CONGRESS 2012

Our country is under attack. Every single institution is in decline. The only growth is in unemployment, poverty and war. There is a crisis – of thought, and of deed.
CONGRESS 2012
WORKERS, JAN 2013 ISSUE


The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) has recently held its 16th Congress, a coming together of the Party to consider the state of Britain and what needs to happen in the future.

It is now 44 years since the Party was formed, and 41 years since, at its Second Congress, the Party produced its Programme The British Working Class and Its Party. This Programme outlined the thinking of a political

party of a new type, a thoroughly British Marxist party. All subsequent Congresses have confirmed the ideas of the Programme, using them as the basis for developing our thought for the changing times.

At our 16th Congress, the Party adopted a number of Calls to Action for the British working class.

Out of the European Union, enemy to our survival

The European Union represents the dictatorship of finance capital, foreign domination, and the bleeding away of our capacity to take responsibility for ourselves. If we do not leave the EU, it will destroy our economy as surely as it has that of Greece. Destroy the economy of a nation and you undermine, possibly fatally, the ability of a country to be a country.

The EU is aided by quislings in our class who would rather supplicate in Brussels than struggle in Britain.

The British working class must declare our intention to leave the EU. We must wage this fight within our organisations, especially our trade unions. British withdrawal from the EU would fatally wound the project and shift the balance of force away from those who would break up Britain and launch war. Referendum Now!

No to the breakup of Britain, defend our national sovereignty

There are those in Scotland who wish to become an EU region with all the prestige of, for example, Estonia. Even a gerrymandered referendum confined to Scotland must return a “No” vote. Unless it does, the clock is turned back far more than 300 years. It would not only dismember our country (creating a new country called England and Wales) but would create an ideological back door to Britain through which the EU would be invited.

Devolution, and now the threat of separation, are both products of only one thing: de-industrialisation. When the working class in Scottish industry was numerous and active it often led the British working class. The SNP was laughed out of town as the “tartan tories”. The destruction of industry drags a class down, and no clearer example is extant than that of Scotland.

The future of all of us is at stake. We must demand that any referendum on the dismemberment of Britain be held throughout Britain. We must fight to establish a policy within our trade unions against break up.

Rebuild workplace trade union organisation

Too few British workers are union members. The percentage of public and other service sectors of the economy in unions is dangerously low. It is even lower in industry, in manufacture, in the private sector. Even more dangerous, it is still declining.

Most of the unions which existed only 40 years ago have now gone, a partial reflection of the destruction of the industries in which they organised. At the present rate of decline, trade unionism could be eradicated within this generation of members. The employing class has always aimed at this.

Unions exist as working members in real workplaces or they become something else entirely – something entirely negative. Workers need to involve themselves, prune back the weedy overgrowth and nourish the shoots.

Fight for pay, vital class battleground

A serious product of the decay of trade unions is the neglect of pay. Pay is our battleground. It reflects the state of struggle because it is concerned with the proportion of our labour power that we control.

In order to control the spiral of wage rises it could not control, capitalism took a bold step. It made credit easily available to workers. With Thatcher came the explosion of credit, and with that (and the destruction of industry, which led to mass unemployment) came a move away from the fight for pay. The collapse of the credit bubble has contributed directly to the slump and depression of the past five years, and now to the present depression.

But this depression is not the product of workers’ profligacy; it is the product of workers’ cowardice. We think now that we get what we want materially through credit, not by joining a union and putting in a pay claim. In borrowing rather than fighting we assist in our own ideological corruption.

For progress to be made in Britain’s economy, this thinking must go. We should spend only what we earn and if we don’t earn enough we’ll have to fight the employers for more. The fight for pay is central to our survival as a class, and should be put back on the agenda of our trade unions.

Regenerate industry, key to an independent future

Should our country be attacked in war now we would be defeated, because we do not make enough things here. The Soviet Union won the Second World War because Soviet workers made everything there. Their country was materially, as well as politically, independent.

We are encouraged to adopt a corrosively superior attitude: we need manufactured goods, but we are told they should be made abroad. All that dirt! We are encouraged to want energy without digging coal. We’d rather get our electricity from nice clean sources like wind and sea power, but these sources will not keep the lights on.

Science lies at the heart of progress. The two concepts are synonymous. Science must be at the centre of planning a new future for Britain in which all our resources, human and material, are used to meet the needs of our people, and not to make profit for capital. The regeneration of industry in Britain is essential to the future of our nation. Our grandparents, and theirs, knew this. We must now reassert it at the centre of class thinking.

Build the Party

The task of the Party is singular: to change the ideology of the British working class in order that they make revolution here. Until and unless we achieve this we cannot claim success. And when we do achieve it the work of our class will have only just begun. It is vital that we build the Party to assist the class in this historic role. http://www.workers.org.uk/

radicalworker wrote:So are you recomending people join?
If so, besides great words, what else are the benefits to this party & how do people get involved?

Does the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) have local units, meetings, leaflets etc.

How much freedom do activists have to operate and be active locally?

Isakenaz wrote:Yes I am advising joining or at least getting involved.
Contact address is suplied on the website http://www.workers.org.uk/ You will find a list of cantact addresses under the 'about us', 'get in touch' sections.

From there you can find out how to help etc.

The country is on its last legs. Continued goverment by this coalition of capitalist asswipes is fast bringing the economy etc to a state where the fascists will be able to assume the mantle of saviours as before. Either we join together and stand firm or we sink.
We are reaching the time when squables about this form of socialism or that form has become irrelevant First the revolution, then we can argue about which strand of socialism we wish to follow.

radicalworker wrote:
There is only the main address, so is there any local groups?

Perhaps anyone here from the Isles is able to confirm or dismiss that rumor.

In a radical move, Westminster Council are proposing to save money on their NHS budget by telling obese people that they will have their benefits cut if they don't attend fitness classes.

The move would give GPs the power to prescribe leisure activities to help overweight people improve their health and lose weight.

The Tory-controlled council explained that the aim of the plan would be to save £5bn from the NHS budget when local authorities take charge of public health provisions in April 2013.

The idea was put forward in a report, A Dose of Localism: The Role of Council in Public Health and suggests linking people's welfare payments to healthy lifestyles and rewarding those who take charge of their weight.

The suggestion is understandably controversial, dividing opinion between being seen as a sensible 'win-win' solution or as British Medical Association GP committee chairman Dr Buckman explained, '[one] of the silliest things I've heard in a long time.'

Jonathan Carr-West, acting chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit explained such proposals were about, 'finding innovative ways to both improve people's lives so they don't suffer from these conditions, while also saving money for the public purse.

We have to look at ways of managing demand, of helping people not to need such expensive health interventions,' he added.

Takeovers - A nation for sale?
WORKERS, DEC 2012 ISSUE

Foreign takeovers of British companies are continuing at a rapid pace. Pearson has agreed a deal to merge its Penguin Books with rival Random House. Random House is owned by German firm Bertelsmann, which will own 53 per cent of the merged company.

In the foods sector Premier Foods is selling its Branston range of pickles and sauces to Japan’s Mizkan including a factory in Bury St Edmunds. In June it sold its vinegars business to the same firm. In May China's Bright Food bought a 60 per cent controlling stake in Northants-based family firm Weetabix which also owns Alpen & Ready Brek. The company is valued at £1.2 billion.

Sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation (CIC) has 10 per cent stake of Heathrow Airport Holdings, the Spanish firm that owns Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports. CIC, set up to invest some of China’s foreign exchange reserves, bought 8.9 per cent of Thames Water in January. Meanwhile, Qatar Holdings’ bid for 20 per cent of Heathrow Airport Holdings is awaiting EU approval. ■ http://www.workers.org.uk/

radicalworker wrote:The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) does look good and has a good set of policy's. What do people think of them as a party radicals in Britain could rally to and develop?

Are there any other groups / parties people prefer and if so why?

DSN wrote:A pretty good article.

As for keeping our jobs within the country, the people having this literally waxed off their own arses don't even seem to care. I may have mentioned this before, but there was a one off BBC programme about some knob who owned a textiles factory and played out the role of the lovely, caring employer (he even paid for a potential employee's bus fair so that she could get to the interview – remarkable!). The entire hour was spent creating sympathy for the poor man because he didn't know whether it was worth keeping his business in the UK or giving it to China for a fraction of the price instead. It's funny how such a crappy situation is sold off as entertainment on our televisions just to keep us hypnotised and make us think it's not really happening. Anyway, the workers in the programme looked at their boss as though he was a nice person, and showed no negative emotions towards him at all. This is why no one can do anything beyond complain anymore.

Lumpenproletariat wrote:It gets even worse. I read on a german news website - and knowing its quality i really have to use the term news quite loosely - that the UK government is to cut the unemployment benefits of those jobless people that happen to be obese. This would certainly represent an attempt to further divide the work force. Perhaps anyone here from the Isles is able to confirm or dismiss that rumor. I'm curious. Those games are being played over here as well.

divide et impera!