Keeping socialism alive in the House

The annual conference of the Labour Representation Committee in London last Saturday focused on next year’s general election and the need not only to keep the Tories out but to maximise the number of socialist Labour MPs in the House of Commons – as opposed to New Labour who are barely distinguishable from the Tories.
The meeting began with Tony Benn, former MP and still a very active campaigner, giving a brief history of the Labour Party from its creation by the original Labour Representation Committee to be a voice for the organised working class – the trade unions – in a Parliament dominated by capitalists and landowners.
LRC secretary Simeon Andrews pointed out that the LRC is a meeting point for different trends within the labour movement – those who want to reclaim the Labour Party for the working class and those who see the party now as a part of the capitalist state and the enemy of the workers.
And he said the interaction of the two trends is what gives the LRC its dialectical vigour, quoting William Blake’s The marriage of Heaven and Hell:

Without contraries there is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

Mick Shaw of the Fire Brigades Union gave an account of his union’s struggles against cuts in local fire services and against Yorkshire Fire Service’s attempt to sack all its firefighters and offer them their jobs back on reduced pay and conditions.
Though firefighters, and the rest of the public sector, are having a tough time under New Labour, the Liberal Democrats want a public sector pay freeze and the Tories want to ban public sector strikes. John McDonnell MP read the LRC national committee statement. “People want real Labour,” he said, “that’s plain. They don’t want the Tories or the Lib Dems or New Labour. We are a beacon of light in the darkness.
“Our job is to put forward that platform; a platform for change that meets the needs of the people.”
He called for strategic support for socialist MPs to ensure that after the next general election, no matter who won, there would be strong voices for socialism and working class interests in the House. He warned that the Campaign Group of MPs now has just 25 members and half of them are planning to retire at the next election and they need to be replaced.
“After the next election, whether it’s New Labour or whether it’s the Tories, we will have to fight anti-working class policies.
“We have no alternative but to build the resistance,” he said. And he called on LRC members and supporters to campaign on the ground, on the doorsteps and on picket lines. “It’s about action in solidarity with those in struggle.”
There followed debate on a number of resolutions, most of which were passed unopposed. These included a motion from the New Communist Party on the threat to welfare benefits.
One motion that did spark contention was the support for the “People’s Charter”. Though it was carried some delegates found it bland and ineffectual. But supporters argued that its formulation would draw the widest possible support and pointed out that it did call for the nationalisation of the banks and had won the support of the TUC.
In the afternoon Cristian Dominguez of the United Confederation of Bolivian Campesino workers gave a rousing speech of the history of his movement “the poorest of the poor” and “the most humble Bolivian people”. They rose up and struggled and marched for a better future and they succeeded in sweeping away the colonial puppets who had ruled Bolivia for the benefit of the imperialists who plundered its natural wealth.
“Some people died on that march; babies were born on that march,” he said.
The struggle ended with the election of Evo Morales, a native from the oppressed working classes, with 53 per cent of the vote.
“They went on to defeat a recall referendum, which ended up endorsing Morales further and on 10th January this year 67 per cent voted in favour of the new constitution, despite strong opposition from the right-wing and fascists.
Dominguez stressed that the struggle of the Bolivian workers is the struggles of all oppressed people all around the world. “It is the struggle of the citizens of the whole world; we have a responsibility to take care of our world for our children and grandchildren.”
It was a day of debate,and a blend of old and new traditions that will hopefully revive Labour’s fortunes next year. It ended, naturally, with a rousing rendition of the Red Flag.

photo: Cristian Dominguez of the United Confederation of Bolivian Campesino workers.

Cuba: Treasured Island

ALEJANDRO Gortazar is a Cuban photographer who has worked for the past 10 years in the fashion industry and the commercial sector on the island. But he’s best known as a nature photographer who visited protected nature reserves and explored the most inaccessible parts of the island to capture a wild and beautiful environment through the lens of his camera. For him Cuba is a "bastion of struggle, sacrifice, culture, nature and love" and we can now, for the first time, see a selection of some of his finest shots at exhibitions in London and Northampton. Last week Andy Brooks talked to him about his work.

Andy Brooks: Why did you choose to come to London?

Alejandro Gortazar: Well, I met my wife, who is Spanish, in Cuba. But my wife works in London so I felt it was time to spread my wings. I came to London in June and now we plan to spend our time partly in London and partly in Havana.

AB: Why do you focus on the natural world?

AG: My grandfather was a cartoonist and a landscape painter at the time of the revolution. He painted the people and the fields in which they worked. I wanted to follow in his footsteps but I was no good at painting. I soon realised that I didn’t have a natural talent for painting so I took up the camera to do the same thing with the lens and my eye. I don’t really have any limits when it comes to photography but what dominates my eye is light especially at sunrise and sunset. When I see something I want to shoot I’m very particular about technique and timing. I’m trying to show something that is not really there by enhancing the beauty of the image.

AB: What do you want people to see?

I want people to understand light, to really capture light. You can capture that with a lens and through the use of technique you can transform knowledge into an art. In my work I am representing Cuba and in this exhibition I want to show British people that there is more to Cuba than they might imagine.
Cuba is a land of absolute beauty and unforgettable landscapes – an island you would never want to leave in your life. I want to show people the wonderful wildlife of the island. This display includes a photo of the bee hummingbird which only lives in Cuba. It is only 5cm long and it’s the smallest bird in the world. I spent over two hours waiting to capture the moment of that bird in flight. I want to show how all life, like that bird, can be so attractive when humankind is good to nature.

AB: Just nature…

AG: Oh no. I don’t ignore people. In fact I’ve got a forthcoming exhibition of shots of Cuban people – 50 images for the 50th anniversary of the Cuba Revolution – as part of a project with Cuba Solidarity which will tour the UK and then go on to France and Spain.

AB: How far does the landscape mould the Cuban character?

AG: People who live in towns focus their lives on everything that urban life represents, like consumerism and technology. But when people are outside, living with nature, they realise they don’t need that many things to live a happy life. They see that nature gives them a lot. They get up early with the sun, work the land and receive its fruit, smell the air and see the sun set. You can see examples here of really proud people whose lives may be simple but who are, nevertheless, really happy…

AB: So you’re aiming at the Cuban audience as well as the world…

AG: Yes, many Cubans who live in Havana and the other towns take the countryside and the nature reserves for granted while many people in the rest of the world just have a tourist image of the island – you know the clichés – beaches, cigars, the crumbling buildings of Old Havana, shoeless children and vintage cars on the streets of Havana… I want to show a hidden Cuba to the Cubans and my first photo exhibition of Cuban landscapes in 1999 proved really popular at home. It was packed out and it continued in that gallery in Havana for two years. I wanted to show the most remote areas of the island to the Cuban people. Now I want to take this hidden Cuba to the world and this is what I’m trying to do with this selection of my work here today.
I had a chance to talk about this at the opening of this exhibition in London last week. There were about 50 people there and many of them came up to me afterwards to tell me they wanted to go to Cuba to see what I had seen with their own eyes.


AB: Will your photos be published for a wider audience…

AG: I hope so and the Opus Gallery is considering producing a coffee-table book of this collection here in the near future. This exhibition is going to Northampton and Dublin and some of my works are going to Paris and Chicago. I want everyone to see this other Cuba.

AB: I guess you’re also exploring Britain…

AG: Yes indeed. I can’t spend even one day without taking photos.



Cuba, Treasured Island an exhibition by Cuban photographer Alejandro Gortazar is on at the Opus Gallery until 23rd November. Admission is free and the gallery is at 10-13 King Street, London WC2E 8HN. It then moves to the Lavata Galleria, 228 Wellingborough Road, Northampton NN! 4EJ for a Christmas season from 3rd to 31st December.

More examples of the art of Alejandro Gortazar

Red Salute for Red October

THE GREAT October Russian Revolution is commemorated by communists all over the world and comrades and friends gathered at the NCP Centre on 7th November for the Party’s traditional celebrations of the greatest event of the 20th century. Our old print shop doubled up as the bar and buffet largely prepared by our own comrades. In the main meeting room the lessons of Red October and its meaning for communists in the 21st century was highlighted by our friends during the formal part of the celebrations opened as usual by Party Chairman Alex Kempshall. Comrade Cabinda from the RCPB (ML), John Callow, the Secretary of the Marx Memorial Library and NCP leader Andy Brooks all spoke about the immense achievements of the Soviet Union in war and peace and all were confident that we will see sweeping changes in the 21st century across the world and millions upon millions join in the struggle for national liberation, peace and socialism.
That was also stressed in a message from young communists from Siberia to the NCP. The youth movement of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Novosibirsk said the first victorious socialist revolution had “accelerated the progress of revolutionary and liberation struggle” and “shown the world a way to the socialist future of other countries and nations…on the anniversary of that glorious day, we wish you every success in achieving a splendid triumph of communist ideas in the whole world!”Perhaps the most traditional part of an NCP social is the collection and Dolly Shaer made a rousing call to keep our new colour presses going and comrades responded by raising £600 for the New Worker fighting fund. Friends slowly departed for the last trains but thanks to the night buses the bar chalked up a new record by staying open till 2.00 am!

photo: at the bar

Pride and Remembrance

THE SOVIET Memorial Trust marked Remembrance Sunday with a moving ceremony at the Soviet War Memorial in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum in south London last Sunday.
As usual the event was attended by the Mayor of Southwark, local MP Simon Hughes and the ambassadors of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and many other former Soviet states, along with the representatives of many different organisations.
Pride of place among these, as always, went to the veterans of the Second World War, and especially to the veterans of the Arctic Convoy Club, whose numbers are now sadly dwindling.
There were speeches and the Russian ambassador emphasised the importance of resisting attempts from some quarters to rewrite the history of the the Great Patriotic War against Nazism.
After that wreathes were laid by the veterans, local dignitaries, the ambassadors and representatives of other organisations, including the New Communist Party, the Marx Memorial Library and the Communist Party of Britain.

photo: Daphne Liddle from the Central Committee lays flowers on behalf of the NCPB

Don't Burn It -- a major new contribution to war cinema

by Theo Russell

DON’T BURN IT, a remarkable new film about the Vietnam War, was shown recently during the Vietnam Festival Of Culture 2009 in London. It is based on the diary of a young woman doctor, Dang Thuy Tram, at a field hospital in Quang Ngai province, a National Liberation Front stronghold during the war.

The diary’s discovery by a South Vietnamese Army soldier and his American officer begins a process which changes their lives and reverberates to the present day.
In the tradition of socialist war films, the focus of Don’t Burn It is on the effects of war on those caught up in it, rather than the actual fighting. It shows not only the horror and suffering, but the heroism of those defending their homeland and the mental anguish of the occupiers.

Many viewers will be surprised at its portrayal of the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, who from the outset are shown as thinking human beings rather than evil barbarians.

Quang, the officer who finds the diary, is transfixed when he starts reading it, and hands it to the US captain, Fred, saying “don’t burn it, it already has fire inside it”. As they start translating the diary, Fred begins to understand his Vietnamese enemies for the first time, changing his life forever.

Written in a traditional Vietnamese style, the diary combines daily events with stirring poetry, which greatly increases its impact. Ho Chi Minh famously kept a similar “diary” while imprisoned by the Chinese nationalists as a spy in 1943.

Many years after the war, at the urging of his mother back in North Carolina, Fred (in real life lawyer Fred Whitehurst) hands the diary to scholars at the University of Texas. Eventually it is published, causing a sensation in Vietnam, and a search begins to find Dr Tram’s family in Hanoi.
During the film scenes of Dr Tram living and working in the midst of war alternate with moving memories of her family life in Hanoi. One of the most interesting sequences shows a researcher travelling around present-day Hanoi by moped in search of her family.

Don’t Burn It is without doubt a major contribution to war cinema. It combines a hatred of war with admiration for the Vietnamese people’s heroic struggle and culture, and the humanity of which ordinary Americans are capable – a powerful message of peace and friendship.

(Don’t Burn It, directed by Dang Nhat Minh, was released in April 2009. The original book, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: An Extraordinary Diary of Courage from the Vietnam War, is available in paperback.)

No choice but to march!

by Caroline Colebrook

LANCE Corporal Joe Glenton of the Royal Logistic Corps last Saturday led a march of thousands of anti-war protesters through London, even though he faces a court martial for doing so.
Glenton is refusing to return to Afghanistan and is calling on Britain to withdraw all troops from the country.
He told a rally, at the end of the march in Trafalgar Square: “It is distressing to disobey orders but when Britain follows America in continuing to wage war against one of the world’s poorest countries, I feel I have no choice.
“Politicians have abused the trust of the army and the soldiers who serve. That’s why I am compelled and proud to march with the Stop the War Coalition.”
He added: “I am marching to send a message to Gordon Brown. Instead of sending more troops, he must bring them all home. He cannot sit on his hands and wait while more and more of my comrades are killed.”
So far 223 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan since Nato forces invaded the country in 2001 on the premise that Afghanistan was somehow responsible for the 11th September attacks in the United States in 2001.
A recent poll commissioned by Channel Four News found that 84 per cent of people in Britain believe that British and American troops are currently losing the war in Afghanistan.
Almost half of the public in this country believe that military victory in Afghanistan is impossible and significant majorities think British troops are not winning the war and should be withdrawn either immediately or within the next year, according to a poll published today.
The poll suggests that the public mood is at odds with government policy that Britain and its Nato allies should see through their mission in Afghanistan and keep troops in the country until responsibility for its security can be handed over to home-grown forces in a process known as Afghanisation.
Last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was ready to send a further 500 troops, so long as they could be properly equipped and form part of a Nato-wide reinforcement with each ally bearing its “fair share”.
Joe Glenton was joined on the march by former colleagues and bereaved military families. They included Peter Brierly, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierly was killed in Iraq in 2003. At a recent memorial service in St Paul’s’ cathedral in London Brierly refused to shake the hand of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling Blair that he had blood on his hands and would one day have to answer for what he had done.
“They are not doing any good while they are over there. They need to leave the country to sort itself out,” he said. “While British troops are there they are actually attracting more insurgents who are coming in to fight.”
Also on the march was 104-year-old Hetty Bowyer. She told the crowd in Trafalgar Square: “I march because I can see no reason for further killing. I have walked on every march against us going to war. At my age there is not very much I can do but while my legs can carry me I am going to march.”
Jeremy Corbyn MP, vice-chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: “The war in Afghanistan has no clear war aims, is clearly escalating and spinning out of control and can only impact on Pakistan and the whole of South Asia.
“Nato forces have been in Afghanistan for eight years and the result appears to be increased drug production, high levels of corruption and terrible losses of life on all sides, civilian and military.
“Now is the time to change policy and bring the troops home to prevent Nato involving itself in a Vietnam-style quagmire.”

Vietnam comes to London

By Andy Brooks


LONDONERS will get a taste of Vietnamese culture this month with the screening of three major Vietnamese films, including the internationally acclaimed Don’t Burn It [Dung Dot], which has been officially chosen to represent Vietnamese cinema in the best foreign language film category at the 2010 Oscars in Los Angeles next March.
Over 40 years ago Vietnam was on everyone’s lips as the heroic Vietnamese people battled against the might of US imperialism to drive the invaders out and reunify their country under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and the communists. Final victory was achieved in 1975 and the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Though the country still bears the scars of that monstrous imperialist war, Vietnam has advanced to develop a modern socialist economy and a haven for peace and progress in south-east Asia. But while we remember those epic days of sacrifice and struggle we often forget that Vietnam is an ancient land with rich traditions and a thriving movie industry that is now going beyond the confines of Asia to span the entire globe.
Some of the best Vietnamese films will be shown in London as part of the

Vietnam Festival of Culture this month. And the festival kicked off with a gala performance by the country’s top artistes on Monday at Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall, attended by Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, and opened by visiting Vietnamese deputy premier Hoang Trung Hai.
Then the hall was transported into the heart of modern and traditional Vietnamese culture as singers, dancers and musicians held the audience spellbound with a selection of traditional and modern Vietnamese music as well as an interpretation of the English folk-song Scarborough Fair and a Hungarian classic Czadas gypsy dance.
The Vietnam film festival that follows will be held at the nearby Cine Lumiere, French Institute, in South Kensington from 29th to 31st October. Londoners will have the exclusive opportunity to see some of the most exciting and celebrated films to come out of Vietnam including The Black Forest, Don’t Burn It and The Story of Pao.
Two of the films are dramas: The Black Forest tells the tale of a love triangle between an illegal lodger in a northern forest, his fiancé and his second son; The Story of Pao is set amongst the Hmong ethnic minority while Don’t Burn It is based on the true story of Dang Thuy Tram, a young female doctor from Hanoi who volunteered to help the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam working as a surgeon in a battlefield hospital during the Vietnam War and was killed by American troops.
The film reflects the profound humanity of the film’s modest and courageous heroine Tram, played by young actress Minh Huong. The film triumphed over 23 other movies to win the Audience Award at the Fukuoka International Film Festival in Japan earlier this month.

Tickets are just £5.00 and further details can be obtained by contacting the Cine Lumiere box office on 0207 073 1350 or checking out their website at http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/

Milestone in Korean history

Communists and progressives gathered in London last week for a seminar on the meaning and impact of the Korean revolution to mark the anniversary of the foundation of the Workers’ Party of Korea on 10th October 1945.
Organised by Friends of Korea and chaired by Harpal Brar, the guest of honour was a diplomat from the DPR Korea embassy in London and contributors included NCP leader Andy Brooks, Michael Chant of the RCPB (ML), John McLeod of the Socialist Labour Party and Ella Rule of the CPGB (ML) along with Korean solidarity activists Keith Bennett and Dermot Hudson of the British Juche Society.
The discussion, held at the RCPB (ML) headquarters in south London, covered all aspects of life in Democratic Korea including the Juche philosophy, leadership and the role of the communist party in socialist construction. At the end of the seminar a congratulatory letter to Korean leader Kim Jong Il was adopted unanimously.

photo: Andy Brooks making a point

Words to change the world

by Daphne Liddle

THREE themes came together is Kensington Town Hall last Saturday night – they were Third World Solidarity, the Poetry Olympics and the Muslim celebration of Eid in an event of performance poetry and music.
Too often English audiences are deterred from poetry performances by bad poetry badly presented. Poetry is for everyone but like any other art form is requires some thought and effort from the creator and the presenter.
I remember a peace rally in 1991 in Woolwich Town Hall that was almost entirely cleared by a recital from veteran peace campaigner Pat Arrowsmith. No one doubted her courage or credentials as a fighter for peace but she was not a wordsmith.
She was about to go out to the Gulf and interpose herself between two front lines to try to prevent the impending war. We wondered if her “poetry” was the magic weapon to send both frontlines into rapid retreat.
A poet, like a painter or a composer, has inspiration and a message, a thought or a feeling to communicate. But to do justice to their inspiration the artist chooses carefully the right colours and textures of paint and surface; the musician chooses carefully the right notes, rhythms and instruments to give the right tone and texture of sound.
Communicating an inspiration into a form that other minds can receive takes some care and effort. For a poet, that means choosing carefully the right words, the rights sounds, rhythms and textures to generate a complete picture in the mind of the listener.
Chosen carefully, words are the most powerful tools we have. Words can convey information; they can soothe and comfort; they can encourage; they can humiliate; they can break hearts; they can anger; they can confuse and deceive; they can sell; they can create a god; they can bore; they can make people fall in and out of love; they can satisfy or they can start a revolution that will change the world.
There is nothing boring about the study of language. The power of magic spells in superstitious times was entirely in the right choice and use of words.
And the performers we saw on stage in Kensington Town Hall last Saturday were absolute masters of language and demonstrated poetry at its very best. And both in content and presentation it was poetry at the service of justice, peace and democracy – the aims of Third World Solidarity.
The event was organised by local Labour councillor Mushtaq Lasharie and presented by Michael Horovitz.
The first performer was Mahmood Jamal who performed poetry he had translated from the original Pakistani and some of his own.
This was followed by Guyanan Keith Waite, who, with the aid of a flute, conjured up the sounds and the atmosphere of the jungle.
Patience Agbabi gave us first a fast and vivid hymn of praise to the importance of words, Give me a word, then a well crafted story in rap poem of her life: born in Africa, raised in London and then returning to Lagos to find herself an outsider in both places – a Ufo woman.
Oliver Bernard gave us his experiences of life since the 1930s; Steven Berkoff presented a tennis championship final match as a fast and furious battle saga; Eleanor Bron read from an anthology produced by Poetry Olympics and some pieces of her own and Elvis McGonnigal had us laughing out loud with his quick-fire satires on the world of power politics, along with sporadic digs at the pop singer James Blunt, whom he compared to the Orville, the ventriloquist dummy duck.
We heard from Moazzam Begg, for four years a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, who wrote poetry to preserve his sanity during those terrible years. He explained how many prisoners, denied access to pens and paper, found a way of writing by using the little finger nails to cut into the surface of Styrofoam cups.
The size of the cups limited the poems to just a couple of lines but nevertheless these poems made it to the outside world, smuggled out, often by sympathetic guards and are now published.
The works of all these poets and many more are available in print with details from New Departures/Poetry Olympics, PO Box 9819, London W11 2GQ or http://www.poetryolympics.com/


photo:Eleanor Bron

Free the Miami Five!

NCP comrades and supporters joined protesters outside the US embassy in London last week to demand the release of five Cubans arrested in 1998 on trumped-up charges of espionage. Some 400 demonstrators took part in an evening candle-light picket of the American embassy in Grosvenor Square on 1st October called by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in support of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González who are currently serving sentences of between 15 years and life. The vigil was supported by their families, Jeremy Corbyn, the London Labour MP who is also a prominent member of the Labour Representation Committee along with a number of union leaders.

London roundup

BNP councillor exposed

The British National Party’s third highest elected official has been exposed fabricating two murders in a high profile BNP campaign.
He has been found guilty of bringing both the Greater London Authority and the Barking and Dagenham Council into disrepute – his lies show the depths the BNP are willing to stoop to in their vile propaganda war.
This follows a BNP posting on You Tube which showed Barnbrook claiming there had been three recent murders in Dagenham – a total fabrication.

Hope not Hate campaigners are now aiming to raise £5000 to deliver 150,000 targeted leaflets across London.
Because of the severity of his lies, Barnbrook has been suspended by the Council for a month, forced to submit a written apology to the Greater London Authority and made to undertake “training” in ethics in public life.
But the Hope not Hate campaigners say this is just the tip of the iceberg – the BNP has been capitalising on fear for years in an attempt to pull our communities apart.
But this time is different – this time we have proof in black and white that their campaign is entirely based on fear, falsehood and hatred.

Eurostar cleaners take action

Rail Union RMT last Monday confirmed a further six days of strike action by Eurostar cleaners working at St Pancras International for contractors the Carlisle Group in an increasingly bitter dispute over pay, the introduction of routine staff fingerprinting, redundancies and the victimisation and harassment of RMT union reps.
RMT Eurostar cleaners will strike on the following dates:
• 05:30 hours on Friday 2nd October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Saturday 3rd October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Sunday 4th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Monday 5th October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Friday 16th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Saturday 17th October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Sunday 18th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Monday 19th October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Friday 30th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Saturday 31st October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Sunday 1st November 2009 and 05:29 hours on Monday 2nd November 2009.
RMT have launched a global campaign in support of the London Eurostar cleaners and their fight for the London Living Wage and against bullying and harassment. So far over 3,000 people from over 70 countries around the world have joined the cyber-picket.
Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said on Monday:
“The treatment of cleaners on the Eurostar, our flagship European rail service, is nothing short of a national disgrace. We have demanded that the Government, as the effective owners of Eurostar, step in to stop this scandalous exploitation of cleaners at St Pancras International who are fighting for nothing more than the London Living Wage, dignity and respect at work and the right to organise an effective trade union.”