In the Holborn and St Pancras (HSP) By-Election, there is currently no Labour or left-wing candidate that is sufficiently on the side of the working class and the oppressed to merit electoral support from those communists who are concerned, as Marx and Engels’ Manifesto of the Communist Party says, to “represent the interests of the [working class] movement as a whole”.

In order to merit critical support, a non-communist candidate has to have something that they stand for that is unambiguously positive from the standpoint of the working class, even though the communist minority may very well suspect that they will betray such policies or promises if elected. The point of the tactic of critical support is to exploit some kind of contradiction between a claim to stand for the working class and the oppressed, and their real politics and deeds.

There are three contenders for such critical support in HSP. They are – Sagal Abdi-Wali, the Labour Party candidate, George Galloway, the Workers Party (WP) candidate and indeed WP leader, and Zack Polanski, the Green Party (GP) candidate and also GP leader.

There are fundamental problems with all three, not abstractly but concretely, in the current context. Abdi-Wali is the leader of Camden Council and, though she is of Somali origin, is an unrepentant supporter of Keir Starmer. Notwithstanding the traitorous Zionist and arch enemy of the Corbynite left being driven out of Downing Street and replaced by Andy Burnham, Burnham’s words about how Labour “got it wrong” after October 7^th 2023, and even Ed Miliband’s supposed sanctions against Zionist settlers in the West Bank, Labour at its conference is still arresting people for protesting against genocide, using the fraudulent proscription of Palestine Action for ‘terrorism’ as a fig-leaf. Meanwhile, the real neo-Nazi terrorist movement Patriot Platform, whose masked thugs have been terrorising the streets of cities like Dover and Portsmouth, are not proscribed, but their thugs are free to threaten all opponents of the far right. Opposition to electoral support to Burnham’s Labour is a no-brainer.

Then there is George Galloway, and his Workers Party. He has some very good positions, on opposing Zionism and opposing NATO’s proxy war against Russia over Ukraine. If these were only what he was known for, it would be correct not just to just advocate a vote for him, but to actively get involved in the campaign. But he also stands for ‘Stop the Boats’. In the Runcorn and Helsby by-election of May 2025, WP candidate and Deputy Leader Peter Ford stood on the slogans “Stop the Boats” and “Tough on Immigration, Tough on the Causes of Immigration”. This by-election was won by Reform at the most dangerous point (so far) of the far-right wave assisted by this very right-wing ‘Labour government’. Instead of fighting against the reactionary tide, Galloway’s party tried to swim with it. With miserable results – Ford got only 0.5% of the vote in a by-election where Reform defeated Starmer’s Labour by just 6 votes.

Galloway’s own statement for the HSP by election states, in attacking the Greens, says “Instead of addressing poverty, immigration, energy prices, they were voting together last week to introduce legislation to make killing people legal. We believe voters will welcome the chance to reject this madness.” We don’t share the Green Party’s support for the (defeated) Assisted Dying Bill, but we do not consider “addressing” “immigration” – that is, targeting migrant workers for repression and exclusion, to be the job of a working-class party. Our job, on the contrary, is to defend the rights of, and promote solidarity with, migrant workers and refugees. This is criticism of this foul government from the right, and makes a mockery of the correct criticisms the WP makes of the NATO/Zionist atrocities in the Donbass and Gaza. And with the masked fascist attacks on migrant workers, this issue is centre-stage, and has been ever since Labour was elected. We cannot give any support to a party that stands on such an anti-immigrant platform.

Then there is the Green Party. This is not even a working-class party – it is a party of the radical middle class; it does not orient to the labour movement. It doesn’t have a solid base of outright bourgeois support either; it represents a social layer that is capable either of following the working class or the bourgeoisie. It is a party of protest against the environmental destruction that capitalism brings. Whether it attributes this to capitalism is thus pretty important as to whether it has any potential to be won to the side of the working class. Recently the Greens in England and Wales have acquired a more left-wing reputation because of Polanski’s outspoken attacks on Israeli crimes. He actually publicly apologized to Corbyn for reactionary positions he took regarding the witchhunt in the Labour Party prior to the genocide, which is significant.  The failure of Your Party to organize the 800,000 who signed up a year ago as potential supporters of a new working-class socialist party allowed Polanski’s party to win over around 200,000 of those people with his leftist rhetoric particularly over Zionism. It also led the former independent candidate Andrew Feinstein, who stood against Starmer in this seat in the General Election, to call for votes to Polanski in this by-election, and then Chris Williamson, until recently a deputy leader of the Workers Party, to resign from that party in disagreement with Galloway’s decision to stand, and call for votes for Polanski also.

Both of them did so on the understanding that Polanski was supporting the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion at the coming Green Party conference. And in the case of Andrew Feinstein, he did so on the basis that Polanski endorsed the demands of the Camden People’s Alliance, the left-wing local independent umbrella group that Feinstein would have stood for before Polanski standing became a live issue.  But these were hardly challenging – mainly about local issues. After these endorsements, Polanski backed away from supporting the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion demanding extensive amendments to dilute it. Which led to criticism of Polanski, including from Chris Williamson. But there is an inherent problem in such support, in that it does nothing to address the question of the non-working-class nature of the Green Party, vague ‘left’ verbiage notwithstanding. The record of the Greens in local councils, in coalitions often with Liberal Democrats where they have regularly carried out austerity, is appalling.  However, because of the mass influx of erstwhile YP supporters, which quadrupled its membership, there is a potential class-based division in the Greens. A coherent working-class party could, if it were not simply able to stand itself, place some much more stringent demands on the Greens, as a possible lever to split them. This is what one of our comrades proposed in a motion in Croydon Your Party: three demands, on top of a decent position on “Zionism is racism”:

“(a) a clear statement from the GP that the root cause of the environmental crisis their party was set up to address, is capitalism, which therefore needs to be abolished.

“(b) That Zack Polanski and Your Party should issue a statement jointly defending Diane Abbot against the renewed witchhunting of her in the Labour Party, for her justified attack on NATO aggression as the cause of the war in Ukraine.

“(c) That the Greens should jointly with us and others in the labour movement, launch a trade union and community-centred campaign against the environmentally ruinous plans for AI Data Centres in numerous parts  of this country. And to encourage similar activities internationally.”

This was topped off with “This motion should be sent to the [Your Party] CEC for their attention.” Given the appalling disaster that the Corbyn leadership have made of the Party’s evident potential a year ago, placing these demands could have had a political impact. If they were to be accepted, it would have meant that the pro-socialist elements would be in the ascendancy in the Greens. Point 2 goes some way to counter the Greens’ reactionary position on the Ukraine War, and the others would mean a pro-working class, anti-capitalist agenda instead of illusions in ‘Green’ capitalism. This might be a long shot, but it could have been a way to try to pull away the numerous supporters lost to the Greens by YP back to a working-class project.

Without this being a realistic possibility, as is now clear, socialists and class-conscious workers in Holborn and St Pancras should spoil their ballots in this election.

Three steps back, when the moment of geopolitical conflict requires forward steps

Érico Cardoso

https://emancipacaodotrabalho.org/Publicacao.aspx?id=700480

 BRICS held its 18th Summit in New Delhi between 12 and 13 September 2026, under the presidency of India, with the participation of 10 of its 11 members. For a number of reasons, including the heterogeneous and unequal intertwining of the economies of its participating members with the economies of the imperialist system, the bloc, composed of dependent and semi-colonial capitalist states and China (a workers’ state), has set aside confrontational geopolitical narratives, believing that it will be able to focus on concrete deliveries and internal institutional strengthening.

The central theme was “Building Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. One cannot blame only the host nation and the political alignment of its right-wing, pro-US government for the disarming character of the Summit, this is also a reason, but not the only one. The bloc decided to take steps back, avoiding, as it has done in these 20 years of existence, forming itself into an instrument of organized resistance to the imperialist offensive, while the G-7 and company carry out a new arms race in Europe against Russia; the US and in the midst of the Zionist war against Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen; expansionism in Latin America; escalations that have as a strategy the defeat of the most powerful and developed adversary, China. Despite these “Western” offensives, the New Delhi summit retreated three crucial steps: 1. it began to bet on the recovery of multilateral organizations from the imperialist system to build its multilateralism; 2. If postponed again the creation of a common currency and 3. it barred the entry of new nations.

 Would it be possible to build a new multilateralism based on the reform of the multilateral organizations of the imperialist system?

 The New Delhi Declaration (with 140 points) reinforced the need to reform institutions such as the UN, WTO and IMF to reflect the multipolar reality. There was explicit condemnation of unilateral sanctions and coercive measures contrary to international law.

After World War II, the main imperialist nations were indebted or occupied by US bases. The main losers in the war, Germany, Italy and Japan became military colonies. This hegemony established the dollar as the standard currency of world market exchanges and a set of multilateral financial, commercial, civil and military organizations (WB, IMF, WTO, UN, NATO). This imperialist system entered into crisis during the financialization of the economy and the crisis of 2008. BRICS believes that an opportunity is opening up to promote a kind of democratic revitalization of the organisms that served the hegemony of the United States for 70 years and are now being abandoned by it.

The government representing the interests of US imperialism today despises the multilateral organizations of the imperialist system, which suffer economic disinvestment by the US that acts with ultrapotitism, punctual military alliances, reconcentration of forces in the Western Hemisphere (Donroe Doctrine) to prioritize the “America First” policy, seeking maximum freedom to override the entire international legal system and reduce US financial spending abroad and replace collective alliances with bilateral direct transaction agreements. In January 2026, Trump signed a proclamation determining the immediate withdrawal from the country of 66 international organizations, 31 of which are linked to the UN and 35 independent entities. According to the White House, these bodies act against American national interests.

No one can complain that Trump has not helped the BRICS, accentuating the isolation of the US and pushing other nations into the arms of China. This is the case of India itself, whose government prefers to be a vassal of the US, thinks it is an ally of Washington and feeds historical, economic and border rivalries with China, but has been pushed by Trumpist protectionism to ally itself with its Asian neighbour. A rapprochement that has strengthened in New Delhi, between Modi and Xi Jinping, thanks to the fact that India has been surprised and frustrated by the various tariff attacks and threats by the Trump administration since 2025, dispelling illusions about a supposed special partnership relationship with the US.

Postponing De-Dollarization and New Mechanisms Again

The summit abandoned the idea of a common BRICS currency, which was considered unfeasible. The strategy adopted is intended to be pragmatic. Payment interconnection – it seeks to connect systems such as UPI (India), Pix (Brazil), MIR (Russia) and CIPS (China) to make cross-border transactions cheaper. Settlement of bilateral transactions in local currencies: Stimulation of trade without going through the dollar, with possible savings of 2-3% in conversion costs. In addition to these mechanisms, they are betting on the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees, a pilot initiative of the New Development Bank (NDB) to attract private capital and reduce financing costs for infrastructure. The bloc’s countries have also adopted a multifaceted strategy to reduce dependence on SWIFT. The main collective mechanism used and in an advanced stage of implementation is BRICS Pay. BRICS Pay works as a decentralized digital infrastructure that connects the domestic payment systems already existing in the member countries. Instead of recreating a global network from scratch, it promotes the direct bridge between successful local platforms such as mo PIX, UPI, MIR and CIPS. These are all lateral measures, relatively timid, as long as an anti-dollar global currency could favor the breakdown of the financing of imperialism at this time of crisis of the petrodollar system due to the defeats of imperialism and Zionism in Southeast Asia.

The control of money and the banking system is not only a measure of monetary policy, but a fundamental political weapon and strategy for the anti-imperialist struggle. Despite copying or re-editing initiatives of the post-war imperialist system, such as industrialization, multilateral organizations, and the expansion of the global market, BRICS has not been consistent in the establishment of a new standard currency that serves to supplant the dollar, a very important mechanism of imperialism’s exchange hegemony over the world economy. The main accelerating motivation for de-dollarization is the need for geopolitical security. When the United States and its allies froze about $300 billion in Russia’s foreign exchange reserves in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine, it became clear to BRICS members that dependence on the dollar represents a sovereignty risk. Countries fear that, in any future diplomatic conflicts, they may also be cut off from the Western financial system (such as the SWIFT payment mechanism). Currently, if Brazil sells products to China, the transaction often needs to convert Reais to Dollars and then Dollars to Yuan. This process involves duplicate bank fees and risks of currency fluctuation. By establishing local currencies or a common unit of account for international trade, countries reduce costs and increase the efficiency of trade exchanges within the bloc.

With the Anglo-Saxon tech giants (Bigtech) that control much of the world’s communications and information traffic on the other side, the summit made the debate around technology a central pillar, focusing on digital sovereignty and the right to development of the countries of the Global South. The declaration on Global Governance of AI was the bloc’s first consensus document on the subject, expressing the intention to reduce technological dependence on Bigtech and supporting the creation of the Digital Public Infrastructure Library (DPI), for sharing good practices and interoperability between members’ digital systems. Getting lost in reunionism without the necessary steps that the geopolitical dispute requires at the moment, they settle for administrative measures that fall short of what is needed, creating, for example, in the midst of the annual rotation of the presidency, a Continuity and Implementation mechanism to monitor initiatives via the Troika (previous, current and next presidency), with a digital repository to monitor deadlines and status and an Emergency Support Network for Seafarers to coordinate assistance (medical, evacuation, communication with family members) to seafarers in crisis situations.

Containing Its Own Expansion

Today, the real weight of the BRICS stems more from its existence itself than from its willingness to be an alternative to the imperialist bloc, an aspiration that its members who adhere to a worsened version of the policy of “peaceful coexistence” of the twentieth century do not have.

The weight of BRICS stems from the size of its members. It includes the two most populous countries on the planet (India and China); three of the five largest countries in territorial extension (Russia, China and Brazil); and five of the largest economies in the world (China, India, Russia, Indonesia and Brazil). Another striking feature – the group includes the three countries that are in confrontation with the collective West – China, Russia and Iran. The activity of BRICS is followed with concern in Washington and in European capitals. Donald Trump has threatened BRICS several times, trying to scare the most fearful or most vulnerable members of the group. (DCM, The BRICS summit in India: political and financial results).

After the wave of new members, which brought the institution to 11 members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) the Indian summit chose to pause the formal expansion to consolidate internal mechanisms. More than 20 countries that have already expressed interest in joining the bloc are thus vetoed, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Vietnam, Bolivia, Venezuela, Algeria, Cuba, Nigeria and Uganda.

The focus has shifted to strengthening the network of partner countries (such as Vietnam) and practical cooperation in areas such as food security, energy, and health. The bloc has temporarily pulled the handbrake instead of expanding its cooperation to the areas of defense and security. As a historical leader of the Brazilian PT, Markus Sokol, aptly summarized, “there is a search among the peoples for a global alternative to the system in crisis, but this alternative is not BRICS, which does not want more than that, to accompany the world order in crisis” (OT Newspaper, 970).

 For a consistent anti-imperialist struggle

 In short, the New Delhi summit consolidated the BRICS as a bloc that, instead of seeking confrontation or even organized common resistance, believes it is prioritizing the construction of its own technical and financial infrastructure to increase the resilience and autonomy of the Global South. Capitalist aspirations that decadent imperialism sabotages and literally bombs, nothing preventing the system from dragging humanity into a new world war and a barbarism with no return, in full flight, slaughtering multilateralist illusions in full flight.

The resolutions of the New Delhi summit fall short of the recent victories of the oppressed nations over imperialism in the wars won in Afghanistan or still in progress: Ukraine and Iran. Victories that were only feared possible thanks to the bilateral and trilateral articulations between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, in military coalitions formed more by a kind of antagonistic cooperation against an aggressive common enemy than by a common strategy for the defeat of imperialism by nations that are victims of it.

Although the official list of full members of the group has 11 countries, Saudi Arabia was on the official agendas of the New Delhi Summit, but did not confirm the sending of a presidential delegation to the main debates. In addition to these full members, the meeting in India brought together 10 other countries as new official “partner countries” of the bloc. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia is being defeated once again by the Yemeni Houthi guerrillas, supported by Iran. The US could have been left with only the defeat in the Persian Gulf to Iran, but it decided to push Saudi Arabia to the precipice and now it screwed with the defences of the Arabian Peninsula, the traffic of the Red Sea, the passage through the Bab al Mandab, the petrodollar system, they screwed everything.

Despite the recent victories of some of its members over imperialism, the BRICS have proved incapable of defending key nations from the geopolitical dispute such as Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile. For this reason, we believe that the tactic of taking steps backwards is a strategic mistake. It means abandoning all of Latin America to its fate, letting imperialism continue to advance in its backyard, appropriating inputs that today are vital for China itself and that once in the hands of imperialism will grant it a life, not to mention the cost of this offensive for Latin American workers.

Finally, it is important to understand that the tariff, military and technological victories obtained by the “Global South” have recently been possible thanks to the crisis of the imperialist Military-Industrial Complex, with overpriced weapons and in loss of power of domination given the deindustrialization that the imperialist system is going through. Private capital in the era of financialization is more parasitic and rentier than ever. Therefore, in order to develop their national economies, oppressed peoples and countries need to decouple their economies from the imperialist system, and bet on the industrialization and nationalization of their economies, not feeding illusions in Public-Private Partnerships or in the illusion that the G20 is “the main global forum for international economic cooperation to provide a platform for dialogue between emerging and developed economies in conditions of equality and mutual benefit”.

Imperialism attacks but loses ground in the three continents of the old world, while maintaining a consistent advance by recolonizing the American continent under the Donroe doctrine. A situation that proves that the consequent anti-imperialist struggle depends on the responsibility placed on the shoulders of the working class and the proletarian internationalism of the oppressed peoples.

The lead article in this issue focusses on the environmental crisis that became glaringly obvious this summer, with the repeated heatwaves that undoubtedly were the cause of much loss of life, record-breaking overall temperature globally and the unmistakeable fact that this is the product of anthropogenic climate change, which is above all the product of the capitalist mode of production. This ought to be, if the world was rational, the most pressing and urgent issue of all for humanity to deal with. But the cause of it is, as mentioned, the capitalist mode of production, and the struggle against other concrete manifestations of that, from imperialist war to the class struggle within the imperialist countries, also holds centre stage. What we as revolutionary Marxist have to do is to find a way to integrate this understanding of the existential nature of the environmental struggle into the class consciousness we are seeking to promote as the antithesis of capitalism in movements of workers and the oppressed more generally.

The other lead article in this issue is an analysis of the rise to the premiership of Andy Burnham, and why he in particular was chosen to replace Starmer when the reactionary and Zionist forces that promoted Starmer to destroy the Corbyn project, concluded that Starmer’s many vices were leading the Labour Party to destruction. There is also an article on the prominent role of Burnham and Starmer in the accelerating, and quite demented, drive of the West European imperialist bourgeoisies in seeking some kind of existential confrontation with Russia now that it is increasingly clear that Nazi-Maidan Ukraine is on the verge of collapse despite all the many billions that its imperialist sponsors have expended on it. And there is a brief commentary on the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, where the Green Party’s Zack Polanski is fighting to win Starmer’s former seat against Labour, but George Galloway has decided to stand also for the Workers Party (WP). This prompted the resignation of WP Deputy Leader Chris Williamson from the WP in disagreement with Galloway’s action.

The article proposed a possible way to place demands on Polanski, as the leader of a non-working class, petty-bourgeois radical party, to embrace key elements of working-class politics as a precondition for any kind of electoral support, as a possible tactic to bring to the fore the tens of thousands of socialist-minded militants who have joined the Greens because of the dramatic failure of the Corbyn-misled Your Party to give expression to their aspirations. Since this was written, Polanski has backed away from supporting the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion that the left-wing of the Greens were trying to get passed, aiming to make the Greens the only overtly anti-Zionist party contending in mainstream British politics (Your Party is hardly ‘contending’ at the moment). Polanski’s retreat on this has prompted criticism from Chris Williamson, among others, and may come to be seen as a significant moment among those seeking a new working class, socialist party.

Other significant material in this issue includes an account of the political degeneration of the Socialist Federation. This was originally conceived as the Members’ Charter, an initiative to try to force democratisation in Your Party, but has now, thanks to the influence of pro-NATO, Ziophile social imperialists like ‘Anti-Capitalist Resistance’, turned it into a strange heresy-hunting project. It had to postpone its own Founding Conference because its fratricidal warfare made such an event unfeasible. That takes some doing! Many of the remaining socialist activists in Your Party treat it with deep suspicion therefore.

There is also an account of the Founding Conference of the British Chapter of the Anti-Fascist International; the Consistent Democrats are one of its supporting groups. It is a campaigning anti-imperialist, anti-fascist body that was originally an initiative of the Maduro government in Venezuela, prior to his outrageous abduction by Trump. Included is the text of a speech by one of our comrades to this conference, on Zionism and the sinister, genocidal nature and purpose of the so-called “IHRA definition” of Anti-Semitism. And there is a brief statement of our position on the recent UNITE General Secretary election.

All in all, this issue has material that should be of interest to a wide range of socialists and working-class activists.

(by Ian Donovan for Consistent Democrats)

I want to raise the subject of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Anti-Semitism as a matter for comrades to think about at this conference. This became a prominent issue in this country in the period when the Labour Party was led by Jeremy Corbyn. It was used as a weapon to undermine him, because of his reputation as a defender of Palestinians. It deliberately re-writes the definition of anti-semitism from racial hatred, to a mixture of what could be called ‘political crimes.’ First of all, in the bare-bones definition it broadens the supposed target of anti-Semitism from just Jews as individuals of a supposed ‘race’, to “Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”

There then follow a series of eleven ‘illustrations’ of what that might mean. Some are largely consistent with racial hostility – such as denying the holocaust, or suggesting it was not intentional, or was exaggerated. Or suggesting that “the Jews killed Jesus”. But most of these ‘illustrations’ refer in some way to Israel. Indeed, of the eleven, only the first four do not refer to Israel. The rest, even ones that refer obliquely to genocide denial, bring Israel into the argument. But at the time that the genocide of Jews took place, Israel did not exist. And it is a fact that at least some Zionists can be validly accused of collaborating with the Nazis. So, what it this document about? It is not about defining racism against Jews as people. It is about organisations. And it’s clear that the organisation it is concerned with protecting most of all, is the Israeli state. After the first four, which are indeed arguably about racism against Jews, all the remaining seven drag in the question of Israel. It’s a form of ‘gaslighting’. Another word for that is an amalgam. Mixing two completely different things up and claiming they are the same thing. A dreadful technique whenever it occurs.

 For instance, it says that this is anti-Semitism: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.” There a little diversion in this. They say “a state of Israel” and not “the State of Israel”. As if some other state of Israel existed somewhere in a parallel universe that did not expel three quarters of the Palestinian Arab people in 1948. Of course, they mean the real Israel, not a fictional one! Then there is “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” But how can a country that expels the majority of its indigenous population, be called a ‘democratic nation’? Obviously, it cannot! And then there is “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” But what are Nazis known for? Genocide!

So, this says it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to accuse Israel of intending to commit genocide against the Palestinians. That is clearly a pro-genocide scam. This fake ‘definition’ was first published, as a ‘working definition’ in 2005, as the European Union Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)’s definition. That was in the context of growing anti-Zionist sentiment largely because of the very visible role of Zionist neocons in pushing for the attack on Iraq. The EUMC abandoned it in 2016 after a considerable outcry. And so, the IHRA took it up. A bloc of Israel and a whole bunch of its allies. But its purpose has always been to excuse Israel’s genocidal tendencies. They wouldn’t need to smear people who pointed out the similarity of Israel’s behaviour to the Nazis, if Israel didn’t behave like — the Nazis.

In other words, both those who formulated this fake definition, and those who it was aimed at persecuting, knew that Israel had genocidal tendencies. The aim of the gaslighting, of the amalgam that is built into this, was always to suppress criticism of Israel’s genocidal nature, and therefore to prepare the political conditions where Israel could commit genocide of the Palestinians, with impunity. So, this document, the IHRA definition, can be called a ‘warrant for genocide’ of the Palestinians. Just as the Tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was a warrant for genocide of the Jews by Hitler. It was used to purge the Labour Party of opponents of such a crime, so that Labour could support the genocide, which Starmer did. Trump is using it to persecute opponents of Israel’s genocide, trying to deport non-citizen students for supposed ‘anti-Semitism’. And in terms of the response of the Western countries, Israel is  getting away with the genocide. So far Holland, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Belgium and Turkey, of Western countries, have accused Israel of genocide.  But none of the major countries in West Europe and North America have done so.

The IHRA definition is being used here to persecute opponents of Israel’s genocide, in the NHS, in universities, and anywhere else they can get away with it. There is now considerable pushback against it. The BMA is opposing it. As are some universities. This fake definition, used for this purpose, is a threat to us all. It needs to be consigned to the same pit of infamy as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Starmer’s regime, and now Burnham’s, has carried on and intensified the actions of the previous Sunak/Truss/ Johnson regime in sending Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, for the Zelensky-Nazi regime to fire into Russia with obvious British technical and intelligence data to guide them. This could not be done without the active involvement of British military personnel, as the Russian government was always well aware. Far from being the military adventurist that Western imperialist propaganda claims, Putin has been extremely cautious and restrained in confronting this kind of provocative activity. By sticking rigidly to the strict territorial objectives of the campaign of attrition Russia has waged against the occupation of Donbass territory, Russia is on the brink of victory. The Maidan regime staggers on the brink of collapse, having coerced millions of its own citizens into unwillingly marching into a meat grinder, which may have killed millions of such forced conscripts in a dirty war to hang onto territory whose population does not want to be ruled by Kiev.

The standard tactic of the Ukrainian Nazi regime when being forced to surrender a town or village is to demand that the population leave with them, or be murdered. Many have in fact been  murdered trying to hide in basements from the killer battalions, with the Russian army often making grisly discoveries when they take control. This is how the Russophone Ukrainian population of East Ukraine is treated by the Nazi regime, for whom speaking Russian is a crime worthy of death. It’s also why the mere liberation of the four provinces currently being fought over is not going to be sufficient to end the war. A realistic objective is the liberation of more than a third of present-day Ukraine, roughly on a diagonal line between just to the West of Odessa, linking up with Transnistria, the Russian-speaking rebel enclave of Moldova that is close to Odessa, skirting Kyiv and extending to the Kharkov oblast. This partition is the logic of the abolition of constitutional language equality by the Kyiv regime after Maidan in 2024.

As Russia has got closer and closer to outright victory in the Donbass , the level of hysterical Russophobia from the British bourgeoisie, as well as the other main West European imperialists, France and Germany, and the weak, vassal ruling classes in several of the weak bourgeois states in East Europe that have been absorbed into the European Union and become vassals of the main EU states, has risen to a crescendo of hatred and warmongering frenzy. The West-European bourgeoisies are actively seeking ways to wage war against Russia. They continually claim that they expect Russia to attack Western Europe by around 2030 or 2035, depending on which war narrative you read, and demand draconian cuts in social spending throughout Europe to pay for rearmament to confront and fight a war with Russia. The demand is for arms spending to rapidly rise to at least 5% of GBP over the next several years, but at the same time some of their most virulent elements keep raising demands for action now, for greater use of Western weapons and more drone terrorism by Ukraine against Russian civilians in towns and cities, or attacks on strategic economic or military assets, to provoke Russia into an armed response. This has a crazed aspect, that is causing alarm across the continent, and is provoking political dissent from some on both the left and the right.

The West European bourgeoisies are hysterical about Russia under Putin having refused to simply knuckle under to the Western diktat to privatise and subordinate its economy to the neoliberal ethos, which was proceeding apace under Yeltsin in the 1990s, an epoch which impoverished the Russian population and reduced Russia to 14th economic ranking in terms of GPD PPP. Today in the same terms, Russia’s economy is ranked 4^th, and it has achieved this by not being an appendage of the West, but by de-facto, an evolving alliance with the giant deformed workers state of China, as well as Iran, in BRICS. Iran being the central nation involved in resisting the Greater Israel project in West Asia – Israel being a key, discrete imperialist power within the Western alliance of imperialist states with its own interests, which uses its independent ‘lobbying’ power among the bourgeoisies of the West to push hard for those interests within those imperialist alliances. Under Biden and Obama’s presidencies, a very similar strategy was pursed by the United States – the Maidan coup was pushed through in Ukraine by the Obama administration, and Biden as President was as provocatively anti-Russian as any of the Europeans, provoking the Special Military Operation in 2022 by pushing the Maidan regime into a major attack on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as the current Donetsk and Lugansk provinces of the Russian Federation were then called after rebelling against the Western sponsored Nazi-Maidan coup in 2014. This was extensively reported on at the time by the courageous Swiss former OSCE Official Jacques Baud, who is now being ‘sanctioned’ by the Western powers for his dissent in a similar manner to the equally courageous and outspoken opponent of Israel’s genocide and UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese. Biden initiated the supply of US ATACMS missiles to Ukraine for firing into Russia itself, which, like Storm Shadow, needed US personnel to target and operate them, which the Russians were and are fully aware of.

The main reason why the Trump administration has demurred from this approach somewhat, both in his first (2017 to 2021) term and this one from 2025 onwards, has been because of Trump being qualitatively more subservient to Israel than previous presidents. For him, full commitment to the proxy war in Ukraine was counterposed to his project of deepening US collaboration with Israel in order to attack Iran, which no previous US President was prepared to go through with, and it was clear that the US in decline was no longer able to supply two such major wars at the same time. Now that the attack on Iran has come unstuck, and the US has suffered a major, strategic defeat in West Asia over this attack, there has been something of a swing back to at least a posture by the Trump administration of more aggression against Russia, more in tune with the Europeans. But it is somewhat hollow, as the depletion of US stocks of important missiles and other munitions, and its more general failures, have also affected its ability to be effective in the Ukraine proxy war as this failure has done elsewhere. Like the US taking THAAD missile defence systems from South Korea, where they were aimed at China and North Korea, and sending them to West Asia where a number of such facilities have been destroyed by Iran, has adversely affected the US’s ability to confront China. Which in a way is all to the good, but it does underline the contradictions of Washington’s aggression on behalf of Israel, and how it has accelerated the US decline.

The coup within Labour between the disastrous May Labour Party Council Election results and July, when Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, was carefully choreographed. Burnham’s seat in Makerfield was ‘kindly’ donated by Josh Simons, a stalwart of Labour Together and the operation against Corbyn, which shows who is really behind Burnham’s ascent to office. It was clearly arranged and planned by the same Labour Together outfit (now renamed ThinkLabour), largely Zionist funded, that worked extensively behind the scenes to foment witchhunts against the left for supposed ‘anti-Semitism’ during the Corbyn period, to destabilise Corbyn’s leadership, and to engineer a major election defeat by manipulating the issue of Brexit. This produced the Starmer regime, with its war against the mass left-wing movement that formed behind Corbyn in the mid-2010s ,and especially the half-million or so socialists who joined Labour when Corbyn became leader, making it (then) the largest political party in West Europe. Hundreds of thousands of members were driven out by Starmer’s bloodletting of the left between 2020 and 2025. Labour under Starmer, supposedly the party of the broadly working-class, left-wing of British politics, in government acquired a terrible reputation for hypocrisy.  It engaged in a whole array of attacks that even the Tories had not dared, Including vicious attacks on Winter Fuel payments for pensioners,  attacks on the disabled, further privatisation of the NHS. They also insisted on keeping to hated Tory policies such as the two-child benefit-cap. Starmer pushed far right anti-immigration politics himself with his ‘island of strangers’ speech in May 2025, echoing the racism of Enoch Powell. 

Andy Burnham’s Labour leadership and premiership is an attempt to give the failing Labour government a facelift, to boost its pathetic popularity, and avoid what appeared to be an inevitable future collapse, given Starmer’s complete political failure to generate any popular resonance or sympathy whatsoever. Burnham was Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to his recent return to parliament in June. He has some real charisma and popularity, and is attempting something that resembles the early years of Tony Blair’s premiership, when Blair combined neoliberal politics with liberal populism, and maintained a strong degree of popular support for several years. Blair’s political ‘honeymoon’ as Prime Minister extended for the whole of his first term from 1997-2001, and did not definitively end until he joined with George W Bush in 2002 in the campaign to attack Iraq. The recreation of that kind of ‘honeymoon’ appears to be the strategy of those behind Burnham’s rise, to salvage Starmer’s government from the odium of Starmer himself. And so far, it seems to be working, as Nigel Farage’s Reform, who before Burnham’s ascent had been leading in opinion polls, is now reckoned to be in either second or third place.

This has been aided by the systematic exposure of Farage’s own corruption with the receipt of first £5 million from Thailand-based tax exile and crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, and then £36 million from Bel Delo, who had previously been pardoned by Trump after being convicted of money laundering. This amount was then matched again by Harborne,  giving Farage a cool £72 million. These sums dwarf the hundreds of thousands that were unlawfully funnelled to Labour Together for the war against Corbyn. Burnham is now planning retrospective laws to ban such donations. But this has discredited Farage massively by associating him with big money corruption. In response to this fall in popular support, the far right, this time led by Daniel Thomas (“Danny Thommo”), an associate of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) launched mobs of balaclava-masked ‘protesters’, first to block the port of Dover in a 5 September ‘protest’ against small boats and asylum seekers. Then on 11 Sept,  there was another masked action in Portsmouth, this time directed against the RNLI lifeboat service, for rescuing asylum seekers in small boats, as well as against a Pakistan Cricket Team they accused of being asylum seekers. Burnham’s government is moving to ban such balaclava masks, popularly lampooned as ‘nonce masks’ in response. All this is a legacy of the Starmer regime’s appeasement of the far right.   

The Starmer’s government’s odious authoritarianism made it acutely unpopular on the left wing of British politics, and it would never, no matter how much it grovelled and dressed up in far-right clothes, be able to satisfy the far right who were emboldened by it. Burnham is a rhetorical critic of neoliberalism who says that British politics has been on the ‘wrong track’ since Thatcher and claims to want to return to the 1970s before Thatcher’s neoliberal offensive. As Manchester Mayor he implemented municipal ‘control’ (not ownership) of bus services and he claims that this is a start of his return to the 1970s. He is a political chameleon – he was broadly speaking a Blairite/Brownite as a previous minister, but during the Corbyn period, he conspicuously refused to resign from Corbyn’s Shadow ministerial team when all the Blairite politicos did so as a unified tactic to try to bring down Corbyn in the 2016 ‘Chicken Coup’. He thus has a different reputation, which is captured in a popular joke about him: “A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar, and the barman says: ‘What would you like to drink, Mr Burnham?’”.

Starmer: Labour’s Foulest Premier by a Country Mile

Starmer became certainly the most hated Labour Prime Minister in history within weeks of being elected with a massive majority in July 2024 – rightly seen as arrogant, ultra-reactionary and completely lacking any charisma and empathy by the population of left and right. His massive parliamentary majority was a freak, caused by the collapse of the Tory vote with a substantial chunk of their voters going to the hard-right Reform party of Nigel Farage. The Tories’ percentage of the popular vote fell from 43.6% in 2019 to 23.7% in 2024 – a huge collapse. But Labour’s only rose slightly, from 32.1% in 2019 (when they lost heavily) to only 33.7% in 2024. Starmer won a massive majority with fewer votes than Corbyn lost with previously. Corbyn lost with 10,269,051 in 2019; Starmer won with 9,708,716 in 2024 – more than half a million less. This was not a popular victory at all, but a quirk of the First Past the Post electoral system: in 2024 Reform got 14.3% of the vote, coming third. Which means that Starmer’s massive majority was built on sand – his popular base was minimal, and he was challenged from the get-go, within a matter of a few short weeks of being elected, by a broad far right movement centred on Reform. This went into overdrive with aggressive, threatening demonstrations outside hotels housing asylum seekers in the summer of 2024, repeated even more menacingly in 2005 with the nationwide fascist campaign of putting Union Flags on lampposts and painting roundabouts with the Cross of St George, aimed at threatening and intimidating ethnic minorities. Then followed by a half-million strong London ‘Unite the Kingdom’ fascist march in September 2025. This was countered and fought against by the left outside Labour. Starmer had no discernible political ‘honeymoon’ after he was elected, simply because his leadership was overtly reactionary and pusillanimous before big capital right from the very start.

The reactionary character of Starmer’s government is shown by its attitude to two crucial war questions: Gaza and Ukraine. Nine months before Starmer’s government was elected, in the days after the Al Aqsa Flood Hamas-led breakout on October 7^th, 2023, Starmer made it quite clear that he supported the genocidal response of the Israeli government as laid down by defence minister Yoav Gallant’s statement that Israel were fighting ‘human animals’ who would be deprived of food, water and fuel therefore. When challenged by LBC’s Nick Ferrari in an infamous interview on 11^th October 2023, about whether Israel had the right to withhold food and water from the Gaza population, Starmer clearly said that they “have that right”. Which put him clearly in the genocidaire camp. The draconian repression Starmer’s government has carried out against the movement against this genocide has far exceeded that of the Tories, from restrictions on marches and frameups of Palestine Solidarity activists and the fraudulent proscription of Palestine Action, attempts to abolish jury trials and interference with existing jury trials by pro-genocide Judges clearly acting on government instructions.  Much more so than Sunak’s earlier government, Starmer’s was a repressive pro-genocide regime, and many of its measures the kind of thing that Suella Braverman, the proto-fascist chief Zionist in the previous Tory government , was forced from office for trying to enact. Braverman then defected to Reform.

 On Ukraine, likewise Starmer had always been one of the most fervent Russophobes and militarists in the Labour Party political class going back to the early days of the Maidan regime, when he first became a Labour MP in 2015. The Stop the War Coalition, after the beginning of the Russian Special Military Operation in the Eastern half of Ukraine in February 2022, produced a statement whose essential thrust was “Britain needs to change its policy, and start working for peace, not confrontation”, calling for a “diplomatic settlement” on the basis of Minsk-2, while opposing eastward expansion of NATO. It was signed by then Independent MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe, and a list of trade unionists and anti-war activists. 11 Labour MPs originally signed it. They were ordered by Starmer to withdraw their names, under penalty of the withdrawal of the whip. At that point, all did so, though some like Zarah Sultana were subsequently deprived of the whip for voting against Starmer’s cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel payments.

Burnham: Hypocrisy over Palestine, Virulent Russophobia

Burnham has paid lip service to some criticisms of Starmer’s regime on Gaza, saying they ‘got it wrong’. But he has conspicuously not used the word ‘genocide’. The new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, has announced sanctions against goods produced in the occupied West Bank, which it is not difficult to discern, are calculated to be fairly token and to have very limited impact.  But the Israeli regime has reacted virulently to them, with Netanyahu denouncing the Burnham government as the ‘Islamic Republic of Britain’, and far right Israeli defence minister Itamar Ben Gvir denouncing the British presence in the Falklands/Malvinas Islands and calling for ‘sanctions’ against Britain to force Britain to hand them over to Argentina, led by the Jewish convert, Zionist extremist and alleged relative of Netanyahu, Milei.  Miliband’s sanctions are a very limited and cosmetic change. Burnham has kept in place the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who succeeded Yvette Cooper and if anything intensified the persecution of Palestine activists including the fraudulent proscription of Palestine Action, which is now being appealed to the Supreme Court, as well as repressive measures against legal migrants such as the attempt to abolish the status of indefinite leave to remain. Fresh persecutions of Palestine activists are still going ahead. Burnham’s government has continued in practice to back Trump/Israel’s war against Iran, by continuing to allow the use of British bases by US forces for supposedly ‘defensive’ operations – in an unprovoked war of aggression. However, the limited shift in policy over the West Bank has had an impact on the British labour movement, as for the first time in its history, on 16^th September the TUC passed a motion endorsing the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel. There is this some level of contradiction in the Burnham government’s stance over Palestine and Gaza, which appears to be a product of the mass pressure of the Palestine movement and the extreme discredit that the overt support for genocide brought upon Starmer. It appears extremely grudging, but it may open up possibilities for forcing more concessions.

Regarding Ukraine, however, Burnham has doubled down on Starmer’s whole policy, and his visit to Ukraine in late August, with the symbolic handing over of the blueprints of Storm Shadow to Zelensky signified that nothing has changed.  See separate article. The only slight nuance of difference is that now Burnham claims that the rearmament demanded by Trump and the European bourgeoisies against the phantom threat of attack by Russia must not be paid for by the working class. Which is simply financially not feasible. What this all really means is that Burnham’s new government is a concession to left-wing popular opposition to Starmer’s regime, which was the most openly reactionary leadership and government in the whole history of the Labour Party. These concessions have had to be made to preserve Labour as a bourgeois workers party from destruction. But the concessions are very limited. Burnham keeps contradicting himself on such matters as possible water company nationalisation, to give one example. The political vacuum of working-class political leadership, which could have been filled by Your Party, still exists, and it is likely that the breathing space that Burnham’s rise has given to Labour as a party will not last a historically enormous amount of time.

Which also might, at least on the domestic terrain, give the left a slight breathing space to revive the project of a new working-class party, as the Corbyn-led Your Party is in deep trouble because of Corbyn’s own misleadership. It will have to be salvaged, and pretty soon, or else something else built to organise the working class politically for socialist politics in its place. But the threat of world war, with Russia or arising from US/Zionist defeats in the Middle East, and economic depression arising from the latter, will not give much space – we need working class political organisation as a matter of urgency.

Around two hundred socialists and anti-imperialists attended the founding meeting/conference of the British Capitulo (Chapter) of the Anti-Fascist International (AFI) on Saturday, 5^th September, at Bolivar Hall, a public conference hall that is part of the Venezuelan Consulate in London. The AFI is an international anti-imperialist/anti-fascist international campaigning body initiated by the government of the rightful President of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, in late 2024. One crucial topic of discussion at the conference was the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife Celia Flores on 3^rd January by the Trump administration, as part of its drive for recolonisation of Latin America. It is clear, and becoming increasingly clearer to many of the AFI participants that the government of Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s Vice President and now acting President, has capitulated to Trump’s piratical seizure, and is now openly collaborating. The collaborationist regime, as well as having earlier deported anti-imperialist fighter Alex Saab into Trump’s clutches, has now signed a deal with Trump granting the US majority control of roughly 20% of Venezuela’s oil reserves for 100 years, amounting to 65 billon barrels of proven reserves. There are also indications of treachery in the Venezuelan administration against Maduro prior to the abduction.

The political default of Rodriguez was at least partly discussed at the conference, and we were well aware that it was an anomaly that we were still able to use Venezuelan facilities despite the political collaboration of Rodriguez with Trump. This is because the new regime has not yet got round yet to purging the diplomatic corps, or much of the machinery of government in Venezuela itself, of anti-imperialists and leftists. They have to tread carefully as the Chavez and Maduro governments had an organic relationship with a formidable movement of the Venezuelan worker and peasant masses, known as the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. That mass base still exists, and there is the potential for major resistance breaking out if the masses acquire new leadership. Much of this, as well as the state of play with Trump’s deadly dangerous attacks on Cuba, were extensively discussed in the first session, on Latin America: Resisting Recolonisation – solidarity with the anti-imperialist struggle across the region.

Speakers generally were from those communist and anti-imperialist tendencies that have been involved in founding the AFI in Britain, including the Communist Party of Great Britain – Marxist-Leninist (CPGB-ML), the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG), the Platform of 12^th October (P-12O), the Posadists in Britain, the Consistent Democrats (CD), British Section of the Liaison Committee for the Fourth International, and from the New Communist Party (NCP). Miriam Palacios, of the P-12O spoke extensively about the situation in Cuba, which Trump is trying to strangle in an unprecedented manner, accompanied by Charley Taylor of the RCG and Daniel Obrien of the CPGB-ML

We also had some distinguished guest speakers: David Miller, the anti-Zionist academic who recently won a famous victory against Bristol University, which sacked him for his outspoken anti-Zionist views in 2021 after a ferocious campaign backed by Zionist supporters in all the major parties. Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP and a Deputy Leader of the Workers Party, founded by George Galloway, spoke later in the day in the last session. We should have had former British Ambassador  and distinguished anti-war/anti-imperialist activist Craig Murray in the first session, but he was unable to attend due to illness.

Regarding David Miller, an Employment Tribunal in 2024 found that he had been unlawfully sacked because of his anti-Zionist views, which constituted a “philosophical belief” “worthy of respect in a democratic society”. Zionists pushed hard for the University to appeal against this, which they did at a hearing last autumn. They were finally revealed to have lost this in early August, which set a legal precedent that anti-Zionist views are a protected characteristic under British law. A major victory. David Miller’s views on Zionism’s international activities are not popular on much of the far left in this country.  Some echo the Zionist allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ about his criticisms of Israel’s international activities, such as his formulation about ‘Pax Judaica’ regarding Zionism’s capability to influence politics in the major Western counties and also most recently in the toppling of left-wing and left-populist governments in Latin America with Israeli involvement. We in the Consistent Democrats have always rejected these attacks, and have initiated petitions in his defence against the witchhunting that some on the ‘far left’ have engaged. We have a similar, but not necessarily identical understanding of Zionism’s international influence. 

The second session, on Political Freedom Under Attack – resisting state repression and defending free speech focussed very much on the Palestine genocide and war against Iran in West Asia. The session was kicked off by Ian Donovan of the Consistent Democrats, who sharply attacked and deconstructed the IHRA fake ‘definition’ of Anti-Semitism. He pointed out that it acted both as an ideological support for the Zionist genocide in Palestine, and a means of suppressing criticism of Israel’s genocidal tendencies, right from the start. It attempted to systematise an equation of criticism of Zionist racism with anti-Jewish racism, a system of gaslighting using such an amalgam as a weapon. It acted therefore as a kind of ‘warrant for genocide’ of the Palestinians, in an analogous manner to the way the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,  the forged Tsarist document, acted as a ‘warrant’ for Hitler’s genocide against the Jews in the period of the Third Reich. Other speakers included Ranjeet Brar of the CPGB-ML, who spoke about his own arrests and victimisation for opposing Zionism including as a senior Doctor in the NHS, and about an important lawsuit against the IHRA definition. Dr Masoud Shajereh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, spoke extensively about repression and violations of basic rights by Zionists and their allies. He was followed by David Miller and Kotsai Sigurake of the RCG. The latter criticised David Miller’s points on Israel’s ‘Jewish imperialism’ but did not really manage to refute him about Israeli involvement in Latin America which comrade Miller discussed.

The final session was titled Imperialism Means War – Understanding Imperialism and the Constant Drive to War. This featured Andy Higginbottom, of the Platform of 12 October, Joti Brar of the CPGB-ML, Theo Russell of the New Communist Party, representing International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), and Chris Williamson of the Workers Party, as previously mentioned. The war in Ukraine was obviously a major feature of the discussion. The Workers Party, and the CPGB-ML are all outspoken against the NATO proxy war being waged against Russia. The Consistent Democrats, Posadists and NCP are all active in IUAFS and so Theo Russell spoke for all of us in condemning the proxy war and NATO, and defending the Donbass/Crimean people and Russia itself against imperialism, while maintaining a critical distance from the bourgeois/bureaucratic layer that rules Russia. Chris Williamson also defended some more Labourite positions in the final session including touching on Modern Monetary Theory, a novel form of left-reformism many would say, and calling for the working class to seize hold of the existing state for our own purposes, a position that we certainly oppose (in our view the working class needs to smash the existing bourgeois state).

All-in-all this conference, as a one-day event with a profusion of speakers, was an excellent, but preliminary event, aiming to drive recruitment to the AFI so we can build a more substantial organisation for activism, and for a future Congress that will be able to engage in must more wide-ranging open discussion. The broad nature of the subjects addressed open up the possibility that the AFI could serve the purposes of at least a strand of regroupment of the best militants into what is necessary – a real, political movement that can lay the basis for the emergence of a revolutionary party. If that is the result, it will need to engage with other strands who are trying to create a real working-class party in the wider workers movement. Last weekend’s conference was a very useful start.

This year’s five summer heatwaves in Britain, and much more severe heat surges across Europe and other continents, ought to be a wake-up call to the working-class movement in all countries, whether in the imperialist world, or those who are the victims of imperialism. We have now seen the disaster on the border of Nepal and Tibet, with many hundreds killed by sudden flash floods, which appear to be the result of the collapse of a Himalayan glacier due to climate change.  This is very ominous in today’s context with the accelerating damage that capitalism is inflicting.

The lower limit that the Paris climate agreement of 2016 sought to avoid, of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature levels, has been repeatedly breached over the last several years, with 2026 as the worst by a considerable distance over the summer. The upper of the two limits that Paris sought to avoid, 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, looms. The additional complicating factor is that this surge in temperatures coincides with the recurring El Niño climate phenomenon, which tends to push temperatures upwards considerably when it occurs, as it appears to do around every 8 years.

The El Niño phenomenon itself is undoubtedly being magnified by anthropogenic climate change, whose fundamental cause is the capitalist mode of production. The technological basis for removing fossil fuel emissions from industrial processes has existed for many years now. In China’s deformed workers state, large-scale endeavours are underway to deploy these technologies, including solar power and other renewables. Centralised state planning makes that possible on a massive scale.  Even Wikipedia, which it is right to be dubious about because of its pro-Western, pro-Zionist bias, reports:

“China is the world’s top electricity producer from renewable energy sources. China’s renewable energy capacity is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity. China installed over 430 GW of renewables in 2025, reaching a total installed renewable capacity of over 2.34 TW by the end of the year. The country aims to achieve peak emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060; emissions may have already peaked in 2024, six years ahead of the 2030 goal.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China)

What this shows is that this is possible. China’s planned economy makes this possible. Even though there is extensive latitude for capitalism in China, it really is an expanded version of what used to be called ‘market socialism’ and the decisive power remains in the hands of the workers state and its labour bureaucracy, headed by the party of that labour bureaucracy, the Communist Party of China (CPC). China, unfortunately, is a severely deformed workers state, led by a labour bureaucracy that has long sought peaceful co-existence and collaboration with world capitalism, which makes it impossible for it to provide a genuinely universal alternative to the threat that capitalism poses to human existence. That requires the rebirth of a mass political working-class movement equipped with the world-revolutionary programme of Bolshevism, which requires that such a party – a new revolutionary Communist International – be created on an international scale, ultimately to replace the narrow, nationalist labour bureaucracy in China with a revolutionary internationalist leadership based on working-class democracy. Though even the nationally-limited, planned expansion of renewables in China show clearly what would be possible on a planetary scale if there was an internationalist, Bolshevik leadership.

Russia has not been a workers’ state since the 1991 destruction of the USSR. It is currently run by a peculiar kind of capitalist regime that is heavily deformed by the continued presence in much of the society of the old labour bureaucracy of the degenerated USSR. This is because the USSR, however stunted, began the construction of a socialist mode of production in that state, a mode of production that is more advanced than capitalism, and which had taken root for almost 8 decades. Thus, the counter-revolution was limited in its scope and was forced to retreat before mass discontent at the end of the 1990s. The mass discontent was directed through the old labour bureaucracy. Yeltsin was forced out and replaced by Putin, a classic man of the apparatus, who though no longer adheres to any sort of ‘communism,’  rolled back much of the neo-liberal attack on the masses, jailed, exiled and, in some cases, eliminated the worst imperialist stooges among the oligarchy, and created what is a mixed economy, over 50% ‘statified,’ which is very much at odds with the demands of neoliberalism. But that has not translated, unlike China, into any major expansion of renewable energy. In the early period of his presidency, Putin was a sceptic about climate change, but appears to have changed his view, though this has led to very little action, no doubt because Russia, as is well known, is one of the world’s major producers of oil and gas.

As for the West, the situation is far worse, as the populist Right, which has dominated US politics for at least the past decade and has made major inroads in Europe, overtly denies that human activity, and capitalism, is the cause of global heating. The fossil fuel industry has spent enormous sums funding climate change denial and persecuting climate activists. Not only that, but the Zionist and Western wars particularly in West Asia and Ukraine have been an extraordinary source of carbon emissions. The US’s bombing-sabotage of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline in 2022 – as part of the Ukraine proxy war – was an incredible piece of climate vandalism that gave rise to the emission of 330 million pounds of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The pulverisation of Gaza and now Lebanon by Israel, and now the US/Israel war on Iran, are just as potent a source of emissions if not more so. All these wars are clearly wars of choice waged by imperialism to defeat states that they want to destroy in pursuit of a strategy of imperialist conquest. The ‘Global Chessboard’ as the US ideologue Zbigniew Brzezinski put it, or Greater Israel whose provenance is well-known. To do away with this deadly danger to humanity, imperialist capitalism needs to be overthrown by the working-class led by a new revolutionary, internationalist, communist movement in the tradition of the Bolsheviks, the Third International of Lenin, and the early Fourth International of Trotsky.

Capitalist Threat to Survival: Its food production and supply system

There are many facets to the way capitalism destroys the biosphere and threats human existence. Planet Earth is very resilient and the notion that ‘the planet’ is threatened by human activity misses the point; which is that human existence, and human civilisation, is threatened by what humanity has been doing to the biosphere in the period since the Industrial Revolution of the 19^th Century. The rapid fire burning of fossil fuels and the unplanned advance of technology for profit allows activities that constitute a long-term threat to aspects, if not the totality, of human existence, to dominate industry and industrialised agriculture simply because they generate profits for an exploiting minority, not because they are rational from the standpoint of future human development or even survival.

For instance, the nature and availability of our food is determined by capitalism’s relentless drive for ever-increasing profits at the expense of human labour and natural resources. The methods used to produce crops and animals for meat, eggs and dairy produce are aimed at high returns at the expense of long-term soil fertility and the maintenance of natural ecosystems. This involves the large-scale use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides; cheap, expendable labour; large areas of mono-crops managed using heavy machinery powered by fossil fuels, commonly diesel; intensive rearing of animals for meat, eggs and dairy produce.

Food and animal feed growth are outsourced to parts of the world where production may be cheaper, often resulting in deforestation, such as destroying parts of the Amazon Forest in South America, to make way for big agribusiness and land degradation. Farm workers and local inhabitants suffer severe damage to their health from exposure to pesticide spraying. Genetically modified (GM) soya beans are grown across large areas of Argentina for export to be used to feed intensively reared animals in places such as China and across Europe, including Britain. Thus meat, eggs and dairy produce sold in Britain very likely comes from animals fed on GM soya while the impact on human health of eating the products of intensively farmed animals, fed on GM crops, is unknown. Large areas of forest are cleared, destroying the natural habitats that animals, such as orangutans, depend on, to produce large quantities of palm oil for export for use in western processed foods. Without cooking everything we eat entirely from basic ingredients; it is extremely difficult to avoid palm oil. Vegetables grown using land in low-income countries such as Kenya for export to Britain and Europe deny the use of that land for growing food for the indigenous people. Quinoa and avocados grown in South America take resources of land and water away from the local people.

The production of artificial fertilisers, pesticides, GM crops and intensively reared animal feeds is also the product of the insatiable corporate drive for profits driving global, and British, environmental damage. The use of some artificial fertilisers progressively damages soil structure and reduces natural, organic fertility. This is compounded by many chemical pesticides which can destroy vital soil micro-organisms, natural pest predators as well as insects, such as bees, vital for pollination. Organisms such as worms play a vital role in maintaining soil nutrients and structure. Soil structure is often further damaged by the overuse of heavy farm machinery. Imprecise, overuse of such fertilisers causes leaching of these nutrients from the soil into ground water, waterways and rivers. Intensive raising of farm animals for meat, eggs and dairy for high profit produces unsafe food with poor nutrition, subjecting the animals to unacceptable levels of suffering. The faeces and urine from these animals produce slurry, which is generally treated as waste instead of being recycled as natural fertiliser resulting in a run-off, further polluting the ground water and rivers flowing out to sea.

This results in marine dead zones globally, an example being in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. Annually, the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers carry about 1.6 million tons of dissolved nitrogen into the Gulf of Mexico. The spring and early summer peak flow causes massive growth of marine organisms that sink to the bottom to be composted by microbes, consuming oxygen. The resulting low levels of oxygen kills marine species, such as molluscs, sea anemones and worms, thus disrupting the food chain and habitat. This creates a dead zone covering an average of 11,000  square kilometres, and reaching 17,366 square kilometres in 2024. This dead zone lasts until cooler weather or storms promote downward mixing of oxygen-rich surface waters.

The dissolved nitrogen pouring into the Gulf of Mexico each year is 23% of the amount applied to crops in the Mississippi River basin. The US Environmental Protection Agency in 2008 began an attempt to reduce the size of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic (low oxygen) zone by 2015. The corporations profiting from agricultural chemicals and the overproduction of corn and soya successfully resisted state and local agencies’ attempts to require changes to protect the waterways. The Baltic Sea dead zone is larger and perhaps more destructive than the one in the Gulf of Mexico. The attempts by Finland, Sweden and other nations on the Baltic Sea coast to improve the environment in the Baltic Sea, failed in the same way as the attempts to clean up the Gulf of Mexico.

Decades, even centuries, of removing natural forests, trees and hedgerows to maximise the land area for cultivation and to accommodate ever-increasing sizes of farm machinery, have damaged the soil and essential ecosystems. In periods of low rainfall and drought, soil is turned to dust from loss of structure and nutrients, getting blown away where there is nothing to protect the soil from the wind. In periods of heavy rainfall, flooding occurs washing away topsoil. Dried out ground cannot absorb water, while, without trees or hedges, there are no deep roots to absorb or trap and retain water to prevent run-off.

78% of the atmosphere is nitrogen, mainly in the form of inert dinitrogen (N₂) molecules, requiring the high energy and heat of lightning bolts to split them, which only happens in very small volumes. N₂ diffuses from the air into soil and surface waters. Leguminous plants, such as beans, peas, lentils, clover (often used as a cover crop), fix nitrogen from N₂ with the aid of numerous species of micro-organisms in root nodules to produce nutrients in the soil taken up by plants. Micro-organisms also convert nitrogen compounds to return nitrogen, in the form of N_2, back to the air. The nitrogen cycle in natural ecosystems thus limits the amount of nitrogen in reactive, unstable compounds in the atmosphere. This natural regulation is bypassed by the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser leading to an increase in nitrous oxide (N₂O) in the atmosphere. Since nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas, synthetic nitrogen fertiliser is contributing to global warming.

Solar energy in the form of ultra-violet and visible light is partially radiated back to space as infra-red energy, that is, heat, from the Earth’s surface. A very small fraction of the Earth’s atmosphere is made up of greenhouse gases; that is, gases with a molecular structure that enables them to absorb long wave radiation (that is, heat) reflected back from the earth’s surface. These gases re-emit this heat towards the earth’s surface, resulting in warming. The major greenhouse gases are: carbon dioxide (CO₂); methane (CH₄), a natural gas used for heating; and nitrous oxide (N₂O), originating from the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and explosives used in weapons

The restriction of shipping access through the Strait of Hormuz, in response to the Israeli-US war against Iran, has resulted in increased costs of fossil fuels used for power on farms and price increases and shortages of artificial fertilisers that rely on fossil fuels for their production has occurred over the same late spring and summer months as record-breaking heat waves and drought. Outsourcing of food production with long complex international supply chains is also affected by this increased cost of fossil fuels, in turn increasing food prices.

Today’s drought is causing problems with essential water and irrigation for crop growth while the high temperatures slow plant growth with some plants dying from heat stress, even when they receive adequate water. Both problems could be mitigated by tree and hedge cover providing shade and retaining soil moisture. Thus, there is an urgent need to repair ecosystems, such as improving soil structure, restoring natural fertility and soil organisms, to support food production by moving towards organic methods of production in harmony with natural ecosystems. This requires reducing artificial fertiliser to the minimum amount needed for plant growth while, ideally, replacing it altogether with organic fertiliser such as cover crops and mixing raising animals with growing crops, vegetable and fruit so the animals can fertilise the soil naturally.

Perversely, to increase, or even just maintain, profit levels, the “logic” of capitalism requires even more exploitative food production methods, thus worsening the current problems in a vicious cycle. In Britain, particularly in England, the extreme weather, combined with increased costs of diesel and artificial fertiliser, means smaller farms are producing food for either very low returns or even at a loss. Some farmers thus go out of business and sell up while others install solar panels on agricultural land to provide an alternative income. The result is less food produced in a country that already relies on imports to feed its population. Consequently, we are now facing a combination of ever-increasing food prices while decades of austerity mean people have less money to buy food at the same time as worsening food shortages, which potentially threaten widespread malnutrition and hunger. While we need more of our food to be produced organically, for our own health and the improved fertility of agricultural land, increasing austerity is reducing personal incomes, so fewer people can afford the higher prices of organic food, making it less profitable, so less is produced and available.

AI and Data Centres

Just as we are facing food shortages driven by a combination of a dysfunctional food system, heat waves and drought caused by exponentially increasing global warming, there is a push to dramatically increase the number of data centres, serving the explosion in AI, globally, including an order of hundreds of proposed new data centres in Britain. The data centres in the queue to connect to the UK’s electricity grid represent around 73GW of demand, while the peak winter electricity demand for the entirety of the UK is around 47GW. Facilities using water to cool their computing equipment threaten a significant drain on the local environment and water supply.

The proposed data centre in North Ockendon, as one of Europe’s largest projects, would produce more than 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year if approved by Havering Council. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) is set to be built on 218 hectares of London green belt land. Google plans a data centre in Essex, expected to lead to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions of 568,727 tonnes CO₂ equivalent per year during operation. The Wapseys Wood, Buckinghamshire and Quest Park, Bedfordshire data centres will use 1.3GW of power and will produce more than 4.5m tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Because of the long wait to connect to the grid, these data centres are seeking to build their own on-site gas-fired power stations.

The environmental impact of proposed hyper-scale data centres in Scotland, such as in Edinburgh and at Auchtertool in Fife, is also a serious concern. No decision should  be made without local working-class people even knowing how much electricity and water these sites will consume, what strain they will place on the grid and whether they will rely on diesel generators for backup power. The Auchtertool development could consume the equivalent of the annual electricity use of around 1.6 million typical households.

These are just some of the data centres planned for England and Scotland. Their environmental costs will not only be the power and water they use, but also the intolerable noise pollution they cause, including sound below the human hearing range, which urgently needs research into its harmful effects on both human health and the environment. In January 2025, Keir Starmer’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, pushed by the notorious Zionist Peter Kyle MP, merged the planning zone framework with the AI and data centre push, announcing AI Growth Zones with accelerated planning approval, priority grid access, and energy price discounts, all publicly funded, for data centres in designated regions. Andy Burnham has inherited the national AI Growth Zone programme as Prime Minister. Though he sacked Kyle, he replaced him with the similarly odious Zionist Liz Kendall. Effectively, data centres have been removed from democratic planning controls.

In support of the corporate interests set to profit from the expansion in AI and data centres, the standard alleged benefits of the capitalist gods of ‘growth’ and ‘jobs’ are trotted out. Growth equates to the relentless increasing drive for exploitation and profits destroying the natural environment we depend on. This demagogy about ‘jobs’ is artificial since capitalism deliberately forces a proportion of people into idleness to keep labour cheap, while preventing public finances being used to cover the cost of filling job vacancies of genuine social value.

The UK government is promoting AI and data centres as critical infrastructure, allegedly for security reasons, claiming the need to hold the population’s data domestically in in the UK, for services such as banking and health data, and for the UK to maintain a ‘competitive advantage’ in advanced technology. This anti-democratic nature of British imperialist nationalism is evident here, as although the infrastructure exists for local digital services, as a result of the government’s decisions, neither health data nor the data of other government departments are protected from exploitation by sinister capitalist economic predators, such as Palantir, (co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp), the data-mining company with deep CIA and defence intelligence roots. This is now embedded in NHS data infrastructure, UK defence contracts, and the data architecture of multiple government departments.

The current massive expansion in the use of AI and data centres is for surveillance, targeting of weapons and drones for killing people, creating data sets for propaganda, and targeted advertising for pushing over-consumption. These are international, socially and environmentally destructive activities consistent with capitalism’s inherent push for profits by means of authoritarian control, war, and perpetually expanding markets.

There are potentially useful applications for AI, such as scientific research, economic planning, climate modelling and weather forecasting, which need to be made use of on an international level to benefit the global working-class population, but it is certainly not our interests these predators have in mind. All this technology urgently needs to be placed under workers control, and the profit motive totally eliminated from any decisions about the possibility of its deployment, or non-deployment, which should be a collective decision of class-conscious, working-class movements internationally.  Where such movements do not exist, they must be created, as working-class control here is a matter of life and death. Workers’ control is something that can only be achieved by a political working-class movement, one that has an organised mass base and sufficient support among organised workers to be able to initiate mass, political strikes.

This is where trade union economism reveals its complete bankruptcy. Trade union misleaders, and bureaucrats like Sharon Graham of UNITE, support the war drive against Russia over Ukraine, partly due to racist, Russophobic and anti-Communist ideology, but also because expanded war expenditure delivers ‘jobs.’ Never mind that such ‘jobs’ endanger the existence of the working-class by pushing the planet towards a potential nuclear confrontation. But it is not difficult to imagine such terminally stupid bureaucrats supporting these data centres on the grounds that they will deliver ‘jobs.’ The jobs in these cases contributing to frying the working-class population in their own homes, and killing off the young and the old in particular. This is where crude social-chauvinism and economism becomes a literally suicidal programme. 

Non-deployment – i.e. total veto should be the default option for the foreseeable future – until sufficient environmentally sustainable energy sources exist to run such things without affecting those that working-class people depend upon for their lives and well-being. Zeroattacks on the environment of this type are acceptable. We need mass strikes to stop them, and working-class mass actions that may indeed result in, by one means or another, the closing and even demolition of such facilities.

Socialism or Barbarism

As James Connolly wrote in 1907:

Some men, faint-hearted, ever seek,
Our programme to retouch,
And will insist, whene’er they speak,
That we demand too much.
‘Tis passing strange, yet I declare ,
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are,
We only want the earth.

There is undoubtedly much more evidence that could be adduced about environmental degradation around the world caused by the drive for profit that is built into capitalism. This is not, as the ideology of neo-liberal capitalism preposterously maintains, something that ‘trickles down’ to the masses as the capitalist economy grows. It was recently noted in a widely circulated internet meme that the world capitalist economy is 700% larger today than it was in 1970, whereas the average person has only seen his/her income grow by 8%. But this economic growth under capitalism has led to the near doubling of greenhouse gas emissions over the same period, from 23 billion tons in 1970 to 53 billion tons in 2024. This shows two things; one being that capitalist economic growth overwhelmingly benefits a tiny minority of parasites; and, secondly, that despite that, the technology in use does not simply, mechanically extend greenhouse emissions in a linear manner as it grows. This shows that the propaganda of the climate deniers is false and purely self-interested, and the reactionary drivel that is being pumped out today that alleges over-population, not capitalism, is the source of dangers to humanity, is a lie. It is perfectly possible with global economic planning to reverse the trend that, if it is allowed to continue, will change the biosphere and make it unsuitable for human existence and habitation, likely for millions of years.

The solution, contrary to the fatalism promoted by the bourgeois politicians, is in the hands of the working-class movement internationally. The class struggle to reverse the neo-liberal attacks of the last 50 years, which represent a concentrated effort to solve the problems of crisis-ridden capitalism at the expense of the working class, must coalesce with the struggle to use economic planning to change the basis of the future socialist society to sustainable energy use. There needs to be an emergency programme to do just this. Capitalist ‘Net Zero’ policies invariably include attacks on the working-class and are a set-up for populist agitation to defeat them, as the bourgeoisie certainly are not prepared to try to solve the environmental crisis at their own expense. This is why ‘Green’ capitalism is a completely illusory idea. We need our own version of the ‘Net Zero’ programme at their expense, involving the capitalist class being relieved of their property on an international scale, by an international working-class movement led by conscious Communists. That is the only way we can get the economic and material changes needed to sustain human existence. The alternative to socialism has always been the collapse of capitalism into barbarism, and an environmentally driven collapse of human civilisation is a real danger today because of capitalism. It must go!

The following is the notes/text of a presentation delivered by a Consistent Democrats speaker on 30th August. The recording of the presentation and discussion is here.

This Manifesto is the key founding document of the Marxist movement of Scientific Socialism, in other words Communism, in the real sense of the term.

And this section, part 2, is the core, seminal section of the document. Part one is by way of an introduction and a sketch that really illustrates the application of the method of historical materialism to the whole of human history. Part 2 focuses on the struggle of Communists within the current social system of capitalism, and on the relationship of the communists to the working class.

It lays out the key points about the relationship of communist with the working class, when it says:

“In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

“The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

“They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

“They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

“The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

“The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.”

That can be seen as an implicit criticism of some of today’s rigid, sectarian left-wing politics. The key question is not and never has been organisational separation from those movements whose leading views are questionable, but organise class-conscious workers in some way.

The key question for communists is our obligation is to “represent the interests of the movement as a whole” and to understand “the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.” As long as these are maintained, many different tactics are appropriate.

This is emphasised when the Manifesto says:

“The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.

They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes…”

From that, the Manifesto goes on:

“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.”

In one sense, this shows how the document is dated. Because it is no longer true that ‘ all other’ proletarian parties stand for “the conquest of the political power by the proletariat”. The Manifesto was written before imperialism developed, and bourgeois workers parties like Labour were created.

Moving on from that, the Manifesto goes on to talk about the specificity of the proletarian struggle:

“ The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism.

“All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.

“The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.

“The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

“In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

The Manifesto then replied to the bourgeois outcry against the abolition of private property.

“… does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. …”

And they go on to examine this relationship:

“To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

“Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.

“When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.”

The attempt by capitalist ideologues to claim that communists want to abolish the meagre property that workers possess, is refuted:

“We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.

And likewise, they pull apart the claim that the abolition of bourgeois property represents the abolition of ‘freedom’:

“By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.”

[…]

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths….

“In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.”

They take on one-by-one the bourgeois objections:

“It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.

“According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. “

Summing this up, the Manifesto lays out its indictment of capitalism and why it must disappear:

“The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.”

Likewise with the bourgeois outcry about the communists’ view on the family:

“On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.

“The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.

“Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.”

[…]

“The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.”

And then there is the famous allegation that the communists would introduce a ‘community of women”:

“The bourgeois sees his wife as a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

“He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.”

I suppose the following passage might once have been seen as contentious, but given what we know about the proclivities of today’s billionaire Epstein class, it seems quite mild:

“Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.

“Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.”

Then there is the charge that communists want to abolish nations and nationality. The response to this is so pithy that we can cite it in full:

“The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.

In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.

Actually, in the epoch of imperialism, capitalism developed a counter-tendency to this, setting the peoples of oppressor, imperialist countries against each other, and even more against those in countries who were the victims of imperialism. But Marx and Engels did not live long enough to fully address this.

We have to address it today, by formulating concrete Marxist policies on every national question to which imperialist capitalism gives rise. Though overall, what the Manifesto says is true, that capitalist development, in spite of this, is undermining the basis for nations and nationalism.

Imperialism itself is an expression of the fact that the productive forces created by capitalism have outgrown the nation-state itself, which is obsolete.

The manifesto rightly dismisses the objections to Communism from “from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint” as “not deserving of serious examination”. It asks:

“What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”

And concludes from that:

“When people speak of the ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express that fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.”

It notes that the proletarian revolution is different from previous revolutions, as:

“… one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.

“The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.

And having dismissed those anachronisms, it goes onto practical matters:

“ We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.”

The list of demands at the end, are fine, but of their time, and have been superseded by other, much more detailed programmes. I will not read them out. Marx and Engels themselves say “These measures will, of course, be different in different countries” and they note that they are applicable to “advanced countries” in particular. 10 demands which are the basis of other more detailed elaborations.

But what is also striking is the resemblance between the conclusion of this part of the Manifesto, and later, more detailed elaborations, such as Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme. Which we touched on in studying Lenin’s State and Revolution earlier:

“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.”

This is indeed, the withering away of the state, as dealt with more concretely by Marx after the Paris Commune, as cited by Lenin. Which accompanies the higher stage of communist society, as Marx again later elaborated, where:

“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”