Democracy and Class Struggle

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Is Egypt on the Brink of Collapse? Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports From Restive City of Port Said

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

UK to send troops to Mali for war "War on Terror" in Africa : British Prime Minister Cameron in Algeria

Democracy and Class Struggle says Cameron's and the Head of MI6's visit to Algeria confirms the interlinked events in this region.

The views of Dan Glazebrook of the strategic importance of Algeria and its linkages with Mali is contained in the videos below.

Britain does not want to be left out in the battle for resources from Africa - The Ango/French Entente Imperialism is planning the re- Colonialisation of Africa in the 21st century.

The visit of Cameron to Algeria is part of the new Imperialist design.

In reality, the dispatch of French commandos to the uranium mines in Niger only underscores the overriding economic and geo-strategic motives behind the French military intervention in Mali. Under the cover of a supposed war against Islamist “terrorists” and a defense of the central government in Mali, French imperialism is using its military might to tighten its grip on its resource-rich former African colonies.

We endorse the views of Dan Glazebrook in the above video

Early claims that this would be a short sharp intervention have been dropped, with the French president saying he would do what it takes to stop Mali and the wider Sahel from falling into hands of groups like Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

France said it is acting not just in the interest of the Malians, whose president appealed for help, the Africans, and the wider international community.

But some analysts say this isn't' strictly true. They say that by intervening in Mali, France, and her western allies have failed to learn the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and that they're really determined to maintain their influence in the mineral rich area of West Africa.

They also complain about the shadow of French colonialism in Africa. So what do Africans think of this dangerous turn of events, and should they be suspicious of the French, British and American claims that they are now the new front in the "war on terror".

More from Dan Glazebrook on video below

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Condolences on the death of Dipankar Chakroborty (71), the founder-editor of the independent Left journal, ANEEK

Press Release from Aneek

Mahasveta Devi, Sankhaya Ghosh and others condoled the death of Dipankar Chakroborty, the editor of Left journal ‘ANEEK’.

Dipankar Chakroborty (71), the founder-editor of the independent Left journal, ANEEK, passed away on Sunday night. A cardiac patient, he had suffered respiratory problem last evening and died on the way to hospital. He is survived by his wife, son and daughter and grandchildren.

He was born in Dhaka in 1941 and grew up in Murshidabad after the partition. Educated in Baharampur and Kolkata, Chakroborty taught economics at Krishnanath college at Baharampur. he later settled in Kolkata.

A veteran of the Left movement since the sixties, he began publishing and editing ANEEK since 1964 when ruptures in the CPI on ideo-political issues led to first split and birth of the CPI(M).

In the wake of the Naxalbari uprising three years later that had triggered the second split and birth of the CPI(ML), Chakroborty did not join the new party. But he made ANEEK an independent forum for debates on contemporary communist movement, both national and international.

Under his stewardship, ANEEK has become one of the leading left periodical in Bengal and among the few ‘little magazines’ which have survived five decades against all odds. He himself was an accomplished political commentator and had several books to his credit. Chakroborty was jailed by the S.S Roy government during the Emergency.

A life-long defender of human rights, he was also one of the founders of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights and its vice-president.

He was always active in the campaigns of release of political prisoners irrespective of the creed of the ruling parties and governments since the seventies. He stood by peoples’ movements and joined protests in their support despite his failng health– from Maruti to Nonadanga.

He was also one of the founders of Peoples’ Books Society, a major publication house and a enthusiast of Little Magazine movement in Bengal.

Noted novelist and activist Mahasveta Devi who knew Chakroborty closely expressed her ‘profound shock’. ” I am deeply grieved. It’s an irreplaceable loss for the human rights movement as well as for me,” the octogenarian writer said. Poet Sankhaya Ghosh, also mourned Chakroborty’s death. ” I feel like losing a near and dear one,” he said.

Dipankar Chakrabarti: The Naxalite Movement: In search of the root of its debacle

Eight decades have elapsed since the founding of the Communist Party of India. During this period great upheavals like haughty fascist onslaught, the devastating 2nd world-war, ferocious and aggressive evil designs of the U.S.imperialism to dominate this unipolar world through globalisation and sheer military might have drastically transformed the world. In the first half of the last century, revolutionary upsurges shook the world one after another, first in Russia, then in east Europe and Asia, thereby illuminating a bright road before the labouring people for achieving socialism, which is supposed to lead them to freedom from hunger and exploitation. But by the end of the nineties all those experiments have failed. And in our country India utter darkness still basically prevails, though the direct imperialist rule has been replaced by indirect dependence and virtual sub-ordination. And the communist movement here remains basically divided, social revolution a distant - almost remote - possibility, and the Indian people still hopelessly panting for liberation.

In India too, like many other countries, the thunder-clap of Russia’s October Revolution had brought the communist consciousness in the first quarter of the twentieth century. But still now, in spite of the incomparable dedication and heroic martyrdom of thousands of communist cadres and supporters, their sacrifices could not usher in a new society. Again and again the leadership has failed to recognize the soil below their feet, consequently swinging in a vicious whirlpool, in the labyrinth of rightist and ‘leftist’ deviations, and consequently, the Indian communists have not yet in its activities been able to build up a consistent and clear alternative line of action before the toiling people. That much-longed-for correct line for revolution –both strategical and tactical - has not yet emerged, and as a result revolution has become more and more distant.

q TWO

Basically the same `tradition has been continuing’ in the post-independent period. Space does not permit us here to go deeper into the analysis of the underlying reasons.¹ But to come to the main purpose of this short article, which is to trace meaningfully and concretely the roots of the debacle of the Naxalite movement, we should never forget that that this movement did not originate suddenly out of the sky. Rather it was basically the continuation of the past tendencies, both positive and negative, in the Indian Communist movement. In this context the importance of the ideology in the Indian communist movement demands some attention. `Iideology’, we know, does not necessarily mean just party-programmes, poltical resolutions or manifestoes of the movements. These are no doubt necessary, but for the ideological development and proletarisation of a communist, it is essential to train him to study and grasp the basic tenets of Marxism, so that he can understand the dialectical relation between the theory and practice, and follow accordingly the correct method of work. Only then can he continuously carry on the process of grasping and interpreting independently the Marxist ideology as a comprehensive world outlook and orientation to change himself, and also to change the Society and the World. This point, emphasised by both Marx and Lenin in their innumerable writings, has aptly been summarized by Mao : ``Communist must always go into the whys and wherefores, use their own heads and carefully think over whether or not it corresponds to reality and is really well-founded; on no account should they follow blindly and encourage slavishness.’’2

Since the beginning of the Communist Movement in India emphasis has mainly been given on studying the nature and character of the Indian Society and economy, and also of the ruling classes, and the nature of their inter-relationship with imperialism; determining the character of Indian Revolution and its main aim, and ascertaining its main enemies and friends etc. But what has, in the main, been neglected is the basic task to relate them to the study of the basic ideology. have stood in the path of Party’s correct development and led it to an erroneous, sometimes dangerous, path. Failure to build up and strengthen an ideological and theoretical basis, and also to develop a correct method of method have stood in the path of Party’s correct development and led it to an erroneous, sometimes dangerous, path, making the oscillations between a rightist and a ‘left’ orientation a permanent feature of the Indian Communist movement.

As an unavoidable consequence of these tendencies, time and again, the Party has failed to take a correct stand firmly on many issues leading to gradual but unnecessary splits. One of the most fundamental roots of the debacle of the Naxalite movement was inherent in such a debate. Naturally it needs some elaboration. I am referring to the vascillations in the Indian Communist movement on the question of its attitude to parliamentary activities. The Marxist pioneers from Marx to Mao clearly stated that tactically it is no doubt necessary generally to participate in parliamentary system to utilise it for revolutionary causes as far as possible., but there must be no illusion regarding the system, its basic sub-servience to the interests of the bourgeoisie. And that is why socialism cannot be built up utilising the bourgeois parliamentary state-system, but only by destroying and uprooting it. This line was successfully implemented in Russia by the Bolshevik party under Lenin’s leadership. In China, the question of such participation did not arise in the absence of any parliamentary system before the revolution, and that is why Mao stated : ``We have no parliament to make use of.’’ ³

Lenin put forth a series of relevant guiding points in this regard. It is the duty as well as aim of the communists ``to carry on a struggle within parliament for the destruction of the parliament,’’ ⁴ for ``a change of ministers means very little, for the real work of administration is in the hands of an enormous army of officials’’ depending and serving the landowners and the bourgeoise,⁵ and consequently, ``the number of parliamentary seats is of no importance to us; we are not out for seats.’’⁶ He was very clear and specific regarding the relation between the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary activities (like developing mass-struggles) of the communists : But he also cautioned that``limiting the class struggle to the parliamentary struggle, or regarding the latter as the highest and decisive form, to which all the other forms are subordinate, is actually desertion to the side of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.’’⁷ A clear guiding principle was adopted under his leadership at the Second Congress of the Communist International : ``Parliamentary activities of the Communist Party should be fully and completely subordinate to the aims and tasks of the mass struggles outside the parliament.’’⁸

1892 Preface by Engels to The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844

See also William Morris Speech in 1888 here :
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/whigs-democrats-and-socialists-by.html

The book, an English translation of which is here republished, was first issued in Germany in 1845. The author, at that time, was young, twenty-four years of age, and his production bears the stamp of his youth with its good and its faulty features, of neither of which he feels ashamed. It was translated into English, in 1885, by an American lady, Mrs. F. Kelley Wischnewetzky, and published in the following year in New York. The American edition being as good as exhausted, and having never been extensively circulated on this side of the Atlantic, the present English copyright edition is brought out with the full consent of all parties interested.

For the American edition, a new Preface and an Appendix were written in English by the author. The first had little to do with the book itself; it discussed the American Working-Class Movement of the day, and is, therefore, here omitted as irrelevant; the second — the original preface — is largely made use of in the present introductory remarks.

The state of things described in this book belongs to-day, in many respects, to the past, as far as England is concerned. Though not expressly stated in our recognised treatises, it is still a law of modern Political Economy that the larger the scale on which capitalistic production is carried on, the less can it support the petty devices of swindling and pilfering which characterise its early stages. The pettifogging business tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative in Europe of commerce in its lowest stage, those tricks that serve him so well in his own country, and are generally practised there, he finds to be out of date and out of place when he comes to Hamburg or Berlin; and, again, the commission agent who hails from Berlin or Hamburg, Jew or Christian, after frequenting the Manchester Exchange for a few months, finds out that in order to buy cotton yarn or cloth cheap, he, too, had better drop those slightly more refined but still miserable wiles and subterfuges which are considered the acme of cleverness in his native country. The fact is, those tricks do not pay any longer in a large market, where time is money, and where a certain standard of commercial morality is unavoidably developed, purely as a means of saving time and trouble. And it is the same with the relation between the manufacturer and his “hands.”

The revival of trade, after the crisis of 1847, was the dawn of a new industrial epoch. The repeal of the Corn Laws^[1] and the financial reforms subsequent thereon gave to English industry and commerce all the elbow-room they had asked for. The discovery of the Californian and Australian gold-fields followed in rapid succession. The colonial markets developed at an increasing rate their capacity for absorbing English manufactured goods. In India millions of hand-weavers were finally crushed out by the Lancashire power-loom. China was more and more being opened up. Above all, the United States — then, commercially speaking, a mere colonial market, but by far the biggest of them all — underwent an economic development astounding even for that rapidly progressive country. And, finally, the new means of communication introduced at the close of the preceding period — railways and ocean steamers — were now worked out on an international scale; they realised actually what had hitherto existed only potentially, a world-market. This world-market, at first, was composed of a number of chiefly or entirely agricultural countries grouped around one manufacturing centre — England which consumed the greater part of their surplus raw produce, and supplied them in return with the greater part of their requirements in manufactured articles. No wonder England’s industrial progress was colossal and unparalleled, and such that the status of 1844 now appears to us as comparatively primitive and insignificant. And in proportion as this increase took place, in the same proportion did manufacturing industry become apparently moralised. The competition of manufacturer against manufacturer by means of petty thefts upon the workpeople did no longer pay. Trade had outgrown such low means of making money; they were not worth while practising for the manufacturing millionaire, and served merely to keep alive the competition of smaller traders, thankful to pick up a penny wherever they could. Thus the truck system was suppressed, the Ten Hours’ Bill ^[2] was enacted, and a number of other secondary reforms introduced — much against the spirit of Free Trade and unbridled competition, but quite as much in favour of the giant-capitalist in his competition with his less favoured brother. Moreover, the larger the concern, and with it the number of hands, the greater the loss and inconvenience caused by every conflict between master and men; and thus a new spirit came over the masters, especially the large ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades’ Unions, and finally even to discover in strikes — at opportune times — a powerful means to serve their own ends. The largest manufacturers, formerly the leaders of the war against the working-class, were now the foremost to preach peace and harmony. And for a very good reason. The fact is that all these concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but means to accelerate the concentration of capital in the hands of the few, for whom the niggardly extra extortions of former years had lost all importance and had become actual nuisances; and to crush all the quicker and all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both ends meet without such perquisites. Thus the development of production on the basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed — at least in the leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far from being the case — to do away with all those minor grievances which aggravated the workman’s fate during its earlier stages. And thus it renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself. The wage-worker sells to the capitalist his labour-power for a certain daily sum. After a few hours’ work he has reproduced the value of that sum; but the substance of his contract is, that he has to work another series of hours to complete his working-day; and the value he produces during these additional hours of surplus labour is surplus value, which costs the capitalist nothing, but yet goes into his pocket. That is the basis of the system which tends more and more to split up civilised society into a few Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of production and subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense number of wage-workers, the owners of nothing but their labour-power, on the other. And that this result is caused, not by this or that secondary grievance, but by the system itself — this fact has been brought out in bold relief by the development of Capitalism in England since 1847.

ANURADHA GHANDY ON COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL ANTI-BRHAMINICAL AND DALIT LIBERATION MOVEMENTS BY ASIT DAS

Apart from historicizing the caste question in its emergence and feudal mode of production, Com. Anuradha wrote perceptibly in the Anti-Brahminical and Dalit Movement in Colonial and Post-Colonial India, including mapping the anti-Brahminical Bhakti Movement. Her writings on Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar and Dalit assertions in Maharashtra assumes importance because those were important milestones in the sub-altern resistance to Brahminical oppression in India.

The anti-Brahminical movements in India, especially in Maharashtra, are important because the specific characteristics of Indian caste feudalism and the way it was transformed and yet essentially maintained by British colonial rule, defined the specific anti-feudal tasks of the Indian revolution. The most basic anti-feudal task the land question took on, was the extremely complex features as a result of Indian caste feudalism. Because of the way in which hierarchical relations were maintained within the village and among the exploited classes themselves, and because of the way in which productive work for the land was institutionalized through the jajmani/palotedarisystem, it was insufficient to look at the land question simply in terms of landlordism. Similarly, the slogan of ‘land to the tiller’ was abstract and insufficient in the Indian context without understanding the overall Brahminical domination. For the fact was that much of the land had two tillers– the cultivating middle caste peasant, whether tenant or ryot, and the Dalit field servant, whose connection to the land was equally long-standing.

The very inequality among the exploited, institutionalized through the feudal caste hierarchy, meant that the need for creating unity in the context of resolving land question was crucial. It is hard to see how this could be done without a specific programme of action constituting poor peasants including Dalits, as well as caste Hindu toilers who would have the responsibility of seizing and distributing the village lands and instituting necessary programmes of co-operative and collective agriculture.

Though attempts were begun by the Dalit castes from the late 19^th century to organize themselves, the various sections of Dalit liberation movement really began to take off from the 1920s in the context of the strong social reform and anti-caste movements, which were beginning to develop a genuine mass base. The non-Brahmin movements in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu especially provided an important support. It is not accidental that Jyotirao Phule, the mali (gardener caste) who lived in the middle of the 19^th century, made the initial ideological advances and formulated a theory of Brahminism and ‘Irani Aryabhat’ conquest turning the Aryan theory upside down to identify with the original ‘non-Aryan’ Shudra and anti-Shudra inhabitants of the country.

Dalits, to some extent, were organizing the 19^th century also. An early attempt in Maharashtra was the movement of Gopal Babu Wangankar. Much organizing focused on the effort to regain their rights to serve in the British Indian Army, which they had helped till the 1870s, but which was then withdrawn from them. It was in the 1920s, however, that the Dalits began to organize strongly and independently throughout many regions of India. The most important of the early Dalit movements were the Adi-Dharma movement in Punjab (organized in 1926); the movement under Ambedkar in Maharashtra, mainly based among Maharas, which had its organizational beginnings in 1924; the Nama-Shudra movement in Bengal; the Adi-Dravida movement in Tamil Nadu; the Adi-Karnataka movement; the Adi-Hindu movement mainly centered around Kanpur in UP; and the organising of the Pulayas and Cherumans in Kerala. (For details see Mark Juergensmeier, “Adi Dharm: Origins of a Revolutionary Religion” University of California Press; Eleanor Zelliot, “Learning the Use of Political Means: The Mahars of Maharashtra”. In: Rajni Kothari, ed, "Caste in Indian Politics", Orient Longman, 1970. J.H. Broom-field, "Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal" (University of California Press, 1968).

In most of the cases the Montagu - Chelmsford Reforms provided a spark for this organization of Dalits, but the crucial background was the massive economic and political upheavals of the post-war period. The movements had a linguistic-national organizational base and varied according to the specific social characteristics in different areas, but there was considerable all-India exchange of ideas and by the 1930s this began to take the shape of all India conferences with Ambedkar emerging as the clear national leader of the movement. The founding of the Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942, and its later conversion into the Republican Party, gave Dalits a genuine all-India political organization, though this remained weak, except in certain specific localities, and did not by any means constitute the entire Dalit movement (Bharat Patenkar, Gail Omvedt: The Dalit Liberation Movement in Colonial Period). Writing about the Non-Brahmin movement in Maharashtra led by Jyotiba Phule, Com. Anuradha says, "The movement began with the founding of the Satyasashodak Samaj in Pune. The rise of Satyasashodak Samaj (SS) took place in the context of a rise of Brahminical Hindu revivalism in western India in the 1870s, with its base in Pune, which put the upper caste reformers on the defensive. After working as a social reformer for almost 20 years, Jyotiba Phule founded the SS in 1873 in Pune. The main task of the SS was to make the non-Brahmins conscious of their exploitation by the Brahmins. Phule himself belonged to the malicaste, a caste involved in the cultivation of vegetables, and their trade in the vicinity of Pune. His family was middle class and he was educated in a mission school. The SS did not restrict its activities to any particular caste and worked among the various non-Brahmin (NB) castes in the rural areas of Thane, Pune and later in other districts in Bombay Province and Berar. They also worked among the workers in the textile mills of Bombay. The songs, booklets and plays written by Phule used a popular hard-hitting style and language to expose the various ways in which the Brahmins duped the people, especially the peasants. The SS interpreted the racial theory of the origin of caste in the context of popular tradition - the Aryan invaders had enslaved the local peasantry, the rule of Baliraja, the peasant king was defeated - showing the links of the SS with the democratic sentiments of the peasantry.

In Phule's time, the SS campaigned for social reform - they rejected their own feudal-style marriages and adopted the SS marriages, which were based on principles of equality, mutual respect and loyalty between husband and wife. The SS reform campaign in Phule's time led to a strike by barbers who decided not to tonsure widows leading to tensions in the village. Phule ran a paper called Din Bandhu. His main supporters were Telugu contractors and workers in the textile mills. The first reformist organization among the textile workers of Bombay, the Mill Hands Association, was formed in 1890 by N.M. Lokhande under Phule's guidance. This association represented the grievances of the mill workers till it was pushed aside by the militant trade unions that emerged among the workers in the aftermath of the First World War. Phule promoted modern agriculture among the peasantry and personally bought land to experiment and set an example before them. He was influenced by the democratic American writings of Tom Paine and the principles of liberty and equality. He wrongly believed that British rule had destroyed the role of Brahmins and brought modern education to all castes, and hence was a supporter of the colonial rule in the country.

éirígí : The Price Sisters – victims of British vindictiveness

The Socialist Republican Party, éirígí, has said that the British administration’s decision to refuse Marian Price leave to attend the funeral of her sister, Dolours, is designed to add further grief to that already being felt by the Price/Rea family.

éirígí spokesperson Ursula Ní Shionnain said, “Republicans throughout Ireland were profoundly shocked and saddened to learn of the premature death of Dolours Price-Rea on Thursday.

“As young republicans, imprisoned in both Britain and Ireland from 1973 until the beginning of the 1980s, both Dolours and her sister Marian endured great hardship and ill-treatment, including the torture of force-feeding while on hunger strike, at the hands of the British state. Despite the efforts of their captors, the spirit and resolve of these two sisters could never be broken. Both Dolours and Marian provided inspiration and encouragement to many, not least of which was to their comrades in many other prisons.

“Those long years of imprisonment, isolation and ill-treatment were undoubtedly contributory factors to the ill-health which both sisters have suffered in recent years. They are not alone in that respect. It is a rarely discussed reality that many republican ex-prisoners continue to suffer the negative health impacts of long years of imprisonment and ill-treatment.”

Ursula continued, “What is special about the case of the Price sisters is the extent to which a campaign of vindictiveness and vilification has continued to be directed against them - a campaign now pursued even after death. The current internment of Marian Price has to be seen in the context of this forty year campaign by the British state.

“Even with the death of Dolours, the British state continues that campaign of vindictiveness by refusing Marian an opportunity to bid her sister a final farewell or attend her funeral. Such a cold and malevolent decision should not shock anyone – callousness and mercilessness have long been the hallmarks of ‘cruel Britannia’.

“That British decision is politically driven and designed to demonstrate the fact that, despite some cosmetic political changes, Britain remains the ultimate governing authority in the Six Counties. It is also designed to heap further unnecessary grief and torment on Marian and the wider Price/Rea family at this time of loss.

“On behalf of éirígí, I extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to Dolours’ family, her two sons, Danny and Oscar, and to her many friends. We particularly extend our sympathy and solidarity to her sister, Marian, at this most difficult of times.”

Appeal from Irish TD's We call on the Justice Minister David Ford to allow Marian Price compassionate release to join her family and attend the funeral of her sister Dolours Price.

We call on the Justice Minister David Ford to allow Marion Price compassionate release to join her family and attend the funeral of her sister Dolours Price.

Marian Price is already suffering from physical and mental health difficulties which has resulted in her detention in a hospital facility for the past number of months. Continuing to detain her in isolated custody to grieve alone as her sister is buried can only have a detrimental impact on her health.

We support the call of Marion’s lawyers who have asked Mr. Ford to consider allowing her to spend a week with her family to deal with her loss. The case for allowing her to grieve at her sister’s funeral will be shared even by people of profoundly different ideas and background.

We urge Mr Ford as an act of compassion to act urgently and release Marion Price in time for her sister’s funeral.

Signed,
Richard Boyd Barrett TD
Joan Collins TD
Clare Daly TD
Thomas Pringle TD

We have received news that Marian's application for compassionate parole following the tragic death of her sister Dolours has been refused: Statement from the family of Marian Price McGlinchey.

We have received news that Marian's application for compassionate parole following the tragic death of her sister Dolours has been refused, despite her being granted bail earlier today.

Given Marian's current health issues it is laughable that she would pose any kind of security or flight risk. We feel this decision is nothing more than a continuance of a vicious and vindictive campaign on the part of the Prison Service, the Department of Justice and the British secretary of state along with M15 to destroy Marian both physically and mentally.

We would urge all right thinking people to utterly condemn this blatant breach of Marian's fundamental human rights.

Marian Price Family Statement

The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party calls for Marian Price to be freed. Marian's imprisonment is an insult to democracy, the denial of compassionate parole to attend her sisters funeral is part of the psychological war waged against her to break her spirit.

Free Marian Price Now !