TODAY IS MAY DAY, the day of the international working class, when workers of all countries celebrate their unity in struggle. It is the day when workers throughout the world reaffirm their determination to carry through their struggles to achieve their historic mission to lift society out of the crisis and establish a socialist society as the prelude to a communist, classless society.

May Day 1997 represents a critical time both for the financial oligarchy and for the working class and people in Britain.

For the financial oligarchy it represents the moment when they are poised to rescue their bankrupt political system for a few more years with the election of a New Labour government. For the workers, it is a time when they must affirm, in the face of this coup by the rich, that it is they who have the way out of the crisis, centred around the independent programme of the working class of stopping paying the rich, of putting the interests of the people at the centre of all developments and moving forward to establish socialism in Britain.

The rich have calculated that by organising the General Election and bringing New Labour to power on this May 1, the workers' special day, they can claim that the new government not only has a "mandate" to carry through the anti-social offensive, but that the workers will hail this new government as their own. But such a "victory" of the rich on election day is bound to be temporary and short-lived. It appears inevitable that Tony Blair will come to power, with a programme of serving the interests of the rich in the name of the "public interest". Everything the government does will continue to centre around paying the rich, giving handouts and subsidies to the monopolies, paying interest to the banks and financial institutions on government debt, privatising the remains of the public sector, and squeezing the working people with taxes which will end up in the pockets of the capitalists. Under New Labour, this will be shamelessly carried out under the banner of a "one-nation society". Nevertheless the working people are not prepared to see social programmes and the general interests of society attacked without taking action.

The capitalist system of the rich is in ever deepening crisis, and the greater the crisis on the economic, political, social and other fronts, the more the capitalists crow about the necessity for a "caring, just" society and blame the people for the problems. The programme that Tony Blair is about to impose on the country at the bidding of the financial oligarchy to make Britain "great" again, under the slogan that "Britain deserves better", will be revealed as a programme geared to paying the rich, viciously implementing the offensive against the working class and people.

Faced with this danger, and on this international day of working class solidarity, the working class must declare its independent programme around which all sections of the people can and must be rallied. The central point of such a programme is to Stop Paying the Rich! Only this can be the first step to developing both a harmonious national economy and a political system where the people are sovereign. Not only will such a demand give orientation to the workers' and people's struggles in the coming period, but an entire programme for the renewal of society as the 21st century approaches can be elaborated and fought for on this basis.

With the watchwords No to the Cuts! For a Moratorium on National Debt Payments! Increase Investments in Social Programmes! the elements of a planned economy can be fought for.

The working class must fight for democratic renewal of the political process and institutions, which involves a fundamental change in the electoral system on the basis of candidates being selected from the ranks of the people according to the demand No Election Without Selection! A modern constitution is the necessity of the times which enshrines the rights and duties of all members of the polity on an equal basis by virtue of their humanity and that alone, and vests sovereignty in the people.

The national rights of the peoples must be recognised and respected. The peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland have the right to modern sovereign states.

Internationally, there must be withdrawal from and dismantling of the European Union and the NATO military alliance, based on big power domination. There must be an end to all Britain's colonial and neo-colonial relations and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. The rights of all countries, big or small, to follow their own path must be recognised.

On this May Day, the working class in Britain joins with workers of all countries who are struggling for national and social emancipation and fighting against imperialism. It greets especially the workers of Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and elsewhere who are defending their independence and socialism with great sacrifice under conditions of imperialist hostility.

Only the programme of the working class can lift society out of the crisis and contribute to opening the door for progress.

Stop Paying the Rich!

No to the Cuts!

Increase Social Spending!

ACCORDING TO their manifesto, a New Labour government will make no changes to "planned public spending allowances for the first two years of office". In other words the cuts in welfare and social programmes implemented by the present Conservative government will certainly continue. After this two year period, increased investments in social programmes, such as education and the NHS, by a New Labour government, are either not guaranteed, or dependent on the Private Finance Initiative, or other schemes by which the monopolies can acquire new areas of investment and profit. According to New Labour it will be important for government ministers to save rather than spend and New Labour is confident that it can be more miserly than the Conservatives in this respect.

However, there is one item of government expenditure where New Labour, just like the present government, apparently has no plans for saving, which is the National Debt that currently stands at £292 billion and which has risen substantially over recent years. Interest payments on this debt owed to the financiers have also risen substantially and now total £26.6 billion for this year, larger than the combined spending of several government departments and constituting nearly 10% of all government expenditure. New Labour claim that they will ensure that this debt is at a "stable and prudent level". In other words New Labour is quite happy to administer an economy that is geared to paying the rich, to putting their interests first, while the needs of the masses of the people and of society as a whole are disregarded.

In opposition to the plans of the big parties to continue paying the rich the working class must rally the majority of people around its own programme based on the demand to stop paying the rich and to increase investments in social programmes. The working class must demand a moratorium on national debt payments to the financiers, as an important part of the struggle to develop a planned economy serving the interests of the people and providing for their needs.

THE tasks of RCPB(ML) in the coming period continue to centre around the development of its newspaper, Workers' Weekly, as a paper addressed to the advanced elements of the working class who rally around them the broad sections.

Workers' Weekly is the scaffolding around which RCPB(ML) is built. Crucially, the newspaper is a collective organiser of the working class to play its independent and leading role in society. With the publication of the broadsheet version of Workers' Weekly, which began in the pre-election period on March 29, a programme was instituted to distribute Workers' Weekly on a wide scale. In this post-election period, RCPB(ML) will consolidate the broadsheet version and the dissemination programme and pay attention to developing the role of the newspaper as a collective organiser. As well as continuing to report on the struggles against the anti-social offensive and for a socialist society, Workers' Weekly will develop its coverage of crucial ideological and theoretical questions as an integral part of its programme to Improve the Content, Extend the Readership.

We call upon all our sympathisers and friends to fully support this work.

THE "March for Social Justice" (reported in the previous issue of Workers' Weekly), which took place in London on April 12 and attracted over 20,000 people, was an expression of the powerful underlying resentment of the workers, youth, women and others to the attacks on the rights of the people, to the anti-social offensive and for the empowerment of the people.

The vast majority of the speakers at the rally at the end of the demonstration, including spokespersons for the main organisers, the Liverpool Dock Shops Stewards Committee, gave calls for workers to unite and fight for their rights. The organisers called for "building a workers' agenda and not a capitalist agenda". A representative of workers of Hillingdon Hospital dismissed for refusing to accept a 20% pay cut when their work was privatised, also spoke out against their union leadership which stopped supporting them. Other workers in a similar situation also addressed the mass rally at Trafalgar Square, such as workers from the Magnet company in Darlington, all 350 of whom were fired when they opposed the ongoing company plan which refused to pay 40% of the workers.

Amongst spokespersons from the health sector was a health union activist from East London who highlighted the crisis in the health service, and spoke of the opposition to privatisation, where one service after another is handed over to the private sector. She said that caring for people's health is a responsibility of society, not something to be placed in the hands of the wealthy and powerful whose interest is to exploit the service for private profit. She spoke against the cuts in investment in the health services and said that this cannot be allowed to continue.

An organiser from the fund-raising publication for the homeless, The Big Issue, said amongst other things, "We cannot allow politicians to continuously take from us the power we have seen ill-used. I believe that what we will be doing over the next five years, over the next administration irrespective of its political complexion, will be calling for more action, for people to take responsibility for their lives and not leave it to people who have been officially appointed to represent them. We have to stop being represented by other people and start to represent ourselves." Such contributions won loud applause at the rally.

A representative of RCPB(ML) paid tribute to all the sections of the oppressed people fighting for their rights. He pointed out that though this important march was opposed to the Conservative government, it was also taking a stand against the illusions that a Labour government would solve any problems facing the people. He emphasised that the issue is that society should stop paying the rich, and that there should be increased social spending, as part of a planned economy and of the working people opening the door to progress and putting an end to the crisis.

One of the important lessons of the demonstration was that right in the midst of the election campaign which was organised as an ideological dog-fight between Labour and Conservative to divert attention from the real social and economic problems facing the society, a massive manifestation took place expressing the need to strengthen the unity of the workers and people to politically affirm their own interest, as the most burning question at the present time.

April 28 was Workers' Memorial Day, when the thousands of workers who are killed and injured at work each year are mourned. The slogan for the day is: "Remember the Dead – Fight for the Living". Workers' Memorial Day originated in Canada in 1985.

The death and injury inflicted upon workers is one of the most telling indictments of the capitalist system, where the sole motive of production is making maximum profit, and the health and well-being of those who actually produce everything in society is sacrificed.

According to estimates from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, every day of the year, world-wide, 500 workers are killed at work. This is approximately 200,000 annually. In Britain, more than 400 workers die on average every year.

An estimated 20,000 die from workplace hazards other than in accidents. The construction workers' union UCATT has said that exposure to asbestos alone results in 3,000 to 4,000 deaths a year. Wreaths were laid and memorial ceremonies and activities held throughout Britain on April 28.

Discussion

What Kind of Educational Priorities

Does New Labour Have?

NEW LABOUR has been claiming that its priorities in government will be "Education, Education, Education".

Is this campaign of New Labour, and indeed the other bourgeois parties, to present themselves as the champions of education anything but camouflage behind which stand various companies intent on capitalising on this new market? It appears not, as education has been identified as a source of making maximum capitalist profit by the rich, just as the health service has been transformed into a source of profit through the so-called internal market in health care.

Determined opposition has erupted from amongst the people against the destruction of the education system. It seems that it is this hostility of the people towards the plans of the rich which is being manipulated by New Labour in order to prevent people from taking an independent stand based on the needs of society at this time.

No doubt exists as to the extent of the all-round crisis at each level of the education system, from nursery level provision right through to further and university education. The budgets of Local Education Authorities are being slashed with resultant cuts to spending on schools, the sacking of teachers, increased class sizes and reduced resources to maintain schools and educational standards.

Amongst New Labour's policy objectives is the intention to ensure every school is linked to the information superhighway. It is this objective which, on closer inspection, demonstrates how the education system is being increasingly tied in with the narrow aims of the bourgeoisie. New Labour has struck a deal with British Telecom. In return for connecting schools, libraries and hospitals to the Internet, broadcasting restrictions currently imposed on BT will be lifted. In a similar vein, at the 1996 Labour Party Conference, Tony Blair informed delegates of an aim to invite private companies to set up a "national grid for learning" with services on the Internet for schools, colleges and universities, whilst in April 1996 he announced that New Labour would establish a panel of businessmen to examine how a pledge to provide a laptop computer for every school pupil could be implemented.

In present-day capitalist society, education exists only in so far as it serves the needs of the rich, either as a source of profit and lucrative investment, or whereby they can obtain a pool of trained workforce at no cost to themselves. The majority are denied a decent standard of education and are destined for long periods of unemployment. Education is not recognised as a right that belongs to all and should be available to all at the highest level as befits the stage of society. A modern perspective on education provision would see the system transformed through the ending of the current arrangements whereby paying the rich is the sole aim of society. Investment in education would be increased. The aim of the education system would be to prepare the citizens of the country to contribute, as enlightened individuals, to the resolution of society's problems and to its continuous renovation and advance.

The working class and people must continue their struggles against the plans of the rich which are ensuring that the education system is only geared to their interests and not to the needs of the people. Only a society led by the working class with its own political programme can provide the radical transformations necessary to the provision of education as society prepares to enter the 21st century.

THE GENERAL ELECTION is taking place within the context of the deepening of the all-round crisis of the capitalist system with the economic crisis at the base. Precisely at a time when the situation demands that the workers take a political stand in developing their struggle against the anti-social offensive, the greatest pressure is put on the workers to adopt an ideological position.

Not a small number of "socialist" or "left" forces create confusion and divisions in the ranks of the workers by advocating that the issue is "vote Labour" on the basis of the notion of the "lesser evil". Besides everything else, the theory of the "lesser evil" is inherently flawed because it presupposes that the working class will first accept their condition as modern slaves as eternal and whatever else they do they will not fight to emancipate themselves but only participate in the "ideological" dogfight between representatives of the slavemasters to keep slavery going.

A political stand means that the workers must unite, regardless of beliefs and ideological persuasions in their struggle to advance their class interests and the interest of the whole society in opposition to the political and economic offensive of the capitalists. Juxtaposing the economic, political, philosophical, cultural and other outlook of Labour with Conservative parties, labelling one as the "lesser evil" and the other as the "greater evil" when they have the same fundamental essence only serves the cause of the exploiters by dividing the workers along ideological lines and diverts them from politicising themselves in the course of the struggle to advance their own interest.

Sooner or later the workers are bound to see through the diversions, and take their struggles against the capitalist system to a higher level. This is precisely how the workers should respond at this time where maximum pressure is being brought to bear on the workers to divide ideologically under the great hoax that supporting a "lesser evil" today will somehow advance their interests tomorrow.

ONE OF THE MOST outrageous things about the anti-social offensive is that cuts in social spending on education and welfare benefits with growing unemployment and homelessness which so devastates youth, are cynically portrayed as a "necessary evil" and not a crime against the society. At the same time youth are being blamed for "rising crime". Using the pretext that young offenders are responsible for committing "seven million crimes a year", they are top of the list targeted by the law and order forces for special punishment. Labour's election slogan on crime simply threatens, "young offenders will be punished".

The criminalisation of the youth diverts attention away from the brutal manner in which youth are treated in capitalist society. The capitalist system cannot guarantee the youth a future. Youth are the main victims of the "jobless recovery", they make up the highest proportion of homeless, they are the most exploited section of the workforce, they are the main causality of drug abuse, and youth are seen as the most expendable cannon-fodder for the imperialist military machine.

The slogan "young offenders will be punished" is a signal that Labour will launch an even more violent assault on youth under the pretext of "protecting society". In response to this, youth have no alternative but to oppose the pressure to marginalise them and then attack them, and must become political themselves and play their forefront role as fighters for a new society, which can only be socialist, work out their own future.

On April 24, Health workers at South Tyneside Health Care Trust received the final part of an increase in wages that brought all 600 low paid health workers to a minimum of £4.15 per hour. The pay offer was negotiated by the unions at the hospital as part of a national campaign last year for minimum pay of £4.15 per hour. However, such a minimum wage was only achieved at a handful of hospitals throughout the country and usually in exchange for a saving on management costs like the move to monthly pay at South Tyneside. With the implementation of the minimum pay offer this month it is becoming apparent that workers, and in particular women, who receive the minimum wage will have to hand over to the Treasury most of their pay rise. Part time workers who earn under £62 per week do not pay national insurance and are therefore not entitled to state benefits such as maternity pay and sick pay. If they earn just above this threshold, they find that two-thirds of any increase is clawed back by the Treasury in national insurance.

THE US war against Cuba dates back a long way. It began last century, and is now being intensified almost daily. The goal has always been the same: to appropriate the island of Cuba and convert it into a new kind of colony, like they did with Puerto Rico.

This is what led the United States to intervene in the Cuban struggle for independence back in 1898, when the colonial power, Spain, was all but defeated and the patriots' victory was close at hand. They occupied Cuba by force for four years, and imposed the infamous Platt Amendment, which granted them the territory for establishing the naval base at Guantanamo and the right to send troops to any part of the country whenever they saw fit. In short, they converted Cuba into a neo-colony, which lasted until the Revolution led by Fidel Castro triumphed in 1959.

The mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, which was organised, financed and armed by the US government, was one more link in the chain of aggression, terrorism, crime, subversion, psychological warfare, and the introduction of plagues and diseases affecting people, crops and livestock. The pretext used to justify the invasion was the series of far-reaching social measures adopted from the very beginning of the revolutionary process. These measures included a radical agrarian reform program, through which large tracts of fertile land were confiscated from US companies and large local landholders, to be distributed among those who worked it.

Contrary to all of the forecasts made by the CIA, the Pentagon and the White House, the 1961 invasion was defeated in just 72 hours, despite the enemy's superior aerial capability and the sophistication of their weapons. The mercenaries who had neither died in battle nor managed to flee were captured. In spite of the fact that they had served a foreign power against their own homeland, a classic case of treason, they were freed close to one year later. On April 16, 24 hours before the fighting commenced, Fidel had proclaimed the adoption of socialism in Cuba; at the Bay of Pigs, we fought for socialism, and triumphed.

The invasion was followed by the establishment of the blockade, a measure aimed at strangling the country. Over the last 35 years, the blockade has brought about material losses estimated at more than 60 billion dollars. This blockade has been almost unanimously condemned on numerous occasions by the UN General Assembly, and under the circumstances of the current economic difficulties, it has had a marked effect on the Cuban population's quality of life and standard of living. With the collapse of socialism in Europe, they assumed that the Cuban Revolution would be the next to fall, like a house of cards. The fact that Cuba has remained independent and sovereign in spite of everything is a source of great irritation, and they have resorted to legislation aimed at total strangulation, like the Helms-Burton Act. They have adopted other tactics as well: fomenting division, subsidising counter-revolutionary groups, attempting to force the rest of the world to join in the blockade, and approving plans for a transition from socialism to capitalism. With incredible arrogance, they are demanding that Cuba implant another political regime in order to certify that it is truly democratic. They are calling for changes that would signify privatizing the economy and public services, seizing the people's lands, homes and workplaces, and undoing their social achievements: free health care and education, the right to sports and culture, freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex and race. They plan to do away with the forces of the Ministry of the Interior, which over the years has foiled hundreds of attempts to destroy the Revolution and assassinate its leaders, particularly President Fidel Castro. They hope to convert our people's army into a mercenary force to take part in their "peacekeeping" and intervention operations in other Third World nations. They claim that elections in Cuba are not free and that human rights are violated. These are the accusations they make against a country where in 1993, during the most recent general elections, 99.5 percent of the eligible voters cast their ballots, and 95.6 percent of them did it in favour of the candidates put forward by the people. These are the accusations they make against a country where at the beginning of the Revolution there were one million illiterate people, 3000 doctors, three universities, one medical school and an infant mortality rate of 60 per 1000 live births, while today there are 60,000 doctors, a school enrolment rate of over 97 percent for children up to 12 years of age and 92 percent up to 16 years of age, 40 universities, 21 medical schools and an infant mortality rate of 7.9, comparable to any developed nation. Moreover, Cuba occupies 20th place in terms of medals won during the first century of the modern Olympic Games (1896-1996), with 46 gold, 36 silver and 34 bronze. The Cuban people have remained undefeated by the United States' war against them during these 37 years of Revolution, and every day they prove that they are prepared to defend themselves time and time again. They say, together with their political leaders: "There will be no return to the yoke of slavery."

Rodolfo Casals (Granma International staff writer)

Party activists from various parts of London gathered at John Buckle Books on April 22 to mark the fifth anniversary of the original signing on April 20, 1992, by 70 communist and workers' parties in the capital of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea of the declaration "Let us defend and promote the cause of socialism". A representative of the Central Committee of RCPB(ML) pointed out that the Pyongyang Declaration, which was signed by our Party on October 27, 1995, and has now been signed by a total of 235 parties, has become a historic document of great importance for many parties and people who aspire to socialism, a milestone in the historic advance towards its final victory. A toast was raised to the Declaration and to the common cause of socialism.

DURING the general election campaign scores of meetings both big and small were organised by different social and political forces in localities throughout the country to raise discussions on the elections amongst different sections of the electorate. Although the majority of those were organised by the main parliamentary parties and also by those organisations supporting or ensnared by the pro-Labour programme of the bourgeoisie, many other organisations and social activists took initiatives to raise discussions about the real problems facing the electorate. Amongst students for example, activists of RCPB(ML) in Newcastle and London took initiative last week to carry out propaganda work and debates challenging the marginalisation of the electorate whereby, it is claimed, politics "is best left to the politicians". In Newcastle for instance a meeting was called by the Marxist-Leninist Study Group on April 24, which discussed the importance of the workers organising around their own programme. In several central London colleges, leaflets were distributed over two days and Workers' Weekly sold, taking up the issue of the crisis of parliamentary democracy.

All the initiatives which oppose the marginalisation of the electorate are an important part of the work to politicise the people and the thwart the attempts of bourgeois politicians to bamboozle them.

FROM MARCH 27-30, the Communist Party of Denmark (Marxist-Leninist) (DKP/ML) convened its 7th Congress. The Congress adopted a Programme for a Socialist Denmark, concluding a period of more than three years of discussion on it within the Party and amongst all communists in Denmark. It sums up the experience of socialism on the world scale, analyses the national situation, and concludes that socialism is the only real alternative to the capitalist system and the project of the European monopolies to create a European Union under their total dictate.

The 7th Congress of DKP/ML also dealt with constitutional amendments; the Party's line and tactics to strengthen its influence in the working class and trade union movement, and amongst the youth; concrete proposals to advance the struggle against Denmark's entry into the European Union; and the strengthening of the Party's daily newspaper Dagbladet Arbejderen (The Daily Worker). The Congress also reaffirmed the DKP/ML as a Marxist-Leninist party that stands with the international communist movement, underlining its internationalist support for Cuba, the DPRK and all other peoples and nations fighting for national independence and socialism.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRAZIL (PCdoB), led by Joao Amazonas, celebrated its 75th anniversary on March 25, 1997. PCdoB is one of the few parties in the world which, at the time of the rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union, did not succumb to its pressures, neither adopting Khrushchevite revisionism nor allowing itself to be split because of it. The PCdoB has endured and survived the most difficult conditions of complete illegality and brutal suppression, with many of its cadres having experienced the harsh conditions of clandestine work. The 75th anniversary marks a long history of unbroken leadership in the struggle of the working class and people of Brazil for freedom, national independence and socialism.

In October, the PCdoB will convene its 9th Congress. At its 8th Congress, held in 1992, the PCdoB decided that its existing programme of a two-stage revolution, democratic and then socialist, needed to be replaced by a programme recognising only one stage of revolution in Brazil: a socialist revolution within which the democratic and anti-imperialist tasks would also be fulfilled. It entered into a period of country-wide discussions on a Socialist Programme for Brazil, leading to its successful adoption at the Party's 8th National Conference in August of 1995.