Newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
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The Coming Election - The Stand of the Working
Class and
the Rejection of an Outdated Democracy
Demonstration and Rally against Health Cuts - February 15, 1997
Newcastle Marxist-Leninist Study Group Holds Meeting
Strengthening of the Aggressive NATO Military Alliance
For Your Reference - The Formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
US Declares its Aggressive Aims against Iraq
55th Anniversary of the Birth of Kim Jong Il
THE CRISIS OF parliamentary democracy, "representative democracy", is such that the working class and people are very concerned that none of the big parties represent their interests. They are aware that far from the election solving the actual problems that the people and society face, the election of any of the main parliamentary parties to office will result in a stepping up of the anti-social offensive against them.
In other words, as the election comes closer, the hidden agenda of these parties is becoming more open, more clearly anti-worker, anti-people and protecting the interests of big business, the financial oligarchy and squeezing all they can out of the people under the pretexts of competing in the global market place and balancing the budget. Furthermore, the comparisons between Labour and the Conservatives that are appearing in the media increasingly are leading them to the conclusion that there is nothing of substance to choose between them.
This crisis of credibility is a symptom of the fact that the political system is so outdated and in the interests of only a tiny handful that it cannot represent the interests of the electorate, of the working class and the vast majority of the people. The combined membership of the big political parties hardly reaches 2% of the population. The whole set-up of government and an official opposition is an archaic and outmoded one. It has been developed within the parameters of an absolute parliamentary authority derived from the monarchy and divine right, and not from the sovereignty and authority of the people. The lack of a written constitution underlines and consolidates this situation. Thus, parliament is increasingly being exposed as just a talk-shop, a rubber-stamp for the decisions made in the interests of the monopolies and the economically most powerful.
The stand of the working class must be to reject this outdated democracy. This must be put in the first place in the coming election. The working class must begin to put forward its own pro-social agenda for solving the problems of society. It is extremely important that the level of debate and discussion on these questions be raised during the coming election campaign, in the context of fighting for democratic renewal and genuine democracy.
THERE CAN BE few more revealing examples of how the workers are marginalised than how the TUC has chosen to highlight the election.
Yesterday, February 14, with much fanfare, John Monks launched a million pound campaign. With the slogan, "Put a cross in the wrong place and you can kiss employee rights goodbye," the TUC is asking the workers to put their faith in the present political system under which the role of the workers has been reduced to one of filing into the polling booths. What could be more out of date? So much is said to hinge on a single cross.
In a modern electoral and political system, voting would become part of the affirmation of the people's rights. It would become part of the whole on-going process whereby they participate in self-governance at national, local, workplace and educational institution level. Such a modern system would take as its starting point the recognition of the rights of individuals and collectives, as well as the general interests of society. The right to a livelihood, for example, would be recognised in law.
The TUC campaign shows how circumscribed, how limited, is the outlook they seek to impose on the workers. The only political act they allow them is this manifestation of voting. Nor do they seem to be concerned to involve the active participation of the workers in fighting for their interests on a day to day basis, and refuse to take a lead in this. Indeed, in their slogan they prepare to put the blame on the workers themselves for the misfortunes in store for them after the general election. The TUC does not recognise that the fight against exploitation, the fight for the workers' class interests, gives rise to a political consciousness. In other words, the TUC is expressing in the sharpest possible way the notion that political struggle should be left to the politicians, particularly the Labour Party. In so doing, the TUC is putting a block on the movement of the working class for its emancipation.
It is crystal clear that the workers have been fighting the battle against their exploitation and the inexorable drive of the capitalist system to step up this exploitation ever since the working class was born. Political parties have developed as the representatives of the capitalists in this battle, either overtly or covertly, and can do nothing to change this motive force of capitalism.
The working class must reject this limitation on its actions and on the movement for its emancipation. It must fight for a society which puts the rights of the workers at the forefront, a society in which their rights as the producers of the wealth in society are guaranteed.
Demonstration and Rally against Health Cuts A demonstration under the slogan "Save East London Hospitals" is taking place today, Saturday, February 15, organised by "East London Against Health Cuts". The demonstration will be followed by a Rally.
The organisers point out that £18.4 million government cuts mean: Barts, Queen Elizabeth Children's, The London Chest and St Andrew's Hospitals will close; cuts in community nursing and voluntary sector; 400 beds to go.
The demonstration assembles at 12.30pm at Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street, and the Rally is taking place at 2pm at the Davenant Centre, Whitechapel Road.
THIS PAST WEEK, the Newcastle Marxist-Leninist Study Group held its second meeting with a number of workers from the area and students from both universities taking part. A paper was presented on The human factor – a modern definition of rights. The paper elaborated on the Party's draft programme for the working class and the call for the recognition of all inviolable rights, that people have rights simply by dint of being human. The paper also elaborated on the demands for rights which emerge out of the present conditions facing the workers, women, national minorities, disabled, etc., and focused on the need for a modern definition of citizenship and the need for a constitution based on such modern definitions.
The discussion that followed centred on clarifying points raised in the paper and on the question of how the working class can advance its demand for a constitution based on such a programme. The starting point must be that rights are recognised simply by dint of being human.
The meeting concluded with a wide ranging discussion on the need for a modern popular culture consistent with the needs of the working class, on the need for the renewal of the political process and other questions raised by the participants. How to recruit more people to take part in the Study Group was also discussed. The proposal to organise the next meeting, and do work for it, on the topic of the need for the renewal of the political process and the presentation of the Party's stand on the election was agreed enthusiastically.
NATO under the leadership of the US and backed wholeheartedly by Germany, and less enthusiastically by Britain and France, is being expanded and strengthened instead of being disbanded as many had hoped after the end of the Cold War. The world had been led to believe that the dismantling of the Warsaw pact and NATO was supposed to be part of the "peace dividend" resulting from the end of the bipolar division of the world. Instead there is to be a new character to NATO and a possible expansion into Eastern Europe. NATO is developing its extensive "Partnership for Peace" programme through which links are made with other European countries who are not currently in NATO, and is preparing to admit new members into NATO. In this way, US imperialism is aiming to isolate Russia, which is not to Russia's liking.
US troops are still in Germany and have even moved into the Balkans. Europe is still awash with nuclear weapons. There are the arsenals of France, Britain and Russia plus those of NATO (which are under the control of the US). The sale of conventional arms has broadened to new areas.
The leaders of both United States and NATO state that the aims of this military alliance still have much in common with those for which it was originally formed in 1949. On September 13 last year, the then US Secretary of State Warren Christopher spoke in Stuttgart, Germany in the very theatre where fifty years ago, the US Secretary of State of the time, James Byrnes, announced to the world that the Truman Doctrine of the "containment of communism" included the rehabilitation of the former German Nazi capitalists and political leaders. Byrnes spoke then of strengthening the Atlantic Alliance, with US troops staying in Europe and a rearmed West Germany as the cornerstone to "contain communism in Europe". Three years later the US created NATO.
In 1996 Christopher spoke in Stuttgart of the US vision of a "new Atlantic Community" extending across Europe "transcending the artificial boundaries of Cold War Europe (giving) North America a deeper partnership with a broader, more integrated Europe" that would entail an expanded NATO stretching to Russia's borders. Christopher said the Truman principles expressed by Byrnes "shape our approach to Europe this very day".
More recently the Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana, speaking at the Royal Institute of International Relations in Brussels on January 14, said: "With NATO's help, we can complete the vision that George C Marshall and others had begun to implement 50 years ago. Today, this vision extends not only to one half of Europe, but to all of the continent."
What were these "principles" and "visions" that Truman and Marshall had in 1947? Why are they being quoted now as being relevant when the world is so different from the post war years?
The Truman Doctrine of the "containment of communism" was designed to ensure the domination of Europe by the US imperialists and the remnants of European monopoly capitalists especially German. As part of this, under the Marshall plan, (formally the European Recovery programme) US financial "assistance" amounting to some $17,000,000,000 was given to Western European countries. This massive investment by the US ensured its influence and domination over Europe and it was also directly aimed at subverting the struggles of the peoples against the capitalist system and it was aimed against the Soviet Union at the time. It was intended to tie the Western European countries firmly to the sphere of influence of the United States.
In the context of today's situation, addressing the Federation of Austrian Industries in Vienna on January 16 this year, Javier Solana said: "It is our historic obligation to respond to the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and reinforce the confidence in their future as open societies the sense of belonging. They deserve to be given the same chance – an Atlantic chance – that Western Europe was given after the Second World War."
As the regimes of Eastern Europe fell one after the other in 1989-91, the prospect of an even vaster market than before opening up for capitalist investment was evident to the monopoly capitalists of both Europe and the US. At the same time, in order that this market be exploited freely, it was crucial that the working class and peoples of those countries, who were, after all, out on the streets demanding an end to their intolerable situation, should not be allowed to build any kind of social system in which they were truly empowered, in which the wealth created and natural resources of their countries be controlled by themselves. To this end, there was no shortage of money to "assist" the countries of Eastern Europe after the events of 1989-91. The Secretary General of NATO boasted in his January 16 speech, "With the incentive of NATO membership clearly established, virtually all the countries interested in joining have embraced democratic reforms and moved towards market economies."
NATO is an aggressive military alliance, and should be dismantled. The working class must demand that Britain withdraws from NATO, and demand that all states be free to conduct their own affairs on the basis of equality and non-intervention.
THE North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA. Greece and Turkey acceded to the treaty, in 1952, and in 1955 the Federal Republic of Germany and in 1982 Spain did the same, bringing the total number of states to 16. France left the military council of NATO in 1966 but remained in the organisation and finally retook its place on the military committee in April 1996. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is the organisation which enables the goals of the Alliance to be achieved.
NATO's formation was "justified" under Article 51 of the newly formed United Nations Charter which states: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."
NATO combined into one military structure, soldiers and equipment from the armed forces of the US, Canada and the countries of Europe which were under the domination of the US. It had a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons, supplemented by the US, British and Canadian Air forces and hundreds and thousands of troops.
Currently NATO is involved in a large number of developments in Europe and further afield.
IT HAS BEEN REPORTED that the United States would make a decision this week on whether to launch a Tomahawk missile strike at Iraq. The US has already launched three Tomahawk missile strikes against Iraq since the end of the Gulf War. The last was launched on September 3, 1996, and was fully supported by the British government which put its military base, on the Island of Diego Garcia, at the disposal of US forces so that they could use it for refuelling, thus enabling the bombing to take place. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey had refused to provide bases for the US bombing operation. Speaking in January, British Defence Secretary Michael Portillo said, "In the Gulf region we shall maintain our air contingents flying from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and our friends in the region" by which he meant the US "will continue to enjoy the reassurance provided by the Royal Navy's Armilla Patrol".
According to news agency reports, US Defence Department spokesman Ken Bacon said the US supported "an analysis by chief UN inspector Rolf Ekeus that Iraq is still hiding an operational Scud missile force of between 18 and 25 missiles". Bacon declared, "This is against the sanctions. Obviously I can't describe what our future actions would be, but we have shown time and time again that we are prepared to protect US forces, we are prepared to protect our interests in the Gulf."
Responding to speculation that the United States might launch a cruise missile attack on Iraq, US State Department Spokesman Nick Burns declared, on February 5, "The United States always reserves the right to use its military force to defend its national interest anywhere in the world, but I see no reason to heighten your concern in any way pertaining to the situation in the Middle East."
This arrogant characterisation of the territory of another country as "US national interest" shows the fact that the essence of imperialism is unbridled competition for domination of the world's sources of raw materials, markets and zones for the export of capital.
The US is not the only power with interests in this particular region of the globe and its increased aggression here will certainly bring it into conflict with other powers.
Sunday, February 16, 1997, marks the 55th anniversary of the birth of Kim Jong Il, supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission and Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army.
The Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) has sent a letter of congratulations to Comrade Kim Jong Il on this occasion.
In London, there is to be a celebratory meeting today, February 15, to mark the occasion, which has been organised by a Preparatory Committee set up for that specific purpose.