at the 2016 referendum. He said that the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 inevitably led to the end of the first world war the following year and the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany was the decisive factor in ending the second world conflict in 1945.

Lenin and Stalin were following in the footsteps of the Paris Commune and the fires of 1917 continue to blaze in Cuba, Democratic Korea, China, Vietnam and Laos today. Although the counter-revolutions that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the people’s governments in eastern Europe were a setback, the world communist movement has revived and continues to fight for peace and socialism and national liberation all over the world.

Other comrades also spoke on this theme, including Theo Russell who pointed to the flag of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the Donbas on the wall and called on everyone to help build solidarity with the Donbas republics and the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine.

Everyone spoke of the inspiration that the Great October Revolution had given to the oppressed all around the world. Workers, led by the Bolsheviks, had overthrown a mighty imperialist empire and then defeated the reactionary armies, backed by the imperialist powers, during the Civil War to build the Soviet state that turned an economically backward country, barely emerging from feudalism in some parts, into a world power.

  This was taken up by Alex in his appeal for the New Worker fighting fund to keep our communist press going, which raised £320 for our communist weekly!

Scrap Universal Credit!

by New Worker correspondent

There was a big turnout from Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group picketing the DWP HQ at Caxton House in London’s West End last week. The protesters were calling for the scrapping of the hated ‘Universal Credit’ benefits scheme that is killing the poor and disabled.

Universal Credit is a punitive measure against a vast section of the population on low income rather than a rational simplification and streamlining of the benefit system, as the Tories claim. Universal Credit combines six working-age benefits into a single payment — but is paid monthly in arrears.

The roll out of Universal Credit (UC) threatens to ruin thousands of families throughout the country, forcing them into huge debt, homelessness and unemployment while a recent study led by the University of York found that benefits sanctions are pushing people into destitution, survival crime and ill health.