Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.

V. I. Lenin 

Economic & Philosophic Science Review 

No 1145  July 23 2002

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Rightwing TUC setbacks are good but the fake-'left' replacements only mean that this towering crisis of capitalism in this 'reformist era' will rage on more catastrophically
than ever. Only scientific Marxist class-war politics can now stop imperialism's increasingly rapid degeneration towards slump conditions breeding warmongering and fascism
everywhere. A mere return to traditional 'left pressure' on governments will just leave imperialism in charge as always, but getting steadily more rancid under globalised economic collapse. The 'left pressure' delusion just continues the Revisionist nonsense which brought the Soviet workers state to philosophical self-destruction. The philistine 'new militancy' won't study crisis, and it won't study Allendeism. The fat-cat 'new' union leaders have no intention of challenging capitalist-class ownership of British society. Class-collaboration remains the agenda, and national-chauvinist stunts threatening "British-interests" or "our boys" will keep this 'new militant' traditional labour-unionism easily in line behind imperialism's latest "anti-terrorism" rackets. But once anti-Blairite movement among workers is followed up by a search for serious new politics, then the fake-'left' refusal to contemplate Leninist criticism of disastrous past failures of 'left pressure' (Revisionism) will disintegrate. Complacent sects hate 'catastrophism' but that won't stop their empty 'left' posturing from being swept away by the upheaval that is coming (by capitalism's own admission.) Lalkar's daft defence of Arafatite pro-imperialist muddleheadedness as a sly stunt to avoid answering about Stalinist reactionary treachery in agreeing to Zionist colonisation of Palestine in the first place, only adds to the case for destroying the fake-'left'. And its bold stand on Korea is rendered equally farcical by its refusal to see the glaring Revisionist blind-spots.

The defeat of Blairite union boss Ken Jackson is without doubt a splendid sign that things are MOVING within working-class sentiment.

But serious anti-imperialism needs to issue an immediate warning that the 'new' replacements for old Blairites in the engineers and several other unions are all the same equally disastrous advocates of "left pressure" traditional TUCism under the skin, and that only a repeat of past decades of class-collaborationist CATASTROPHE lies in store as things stand.

The fact that "left pressure" has finally started winning trade union elections again after a long period of reaction SOLVES NOTHING in itself.

These 'new' leaders like Derek Simpson, Mick Rix, and Bob Crow are now on the radio and television, or writing in the capitalist press, every day but go out of their way to SAY ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

None will say that capitalism is finished and deservedly so; or that Labour parliamentarism has always been a stooge of capitalism and deserves to go too; or that internationally, the anti-imperialist struggles in Palestine, in Cuba, in Colombia, by al-Quaeda, etc, all also deserve to defeat Western monopoly-capitalist interests; etc, etc, etc.

All 57 varieties of fake-'leftism' will rush to the defence of the 'new' TU leaders and say that they are wise to just keep their heads down and merely keep on repeating that "although Labour is better than the Tories, the Blair government is on warning to do more for ordinary people. Our members think Tory governments have favoured privatisation interests enough," etc, etc, etc.

The fake-'left' all pretend that this anti-privatisation bounceback by the unions (on rail transport, hospital services, education, London underground, etc) will change the direction of Britain and its capitalist economy, but this is an utterly disastrous delusion.

This capitalist press commentary, full of gloom that "the 'Brothers' are back", sums up the problem.

Capitalism will continue (as always under Labour and trade unionism, a petty-bourgeois ideology, no matter how 'militant' or 'left'. it pretends to be); but it will more clearly be back to its usual schizophrenic half-hearted performance than that boasted of (falsely - see later) by Blair's spin doctors since 1997.

This commentary is couched viciously in bourgeois terms of "speed-up the workers" but it accurately captures the never-ending mess when the Labour Movement tries to run capitalism, whether under 'left- or 'right' dominance:

'There were raised voices. Tony Blair was engaged in a shouting match with the leader of one of Britain's most influential unions. It was in the prime minister's office in the House of Commons, a place to which the unions believe they played a key part in getting him elected. And the anger was calculated.

Union leaders have little time for a man they see as a posh public schoolboy who somehow became leader of their party. Still, they expected more from him than they have got. And on Thursday night, in Blair's oak-panelled office in the Palace of Westminster, they were there to demand it.

This was no "beer and sandwiches" gathering of like-minded folk. After half an hour of platitudes and niceties, the row broke out. John Edmonds, leader of the GMB, the general union which represents, among others, workers in the public sector, tore into the prime minister.

"You do not talk to us. You have no communication with us. You see us as a cash cow and you have no idea what we think," he said. "This has to change and if it does not we will do something about it."

Other union leaders there, among them Dave Prentis of Unison and Bob Crow of the RMT rail union, - the men behind the strikes that brought chaos across the country last week, nodded in agreement.

The day before, in the first national strike for Britain's 750,000 local authority workers since 1979, tens of thousands of schoolchildren had been sent home as caretakers, dinner ladies and classroom assistants failed to show up. Libraries, leisure centres, council offices and public lavatories stayed shut. Even parks were closed, manned by jobsworth attendants, determined, and no doubt delighted, to have an excuse to keep the public off the grass.

As the meeting went on, news was emerging of the defeat of Sir Ken Jackson, joint leader of the newly merged Amicus union at the hands of leftwinger Derek Simpson.

There will be another national strike for local authority workers on August 14. Strikes are planned by train drivers in the northwest and baggage handlers and check-in staff at Heathrow and Gatwick - just in time for the holiday rush. Firemen are also threatening industrial action after pay talks broke down last week.

After five years in which the unions have meekly accepted a Labour government that has nuzzled up to big business, and a prime minister who has forged alliances with rightwing leaders in Europe and a right-wing president in America, a change is coming.

For Blair, the timing is both profoundly worrying and depressingly predictable. 

But the record, and the statistics, are against him. Official figures show that the public sector's costs - mostly wages - are up by 6.5% over the latest 12 months alone, more than four times the official rate of inflation. For the unions, this is only a down payment.

They know Blair and Brown will stand or fall by their ability to deliver better public services. They also know that after all the criticism the prime minister and chancellor have laid at the door of public sector workers, those improvements cannot be achieved without them. Suddenly, they are back in the driving seat.

Britain's current union leaders know how to work the system. They enjoy pay and perks that most of their members can only dream of, with pension schemes that would be the envy of many private sector managers. But scratch the surface and there is plenty of old-style militancy.

The issue behind which the unions can rally is one that Blair and Brown have made central to their strategy - getting the private sector to run public services.

"The government has given unskilled and partly skilled workers something to fear," said one union official. "Its privatisation policy has a real impact on these people's lives and they have become politicised because of it.

"The government may say the contracts are the same when hospital cleaners switch from the public to private sector but there is a big cultural difference they are unhappy with." There certainly is. Absenteeism in the public sector is almost 40% higher than in the private sector. At the same time, productivity is as much as 25% lower.

As Digby Jones, director-general of the CBI points out: "If the government is going to make a reality of reforming the public sector it needs the private sector to be involved. But they will be discouraged from doing so if all they are going to get is disruption.

"That may be what the unions want but it isn't what the government or the taxpayer wants."

Nor is that the only front on which the unions are pushing. Businesses claim that new employment rights granted to workers have cost them an extra £15 billion and reduced the economy's flexibility, but the unions want more.

The Trades Union Congress, in its document Modern Rights for Modern Workplaces, is demanding that the government take action to enhance workers' rights, including lowering the hurdles for union recognition, removing some restrictions on strike action and making small firms fully subject to  employment rights legislation.

That, in the current climate, has got business worried. The CBI points out that 90% of strikes last year were in the public sector or recently privatised industries.

"I know there is a generation out there that doesn't remember the winter of discontent, but last week three-quarters of a million local authority workers went on strike and people in London couldn't get to and from work because of a Tube strike," said Jones. "Once more we have the spectre of a Labour government facing, a mauling from the public sector unions.

"You're going to see a very different attitude from unions - they're going to be less moderate and quicker to react in a way that is damaging - and we need some political leadership from the government in dealing with this issue."

PUBLIC services are not the only issue on which the unions have the government over a barrel. Despite Labour's high-profile fundraising efforts from business figures including Lord Sainsbury, Christopher Ondaatje and the publisher Richard Desmond, the party remains heavily dependent on union funding. The unions pay up to £13m a year into party coffers and they do not think they are getting their money's worth.

Ken Cameron, the former general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), who retired two years ago, has watched the Amicus election with interest. "It is an antiBlair vote," he says. "It is as simple as that. Grassroots union members and activists are fed up with the way they feel they are being treated."

Yesterday union leaders joined forces with left-wing Labour MPs at a conference in London designed to show solidarity with the recent strikers and to challenge, the government's complacency in ignoring its socialist roots. Its title After New Labour left little room for ambiguity.

All the usual suspects were there: Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Diane Abbott among them. But for the first time since Labour came to power five years ago, there was a sense of possibility behind their grievances.

"New Labour is rapidly running out of momentum," said John McDonnell MP in his blistering address. "Socialists within the Labour and trade union movement need to start now the preparation of a detailed policy programme to address the issues facing a Labour government in the post-new Labour period."

John Edmonds was even more direct. "I come not to praise new Labour but to bury it," he said. "Some people day new Labour is already dead. The problem is that no-one has told the corpse yet."

Such talk may owe more to rhetoric than reality, but for Edmonds and his comrades this is a defining moment in the relationship the government and the unions.'

The biggest fraud of all by the 57 fake-'left' varieties is to pretend that once the 'new militancy' in the 'new' trade-union leaders gets as far as it can for the working class in pushing Blair & Co back from privatisation and speed-up, it will then start demanding "real socialism".

This "left pressure" idiocy prevails throughout the 57 varieties from Scargillism to the Socialist Alliance and has seen no change to its ludicrously bankrupt philosophy since the old Stalinist days of CP Revisionism which led the whole working class to international spectacular defeat with its moronic "alternative economic strategy" and even more blithering "peaceful road to socialism behind a parliamentary combination of 'left' Labour and CP MPs", etc, etc, - a philistine perspective of class-collaborative suicide which eventually brought the Soviet workers state itself to philosophical self-destruction.

The 'left' response goes: "But why can't it be true next time? Why won't modern society at last see reason and accept that a publicly-owned planned economy of justice and fair-shares for all is clearly henceforth the only publicly-acceptable way to run things?", etc, etc.

Because of class-war, is the short answer, which, far from being abolished, is raging in more civil wars and national-liberation wars around the planet today than ever before in history.

The fake-'left' philistinism, in refusing to mention the worldwide anti-imperialist crisis when they go on radio and television, plays its role here.

The 'new militancy' longs to pretend that whatever revolutionary turmoil exists elsewhere in the world, "things are done differently in Britain. Reason and compromise must prevail here," etc.

This is Allendeism. Chile was "different" too, he said, 'with a military tradition which had never challenged the authority of parliament', etc, etc, etc.

But the whole point of ALL history is that EVERY ruling-class that has ever existed has ALWAYS waged real and total war to the finish with every weapon at its disposal WHENEVER its CLASS OWNERSHIP of society was thought to be under serious threat. The fake-'left' always unhesitatingly says "things will be different in Britain" because these 'new militancy' posturers know full well that they have not the slightest intention of getting involved in any serious revolutionary challenge to the bourgeois ownership of society in Britain. And if the economic RULING CLASS position of the bourgeoisie is not going to be seriously challenged, then there will never be any need for capitalism to even have to think of ever staging a counter-revolution in Britain. With this inbuilt trade-unionist philosophy of never-ending class-compromise, it is axiomatic for the fake-'left' and the 'new militancy' to insist that "things will always be different in Britain", etc.

But in modern history, this is not even true of Britain, let alone the rest of the world where anti-imperialist revolution is now on a scale breaking all previous records.

The suggestion that Pinochet's murderous concentration-camp methods would not be used against any serious struggle to overthrow the de-facto British bourgeois dictatorship over society, - is not borne out by what that British bourgeoisie has murderously and criminally done IN THE PRESENT DAY against those who sought to end its de facto dictatorship over society.

Listen to how the bourgeois press is still squirming its lying head off over its CURRENT murderous tyranny in the Occupied Zone of Ireland (monstrously still called 'Northern Ireland' as a result of the Nazi coup at bayonet point which robbed the Irish national-liberation struggle of six of Ulster's nine counties in the infamous 1921 Partition outrage):

'Surely real power involves the humbling of the mighty, the invigilation of the state, the exposure of something profoundly wrong? In which case, alas, the British press mostly serves powder puff stuff. The Americans had Watergate; we had Tony Blair at the Queen Mum's funeral. It isn't exactly a contest.

Worse, the stories that were in the shop window of shame, that stank to high heaven, were seldom taken hold of and driven determinedly to their conclusion. Consider the murder 13 years ago of Pat Finucane, the Belfast solicitor, and how few waves it made.

Three years ago, by contrast, José Barrionuevo and Rafael Vera were sentenced to long prison sentences. Barrionuevo had  been Interior Minister in Felipe Gonzalez's Spanish government. Vera had been his junior minister responsible for security.

They were found guilty of ordering and funding the kidnapping of a Basque Eta terrorist leader in the early Eighties. They were found guilty of setting up and running the underground AntiTerrorist Liberation Groups, called GAL, which murdered 28 people in three years of 'dirty war'. Some of the victims belonged to Eta; others were cases of mistaken identity. In short, GAL offered a covert eye for an eye - and they betrayed the rule of law.

How did they wind up in prison? One Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, dug and dug again, running story after story through the Nineties, obliging other papers to join the hunt, pushing the authorities to inquire and act.

Nobody got tired or changed the subject. Everybody stood up to be counted. And, at the end, Barrionuevo wound up behind bars. It was a remarkable saga of persistence and ingenuity.

So to the killing of Finucane, who was shot dead by Ulster Defence Association terrorists after officers inside British army intelligence - servants of our state, who belonged to what was coyly called the Force Research Unit (FRU) - had fingered him. We know that both FRU and the old Royal Ulster Constabulary had deep links with the UDA.

We know that an inquiry by Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will shortly tell a lousy tale of assassination and official betrayal. We know who ordered Finucane's assassination and how a policeman helped his killers escape. We know, too, that M15 was up to speed on the whole wretched business. Our lads from 'homeland security' worked hand in glove with the boys from FRU.

They briefed and debriefed. Did they tell their Minister back in London? Did anyone with political clout give political orders? Sir John, apparently, thinks the trail grows cold there. He can't encase his findings in a greater plot.

But even supposing that's so, even supposing the Ministers of the day sinned by omission and not commission, there remains very little here for our comfort. A verdict, alas, which includes the British press.

	Hands up. I was an editor in 1989 when it all happened. The Guardian, like other newspapers, reported diligently. The story went into the shop window, and its presence was solidly signalled. 

But somehow, at the time and through the years that followed, there was never the critical mass of definitive investigation. No hue and cry. No tide of opinion. If the tale has true journalistic heroes, they probably work for the BBC and Panorama, which put Finucane stage-centre for two nights running last month. Even then, some papers, such as the Observer, provided detailed coverage - and some papers, like the Sunday Telegraph, did not. 	

There was always the feeling of a war in sluggish progress, with 'our boys' as the chaps in the white hats bringing order to a faraway land. Our boys tend to get the benefit of the doubt in wartime. And, of course, there was nil sympathy for the Provisionals bombing London.

In short - and maybe too clinically - there was never a chance that the British press would join voices to demand that all the FRU stones be turned over. (The Stevens inquiry has its roots in Belfast and the necessary aftermath of peace.) Nor do TV and newspapers work, in such cases, to a common agenda.

Panorama too, much of the time, is left by too many editors to pursue causes which rarely burst into print. Newspapers, equally, get weary of TV pundits banging on about celebrity intrusion, as though Liz Hurley's privacy were the biggest issue of the day.

So there are plenty of explanations for why the case of Pat Finucane is, 13 years later, only now coming to the boil.

Perhaps there is no great case for blame, but even so I rest uneasy. El Mundo shows vividly what can be done in the face of monumental obstruction and all the usual caveats which go with wars against terror. El Mundo also shows what has to be done.

We in the press like to call ourselves the watchdogs of democracy. Do watchdogs sloop or snuffle away when the going gets rough or boring? Is murder sanctioned by state employees somehow not important in a land of which we read too little?'

This raises two further points.

As the bourgeois creepiness of this confession admits, an infallible diversion has always been creatable hitherto in British working-class history by simply ensuring that "our boys" were facing some kind of "war danger" somewhere "abroad", with the traditional insular/isolationist and imperialism-corrupted philistinism of the TUC-Labour movement effortlessly ignoring any discreditable or shameful facts about that "British" engagement  'abroad'.

Secondly, not only has British imperialism's disgraceful criminal record in Ireland been easily ignored by Labour-TUC philistinism, but the "enemy within" stunt was even used successfully to isolate the miners strike in 1984-85.

And even more pathetically than that, the Scargillism which could not let go of its reformist Plan-For-Coal delusions; even as it was being treacherously stabbed in the back by the Labour Party and the TUC, is today still doing nothing to break down the imperialism-corrupted class-collaborating 'reform' delusions among British workers about 'foreign enemies' by going along with the "condemn Sept 11" xenophobic hysteria which has addled all Western brains, and by fashioning appalling new chauvinistic sticks itself (with which it can get beaten later) through its Little Englander nationalism as its only 'argument' against the Common Market European Union (one it shares with the BNP).

If even this Scargillite level of imperialism-corrupted backwardness was still getting labelled successfully "the enemy within", - then what doubt can there be that playing the British national chauvinist card will ALWAYS get traditional 'left-reformist' labour-movement trade unionism to stick with class-collaborating illusions (until a battle to TRANSFORM the working class with CONSCIOUS REVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY has been fought and won.

And how has the fake-'left' always got away with evading all these issues raised by the Marxist-Leninist challenge to Stalinist Revisionism all this time, and just concentrated instead on merely going around in ever decreasing circles just arguing with each other inside the fake-'left'??? (see later comments on Lalkar).

They only get away with it by exploiting the greatest illusion of all, -  the impossible-to-shake assumption throughout the Western world that our living standards are a genuine reflection of our economic worth, and are here to stay.

Only by exploiting this grotesque folly and complacency can all 57 varieties of the fake-'left' carry on pretending that the Leninist arguments exposing the absolute bankruptcy of their "left reformist pressure" imbecility do not really exist and therefore do not need answering.

In other words, only for as long as these 57 varieties all REMAIN just the fake-'left' sectarian shells that they all are, with no real working-class political movements behind them, can their silly posturing pretences go on.

If and when the signs of real movement in class opinion (that have been reflected in the ousting of old Blairites like Jackson) do start seeking expression in serious new political structures for workers, then this Revisionist tradition of trivially ignoring polemical challenges will begin to run into even greater difficulties than at present.

And that colossal economic shake-up of workers living standards and philosophy which will sweep fake-'leftism' onto the rubbish tip if the argument for Marxism-Leninism is put convincingly enough, is now drawing very very close.

Just a very tiny part of the coming revolutionary reality is steadily being revealed by the capitalist press itself:

Three years ago Time magazine carried an article by James Cramer, the founder of TheStreet.com, an online magazine fully dedicated to the worship of mammon. Extolling the virtues of a life dedicated to buying and selling shares from home, it was called "Yeah, Day Traders!" 

Cramer's message was simple. Forget teaching, forget tilling the land, forget making trucks or mending bones; instead make a living from speculation. There had, the article insisted, never been a better time "to trade for a living":

	Cramer and James Glassman predicted that the Dow Jones industrial average would not stop at 10,000 but rise inexorably to 36,000.

Today the talk is not of when the Dow will hit 36,000 but how low it will go. Today, a magazine that used the headline "Yeah, Day Traders!" would be in danger of being torched by the small army of investors who have seen the value of their portfolios shrivel since the bubble burst in the spring of 2000. Today, the issue is whether the price of collective market insanity will be a serious global recession or, even worse, fullblown slump. 

There is an army of pundits out there willing to say that there is little to worry about. Policy makers everywhere are oozing reassurance, intoning the mantra that the economic vibes are good. Lawrence Lindsey, George Bush's economic adviser, was at it in the Financial Times yesterday, insisting that a recession in the US was "unlikely".

In reality, of course, nobody knows for sure what is going to happen: Financial analysts have their charts which are supposed to be able to predict the future from the past, and these now spell trouble. Economists who look at the hard economic data say that cheaper money and higher spending means things are getting better. But both presuppose that economics is a science rather than a modern form of alchemy, and that the practitioners in its black arts are anything more than highly-paid witch doctors.

The only theory that is really relevant to the stock market is chaos theory. The recent history of the dollar is a case in point. For at least the past five years, the strength of the US currency has been eating into corporate profitability and contributing to a record trade deficit. Markets knew that the dollar was overvalued, but kept on buying it regardless. Over the past two months, the mood has changed and the dollar has fallen by 14% against the euro, breaking through the one-for-one parity level yesterday for the first time in more than two years. 

When will the fall be arrested? Who knows? On some estimates, the dollar is still 30% overvalued, but a rapid fall of that size would feed back into the equity markets, with foreign investors rushing for the door.

All of which explains why policymakers are a lot more concerned about the recent downward spasm in share prices than they are letting on. Greenspan's real fear is that the US economy will become locked in a downward spiral in which falling share prices lead to weak consumption, which in turn puts pressure on company profits and - eventually - the financial system itself. Asset prices would collapse and corporations be forced to slash prices in order to generate cash flow, leading to a period of deflation in which lower interest rates failed to stimulate growth. 

It could never happen, say the optimists. In fact, it already has - in the world's second largest economy, Japan. There, the country has had four recessions since its bubble burst at the end of the 1980s. Prices are falling, consumers are hoarding cash; it would take but one more shove to push the banks over the edge into systemic crisis. Greenspan has been studying a voluminous report he ordered into the Japanese experience; that's how worried he is.

Far more worrying would be a continuation of the falls in share prices over the next couple of weeks. In those circumstances, the Fed would then come under strong pressure to cut interest rates at its August meeting, and would almost certainly bow to it. There is, however, no guarantee that it would be effective in restoring confidence. Why? Firstly, it would be a small cut of only 0.25 percentage points from the already low level of 1.75%. Secondly, it might be counterproductive, seen as a sign that the Fed was panicking (which it would be). 

Finally, the relevant level of interest rates is the one being paid by companies and consumers on their loans. These have not been coming down nearly quickly enough to prevent financial distress. The underlying problem is that since the mid-1990s, share prices are up by 200% but corporate profits - as measured by sober government statisticians rather than dodgy auditors - have risen by 40%. It is conceivable that Greenspan would have to cut, cut and cut again before Wall Street responded. Even then (and assuming there is no invasion of Iraq to complicate matters), there is a risk that the easing of policy will simply lead to a re-run of this year - a short-lived burst of euphoria followed by the realisation that companies cannot produce the earnings expected of them. Greenspan and Bush would then be in an even worse quandary than they are now, having used up nearly all the shots in their locker.

Meanwhile, Europe and Japan - heavily dependent on a US recovery to keep their economies ticking over - would be faced with the prospect of deep, prolonged recession. If this sounds gloomy, that's because it is. It would be the most critical moment for the global economy since the 1930s.'

This commentary 'daringly' thinks that a return to the 1930s would be bad, and a real possibility,

But this could be a grotesque UNDERestimate of how catastrophic the world economic and warmongering crisis could become.

As he says, no one knows because a global currency has never collapsed before. A whole planet reduced to barter and warmongering recriminations, plus all-out class-war over who to blame, is far beyond any historical experience.

But that the fake-'left' Western world leads its fat complacent existence entirely at the expense of the increasingly starving, increasingly angry, and increasingly resistant-to-US-warmongering-tyranny Third World (everything beyond NATO),- will be eventually understandable to everyone (except petty-bourgeois dilettantes with nothing more in their heads than jokes against 'catastrophism').

It is against this overwhelming majority of proletarian mankind that Bush and Blair are preparing their armageddon warmongering.

And the most farcical extreme of absolute philistinism is reached when the 'new leader militancy' from wretched Scargillites like Crow says it "wants" a Labour government still, the first remark in every radio and TV interview.

And gets the support from the entire fake-'left' for "keeping his head down".

But for how long and how far the healthier majority of the Western working class follow the fake-'left' into supporting such degeneracy as a Bush-Blair armageddon against "Sept 11 terrorism", etc, etc, remains to be seen. The fake-'left' "condemners" and "keep the pound" enthusiasts will presumably all be keen warmongers, but not many from the real working class, one suspects.

The unreality of this TUC class-collaborating milieu is so entrenched and profound that the unions are now putting spokesmen on 'Today' to propose in all seriousness that the public should fund ALL the political parties through taxation, - as a way of keeping Blair & Co out of the pockets of the big business fat-cats who fund 'New Labour'.

What sick unreal nonsense are we hearing. And won't the BNP be please!

Only total mental and philosophical paralysis could produce a 'workers representative' to argue that "modern elections cost money" (monstrous campaigns of total lies and TV brainwashing) and to argue AGAINST letting 'New Labour' and the Tory Party (and all the 'parliamentary' conmen) go bankrupt if that is all they deserve.

And only the most spectacular political philistinism and backwardness could argue that workers "want" a Labour government.

Let the whole stupid incoherent mess collapse NOW, as soon as possible.

The world is living through a more total failure of revolutionary imagination than it can ever have experienced (such is the brain-numbing shock of the Soviet workers states philosophical suicide coming as the climax of generations of Stalinist Revisionist idiocy).

This class-collaboration 'left reformist pressure' nightmare of bureaucratic anti-revolutionary failure which eventually destroyed Lenin's USSR) is still leaving its imprint everywhere, currently in a new Lalkar 'theory' as to why the international working class should declare its support for Arafat to continue 'leading' the Palestinian national-liberation struggle.

"The Palestinian Authority and its leadership are the genuine representatives of their people who provide leadership of their people's struggle in very difficult circumstances, in which case an attack on them is an attack on the Intifada, an attempt to sow divisions.

"Criticism of the Oslo agreements is. downright reactionary, for the Oslo agreements have served to weaken Zionism and help to push forward the Palestinian struggle on to a far higher plane than was the case prior to 1993.

"The struggle is forging ahead, causing dissension within Israeli society and the imperialist camp, while bringing ever closer unity between various sections of the liberation movement, as well as between them and the Palestinian people at large, and winning ever-wider support on global scale, including among the working-class of the US and Europe.

"All outside interference in the internal affairs of the Palestinian liberation movement, all outside attacks on the PA and its leadership, have always been an attack on the Intifada,' 
etc, etc.

The problem with this is not Lalkar's judgement that Oslo was a necessary compromise, even if "humiliating" (in their own words) due to the defeat of Iraq and "the collapse of the USSR". The problem is with the lingering Revisionist religious-dogma about the imagined advantages of "monolithic unity" as used to haunt 3rd International affairs, stifling all polemics and eventually stifling all life, and even stifling the 3rd International itself in the end.

The crucial point about enforced compromises out of temporary weakness (a situation which Marxist-Leninist science has always fully understood) is that the truth about the less-than-wholly-welcome deal should still be told, -or as much of the truth as the compromise agreement will bear without wrecking it, - or at least that no lies be told about the perspective or the background situation.

The lifelong leadership of the PA by the wealthy bourgeois and political pigmy Arafat has largely been marked by its endless incoherence, forever playing up to global bourgeios-imperialist "settlement" optimism, but never known for any worthwhile long-term analysis of the actual colonial-crisis conditions that have never ceased to torment the Palestinian nation, and never will until the whole Zionist-imperialist axis is defeated.

The long tragic history of Stalinist 'theoretical' Revisionist stupidity is the main question here, and it is obvious that Lalkar is pathetically trying to avoid, once again, facing up to its own long role in this anti-revolutionary rottenness, by this cursory whitewash of Arafat's reputation, - in particular Moscow's insanity in accepting the Western imperialist outrage of imposing Zionist colonialism (by United Nations decision) on the helpless Palestinian nation, in the first place, and even providing some of the 'defence' armaments for the new 'Israeli' state which enabled it to inflict its first crushing genocidal blows against its defenceless Palestinian victims, stealing their land for permanent annexation, and wiping out their homes and their villages and their whole cultural existence.

But the sly idiocy of trying to defend this indefensible Revisionist nonsense via protecting Arafatism (on the deceitful 'logic' that all "outside" criticism must be an attack on the Intifada) just makes Lalkar look more foolish than ever.

Having a go at the RCG for an ill-timed attack on Arafat at a time when imperialist pressure is insisting that its former partner be dropped from the leadership is one thing. The whole of Palestine is agreed on that.

But then stretching it to pretend that Arafatism is providing the growing unity which is springing from the increasing determination, skill, and success of the Intifada, is just a stupid untruth, and, presumably, an attempted silly sly attack on the Islamic fundamentalist movements which HAVE transformed the fight.

The problem here is not Arafat's public criticism of suicide-terrorist "attacks on Israeli civilians", which can easily be seen as meaninglessly extracted at gunpoint in Arafat's besieged Ramallah compound.

The problem is Lalkar's blatant failure in a massive 7,000 word piece to even try to discuss why Islamic fundamentalism has been able to make the running in the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and then almost incidentally why Arafat would be bound to have trouble with this development.

The answer in both cases, once again, is Lalkar's deeply sick inability to even begin facing up to the cretinous disaster for world revolutionary socialist history that Stalinist Revisionism eventually amounted to.

This utterly shameful deceitful article by Lalkar fits in exactly with all the rest of the creepy "left reformist pressure" philistinism with which the SLP, just like the rest of the fake-'left', tries to cover its wretched, cowardly, anti-Leninist opportunism and sheer ignorant backwardness.

Even Lalkar's sole saving grace, its determination to defend the Korean workers state from vicious imperialist propaganda slanders, is turned to farce by their incapability of even thinking of applying Marxist-Leninist objectivity to the undoubted continuing Revisionist weaknesses in the Koreans' understanding of world socialist revolutionary perspectives and requirements.

Lalkar prints an interesting Workers Party of Korea statement to a May 2 "International Communist Seminar" in Brussels, which reads as follows (minus some of its dafter cult-of-the-individual mindlessness):

'The mankind that has just entered the 21 st century is faced with a new challenge, the challenge posed by "globalization". At the present time when the imperialist move for "globalization" is getting more undisguised, it is important to have a correct understanding of the reactionary nature of "globalization" and to conduct a vigorous anti-imperialist class struggle against it.

Imperialism intends to conquer the entire world and to subordinate all nations. Therefore, the struggle against "globalization" becomes inevitabiy an anti-imperialist struggle, and the anti-imperialist struggle is, in essence, a serious class struggle.

A clear anti-imperialist class-consciousness is a powerful weapon, which enables one to display a boundless loyalty to the revolution. No enemy can conquer a people who are strong in their revolutionary integrity and class-consciousness and prepared to defend their ideology and political system at the cost of their lives.

A high sense of anti-imperialist class-consciousness is formed and displayed through a continuous education in the principles and essence of class struggle. This is the condition for the revolution to advance, no matter how time passes and how the conditions and environment for the revolution change. To abandon education in class-consciousness when the class struggle is continuing with no signs of letting up is like disarming oneself.

The Workers' Party of Korea has defined class education as an important task of the party's ideological work. It has continuously broadened and deepened its work among the party membership and working people. As a result, the revolutionary character and class-consciousness have increased immeasurably, and the class base of our own style of socialism has been cemented as never before.

The complex events that led to the collapse of socialism in some countries at the end of the 20th century did little to make the Koran people hesitate or waver in their conviction. Class-conscious and mindful of their obligation, the Korean people have overcome the vicious anti-D.P.R.K. campaign of the imperialists with a revolutionary offensive and firmly defended the socialist banner, reaffirming their socialist conviction.

Our socialism went through harsh ordeals. At the end of the 90s, when our people experienced the worst difficulties, the imperialists were shouting loudly that the socialist system of North Korea was about to collapse. Our socialist system survived and the attempts by the imperialists to destroy our land have failed. And this in spite of the disappearance of the socialist market at the beginning of the 90s, a market on which the DPR of Korea was depending for the majority of its trade exchanges.

Today, after six very difficult years, where floods and droughts followed one after the other, North Korea got its best harvest for six years. It owes it to its incredible efforts and especially to its unity in the "arduous March".

Today, the revolutionary unity of the people has reached a high level, and the Korean revolution is vigorously advancing to an ambitious target of building a prosperous power braving the political and military presence of the imperialists.

Our party is firm in its stand that the revolution and socialist construction move forward in stages, by strengthening education in anti-imperialist class-consciousness.

This is an era of a fierce confrontation with imperialism. In the new century, the imperialists are getting even haughtier in their arm-twisting policy. The U.S. imperialists are adopting military attacks at will against the countries they don't like, thereby killing innocent people. The American atrocities are causing concern and indignation among the world's peoples who aspire for independence and justice.

Under the pretext to widen the struggle against terrorism, the United States want to impose on the world their proceedings of thuggery. They exert pressures and military threats against all countries that they consider as obstacles to their interests. The project of anti-missile shields destroys the existing world balance of power and gives a new impetus to the arms race. It largely threats the peace and the security in the world. It is the reason why many countries in the world oppose the American project.

The century has changed, but what has not changed are the principles and targets of our struggle. Today, as the new generation that has not experienced the trials of revolutionary wars and class struggle, forms the mainstay of our revolutionary ranks, a letup in the education of classconsciousness cannot be allowed.

We can never allow the ideological indolence and depravity that may occur from the confrontation with imperialism. Education in class awareness should not be stopped even for a moment as long as the imperialists remain on this planet.

Today, the Korean people are redoubling their efforts to build a prosperous socialist power with a high sense of class awareness and revolutionary enthusiasm. These values are being put into practice with a fierce determination to fight the U.S. imperialists to the bitter end. Historically, they have imposed untold suffering and misfortunes on the Korean people. They are resorting to every possible vicious means to stifle socialism in our country.

The struggle to defend socialism is at the same time a sharp class struggle. Our Party is deepening education of class awareness among all Party members and working people so that they see everything from a class viewpoint and stand, and do not tolerate, but resolutely fight against all practices contrary to the interests of the Party, the revolution and the socialist ideology and principles.

We see to it that the new generations are properly informed about the killings and atrocities committed by the U.S. imperialists during the last Fatherland Liberation War, as well as of the deepseated enmity of the Korean people toward U.S. imperialism. By doing so, we make sure that the new generation never forget the misfortunes and suffering inflicted by the U.S. imperialists on the Korean people and harbour unquenchable hatred and determination for revenge against the U.S. imperialists.

Any illusion about imperialism means death. No matter how the situation may change, imperialism must be confronted with a high degree of class awareness and in a hard-line and high-handed manner. The class struggle is a live-or-die confrontation. If you cannot properly tell friend from foe, you can't beat the enemy.

We see to it that we have a sharp class approach to all problems, anti thoroughly apply revolutionary principles and class character. Particular emphasis is given to teaching the people the lessons from the collapse of socialism in some countries so that they always keep in mind the fact that there can be no mercy for class enemies.

Today, the Workers' Party of Korea is carrying out an army-first policy, as the embodiment of the idea of giving priority to the military affairs.

The army-first politics aim to strengthen the revolutionary ranks with the army as their nucleus; to rely on the army in defending socialism and making breakthroughs in socialist construction; and to remodel the whole of society on the model of the revolutionary army.

As the proverb goes, politics is power, and if you unwrap politics, it boils down to military affairs. The present era is one of a forceful struggle between the anti-imperialist forces and the hegemonic forces.

When imperialism is getting more tyrannical in its attempt for global hegemony, it is no easy job for a small country with a small population to confront the imperialists head-on and to follow an independent line.

In the past, the situation in our country has been brought to the brink of a war on more than one occasion. The fact that the imperialists, who have been engaged in power politics for the last ten years since the end of the Cold War, could not ignite a war of aggression against our country is a clear manifestation of the validity of the army-first policy of our party.

This situation confirms how right vas our policy of constant vigilance, which has allowed us to be equipped with powerful means of defence. Our country is forced to dedicate about 14% of its budget to national defence. We can not stand idle while the United States, the only world superpower, which militarily occupies South Korea, is constantly threatening us.

The United States reorganise their troops in South Korea, reinforce their command, their manoeuvres and their implantation. These new measures show, on the one hand, their intention to preserve their military presence in South Korea. But first of all, they show their preparations to provoke a new Korean War. By sharpening the tensions in the Korean peninsula, the United States are looking for a pretext to embark on a new war.

As soon as it came to power, the Bush administration pointed at the DPR of Korea as its enemy Number 1. It invoked a socalled nuclear threat, a missile threat, and even demanded the reduction of our conventional weapons. It was in fact a unilateral disarmament. However, we have several times declared that we don't possess nuclear weapons, that we neither intend, nor are able to develop and produce them.

In 1994, our country has concluded a joint agreement with the United States to solve the nuclear question. The stake was the following: the United States engage themselves to donate to the DPR of Korea two nuclear reactors, with a capacity of a million kW each, by 2003, in exchange for the freezing of our current nuclear reactors. The DPR of Korea has indeed frozen its nuclear installations. But there was no progress in the installation of new reactors, apart from the construction works of their foundations. The United States, which are not at all exempt from their obligations, demand constantly "inspections". They continuously delay the application of the agreement, with the inclusion of the delivery of oil to compensate the loss of electricity due to the cooling down of the nuclear power plant. The United States are thus largely responsible for the shortage of electricity, which strikes our country, already struck by several years of natural catastrophes. If this situation lasts, our country will be forced to reopen its out of date nuclear facilities.

Today, the entire population is firmly equipped with the party's idea of giving priority to military affairs, and always maintains a vigilant posture.

Giving priority to military affairs serves as a powerful weapon in defending the sovereignty of the fatherland and the destiny of the nation against the imperialist schemes of aggression and war. Under a hair-trigger situation like the one that prevails today, precedence of military affairs over anything else and making the country's defence impregnable is the highest expression of defending the class principles. Our Party and our people have brandished this slogan: "Let's make of this year, which marks the 90 birthday of Comrade Kim Il Sung, Great Leader, the year of a new impulse in the construction of a powerful nation".

Big efforts will be made in the development of the mining industry. We will particularly encourage the production of energy, coal, iron industry and railway transportation.

In all the country, the development of science, technology and education will be encouraged. Particular attention will be given to the development of computer science. For the first time, our country has just opened an international exhibition in China of more than a hundred original computer programmes, from translation programmes to video games.

The Workers' Party of Korea and the Korean people, firmly united under the leadership of Comrade Kim Jong 11, will achieve the cause of building a prosperous socialist power and an independent reunification of the country without fail. As in the past, our Party will continue to do all it can to strengthen friendship and co-operation with the world's revolutionary parties, including communist and workers' parties and fighting organisations that aspire for justice and progress, under the banner of anti-imperialism and socialism.'

Then follows a 4,000 word commentary by Brar which is entitled "My visit to Korea" and is such a totally naive and pitifully sycophantic travelogue (even giving a full list of the complete unknowns from the Korean Committee for Friendship with the British People who FAILED to turn up to the small farewell dinner that Brar set up to honour his hosts with) that it reads like self-parody. But vastly more importantly, in this vast acreage of print, the crucial world anti-imperialist questions, LEFT OUT of the Korean statement above, are not even mentioned, let alone challenged; and neither does Bar report ONE SINGLE WORD of questions that might have been asked about the Koreans' museum-Stalinist narrowness in their view of the world.

The statements against US imperialist warmongering tyranny are outstandingly correct and useful, a welcome breath of fresh air after the decades long nightmare of international Stalinist-CP mumbo-jumbo telling total lies implying agreement that imperialism has "peaceful intentions".

But what about all those years of Revisionist lies?

What about the "complex events that led to the collapse of socialism in some countries"???

What about that development which still to this day has left the whole international anti-imperialist movement paralysed, confused, and split???

What about those "events" which leave Lalkar, for example, creeping around still in a museum-Stalinist daze, identifying with Arafatism because it is incapable of coming to terms with why Islamic fundamentalism has been able to overshadow both Revisionism and the Revisionist tail-ending of Arafatism???

What is the confused and utterly-kept-in-the-dark international proletariat supposed to make of the crucial Chinese role,  -  past, present, intended, or potential in these cataclysmic days of facing mad-dog US imperialism bent on global warmongering and domination???

And with massive resources behind it of 57 years of building the highly-talented Korean workers state, what is this "contribution to the International Communist Seminar" all about, in May 2002 in the heart of NATO and West Europe, which cannot, apparently, say a single thing about the catastrophic fake-'left' 'theoretical'  brainlessness which is paralysing the entire imperialist states' working class???

Or even mention the 'war on terrorism' nonsense, let alone discuss it fully, which has cowed the fake-'left' Lalkar/SLP into line behind the Western bourgeoisie's "condemn Sept 11 terrorism" hypocritical bluster???

What about the Middle East situation and warmongering imperialism with which the confusing ideological pressures on the imperialist working-class and its fate are so closely bound up???

Etc, etc, etc, for a thousand more leading questions on the whole INTERNATIONAL CRISIS of the imperialist system, which likewise does not even get mentioned by the Korean "contribution" to an "International Communist Seminar" all of which questions Lalkar quite deliberately and consciously fails to ask, let alone answer, so determined is it to remain entombed in museum Stalinism.

The EPSR's drum banging for building Leninist science; - and grasping world history as making best sense with international imperialist crisis seen as the main driving force of events, - has at least had some effect in Lalkar, in that EPSR past collective struggles for Marxist understanding has helped to produce one not entirely backward piece in the latest bi-monthly effort, by Giles Shorter:

'From week to week, the likely site of the next phase of crisis-driven war fever shifts. All that remains constant is the world capitalist crisis itself, which is what has brought us all to this pass. Current speculation over the likely death toll that could result from an IndoPak nuclear exchange, with a figure of 30 million quoted on BBC radio, may be translated into reality or may be superseded by the threat or reality of quite other warmongering horrors. Either way, the capitalist crisis will not go away, and nor will the warmongering which lies at its heart.

It is the continued imperialist domination of the Indian subcontinent postwar which now exposes so many of its inhabitants to such horrors. The colonial legacy of Partition, continuing to divide after the British had ceased to rule, served the indigenous Indian and Pakistani bourgeois rulers alike when it came to robbing the people of the fruits of their national democratic struggle. Such rankling disputes as that over Kashmir sprang direct from this cynical parting shot from colonial brigandage.

While India, assisted in its development by the Soviet Union and prominent in the non-aligned movement, retained a degree of national independence, this was only ever relatively so. A key achievement of the decolonisation struggle, the establishment of the secular state, was routinely compromised throughout the long postwar reign of the Congress party. Time and again, Congress continued the old colonial game of divide and rule, exploiting confessional divisions to shore up continued capitalist class rule.

Meanwhile, the whole national existence of post-liberation Pakistan was corrupted by being dragged into the permanent service of US imperialism, acting in the region much as Israel has acted in the Middle East. Most notably, in the Eighties, all of Pakistani society became enslaved to Washington's obsession with obliterating the progressive advances being made by the Soviet-backed Afghan revolution. In the process, Pakistan was flooded with weapons and transformed into a permanent magnet for the very Islamic fundamentalist groups which are now identified as a source of destabilisation and "terror".

The intensification of imperialist crisis which had as an early feature the tragic demise of the Soviet Union (dragged down into the ditch by revisionist treachery) has also sent shock waves through the subcontinent. Under pressure from the crisis, and with neither India nor Pakistan able to rely on its former Cold War bearings, the ground has begun to shift under capitalism's feet.

On the surface, much still appears the same, with Pakistan still stooging for the West. But appearances deceive. Yes, Washington props up the unelected Musharraf regime as its continued best hope for maintaining its sway over the subcontinent, but this very support could prove Musharraf's undoing. Now that Pakistan has no clearly defined Cold War role to play, but is instead having to second-guess Washington's intentions from week to week, the life of a stooge is getting more complicated and dangerous.

Throughout the Cold War the message was plain: put the armed forces, the intelligence services and every other arm of the state at the disposal of the US-backed Islamic fundamentalists in their mission to crush the Afghan revolution. (A key group amongst these fundamentalists was of course the Taleban.) Now everything has changed: yesterday's "freedom fighters" are today's "terrorists", and Pakistan is berated for its tardiness in using its armed forces to crush them!

Reported the Guardian (13-05 -02):

"The first splits in America's alliance with Pakistan in the war against al-Qaida began to emerge last night as officials in Washington complained about the slow pace of military operations in Pakistan's sensitive tribal areas (...J

"Pentagon officials have pressed the military regime in Islamabad to take action but they are facing strong resistance, according to a report in yesterday's Washington Post. 'We've been after them to attack and we haven't made much progress', one senior defence official told the paper. Another official said: 'We are trying to encourage, wheedle, coerce, urge the Pakistanis to move more aggressively'. (...J

"A rocket was fired on Friday at a school in Miram Shah in Waziristan where US troops are staying. It was the second such attack in two weeks... "

Trying to sell this propaganda switch to the Pakistani masses, especially at a time when crisis is imposing even greater hardship and insecurity than hitherto, is a thankless, and potentially suicidal, task. Nor should it be assumed that the massive demonstrations of solidarity with the Afghan people under attack from US imperialism are simply a "religious" phenomenon. Musharraf is not mistaken in his fear that the behaviour of imperialism will ignite a powder keg of anti-imperialism which his regime will be hard pressed to douse. That is why US and British troops terrorizing the population on the Afghan-Pakistan border are suddenly feeling a cold draught as Pakistani forces are diverted to the Indian border, to fight what Musharraf hopes and prays will prove a more popular war over Kashmir. His desperate hope must be that such warmongering will assuage backward religious prejudice whilst steering attention away from the anti-imperialist sentiments which lie beneath. Yet in the end it is the actions of imperialism itself which unmasks as fools and traitors those who act as its puppets.

In India itself, the end of the Cold War did not see the "end of history", but it did see the end of that phase of bourgeois rule dominated by the Congress Party of India. Coinciding with the growing influence of US imperialism in the economic life of the country, government fell into the hands of a series of volatile coalitions increasingly dominated by overtly anti-secular forces, most notably the Hindu fundamentalist BJP. 

This degeneration into confessional politics, for which the phoney "secularism" of Congress (I) had long prepared the way, underlies the communal violence which has increasingly disfigured Indian society in recent years. The open reliance of the modern Indian bourgeoisie upon the most backward religious extremism, simply to keep its hold upon power, reveals its desperation at this historical juncture, and offers a most, instructive picture to those able to keep their head. It reveals the bankruptcy of its claims ever to have been the class best equipped by history to complete that national democratic struggle which began with the fight to kick out the British colonists. And it shows up as a cruel joke the lie put about by the World Bank and the IMF that the greater the ascendency of economic neoliberalism, the healthier will be the modernizing breeze gusting through all of society. Instead, India is more divided than ever between haves and have-nots, between fragile yuppie wealth and general poverty, whilst advocates of a theocratic state squawk on top of the dungheap of bourgeois politics, making a mockery of capitalism's claims still to represent historical progress.

All this deadly dangerous jockeying for position between rival bourgeois gangs in the Majority World is happening in the much wider context of the crisis of world imperialism, where the most powerful gangs of all are moving into the phase of cut-throat struggle to dominate the entire world market. Only thus can any of the key players hope to survive the crisis of capitalist overproduction; only thus can each gang seek to ensure that the glut of surplus capital wipes out its competitors' profits, not its own, and thereby drive all rivals to the wall. It is this global crisis of overproduction which at root creates those conditions of instability from which only such desperate courses as war seem to offer capitalist society a way out, albeit illusory.

The threat of war now blighting the lives of millions in India and Pakistan will sooner or later be felt much closer to home, in the metropolitan heartlands of imperialism. Today, Britain is arming both sides is the IndoPak conflict; tomorrow or the day after, the arms industries of the West will be fuelling conflicts much closer to home.

Communism will always be found in the vanguard of the fight for peace. And its best contribution to every peace movement will always be found in its firm explanation that imperialism requires war for its survival, and that only the overthrow of imperialism can put an end to war.'

Some informative comments on what role is being played in this national-chauvinist mess by various communist party factions on the sub-continent, would be helpful, - plus a reassessment of previous Lalkar partisanship in favour of Congress India developing nuclear weapons, in the light of the growing influence of the BJP now, plus American imperialism's attempted growing input.

But at least the hope of some sort of challenge around the SLP/Lalkar to the very barmiest of museum-Stalinist Revisionism might yet exist.

Build Leninism. EPSR