China leads the way

by New Worker correspondent

Ma Jiantang and Zheng Zeguang at the meeting

Andy Brooks joined other British communist leaders and solidarity campaigners in welcoming a senior Chinese delegation to London at a meeting chaired by China’s ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, at the Chinese embassy last week.

The five-strong delegation was led by Ma Jiantang, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China who also sits on the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that plays a central part in the communist-led work of the United Front of China.

At the embassy the NCP leader, together with Alex Gordon of the CPB and Ranjeet Brar from the CPGB-ML along with a number of long-standing friendship activists, were briefed on China's efforts to expand domestic demand and promote high-quality development under the 15th  Five-Year Plan which began this year.  

In the discussion Andy Brooks said “the success of the Chinese revolution led by the Communist Party of China, is one of the greatest achievements of humanity. The communists were the only force capable of building the broad front in the struggle against Japanese aggression. They were the only ones able to unite China’s millions in the struggle against the landlords and exploiters during the civil war that ended with the establishment of the people’s government in 1949.

“Since then we’ve seen  an amazing transformation of a country which was the poorest in the world to a prosperous pillar of the Global South that is paving the way forward in the 21st century.  

“There may only be one road to people’s power but there are many roads along the way of socialist construction. Chinese-style socialism, based on the experience of generations of struggle,  is one of them”.

During their stay in London Ma Jiantang and his delegation also held discussions with government, business and academic circles as well as representatives of leading UK media outlets.

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.

The legacy of a great communist thinker

Ma Hui addressing the crowd

By New Worker correspondent

Comrades and friends met last Sunday to salute the memory of Karl Marx at his tomb in Highgate Cemetery in London. They ignored a pathetic band of anti-communists who had gathered outside the gates to hurl abuse at those who had come to honour the revolutionary thinker and rally around the tomb, which had came under fascist attack earlier this year.

Last month the marble plaque was smashed and the tomb daubed with hate slogans in two separate attacks on the monument. Although most of the paint has been scraped away the plaque remains badly damaged. Plans are already afoot for an appeal to restore the monument designed by communist sculptor Laurence Bradshaw that was unveiled in 1956.

Marx died in his study at half-past two on the afternoon of Wednesday 14th March 1883, he was buried three days later at Highgate Cemetery. To commemorate his passing the Marx Memorial Library has for many decades held an annual graveside oration at his burial place in the cemetery.

This year the graveside address was given by Comrade Ma Hui from the Chinese embassy in London. Noting that this year also marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese diplomat said: “Marxism is still guiding China’s socialist development [to build] a community with a shared future for humankind and an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace.”

This was followed by Carol Stavris of the Communist Party of Britain, who argued that “new social relations … that do not rely solely upon a crude, alienated formulation of value” would be crucial to women’s liberation.

NCP leader Andy Brooks, along with London comrades, laid the Party’s floral tribute at the tomb together with a procession of other communist representatives that included diplomats from the Cuban and Vietnamese embassies, comrades from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the Progressive Party of Working People of Cyprus (AKEL), the Communist Party (Italy), and many more from other workers’ parties in the Middle East and the rest of the world that have members studying or working in Britain.

Finally the {Internationale} was sung around the monument bedecked with dozens of wreaths and floral tributes. The comrades then departed – some to a reception at a nearby pub and others to brave a sudden hail-storm to get back home.

For a People’s Brexit

By Theo Russell

Rob Griffiths makes a point

Although the majority of voters opted to leave the European Union (EU) in last year’s referendum it’s by no means a done deal, with the Tories deeply divided over the issue and the majority of Labour’s MPs openly ‘Remainers’ regardless of what the Corbyn leadership may say.

This was the central theme of a meeting at London’s Conway Hall held by the Communist Party of Britain’s (CPB) London District last week. The speakers included CPB leader Rob Griffiths, Luton Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins and Lindsey German from the Stop the War campaign, as well as union officials from Unite and the RMT.

Kevin Hopkins, the co-chair of Labour Leave, pointed out that in the past the majority of the labour movement opposed the then Common Market. He said: “The EU is about transferring power from state governments to the European Commission, not to the European Parliament. Its aims are to liberalise, marketise and privatise.”

Hopkins quoted Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the EU, who was never actually elected to public office, saying in 1952: “Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening.”

Rob Griffiths said: “Jeremy Corbyn has pointed out that many Labour policies are not compatible with continued membership of the EU. The only solution is to get out with no enormous divorce bill, no EU rules and no European Defence Policy.

“The Communist Party will be holding discussions with the Labour Party, trade unions and its allies to push for this. There are many working class activists, trade unionists, and communists who want to get out of the EU, a big business, fortress Europe imperialist capitalist club.”

For her part Lindsey German said that Brexit voters were victims of naked class prejudice, widely branded as ignorant, working class Sun readers, and that the campaign to reverse Brexit was aimed at weakening Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.

She attacked right-wing Labour MPs and their friends in the press for labelling Brexit voters “anti-immigrant” and creating an uproar about EU citizens’ rights, whilst the rights of people from the Commonwealth had been under attack for decades.

The Stop the War convenor gave examples of the EU’s reactionary policies, including forcing Greece to slash pensions and privatise on a mass scale, and supporting the Spanish government against Catalonia, the opposite of its backing for the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

It was refreshing to hear a labour movement panel argue for Brexit at the Conway Hall even though none of the speakers spelt out what they meant by the “left alternative” or “Lexit” that they all talk about.  If we fail to do this then the discussion on the street will never go beyond the parameters set by Tory Brexiteers who want out in order to create a global tax haven based on a low-wage economy purely to boost the profits of the exploiters and oppressors whom they serve.

The lessons of history

the standard bearers leading the procession

by New Worker correspondent

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined comrades, war veterans, diplomats and anti-fascists at the annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in London last week. On 27^th January 1945 the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the largest death camp in the Third Reich, and every year on that day the millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust are remembered at the Imperial War Museum and the nearby Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park.

            The solemn events began with a ceremony in the museum cinema that recalled the Nazi extermination of Jews, Soviet prisoners-of-war, gays, Roma and the mentally ill during the Second World War. 

Andy Brooks lays the NCP floral tribute

Opened by the Mayor of Southwark, Kath Whittam, the programme included musical and literary tributes to the victims, and speakers including Helen Hayes, the Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, as well as an interview with Holocaust survivor Helen Aronson.

            Rabbi Dr Moshe Freedman led the Memorial Prayer and Kaddish, and four memorial candles were lit whilst the standard-bearers, mainly veterans from the Second World War, led the procession into the grounds for the wreath-laying ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial Tree and the Soviet War Memorial.

            Philip Matthews, the Chair of the Soviet Memorial Trust Fund, opened the Act of Remembrance, which was followed by the laying of wreaths and floral tributes by the company that included military veteran organisations, representatives of the embassies of the Russian Federation and Belarus, the NCP, the Communist Party of Britain and the Marx Memorial Library along, with members of London’s Jewish and Russian communities.

            It closed, as always, with a two-minute silence and the Last Post.