Details

On the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Marx on 5 May 1818, we will no doubt see many reflections on the relevance and legacy of his work. Some will claim serious scholarship, others, like a recent Financial Times skit on the Communist Manifesto (‘Life and Arts’, 10 March 2018), will pour scorn on his work.

In the imperialist countries it has become the norm to concede that Marx made an important contribution to economic thought but to deny the Marx who would destroy the capitalist system. It is our hope that at least some of these bicentenary contributions will have the political courage not to separate Marx the revolutionary from Marx the social and economic critic of capitalism.

Details

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no 7, November/December 1980

The article below is the first of a series of three. Today with the hunger strike in the H-Blocks, the need to understand and act upon the revolutionary significance of the Irish war is more urgent than ever. The communist tradition on Ireland holds a wealth of theoretical, political and tactical lessons for us today. For communists the question of Irish self-determination stands at the heart of the British revolution. This is as true today as it was when Marx first stated it over hundred years ago. Now as then Irish liberation is the pre-condition the British revolution. Communists, as these articles will show, have always stood for the fullest freedom for the Irish people and have waged a determined struggle against those opportunists in the working class movement who have repeatedly betrayed that struggle. This series of articles is therefore of immense importance for communists and revolutionaries in Britain.

‘The policy of Marx and Engels on the Irish question serves as a splendid example of the attitude the proletariat of the oppressor nation should adopt towards national movements, an example which has lost none of its immense practical importance ...’ (Lenin)

Over 100 years ago Marx and Engels laid the foundation for a consistent communist standpoint on Ireland. Through their work on Ireland in the First International they were able to develop a proletarian policy towards national liberation movements not only for the British working class but for the international working class movement as a whole. That policy as we shall see, has lost none of its practical importance for the struggle to build a communist movement today.

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba – from FRFI 85, March 1989

‘Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won.' (New Yorker 23 January 1989)

‘We face a tremendous historical challenge. Who will win? Who will prevail? The selfish, chaotic and inhumane capitalist regime? Or the more rational and humane socialist system? This is the challenge which now faces not just Cuban youth and the Cuban people, but the youth and people of all the socialist countries.’ (Fidel Castro Granma 29 January 1989)

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba – from
FRFI 82, November/December 1988

Recent issues of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! have dealt with the debate on the transition to socialism. This debate so far has been dominated by the dramatic changes underway in the Soviet Union under perestroika and glasnost. Capitalist ideologists have seen in the Soviet reforms a vindication of capitalist principles and social norms. The left in Britain, politically and ideologically retreating before Thatcherism, has been unable and unwilling to attempt a serious defence of Marxism-Leninism. Cuba has been engaged in a process of 'rectification' since 1986. This has provided Fidel Castro with the material for assessing the transition to socialism in a third world country. His analysis, however, has produced conclusions that have a more general validity. They represent a major defence of Marxism-Leninism in the face of the systematic retreat widespread in the communist movement today. That is why so far his ideas have either been ridiculed or ignored in Britain. Here we reprint extracts from Castro's speeches with a commentary.

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba – from
FRFI 86, April/May 1989

Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to Cuba and Britain, immediately following on from Margaret Thatcher's tour of a number of African countries, gives us another opportunity to examine some aspects of the relation between socialism and imperialism.

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba – from
FRFI 83, January 1989

Socialists will welcome Mikhail Gorbachev's initiative at the United Nations on 7 December 1988. The decision by the Soviet Union to make substantial unilateral cuts in Soviet troops, tanks, artillery and combat aircraft throws down a challenge to the imperialists. Are they prepared, even able, to take the path of disarmament and peace?

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba– from
FRFI 81, September 1988

The dramatic events unfolding in the Soviet Union offer a unique opportunity to reassess what is, in fact, the very short history of socialism. It is an opportunity to learn crucial lessons and, yes, to voice criticism, but only as a means to strengthen the communist movement. This is a comment on Patrick Newman's series on Gorbachev's 70th Anniversary speech. The imperialists will use the process of self-criticism going on in the Soviet Union to discredit it and all it has accomplished. There are others, so-called socialists, who will only be concerned to use it as a means to promote their own narrow opportunist political dogma. The Eurocommunist wing of the CPGB sees Gorbachev's programme as the ideological counterpart and historical justification for their own 'new realism'. The Socialist Workers' Party, and other trotskyist organisations, use it as a means to justify their continuing support for every kind of reactionary opposition in the socialist countries themselves. The communist movement has nothing to gain from any of these currents.

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba (from FRFI 80 August 1988)

'Nothing of this kind has occurred in this country for nearly six decades,' said Mikhail Gorbachev in his closing speech to the 19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). For four days between 28 June and 1 July 1988, 5,000 delegates participated in an historic event, the most open, political debate held in the Soviet Union in their lifetimes.

Details

A new path for socialism? Revolutionary renewal in the Soviet Union and Cuba – 1989

Introduction

The socialist movement worldwide is in turmoil. Dramatic events in the Soviet Union and China over the last few years have called into question accepted political institutions and ideology. With these developments taking place in the context of an intense global counter-offensive by the imperialist powers, a very serious assault on the basic conceptions of communism has emerged.

Details

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 94 April/May 1990

Over 120 years ago, through their work in the First International, Marx and Engels established that the question of Irish self-determination stands at the heart of the British revolution. It was at that time that they first publicly argued and fought for their changed position on the issue of Irish liberation and its relation to the struggle of the British working class.

Their dramatic change of view on this question was of enormous significance not only for the British working class but also more generally, for the international working class movement. In particular, as capitalism entered its imperialist phase and opportunist currents began to dominate working class movements in the more developed capitalist countries, it was a pointer to the increasing significance of national liberation struggles of oppressed peoples for the working class struggle for socialism.

Details

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 93 February/March 1990

That Marx participated in the First International from the beginning was decisive and gave the International a place in working class history. He was, in fact, drawn into its proceedings at the last minute, being invited to attend a committee meeting to finalise the arrangements of the founding meeting half an hour before it took place. An estimated 2,000 people attended the meeting. It had been given a great deal of publicity in the London trade union movement through the Beehive. Besides the many British trade unionists present there were strong contingents of French, Italian, Swiss and Polish workers as well as many members of the German Workers' Educational Society. (This is the second in a three part series on the First International.)

In the opening speech the chair, Professor Beesly, expressed the hope that ‘the results of the meeting would be to create a co-operative and fraternal feeling between the workingmen of England and all other countries’. In his address he attacked British foreign and colonial policy. ‘England wrongfully held possession of Gibraltar from Spain, and her conduct in China, Japan, India and elsewhere was cowardly and unprincipled.’ Beesly had included Britain's policy towards Ireland in his indictment but the Beehive failed to report this – a fact of some significance for later events. (Ireland and the First International will be covered in a separate article).

Details

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

LENIN'S IMPERIALISM AND THE SPLIT IN SOCIALISM:
ITS RELEVANCE FOR REBUILDING THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT IN IMPERIALIST COUNTRIES TODAY

From 21-23 October 1997, at the invitation of the Communist Party of Cuba, the Revolutionary Communist Group attended a conference in Havana to pay homage to Che Guevara: Socialism in the 21st Century. More than 200 delegates from 97 organisations participated in three commissions: 'The reality of contemporary socialism', 'The validity of Marxist-Leninist thought' and 'Imperialism at the end of the century'. DAVID YAFFE presented the RCG's paper 'Lenin's Imperialism and the split in the working class - its relevance for rebuilding the socialist movement in imperialist countries today' in the commission on Marxist-Leninist thought. It is reprinted below.

Capitalism is failing the vast majority of humanity. 1.3bn of the world's population live in absolute poverty. Inequalities are rapidly widening between rich and poor nations and within all nations whether rich or poor. Britain has registered the greatest inequalities in wage levels since statistics began in 1886. Yet in imperialist countries like Britain, no political parties have so far arisen to represent the interests of the growing numbers of poor working class people. There are few signs, as yet, of the revival of the socialist movement.