‘Are therereally only twelvemillionairesin myCabinet?’

Communist Party

l Free Autumn 2012

Unity

Britain’s road to socialism and working class power

Why we need socialismThe fight for socialism and state powerState monopoly capitalism is the enemyThe labour movement must leadCapitalism is bankruptAn alternative economic strategyWhat you can do

BRITAINNEEDS

SOCIALISM

Unity 20/10 New_Layout 1 14/10/2012 21:48 Page 1

Why we needsocialismby Mary Davis

The profit motive on which capitalism isbased ensures that crises are endemic.Accumulation, speculation and greedensure that temporary stability is quicklyfollowed by recession.

Social democratic attempts to reform thesystem have had some positive effects. Theyhave demonstrated the benefits of publicownership, planning and the redistribution ofwealth.

However, because capitalist economic andstate power has remained dominant, the socialdemocratic experiment has always ended indefeat, whether in Britain, France, Germany,Greece, Portugal, the Scandinavian countries,Australia or New Zealand.

On the other hand, if democratic ratherthan capitalist public ownership had beenimplemented, with greater workers’ controland less compensation for the former owners,the outcome might have been different andlonger lasting.

Socialist public ownership would go furtherand end monopoly capitalist control of theeconomy altogether. In doing so, it would putan end to the exploitation of the working class.Surplus labour would no longer be performedfor capitalist profit, but used instead for thebenefit of society as a whole.

Furthermore, the material basis for theoppression of women and black people wouldbe removed. Since its inception, capitalismhas extracted super profits from women andblack people. Racism and sexism have alsooperated at an ideological level to sustaincapitalist relations of production. Socialismwould end this oppression economically andbegin to eradicate it in every other area.

The huge inequalities of wealth in capitalistsociety continue to have a major impact on thepolitical system and on people’s democraticcapacity to control their own future ('popularsovereignty').

The economic, ideological and repressiveapparatus of the state is constantly used toprotect the interests of the ruling class.

The fact that the likes of Murdoch andDesmond control vast sections of the massmedia exposes the shallowness of capitalism’sclaim to democracy. Apart from the MorningStar, the working class and its labourmovement have no voice at all.

Genuine democracy and popularsovereignty will only come about when theworking class control state power.

But what happened in those countrieswhich once offered an alternative tocapitalism, notably the Soviet Union and thesocialist countries of eastern Europe?

Capitalism’s hired politicians and

propagandists conveniently forget theenormous gains made in what was – in thecase of Russia – a semi-feudal autocracy. TheSoviet Union was transformed into a societywhich provided housing, education and workfor all. Above all, socialist construction madeit possible for the Red Army to ‘tear the gutsout of the Nazi war machine’, as Churchill putit.

Although the war-shattered Soviet Unionand eastern Europe were then left toreconstruct their societies without any Westernhelp, the socialist countries went on to assistnational liberation movements againstimperialism around the world.

However, there were negative features aswell as great achievements.

These included severe violations of Sovietdemocracy and the mass arrests andexecutions of the late 1930s, affecting millionsof innocent people (many of themcommunists). By the 1970s, economic growthwas falling behind the advanced capitalistcountries.

The command-style economy and thefailure to mobilise the Communist Party andthe people led ultimately to stagnation and,beginning in 1989, the collapse of the socialistsystem.

But the capitalism that replaced socialismin the former Soviet Union and eastern Europehas not solved their economic and socialproblems. Far from it – millions of workershave lost their jobs and almost all the socialgains of the past 50 years have been wipedout.

Elsewhere, other countries have taken theirown roads to socialism in very differentcircumstances.

The Cuban model seeks to involve thepeople from the bottom up. Despite its ThirdWorld origins, Cuba has built advanced first-world health and education services and sentthousands of health care workers to other,poorer countries. Vietnam, like Cuba, has hadto defend its national sovereignty against USimperialist aggression.

In People’s China, a country of 1.3 billionpeople (almost one-fifth of the world'spopulation), great emphasis has been placedon economic and social development. Acombination of Communist Party rule, stateownership and planning, market reform andforeign private capital has lifted more than600 million people out of extreme povertysince 1981.

In Britain, our road to socialism will bedifferent again.

Nobody can predict the future, but thecapacity of the British working classthroughout its 200-year history to re-group,reconstruct itself and fight back is legendary.It will be strengthened by learning from itsown mistakes and those of others.

Professor Mary Davis is an historian andformer editor of Communist Review

The fight forstate powerand socialismby Gawain Little

Revolutionary strategy must be based onan understanding that the state is amachine for the oppression of one class byanother.

This is not an over-simplification or a one-dimensional view. Indeed, Marxists have beenat the forefront of analysing the complexities ofthe modern state and its various functions.

However, these complexities cannot beallowed to confuse the question and mask theessential nature of the state. It exists to defendthe economic and social system and the rulingclass in whose interests that system operates.

Whether it’s the workings of a legal andjudicial system founded on the principle ofprivate property, the use of the armed forces toenforce the extraction of super-profits abroad,or the role of the state broadcasting system inmarginalising dissent and whitewashing thecrimes of imperialism, the state acts tomaintain and reproduce the current system ofexploitation and oppression.

The election of a left government will notchange this. A host of mechanisms withinparliament and the political system, as well asoutside them, help to maintain and even widenthe gulf between the people and their electedrepresentatives.

A left government in Britain would besurrounded not only by top state personnel whoare hostile to socialism, but also by a stateapparatus designed to protect and maintaincapitalism – not to abolish it.

Even the most modest measures to shift thebalance of power towards the working class arelikely to come under sustained attack fromwithin the state, the capitalist media andelsewhere.

For communists, there needs to befundamental change not only in terms of whoruns the state apparatus, but in the verystructure, role and character of the state.

This means going beyond the parliamentarystruggle. The working class must take statepower from the capitalist class and use it tobegin building socialism and defeating allattempts at counter-revolution.

This struggle is unlikely to comprise onesingle, decisive battle. Rather, it will be arevolutionary process, going through a numberof distinct but inter-connected stages,proceeding from the contradictions withincapitalism and within the state itself.

Serious opposition from within the state to ademocratically-elected left government willhelp expose the nature of capitalist democracy.It raises the need to build a socialistdemocracy instead, in which the mass of the

people can participate directly in the exerciseof state power.

In such circumstances, new bodies ofworking class and popular power are likely tobe necessary to monitor or take over statefunctions. The aim will be to restructure andthen replace the administrative and politicalapparatus with one designed to dismantlecapitalism and construct a system that servesthe interests of society as a whole.

The essence of socialist revolution is that,working with its allies, the working class takesstate power from the capitalist class. Whilemass extra-parliamentary activity and theelection of a left government would representan important first stage, it is the process thatfollows that will prove decisive.

The international balance of forces duringthe struggle for socialism also has to be takenfully into account. It is highly likely that a leftgovernment in Britain would face a hugepropaganda offensive. There might well beattacks on sterling and on the Britishgovernment’s ability to borrow in financialmarkets. The EU Commission, the EuropeanCentral Bank, the European Court of Justiceand the IMF will issue diktats anddenunciations. There could be trade embargoesand other measures of destabilisation.

Nonetheless, it is important not tooverestimate these dangers.

Policies in the left wing programme aim toreduce vulnerability to outside pressure andsabotage. Taking strategic sectors andenterprises in the British economy into publicownership would bring them under democraticcontrol. Taxing the wealthy and monopolyprofits would reduce the need for governmentborrowing.

Britain should keep out of the euro-zone aspublic opinion is prepared for confrontationswith EU neoliberal policies. Britain’s industrialbase must be rebuilt and economic andpolitical relations strengthened with non-imperialist, developing and socialist-orientatedcountries.

Ultimately, it will be for the working classand its popular anti-monopoly alliance to takethe lead in building and defending socialism inBritain. There are many lessons we can learnfrom previous and existing socialist countries.But socialism – and the higher stage ofcommunism – will be an expression of the willof the British working class and popularmovement.

As Britain’s Road to Socialism puts it:'We share this Earth in common, we are

interdependent, the individual good of the vastmajority requires the collective good andcooperation and unity are better than conflictand division.

‘For the sake of humanity, the future iscommunism’.

Gawain Little is the Communist Partypolitical education secretary and amember of the NUT executive

A United States of Europe is possible asan agreement between the Europeancapitalists ... but to what end? Only forthe purpose of jointly suppressingsocialism in Europe and of jointlyprotecting imperialist booty againstAmerica and Japan.Uneven economic and political

development is an absolute law ofcapitalism. Hence, the victory ofsocialism is possible first in several oreven in one capitalist country alone'.

V.I. Lenin, On the Slogan 'For a UnitedStates of Europe' (1915)

'China's rapid growth over the last 20years has reduced poverty andimproved living standards on a scaleand at a pace unequalled in history'.World Bank, East Asia & Pacific Update:10 years after the crisis (April 2007)

World Bank, East Asia & Pacific Update:10 years after the crisis (April 2007)

Distribution ofpersonal wealth in Britain2008/10*

total % of£billion total

All households 10,330 100%

Wealthiest 10% 4,500 44%Wealthiest 20% 6,400 62%Poorer 50% 1,047 10%Poorest 10% 8 1%

(*excluding business ownership and upto £3,000 billion hidden assets)Source: Office for National Statistics,Wealth in Great Britain 2008/10 (July 2012)

Communist PartyRuskin House23 Coombe RoadCroydonLondonCR0 1BD

office@communist-party.org.uk02086861659

Follow us on Twitter -@Communists1920

www.communist-party.org.ukwww.welshcommunists.orgwww.scottishcommunists.org.ukwww.solidnet.orgwww.morningstaronline.co.ukwww.21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com

Britain needs socialism

Capitalism’s global failure

People in extreme poverty: 1.4 billion (up 64m in 2010)People in chronic hunger: 925 million (up 110m from 1990)Children suffering chronic malnutrition: 170 millionChildren dying of hunger: 2.6 million a year (5 every minute)Children dying before age of 5: 9 million a year (17 a minute)Children with no school: 69 millionIlliterate adults: 860 million (two-thirds of them women)

People with no safe water: 783 millionPeople without adequate sanitation: 2.5 billionWestern aid to developing countries: $134 billionRatio of development aid to debt repayment: 1:25Sum needed to meet UN Millenium Goals: $189 billionMilitary spending by US, France and Britain: $837 billion (2011)Cost of bank and financial bailout: $10,000 billion and rising

Sources: UN Development Programme, UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, SIPRI, Pax Christi, IM

Unity 20/10 New_Layout 1 14/10/2012 21:48 Page 2

The labourmovementmust leadby Robert Griffiths

Which forces in society can bemobilised to resist the policies ofstate-monopoly capitalism and fightfor progressive change and socialism?

Different groups of people have theirown reasons for challenging aspects oftoday's economic and social system. Buttheir common enemy is state-monopolycapitalism, which exploits workers hereand abroad, oppresses large sections ofsociety, strives to roll back democraticrights, blocks progress on every front,generates militarism and war, and nowthreatens the viability of our planet.

The working class has the most directinterest in overthrowing the system thatrules and exploits workers, breedsinequality and insecurity, and whichcondemns many people to poverty atvarious stages of life

At the core of the working class arethose industrial workers who producecommodities directly for capitalist profit.But public sector workers are exploitedtoo, although their surplus value accruesto the capitalist class as a whole throughthe state. Self-employed and sub-contracted labour also helps providesurplus value for the capitalist class.

Without the labour power supplied byworking people in every sector,capitalism would immediately cease tofunction.

Yet the conditions of capitalistproduction, trade and administrationcreate the potential for the working classto liberate itself. Through trade unions, inparticular, workers can defend theircommon interests and develop theircollective strength as a democratic,disciplined force.

It is very important that trade

unionism embraces many more privatesector, women, black, young, part-time,casual and immigrant workers, besidesestablishing itself more widely in smalland hi-tech enterprises.

It is in the interest of all workers toprevent super-exploitation of one sectionof the working class, which is used toundermine terms and conditions for all.

Unions can also seek to represent thewider and more fundamental interests ofworkers in society. The Trades UnionCongress (TUC) and various socialistorganisations established the LabourParty at the beginning of the 20thcentury, not only to represent workingclass interests in parliament but to strivefor a socialist society.

More politically advanced workersfounded the Communist Party in 1920 tofight not only for reform, but for therevolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

These organisations, together with thecooperative movement and other bodiesbuilt by the working class, comprise thelabour movement. Only this movementhas the organisational capacity toovercome state-monopoly capitalism,although it must also win allies todevelop itself and further tilt the balanceof forces in its favour.

However, the predominant politics andideology of the mass party of theorganised working class, the LabourParty, have been those of socialdemocracy. It has sought to manage andreform capitalism, rather than abolish.Furthermore, Labour's reformist outlookneglects socialist education and seespolitical campaigning almost entirely interms of elections.

The ‘New Labour’ faction broke fromsocial democracy altogether after 2001.It openly represents the interests ofmonopoly capital and British imperialism.It champions neoliberal policies andimperialist ‘globalisation’.

Whether the affiliated trade unionsand the socialist and social-democratictrends will be sufficiently strong, resoluteand united to take back control of theLabour Party from ‘New Labour’ can

only be assessed in the course of adetermined struggle to do so.

The working class and peoples ofBritain need a mass political party, basedon the labour movement, that can wingeneral elections, form a government andimplement substantial reforms in theirinterests.

But this requires the unionsthemselves to fight both inside andoutside the Labour Party for policies thatwill challenge state-monopoly capitalism.This would provide the most favourableconditions in which to resolve the crisisof working class electoral representation,with the labour movement eitherreclaiming the Labour Party or re-establishing its own mass party of labour.

Other forces, whether in left-wingparties or in the Green and Welsh andScottish national movements also have animportant role to play in shifting thepolitical balance of forces to the left.

So, too, do movements fightingoppressions based on gender, race, ageand sexual orientation. The self-organisation of women, black people,youth, students and the unemployedmust be supported and their needs andaspirations championed by the labourmovement.

The peace, anti-war and internationalsolidarity movements uphold a proudrecord of anti-imperialism in one of theworld’s oldest imperialist countries.

Rooted in the working class, but activein all the major movements that bringpeople into activity against oppression, isBritain’s Communist Party.

Its Marxist-Leninist outlook, creativity,discipline and role as part of theinternational communist movementenable it exercise influence way beyondits small membership.

History and experience show that apowerful, influential Communist Party isessential if a mass movement forrevolutionary change is to succeed.

Robert Griffiths is general secretary ofthe Communist Party

State-monopolycapitalism isthe enemyby John Foster

In Britain, every sector of the economy isnow dominated by a handful of giantmonopoly enterprises.

Monopoly wealth and power controlspolitical debate and corrupts politicians andpolitical parties. It produces massive socialinequality and a mass culture that promoteswealth-worship and selfishness.

The most powerful section of the Britishcapitalist class is that organised in the banksand other financial institutions of the City ofLondon.

The big finance monopoly capitalists usetheir influence to ensure that state powerprotects and promotes their interests.

The state is a complex of institutions whichmaintain the conditions in which capitalistexploitation can take place. These include thelegal system, the police and intelligenceservices, the civil service, local government,public services, the monarchy, the Church ofEngland, the BBC and the armed forces, aswell as elected parliaments and governments.

Because its main institutions are notprivately owned, the state can mistakenly beseen as ‘neutral’.

In reality, state institutions operate anddefend capitalism, as they have beendesigned or modified to do. The power of thestate is far more than the power of electedgovernments.

Moreover, the state and monopolycontrolled mass media present capitalism asthe most natural, essential and civilised typeof society possible.

They equate it with ‘free enterprise’ andthe ‘free market’ – ignoring the triumph ofmonopoly.

They claim that capitalism bringsdemocracy – although democratic rights havenever been granted freely by capitalist rulingclasses. The history of capitalism has beenone of huge struggles to abolish the slavetrade, win freedoms of speech and assembly,secure the right to vote, liberate the colonies,achieve trade union rights and so on.

The biggest threat to democratic rightstoday is capitalism itself.

More precisely it is the way in which theeconomic power of the monopoly capitalistshas fused with the political power of the state,producing ‘state-monopoly capitalism’.

Through a whole series of mechanisms, themonopolists ensure that the state representstheir common class interests. Thesemechanisms include appointments to stateand private sector bodies, public-privatecontracts, selective state intervention in theeconomy, state subsidies, sponsorship ofpoliticians and political parties, mass mediapatronage etc.

Many of the people in command of the topmonopolies and the state apparatus are drawnfrom a narrow, wealthy and privileged band ofthe population in Britain.

How can state-monopoly capitalism bechallenged and replaced?

The first step is to understand the role ofthe capitalist state in Britain today.

Labour governments have never done this.They have simply assumed that electedgovernments can improve the lot of workingpeople by using parliamentary means toreform capitalism’s abuses.

The communist approach is quite different.It argues that socialist change can only bepermanently secured by dismantling thecapitalist state apparatus and replacing itthrough the collective power of the workingclass.

In the meantime, however, more limited

advances can be secured in face of capitaliststate power – but on two conditions.

The first is that an elected left-winggovernment must actively draw on the extra-parliamentary force of a mobilised workingclass to carry forward its democratic mandate.Only this can begin to counter theconcentrated power of capitalist stateinstitutions.

The other condition is that thecontradictions within the capitalist state areexploited.

The most fundamental of these is that themodern state no longer represents thecapitalist class as a whole, but only thedominant monopoly section.

Super-profit is now increasingly extracteddirectly through the financial sector.Investment banks use the savings of workingpeople in retail banks to control andmanipulate the productive economy anddivert resources into internationalspeculation.

The City of London, where much of thecapital is now controlled by US interests, isthe world centre for financial gambling,money laundering and tax fraud.

The destructive consequences affect notonly working people but also the great mass ofsmall and medium firms.

The interests of the super-rich drive asystem that is parasitic, undermines theproductive economy and is dangerouslydependent on an external imperialist power.

Hence the crucial importance of uniting amuch wider alliance around the labourmovement, one which can expose the anti-democratic character of state-monopolycapitalism, politically isolate the ruling classand advance an alternative programme foreconomic regeneration and democratictransformation.

John Foster is the Communist Partyinternational secretary

Capitalism isbankruptby Liz Payne

Capitalism is economically, socially, politically and morallybankrupt. It no longer makes a progressive contribution tohuman development.

Capitalism’s driving force – that the private owners of industryand commerce must maximise their profits – prevents us fromusing the Earth’s resources to solve humanity’s fundamentalproblems.

Billions of people live in poverty, without access to education,medical services and sanitation. While people go hungry and evenstarve, food mountains are destroyed.

Big business fails to cut carbon emissions, while depleting finiteresources and refusing to invest in safe, renewable energy.

Despite every attempt to regulate capitalism, economic crisesrecur. The drive to maximise market share and profit drives upproduction – while holding down the ability of workers and theirfamilies to buy the products.

Periodically, the result is a glut of unsold products, cuts ininvestment and production, rising unemployment, still lesspurchasing power – and a downward spiral into recession andslump. Only when labour is cheaper and production becomes moreprofitable do the owners of capital invest and expand again.

These cyclical crises are made worse by structural crises, notablyin the financial or energy sectors.

The huge creation of commercial, government and householdcredit delayed the economic downturn for a few years. But, as aresult, it tipped the capitalist world into deep recession from 2007.

So far, the governments of the USA, Britain and the EuropeanUnion have spent or pledged almost £20,000 billion (£20 trillion) ofpublic funds bailing out the financial markets and institutions.

Invested elsewhere, these sums could guarantee food, cleandrinking water, education, health care and renewable energysupplies for all the world’s people.

Capitalism generates crises, inequality and poverty because it isbased on the exploitation of workers.

Employers purchase labour power as a comodity, becauseworkers create more value than they and their dependants need toconsume. Collectively, they add more value to their products thanthe value of their wages.

This ‘surplus value’ is the source of capitalist profit in theeconomy as a whole.

Profits will be maximised by driving down real wages, exploitingnew sources of cheaper labour and by suppressing trade unionismand employment rights.

More than a century ago, a small number of companies grew tomonopolise each major sector of the economy in the advancedcapitalist countries. The search for fresh raw materials, cheaperlabour and new markets led monopoly capitalists to establishoperations outside their own country. Capitalism entered its‘imperialist’ stage’.

The struggle for ‘spheres of influence’ between monopolies andtheir respective states led directly to the First World War (1914-18)and laid the basis for the Second World War (1939-45).

The German and Italian monopoly capitalists had turned tofascism to suppress communism and socialism at home and fight forexpansion abroad. During the clash between the main imperialistpowers, the Soviet Union successfully defended itself and helped thecountries of eastern Europe to abolish all forms of capitalism.

Counter-revolution in the socialist countries from 1989 has givenmonopoly capital and imperialism new opportunities to dominatethe world.

Today, transnational corporations (TNCs) account for largeproportions of world production, international trade andinvestment. The vast majority of the top 200 TNCs are based in theUS, Britain, Germany, France and Japan.

The struggle for influence and control between rival imperialismscontinues. At the same time, they cooperate in the European Union,the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the WorldTrade Organisation to impose their common interests on otherpeoples and states.

‘Globalisation’ is the drive by imperialism to force economies –especially those in former socialist countries and the Third World –to privatise their public sector, remove labour protection and handover their markets and natural resources to Western monopolycapital.

The imperialist powers openly use political, economic and –where necessary and possible – military means to enforce theirinterests. The September 2001 attacks on the US provided thepretext for a bogus ‘war on terror’, allowing seizure of the oil, gasand strategic supply routes of the Greater Middle East.

The EU is developing its military capacity, while NATO hasextended its military operations to the borders of Russia and intoAfghanistan and the Middle East. People’s China has been ringedwith military bases. Yet many millions of people around the world,including in Britain, are learning that capitalism breeds crisis, poverty,social injustice, insecurity, militarism and war.

Inspired by socialist Cuba and revolutionary Venezuela, LatinAmerica has turned left. There and on other continents, masscommunist and working class organisations are on the march again.

Our planet and its people cannot afford capitalism. Socialismremains the only alternative.

Liz Payne is the Communist Party women’s organiser

‘When I feed thepoor, they call mea saint. When I askwhy so manypeople are poor,they call me acommunist’.

Archbishop DomHelder Camara(1909-1999),Recife, Brazil

Britain’s road to socialism and working class power

Unity 20/10 New_Layout 1 14/10/2012 21:49 Page 3

What you can doNow is not the time to sit around and moan about how bad life has become. Join with others to mount a political fight-back.

Few families beyond the rich have remained immune to unemployment, rising pricesand cuts to living standards. The drive to break-up the NHS, education and nationalpay rates is an attempt to break the gains made by the working class, throughstruggle, over the last half a century.

Mass demonstrations throughout Britain over recent years illustrate the depth offeeling in every city, town and village. Each of us can contribute to such campaigning,although we are many times stronger when workmates and other activists areinvolved.

H Get involved with your local community, housing, Save The NHS and anti-cutscampaigns and take the message of resistance on to every estate and high street inBritain.H If there is no local group to join, start one.H Take part in your union struggle at work and in the community. If you are out ofwork, join a local unemployed group. H If no union or group exists, start one.H Your union branch should affiliate to the local Trades Council – take discussion outof the pub and club and into the community!H Read the People’s Charter and raise the Six Points wherever you are active.H If you want that alternative, go for Socialism. H Start a local or workplace group to study the Communist Party programme, Britain’s Road to Socialism.

2

I want to join the Communist Party/Young Communists oPlease send me more information o

Name

Address

e mail phone

return to CPB Ruskin House 23 Coombe Road Croydon CR0 1BD

Join Britain’s party of workingclass power and liberation

Building an economy for thepeoplean alternative economic and politicalstrategy for 21st century Britain

This book challenges the consensus thathas confined political economy to theoptions that the banks and big business willaccept. Based on the policy agenda thatBritain’s trade union and labour movementhave begun to shape it analyses what iswrong with the British economy, arguingthat the country’s productive base is toosmall, that the economy has become toofinancialised and that power has becomeconcentrated on a narrow economicfraction based in the City.

It sets out policies to establish democraticand social control of the City, arguing thatregulation is not enough.

The book focuses on how immediategrowth and longer-term re-industrialisationmight be achieved, arguing that a socially-owned banking sector can foster thecreation of a new, sustainable, social

housing sector, a new communicationsinfrastructure and new green industries.

The book argues for an alternativeeconomic strategy that breaks politicaldependence on the US, and diversifieseconomic relationships, fostering thosewith emerging BRICS economies andquestioning anew our dependence on theEuropean Union, whose ‘social model’ nowseems a distant memory.

Critically the book tackles the problemsthat a progressive government would faceand argues that an alternative economicstrategy must be accompanied by measuresto devolve political power and encouragethe active participation of the people inexercising control over the actions of bigbusiness and finance in Britain.

It insists on the importance of a strategythat can boost spending power among theBritish people, begin to narrow thewidening inequalities in British society andraise the standard of living and build a new,democratised public realm that insulatespeople from dependence on volatilefinancial markets.

Edited by Jonathan White with contributors from Mark Baimbridge,Brian Burkitt, Mary Davis, John FosterMarjorie Mayo, Jonathan Michie, Seumas Milne, Andrew Murray, RogerSeifert, Prem Sikka, Jonathan White andPhilip Whyman.

Granite and honeyThe story of Phil Piratin, Communist MPby Kevin Marsh and Robert Griffiths

This pioneering new biography sets thestory of Phil Piratin, elected CommunistMP for Mile End in the post war generalelection that returned Labour to power ona reforming manifesto.

The book reflects the commanding rolethat Piratin played in the 1936 Battle ofCable Street against the fascist Blackshirtsand in parliament as the MP who exposednumerous colonial massacres (including theBatang Kali case in Malaya, which iscurrently before the High Court).

The book contains new material from thepapers of Hugh Faulkener, who penetratedthe British Union of Fscists and providedPiratin with vital information.

The book provides unequalled coverage ofthese and other significant episodes in 20thcentury and labour movement history.

Piratin also tabled a Private Members Bill inthe Commons to provide for a universalsystem of employers’ insurance whichsubsequently contributed towards majorlegislative reforms.

Second in a new Manifesto Press series ofLabour Lives

by Anita Wright

Strikes and demonstrations are aconstant feature of capitalist society,but they often proceed in isolation fromeach other and fail to confront thecapitalist system itself. So what isneeded to overthrow this system ofbooms, busts and wars orchestrated bya minority of business barons who stealthe wealth produced by the labour ofothers?

Two fundamental, interlocking elementsare needed if state-monopoly capitalism isto be challenged successfully.

First, a coherent alternative economicand political strategy (AEPS) has to bedeveloped that inspires and unites theorganised working class and progressivemovements.

Second, a popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance of forces has to be builtto pursue such a strategy – an alliance thatis sustainable and unstoppable.

Progress towards socialism will requirethe left and the labour movement to workto unite a mass movement, one in whichthe organised working class would winpopular leadership.

Such an alliance must take account ofthe different conditions in Scotland andWales. However, as the majority of thecapitalist monopolies are owned andcontrolled at the British level and politicalpower is predominantly exercised throughthe British state, it is essential tostrengthen unity in the labour andprogressive movements built up across thethree nations of Britain.

That is why the Communist Partysupports maximum devolution of

economic and financial powers to theScottish and Welsh legislatures, so thatthey can exert popular sovereignty againstmonopoly capital – while opposing bothreactionary separatism and reactionaryunionism.

To be effective, the AEPS must have atits heart a left wing programme thatpromotes the interests of the workingclass and the majority of ordinary people.

The economic objective must be toprotect and improve living standards forworking people and their families based onfull employment in a modern, productive,balanced and sustainable economy.

The People’s Charter, the Charter forWomen, the Countryside Charter and theCharter for Youth all contain policies thatset out the first steps in this process. Indoing so, they lay the basis for moreadvanced policies to be developed by afuture left-wing government committed tocurbing the City of London’s financialdomination of the economy.

The financial sector and key industriesshould be taken into democratic publicownership, imposing controls on theexport of capital and ensuring that Britaincan pursue its own foreign policyindependent from the United States andthe European Union.

Together with a more progressivetaxation system, notably a Wealth Tax, thiswould make it possible to fund the massiveinvestment needed in public services,manufacturing and housing, and to developan integrated, publicly-owned transportsystem and new and safer forms of energyproduction.

In order to expand democratic rightsand people’s participation in every form of

struggle, all anti-democratic, racist andanti-trade union laws should be repealedand the House of Lords abolished. Localgovernment needs to be reinvigorated andprogress made towards a federal republicin Britain, including a parliamentarychamber for England.

The media monopolies that promoteracism, sexism, homophobia, ageism andthe values of monopoly capitalism shouldbe broken up in favour of wider ownershipand participation.

The Morning Star, as the only dailypaper of the labour movement and with aneditorial policy based on Britain’s Road toSocialism, has an increasingly importantrole to play in the ‘battle of ideas’ toinform, mobilise and inspire the popularand revolutionary movement.

The election of a left government basedon a Labour, socialist, communist and leftmajority, backed by a popular democraticanti-monopoly alliance and committed tothe left wing programme, would mark theopening stage of Britain’s socialistrevolution. But it will not be achievedwithout the working class fully engaging inthe electoral struggle.

Winning elections in England, Scotlandand Wales will be necessary to ensure thatsuch a left wing programme has thedemocratic endorsement of the people.Popular support and participation will bevital when countering attempts bymonopoly capitalism and its supporters –within and outside the state apparatus – tochallenge and sabotage a left governmentand its policies.

Anita Wright is a member of theCommunist Party executive committee

For an alternative economicand political strategy

n www.manifestopress.org.uk

n New from Manifesto Press

Morning StarMorning Star

Daily paper of the left£1 daily from your newsagentwww.morningstaronline.co.uk

H

Coming soon!

To be published

in November

2012

Unity 20/10 New_Layout 1 14/10/2012 23:08 Page 4