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Greetings to the resistance in Greece from the revolutionary prisoners
The revolutionary prisoners at the F-Type Prison of Tekirdag No:1 made a statement to greet the resistance of the Greek people, which started as a reaction against the police murder and spread to all parts of the country. The full text of the statement made by prisoners affiliated to the MLCP, DHKP-C, Resistance Movement, MKP, TIKB, TKEP/L and TKP/ML is as follows:
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The Greek people, workers and labourers are in action since December 6. After the murder of 15 year old Alexis Gregoropoulos by the bullets of the Greek police, the Greek people responded this murder with a great resistance and revolt. The universities were taken; the streets were set on fire with the strong breath of the demonstrators. The actions that were supported by the strikes of the Greek workers and labourers did not only spread to all parts of the country, but also passed the borders and found its reflection in many countries of Europe.
The Greek government shows a total withdrawal in face of the actions. The government has the fear that the actions would grow wider and destroy its power. It has nothing to do against the demonstrators who set fire to the streets in the country which is alerted. The power of action has now become above everything. The Greek people, full of anger against the system with the influence of the economic and political crisis, did not limit themselves with demanding an account for the murder of the teenager by the police only, but they also turn this into a great resistance and revolt.
The global economic crisis of capitalism has dragged the workers and labourers of the world into the clutches of unemployment, hunger and death. The revolutionary revolt of the Greek people has shown once more that workers and labourers are not helpless in face of the exploitation and oppression. What our exploited and oppressed Turkish and Kurdish people have to do in face of economic, social and political problems is to show solidarity with the Greek workers and labourers, to organise themselves and to fight for the revolution and socialism. The only way for the emancipation from this system of exploitation and oppression is the revolution and is to take the power for socialism.
As the revolutionary prisoners from the F-Type Prison of Tekirdag No:1, we greet the dignified resistance of the Greek people and announce that their fight is our fight.
Long live the resistance of the Greek people!
Long live the revolution and socialism!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
On behalf of the prisoners of the MLCP, DHKP-C, Resistance Movement, MKP, TIKB, TKEP/L and TKP/ML: Hasan Polat, Fikret Akar, Murat Karayel, Ayhan Gungor, Ertan Altun, Nurettin Temel and Ulvi Yalcin
The Maoist-Third Worldists at Monkey Smashes Heaven have published their position on Ireland. We will respond to the MSH article at a later date.
On competing land claims of the oppressed nations
(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)
Bob Avakian
Imperialists often raise the issue of competing land claims among oppressed nations in order to undermine national liberation. Those in the White “left” often raise this bogey. For example, RCP is known to attack national liberation along these lines. This should not be surprising since RCP is the same organization that made a point of telling indigenous peoples that they eat their own shit. (1) RCP has a long, notorious history of racism. RCP is typical of the White “left.”
Around the time of its Draft Programme, RCP argued the following way: There are conflicting land claims between various oppressed nations in North America. Therefore, all land claims of should be rejected. This is an obvious non-sequitur. The imperialist borders should be opposed regardless. RCP’s approach is also a de facto justification of the current imperialist order. It is de facto White supremacist.
Our experience has been that the oppressed recognize that they have more in common with each other than they do with their oppressors. The oppressed of different nations often recognize that their struggle is, ultimately, one and the same. They exhibit a level proletarian internationalism due to where they stand within capitalist-imperialism. One of the founding documents of the national liberation struggle of occupied Mexico is the 1915 Plan of San Diego that conceived of itself not just as a plan to liberate Mexican populations, but also liberate and grant independence to other indigenous peoples, and Blacks and Asians who were subjugated by Whites. Similar internationalist sentiments have been expressed among the other indigenous peoples in North America. Defeating White imperialism will require a broad united front that goes beyond just the nations of Mexico and beyond just the nations within U$ borders.
Here are some points on competing land claims in North America:
1. The competing land claims issue is a bogey raised by imperialists to undermine the broad united front against imperialism.
Well intentioned narrow nationalists who raise the issue have an inadequate grasp of the principal contradiction. The principal contradiction, the main dynamic shaping our world, is between the exploited nations (and their oppressed nation allies) and imperialism. The main enemies of individual oppressed nations in North America are not other oppressed nations, even if there are historic border disputes. The main enemy is imperialism, especially U$ imperialism.
Lin Biao
2. Imperialists should not have any say on how oppressed nations settle their differences. Imperialists are enemies of the oppressed nations. The oppressed have more in common with each other than they do with the imperialists. Oppressed nations can work out their own disputes without paternalistic help. To fan the flames of conflict among oppressed nations aids the White occupation. Conflict among the oppressed nations only helps the imperialists. Revolutionaries will encourage unity and internationalism.
3. There is plenty of land to go around among the oppressed nations once Amerika is crushed. There is plenty of room for negotiation because there is so much land.
4. Utopian schemes to exactly restore the past are not the best approaches to redrawing the North American map. The best approach is one based on fairness, that balances the interests of many indigenous and other oppressed nations, but also takes the historic map into consideration.
We hope that this clarifies our line on this issue.
Notes.
1. Churchill, Ward. Marxism and Native Americans.
Onward Christian soldiers
The British Army marched triumphantly once more through an Irish city and the left who usually fall over themselves to promote anti-imperialist issues relating to Palestine and Iraq were not to be seen with the exception of the WSM picket. Palestine and Iraq are far-off places, it’s short term beneficial for the left to parade in keffiyeh scarves waving Hezbollah flags, meanwhile ignoring the murderous atrocities carried out by the British army in their own country. When the chickens come home to roost, the left run cowering behind imaginary slogans.
In 1968 as Agent Orange rained on Vietnam, members of the Amerikan armed forces marched through Belfast, senior members of the Communist Party of Ireland disrupted the procession by sitting on the road. Later that year, CPI member Betty Sinclair at the October 5th march in Derry publicly told people not to get involved in confrontations with the police as RUC batons came down on the heads of peaceful civil rights protesters.
The WSM called off their picket owing to ‘security concerns’, in other words, they were threatened by Loyalists. The slogans of working class unity were not received by the upwards of 30,000 who turned out to cheer on war criminals and the gangs of Loyalist youth who circled Belfast city center for hours after – presumably looking for “fenians”. Like all settlers from Africa, Palestine, Amerika to Ireland they have no interests in sharing their ill gotten gains with those they disposed and whose land they stole. These are the same people who put immigrants out of their homes and who cheered on the illegal Loyalist murder gangs, now they cheer for the legal murder gangs.
Loyalism’s mirror image
In another statement released prior to the march, WSM spokesperson Sean Matthews said:
“WSM have nothing in common with rival republican organisations seeking to ‘outgun’ each other over the reactionary mantle of nationalism. The WSM is equally opposed to the oppressive role of imperialism under the British Army and the blight of militarism still endured by working-class communities at the hands of paramilitary organisations” [1]
This is standard language from the left, who consistently fail to take a coherent and honest anti-imperialist position – the WSM choose to celebrate 150 RIR solders going AWOL, their poster coupled with a picture of a dog and a pint of Guinness. Life-style politics at the best.
In any case, what Matthews is saying is that Republicans and the Brits are as bad as each other. The argument is subjective, Republicans never carried out sectarian murders as part of a consistent campaign but they did of course kill Protestants, in some cases as a reaction to Loyalist sectarian attacks. The Republican armed campaign, whilst inniu is critical of it, was noble in its aim. Loyalist murder gangs, backed by the British Army, RUC, MI5 and all of the state infrastructure on the other hand, served no purpose other than murdering as many Catholics as possible.
The left should perhaps adopt the slogan ‘croppies lie down’ because they are part and parcel of the system of British rule here. They all, with a few exceptions, support Stormont, the status quo and the Good Friday Agreement, vis-à-vis British rule in Ireland. Others have gone further than this position and have openly toured UVF murderer Billy Hutchinson around Britain and Scotland as an ‘independent working class loyalist voice’. He is anything but. Hutchinson is a sectarian murderer who subsequently has been described as a ‘liberation theologian’ during his 2001 campaign against school children largely from Ardoyne attending a Catholic school in the Glenbyrne Loyalist area. During this campaign, balloons filled with piss, pipebombs and other material were thrown at school children as young as five years old by grown men, organised by in-part by Hutchinson’s organisation and defended by the state infrastructure – the DUP’s Nelson McCausland (who blamed the school children for the trouble) and RUC/PSNI.
The conclusion from Sunday’s events should be that the Irish people have become pacified. The speech delivered by Chairperson Brian Leeson at éirígí’s event spoke of ‘victory’, Leeson told us that we had won and made reference to the fact éirígí refused to use the parades commission. This is standard language that has been used to disguise defeat, most notably by the Provisionals who still talk of ‘victory’ but who ended up completely humiliated and defeated.
Working class unity?
The Provisionals for their part, have proven to be absolutely bound by the shackles of Stormont. Their protest was attacked and their response was to criticise the PSNI for not defending them. Why would the PSNI, successors to the RUC and the cogs of Britain’s war machine seek to protect the relatives of those people whose murders they were involved in? In any case, the delayed response of the PSNI avoided any major confrontation. On the other hand, it must be stated that the policy of British state apparatus has moved from a position confrontation to one of coercion.
Provisional Movement members see no contradiction in protesting against the RIR, amongst the other British military branches on parade and the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast laying a poppy wreath at the cenotaph at Belfast City Hall.
Éirígí essentially capitulated. Éirígí members has bolstered up Sunday’s event to be confrontation with the state, what was found was that éirígí waited until the PSNI had sealed the entrance to the city center before proceeding, then they had their own members stand between the crowd and the PSNI. This is hardly the defiance that éirígí spokesperson Seán MacBrádaigh warned of in the Andersonstown News and which Leeson claimed had happened on the day, the tactics and strategy of the day were completely at odds with Leeson’s speech.
James Connolly
With no surprise, the usual suspects have again rolled out the tired slogans of economism (gas and water socialism) prior to this Sunday’s Royal Irish Regiment parade in Belfast. It is not surprising and is part of a general trend which James Connolly grappled with in the Connolly-Walker Controversy documents.
The Irish left have consistently failed to challenge imperialism in any consistent or coherent manner since the times of Connolly. The arguments both Lenin, Connolly and additionally Seamus Costello put forward against economism have stood the test of time. Any revolutionary fermentation in Ireland has always been manifested by the issue of the national question and has been harnessed by the national liberation forces.
Davy Carlin, a member of the Workers Solidarity Movement published an article in the past few days which was incorrect on several points, particularly around the fact he compares Republicanism and Loyalism as mirror opposites – they aren’t. One is a progressive nationalist ideology which is ant-imperialist and has a general democratic content, the other is a reactionary creation of imperialism to subvert the Irish people through the Protestant labour aristocracy. Although the Protestant labour aristocracy has diminished somewhat, Protestants are still relatively speaking better-off than Catholics.
Davy neglects to mention that imperialism exists in Ireland both in an obvious and not so obvious form. We will deal with the obvious forms here – the British army is still here, the Unionists still have a veto over the rest of the Irish people, MI5 is continuing to recruit informers, the PSNI is still hauling Republicans off to prison and Westminster have the final say over anything and everything. The left believe these things shouldn’t be mentioned for they will alienate Protestants. This should be taken as an indication of the sectarian nature of Protestants in general but the left are oblivious to reality.
To instead talk about working class unity is fantasy. Why would Protestants, who historically were the landed class, give up their ill-gotten gains for the Catholics they trampled upon and whose extracted surplus value they have lived on for hundreds of years? The north Belfast housing situation in recent times is enough to shatter any illusions of ‘working class unity’, historically, the non-action of the Protestant working class speak for themselves – the left instead pander to their sectarian nature and sections of the left like the Socialist Party, Communist Party of Ireland and members of the Irish Socialist Network believe the Ulster Volunteer Force are somehow revolutionary or at the least represent an independent trend of Protestant working class thought. Ulster’s fascists represent as much of independent working class trend as the Ku Klux Klan in America.
The UVF is a creation of British imperialism. It is a sectarian organisation that murders people because of their religion or nationality. The UVF and Ulster Defense Association have been at the forefront of organising sectarian and racist attacks against migrant workers and are providing the recruiting ground for the British National Party to begin their advent into the north.
Davy claims the march is being “sectarianised via various quarters”. But this is just what the march is. It’s a sectarian coat-trailing ceremony organised by the British Ministry of Defense to celebrate the plunder of Iraq and to get the croppies to once more lie down. Sectarianism is a creation of British rule in Ireland. It is not a creation of the Republican Movement at any stage of history. To really be opposed to sectarianism in Ireland we must understand the primary contradiction, the primary contradiction is between Irish and British rule – sectarianism didn’t fall from the sky in 1920 but it is a carefully crafted structure of British imperialism. Davy absolves British rule of any responsibility, his article gives the impression that Britain is neutral and that Republicans and Loyalists are squabbling over some irrelevancy.
Sections of Republicanism have bought into the imperialist myth and today are talking about the ‘Protestant Unionist Loyalist’ community and the ‘Protestant working class’ – we believe neither exists. Both are artificial and are proven creations of partition to enhance British rule and to create confusion amongst those who claim to be anti-imperialist. Prior to partition it was rare to hear a Unionist call themselves ‘British’, they referred to themselves as Irish, some were avid Irish speakers that kept the language alive in times of persecution. Although they considered themselves Irish, it was a different type of Irish than the Republican croppy.
Should be the people of Africa seek a ‘third way’ with the Boers, who have murdered, robbed and raped their way across several African countries? The answer is a resounding no, the people of Zimbabwe and elsewhere have the right to stand up and to take back what is rightfully theirs.
Hopefully the Irish people realise that path also.
From Shubel Morgan
The signing of the Good Friday Agreement signaled the death of radical Irish Republicanism. It is important that Marxists in Britain and also further afield, but primarily Republicans in Ireland take stock of the failures of armed Republicanism and draw serious conclusions for the struggle which inevitably lies ahead. Those on the British left who supported the IRA without criticism now are unable to explain how and why the IRA and their political wing, Sinn Féin, are firmly within the enemy camp. As a consequence and despite the denials of those who should perhaps know better, Irish unification is no longer on the agenda.
These difficulties have their origins in class antagonisms. The class to which Irish Republicanism has owed its allegiance never has been the working class. It is only natural that when the armed campaign fails, Republicans will gradually gravitate towards an internal settlement, accommodation and collaboration with imperialism – it is largely within their interests as a class to do so. The only exception of this has been when the Republican Movement, arising out of the failure of the Operation Harvest / Border Campaign (1956-1962) adopted a consistent class programme which was expanded upon at the Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown in 1966 in an oration which would not be overly revolutionary by today’s standards.
Sinn Féin have now replaced the once dominant Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as a strong voice for the emergent northern Catholic middle class. The party is playing different tunes for different audiences. In working class areas, party propaganda includes the iconic image of Che Guevara and the militarist image is maintained. In contrast, the party now has branches in affluent areas which largely escaped the consequences of the war, the BT9 post code in Belfast being the most prominent. Far from what is implied, the people on the Malone Road cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as Republics or Socialists. The increase in mandate and support in these areas for Sinn Féin is purely the selfish economic interest of the Catholic middle class.
This view is reaffirmed by a recent poll which stated, “Perhaps more surprisingly, still, 16 per cent of those surveyed who were Sinn Féin voters said they too would opt for the Province remaining in the UK…” (‘Newsletter’, 8 August) This is hardly surprising and is part of an ever increasing trend.
It is well and good to critisise Sinn Féin but it is well established that Republicanism is now in crisis. There is little coherency, leadership or analysis of what went wrong. Republicans largely explain defeat after defeat as ‘glorious failures’ led by sellouts but as Marxists we must take a different perspective. The organisations which continue to uphold Republicanism, particularly the military organisations find themselves ever more marginalised, ineffective and without clarity. Recently they have became more active with attacks on police offices but these have largely been met with a muted response from those within the nationalist community who would have supported attacks at one time.
The majority of the working class genuinely believe these actions belong to a by-gone day – it is unfortunate that this is the case but it’s the nature of the extraction of super profits from the third world and the ever growing labour aristocracy in northern Ireland. The appetite which existed for armed struggle in the 1970s and early 1980s no longer exists and indeed, the reasons for armed struggle, it could be argued, no longer exist. Another generation of armed Republicans are prepared to risk their lives in pursuit of an armed campaign, despite the fact that a huge vacuum exists within the nationalist community for a political alternative to the collaborator politics of Sinn Féin and the SDLP.
The tactics of militant Irish Republicanism have been an absolute and dismal failure. Since 1798 they have failed to deliver their intended goals. Re-thinks have already happened, particularly in the 1930s with the Republican Congress and in the 1960s with the swing to the left but these events have largely been marginal. The Official Republican Movement, for example, alienated the working class from their position on the armed struggle, the national question and other matters of extreme importance by in part using extreme and exaggerated language. Contrary to what the Officials argued, the Provisionals were not “a haven for sectarian gunmen” but were a genuine expression of nationalist discontent.
The agreement is a programme of the British ruling class which has been used to their benefit. It was the final nail in the coffin in pacifying the national liberation movement – it is well and truly dead. It is not surprising, for this reason that the agreement is being exported to Iraq and the Basque Country by the British government with the active support of Sinn Féin including a delegation to Iraq led by Martin McGuinness who said –
“I also want to applaud the courage and leadership shown by these Iraqi politicians. I think something very important, something very powerful is beginning to happen.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7489785.stm)
Surely if the Good Friday Agreement is a guarantee of Irish unity and Sinn Féin entered the talks and Stormont from a “position of strength” then it would not be required for them to export the weapons of defeat and surrender to other national liberation struggles. It would be up to Anglo-American imperialism to quash national liberation struggles themselves.
The image the Provos project and the reality is quite detached. Sinn Féin have not entered the new Stormont administration from a position of strength but rather a defeat. It would be very easy to believe that Sinn Féin are calling the shots in Stormont but the DUP well and truly are in control. Sinn Féin have been humiliated into supporting the PSNI, decommissioning IRA weapons and adopting a series of positions which just a few years ago would’ve caused uproar. All we have seen thus far of the position of strength has been blunt threats from Adams and company which haven’t came to fruition.
The failure to adopt a class programme dictates that once the national question has been subsided that there is no other option than collaboration. If the case was otherwise, Sinn Féin could’ve went into retreat and and formed a principled opposition to Stormont and British rule based on the mobilisation of the working class but this wasn’t an option. Sinn Féin had no need for a mass movement beyond a reverse of support for the armed campaign.
Some foreigners visiting Ireland with a bit of political clout find it difficult to understand why the Good Friday Agreement has many supporters across the political spectrum. They ask how is it possible that it guarantees two distinct goals which both the Unionists and Nationalists claim strengthens their position on the national question. The Good Friday Agreement has given the northern statelet a credibility it never once had. The state has been reformed but the fundamentals remain – we are still under British rule, Protestants are still the labour aristocracy (although not to the degree which existed before) and the police are still arresting and harassing Republican activists.
Republicanism, if it is to survive or emerge from this crisis with a solid base will need to embark upon a radicalisation process that will see the Republican Movement turn to its roots as an organisation – based upon the solid foundations of the Irish working class. The people, James Connolly described as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for Irish freedom. This will not be without hitch or difficulty, after all, modern Republicanism is the product of a militant tradition that was steeped in conspiracy and forged in arms in 1798 – to this day, politics remains something ‘below’ the Volunteer in the armed organisation. There is no political cohesion or ideological clarity, the common factor for the existence of the political organisation remains support for and centered around, above all, the armed organisation. This is the source of many problems within the Republican Movements and until such a time where the primary contradiction between party and army are resolved, Republicanism will remain unchanged.
The recent comments from a Cuban journalist praising Chinese capitalism and quoted by the Xinhua news agency have gone without comment –
“The economic growth and technological advances China has achieved in the 30 years of reform and opening-up are remarkable, said Cuban journalists Thursday.
“China has become a “model” showcasing the success of “development and stability” as the world is increasingly gripped by the financial crisis” [1]
This was not just a journalist from an obscure publication with a small circulation but from Juventud Rebelde, the daily newspaper of the youth wing of the Communist Party of Cuba and Cuba’s number two daily.
For genuine communists, this confirms what we have already known. The comments in Xinhua are not surprising but are the logical conclusion of the path of capitalist reforms opened up since the 1980s under Fidel Castro which have continued at a much hastened pace since his brother, Raul assumed the office of President.
This carries on from July’s speech by Raul Castro in which he said, “Socialism signifies social justice and equality, but equality is not egalitarianism”. [2] Of course this is true. But why is the most senior member of the Communist Party of Cuba making such a statement? What does he really mean?
One month prior to Castro’s speech, He Guoqiang, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo attended meeting in Havana after which Fidel Castro was quoted having said the importance of “Chinese socialism was underscored the advances of the Chinese people and the importance of socialism with Chinese characteristics”. [3]
The left will see no contradiction in those comments, or if they do, there will be muted criticism if any at all. How do the Irish left reconcile the comments of senior Cuban “Communists” with the comments of Taoiseach Brian Cowen – another ardent supporter of China’s sweatshop socialism?
1. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/24/content_10244255.htm
2. http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/julio/mar15/29na-raul-i.html
3. http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/24/1607265-top-chinese-communist-visits-fidel-castro
inniu 