No cuts! No war!

by New Worker correspondent

CND has condemned Israel’s brutal escalation in Lebanon killing hundreds of civilians. The targeting of residential areas and infrastructure are war crimes. This is a breach of the ceasefire agreement between the USA and Iran, mediated by Pakistan, which covered all the arenas of the conflict including Lebanon. That truce has now been confirmed following pressure on the Americans from their own NATO allies and the feudal Arab oil sheikhs who have so much to lose if the fighting resumes – though for how long depends on the outcome of the next round of peace talks in Pakistan.
Trump and Netanyahu’s war has been a brutal and illegal onslaught on the people of Iran and Lebanon. It has created a humanitarian disaster and caused the destruction of infrastructure, environmental damage and economic crisis. The imperialist sanctions on Iran must be lifted, and reparations paid for the terrible damage done to the Islamic Republic.
Trump’s threat to destroy a civilisation, with its implied threat of nuclear war, sent a chill around the world. Iran negotiated in good faith over its nuclear programme. Israel and the United States sabotaged these diplomatic efforts. 
CND says “we regard Trump as a dangerous war criminal and have no illusions that this ceasefire will hold. We are committed to opposing any further attacks, and those of Netanyahu’s Israel on Lebanon and on the Palestinian people.
“Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been complicit in this illegal war, and we demand he stops allowing US planes to use British bases. The so called ‘special relationship’ is finished, and the British government must break with Trump and his warmongering policies, including allowing the stationing of US nuclear weapons at the Lakenheath base in Suffolk”.
Meanwhile a former British head of NATO and co-author of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review has called on Keir Starmer to cut welfare spending further to fund Britain’s war drive.
George Robertston, Labour’s Defence Secretary during the Blair era before serving as NATO General Secretary from 1999 to 2003,  says that successive British leaders had shown “corrosive complacency” to military spending. Echoing Tory demands to slash welfare to pay for a new arms race Robertson told the media that “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”.
Robertson’s intervention comes as the Starmer government’s existing military spending plans face a £28 billion spending gap. That’s before the ambitions outlined in last year’s defence review are considered. Between 20 and 25 per cent of the Ministry of Defence’s budget goes on nuclear weapons spending.
Starmer has rightly come under pressure not to enforce further austerity measures to fund war spending. A recent study published by Oxford University, found welfare cuts implemented by the former Conservative-Liberal Dem coalition government left an “austerity generation” with a fifth of children growing up ‘scarred by poverty’ because of its policies.
That warning comes as the full economic impact of Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal war on Iran is yet to be felt. The UN has warned that the global impact of the crisis could see 32 million people forced into poverty globally amid rising food and energy costs.
CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said “Whilst Robertson is trying to present this as about defending national security, it is precisely the government’s warmongering and military escalation that is threatening our security now. Making further cuts to public services – at a time when we are facing even greater attacks on living standards due to the US illegal war on Iran – would be disastrous. It will create even greater levels of social deprivation and insecurity in Britain. Starmer needs to cut ties with the Trump administration, close down US access to British bases, and promote a policy of peace and dialogue that respects international law – not buckling to pressure for further military escalation”.

They did not pass!

by New Worker correspondent

London communists returned to Cable Street last weekend, to remember the epic day in 1936 when the Sir Oswald Mosley’s fascist legions were stopped in their tracks in London on 4th October 1936.
    NCP members and Greek KKE comrades paid tribute to the heroic stand of the Londoners who stopped the Blackshirts, at a ceremony by the Cable Street mural in London’s East End.
    On that day, thousands of working people, led by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) rose early from their beds to occupy four key places along the route of a planned march by Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, in order to block its path.
    Throughout the day they stood firm, despite mounted police baton charges and numerous arrests.
    By noon, Gardiner’s Corner was impassable due to the number of anti-fascist demonstrators. Police tried to clear a route through Leman Street – but this was blocked by a tram, deliberately abandoned by its driver.
    Police tried to reroute the march through Cable Street. Anti-fascist demonstrators, the vast majority local residents, blocked Cable Street with barricades in three different places. Police fought their way through one barricade, only to be confronted by the second.
    Eventually the police gave up and ordered Mosley to abandon his march. They escorted him to the Embankment where his followers dispersed.
    This was a humiliating defeat for Mosley and it eventually led to a cutting off of vital funds from his main financial sponsor, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The Battle of Cable Street marked a significant turning point and the end of any prospects of fascism becoming a truly mass movement in Britain, as it had done in some other European countries.
    The massive mural in Cable Street, painted by a number of local artists, was started in 1979 and finally completed in 1983. The work has been vandalised by fascists several times, but it was substantially restored in 2011.
    The design was based on original photographs of the battle and the buildings of the day. Some of the people who took part in the battle are depicted in the mural, along with others who symbolise the people of the East End today.

Eye-witness Ukraine in London

by New Worker correspondent

Around 40 activists attended a meeting on central London last Saturday to see UK photographer and journalist Dean O'Brien showing photos of the Donbas, speaking on his experiences there and answering questions.
    The meeting almost didn't take place, however, after the Ukrainian Embassy in London contacted Greene King Pubs and told them it had been organised by "supporters of Russian-backed terrorists".
    As a result the original venue was cancelled, followed by a pro-Ukrainian twitter mob bombarding Greene King Pubs and threatening to turn up at the original venue.
    An alternative venue was found at the last minute and a highly successful meeting took place. Dean's photos and talk covering history trips to Ukraine before the February 2014 EU-NATO sponsored coup and several subsequent trips to the rebel held republics in Eastern Ukraine was highly appreciated by everyone present.
    The meeting, chaired by the NCP’s Theo Russell, also provided an opportunity to discuss the highly dangerous current situation in and around Ukraine, and a lively discussion about campaigning in solidarity with all Ukrainian anti-fascists including those on both sides of the front line, and the hundreds of thousands driven into exile by the current fascist-ridden US puppet government in Kiev.
    Dean said that on his first trip to Kiev in 2008 he saw fascist marches, German World War 2 uniforms and flags, Hitler's Mein Kampf and SS books being sold on the streets.
    He has recently been interviewed twice on these topics on George Galloway's Mother of all Talk Shows programme on Russia Today. A full report on Dean's talk will appear in the New Worker next week.

A subbotnik for the Soviet memorial

by New Worker correspondent

Russian expats returned to the gardens of the Imperial War Museum in London on Saturday to give the Soviet War Memorial a spring clean as part of an international subbotnik in honour of the 80th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War when Hitler’s hordes attacked the Soviet Union in 1941.
     Members of the Victory Volunteers movement and volunteers from the Russian House cultural centre spruced up the monument in south-east London that commemorates all those from the countries of the Former Soviet Union who died during the Second World War, also known as the Great Patriotic War in much of the former Soviet Union. Funded by public subscription in Britain and the Russian Federation, the memorial has become a focal point for people from all over the former USSR and the UK. Unveiled in 1999 the bronze abstract figure, designed by Sergei Sheherbakov, holds aloft a bell which will forever remain silent in memory of those who died.

Stand by Ukraine anti-fascists!

By New Worker correspondent

Local supporters of the Ukrainian resistance held a lightning picket outside the Ukraine embassy in West London on Sunday. They paid tribute to those that fell resisting the fascist mobs who overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian government in February 2014.
    The puppet Kiev regime serves Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism and elevates Stepan Bandera, a war-time Nazi collaborator who fled to West Germany following Hitler’s defeat, who was assassinated in 1959. But anti-fascist uprisings soon led to the establishment of the Donbas people’s republics and the underground resistance in the rest of Ukraine.
    London solidarity campaigners include members of the Labour Party, NCP and Socialist Fight as well as supporters of the Stop the War coalition.

• Report in the Donbas communist media
  

NCP and Donbas communists hold Skype conference

By Vperyod correspondent

On 4th September, a Skype conference took place between Boris Litvinov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic (CPDPR) and the General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain Andy Brooks.
     Mikhail Kukhtin, the head of the international department of the CPDPR and Theo Russell, a member of the Central Committee of the NCPB also took part in the discussion.
    During the discussion, Boris Litvinov informed the British comrades about the current state of affairs in the Donetsk People's Republic and the situation on the line of contact. In particular, he stressed that the diplomatic efforts of the participants in the Minsk process managed to achieve a ceasefire.
    But, despite the agreement reached, provocations by the Ukrainian army and its advance into the neutral zone and the side of the DPR people's militia positions pose a threat to a fragile truce. This is not the first time such tactics of the Ukrainian side, the use of a truce to create favourable conditions for the further unleashing of hostilities, have been used.
    Andy Brooks informed Boris Litvinov about the work of the New Communist Party of Britain and its supporters to support the struggle of the people of Donbas to strengthen their statehood. At rallies and demonstrations held by left wing movements in Britain, the communists carry flags and symbols of the DPR, express demands to the British government about non-interference in the internal conflict of Ukraine and the former part of it which has embarked on the path of self-determination and regularly cover their activities on the pages of their weekly, the New Worker. According to Andy Brooks, there are up to 100 British military advisers in the Donbas who train the Ukrainian army according to NATO standards.
    A significant place in the conversation was taken by the discussion of the question of the entry of the DPR Communist Party into the Solidnet international organisation of communist and workers' parties.
    Mykhaylo Khuktin confirmed that there have been talks between Boris Litvinov and some leaders of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He said “Our striving to join Solidnet was welcomed at least by some of them, although the overall situation remains complicated”.
    The British comrades were interested in the issue of the Donetsk communists’ relationship with other communist parties that are members of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (SKP-KPSS).
    Boris Litvinov said that the CPDPR is an official observer in the SKP-KPSS, which actively participates in the work of this organisation and maintains close comradely ties with all participating parties.
    A special relationship has developed between the Donetsk communists and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Six years ago, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, provided support and gave valuable recommendations during the creation of the CPDPR.
    The Communist Party of the Russian Federation provides significant humanitarian aid to the people of the Donetsk republic, especially its children. The General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain expressed the hope that in deciding the question of admitting the CPDPR to Solidnet, the Communist Parties of the SKP-KPSS will show their support.
    During the conversation, issues of the international situation were also discussed and the positions of the communists in various areas of party activity were expressed. Thus, the communists of the DPR and Britain agreed that the events in Belarus are an attempt by the West to first subjugate and then destroy the sovereignty of the state, toturn the Republic of Belarus into another springboard for an offensive against Russia.
    At the end of the Skype conference, the parties thanked each other for exchanging views on all the topics discussed and agreed to hold the next meeting in November.

We will not forget the barbaric fascist crime in Odessa!

Never forgive, never forget!

By Theo Russell

On 2^nd May, 2014 a barbarous crime took place in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, committed by a fascist mob who were emboldened by the violent coup 10 weeks earlier – a coup which was enthusiastically supported by US and European Union (EU) leaders, and welcomed by the UK government.

At least 46 anti-fascist protesters died, and over 200 were injured, when the Odessa Trade Unions House was surrounded and fire-bombed by a mob composed of members and supporters of the many explicitly fascist Ukrainian organisations.

Many believe the actual number murdered was far higher but after six years no investigation whatsoever has been carried out. According to the Stalkerzone blog as many as 300 people died on that day.

The February 2014 coup was spearheaded by the openly fascist Right Sector armed militia and the far-right, openly anti-Semitic Svoboda Party. Victoria Nuland, US Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, famously admitted in a talk to eager American business representatives that her government had spent five billion dollars to subvert the elected Victor Yanukovich-led government.

In response to this coup protests and uprisings took place across the predominantly Russian-speaking cities of southern and eastern Ukraine, shocked by the rise to power of fascist parties, armed fascist militias, and the sight of Nazi thugs and football hooligans looting and burning trade union and communist party offices.

They rightly feared that the fascist bands were preparing to descend on their cities and towns to crush any resistance, and to impose their reactionary, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, anti-Roma and anti-Russian views on them.

This movement was known as the ‘anti-Maidan’, and in Odessa an anti-fascist protest camp was set up in Kulikovo Field, one of the city’s largest squares outside the main railway station.

Unfortunately the fascist and ‘ultra’ football hooligan mob was swelled by allies coming from Kiev and other western Ukrainian cities, who attacked and firebombed the protest camp, forcing the protestors to retreat to the Odessa Trade Unions House, where they were surrounded.

The mob then petrol bombed the building and held firefighters back, whilst the police stood idly by. Any protesters trying to escape were beaten, and many murdered, by the mob. This was deliberate mass murder in one of Ukraine largest and most beautiful cities.

There is abundant evidence of the massacre and of the perpetrators involved, and detailed documentaries have been made in France and Germany, but the puppet government in Ukraine, aided by a silent western mass media, has swept the event under the carpet, hoping the world will forget it ever happened.

There have been several international investigations, including one by the European Council which severely criticised the Ukraine government’s failure to prosecute anyone for these crimes.

Even the US State Department made a statement in 2015 that supported calls for an investigation and prosecutions, and condemned the intimidation of relatives campaigning for justice.

But in practice, the EU politicians failed to follow up their token judicial report with any real pressure and the State Department statement was merely a token gesture, a handy reply for journalists asking questions about the massacre.

But the citizens of Odessa have not forgotten. For six years the Council of Mothers of 2^nd May has campaigned for justice, and citizens still rally and lay flowers in front of the Trade Unions House every year on 2^nd May.

It is virtually impossible to get news on the treatment of anti-fascists in Ukraine but an American campaigner who visited Odessa two years ago was told that several members of the Council of Mothers have been harassed, and some framed and jailed by the Ukraine’s Security Service, the infamous SBU, which has eagerly carried out the orders of the fascist-infested Kiev regime.

The president of the Council of Mothers, Victoria Machulko, has been raided by the SBU several times and was detained whilst memorials to mark the massacre have taken place.

Alexander Kushnaryov, the 65-year-old father one of the victims, Gennady Kushnaryov, and retired military officer Anatoly Slobodyanik, 68, were fitted up in an SBU sting operation and are now in prison, whereas those who carried out the massacre have not even had charges laid against them.

Under the present regime in Ukraine, which enjoys the support of the USA, EU and Britain, there is no democracy and all opposition to the regime has been silenced.

Trade union offices have been ransacked and burned, Holocaust memorials have been repeatedly vandalised, the largest opposition party, the Communist Party of Ukraine, has been banned, communists, socialists, Jewish and gay people have been attacked by fascist gangs, and members of the judiciary have been threatened and intimidated.

Even moderate newspapers and TV stations have been raided or closed down, and journalists have been assassinated, even recently in the centre of Kiev. Thousands have been prosecuted, jailed or driven into exile for allegedly supporting ‘separatism’, meaning opposition to the war in the East.

A quick internet search will produce copious, detailed evidence of all these crimes – just google ‘attacks on Roma camps in Ukraine’, for example, yet the editors of western media outlets don’t regard such events as important enough for daily prime-time news.

The British government actively supported the ‘Euromaidan’ movement, and the then foreign secretary William Hague told parliament that the 2014 coup, which saw openly fascist, Nazi-admiring parties become part of the government and the entire state structure, was in fact a legal change of government.

The UK has sent 75 Army trainers to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and sponsored ‘educational’ activities aimed at sanitising Second World War Ukrainian fascist leaders who collaborated with Nazi Germany in the genocide of 5–7 million people, a quarter of Ukraine's population, including 1.5 million Jews, and the deportation of two million people to Germany.

The New Communist Party (NCP) calls for justice for the victims and families of the Odessa Trade Unions House massacre, and for all those who took part in the murders to face trial.

We also call for the release of Alexander Kushnaryov and Anatoly Slobodyanik, and an end to the harassment of relatives of the victims of the massacre.

We believe the day will come when justice will be done, when the whole world will be aware of the barbaric crime six years ago, and new new, free and democratic Ukraine will be realised.

We will not forget this fascist crime and we look forward to the day when 2^nd May is commemorated around the world!

MH17 Call for Justice!

by New Worker correspondent 

In July 2014 a Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine during the fighting between the Donbas partisans and the fascist militias loyal to the US puppet regime in Kiev.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and all 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. A Dutch-led investigation said the plane had been downed by a missile fired by the Donbas resistance or the Russians – a claim that the imperialist media has unquestioningly repeated in its efforts to demonise Russia and the anti-fascist Ukrainian resistance movements. 

            Three Russians and one Ukrainian are going to be tried in their absence on 9th March in The Hague. But there’s another side to the story and that was heard at the Conway Hall in London on Tuesday when Bonanza Media and the Global Rights for Peaceful People movement screened a documentary that challenges the whole Western narrative on the tragedy.

The film presents massive evidence that the Dutch-led investigation into the crash was a total fraud which had already decided that Russia or the Donbas partisans were to blame. A tech expert showed that phone intercepts by Kiev regime intelligence officers purporting to record Donbas partisan commanders talking about the event on the day were spliced together from unconnected conversations. Huge pieces of crash site debris were not picked up by the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) which refused to include Malaysia in the JIT for six months.

MH17: Call for Justice is the first detailed documentary to challenge the Dutch-NATO version of events about the tragedy. It includes wide-reaching and exclusive interviews, including the Malaysian prime minister, one of the suspects accused of shooting down the MH17, and the Malaysian colonel who travelled to Ukraine to collect the black boxes. There are also testimonies from witnesses, evidence from experts, and previously unseen footage from the crash site in Ukraine.

• MH17 Call for Justice video