China: Expanding horizons for peace

 by New Worker correspondent

Andy Brooks speaking

NEW COMMUNIST Party leader Andy Brooks took part in a seminar with other communists, academics and solidarity activists on the role of the Communist Party of China and the world today at the Chinese embassy in London this week.
The NCP delegation, that included national organiser Theo Russell, joined Robert Griffiths, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain and Ella Rule, the Chair of the CPGB (ML) in the discussion that looked at China’s new Global Security Initiative and its long-standing efforts to promote sustainable development in the Global South and throughout the rest of the world.
The symposium was opened by Ambassador Zheng Zeguang who said that the Chinese people are acting upon the goals set forth at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China and working hard to achieve the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through a Chinese path of modernisation. “We are also taking concrete steps to promote high-quality development. Many British friends who have recently visited China are amazed by the prominent progress China has made over the past few years in green and low-carbon development and the digital economy. And they are full of confidence for China’s economic progress”.
People’s China has always upheld the principle that all countries, big or small, are equal. “We never engage in economic coercion, and we oppose bullying and coercion by others. It’s only when China’s core interests are undermined by certain countries that we take legitimate and reasonable counter-measures”. 
In his opening Andy Brooks said “imperialism fans the flames of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, blocks the return of Taiwan to its Chinese homeland and prolongs the unhappy partition of many countries including Cyprus, Ireland, Kashmir and Korea. China’s perspective, on the other hand, is based on the concept of ‘one country, two systems’ and the principle that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’. But the most aggressive sections of the American ruling class now at the helm in Washington clearly believe in “one world, one system” and that nuclear war is, under certain circumstances, entirely winnable”. 
China is striving to achieve lasting world peace through the traditional United Nations framework and through other platforms for economic and diplomatic co-operation including BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Co-operation Council.
This, the NCP leader said, “was a quantum jump from the post-war Soviet policies of “peaceful co-existence” and “detente” that failed to end the Cold War and probably accelerated the collapse of the USSR. Peaceful co-existence mistakenly believed that the capitalists could be economically beaten at their own game while detente was, in essence, a futile Soviet attempt at achieving nuclear parity with the Americans to divide the world into Soviet and American spheres of influence”. 
China, backed by many other countries, has repeatedly challenged the West to implement the entire non-proliferation treaty, signed in 1968, that not only called a halt to nuclear proliferation but also committed the signatories to work towards universal nuclear disarmament. 
The struggle to abolish nuclear weapons is crucial for the survival of humanity. But central to averting a Third World War is the need to eliminate the causes of war. And that is why communists have always understood that the struggles for peace and socialism are 
indivisible.

Gerald George Shaw

George Shaw

London comrades and friends were saddened to hear of the passing of George Shaw, a veteran campaigner who was a stalwart supporter of the people of the Donbas and often seen on protest pickets outside the American and south Korean embassy.
    Gerald George Shaw was born in November 1936. He grew into a young man interested in engineering. During his years in the car industry, he became a Labour Party member, a militant trade unionist and a supporter of the British Posadist movement in theTrotskyist Fourth International
He moved to London in the mid-1970s, settling in Wembley. He joined the Brent Trades Council, supported the striking Grunwick workers and helped the Kilburn Unemployed Working Group in their many campaigns against inhuman treatment by the DWP.
    George moved to Barnet in more recent years, where he died on 27 July 2023. He represented Unite on the Barnet Trades Council and as a Labour Party member, he defended the comrades of the Labour Against the Witch-hunt. He repudiated the fraudulent conflation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
    As a Republican, George helped present the thesis by Bruno Leipold: Citizen Marx and Republic. In later years he joined the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity front (IUAFS) where he denounced NATO as the warmonger that uses Ukraine as a platform for its war on Russia, China and their allies. Despite his age and health issues he joined numerous protest auctions in solidarity with the victims of the fascist-backed coup in February 2014 and the tragic events which followed.
    George's communist confidence in humanity lives on through the continuation of our struggle for justice and equality without which there will never be peace.

For peace on the Korean peninsula

in the Sid French library

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity campaigners met at the NCP’s Party Centre in London last weekend for a hybrid seminar to celebrate the victory of the Korean people over US imperialism and its lackeys in the Korean war and discuss the prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and the way forward for the solidarity campaign in Britain.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the Friends of Korea (FoK) event, welcomed everyone to the meeting, at the Sid French library or by video link, to hear key-note openings from FoK secretary Michael Chant and Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association and an online contribution from Song Gi Kim from the Democratic Korean embassy in London. This was followed by contributions from everyone in the room and from many of the online participants across the country.
    The Korean war ended on 27th July 1953 with an armistice that promised free elections to end the partition of the Korean peninsula. But the Americans never kept their word and the country remains divided between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north and a puppet regime in the south that is propped up by tens of thousands of US troops and an American nuclear armada off the coast.
    The US has done everything possible to maintain its military presence on the Korean peninsula. But the resistance of the DPRK continues, as the Korean people proudly demonstrate their mettle and build their own future.
    Victory Day is not simply a celebration for commemorating and looking back to a chapter of resistance in a previous era. The day also serves as a reminder that the US imperialists and their lackeys are stepping up war preparations in the Asia Pacific rim, and that the terrible tragedies visited upon the Korean people during the Korean War must never again be permitted. The significance of that war is taking on new meaning today as the US imperialists beat the drums of war to attempt to justify a nuclear catastrophe that threatens the very survival of the Korean people and the peoples of the world. But it further serves as a reminder that it is the people who are the makers of history and that they themselves must prevail against war.

In search of Karl Marx

NCP leader Andy Brooks at Marx' statue

by Carole Barclay

London comrades went to Trier in July – a small German town in the Moselle valley just a few miles from the border with Luxembourg.  Trier was once an imperial capital in Roman times. In the Middle Ages it was the capital of an independent German state ruled by the Archbishop of Trier that only ended during the Napoleonic occupation.  

These days visitors roam through the medieval cathedral and the old town painstakingly restored after Allied bombing during the Second World War or gaze at spectacular Roman remains like the monumental Porta Nigra gate and a Roman palace that’s now a Protestant church.

But for us Trier is first and foremost the home of Karl Marx. He was born here on 5th May 1818. The city, now under Prussian control, was his home until he moved to continue his studies in Berlin in 1836. 

Marx's birthplace is now the Marx House museum. He spent the first 18 months of his life here. But the rent was too much for his father to bear so the family moved to cheaper rooms above a shop near the Porta Nigra that you can spot if you look out for the plaque on the wall. 

Karl Marx House was a project of the old German Social Democrats (SPD) in the 1920s. They restored the building as a permanent tribute to the man who, together with Frederick Engels, penned the Communist Manifesto and helped launch the First International in 1864. Seized by the Nazis when Hitler came to power in 1933 the house was returned to the SPD in 1947. It is now run by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a social-democratic political trust with close ties to the modern SPD. This is clearly reflected in the displays which reflect modern European social-democratic thinking rather than that of the world communist movement.

Though there are some personal mementoes from Marx’s life, like his pocket watch and his favourite armchair, the galleries largely focus on Marx’s political career and the working class movements that embraced the banner of scientific socialism during his life-time and right through to the present. 

The SPD was part of the anti-communist West German bourgeois consensus that worked to bring down the old German Democratic Republic in the east. So Marx remains a controversial character in Germany. Neo-Nazis and reactionaries protest at any promotion of Karl Marx. But the city worthies, including the SPD that has a major presence on the Trier council, know the added value of the ‘Marx trail’ to their burgeoning tourist industry.

A giant bronze statue of Karl Marx stands in the heart of town. It was unveiled in 2018 on the 200th anniversary of the great thinker’s birth. It was a gift from People's China created by China's most famous sculptor - Wu Weishan. Some 150,000 Chinese tourists come to Trier to see Marx House every year. They join thousands of other communists and socialists, like us, following Marx’s footsteps in the town of his youth.

Remembering the Korean people’s victory

Dermot Hudson and Song Gi Kim

by New Worker correspondent

London comrades returned to the Chadswell centre in central London last weekend to mark the outbreak of the Korean war. The war began with an American attack on the people’s government in north Korea on 25th June 1950. It ended with the Americans signing a humiliating armistice on 27th July 1953. 
Chaired by Dermot Hudson speakers, including Theo Russell from the NCP, spoke about the Korean people’s heroic fight against the US imperialists and their lackeys during the war and their efforts to reconstruct their shattered country after the guns fell silent.
Though the American terror bombers had left north Korea in ruins, the masses rallied round the call of Kim Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea to rebuild their shattered country and lead the drive for a modern, independent socialist republic in the free part of the Korean peninsula.
Song Gi Kim, a representative from the Democratic Korean (DPRK) embassy in London pointed out that "in 1950 the Korean war, the fiercest war since the Second World War, broke out. At that time no one ever thought that the DPRK, founded two years before, would defeat the United States, which had been boasting of being the "strongest" in the world with a history of victory in 110 wars since its founding.
“As the world media described, the war was a confrontation between the rifle and the atomic bomb. But the result of the war turned out to be the opposite. The DPRK, a small country in the East, created a miracle by defeating the multi-national forces, which pounced upon a country in the name of the United Nations for the first time in the world."
Dermot Hudson, in his speech, said that the great Korean communist leader, Kim Il Sung “not only humbled the pride of the arrogant US imperialists but smashed the reactionary bourgeois military theory that advocates the omnipotence of weapons over humans.
“The US imperialists not only lost huge amounts of manpower and materials but also suffered irretrievable political and moral defeats. It was a great victory for the Korean people and opened up a new era of anti-US, anti-imperialist struggle. Indeed Korea was the war before Vietnam!"
And Theo Russell pointed out that the US "cannot admit responsibility for aggression against DPRK in 1950 because US still dreams of occupying the north... thus entire might of US and Western systems of thought manipulation is mobilised to maintain the lie. And this includes n apparatus of news, well-financed think tanks, universities, mass media, intelligence agencies"

Remembering Michael Collins in London

By New Worker correspondent

Over 100 people turned up to see a new plaque commemorating Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician, being unveiled in Islington, north London, last month,
to mark the spot where Michael Collins joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in 1909.
There was a huge turn out in north London, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as well as the Mayor of the County of Cork Frank O’Flynn, and the deputy Lord Mayor of Cork City Colette Finn. 
Collins spent a third of his life in London, and it was at 2 Barnsbury Road Islington, a minute away from Islington Town Hall and then the site of Barnsbury Hall, that he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1909.
Pictured here after the unveiling are Aengus Connoly O'Malley, a descendant of Collins, Mayor of Islington Gary Heather, and Kaya Comer-Schwartz, leader of Islington Council. The plaque installation was organised organised jointly by the Terence MacSwiney Committee and Islington Council.
Following the unveiling there was a buffet at Islington Town Hall, and a celebration of Collins' life at the London Irish Centre in Camden, will Irish dancing, music, talks and slide shows.

Free the Elbit Six!

by New Worker correspondent

Palestinian solidarity activists gathered outside the High Court in London on Saturday to call for the freedom of Palestine Action prisoners, jailed for taking part in direct action protests against British-Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. People have taken action in the UK, Canada, and France over the jailings. It came after high-profile campaigners, including Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, issued a joint statement condemning the British state’s persecution of the six people over their activism against the state of Israel.
Since Palestine Action launched in July 2020, their actions have caused severe disruption to Elbit's business, causing the closure of a factory in Oldham, and the Central London HQ.
The state has increasingly become more heavy-handed, six Palestine Action activists are currently in prison, and over a hundred more may face it. The judiciary is also cracking down, refusing bail in some cases, or accepting long established legal precepts, such a defence of necessity, the argument that a small offence is justified to prevent a greater harm from happening.