Solidarity 089, 9 March 2006

Fifty years ago - The end of the Stalin cult

Fifty years ago, in 1956, the cult of Josef Stalin — the man who had imposed terror on the workers of the USSR while simultaneously being revered by millions of workers as the “genius” leader of world communism — was abruptly shattered. USSR leader Nikita Khruschev, denounced him. Khrushchev’s speech caused huge crises in Communist Parties across the world. The American Marxist James P Cannon (above) had been a close comrade of Leon Trotsky, who led the battle of the loyal Bolshevik revolutionaries in the USSR against Stalin’s counter-revolution. By 1956 Cannon was the foremost surviving...

A workers’ voice on Hackney council

Janine Booth is standing as a Socialist Unity candidate in Hackney Central in the forthcoming local government elections. In the next few issues of Solidarity Janine will outline the politics of her campaign. Why am I standing? Well, first and foremost, because there are so many issues that socialists need to address in working class communities like the one where I live in Hackney. Take housing. On 3 April the Hackney ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) will come into force. All the estates that have not already been transferred out of council control (most of them) will be handed over...

The elusive "masses"

BBC4’s “Lefties” series sparked some memories for Janine Booth Back in the 1980s, I supplemented my student grant by writing for News On Sunday, the “left-wing” tabloid which is now usually referred to as “the ill-fated News On Sunday”. And ill-fated it was, as documented by the BBC4 programme (shown on 26 February). It was born and died in the same year, 1987. It would be great to have a national left-wing paper selling by the shed load from newsagents’ shelves, doing all the things that News On Sunday’s editorial charter promised — supporting workers, fighting racism, exposing the capitalist...

Defending whose liberties?

Jack Staunton reviews Good Night, and Good Luck. Although the focus in this film is Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts — the 1950s campaign against the US liberal opposition which branded them as “Communist agents” and tried to silence voices of dissent — the implications made by the film about the Bush administration are upfront and not subtle. At the centre of the film is the true story of Edward Murrow (played by David Strathairn), a liberal TV journalist whose “See It Now” programme attacked McCarthy for his excessive interference with civil liberties. A case in point was that of Milo...

Iraqi women

Socialist Action members in the student movement have consistently opposed any form of solidarity with democratic organisations in Iraq, and none more fanatically than calls for student women to support Iraqi women’s rights activists. At this year’s NUS Women’s Conference, supporters of the SA-dominated Student Broad Left group have proposed a motion which attacks “small and unrepresentative groups that support occupation” and calling for support for “representative women’s groups such as. . .Women’s Will”. Nowhere do SA feel the need to explain which groups they are criticising, or explain...

to Holyrood

Meanwhile, George Galloway is seeking new pastures for his ambitious career plans. According to the 26 February Sunday Times, “George Galloway has revealed plans to stand for the Scottish parliament… in next year’s Holyrood elections” (February 26). The article quotes Galloway’s mouthpiece, Ron McKay: “George has not ruled out standing in another Westminster constituency, but he is more likely to stand in the Scottish parliament and/or the European parliament. He gets a lot of requests to stand in Scotland, particularly as the Scottish Socialist Party has weakened.” SSP members, and those of...

From Bethnal Green. . .

Two prominent Respect candidates for the local elections in Tower Hamlets have defected to the Lib Dems — former vice-chair Dr Shamsuddin Ahmed and Ahmed Mustaque. In resigning they publicly condemned George Galloway as a “clown” and “two faced” and also the SWP. Mr Mustaque wrote: “Many people like me are disillusioned by Respect and people in it.” One of the triggers has been the forthcoming council election. Respect are standing 47 candidates for the 51 council seats, but this now doesn’t include Galloway. He originally threatened to stand against New Labour council leader Michael Keith...

Galloway on the cartoons

I thought the SWP and Respect’s various leaflets on the cartoons controversy were bad enough (by the way, comrades, can you stop using a squiggly “eastern” font for headlines appealing to Muslim people? It’s plain embarrassing.) But that was until I read the BBC’s transcript of what George Galloway said to Algeria’s El Khabar newspaper : “Frankly what happened is an insult to Islam and Muslims. Personally, I condemn these barbaric and evil acts. Today, the objective of the Western states is to control the oil of the Muslims whatever the price. In fact, the cartoons published in Denmark did not...

Missing the point again

The SWP have had another go at theorising their opportunism by appealing to the classics. In the 4 March issue of Socialist Worker, Anindya Bhattacharyya claims that the SWP’s attitude to Muslims and Islam as a religion mirrors the approach Marx outlined in his famous essay On the Jewish Question. According to Bhattacharyya, the opposition to civil rights for religious Jewish people by philosopher Bruno Bauer which was the primary target of Marx’s polemic “prefigure[s] the arguments put by some today for downplaying, ignoring or colluding with Islamophobia”. Who is being talked about here...

Disrespect Agenda

We’ve all heard that Tony Blair wants more “respect” in communities and is prepared to use ASBOs and so on to enforce it. What readers may not have heard is that the Home Office plan to introduce a new phone number — 101 — for reporting less serious crime, such as harassment, criminal damage and dealing in hard drugs. However, unlike dialling 999, you have to pay for it! Respect indeed!

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