North Devon: anti-imperialists campaigning together

An initiative of Chilean Socialist José Mateo and British Communist Gerrard Sables led to the founding of North Devon Liberation www.devonliberation.org the only local branch of Liberation the long time campaigning body against imperialism.

Liberation was formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom.

On Saturday 14 January to celebrate a year of campaigning the branch held a musical event. Jorge Morales thrilled the 50 or so gathered in Barnstaple's historic Guildhall with songs from Chile. Cahit Baylav member of Liberation's national steering committee read out the message of support from Jeremy Corbyn our national president  and told us how in Turkey they had sung Chilean revolutionary songs in Turkish. He then entertained us with his violin and performed a duet with his wife Akgül. Gerrard then told of the history of Liberation in North Devon and made the collection of £236.

Breaking Boundaries is a Latin American quartet comprising Colombian singer Ludz, Chilean singer Patricia, Bolivian guitarist and vocalist Milton and Peter on guitar and vocals who had come from the Outer Hebrides for the event. they had the audience clapping and stamping in appreciation.

Dave Clinch played us out and we went for a splendid meal cooked by our good friend Belal whose excellent curry was devoured.

All in all a great afternoon's entertainment and one which has made us many new friends.

The crisis of political representation in the Labour Movement

Statement issued by the Communist Party political committee - January 26, 2012

The Communist Party rejects the analysis peddled by the banks, hedge funds and Con-Dem government that past levels of public expenditure were the main cause of the economic and financial crisis.

We reject, too, the remedy dictated by City of London financial institutions and the EU Commission and European Central Bank, notably that massive public spending cuts and a savage attack on the wages and pensions of public sector workers are necessary in order to reduce the public sector financial deficit.

The policy of the Labour Party leadership to align itself with this analysis and these remedies is a betrayal of the millions of workers and their families who should be able to look to Labour for support and solidarity. In particular, recent statements by Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Liam Byrne in support of deep cuts in public sector wages and pension entitlements, and in welfare benefits, represent a shameful capitulation to the banks, the Con-Dem regime and the right-wing mass media.

Local CP artist to exhibit alongside Cuban contemporary art

Beyond the Frame presents fresh and diverse work by 29 of Cuba's leading artists, never before seen in Britain, in support of the campaign for justice for the Miami Five.

From the political to the poetic, the visionary to the everyday, the show embraces the vitality of the island's contemporary art scene, together with original works by other internationally acclaimed artists plus artworks by two of the Miami Five.

It includes painting, drawing, mixed media, prints and photographic work, all available for sale. All proceeds will go the on UK campaigning for Freedom for the Five.

Up to 20 artists mainly based in the UK but also from Ireland and the US have also generously decided to exhibit alongside the Cuban artists with donated artwork of their own. The Chair of the Exeter and South Devon Branch will be among them.

For full details visit http://www.cubabeyondtheframe.com/Site/Home.html

20p for Peace & Socialism

We start the new year as we ended the last, with the Conservatives cheerfully leading a fresh assault on working-class people, whether it be those with a disability or children whose household claims benefits.

The onslaught on pensions, public and private, continues.

The massive handover of the state and its workforces from democratic control to the private sector goes on relentlessly.

Wage cuts, long-term unemployment, particularly among our youth, who should be looking forward to their life ahead with excited anticipation but instead face destitution and despair, are the defining features of our age.

And all the while we know that worse is yet to come.

We lived better under socialism

Over the seven decades of its existence, and despite having to spend so much time preparing, fighting, and recovering from wars, Soviet socialism managed to create one of the great achievements of human history: a mass industrial society that eliminated most of the inequalities of wealth, income, education and opportunity that plagued what preceded it, what came after it, and what competed with it; a society in which health care and education through university were free (and university students received living stipends); where rent, utilities and public transportation were subsidized, along with books, periodicals and cultural events; where inflation was eliminated, pensions were generous, and child care was subsidized.

Read the full article on 21stCenturymanifesto

The Countdown to Gulf War III

As tensions heighten in Persia, the threat of a Western attack upon Iran inches ever closer. Jane Green considers the background to the situation

Taken from the Morning Star

With 10 days of Iranian naval exercises having just been completed, including the testing of long-range ballistic missiles, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi - naval commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) - has announced further activities next month.

Fadavi has said that the drill in February will be "different compared to previous exercises held by the IRGC."

The exercises - coupled with the warning that Iran could close the strait of Hormuz, the narrowest point in the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world's traded oil passes - has now encouraged the US and Israel to announce that they are to carry out extensive joint manoeuvres in the region.

The US and Britain have said they will act to keep the shipping lanes open.

Swindon tenants claim vote victory

Council housing campaigners scored a victory in Swindon today when thousands of the local authority's tenants voted overwhelmingly against plans to transfer of their homes to private providers.

In a ballot of more than 10,000 Swindon council tenants, nearly 73 per cent voted against the plans despite the city authority's best efforts to persuade them otherwise.

"The Swindon tenants' Vote No campaign was a grass-roots affair," said Paul Burnham of Defend Council Housing, which helped run the campaign.

"The council spent in excess of £600,000 on the transfer consultation, while the Vote No campaign spent less than £6,000 - but still the tenants delivered a No vote."

DECLARATION OF 19 EUROPEAN COMMUNIST YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS 20 YEARS AFTER THE COUNTERREVOLUTION

Our future is the new world, Communism

The Communist Youth Organizations that sign the following announcement call upon the youth of Europe, and of the whole world, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR and the overthrow of socialism.

This anniversary, from the scope of the bourgeois governments and parties, from the scope of the forces of capital, is a chance to slander socialism and its contribution, to project the capitalist “eternity” and “welfare”. These are the ones that with their applied politics have taken back all the youth’s rights; they have made dozens of imperialist wars and are planning even more; they have condemned us in poverty and unemployment; they penalize communist ideology.

From our scope, the scope of the workers, of the peoples and the youth of the world, this anniversary is a chance to remember and highlight the achievements of socialism, its contribution to humanity; a chance to draw significant conclusions of the defeat in the years 1989-1991.

We address to the young people, to learn and know the truth about socialism; To tell them that our future is the new world, Socialism-Communism.

COMMUNIST CALL: "Advance in unity not retreat in disarray"

ROBERT GRIFFITHS considers the labour movement's prospects in 2012  and calls for the line to be held on pensions.

Where stands Britain's labour movement at the beginning of 2012?

In the course of last year, millions of trade unionists in the public sector have demonstrated their willingness to resist the Con-Dem government's attack on their pension schemes.

They are angry about much else besides. They see the value of their wages being cut, while the public services they struggle to deliver are being slashed to the bone.

Like millions of other workers and their families, they see the real cost of living rising faster than the bogus picture painted by the official figures.

Housing and disability benefits are being chopped and a million young people are among the three million – and rising – who are out of work. Yet we are not even one-quarter of the way through the austerity cuts demanded by the finance monopolists in the City of London. Up to 700,000 more jobs are to be scrapped in the public sector, putting hundreds of thousands of workers out of work in the private sector which depends on public sector wages and contracts.

Bledhen Nowyth Da!

Taken from the Morning Star

This Happy New Year in Cornish - or Kernewek - heralds a revival of the campaign to make Cornwall a separate nation.

In what could be a major Celtic resurgence Welsh nationalists gave their backing yesterday to calls from the south-west peninsular for autonomy.

Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow is demanding an elected assembly and ultimately devolved powers from Westminster similar to those enjoyed by Scotland.

Its campaign comes a decade after 50,000 people - 10 per cent of the population of Cornwall - signed a petition supporting its aims.

And in a show of pan-Celtic unity Plaid Cymru has given the initiative its backing.

Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Jonathan Edwards has launched an early day motion calling "for the formation of a democratically elected Cornish Assembly to take decisions for the benefit of the people of Cornwall."

So far it has been signed by 10 MPs from his party, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, including Cornish Lib Dem MPs Andrew George (St Ives), Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) and Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall).

Dick Cole, Mebyon Kernow leader, said: "We are campaigning for devolution within the UK and for powers similar to those of the Scottish Parliament."

The nationalists argue that Cornwall has never politically officially been a county of England but is a separate country which after the Romans left Britain 1600 years ago, was independently ruled.

Cornwall's language has been undergoing a revival with dual-language road signs and, in January 2010, the opening of a creche teaching young children the language.

The Cornish language is closely related to Welsh and Breton and a little more distantly to Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic.

The Communist Party also recognises the special position of Cornwall in relation to the rest of England. Our party's programme, Britain's Road to Socialism, notes that:

“The distinctive cultural and social characteristics of Cornwall should be expressed through a directly elected Cornish Assembly, with powers that match local aspirations” and that:

“The national movements in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall also contain substantial progressive and left-wing elements that oppose reactionary policies of monopoly capital and the British state”.