The truth about Xinjiang

by New Worker correspondent

A meeting organised by Friends of Socialist China at the Marx Memorial Library in London last week heard eyewitness accounts from a group of activists, journalists, publishers and businesspeople from a tour of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far west of China.
Xinjiang is the size of Iran with a population of 25 million and has, of course, been the target of a Western black propaganda op alleging slave labour and mass 're-education' camps, and the systematic suppression of Islam. It is a multi-ethnic region made up of 44 per cent Uygurs and 42 per cent Han Chinese as well as many other groups including Kazakhs, Mongols, Kirghiz and Tajiks.
There are 50 minority-language newspapers published in Xinjiang, including the Xinjiang Economic Daily, which is well known across China, and TV and radio are broadcast in the Mandarin, Uygur, Kazakh and Mongolian languages.
From the 1990s until around 2015 Western-backed terrorists waged an extremely violent campaign in Xinjiang that claimed the lives of thousands of civilians.
David Peat from Iskra Books said: “A major goal of the USA and its allies is to block the development of transport links through Xinjiang with China's ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. The West stepped up its propaganda and sanctions against China after President Obama's Asia Pivot, essentially when it was realised that the rapidly growing economic competition from China outweighed the massive profits Western businesses had made by outsourcing their factories to China.”
Ali Al-Assam from Friends of Socialist China said that: “The Jihadist terrorism began in Xinjiang at almost exactly the same time as in Iraq, and was linked to the massive promotion of the minority Wahhabist Muslim sect’s ideology around the world through finance and the training of Imams, including in Xinjiang.
“The Communist Party of China uses Marxism as a tool for uniting the people, and for 're-introducing' the unity which had already existed in the province.
“Traditional Islam has also been preserved in Xinjiang, where some of the world's largest Islamic libraries can be found. While Islam makes up just under 60 per cent of believers in Xinjiang, about a third are Buddhists, along with Daoist and Christian minorities.
“Trade unions in Britain have made a very important contribution towards engaging with China and countering the Western media’s lies and fake news about slave labour in Xinjiang.
“Many people in Muslim countries are aware of the West’s attempts to destabilise Xinjiang and make comparisons with the West’s imposition of wars and sanctions on the people of the Arab world.”
Roger McKenzie, International Editor of the Morning Star, said Xinjiang “was one of the most comfortable places I have ever been as a black person. We felt absolutely free to talk to anyone in the streets, markets and mosques”. He recounted experiencing racism in almost every country he had visited, including in every city he had visited in the USA.
"We saw a society trying to build a complete different society, one which most people in Britain wouldn't be able to understand. The media reports we see are straightforward lies and pure propaganda.
“Almost every day we saw huge festivals celebrating the different cultures of Xinjiang in the streets.
“Xinjiang is one of the least developed and poorest of China’s regions, and despite hundreds of billions of dollars in state investment, there is still a way to go. While the West projects fake news about Xinjiang, they don't seem to have any problems with slave labour in countries like the Republic of the Congo, where they are happy to invest huge sums in mineral extraction. But it’s important to remember that there are many on the left in Britain who support these fabricated claims.”
These accounts are fully supported in recent YouTube travel videos made by British visitors to Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi. While Urumqi looks similar to any modern world city, with a high level of use of social media and digital payments, these videos also show a thriving music and dance culture on the streets, both modern and traditional. 

His name will endure through the ages

Theo Russell with Italian comrades

by New Worker correspondent

Communists and progressives gathered alongside representatives of the embassies of the socialist countries beside the grave of Karl Marx last Sunday to commemorate his death on 14th March 1883.
    The event was led by Communist Party of Britain (CPB) central committee member Alex Gordon, who said: "People have gathered at this spo for many years to mark Karl Marx's death. Marx spent the longest period of his life in London. At his funeral his life-long friend and comrade Frederick Engels gave the oration, on 17th March 1883, saying “at quarter to three in the afternoon the greatest living thinker ceased to think”.
    To commemorate his passing the Marx Memorial Library has for many decades held an annual graveside oration at his burial place in Highgate Cemetery with leading members of the working class movement paying tribute to Marx's enduring legacy to today's class struggles.
    This year Fran Heathcote, national president of the Public and Commercial Services union, and CPB International Secretary Kevan Nelson, spoke about the current strike wave and the issues confronting trade unions in Britain.
    Representatives of communist parties and the socialist countries were called on to lay flowers on Marx's grave, including the Cuban Ambassador, Barbara Montalvo Alvarez, Guo Yuliang of the embassy of the People's Republic of China, and representatives of the Laotian and Vietnamese embassies.
    Flowers were also laid by members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the French Communist Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Frente Communista (Italy), the Communist Party of Italy, the Communist Party of Spain, the Tudeh Party of Iran, the Iraqi Communist Party, and Theo Russell of the New Communist Party of Britain.
    Although only a handful of people attended Marx's burial in 1883, the words of Frederick Engels were to become reality: "His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work."

May Day in London

by New Worker correspondent

London May Day returned to the street with its traditional celebration of international workers' day and NCP leader Andy Brooks joined London comrades outside the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell Green on Sunday for the march and rally in Trafalgar Square. There they joined other supporters of the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine to give out leaflets from the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign. Numbers were down, not surprisingly after a two year break due to the Covid lockdowns, but this was more than off-set by the enthusiasm of the crowd and the bands that joined in the lively march through the heart of the capital.

Hands Off Marx’s Tomb!

By Nikos Mottas

 Karl Marx, the greatest thinker of all times whose revolutionary teachings became a guide for the struggles of the working class throughout the world, continues giving nightmares to fascists, reactionaries and anti-communists.

His tomb in Highgate cemetery in North London has been a target of cowardly attacks and vandalism by far-right thugs. In 2019, in a space of a month, the grave was vandalised twice by fascists who caused extensive damage to the marble plaque.

Recently, during mass protests over George Floyd’s murder in the USA, demonstrators tore down the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston in Bristol, whilst the statue of arch-imperialist criminal Winston Churchill was defaced by anti-racist protesters during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstration in London.

In the USA, a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was toppled in Richmond, Virginia and numerous statues of Christopher Colombus, from Miami to Boston, became the target of angry demonstrators.

A bunch of conservatives and fascists in Britain thought this is the right time to take revenge. They created a petition, addressed to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, asking for the removal of Karl Marx’s tomb from Highgate cemetery. In their text accompanying the shameful petition, the fascists repeat the same old anti-communist nonsense about the supposed “100 million victims of Communism” and they accuse Karl Marx of “anti-Semitism”.

Responding to this filthy initiative, the Marx Grave Trust, which is the legal owner of Marx’s family grave and its monument, said: “In the wake of the welcome campaign to remove or re-site the statues of racists and slave-owners, there has been a black-lash by pro-fascist elements and their right-wing supporters...all he has is a grave, together with his wife and family. This has now been targeted. Such threats are not only rank desecration but an insult to the worldwide socialist movement for whom Marx is an inspiration.”

The trust said it had taken measures to secure evidence should it be attacked again and “calls on everyone to support the work of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery and the Marx Grave Trust … and by countering every attempt to damage the grave of a man who challenged exploitation and oppression”.

Endorsing every single word included in the statement of the Marx Grave Trust, we urge all communists living in Britain, every person who supports and admires Karl Marx’s legacy, every man and woman who stands against fascism and exploitation, to rise up against any attempt to desecrate the grave of the greatest philosopher humanity has ever seen.

Marx was, is and will always be a thorn in the eye of the bourgeois class, an enemy for exploiters and oppressors. Today, the struggle for Socialism–Communism is more necessary and timelier than ever. It is a certainty that the 21st century will be the century of new socialist revolutions despite the current unfavourable correlation of forces.

To the fascists and their allies, there is one message: HANDS OFF KARL MARX’S GRAVE!

Lenin in London

Lenin's Room at Marx House

by New Worker correspondent

Most of us know that Lenin worked in London editing Iskra, the underground Russian socialist newspaper, from a room in the building now known as Marx House in Clerkenwell Green. In actual fact Lenin made five trips to London in the early 1900s, calling himself ‘Jacob Richter’ and a number of other aliases to confound the Czarist secret police who covertly monitored the activity of all the Russian opposition movements in Britain.

British Marxists and Russian tourists can explore what’s left of the Edwardian capital on  'Lenin’s London' walks, but the Bolshevik leader’s presence is barely recognised in what were his familiar haunts in the centre of the city that was, in Lenin’s days, the hub of a British empire that spanned the globe.

Their first port of call is usually the house in Clerkenwell Green where Lenin edited Iskra from April 1902 until the spring of the following year. Iskra was the organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) that later split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. The name means ‘Spark’ in Russian and it comes from a line of a poem by Alexander Odoevsky, a leading figure in the ‘Decembrist’ uprising of 1825.

The building, now owned by the Marx Memorial Library, was then a major social-democratic centre and Lenin shared an office with Harry Quelch, the director of the Twentieth Century Press. Although nothing remains of the original décor, you can still see the ‘Lenin’ room, which contains original copies of Iskra and other mementoes of Lenin’s life.

Lenin returned to London in 1905 for the third congress of the RSDLP. He stayed at a safe house in Percy Circus, in the Kings Cross area. A blue plaque marks the site today.  Another blue plaque is on the site of the rooms in Tavistock Place where Lenin stayed when he returned to London in 1908.

Sadly, a bust of Lenin is all that remains of a monument erected during the Second World War. It comes from a memorial put up during the Aid to Russia campaign at the site in Holford Square where Lenin lodged in 1902. It was removed following repeated vandalism by local fascists and the Lenin bust now stands in the Islington Museum.

Still, you can always drink to Lenin’s memory in the pubs that claim his name. There’s at least five, including the Crown Tavern in Clerkenwell Green where, it is said, Lenin first met Stalin, and the Water Rats in Grays Inn Road that also claims Karl Marx as a former patron!

• The Greatness of Lenin
• Marx Memorial Library
• Where Lenin drank
• Lenin's bust in London

Warm welcome for KKE leader in London

By New Worker correspondent

AKEL’s community centre in Wood Green was packed out on Saturday as London comrades joined members of London’s Greek community at a social at the Cypriot communist centre in honour of visiting Greek communist leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas. Many had gone to listen to the Greek communist leader give a talk at Birkbeck College in central London earlier in the day. Many more came along for the evening reception, which included live Greek folk music and jazz as well as a Greek buffet and bar.

Dimitris Koutsoumbas, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), spent a hectic three days in London visiting the Marx Memorial Library on Friday and Marx’s tomb at Highgate Cemetery on Sunday.

Koutsoumbas said: "The instruction of Karl Marx that 'the philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world, the point is to change it', which was the meaning of his teaching's revolutionary character, is the timeless message that exists today and illuminates the future for the new generations, for the world's working class."

Accompanied by numerous members of the British branches of the KKE and the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), Koutsoumbas laid a wreath on Marx’s grave on behalf of the Party. With their fists raised, the Greek communists shouted "KKE, the people's party" and "A century of struggles and sacrifices, the KKE in the vanguard".