END APARTHEID – FREE PALESTINE!

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners took to the streets last week to protest outside the Israeli embassy in solidarity with Palestinians resisting Israel's brutal repression. The emergency demonstration in Kensington was called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to call a halt to Israeli violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and show support for the Palestinians standing up to Zionist violence in occupied Arab Jerusalem.
    The only way Israel can maintain its illegal occupation of the West Bank is through brutal repression and the encouragement of Zionist settler violence against the Palestinian Arabs. In recent weeks 23 Palestinians, including three women and four children, were killed by Israeli forces during demonstrations and clashes, search-and-arrest operations in the occupied West Bank while a further 541 Palestinians, including 30 women and 80 children, were injured. Twelve Israelis were killed and 82 others wounded in Palestinian attacks over the same period.
    Human rights organisations have described this system as meeting the legal definition of the crime of apartheid. Such a system of oppression can only be sustained via the use of violence. But political leaders in the UK have chosen to remain silent about Israel’s actions, mirroring a familiar pattern when violence will be denounced only when Palestinians kill Israelis, or when Palestinians are killed in their hundreds, as happens during Israel’s periodic bombardments of Gaza.
    The British government approved over £400 million worth of military technology and arms exports to Israel between 2015-2020 – including armoured vehicles, tanks, ammunition, and small arms, including sniper rifles. All equipment that Israel requires to maintain and further its violent oppression of Palestinians.
    The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling on the Johnson government to end its two-way arms trade with Israel until it ends its oppression of the Palestinian people. The campaign demands an end to the UK government's support for Israel's regime of occupation, dispossession and apartheid. Next up is the National Palestine Day demonstration and march in London on Saturday May 14th - see you there!

XR blocks London bridges

by New Worker correspondent

Climate change campaigners shut down four major bridges in London over the Easter weekend as part of a wave of actions across the United Kingdom demanding an end to fossil fuels. Protesters across London played bongos and waved banners that demanded an end to fossil fuels as they blocked roads that caused queues of traffic in the centre of the capital.
    Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners blocked the Blackfriars, Lambeth, Waterloo, and Westminster bridges. "Rebels are swarming across London, part of a global wave of civil disobedience as people wake up to the fact that our leaders are failing to tackle the climate crisis," the group tweeted. "They promise BuildBackBetter -- but all they do is pour oil on the [fire]."
    The climate change activist group vowed to keep demonstrating until the British government aligns its policy with climate science. They highlighted that globally "we're on track for a catastrophic 3°C warming!" That is a full degree higher than the less ambitious target of the 2015 Paris climate agreement for limiting global temperature rise by 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels.
    "As long as our government fails to act now on the climate crisis, disregarding expert advice, licensing more drilling for oil and gas, locking up scientists, we have no choice but to disrupt," XR added.
    Blackfriars Bridge was held up by a single 76-year-old woman who lay in the road and refused to budge. Lucy Harding said she had first learned about climate change from her stepson in 1976. "That's a long time to know that we are in danger and it has been really frightening to see it coming closer and closer, seeing tipping point after tipping point pass," she said. "It's awful to be 76, to actually see the end of my life coming, and knowing what has been left behind."
    About two dozen officers from the City of London police surrounded Ms Harding, who said she was determined to be arrested. However, she voluntarily ended her blockade after officers refused to pick her up and threatened to call an ambulance to take her away.
    On Good Friday the city's Metropolitan Police tweeted that "we are seeing pockets of protest which are causing delays and disruption across central London" and "officers are on scene and working to manage the impact."
    On Saturday veteran environmental activist Daniel Mark Hooper, known as ‘Swampy’ , scaled Marble Arch along with a fellow climber to hang a giant banner across the monumental gate by Hyde Park in London’s West End to the cheers of hundreds of supporters who blocked the junction at Marble Arch. Seventy were later arrested.
    The banner drop marked the close of a week of Extinction Rebellion actions in central London which have seen the convergence of environmental groups around a demand for an immediate end to all new fossil fuel projects. The Just Stop Oil Coalition, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are among those who have been calling for an end to fossil fuels, as well as intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations and the International Energy Agency
    Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government. XR’s key demands are:
    

• Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
• Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
• Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Remembering a great Korean

Andy Brooks speaking

by New Worker correspondent

Friends of Korea gathered last weekend to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung, at a meeting at the Chadswell Centre called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA).
    The meeting began with the Song of General Kim Il Sung and an introduction by Dermot Hudson, the KFA Chair, on the importance of the life of the Korean revolutionary leader who led the guerrilla movement that fought the Japanese imperialism which occupied the Korean peninsula until their defeat in 1945, and later beat back the American horde and their lackeys during the Korean war in the 1950s.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks recalled the time he met Kim Il Sung in 1990 when the New Communist Party established fraternal relations with the Workers Party of Korea (WPK). Keith Bennett, a veteran Korean solidarity campaigner, spoke about Kim Il Sung’s life-long work with national non-aligned countries and the world communist movement.
    Messages were received from the London embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the RCPB (ML), and the meeting ended with the showing of a film about the life of the Korean leader.

A tree for Palestine in London

by New Worker correspondent

Palestine Land Day, which commemorates every Palestinian village that has been destroyed by the Zionists, falls on 30th March. Last week Londoners gathered at 2pm in north London’s Gladstone Park to plant a tree for Palestine and say a few words in support of the just cause of the Palestinian Arabs.
`A memorial tree-planting campaign started in 2021, to commemorate in the fullness of time each and every Palestinian village that has been vacated and either levelled by Israeli bulldozers or buried under a forest of trees. The event in 2021 was held in Acton Park in the London Borough of Ealing and was attended by several local councillors and Labour MPs.
`This year’s event in the London Borough of Brent was supported by a number of labour movement activists, including Ken Livingstone and Gerry Downing who were both driven out of the Labour Party on trumped up charges of “anti-Semitism”.

Londoners protest against energy hike

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners took to the streets in the heart of the capital last weekend protesting against soaring energy prices and the increased cost of living. Thousands more took part in similar protests called by the People's Assembly movement in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and many other cities, on the eve of a 54 per cent energy bill hike that followed the government’s decision to raise the ceiling price on domestic energy costs.
    In Whitehall protesters called for Boris Johnson’s resignation whilst comrades gave out hundreds of leaflets in support of the anti-fascist war in Ukraine along with a fact-sheet produced by the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity movement, which went out with last week’s issue of the New Worker.
    The People’s Assembly said yesterday’s lifting of the energy price cap will create an “impossible choice for many”, to eat or heat. "Public outrage over the cost-of-living crisis is growing fast and our response is gaining momentum… Now is the time to get out onto the streets to send a clear message to the government that we refuse to pay for their crisis."

Save our Ferries!

by New Worker correspondent

Several hundred P&O Ferries workers and supporters held a protest outside DP World’s London offices last week before marching to a rally outside Parliament. The rally was called by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) following the mass sacking of ferry staff on 17th March by DP World, who are the owners of P&O Ferries.
    DP World, halted all crossing in the four routes it operates: Dover to Calais; Hull to Rotterdam; Liverpool to Dublin; and Cairnryan, Scotland, to Larne, Northern Ireland after some 800 crew members were sacked on the spot to make way for scab labour recruited in Britain, the Philippines and India to do their work on bread-line wages.
    The Rail, Maritime and Transport union, Nautilus International and the Labour Party called the protests held in London and other parts of the country following appeals to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to either force DP World to back off or nationalise the company— something the government, needless to say, has ruled out altogether.
    Now RMT has slammed what it described as a "disgusting statement" from P&O Ferries trying to justify one of the most shameful acts by any employer in recent history
    Sacked seafarers have been basically told that if they don’t sign up to be gagged by a non-disclosure agreement they will not only lose their jobs – they will lose money as well. This is from an organisation which has received millions from the taxpayer to support furlough payments and whose parent company DP World paid out vast sums in dividends last year
    General Secretary Mick Lynch said: "These are the actions of a bully trying to maximise profits by sacking workers and replacing them with agency staff below the minimum wage.
    "The detail of what the company are imposing is not new. The 2.5 weeks is what we have negotiated in the past with P&O.
    "The pay in lieu of notice is not compensation, it is just a payment staff are contractually entitled to as there was no notice given.
    "The way that the package has been structured is pure blackmail and threats– that if staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them.
    "The actions of P&O demonstrate the weakness of employment law and protections in the UK. P&O have flagrantly breached the law and abandoned any standards of workplace decency. They have ripped away the jobs, careers and pensions of our members and thrown the on the dole with the threat that if they do not sign up and give away their rights they will lose many thousands of pounds in payments.
    "This is totally unacceptable and RMT will continue to campaign for our members to be reinstated at P&O and for better employment laws to protect all British workers.‎"

Spotlight Donbas

the burnt-out shell of Mariupol police station

by Theo Russell

Around 40 activists attended a recent meeting in central London to see UK photographer and journalist Dean O'Brien show his photos of the Donbas, speaking on his experiences there and answering questions. He has recently been interviewed twice on these topics on George Galloway's Mother of all Talk Shows on RT News.
    Dean first visited Kiev in 2008, and even then, six years before the February 2014 Euromaidan coup, he saw neo-Nazi marches with people wearing German WW2 uniforms and waving swastika flags, and Hitler's Mein Kampf and SS books being sold on the city's streets.
    He was in Kiev at the time of the Western-backed coup in February 2014 which installed openly fascist parties and armed groups in the government, police and armed forces.
    "I witnessed how the government in Kiev was illegally overthrown in the so-called ‘Maidan’ revolution, backed by the US to destabilise the whole country, and plunging it into the war we see today. I saw the far-right intimidating Russian speakers.
    In 2018 Dean visited Odessa on May 2, the anniversary of the Trade Unions House Fire in 2014 in which a far-right mob surrounded anti-fascists. Many were burned alive and many trying to escape were murdered. There has never been any investigation, but 50 and 100 are believed to have been killed.
    At the memorial gathering Dean said "the fascists were kicking and spitting on the mothers of those who had died, while the police stood by and did nothing. Later I saw them sharing a beer with the fascists”.
    But in spite of the danger of fascist attacks, in ‘Kiev-controlled’ Ukraine Dean saw many examples of open resistance to the junta and the fascist thugs.
    “On Victory Day (May 9, the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945) all over Ukraine, even in Kiev, citizens still risk fascist attacks by publicly marking the victory over Nazism, including many grandmothers and great grandmothers".
    Dean later visited several majority Russian speaking cities in the East, where positive memories of the Soviet Union are widespread and many are against the illegal government and the fascist gangs it has unleashed.
    "People in Eastern Ukraine don't recognise the current government. and see it as Illegal”. These people who oppose the Kiev junta, along with and the four million living in the rebel republics, are labelled separatists and terrorist supporters by the Kiev regime. And as far as the Western media is concerned, they don’t exist - they’ve been ‘cancelled out’ along with Syrians, Libyans, Palestinians, Venezuelans and Kashmiris.
    In Mariupol Dean visited the police station which sided with the Anti-maidan forces and was destroyed by the Ukraine Army and fascist battalions in heavy fighting in the 2014-15 war. All the police inside were killed.
    “While I was in the east people were telling me to visit ‘the other side’. They had relatives in ‘non-government controlled’ Donbas, and said that I should go and see what the Ukrainian government is doing to them.
    “I’d read so many conflicting articles regarding what was happening there, so the only solution was to go and see for myself.
    "In May 2019 I travelled to the Donbas for the first time. This meant that I could never visit Kiev controlled Ukraine again while the current regime was still in place.
    “I’d heard that there was no food in the shops, that the streets were full of Russian soldiers. I’d been told that the people there were imprisoned and that the streets were dangerous. None of this turned out to be true”.
    Western reporters don’t even bother to visit the ‘rebel’ republics. On UK radio, TV and in the papers they simply report the war from the Ukrainian side of the front line - taking great care to only interview supporters of the Kiev regime.
    “Most western media correspondents are based in Kiev and only report from one side. It’s biased lazy reporting at best” Dean said.
    It comes as no surprise then that Dean found that “people in Donetsk were happy and pleased that I had travelled all the way from the UK to hear their side of the story”.
    "Donetsk City is like any other European city with cafes, restaurants. I felt very safe there, safer than my home town, Coventry, and Donetsk City feels like any other European city.
    “Bars and coffee shops were open, supermarkets all had food. There were no Russian soldiers, only volunteers who were all local men and women. People were going about their daily business, travelling to work etc.
    “In the evening people sat on benches playing chess, teenagers were texting on their phones and listening to music. So life is fairly normal there in the city centre. That is until dusk arrives and you can hear the boom of shelling in the distance. Then you remember where you are.
    “I was most impressed with the cleanliness of the streets. Virtually no graffiti. That although there was a war going on people were happy. They never spoke about revenge, only the desire for peace. One thing they did make clear though was that they were not prepared to give up their new republic and re-integrate back with government controlled Ukraine.
    "The most common phrase I heard being spoken in Donetsk by the inhabitants was "Ya xachoo mira" - "We want peace".
    “I met many members of the People's Militia, the DPR's defence force. I also visited frontline positions at Yasynuvata, and the militia members I spoke to all had a high level of political awareness.
    He pointed out that “During the fighting in 2014-15 there were no Russian regular soldiers, but there were many Russian volunteers.
    “My life was never going to be the same after this visit. It really opened my eyes to how the media controls how and what we think”.
    “Once I’d been to the Donbas I knew that it would never be possible for me to return to government controlled Ukraine”.
    He was recently informed that he had been placed on the ironically named ‘Peacekeeper’ website. This was set up by fascists several years ago and has made public names, contacts and addresses of people who have visited or supported the Donbas, many Donbas, Crimean, Ukrainian and Russian citizens, and Western journalists whose work they see as unacceptable.
    “That confirmed to me that they do not like objective reportage. I’m now on their list with many other photojournalists and correspondents. But in all honesty, it’s a small price to pay to get the truth out there about this conflict.
    “Those that have heard about the conflict believe that Russia has invaded Ukraine, simply because that’s the message the western media is sending out to them.
    "But the media fails to mention the West staging the coup which helped Ukraine fall into a civil war and overthrow the legally elected government. That’s what started all of this, turning Ukraine into the mess of a country that we are witnessing today”.
    Dean is working on a small self-published photo book, Shots From Donbass, which will be a collection of images from his visit to the Donbas in May 2019.
    Since 2019 Dean has not been able to return to the Donbas due to the covid pandemic. Last autumn he travelled to Rostov-on Don, but as the border to the Donetsk was closed he travelled to Crimea where he met volunteer fighters from the Donbass.
   He has continued to actively support and speak out for the people of the Donbas and all Ukrainian anti-fascists, including at the London gathering.

Victory to the Donbas!

by New Worker correspondent

Comrades were back on the streets of London to leaflet the Stop the War march that was part of a national No to War in Ukraine day of action on Sunday. The demonstration in London ended in a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Jeremy Corbyn, Lindsey German and Tariq Ali and other stalwarts from the peace movement. But though the speakers recognised the dangers of a nuclear conflict and understood that NATO’s aggressive expansion over the past 30 years had played a role in sparking the current conflict some also called for an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukraine – which is also the demand of US imperialism and their lackeys.
     But the call of the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity movement in support of the anti-fascist forces of Donbas and their allies went down well with the protesters. Hundreds of copies of the joint statement signed by the New Communist Party together with the Consistent Democrats, Socialist Fight and Posadists Today were given out on the day. The statement was sent out with every copy of last week’s New Worker and now its been endorsed by the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Reclaim the NHS!

"

Outside the Royal Free

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners were out on the streets last weekend campaigning against NHS privatisation and the Health and Care Bill that is now going through Parliament. In north London demonstrators picketed outside the Royal Free hospital in Camden while others joined the national day of action for a rally organised by SOS NHS, Unite and many other organisations also included veterans who took part in the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign a few years ago. The campaign is calling on the government to invest in a fully publicly owned NHS & guarantee free healthcare for future generations and provide emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter.

    SOS NHS said: "This will be the hardest winter ever in health and social care. We must act to

On the streets of Lewisham

safeguard services for patients and service users, boost staff morale and tackle the mental health crisis among health and care staff. Emergency funds must be secured now to avert disaster. That’s why we called a huge national Day of Action on Saturday 26 February with over 85 events throughout the UK.

"We must repair crumbling hospitals; restore NHS beds, recruit, retain, train and properly pay health and care staff; rebuild un­derfunded public health and GP services struggling to respond effectively to Covid; publicly fund a service for care and inde­pendent living support; and much more. The Health and Care Bill does none of these things. We need new legislation to secure a fully public NHS and end privatisation".

Joint Statement: Victory to the anti-fascist forces of Donbass and their allies!

Victory to the anti-fascist forces of Donbass and their allies! U.S./NATO hands off Russia!

The NATO-funded Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other far right Ukrainian nationalists have slaughtered many thousands in Donbass in last 8 years.

On February 24, the anti-fascist Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with the Russian Federation, launched a military action with the goal of “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. It is in the interest of poor and working people, anti-war and anti-imperialist forces in the U.S. and other NATO countries, to take an unambiguous position in solidarity with the anti-fascist forces. The real war danger comes from US and NATO forces surrounding Russia. The government in Kiev is their proxy, with no regard for the people of Ukraine.

In March 2014 British foreign secretary William Hague lied to the House of Commons when he said that the removal of Viktor Yanukovych was in accordance with the Ukrainian constitution, saying “It is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities.

In fact, Yanukovych’s removal met none of the Ukrainian constitution’s provisions: there was no special commission of the Rada, no review by the Constitutional Court, and the Rada passed a bill removing Yanukovych from office with a simple majority of 328 votes, 10 short of the two-thirds majority laid out in the Ukrainian constitution. No doubt Hague was “badly advised” by his Foreign Office advisors!

Over the past 8 years Ukrainian military and US-backed fascist battalions incorporated into the National Guard killed 5,059 people in the Donetsk People’s Republic, including 91 children (figures obtained from Donetsk last week), so the figure for both the anti-fascist republics is probably around 8-9,000 people including well over 100 children.

This war began in 2014 when Ukraine launched the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO), just over a week after the CIA Director John Brennan visited Kiev to meet senior Ukrainian intelligence officials to “foster mutually beneficial security cooperation”. This was an all-out modern military offensive with tanks, artillery, missiles and aircraft. The ATO was still ongoing when the Russian intervention began last week, in fact it was being rapidly stepped up.

Millions of Ukrainians have been driven into political or economic exile since 2014, over two million now living in the Russian Federation alone. Many fled as a result of fascist death threats.

Up to 100 anti-fascists were murdered by fascists and nationalists at the Odessa Trade Union House Fire on May 2, 2014. No-one knows exactly how many, since there has never been any investigation.

Where was the media hysteria, and the calls for peace from the left and the peace movement, when men, women, children and the elderly were being bombed and shot by snipers in the Donbass for the past eight years?

Since November, the U.S. has pushed Kiev to a new murderous invasion of Donbass, while claiming that the real threat was from Russia. The U.S. rejected Moscow’s just demands to guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality. Russia recognized the independence of Lugansk and Donetsk on Feb. 21 –eight years after the people of Donbass overwhelmingly chose independence in a referendum, rejecting the pro-Western/neo-fascist coup government in Ukraine.

Washington and NATO deliberately and methodically pushed the Donbass republics and Russia into a corner, from which there were only two options: submit or fight back.

The People’s Militias of Donetsk and Lugansk are fighting to drive back the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including neo-Nazi battalions armed and trained by the U.S., Canada and NATO, that constantly threaten the lives of their residents. The anti-fascist military action, forced on Donbass and Russia by the Western imperialist powers – principally President Joe Biden and the U.S. government – has exposed confusion and equivocation in the anti-war movement, even among socialists and communists.

Modern capitalist Russia is not an imperialist country. It had no means to become one after the counter-revolution in the USSR. It is a regional power akin to India or Brazil, primarily an exporter of commodities, not capital. To maintain its independence, Russia had to ally with other countries in opposition to imperialism. Ukraine’s coup regime, by contrast, is a pawn of U.S. imperialism that has been waging a brutal war on its neighbours for eight years and offered itself as a base for NATO aggression against Russia.

Our responsibility is to stop U.S. imperialism and its wars in all forms, and to stand in solidarity with those who fight against U.S. domination.

· Victory to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and their allies!

· Justice for those murdered in the Odessa Trade Union House Massacre!

· Solidarity with the anti-fascist underground and exiles of Ukraine!

· U.S./NATO: Hands off Russia! Get out of Ukraine and Eastern Europe!

· Dismantle the imperialist NATO war machine – bring all the troops home now!

This statement is endorsed by: Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic, Consistent Democrats, Cumpanis (Italian communist journal), International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity, Movement for People's Democracy (USA) New Communist Party, Party of Communists USA (PCUSA), Posadists Today, Socialist Fight, US Friends of the Soviet People and the Zimbabwe Communist Party. It is adapted from a fine statement by the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido (USA).

Stand by the Donbas!

Boris Litvinov and his comrades

by New Worker correspondent

Communists discussed the crisis in eastern Ukraine and the threat of war when the NCP held an online meeting with Donbas communist leaders last week. NCP leader Andy Brooks and London Organiser Theo Russell joined Boris Litvinov and his comrades from the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic (CPDPR) via video link on 17th February.
    Donetsk communist leader Boris Litvinov spoke about the threat of a Ukrainian attack on the Donbas, the prospects for the recognition of the two Donbas people’s republics by the Russian Federation, the relationship between the CPDPR, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the Ukrainian communist movement.
    Boris Litvinov said: "The current crisis began in the Western media, we can do nothing, it gets stronger and stronger, and we can do nothing. We think the beginning coincided with the start of the Olympics and the attempt to organise a boycott. We think the West saw this as the right time to start a campaign around Ukraine.
    "Now the Ukrainian military machine is well armed by its Western partners and there are over 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers near the border with the Donetsk People's Republic. Our people’s militias are in control of the situation on the front line, but they understand the situation is very dangerous for the Donbas People's Republics.
    "The escalation has become more and more serious, as shown by the evacuation of some Western diplomats.
    "People living near the border are suffering attacks day by day. Today the situation has become much more dangerous with increased shelling by Ukrainian forces, and the People's Militias have begun evacuating the population near the border.
    "This situation can’t be solved in Ukraine but only in Washington or Brussels. We have seen the European countries send many modern weapons to Ukraine. The escalation has become more and more serious leading to the evacuation of diplomats.
    "The day before yesterday (16 February) many Western correspondents slept outdoors, waiting for the war to start! It’s a shame the opinion they have of the People's Republics. Many brave people sang the anthem of the Soviet Union, but nothing happened.
    "We in the CP DPR are disappointed, depressed and nervous about the current situation.
Eight years ago we decided that we want to be part of the Russian world - this is our fundamental position. Russia understands and shares this position with us, and supports us from their side.
    "We strongly believe the Russian president will never leave us in any circumstances. We have waited eight years for negotiations to begin to join the Russian Federation. We don’t want war but we strongly believe that when war starts our neighbour Russia will support and protect us.
    "The most desirable situation we hope for is for Russian to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. The State Duma of the Russian Federation understands the current situation and the wish of the people to recognise our republics. The final decision rests with the Russian Federation president.
    "We see that the president of the Russian Federation has given strong support to the Minsk Agreements, and expects the politicians to follow the agreements, but the current situation can’t continue forever.
    "For eight years Ukraine has taken no steps to fulfil the Minsk Agreements. We are ready to wait, but no more than one month or one and a half months.
    "The choice we face is that either the Russian Federation recognises us, or the Minsk Agreements are implemented. But we believe that the Western governments won’t allow Kiev to fulfil the agreements, and want increased confrontation between Ukraine and Russia.
    "We have also seen more and more international support for recognition. This morning the President of Belarus said his country was ready to recognise our republics as soon as Russia takes that step. We also know that ten states in Latin America are ready to recognise the republics.
    "The world today is divided and is no longer unipolar. For us the leading centre of the world today is Russia. We see that we have the same values, the same religion and the same hopes as Russia, and we hope that in the near future we will be a united society, a Slavic society.
    "Many people in Ukraine have the same views and concerns, and we expect them to join us in the coming future.
    "In our initiative to join Russia we are setting an example to other nations that Russia is a leading country. Each nation is free to decide on their next steps of development.
    "We say that those who join together with Russia have a strong future and we believe other nations will choose our path and join with Russia.
    "Since 1991 we have observed centrifugal forces who have divided nations, and this has led to their collapse and the dangerous situation we see now. This is the right time for nations to become a united force and a force for peace.
    "The Communist Party of Ukraine is in a very dangerous position. It is well known in Solidnet, and the CP of Ukraine, the CP of the Russian Federation and the CP DPR are united and joined with other parties in the Union of Communist Parties ( a co-ordinating body made up of communist parties in the former republics of the USSR). In this framework we meet with the CP of Ukraine and we see our aims and wishes are the same.
    "The CPRF has delivered 13,000 tons of aid to the Donetsk People’s Republic. There is strong support for the recognition of our republics, and proven friendship towards us, in the Russian State Duma.
    "The main task of all communists is to support the unification of our nation States. We believe that as time goes on we will manage to revive our former Soviet Union.
    "The current US policy is to exert maximum pressure on France, Germany and the whole of Europe, but the US is not strong enough to cope with the Russian Federation.
    "We see that although the Second World War ended 75 years ago, there are no Russian forces on the territory of the EU, but a lot of US forces on the territory of the EU, a lot of US weapons on the territory of the European Union.
    "Ten to fifteen years ago the Russian Federation took the initiative to propose a zone of safety from the Atlantic to the Urals, a concept which is not possible while there are US forces on EU territory.
    "Describing the NCP as "dear, warm friends", Boris Litvinov thanked the NCP "for your attitude and support for our actions and initiatives", and said he hoped contacts between the two parties will continue".
    In the discussion NCP general secretary Andy Brooks spoke of the erroneous position being taken by some parties in the world communist movement who argue that the US and Russia are equivalent imperialist powers and the need to build solidarity with the people of the Donbas all over the world. In Britain the NCPB was campaigning in a united front with other progressive forces in support of the Donbas republics and all the anti-fascist forces in Ukraine.

• Report in the Donbas communist media

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.

No, we can’t pay!

 By New Worker correspondent

Protestors gathered outside Downing Street on Saturday to condemn the spiralling cost of living, with demonstrations co-organised by the People's Assembly and held in over 40 towns and cities across the UK, including Parliament Square in the heart of the capital.
    Speaker after speaker spoke out about rising energy prices at the London demonstration, including a wide range of workers involved in industrial disputes. Unite members Arshad and Arnold, from Whipps Cross Hospital, joined the protest straight from their picket line, linking their fight against an insulting pay offer from an out-sourced employer to the broader issue of rising living costs.
    The protest also heard from United Voices of the World (UVW) security guard workers at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where staff are currently on strike for equal terms and conditions. One striking worker stressed the importance of their dispute as costs rise, telling the demonstration: "I opened my energy bill the other day and I almost cried – how can I afford that?”
    We also heard from Jaz from Birkbeck University and College Union (UCU) on the 10 days of strike action planned at universities across the UK over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions – one example of many, of workers fighting back against a squeeze on living standards.
    Whilst there were many striking workers among those speaking from the platform and some trade union banners in the crowd, it is clear that there is still some way to go in mobilising the full support of the trade union movement around the campaign. The rally did, however, receive a message from Dave Ward (CWU General Secretary), who noted the importance of the movement having the full backing of the unions as it builds towards a bigger protest later in the year.
    The demonstration also heard from Paula Peters from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), who spoke movingly on the fight for a funded social care system free at the point of need, before warning the Tories that "your time is coming to an end, we're going to evict you".
    Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke last, highlighting the need to "stop the demonisation, and enhance the solidarity" in advance of protests planned in March and April: “Let’s make March even bigger. And in April we need a spring demonstration to fill the streets of London.”

What it means to be a communist

by New Worker correspondent

Andy Brooks 

London communists discussed the problems of our movement at a joint seminar at the New Communist Party Party Centre last weekend. Called by the NCP and the RCPB-ML, comrades spent Saturday afternoon looking at the question of “what it means to be a communist – new and revolutionary today” in the Sid French Library in south London.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the session, said he hoped this initiative would be the start of a wider discussion within the ranks of the communists and the basis for future joint work to continue the dialogue on the crucial questions facing the movement.
    Discussion on deeper issues has always been sadly lacking in London. Although it’s true to say that before Covid you could go to a different left event every day of the week in London, these meetings were really gatherings of the converted organised by left groups to rally their troops and mobilise them for the campaigns of the day.
    Immense amounts of time have been spent analysing the past and trying to come to terms with the counter-revolutions that brought down the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies of eastern Europe, but there’s been very little talk in preparing for the future.
    But discussion is a luxury we can afford – and we can start best by looking at what does it really mean to be a communist in the 21st Century.
    The RCPB-ML leader, Michael Chant, said in a keynote opening that; “Taking the topic at face value, and giving an answer in a nutshell, one could say to be a communist means seeing the face of the New in the crisis of the Old, and working for the necessary change, for the transformation of the Old into the New, with revolutionary sweep.”
    These factors were taken up by other comrades who raised the issue of communist morality and the role of women in the movement, along with taking the principled stand and building the united front in the struggles to come.
    The afternoon soon passed by, but it was agreed to broaden the discussion by publishing the contributions in both parties’ journals and to hold another seminar in the very near future.

We will remember them!

The ceremony begins

 by New Worker correspondent

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined comrades, war veterans, diplomats and anti-fascists to remember the victims of the Holocaust at a ceremony in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum in south London last week.
    The annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration, organised by the Soviet War Memorial Trust and Southwark Council, could not be held last year because of the Covid lockdown but the recent easing of the restrictions meant that although the traditional commemoration in the halls of the Museum was still suspended the outdoor ceremony could once again go ahead.
    The solemn event organised by the Soviet War Memorial Trust and Southwark Council was held on Thursday 27th January, the day back in 1945 when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the largest death camp in the Third Reich.
    The Nazis killed six million Jews during the Second World War. There were hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens amongst them. About three million Soviet prisoners of war perished in extermination camps.
    The Act of Remembrance began with a procession led by veterans’ associations to the Holocaust Memorial Tree and the Soviet War Memorial, followed by the laying of wreaths and floral tributes by the company that included veteran organisations, representatives of the embassies of the Russian Federation and Belarus, as well as local Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, the NCP and members of the Russian community in London. It ended, as always, with a minute’s silence and the Last Post.

Bloody Sunday Remembered in London

 By Theo Russell

Around 100 campaigners gathered in London’s Parliament Square on 27th January at a commemoration of the 50 years that have passed since 13 civil rights activists were shot by the Parachute Regiment on 30th January 1972 in Derry.
    Speakers at the ceremony, organised by the Terence MacSwiney Commemoration Committee, paid tribute to the innocent victims of the terror unleashed by the Paras on that Bloody Sunday in the occupied north of Ireland.
    Gerry Duddy, brother of John Duddy who died on that infamous day, spoke for the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, which is still fighting for the prosecution of the "uniformed criminals who murdered our people on the streets".
    Last year the Public Prosecution Service dropped charges against two of the Bloody Sunday soldiers after a right-wing press campaign, and Boris Johnson has told parliament he wants to end all legacy investigations, trials and even inquests.
    Duddy said the British government announced the amnesty “because they are running scared. They are scared that their soldiers, spooks and civil servants will be exposed and that their role as a combatant and a catalyst in the war in Ireland will be shown to the world. They deny us justice because they are scared to face justice".
    But he said the families wanted to send "a very clear warning to the British government" that if they pursued an amnesty: "The Bloody Sunday families will be ready to meet them head on, and we will not go away or be silenced. We will expose them for what they are – an embarrassment to any western democracy founded on the rule of law".
    Labour MPs Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon, and John Finucane, the Sinn Féin MP for North Belfast, also addressed the gathering. Finucane also spoke about his own family’s continued campaign for truth and justice to expose British state collusion in the murder of his father, human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, in 1989.
    Shelly Asquith, speaking for the Stop the War Coalition, pledged continued support for the Bloody Sunday families and an end to any more Bloody Sundays the world over.
    A message was also read out from John McDonnell, another Labour MP who is a long-standing friend of the Irish community in Britain, who could not take part in the ceremony as he was self-isolating due to a COVID‑19 infection,
    All the speakers forcefully condemned the Tory government’s amnesty proposal, pointing out that it is opposed not only by the Labour Party but by every party in Ireland.
    A contribution was also made by veteran Irish community activist Jim Curran, who was present outside Westminster 50 years ago in 1972 when London’s Irish community mobilised when the news of Bloody Sunday broke.
    After the event the organisers circulated a message thanking all those who joined them, saying: “It’s those who turn out who make the day a success. We ask everyone to keep the Bloody Sunday families in their thoughts over the weekend. We shall overcome!”

Welcome the Year of the Tiger

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined diplomats, politicians and businessmen at an online reception held by the Chinese embassy in London on Monday to welcome the Chinese New Year.
    Ambassador Zheng Zeguang delivered a keynote speech in which he said: “The Chinese New Year is also a festival of hope and aspiration. As a Chinese saying goes: “Plan for a successful year in the spring.” Spring is the season when nature comes back to life. It is also the time for making plans and getting down to business.
    “Looking around the world, the changes of the times are precipitated by the worst pandemic of the century. The world enters a new period of turbulence. What must we do to prevail over COVID‑19? What kind of a world do we want post pandemic?
    “At the 2022 World Economic Forum Virtual Session on 17th January, President Xi Jinping proposed and expounded China’s solution. He pointed out, countries need to embrace co-operation and jointly defeat the pandemic, resolve various risks and promote steady recovery of the world economy, bridge the development divide and revitalise global development, and discard Cold War mentality and seek peaceful co-existence and win–win outcomes.
    “In the Year of the Tiger, China will stay committed to pursuing high-quality development, to reform and opening-up and to promoting ecological conservation. We will continue to champion the common values of mankind. We will always be a defender of world peace, a contributor to global development and an upholder of international order. And we will work with all countries to build a community with a shared future for mankind.”

Radio Times

by New Worker correspondent

On Monday the Tory Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries announced that the TV licence was to be frozen at £159 and finally abolished in 2027.
    This met with applause from right wingers who have long sought its abolition. The news did not do down well with trade unions representing those that work for the BBC, which, is of course the only beneficiary of the £159 tax on couch potatoes.
    National Union of Journalists General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet added deplored the fact that the announcement was made before negotiations between the BBC and the government had concluded. She added that the move was only a distraction from the Prime Minister’s recent woes: “The BBC’s finest script writers would have a job making this stuff up, it’s beyond parody. When the evidence of partying, hypocrisy, lies and dissembling is mounting, what does this government do in response? It blames the journalists and the news outlets holding them to scrutiny, and plots acts of revenge”. She seems to have forgotten that many of the revelations have come from Tory insiders and published in those revolutionary organs such as the Mail, Telegraph and Times.
    She concluded her panegyric by saying that “Those Reithian principles of informing, educating and entertaining are as important today as they have ever been. To undermine that would be an act of cultural vandalism and we hope that the public sees these attacks for what they are and rallies to support the BBC and its unarguable value to our society.”
    That give the game away. While John Reith would never tolerate fourth rate rubbish like game shows and cookery programmes the BBC spews out, Reith was always politically reactionary. In the 1926 General Strike, when the recently founded BBC had a virtual monopoly of news, it was a loyal voice of the Government, ignoring the views of trade union leaders and persistently lying about events across the country. That continues to this day. Anyone who has ever been involved in a strike large enough to be reported in the media knows that knows that the BBC is just as bad as any openly Tory newspaper at distorting the workers’ struggle. Many readers will have been on massive marches which have been covered by TV channels from across the world, but not a peep reported on the BBC.
    Philippa Childs, Head of broadcasting union BECTU also claimed that: “The BBC is a revered institution that is both respected and envied worldwide, and an essential part of our national story”. This is of course nonsense on stilts, but it highlights the point that the BBC’s bias is particularly dangerous precisely because it is served up as balance neutrality.
    Protests from broadcasting unions are to be expected. Trade unions are there to look after the interest of their members, but the TUC further disgraced its self by saying that: “We must fiercely protect the public service ethos of the BBC”, a sick joke when we regularly see that institution spewing out rabid anti-trade union propaganda and in the guise of news. In the same message the TUC also praised the BBC for having a “global reach which is nearing half a billion people” which is simply another term for cheering on its imperialist propaganda.
    However those on the left can and must do better than just automatically jump to the defence of the BBC simply because some right wingers raise some mild objections to it now and then. There are plenty of alternative broadcasting outlets available for news and all the best BBC programmes have long since became available on the Freeview nostalgia channels.

London’s transport

NSSN support on the picket line

by New Worker correspondent

One area where the class struggle will be fought out is on the railways up and down the country, and perhaps most sharply, below ground in London. Rail unions have united in condemnation of the actions of the Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL), which they say will lead to a loss of 600 Underground station jobs.
   On the London Underground (LU) workers have already taken strike action against detrimental changes to the Night Tube driver grade.
Transport for London (TfL) wants to rip up existing agreements and force drivers to do more Night Tube shifts, which RMT points out will ruin drivers’ work–life balance.
   The action caused major disruption on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. Whilst workers on only five tube lines took action, delays hit other lines as well, and members of the other train drivers’ union, ASLEF, refused to cross the picket line despite their union leaders accepting TfL’s proposals. In addition, some other RMT members not directly affected by the plans also struck in solidarity.
   The plans to cut 600 station staff are based on the assumption that people all use contactless tickets, which is nonsense given the large number of visitors needing to be told how to get from Hamleys to Harrods.
   Meanwhile, there’s more trouble at the Woolwich ferry. There has been a ferry crossing at Woolwich on the lower Thames since the 14th Century, but it sometimes seems as though industrial disputes have been going on for almost as long.
   In 2019, workers went on strike seeking a pay rise and improved safety after the new operators cut staff numbers and set new shift patterns after acquiring new ships. The following year they won good deal, securing 100 per cent furlough pay from then private operator Briggs Marine Contractors.
   Now TfL run the service things have got worse rather than better. Just before Christmas seven workers, including two Unite reps, were suspended without reason.
   Despite having recently acquired new ships they were laid up over the festive season. This postponed a planned strike over pay.
   Unite’s General Secretary, Sharon Graham, demanded: “The suspension of our seven members, including two of our reps, needs to be rescinded immediately. We won’t allow TfL management to get away with ‘declaring war’ on Unite and its members. The full weight of the union will be mobilised in support of them,” accusing TfL of “a huge and unprovoked escalation.”
   Unite regional officer Onay Kasab deplored the fact that: “TfL continues to spend excessive sums on agency staff, while claiming it is in financial trouble – this is money that could go towards paying our 58 members a decent wage as the RPI rate of inflation soars to 7.1 per cent.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

The Last Gig of the ‘red’ Punk Rocker

by Andrija Filipović

Thomas “Mensi” Mensforth, the singer and frontman of the famous British punk rock band Angelic Upstarts, died after a losing battle with Covid on Friday 10th December at the age of 65.
    Back in 1977, Mensi, a former miner from South Shields, with his friends Ray Cowie (Mond) on guitar, Steve Forsten on bass guitar and Derek "Decca" Wade on drums, founded the Angelic Upstarts. They released 12 studio albums from 1979–2015 and their frontman was the only original member of the band left standing.
    Inspired by the music of punk legends, The Clash, Mensi, a committed communist, has been positioning Angelic Upstarts as a leftist and anti-fascist band from the very beginning.
    Angelic Upstarts, in the musical sense, became one of the first bands of the Oi! sub-genre of punk rock, which is characterised by social themes, criticism of class oppression and the struggle for the existential interests of the working class.
    After the influence of neo-Nazi and racist elements in the skinhead movement in Britain, which sees Oi! music as its own, most bands of the first wave of that sub-genre stopped working or started playing other types of music. On the other hand, Angelic Upstarts, led by Mensi, refused to leave the scene to neo-Nazi skinheads, initially from the White Noize Club of the National Front and later Blood & Honour. In that period, they stood out with their uncompromising leftist and anti-fascist orientation.
    Mensi was one of the founding members of Anti-Fascist Action in 1985. an organisation that opposed the propaganda of the British far-right both on the street and through its music wing Cable Street Beat on the Oi! scene.
    Prior to the founding of AFA, Mensi, in co-operation with the left-wing Red Action group, organised a series of concerts called Oi! Against Racism. Under the influence of Mensi, a large number of leftist and anti-fascist Oi! bands were formed in Britain and around the world, and Angelic Upstarts became their inspiration and role-model.
    Due to their uncompromising anti-fascist orientation, Angelic Upstarts concerts were a frequent target of attacks by neo-Nazi skinheads from the ranks of Blood & Honour, but Mensi and his comrades never wavered.
    They were never afraid of the fascists. On the contrary, they defended their gigs and their audience from these attacks and continued their leftist and anti-fascist engagement with even greater devotion.
    The band's songs, composed by Mensi, such as 2,000,000 Voices (against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's anti-union policies), Last Night Another Soldier (against British imperialist military interventions), Kids On the Streets (about unity of the working-class youth), I Don't Wanna Fight The Soviet (against anti-Soviet propaganda during the Cold War and Anti-Nazi (against neo-Nazi propaganda on the Oi scene) are just some of the songs that clearly point to the progressive engagement of the Angelic Upstarts.
    The song Solidarity became the punk workers' anthem, although Mensi later said that he was wrong to dedicate it in 1983 to the Polish Solidarność trade union, which proved to be on the side of the anti-communist reactionaries and against the interests of the proletariat. After he saw that, he sang that song as a tribute to the struggle of the world proletariat and not the Polish "Solidarity" movement.
    After it was released in 2002, the promotion of the Angelic Upstarts album Sons of Spartacus was promoted by the New Worker. Mensi considered the New Communist Party (NCP) "a genuine Marxist-Leninist party in Britain”.

Rest in Peace Comrade Mensi!

Remembering a great Korean leader

 by New Worker correspondent

Andy Brooks paid tribute to Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died at his post in December 2011. Speaking at a meeting in central London last weekend called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA), the NCP leader spoke about Kim Jong Il’s life-long service to the communist movement and the Korean people – from his early days in guiding art and culture, especially the cinema, to steering The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea through a difficult period that followed the passing of great leader Kim Il Sung in 1994.
    Kim Jong Il led the Workers’ Party of Korea that mobilised the masses in the socialist north of the Korean peninsula to overcome natural disasters and imperialist blockade, and counter American threats by developing an independent nuclear deterrent.
    KFA Chair Dermot Hudson stressed the importance of commemorating the life of Kim Jong Il who led the Korean people to defend and advance socialism, together with other speakers including Michael Chant, the leader of the RCPB (ML), and Shaun Pickford from the Staffordshire KFA.
    A DPRK documentary was shown at the Marchmont Centre in Bloomsbury, a regular venue for Korean solidarity activists before the lockdown, called Turning Sorrow into Strength. Of that there can be no doubt, with the Korean people following the footsteps of the revolutionary leaders of the past to build the future with Kim Jong Un at the helm.

A tragedy for Labour

Not a day goes by, it seems, without someone’s expulsion from the Labour Party. Most people have lost track of the Corbynistas who’ve been suspended these days. It began with trumped-up charges of “anti-Semitism”. Now it been extended to “auto-exclude” anyone associated with Socialist Appeal, the Labour in Exile Network, Labour Against the Witchhunt and Resist. And it’s being applied retrospectively to condemn Labour members for taking part in events with members of banned groups in the past, even though they weren’t banned at the time.
    Taken to its logical conclusion, the Blairites should now move to expel any dead members they don’t like on the same grounds. Tony Benn would top the list. Sir Keir Starmer QC, the great “forensic” silk, could easily find some sort of legal precedent for posthumous expulsion. He could point to the precedent set by Charles II, who had the remains of Oliver Cromwell and the other dead “regicides” dug up and ceremonially hanged in public when the monarchy was restored in 1660.
    But Starmer beware. The Pharaohs and Caesars did this sort of thing big time to those they deemed traitors or blasphemers and look what happened to them…

British forces out of Ukraine and the Black Sea!

by New Worker correspondent

Anti-fascist campaigners were back in Whitehall last weekend, defying sub-zero temperatures to stand by the Donbas people’s republics and protest against the British government’s support for the puppet regime in Ukraine. British military advisers are training Ukrainian army units and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has recently given the go-ahead to an arms deal to boost Ukraine's naval capabilities in the Black Sea.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other anti-fascist activists on Saturday demanding Britain pull its military and naval forces out of Ukraine and the Black Sea after evidence emerged that Canadian, and possibly also British, forces are training members of Ukrainian Nazi battalions.
    London comrades joined the picketers, which included members of Socialist Fight and the Consistent Democrats and British Posadists, opposite the Prime Minister’s home in Downing Street. Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU), International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity and other labour movement organisations also took part in the protest.
    Members of the Centuria battalion, who use Nazi salutes and praise Nazi German SS units, brag about “co-operation with foreign colleagues”. Ukraine’s fascist militias played an important part in the coup that overthrew the legitimate government in 2014 and were incorporated into Ukraine's National Guard the following year, and the fact that Centuria gunmen are now serving as Ukrainian army officers suggests they are being increasingly integrated into the regular armed forces.
    Amidst Western mass media hysteria about a planned "Russian invasion", with senior US and British officials claiming Vladimir Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine, the Kiev regime has deployed weapons banned under the Minsk-2 agreement including attack drones, tanks, heavy artillery and rocket systems, against the anti-fascist Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics that drove the fascists out of the Donbas in 2014.
    The Russians have dismissed talk of a Russian invasion as “baseless” and "absurd". But sending NATO military advisers to Ukraine could potentially lead to an escalation of tension across the “line of contact” or ceasefire line between the Donbas republics and Ukraine.
    Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov said: "We are deeply concerned about the provocative actions of the Ukrainian armed forces on the line of contact and preparations for a possible military solution, an attempt to resolve the Donbas problem by force," adding that nothing provocative has been done by the Donbas republics in the region.
    Meanwhile Alexei Reznikov, who says the Donbas rebels are "a cancerous tumour on Ukraine's body which needs to be surgically removed”, has been appointed as Ukraine's Defence Minister. His top adviser is the notorious Dmitry Yarosh, the former leader of the neo-Nazi ‘Right Sector’ militia that led the armed coup in Ukraine in February 2014 and is modelled on the Ukrainian collaborators who served the Nazis during the German occupation during the Second World War.
    The truth is that Ukraine has become the world epicentre of fascism and white supremacy, with networks across Europe and North America. The western mass media – and sadly many on the international left – turn their blind eye to this glaring reality. Shame on them!

• Report in the Donbas communist media

Socialism, the Choice of the Chinese People

Ambassador Zheng Zeguang opens the seminar

On 23rd November, the Chinese Embassy in London held an online symposium on the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee, where Ambassador Zheng Zeguang delivered a keynote speech. Andy Brooks, General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain, Robert Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, Ella Rule, Chair of the CPGB (ML), Martin Jacques, a renowned expert on China, and Stephen Perry, Chair of the 48 Group Club, spoke at the event.

    Also present were Professor Martin Albrow, a fellow at the Academy of Social Sciences in London; Sir Martin Davidson, Chair of the Great Britain-China Centre; and representatives of various other political parties, experts, scholars and representatives from the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party. This is Andy Brooks’ contribution to the discussion.

First of all, I would like to thank the organisers for allowing me to say a few words at this seminar focusing on the major achievements and historical experience of the Communist Party of China (CPC) over the last 100 years of its existence.
    For a communist party to have survived for 100 years is, in itself, something to celebrate. To have led the Chinese people to victory is another. To raise the millions upon millions of the Chinese people out of poverty to build the modern socialist society that we see today is a third. And this is only the beginning of the march of progress in the 21st century.
    Feudal China was once the workshop of the world. When the people’s government was established in 1949 China had the lowest standard of living in the world. Today China can now not only feed, clothe and educate its people, but also provide consumer goods and living standards for working people unimaginable before liberation. China has a modern expanding economy that has withstood the current global capitalist crisis to once again become the workshop of the world and is sharing its prosperity through the Belt and Road Initiative that spans the globe.
    One-hundred years have passed since the foundation of the CPC on 23rd July 1921. China has risen from being a weak semi-feudal, semi-colonial country to become a force for peace in the global arena with the second largest economy in the world.
    In the past China’s wealth was the preserve of a ruthless, feudal ruling class. These days China’s wealth is being used to finally eradicate the last vestiges of poverty, raise the standard of living of everyone in the people’s republic, and help the development of the Third World through genuine fair trade and economic assistance.
    This is the glorious achievement of the CPC which led the resistance that defeated the Japanese imperialists and the reactionary Chinese warlords and politicians in the pay of American imperialism, to establish the people’s government on 1st October 1949.
    Discussion is a luxury communists can afford and as we join our Chinese comrades in celebrating their hundred years of victory, we can ask ourselves many questions.
    The collapse of the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies in eastern Europe led to calls in some communist quarters for a new communist international – calls that are still made from time to time in some parts of the movement. But we cannot restore what has gone before us without first understanding why it failed in the first place. And that understanding cannot come from reading books or simply trying to transpose one experience to another.
    Chinese communists always stress that socialism with Chinese characteristics cannot be exported and that their revolution is not a model for others to copy slavishly. But we very rarely, at least in Western Europe, ask ourselves why?
    The answer in part is based on the struggle of the Chinese communists to overcome dogmatism and sectarianism to eventually build a people’s democracy in their own way, to serve the needs of the working people of China.
    Commenting on the rise of the bourgeoisie in France, Marx famously said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Communists too can make mistakes, but unlike the bourgeoisie we consciously try to learn from past mistakes in order to avoid future ones.
    In Europe, the mistake was clearly to elevate slavishly what was believed to be the ‘Soviet model’, even though few Western communists even really understood what the Soviet Union actually was. The Soviet Union wasn’t a ‘people’s democracy’ in the sense we understand it now. It was a unique state based on Soviet power, and whilst its economic structures could be imitated – as they were after a fashion in eastern Europe – the Soviet political system could not.
    Following the Soviet victory in the Second World War, the revolutionary upsurge that followed led to the establishment of people’s democracies throughout Eastern Europe on the same basis as the people’s democratic dictatorship was established in China in 1949. The question was how long would this transition take?
    In the beginning, people’s democracy was seen as a lengthy process. Initially it was believed that the length of the road to socialism would depend upon the development of social and economic factors in each individual country. But Cold War tensions led to the rapid incorporation of most of the European people’s democracies into a Soviet economic and military bloc, which later proved incapable of withstanding the counter-revolutionary pressures of the 1980s. The Chinese communists clearly believe that the transitional period, at least as far as their immense country is concerned, will be a lengthy process. But it is a socialist process.
    Any hopes that imperialists held that China was ‘going down the capitalist road’ were dealt a severe blow at the 2019 Congress of the CPC, where Xi Jinping reminded delegates that: “Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ‘ism’. Both history and our present reality tell us that only socialism can save China – and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China. This is the conclusion of history, the choice of our people.”