Solidarity 097, 10 August 2006

Henry Suss: A tragic old Stalinist militant dies; what his life says to allies of Islamic clerical fascism now

"Even such is time, that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with earth and dust; Who, in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days..." — Sir Walter Raleigh Henry Suss, who was for 70 years a member of the Communist Party, has died at the age of 91. Suss’s political experience was representative of a whole, Jewish, layer of the Manchester working class, and of many others. Last year a big book of interviews with Suss, by Dave Chapple, about his years in the Communist Party, was published:"Henry Suss and the...

Trotsky on the national question

By Leon Trotsky Note: Leon Trotsky was murdered by an agent of the Stalinist USSR in August 1940. Leon Trotsky was a great defender of the traditions pursued by the Bolshevik Party when they made a revolution in Russia in 1917. One of the Bolshevik’s great contributions to socialist ideas was their approach to the national question. In many parts of the world today nation peoples and fragments of nations continue to fight for what they conceived of as their rights. What political do socialist need for these issues? The world has changed a lot since the Russian Revolution. Nonetheless aspects...

An open letter to a demonstrator against the war on Lebanon

Stop the slaughter! Israel out of Lebanon! Stop rocket attacks on Israeli civilians! This is a demonstration against Israel and the USA. We are together here because we oppose the policy and "strategy" of Bush and Blair... most of the ideas and more or less all of the policies advocated by the leaders of the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ make no sense... You hold to some or all of the following ideas. Comrade, This is a demonstration against Israel and the USA. We are together here because we oppose the policy and "strategy" of Bush and Blair, and because we share all or most of the following...

The slow suicide of the left

BY THOMAS CAROLAN This article will do no more than tabulate some of the symptoms and some of the causes of the political and moral chaos that has engulfed the erstwhile “revolutionary left”. In pursuit of “anti-imperialism” the most numerous force on the left — the SWP — is now in close alliance and makes solidarity with clerical-fascists such as Hamas and Hizbollah. The twentieth century dealt shattering blows to what positively the left used to represent. Now history has turned much of the left into something defined/self-defined only by negativism towards the existing capitalist society...

Stop the slaughter!

The Israeli armed forces have inflicted a vast destruction on the infrastructure of Lebanese economic and social life. They have killed hundreds of civilians. The difference between the deliberate slaughter of civilians, the trade-mark of all the clerical-fascist organisations, and “collateral” civilian casualties in a military operation is blurred by Israel’s recklessness and indifference to civilian casualties. The fact that Hizbollah (and Hamas) deliberately site the rocket-launching bases, from which they bomb Israeli civilians, amidst dense civilian populations cannot justify Israel...

Who are Hizbollah?

By Clive Bradley The Lebanese political system, from 1943 until its collapse in the 1970s, enshrined the religious divisions in the population. There was a Christian president, a Sunni Muslim prime minister (and a much weaker Shi’a Speaker of the House); parliamentary seats were allocated with six Christians to every five Muslims. The Shi’a Muslims were often poor, and this “confessional” system discriminated against them. In the 1970s, this system broke down under the impact of a huge presence of the Palestinian guerrilla movement, and consequent Israeli anxiety. An Israeli invasion in 1978...

The left that backs Hizbollah

By Ruben Lomas “Only they who can keep their heart strong and their will as sharp as a sword when the general disillusionment is at its worst can be regarded as a fighter for the working class or called a revolutionary.” Antonio Gramsci Israel’s current war of sub-imperialist aggression against Lebanon (and, within it, the war of clerical-fascist forces such as Hizbollah against the Israeli state) have given the left another chance to do some soul-searching and rediscover what it is we stand for. How have Britain’s revolutionary socialist organisations measured up to this test? The biggest —...

Against two states

By Paddy Dollard Socialist Worker has come out against a two-state solution to the Jewish Arab conflict (Alex Callinicos, SW 5 August). Calinicos argues that two states would not be a solution because compared with Israel a Palestinian state would be very weak. He lists a range of problems, difficulties and obstacles in the way of two states being a solution. In the very last paragraph he announces the solution — “The only way out — lies in… a single secular and democratic Palestinian state, in which Jews and Arabs, Christians and Muslims live together on the basis of equality” — but gives no...

The French far-left responds

Joan Trevor looks at what some of the French left say about Lebanon In an unusual collaboration, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) issued a statement jointly with the French section of the Lebanese Communist Party (PCL) for the demonstration in Paris on 29 July. The march was organised with these slogans: • Solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese people • An immediate halt to the bombings • International mediation for exchange of prisoners • No to alignment of France with American policy • Respect and implementation of the national rights of the Palestinian people The joint LCR...

Defend Monica Ali!

By Dan Katz Following a small — 60-strong — march in Brick Lane, East London, the companies involved in making a film of Monica Ali’s novel, Brick Lane have unfortunately caved in to the protestors’ demand that they stop filming in the area. This protest is the latest in a number of reactionary, communialist/religious mobilisations aimed at preventing critical voices discussing religious stupidities or backward practices inside minority communities. The Brick Lane protesters claim Ali’s book portrays them as, "ignorant and unsophisticated". They marched with placards reading, "Stop demeaning...

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