By Ian Donovan

We need CONSISTENT anti-Zionism, not a halfway house!

Trump’s phoney 20 point ‘deal’ in Gaza was always simply a Zionist stratagem to retrench and continue the genocide by slightly different means. Trump’s sponsorship and superintendence of it from September was simply a means to try to take the heat off Israel for the genocide. It aimed to allow the pathological Israeli Defence Force, ridden with mental illness, sexualised addiction to infanticide, and similar bizarre pathologies, to avoid disintegration. Another crucial objective was to find ways to defuse the anti-Zionist radicalisation of the world’s population, by a combination of repression, manipulation, and flagrant attempts to hide the truth.

The toll of the Zionist war of extermination on Gaza’s civilian population of the two years of open genocide was horrendous – an essay by two doctors associated with the Lancet (journal of the British Medical Association) and drawing on material from that journal, postulated in September 2025 that the death toll from Israel’s Gaza slaughter was 680,000, more than two thirds of whom were children under 18. The latter is hardly surprising as over half of Gaza’s population are under 18, and young people are particularly vulnerable. (see https://eirigi.org/latestnews/2025/9/14/report-death-toll-in-the-gaza-reaches-680000-yet-apartheid-israel-tries-to-tell-us-there-is-no-genocide). This is the most horrendous crime of the 21st century, and it continues under the so-called Gaza Deal. Throughout the so-called ceasefire Israel has been killing at least 15 Palestinians on average every day.

Israel needed some sort of breather because it had been fought to a standstill by Hamas. Despite the elimination of leading many leading cadres and numerous fighters, the organisation gained popular support during the worst two years of Israel’s mass extermination– as shown by the flow of younger recruits into its ranks. Hamas more than made up for its losses at the hands of Israel by such recruitment. Hamas was not blamed for the slaughter Israel perpetrated simply because the vast majority of Palestinian knew that genocide has always been on Israel’s agenda regarding them, and any act of resistance could be a pretext. They also know, however, that failing to resist only emboldens the killers, and the catch-22 that any movement of Palestinians who resist the Zionist genocide project face. Palestinian organisations, from Hamas to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) refused the demands from Trump and the Zionists that they disarm, and refused foreign overlordship, while they also supported partial cooperation with the ‘deal’ – the hostage exchange – hoping that it would allow the masses a breather from Israel’s programme of mass extermination. They were not naïve in doing this, but considered they had no choice in the circumstances.

Israel has just underlined its real genocidal interest in this deal. They were supposed to have been allowing copious amounts of aid into Gaza as there was now supposedly a ‘peace deal’ but instead, as well as banning the long-established UN Palestine aid agency UNRWA, they have now banned more than two dozen international aid agencies, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam, from operating in Gaza. The US, UK and others who support this ‘deal’ will do nothing about that. The kind of ‘aid’ operation Israel and its imperialist allies support is the so called ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ that earlier this year would pretend to offer food aid to starving Gaza people, only to shoot them as they queued up to receive it. The so called GHF is an arm of the genocide, and that is the kind of ‘humanitarian aid’ the Zionist state and its allies support.

Fraud, Genocide and Mass Repression

Repression of the masses, particularly in the older imperialist countries, the US, Britain, West Europe and Australia is now centre stage. In Britain, we have the fraudulent proscription for “terrorism” of the obviously non-terrorist Palestine Action direct action group, and mass arrests of those civilians who publicly express opposition to genocide and support for the group. Fraud was built into Starmer’s government right from the start, as shown by Paul Holden’s expose (in The Fraud) of the prolonged, covert deception that played a major role in destroying Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and installing Starmer as a Zionist stooge, which was mainly the doing of the non-Jewish Israeli asset and covert manipulator Morgan McSweeney, who not coincidentally lived on an Israeli kibbutz in his youth. The fact that juries repeatedly acquitted Palestine Action activists of such charges as criminal damage, usually to Elbit arms factories and the like, accepting their defence that they acted to prevent a much greater crime (genocide!), was the motive for this fraudulent proscription.

Now, instead of putting PA people in front of juries for such charges, they just charge them with ‘terrorism’ instead. The people who have been on hunger strike over the last period, four of whom are still doing so and are at great risk, were arrested for participation in direct action for Palestine Action before the fraudulent proscription was enacted. Starmer’s Zionist government treated them as ‘terrorists’ anyway. It interfered with ordinary bail conditions to impose extraordinarily long remands in custody on people who would normally be bailed, precisely because they are unable to avoid jury trials in these cases, and there is a high probability that juries will acquit them. Now the manipulated two-year wait for a trial, and remand in custody, amount to a two-year prison sentence without trial without any jury getting a look-in. That’s clearly why there is a hunger strike.

The Zionist government and media reacted to this by an effective D-notice/press blackout, until in December this was challenged first when Starmer’s corrupted ‘Justice’ Secretary Lammy was confronted by relatives of the hunger strikers, where he pretended not to know about this. Then there were the actions of Your Party MP Zarah Sultana at Bronzefield Prison in Surrey, leading protests against the lack of medical care for one of the hunger strikers. These finally forced the media to cover the hunger strike. Though several have now abandoned their hunger strike, four remain on the protest, with severe health risks.

The hunger strike is currently the sharp end of this government’s repression, but it has had many other manifestations. They have used the cops to issue bans, of doubtful legality, on national Palestine solidarity demonstrations from assembling near the BBC in Portland Place on Saturdays, using the smear that the demonstration is in some way threatening to Jews, and the presence of a synagogue within half a mile of the BBC Centre. The fact that the marches always march South from Portland Place, in the opposite direction to this building and have never shown any interest in it, is immaterial for these liars. It is another anti-democratic fraud, and excuse for repression, not a reason. Indeed, it is utterly dubious as to whether these police actions, ordered by the Starmer government, are even legal, so just to make sure they are trying to ram through a new law to explicitly allow them to ban any demonstration in the vicinity of a religious building on grounds that it might be “intimidating”, which applies “regardless of whether the protest organisers intended to have that effect”. A license for fraud, basically. The same is true of their proposals to allow police to limit repeated demonstrations supposedly because of their ‘cumulative’ impact. In 2025 the Court of Appeal declared such decisions unlawful, so this fraudulent government is using its large, but illegitimate majority, to write such powers into the same Crime and Policing Bill.  

Organisers of a Palestine solidarity demonstration in December 2004, including Ben Jamal of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Chris Nineham of the Stop the War coalition, are up in court on 23 February for supposedly breaching police instructions under the Public Order Act. The whole thing is fraudulent as evidence exists on film of the Police ushering and encouraging demonstrators into Trafalgar Square – after which Chris Nineham was violently arrested … supposedly for breaching police instructions and demonstrating in Trafalgar Square! Ben Jamal was arrested later for the same spurious offence. The whole thing is fraudulent from start to finish.

Then there are the several raids on pro-Palestine journalists and activists by the cops, which have resulted in spurious charges of supporting ‘terrorism’ against such leftists. Such as Sarah Wilkinson, accused in various ways of “encouraging terrorism” for expressing solidarity with Palestinian resistance to Israel – not any kind of military or terrorist activity or anything remotely like it. For thought crimes, in other words. Her trial has been set for January 2027. In Jersey, Natalie Strecker was acquitted of similar charges in November. And on Monday, January 5^th this year, well-known Jewish left activist Tony Greenstein faces charges at Kingston Upon Thames for supposedly expressing support for Hamas in a tweet that compared what was going on in Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Again, there is no suggestion of any military involvement in any concrete act of supposed “terrorism”. These spurious thought-crimes based on distortions of people’s support for the Palestinians into support for specific organisations that that British state and government, acting for Israel, has decided to use as a lever to supress dissent.

When the British state decided to extend its proscription of support for the military wings of Hamas and Hizbullah, to the political parties that these military wings are attached to, which have been elected by the masses in Palestine and Gaza, it crossed the line to supporting a genocide. These laws against defence of elected parties amount to pro-genocide laws, that say that Israel is entitled to treat the mass of the populations who vote for these parties as ‘terrorists’, and therefore to exterminate them, and their families including children and babies. That is what is going on in Gaza, and similar atrocities on a smaller scale (so far) have been committed by Israel in Lebanon. 

The “logic” of these charges — that these accused socialists agree politically with conservative Muslim parties like Hamas and Hezbollah, is ridiculous. The real intention of this abuse of the law is to criminalise opposition to mass murder – what they are saying is that Israel is fully entitled to murder wholesale civilians who support these parties, and anyone who supports resisting that is in some way supporting ‘terrorism’. This is the logic of Starmer’s government, and its Tory predecessor that was similarly dominated by Zionists, and it is a Nazi-like, genocidal logic. They cannot openly say these things in a court of law, so they attempt to lie about the political allegiances of such leftist activists to cast them as supporting political parties that are clearly light-years from their own views.

There have been some recent setbacks for Starmer’s government regarding some of its persecutions, such as the police investigation against the punk artist Bob Vylan, for leading large crowds at the Glastonbury rock festival chanting “Death, Death to the IDF”. They concluded that there was no evidence of wrongdoing – “insufficient evidence” and therefore there was no case to answer. A magistrate in the 6 Counties also threw out charges against Mo Chara, of the Irish punk band Kneecap, for supposedly displaying a Hezbollah flag, as the charges were filed incorrectly, without proper permission from the Attorney General, and missed a crucial six-month deadline in the North of Ireland for filing such charges. The government is now trying to appeal from this verdict, which is apparently the result of its own incompetence.

IHRA Misdefinition of ‘Anti-Semitism’ – Today’s Protocols

And another strand of Zionist and government mendacity and persecution of Palestine activists is the use of the IHRA misdefinition of ‘anti-Semitism’ to make false allegations of … anti-Semitism. The IHRA misdefinition has played a role akin to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion with the Nazi holocaust, preparing Western countries to support the genocide of Palestinians. Its whole purpose is to act as a complex of phoney amalgams that exploit the issue of the Nazi genocide to try to equate opposition to Zionist ethnic cleansing/genocide with denial of the Nazi genocide, and similar things. It was used as a bludgeon during the Labour leadership of Corbyn to destroy his leadership, and to politically prepare the Labour Party under Starmer to support the genocide. And now it has been passed into law by Trump in the US – in a manner that is certainly in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution – as a crude weapon to attempt to deport non-citizen critics of Israel’s Gaza holocaust.

But Trump is on weak legal ground. On September 30^th Federal District Judge William Young in Boston ruled that Trump and his minions had violated the First Amendment constitutional rights of non-citizens with their attempt to deport legal US residents since Trump gained office in Jan 2025. The best known were Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Tuft University’s Rumeysa Ozturk, attacked for their public opposition to Israeli’s genocide. Ibrahim Khalil was thus released on bail. This has starkly demonstrated that even the Trump administration is not all powerful in violating the democratic rights of non-citizens using the IHRA misdefinition as its basis – it comes up flatly against the basics of freedom of speech. There will be a remedy hearing for those vindicated sometime in 2026. There may also be appeals. But the Trump administration has not dared to try legal sanctions against actual US citizens over this.

In this country, the Starmer government, and its Tory predecessor have been attempting to use the IHRA misdefinition to persecute vulnerable professionals at work because of their political views. This predates the genocide itself but has carried on since. This has particularly been done by the arch Zionist Wes Streeting, who has been bolstering attempts by Israel lobbyists to victimise NHS staff who speak out on Palestine. There is also the celebrated case of David Miller, who In February 2024, won a landmark unfair dismissal case at an Employment Tribunal against Bristol University, who employed him until 2021 as a Professor of Political Sociology. His case has some aspects that are related to another important case, that of the comedian Reginald D. Hunter.

Regarding the NHS, three prominent cases involve Dr Ellen Kriesels, Dr Rehiana Ali and Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, who in the course of 2025, have been targeted by Zionists because of their strong, publicly expressed pro-Palestine views. As Crispin Flintoff, who conducted an extensive interview with them on his show on 28^th December, reported:

“They have been doxxed and had their livelihoods put at risk while facing disciplinary hearings with their professional bodies. And when those bodies found they had done nothing wrong, Health Secretary Wes Streeting intervened, applying political pressure to decisions that should be independent.

“After Dr Ellen Kriesels and Dr Rahmeh Aladwan were suspended from practice, you might have expected the campaign against them to end. Instead, both were arrested just before Christmas and held in custody for several hours. Dr Aladwan was arrested three times.” (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWd4wReY2QI for the citation, as well as the accompanying video)

Their cases are still ongoing, and there is a strong need for broader labour movement solidarity than they have received so far. They are very outspoken anti-Zionists and not shy of criticising the racism of dominant layers of the Jewish population and its organised political expression in ways that some sections of the ‘anti-Zionist’ Jewish left find challenging. This reflects their own oppression by Jewish-Zionists. There is some serious political learning and clarification to be done by the existing left, Jewish and non-Jewish, about liberal responses to the militant anti-Zionism of these comrades, who are decidedly not infected with the vices of liberal residual softness on Zionism (particularly among non-Jews) and Bundist prejudices among the Jewish left. There is an important discussion to be had about the politics of all this, which we will make a start in addressing presently.

But first there is the case of David Miller. He was dismissed from his academic post at Bristol after sustained pressure from Zionist lobby groups and over 100 pro-Zionist politicians – from the Commons and Lords – of several political parties – Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, Greens and SNP. Those politicians addressed a March 2021 open letter, from the ‘All Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism’ to the University demanding ‘action’ against him for ‘Bringing the University into Disrepute’ with his research and criticism of Zionism and its operations.

Zionist CAA Caught Red-Handed Abusing the Justice System

His victory in 2024 established in British law for the first time that anti-Zionist views constitute a protected philosophical belief under anti-discrimination laws, and that discrimination against an employee for holding and expressing this belief constituted unlawful discrimination. The victory was lessened because the Tribunal held that some of comrade Miller’s behaviour, derived from those protected beliefs, was impermissible and contributed to his dismissal, which means that though the basic principle was established, it was not comprehensive enough a victory to be ideal. But nevertheless, it established a principle that Zionists are desperate to overthrow. The University, backed by Israel lobby organisations, appealed this decision at a three-day hearing of the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) in November. Comrade Miller opposed their appeal and cross-appealed the Tribunal’s lesser findings that potentially reduced the victory. At this point, the EAT is still considering its judgement, which is likely to come by February.

However, seemingly as an attempt to interfere with this case, in June 2025 the Zionist fake-charity, the so-called ‘Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’ (CAA) filed a private prosecution against him for supposedly issuing ‘menacing’ tweets on X, basically calling for Zionists to be held accountable for their crimes. There is a more general Zionist campaign against him also, which is why when he attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon earlier this year as a journalist, he was ‘questioned’ by ‘anti-terrorist’ police when he returned to the UK. Quite a few others have been subjected to such intimidatory, mendacious questioning, which is not a proper arrest but rather a form of (usually) short-lived detention without trial, including recently Craig Murray, George and Gayatri Galloway, Richard Medhust. It’s a form of threatening, hostile abuse by the British state, and nothing to do with any valid ‘investigation’ of anything.

At the same time as the CAA began its action against David Miller, it issued another private prosecution, against the Black American comedian Reginald D Hunter, who lives in Scotland, for supposedly sending ‘offensive’ messages on X. On 17th October, in the CAA vs David Miller case, a magistrate ruled that the CAA had withheld significant information from the court that should have been disclosed when they filed the case. They were given 28 days to comply with an order to disclose all relevant communications between their directors, trustees and staff on whether they were seeking to silence David Miller or to undermine his Employment Appeal Tribunal. They did eventually disclose some more material which is now in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service.

This is significant given what happened in the Reginald D Hunter case. On 23rd December a court quashed the CAA’s private prosecution against Hunter, saying the CAA was using the criminal justice system for “improper reasons.” Judge Michael Snow said

“The CAA have demonstrated by the misleading and partial way in which it summarised its application and its wilful, repeated, failure to meet its disclosure obligations, that its true and sole motive in seeking to prosecute Reginald Hunter is to have him cancelled” (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8d9lp5y9jo)

and concluded “I have no doubt that the prosecution is abusive.” Apparently, one important fact that the CAA had also failed to disclose to the court is that it is under investigation by the Charity Commission for allegedly abusing its charitable status for political purposes.

This would appear to put the CAA’s case against David Miller also in deep trouble. But the point of these phoney prosecutions and lawfare is not necessarily to get results in terms of convictions. They are “lawfare” – an abuse of law so that the time, expense and stress undergone by those compelled to face such vexatious cases is the ‘punishment’ decreed by such abusers of legal action.

Fake Lefts and Zionist Tropes

Returning to the question of the NHS Doctors, there is a fascinating interview with Dr Aladwan on the YouTube channel of Attrition, a new show “analysing war, imperialism and Zionism.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wX3u0MRi3s). This goes into considerable detail about the political views and racist persecution of this excellent and heroic Palestinian-Jordanian NHS Doctor.

She is clearly exemplary in her medical work but is being repeatedly dragged to spurious disciplinary hearings on Streeting’s orders for her expressed political views and her resistance to Jewish supremacist racism. It is a matter of principle for the working-class movement to defend her and her other two colleagues. Dr Aladwan was arrested just a couple of days before her recent hearing, and a list of allegations were presented to her that looked suspiciously like they were formulated by someone in the Israeli state.

Her prolific use of the phrase ‘Jewish lobby’ to describe her tormentors is completely understandable, but it is more accurate to call it a Jewish-Zionist lobby. Zionism is certainly the dominant form of Jewish thought today, but there is a large layer of Jews who abhor it, and don’t really deserve to be simply bracketed with their supremacist brethren. She is right though that Zionism, or more accurately Political Zionism, is about Jewish supremacism over the Palestinians, and aspires to supremacy over and suppression of all those who speak out against the dispossession, persecution and genocide of the Palestinians.

The ‘Lobby’, however it is formulated, is in fact a euphemism. It would have no power at all if it were not for the disproportionate representation of (mainly) Zionist Jews in the capitalist ruling classes particularly of the advanced capitalist, imperialist countries. It is simply a fact that Jews as an ethnicity make up 10% of the population of billionaires worldwide, but only 0.2% of the world’s population are Jewish. That is 50 times overrepresentation. The reason for this is a complex product of Jewish history going back to early medieval times – it has a materialist explanation – but its factual basis today is indisputable.  

The “state capture” that she talks about certainly indicates the power of Jewish-Zionism in the main imperialist countries, but it would not give out that appearance if it were not for the material power of that layer of the Jewish super-rich, who are mainly concentrated in the advanced capitalist countries in West Europe, North America and Australasia (as well as Israel, if course). It is that layer of privileged Jewish-Zionists who provide the material basis for what gives the appearance of ‘state capture’ of say, Britain and the United States by Israel and its agents. They do not really have the material power to ‘capture’ these states – they are a minority, even though a large one, within the ruling classes of these countries. But they are allowed to act like they do rule these countries, certainly when it comes to anything that touches the Palestinian Question, because of the cult-like worship of most of the gentile bourgeoisie for this layer, who they credit with being the ideological inspirers and popularisers of neoliberalism and the Thatcher/Reagan revolution, which the bourgeoisie credit with saving the capitalist system from a major, systemic crisis in the 1970s.

Her criticism of many supposedly anti-Zionist Jews for trying to get her to shut up about Jewish supremacism is excellent. The contradiction of many such ‘anti-Zionist’ leftists who adhere to forms of Jewish identity politics that mimic some aspects of Zionism and thereby take offence at many sharp criticisms of Zionism, is excruciating.

If you accuse them of Zionism, they rightly take offence. But there are common tropes, as it were, between Zionism and leftist, ‘anti-Zionist’ forms of Jewish identity politics – notably the idea that to single out the outsize Jewish bourgeoisie as the prime mover of Israeli crimes is supposedly anti-Semitic. In fact, when analysed in materialist terms, this conclusion is obvious. Likewise, when anyone talks of the causes of Zionism’s extraordinary power in the Western countries, as being down to the outsize Jewish-Zionist bourgeois layer – whose correct designation is the “Jewish-Zionist bourgeois caste” – this brings forth phoney allegations that this contention, solidly based on fact, is somehow anti-Semitic. This canard is a manifestation of cross-class Jewish chauvinism.

As a result of this oppression, Dr Aladwan almost seems to have a rose-tinted view of an ‘independent’ British imperialism at times later in this interview. The interviewer, Ammar Kazmi, supplies a useful corrective to that at the end. Her view of the remedy for Zionist colonisation is understandable but may not really be practical. Though many descendants of Jewish colonists may well flee from the Zionist state when it finally collapses, that cannot be taken as read and without at least part of that population being induced to tolerate its destruction, that defeat of the Zionist entity may not be possible.

Greenstein’s About-Face to Ally with Zionists Against David Miller

Which brings us to the subject of Tony Greenstein’s recent attack on David Miller in the Weekly Worker and elsewhere, smearing him as ‘anti-Semitic’ even as he battles the Zionist CAA and other Zionists that stand behind Bristol University as they try to overturn his Employment Tribunal victory. In which he won a victory for all anti-Zionists, as the Tribunal ruled that he was unlawfully discriminated against for his anti-Zionist beliefs. This is the first time that such a victory has been won in the courts, and if Bristol University loses its appeal on the principle of this, it will become a potent legal precedent that potentially protects anti-racist opponents of Zionism in Britain generally from victimisation for their views in the workplace.

But for Tony Greenstein, what matters is not the rights of opponents of Zionism but protecting the Jewish-Zionist part of the bourgeoisie from left-wing criticism because of its role, in class terms, of being the core socio-economic formation whose interests are embodied in the project of Political Zionism. He considers that David Miller:

“…has begun propagating conspiracy theories about Zionism taking over the world and engaging in ‘state capture’. No longer is Zionism the adopted policy of western states, which support Israel because, in the words of Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig, it is an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ situated in a strategically important, energy rich region.

“Zionism is instead a monster that is engaged in a project involving the take-over and control of the world powers, including its former imperialist sponsors. Indeed it is on its way to having gained control of all of them.

“Not surprisingly it is attracting support from fascists, racists, anti-Semites, conspiracy theorists and other assorted fruitcakes and loony tunes.  Zionism according to Miller is really no different from the Elders in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion who planned and plotted to take over the world and subvert the existing order. Miller is one in a long line of cranks.”

(https://tonygreenstein.com/david-millers-crazy-fantasy-of-a-global-jewish-empire-gives-imperialism-a-clean-bill-of-health/)

This is typical of Tony Greenstein. He claims to oppose the IHRA misdefinition of ‘anti-Semitism’. But in the passage quoted above, he creates his own version of the same thing. The IHRA definition, through a convoluted set of ‘examples’, is really a Zionist version of the method of amalgam that is perhaps best known from Stalin’s Moscow Trials in the late 1930s. The main amalgam that came out of that event was the assertion that one of the two main co-leaders of the Russian revolution, Trotsky, was a Nazi. The reasoning was along the lines of ‘Trotsky is against Stalin. Hitler is also against Stalin. Therefore, Trotsky must be a supporter of Hitler’.

The IHRA misdefinition uses a virtually identical form of warped logic to Stalin’s Moscow trials. With its 11 “examples” of “contemporary anti-semitism”, it basically asserts that to say that Israel is a “racist endeavour”, or to make “comparisons” of Israel’s behaviour “with the Nazis” is politically similar to denying the Nazi holocaust and is hence “anti-Semitic”. Hence, logically, to accuse Israel of genocide, i.e. of behaving like the Nazis, is “anti-Semitic”. But Israel clearly is attempting the extermination of the Gaza Palestinian population, as the whole world knows… so logically, everyone who sees this is ‘anti-Semitic’.

This is a key component of the warped politics that primed the Labour Party under Keir Starmer to support the current genocide. In that sense, the IHRA definition itself is akin to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, acting as a ‘warrant for genocide’, a distortion of reality that is used to motivate support for a genocidal programme, and to demonise anyone who defends the targets of such a programme. This is the underlying rationale as to why the Starmer regime, which is part of the political cult that leads the bulk of bourgeois politicians in the West to defer to the Zionist project on virtually everything to do with Palestine, is persecuting those who denounce the genocide in Gaza, as extensively spelt out above.

You would expect, as a basic principle, that those on the left, who claim to be anti-Zionists would defend each other against such politically motivated Zionist smears. But not Tony Greenstein. Even though he is facing persecution and a state frameup himself, he declares that others – and David Miller in particular – are guilty of the kind of thing he is falsely accused of … by a similar piece of logic to kind of falsehood that is being used to persecute many others, including him.

So, we have yet another amalgam, this time from Tony Greenstein, against anyone who refuses to discount certain specific material facts when addressing the crimes of Political Zionism. Two propositions are given the same treatment as in the IHRA ‘examples.’ The first is this alleged proposition:

“… Miller’s focus on the Zionist lobby has resulted in him beginning to be unable to see the wood for the trees. He is unable to put the power and influence of the Zionist lobby in perspective. No longer is Israel the attack dog of US imperialism: rather it is Israel which is in control of imperialism. Indeed it has become the major imperialist power!” (ibid)

Israel – an Imperialist Force in its Own Right

But what Greenstein really rejects is the notion that Israel is an imperialist power at all. However, there is a problem there – if it is not imperialist, since we actually live in a world when those capitalist countries that are not imperialist powers are invariably victims of imperialism, you arrive at the proposition that Israel is in some way a victim of imperialism. For Marxists, the imperialist world is fundamentally divided into oppressor and oppressed nations, as Lenin explained:

“That is why the focal point in the Social-Democratic programme must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism, and is deceitfully evaded by the social-chauvinists and Kautsky. This division is not significant from the angle of bourgeois pacifism or the philistine Utopia of peaceful competition among independent nations under capitalism, but it is most significant from the angle of the revolutionary struggle against imperialism.” (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/oct/16.htm)

If Israel is not imperialist, then logically it must either be included among the ranks of colonies and or semi-colonies – oppressed countries, or at a pinch, among the ranks of what Lenin called ‘dependant countries’, that is, countries like Argentina, which are still oppressed by imperialism. The only other types of states that exist in an imperialist-derived world are workers states (either revolutionary, or degenerated/deformed), and the anomaly that is Russia, a new kind of non-imperialist bourgeois state that is itself deformed by the material heritage of the first and longest-lasting workers’ state that it has been unable to abolish. Since obviously none of the latter are remotely relevant to Israel, denying that Israel is imperialist implies that it is some kind of oppressed nation. So, something remarkably similar to the Zionist claim of eternal victimhood is smuggled in by the back door.

This is a question that the Trotskyist left has never really addressed. Calling Israel a ‘colonial settler state’ does not really address whether it is imperialist or a semi-colony. It should be noted that the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are in their origin colonial-settler states. The first is the world imperialist hegemon; the last three are (relatively minor) imperialist countries, clearly, oppressor nations. They are not oppressed in any way; the idea is absurd. But these were all created and except for the US (which separated completely from Britain much earlier) became British ‘Dominions’ long before the dawning of the 20^th Century, and there is no mystery about what their ‘mother country’ is. They were proto-imperialist oppressor nations when they were created in the 19^th Century and moved seamlessly into the imperialist epoch as minor imperialist offspring of British colonialism. This is not particularly controversial on the Trotskyist left.

But Israel has proven difficult for the Trotskyist left to address. The statement that Israel is a ‘colonial settler state’ is utterly nebulous about whether it is imperialist, or some kind of semi-colony. The only ostensibly Trotskyist group prior to this that took a coherent (but wrong) position on this was the (now defunct) Communist Workers Group of New Zealand (led by David Bedggood), which argued that Israel is a semi-colony, albeit of a ‘special kind’. But if Israel is a semi-colony, then it is qualitatively co-equal to the Arab semi-colonial states that neighbour it, and there is no basis to take a side in conflicts between Israel and those states. This provides some theoretical backing for the position of the old international Spartacist tendency of taking no sides in the 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars between the Arab states and Israel, an appalling position which they never theorised in terms of taking a position on the nature of Israel.

Taking the position that Israel is imperialist has immediate effects – it immediately raises the question of the nature of the large Jewish-Zionist ethnic factions within the imperialist bourgeoisie that are loyal to Israel as ‘their’ state, and who have ‘birthright’ citizenship rights in that state by virtue of Israel’s racist Law of Return. If Israel is imperialist, then that array of factions is imperialist also and their loyalty to Israel becomes a prime political issue. That is simply the logic of characterising Israel as imperialist. But obviously Israel is not an oppressed nation – it is one of the world’s most obvious, blatant oppressors and undoubtedly the most openly racist state in the world. It is an advanced capitalist country with a major array of cross-border factions in the wider imperialist bourgeoise supporting its activities as an oppressor. The idea that it is not imperialist is completely at odds with reality.

It is the only new imperialist country created in the 20th Century and a transplanted entity, like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, created by genocide. But it was transplanted as imperialist from the very beginning. Unlike the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand which were products of early British colonialism created while capitalism was still a progressive development out of feudalism. These became imperialist toward the end of the 19th Century when progressive capitalism itself developed into imperialist capitalism, characterised by “reaction all the way down the line” as Lenin put it. Israel was created as a transplanted imperialist state from its inception in 1948.

So here comes Greenstein’s version of the IHRA version of anti-Semitism. Greenstein complains that:

“Miller has begun propagating conspiracy theories about Zionism taking over the world and engaging in ‘state capture’. No longer is Zionism the adopted policy of western states, which support Israel because, in the words of Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig, it is an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ situated in a strategically important, energy rich region.

“Zionism is instead a monster that is engaged in a project involving the take-over and control of the world powers, including its former imperialist sponsors. Indeed it is on its way to having gained control of all of them.

“Not surprisingly it is attracting support from fascists, racists, anti-Semites, conspiracy theorists and other assorted fruitcakes and loony tunes.  Zionism according to Miller is really no different from the Elders in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion who planned and plotted to take over the world and subvert the existing order. Miller is one in a long line of cranks.” (https://tonygreenstein.com/david-millers-crazy-fantasy-of-a-global-jewish-empire-gives-imperialism-a-clean-bill-of-health/)

The core of this argument in the sentence that argues that Western states “…support Israel because, in the words of Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig, it is an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ situated in a strategically important, energy rich region.”

Note that in this sentence, Greenstein, who sometimes aspires to Marxism, does not clarify if Israel, this supposed “unsinkable aircraft carrier” is imperialist, or some kind of vassal state of imperialism, i.e. a semi-colony. The whole sophistry about an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” implies that Israel is some kind of colonial or semi-colonial possession of the United States, as does the phrase about “its former imperialist sponsors” which also implies that Israel is not itself imperialist. It obviously is not a colony; it does not have a US Governor and colonial administration. That leaves Israel as a semi-colony. But he doesn’t say that either. He leaves it hanging in the air.

This position is a classic evasion of the pseudo-Trotskyist left. Apparently, Israel is different to every other state in the world, as it not considered appropriate to clarify whether it is imperialist, or not. If it were defined as non-imperialist, some kind of semi-colony in fact, then it would be the duty of Marxists in the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky to treat it as an oppressed country and defend it against imperialism. But if a tendency defines it as imperialist, then it’s actual material attributes, including its international dimension, lead immediately to Zionists, and their capitulators on the Jewish left such as Tony Greenstein, accusing any such tendency or individual of ‘anti-Semitism’.

This word “crank” directed against David Miller is in this context an anti-communist, anti-Marxist, anti-left slur. He’s not the first person to be smeared in this manner. Recall that Jackie Walker was called a “crank” by Owen Jones when Jones went into full cowardly retreat in the face of the ‘anti-Semitism” witchhunt when Corbyn led the Labour Party. Greenstein was himself called a ‘crank’ by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism for speaking at a rally against the witchhunt on 20th July 2021 – along with every single person who attended the rally. (https://antisemitism.org/tony-greenstein-and-piers-corbyn-make-nazi-comparisons-in-speeches-at-far-left-demonstration-outside-labour-party-hq-in-anticipation-of-significant-nec-meeting)

Then again, arch-Zionist and warmongering hack Nick Cohen said the whole movement behind Corbyn were “cranks” when writing in the Spectator in May 2018 (https://spectator.com/article/corbyn-s-cranks-aren-t-interested-in-power/). He also had his anti-socialist demonology up to scratch about the Corbynites, but (unfortunately) it was massively exaggerated. He began his screed:

“It ought to be a statement of the obvious that Labour is fighting a civil war between revolutionary socialists and social democrats, which goes back to the Russian revolution 100 years ago. The armies may have changed, but the battle line remains as static as ever.” (https://spectator.com/article/corbyn-s-cranks-aren-t-interested-in-power/)

In Cohen’s paranoid, neoliberal mind, left reformists like Corbyn and those who followed him were fantasised as being “revolutionary socialists” inspired by the Russian Revolution. Unfortunately, this was not true – if it were true then Corbyn, with his hundred of thousands of supporters would be able to build a mass communist party in Britain. Your Party is not that, though it could evolve in a genuine working-class party where such a programme would get a hearing.  

There is something of the Nick Cohen in Tony Greenstein’s denunciation of David Miller as a “crank” for addressing a crucial issue that genuine revolutionary Marxists are duty-bound to address, if they are to fully understand Zionism. That is Tony Greenstein’s version of the IHRA version of anti-Semitism – to address a key question – that he now admits is based on fact – is a sign of “anti-Semitism”. What is really is a sign of is the antipathy of Tony Greenstein and others who adhere to his kind of Jewish identity politics, to Marxism when it uses the same, historical materialist method in examining the Jewish Question as it uses when examining any other political question.

When David Miller talks about “state capture”, a “Jewish Empire” or “Pax Judaica” he is addressing phenomena that at least empirically, appear to many people to be a reality. Whatever your analysis of the causes of these phenomena, the view that Israel has enormous power in Western counties is increasingly common and grounded in political reality. Abuse of people who attempt to address this fact as ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘cranks’ is little different from Zionist abuse against the Palestine Solidarity movement generally. As an example of this,  it is worth listening to the interview given by the Jordanian-Palestinian Doctor, Rahmeh Aladwan with Ammar Kamzi of Attrition, referred to above, where she explores this question in depth from the point of view of her own oppression as a target of Zionist witchhunting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wX3u0MRi3s).

Greenstein’s Anti-Communist Snake-Oil

Even more to the point is to analyse the causes of this phenomenon. This Tony Greenstein manifestly fails to do. He shown this when he berates David Miller for a Tweet he sent out in August 2023, which made three points:

“1. Jews are not discriminated against.

2. They are over-represented in Europe, North America and Latin America in positions of cultural, economic and political power.

3. They are therefore, in a position to discriminate against actually marginalised groups.”

His response was as follows:

“Miller was correct to say that Jews are not discriminated against or experiencing racism. There is no state anti-Semitism in Britain or Europe. Anti-Semitism is a marginal prejudice. I could even accept his observations on Jewish ‘overrepresentation’ in positions of power, because statistically and sociologically it is undoubtedly true, though how relevant it is debateable.

However Miller’s third point that this enabled Jews to discriminate against those who were oppressed was wrong. If Jews in powerful positions discriminate against others they do it as part of the organisations they are a part of, not as collective Jews.”

Later on, he says of point 2 that:

“It is … entirely legitimate to ask why Jews are represented in the numbers Miller suggests. I have no doubt that there are historical-materialist reasons. However it is the conclusions and the use to which Miller puts these which I am questioning.”

So, let’s get this straight – Greenstein says that the statistics that David Miller puts forward on “Jewish ‘overrepresentation’ in positions of power” are “undoubtedly true” and that “entirely legitimate to ask why Jews are represented in the numbers” that David Miller (and others) suggests, and he even concedes “. I have no doubt that there are historical-materialist reasons” for these things. But nevertheless, he says that “how relevant” these things are is “debateable” (!!). This is flat denial of reality – and shows Greenstein systematically, and quite cynically, confusing class/national consciousness and collectivity with ‘conspiracy theories.” He writes:

“Now it may well be true that Jews are statistically over-represented in certain sections in proportion to their numbers in society but it is quite another thing to suggest that they act collectively.”

And then:

“The whole concept of ‘Jewish Power’ is an updated version of historic Jewish conspiracy theories.”

This is a sleight-of-hand worthy of any Zionist. Because it deliberately attempts to equate the collectivity of a class, or rather of a faction (or array of factions) of a class united by a political programme, i.e., a quasi-nationalist programme, with the notion of Jewish conspiracy or Jewish “collectivity”. This is an attack on Marxism, and an attempt to equate any attempt to apply the same basic historically materialist tenets as can be legitimately applied to any other bourgeois faction, to those sections (the majority) of the Jewish bourgeoisie who support Zionism, just because they are Jewish.

It is Jewish exceptionalism, in other words. Greenstein says it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to say that Jewish-Zionist bourgeois organise ‘collectively’. But they don’t organise “as Jews” but as Jewish-Zionist bourgeois to fight for Zionist political objectives, which are ethnocentric, that centre on creating and defending a racist Jewish state. They organise politically along these class-programmatic lines, just as sections of the British bourgeoisie who supported Brexit, did and do still organise along these class-programmatic lines in such parties as UKIP and the Brexit Party (now Reform). To equate that concept with a cross-class “conspiracy” of Jews as laid out in Jewish conspiracy theories, such as those between capitalists and communists beloved by the Nazis, is just as outrageous a slur as that in the Moscow Trials that accused Trotsky of being a Nazi because he fought against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution under Stalin. This is Greenstein’s version of the IHRA.

It is complete and utter political and intellectual dishonesty and proof of a complete lack of political integrity. It is anti-communist snake oil. It is racist, because it really implies that Jews, unlike every other human group, are not subject to the basic tenets of historical materialism, and in some way exist outside those tenets, which are universal. It is anti-communist, racist gibberish, in other words, and a serious sign of political and moral decay.

The apparent phenomenon of ‘state capture’ showed itself most dramatically in Britain in October and November with the affair of the Tel Aviv Macabees Europa League soccer match against Aston Villa in Birmingham. Macabees fans earlier rampaged around Amsterdam, pulling down Palestinian flags wherever they were to be found, physically attacking many people in Amsterdam who showed visible signs of sympathy for Palestinians, and singing racist songs that glorified the genocide, such as “there are no schools in Gaza, because the children are all dead”. When the West Midlands Police imposed a ban on these extremely violent racists attending the match at Villa Park, knowing full well they would initiate extreme violence in Birmingham, they were denounced as ‘anti-Semitic’ by all four major bourgeois parties in Britain: Labour, Tory, Lib Dems and Reform.  Macabees fans then rioted in Tel Aviv and a local Tel Aviv ‘derby’ match had to be cancelled. This made it politically impossible for Macabees fans to go to Villa Park despite the Zionist parties’ views. But after the match, still an ‘investigation’ is going ahead into supposed ‘anti-Semitism’ in the WMP, and their alleged ‘influence’ by the local MP, the Independent Ayub Khan, who is close to Your Party.

This is just one example. Many others are well known. The numerous attacks on democratic rights of opponents of the Gaza genocide detailed in this article are all other examples of the same thing. The explanation of this is twofold – one is the massive overrepresentation of Jewish-Zionists in the ruling classes of West Europe and North America compared to the weight of the Jewish population among the population as a whole. Forbes notes that 10% of billionaires worldwide are of Jewish origin, whereas only 0.2% of the world’s population are of Jewish origin, which is 50 times overrepresentation. Within the major imperialist countries, this translates into overrepresentation of dozens of times over, so that Norman Finkelstein commented about this that:

“In many countries, not least the US and the UK, Jews occupy strategic positions in the entertainment industry, the arts, publishing, journals of opinion, the academy, the legal profession, and government. Jews are represented in Britain in numbers that are many times their proportion of the population,

“…. if these raw data didn’t translate into outsized Jewish political power. … It is certainly legitimate to query the amplitude of this political power and whether it has been exaggerated, but it cannot be right to deny (or suppress) critical socioeconomic facts.” (https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/finkelstein-on-corbyn-mania/)

As an example of incredible dishonesty in his writings, Greenstein attributes these words to David Miller, when they came from a famous 2018 Essay by Norman Finkelstein, Corbyn Mania, which was written as commentary on the witchhunt in the Labour Party.

The explanation for these phenomena, and the outsize influence that they give in Western politics, is that this ‘outsize’ layer of Jews, almost all of whom are Zionists, in strategic positions, above all in the ruling class, constitute a Jewish-Zionist caste in the ruling class, which organises on the basis of Zionist politics, is ethnocentric, and based on loyalty to Israel, a state of which they are entitled to citizenship of by birth. They are a caste within the imperialist bourgeoisie with a special material interest in Israel as an ethnic state.

A caste is a layer within a class that has a special interest in something that sets them apart from the bulk of the class. The trade union bureaucracy is a special layer within the working class that makes its living from bargaining over the price of labour power with the employing class and gains significant material privileges in doing so. As Trotsky first noted in the 1930s, the Stalinist bureaucracy in a degenerated/deformed workers state is a layer within the proletariat of that state that has a special interest in administering what Marx called ‘bourgeois right’, that is inequalities within the working class that, at a still-low level of the social productivity of labour, that are necessary for the economy to function. Like the trade union bureaucracy but even more so, they acquire a privileged social position from this function, that in Russia in the 1920s allowed them to politically expropriate the bulk of the proletariat and monopolise power.

The J-Z caste within the bourgeoisie does not really have a materially privileged position within the imperialist bourgeoisie, as that class is enormously privileged anyway, but is has acquired an enormous political authority within the imperialist bourgeoisie. That is, it has a politically privileged status, because to the bulk of the same class it is the layer than won hegemony for the programme of neoliberalism within the bourgeoisie in the 1970s and is credited with saving the system of capitalism itself from what appeared to be a very dangerous, potentially terminal crisis. The fact that Jews were the embodiment of commercial capital in medieval times, and therefore in some ways are seen as having a ‘capitalist’ culture linked to finance, that is older than the capitalist system itself, has given them a kind of cult status among a class that is unsure of its permanence and thereby on the lookout for saviours. That is the basis of a cult of ‘Jewishness’ among the imperialist bourgeoisie. It is a cult status that regards the J-Z caste as the most class-conscious layer of the bourgeois class. It is this that explains the phenomenon that Norman Finkelstein spells out in, again, in his Corbyn Mania essay:

“…Not only is it no longer a social liability to be Jewish, it even carries social cachet. Whereas it once was a step up for a Jew to marry into a ruling elite family, it now appears to be a step up for the ruling elite to marry into a Jewish family. Isn’t it a straw in the wind that both President Bill Clinton’s pride and joy Chelsea and President Donald Trump’s pride and joy Ivanka married Jews?” (ibid)

That is the explanation for what Tony Greenstein calls ‘Jewish power’ and attempts to attribute to David Miller, though there does not seem to be any evidence that he has ever used that term. The J-Z caste is the source of what Norman Finkelstein calls “outsized Jewish political power”. But Greenstein misattributes the Finkelstein quote, which is not the same in any case, to David Miller, in a pathetic attempt to smear him as having a concept of “Jewish Power” in classless terms.

With that understanding, that the J-Z caste within the imperialist bourgeoisie is the source of such apparent phenomena as ‘state capture’, when David Miller talks about a “Jewish Empire” and “Pax-Judaica” as explanations for those phenomena, he is talking about the power of the J-Z caste. Understanding that, such terms are probably a bit prosaic, grandiose and unnecessary to explain what is at bottom a simple phenomenon, though an analysis that generates acute hostility from Jewish chauvinists, both Zionist and ‘anti-Zionist’, no matter how it is described. The most you can say about them is that their grandiosity is perhaps counterproductive.

“State capture” is really a bit of smoke and mirrors, because the J-Z caste does not have the social weight to enforce such a ‘capture’ against the gentile majority of the bourgeoisie if they were not inclined to go along with it. But it appears that way because the gentile imperialist bourgeoisie defer to the J-Z caste, because of the cult of the J-Z caste as the most class-conscious section induces that behaviour from so many of them. That is the explanation for the otherwise perplexing and counter-intuitive phenomenon of apparent ‘state capture’. It’s not a static phenomenon, and the more it comes under pressure, as it has during the current genocide, the more startling some of its manifestations become.

Two other points Greenstein makes against David Miller are the product of some political weaknesses of David Miller. They are not central to this issue, but incidental. The first concerns retweeting a couple of posts on X by some ‘paleo-Nazis’, far rightists who are in the minority who have not gone over to worship of Israel, and saying they make some ‘interesting’ points, e.g. about Jewish so-called ‘super-intelligence’. Greenstein screams that these far rightists are talking about so-called ‘race science’, and indeed they no doubt are. They are extremely wrong about that, though there are undoubtedly quite a few fields of intellectual endeavour where Jews are very prominent, and even dominant. This is not a product of some mystical essence of ‘race’, however, but of the Jews’ class history.

In their role as the repository of commercial capital, which they were in medieval times centuries before capitalism proper emerged, they were the only part of a society based on natural economy that developed serious international connections and thereby, developed something of an international culture. This exposed them to all kinds of intellectual trends in various countries that others in medieval society were completely sheltered from and knew nothing about. This had recurring consequences as a cultural acquisition that, like all cultures, cascades down through generations, centuries, and even millennia. There is nothing particularly mysterious about it, properly understood.

This may appear mysterious to someone looking into the history, and some academics, even very right-wing academics, and people who follow them, are also fascinated by them, for their own reasons. They might even discover something of interest, among their usual dross. The fact that Jews have recently been elevated from a population that suffered considerable oppression to one that (in its Zionist mainstream) is the perpetrator of oppression undoubtedly means that some elements of truth may be discovered by some otherwise deluded and reactionary people. There is nothing inherently wrong with investigating or researching such things, but it is best to be very discriminating about who you engage in public exchanges with. But academics sometimes make errors of this sort. It is, however, a smear to try to make out that David Miller is in some way in tune with the overall ideas of these reprobates because he briefly engaged with them. That is unscrupulous, as unscrupulous as attributing the formulations of Norman Finkelstein to David Miller as shown above.

In any case, there is nothing wrong with leftists doing academic research that involves deep- going research into fascist sources. How else could such useful works as Ian Kershaw’s biographical volumes on Hitler have been written? No doubt in doing so, he had to engage with some dubious people on some level. The question of how to do so is a matter of judgement, but the idea that in doing so, one is tainted in some way, is an absurd and unscrupulous thing to propagate without actual evidence.

The other point he quotes is some derogatory remarks about the politics of Zarah Sultana by David Miller that have little connection with his views on the complex question of the nature of Zionism. He also attacks David, in the manner of the AWL, for working with Chris Williamson on Palestine Declassified, which is ‘funded by the Iranian state’. That is a reactionary criticism, as that programme reaches many with some very salient points about the current genocide, among other things. As Marxist and anti-imperialists, we are glad that the Iranian state gave Israel a bloody nose in the 12-day war last June.

He quotes David Miller as saying that Zarah Sultana’s:

“…commitment to the sort of muscular liberalism which was produced by the War on Terror — weaponising feminism, sexuality and gender against Muslims — has done enormous damage to Your Party’s prospects to alliance-building.”

This is a wrong-headed criticism that reflects David Miller’s association with Chris Williamson, a deputy leader of the Workers Party of Britain, who in term is evidently influenced by the social conservatism of George Galloway. But it has little bearing anyone’s understanding of Zionism and the class nature of its international dimension, and its pretty bizarre for Greenstein to suggest that it does. There are people active on the left who have been attacked by Tony for holding similar views to David Miller on Zionism for far longer, well over a decade, who have very different views to David Miller on trans rights, which is actually mainly what David Miller is referring to – as Greenstein is well aware.

The statement that “Miller Has Abandoned Anti-Zionism in Favour of Conspiracy Theories” in Greenstein’s article is a feeble lie, as is his attempt to attribute the views of Norman Finkelstein to Miller in a blatant falsification of quotes. But that is the product of the political weakness of Greenstein who wants to police the left against Marxist criticism of the JZ caste, wherever it comes from, and is totally unscrupulous about how he does it.

The Consistent Democrats are critically supporting this slate in the CEC Elections for Your Party. The slate embodies a basic set of democratic and socialist principles, if only in outline. Obviously there is much missing in terms of policies, which is why our support has to be critical. We are not endorsing the politics of the various diverse trends that produced this, but in a crucial sense, until this election is over, it is not clear that Your Party will be viable.

The progressive voting decisions which embodied basic democratic and socialist elements that the membership voted for on 29-30th November are embodied in this slate. They really they represent the difference between the bureaucratic group around Jeremy Corbyn and Karie Murphy, and those who support Zarah Sultana’s pro-party, socialist, democratic, class struggle and anti-Zionist criticism of their positions and methods. We support that critique, albeit critically, and this slate embodies it. So we critically support this slate also. If this slate makes a good showing in the coming CEC elections, we will have a party to fight for. If it does not, the party may be severely damaged. Vote for the Grassroots Slate for the Your Party CEC!

Agreed on January 2 2026 by representatives from the Democratic Socialists, Democratic Bloc, Platform for a Democratic Party, Trans Liberation Group, Greater Manchester Left Caucus, Eco-Socialist Horizon, Socialist Unity Platform, SWP, Counterfire, Socialist Alternative, and Zarah Sultana

1. For a Central Executive Committee dedicated to building a mass, democratic, socialist, working-class party, rooted in independent community-based branch organisations that can fight fascism and the far right. Our goal is to bring an end to capitalism, a socially and ecologically destructive system driven by the profit motive and private ownership of the means of production,       and replace it with a socialist society organised to meet people’s needs, not generate profit.

2. For a Party that will  empower members to create grassroots structures in every town, city, region and nation providing data, finance and technical support to get them established. Members and thus branches must be well funded, receiving at least 50% of all membership fees, with autonomy over branch spending and political activity. Elected branch committees will have access to full membership data for their area. We must execute a mass recruitment drive to become a mass socialist party of the left this country so desperately needs.

3. For a Party open to all who share our socialist goals – an equal, fair, just and ecologically sustainable society organised around the needs of the majority, not for the profit of the few; key sections of the economy owned and democratically controlled by the people who work in them and depend upon them; a society in which everyone, regardless of race, faith, ethnicity, family background, gender, sexual orientation or disability, can lead healthy lives of dignity and fulfilment.

4. For a clear programme of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism and pro peace. We oppose militarism and stand with the oppressed against the oppressors. We support the Palestinian people and reject successive British governments’ collusion with Israel. We support immediate withdrawal from NATO that only offers profits to the merchants of death and makes the world less safe, when this money should be spent on schools, hospitals and wider society.

5. For a Party that opposes the far-right and exposes every attempt by the ruling class to divide and rule the working class against itself. We stand with all communities and liberation for all people: Muslims, migrants, refugees, trans and queer people, women, disabled people. We stand against all forms of oppression and attacks on marginalised communities by political elites.

6. For defence of freedom of speech and freedom of expression; opposition to laws restricting protest and trade union activity; opposition to state censorship and surveillance; support for pro-Palestine political prisoners that are on hunger strike.

7. For a democratic party that will fight in the May 2026 elections but is not defined by electoralism; all elected representatives and party officials to be accountable to the membership, subject to mandatory re-selection and open to recall at any time. We must support candidates that don’t vote for cuts but fight them.

8. For a Party that only participates in national government alone or in coalition on the basis of a socialist programme actively supported by a majority of the population. The Monarchy, House of Lords and first past the post voting system must be abolished.

9. For a truly democratic socialist party a democracy commission and democratic sovereign Conference will take place: Over the first six months after their election, the CEC will appoint a Democracy Commission, to review the founding process and suggest improvements to the party structures. The First Annual Conference will be held within six months with structures to enable it to be sovereign over the Party’s future direction.

10. For a Member-led CEC: All Members of the CEC shall operate as political equals. This slate commits to not permit any councillors or MPs to hold positions in the elected Officers Group. The CEC will elect a Parliamentary Convenor to be the public spokesperson and whip of the Parliamentary Group of MPs, intending to formalise this role by amendment in the 2026 Conference. The CEC must commit to meet at least monthly, to ensure the body remains able to provide effective political leadership.

11. For Bottom-Up Organised Sections and rank and file movement that is the engine of the Party. Grassroots members will be supported to build oppression-based organised sections from the bottom-up. This includes facilitating a youth and student conference to establish meaningfully democratic and autonomous structures for a youth and student section and make constitutional recommendations (e.g. youth place on the CEC) and appoint a Rank-and-File Workers’ Movement Commission to develop the party’s relationship with the trade union movement. All elected members of this slate will sit on an Advisory Committee with representatives of all the grassroots factions supporting this platform. The committee will meet monthly to hold elected members to account.

12. For a Party of the Whole Left: We stand for a party of the whole left with freedom for members to organise into factions, tendencies and platforms. This means opposing any ban on dual memberships or proscriptions against members based on political views or affiliations.

13. For a Party that doesn’t see Scotland and Wales as afterthoughts but respects their autonomy to self-organise: The CEC will rebuild broken relationships with members in Wales and Scotland, giving them access to funding, data, and resources, to enable them to choose how they want to engage in the 2026 Elections. They will have sufficient resources and access to data to hold democratic conferences to decide their local structures and level of autonomy from the party.

14. For an open and transparent party. Decisions of all party bodies, from local branch to national executive, to be open to scrutiny by the members; for an independent audit of Party finances; for a disciplinary process based on natural justice, with an appeals procedure agreed by the membership.

15. For a Party that is led by its members not MPs and to deliver the next stage of maximum member democracy.

Candidates of the Grassroots Left Slate

London
Anahita Zardoshti (DSYP, chair Islington YP branch) and Mel Mullings (RMT activist)

South East
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi (Platform for Democratic Party) and Max Shanly (DSYP)

North West 
Haifa Ali (PSC activist) and Chloe Braddock (DSYP)

South West
Mark Cage (PSC activist) and Candi Williams (chair Bristol YP)

Yorkshire
Sophie Wilson (Sheffield Left) and Chris Saltmarsh (Eco-Socialist Horizon)

West Midlands
Shabia Malik-Johnson (PCS and disability activist) Graham Jones (DSYP)

East of England
Ricardo de la Torre (FBU) and Solma Ahmed (YP North Essex, formerly Transform)

East Midlands
Anwarul Khan (YP Connections, formerly Transform)

North East
Ian Spencer (Socialist Unity Platform) and Myra Shoko (Trans Liberation Group)

Public office holders
Zarah Sultana MP, Cllr Grace Lewis

Others the slate is supporting:
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi (Platform for Democratic Par￾ty) – South East Region

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Cllr Michael Lavalette (public
office holders

Defeat the US Aggression against Venezuela!

Free the Maduros!

Imperialist Monster and Rapist Trump to the Chair!

Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the claimed abduction of President Maduro and his wife are outrageous acts of imperialist aggression that must be defeated by all means. Trump baldly says what the Yankee ruling class have always believed and acted upon but hardly ever said openly: that Venezuela’s natural resources, and by extension all those in the Americas, belong to the United States. That’s what this criminal aggression is all about. That’s what all Yankee aggression in the Americas has always been about! The workers and campesinos of Latin America will not tolerate this; they should and no doubt will mobilise to fight against any Yankees invasion. Hopefully Venezuela will mobilise backup structures and command centres to resist this aggression.

This is part of Trump’s retrenchment of US imperialism in the Western hemisphere to prepare for future worldwide aggression to try to restore US hegemony, which can only come from defeats of Russia and China. But in the very short term, the aggression is also a diversion from the exposure of Trump’s sexual activities with underage girls in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and the splintering of his MAGA base derived from his activities as a de-facto Israeli agent, which together threaten to bury his presidency. Abducting Maduro adds kidnap, criminal aggression and piracy to his precious record as a handmaiden of genocide in Gaza. So, this aggression also has the character of a diversion from the Trump administration’s deep crisis. This was preceded by the outrageous attacks on Venezuelan fishing boats, the US blatantly murdering them on the high seas while accusing their crews of being involved in smuggling drugs to the US without a solitary shred of evidence.

We need an anti-imperialist united front to defend Venezuela. From the working class of the United States, Britain and Europe to the global South and the BRICS countries, to the Chinese deformed workers state, Cuba, North Korea, their ally Russia, and all opponents of imperialist aggression. Defend Venezuela – Free the Maduros. Genocidal aggressor and kiddie-fiddler Trump to the Chair! Defeat US imperialism!

Consistent Democrats 3 January 2026

These are the prepared notes for the presentation at today’s forum (14th December 2025). A recording of the presentation and discussion is here.

The Ukraine proxy war looks like it is coming to an end. Not through some kind of ‘peace’ agreement, though Trump’s sometime attempts to procure one have put the possibility on the agenda. But through a Russian victory. This is the product of a very determined war of attrition by Russia, which has resisted the temptation to use its obviously superior firepower to fight the way the United States is renowned for fighting wars against smaller countries. There has been no Russian use of ‘shock and awe’ tactics in Ukraine, no use of carpet bombing or mass terror tactics against the population of the Donbass. That’s not because the Russians are militarily unequipped for such a war, but because they are not fighting a war of conquest against the people of the areas they are seeking to deliver from Nazi rule.

Towns and Cities in the Donetsk oblast, otherwise known as the Donetsk People’s Republic, currently the main theatre of the Special Military Operation, have been massively fortified by the Ukrainian Nazis, much of the Russian-speaking population being reduced to hostages by a hostile occupying force. That was the result of the duplicity of Maidan Ukraine and its Western backers over the two Minsk agreements.  These were signed supposedly to settle the conflict that broke out between the regime that was created by the US funded Maidan coup in 2014, and the Russian-speaking population of the Southeastern part of Ukraine. This coup, or colour revolution, brought to power a far-right regime that virtually worshipped the Nazi collaborators Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, which immediately started persecuting the Russian-speaking part of the population

The US spent $6 billion funding the overthrow of the elected President, Yanukovych, who was politically closer to Russia than to the EU and US. A previous ‘colour revolution’ in 2004 had brought to power a pro-Western president, Yushchenko. Initially, Yanukovych was elected then, but there was a strange incident where Yushchenko was apparently poisoned, supposedly by Yanukovitch’s supporters. Because of that allegation, then were able to force a re-run, which Yushchenko narrowly won. But his presidency afterwards was disastrous, with the rapid impoverishment of the country and the government under him splintering under pressure. By the time the next Presidential election happened, in 2010, Yushchenko was so unpopular he ended up in fifth place. Yanokovitch came back to power, again quite narrowly.

It is very clear in that context why the US sought a far-right coup and a war against the population in the East. The Russophone population in the East was the base for pro-Russian political trends in Ukraine, and it was finely balanced. To get a sustainable pro-Western regime in Ukraine that population had to be crushed. So that was the project that the US initiated with far-right allies – chiefly Svoboda and Right Sector (Pravi Sektor), at the end of 2013, which fully unfolded in the spring of 2014. Large demonstrations were initiated according to a well-established pattern by forces guided according to a well-worn formula. A shooting incident, a massacre of protesters from their own side, was carried out by the fascist militias of the Banderaite parties, Svoboda and Pravi Sektor, and then blamed on the police. On the back of that, the presidential palace was attacked and Yanukovych fled in fear of his life. Ensuring a regime where a Russia-friendly and Donbass-friendly president could never again come to power by democratic means.

That was the whole point of the US funded coup. It was in effect a fascist coup, and it meant that, no matter how little electoral support they really had in Ukraine, the decisive power behind the scenes was the far right and their militias. It is true today. Yanukovych was replaced by a puppet regime. One embarrassing episode in this coup was when the US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, was recorded talking to Geoffrey Pyatt, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, discussing who should head up the new US puppet government. They chose Yatsenyuk. He chosen by the US, not any kind of purported democratic process. Characteristically, the coup was funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy, created by the Reagan administration to carry on as a separate specialism the CIA’s old function of organising coups and creating puppet regimes. The CIA had become tarnished.

This coup immediately led to a popular uprising in the major Russian speaking areas of Ukraine. In Lugansk and Donetsk, the angry populations set up two ‘People’s Republics’, of Donetsk and Lugansk, which the Maidan coup regime immediately declared war on. They claimed that the rebellious populations were ‘terrorists’, and Kiev’s war, with clear genocidal aspects, was dubbed right from the start an ‘anti-terrorist operation’. At the same time Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and voted in a referendum to join Russia. Since the population was overwhelmingly Russian, this was a foregone conclusion. Crimea had been placed in Ukraine by an arbitrary decision of the Soviet leadership of Khrushchev in 1954. The population rebelled against a fascist regime that declared open war on Russian-speakers and actual Russians within Ukraine. Far from being some Putin plot, as the West alleged, all these movements were driven by mass anger from below. There really was not much Kiev could do about Crimea, which is separated from the main body of Ukraine by both the Donbass and also water contiguous to the Black Sea/Sea of Azov, but the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ was a declaration of war against the Donbass people.

The Nazi war against the Donbass claimed 14,000 lives in the eight years between 2014 and 2022. And in 2014, there was also mass unrest in Odessa, an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking city on the Western end of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. The regime sent in violent football ‘fans’, armed Nazis basically, who proceeded to attack demonstrators in the centre of Odessa and chased many who took refuge in the central trade union building, which they then torched. At least 50, likely more, burned to death. The war Maidan Ukraine waged against its own Russian speaking population was hardly a success, however. So, they had to manoeuvre. This gave birth to the various Minsk agreements. These agreements of 2014 and 2015, and the various supplementary protocols to them, allowed the far-right Maidan regime to play for time, confronted with the popular uprisings to give themselves breathing space to begin preparing for future conflict, including the fortification of cities and towns against their own inhabitants. Hollande and Merkel later revealed that they were fully aware at the time that the Minsk processes were aimed at playing for time, allowing the West to arm Ukraine to continue the war a later date.

This began under the Obama administration. But in 2016, Trump was able to defeat Obama’s successor as the Democratic nominee for President, Hillary Clinton, which gave birth to a slightly different situation regarding Ukraine. There is an important nuance of difference between Trump, and the mainstream of US politics, over Ukraine. It relates to their relations with Zionism. The mainstream of the Democrats and Republicans are virulently pro-Zionist, but there are some important differences with Trump and what he represents. Trump, unlike the normal run of presidential candidates from both parties, was a direct agent of Israel’s main ruling party, Likud. His three election campaigns, in 2016, 2020 and 2024, were all directly paid for by the Likudnik billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and then in 2024 by his widow Miriam Adelson. There are grounds to suspect that at least some of these ultra-Zionists are ambivalent about the volume of US aid to Maidan Ukraine, seeing it as a waste – that these resources ‘should’ be going to Israel.

 It should be noted that the Zionists gained major political benefits from Trump’s election in 2016, as Trump implemented the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 2005, which mandated that the US embassy be moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. This measure was forced through congress by the Zionists, but then three Presidents; Clinton, Bush and Obama, failed to implement it. Trump also formally recognised Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, previously a no-no, and he tore up Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Earlier, while Obama was still in office, in 2015, Netanyahu visited the US, and at a joint session of the Senate and the House, had vehemently denounced the deal, to numerous standing ovations from the assembled lackeys, who behaved like, in the words of Norman Finkelstein, “demented jack-in-the-boxes”. So, Trump had misgivings about blank cheques for Ukraine, and that seems to be associated with his direct Likud agentry. A clue about this is that Victor Orban of Hungary, another virulent Zionist who is against the Ukraine campaign, is also a clear Zionist agent, and defied the International Criminal Court to host Netanyahu earlier this year.

This was the basis of the Democrats’ “Russiagate” Hoax, claiming that Trump was an agent of the Kremlin. The truth is that he is an agent of Likud, and has some contradictions flowing from that. But the Democrats are too subservient to Zionism to make an issue of that, and too cowardly – afraid of being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’. So, they tried to use Putin as a proxy for their evasion of the real issue. Trump played a less strident role but still escalated the Ukraine proxy war. He was the first to send Javelin missiles to Ukraine. He played a major role in grooming Zelensky, as camouflage for the Nazi regime, given his Jewish origin. Zelensky won the Ukraine election in 2019 based on promises to implement the Minsk agreements, which meant he won with the massive support of people in the Donbass. But as soon as he won, he became a puppet of the Nazis, and there began a slide to escalation and war against those who voted for him. Trump bore huge responsibility for that.

This intensified under Biden, as Zelenksy’s regime, at the start of 2022, as documented by the Swiss former OECD inspector, Jacques Baud, embarked on a massive escalation and preparation for an invasion of those sections of the DPR and LPR that remained in the hands of the people. Putin tried by diplomacy, and warnings of the consequences, to get the US and its proxies to back off, but to no avail, so in February 2022, he initiated the SMO, a limited, defensive war to stop the crushing of the people of the Donbass. From our point of view, this is a progressive war. Russia is not an imperialist power – far from it. The Russian imperialist bourgeoisie was torn out by the roots by the workers revolution in 1917-18. We totally reject the allegation that the USSR was in some sense an imperialist force. Under Stalinism, it remained a degenerated form of the dictatorship of the proletariat until 1991, when it succumbed to a counterrevolution as the bureaucracy capitulated to an enormous imperialist war drive and neoliberal political offensive.

The massive economic shock treatment, which imperialism and the counterrevolution imposed on Russia, caused millions of deaths in the 1990s – a fall in live expectancy of 5 years can only be explained that way.  This caused a huge popular backlash, that was expressed through the state apparatus itself, which was not fully consolidated against the working class, and caused a partial retreat of the counterrevolution. The decrepit character of the counterrevolution was symbolised by the drunk Yelstin. He was ousted by Putin, from the depths of the apparatus, who however no longer even claimed to be a communist. He took the only course open to him to regenerate Russia as a viable state, building a unique kind of mixed economy out of the productive, economic and military apparatus bequeathed to him from the workers’ state.

Russia today is a kind of dialectical inversion of the USSR. The USSR was a weak workers state with massive bureaucratic deformations that came from the pressure of the imperialist environment. Russia today is a weak bourgeois state, but weak not in the face of the external world, but of massive post-capitalist, ‘socialist’ deformations on itself, elements of a higher mode of production that persist in ‘invading’ this form of capitalism, to paraphrase Engels. That class analysis of Russia illustrates the nature of the war, and why it has gone so badly for US and NATO imperialism. This is somewhat unexpected, given the counterrevolution in the 1990s, but this resurgence of Russia has coincided with an accelerating decline of the US. Russia, no longer a workers’ state, has paradoxically been able to forge a degree of unity with the Chinese workers state, in terms of diplomacy and basic military cooperation, that eluded the leadership of the USSR, due to intra-Stalinist rivalry. The accelerating cold war against Russia and China echoes the imperialist war drives of NATO against the USSR. Anti-Sovietism has morphed into outright racist Russophobia.

We see a Western politically-based hatred of Russians for being organically ‘disobedient’ to imperialist neoliberalism, similar in some ways to Hitler’s belief that Jews were organically prone to Bolshevism. Even the liberal bourgeoisie in the West is prepared to arm and fund outright Nazis to kill Russians. Though they try to hide it – hence the hysteria against ‘disinformation’. Under Biden, they were prepared to risk nuclear war by firing missiles such as ATACMS and the European Storm Shadow directly into Russia. Only the cool head of Putin and co averted that.  The only ones half-hearted about this are ultra-Zionists who consider Ukraine is taking resources that ought to go to support Israeli genocide of Palestinians. What an appalling counterposition!

It is the combination of this new, implicit alliance of non-imperialist deformed capitalism in Russia, with the deformed workers state in China, that has brought the imperialist world to the brink of a major defeat in Ukraine. We can see the technological superiority of Russia and China in things like the Oreshnik and Burevestinik missiles, which the US has no answer to, and China’s Deepseek AI technology, which is also more advanced than the West’s, and uses much less energy. This is the product of elements of a higher mode of production, in Russia, as a unique kind of non-imperialist bourgeois state with massive post-capitalist, ‘socialist’ deformations – derived from elements of a higher mode of production. And China, a deformed workers state, albeit on where a large capitalist sector exists and is currently controlled and subordinated to state planning. We see NATO in disarray, and on the verge of collapse.

This is not the expectation Marxists had for how the world socialist revolution would materialise. We are a considerable distance from that at this point. But the multipolar world that is becoming visible from this prospect of strategic imperialist defeat will also open up new political space in which massive new opportunities for such a world revolution can arise.

The following is an address that a Consistent Democrats spokesperson delivered on 8th November. to an event hosted by the New Communist Party to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian October Revolution of 1917.

I bring greetings on behalf of the Consistent Democrats to this reception organised by the New Communist Party, which celebrates what is still (so far) the greatest event in world history, the Russian October revolution of 1917. We in the Consistent Democrats stand in the tradition of the Bolshevik Party, and of the Communist International it created, with other revolutionary forces, after the Revolution. The revolution grew from mass working-class discontent with the imperialist world war, not just in Russia, but throughout Europe, the main war theatre.  Which then spread worldwide.

In Russia the backwardness of the Tsarist regime, and its terrible fortunes in war, the privations of the mass of the people, especially women, caused an explosion first.  And there was a party, the Bolshevik Party, with the programme and will to seize the revolutionary situation that resulted, that was able in the nick of time to correct its course. As immediately after the February Revolution, before Lenin was able to return to Russia, the party had settled on a perspective of supporting the bourgeois coalition “Insofar as” it supposedly supported the revolution. But Lenin, armed with his new understanding of the imperialist war, understood that the Provisional Government was a disguised imperialist government, and would seek to crush the revolution to maintain Russia’s role in the war. So Lenin presented his April Theses on his return to Russia, which put forward a perspective of no support to the bourgeois Provisional Government. It started with the perspective that the party should ‘patiently explain” to the masses the imperialist nature of the Provisional Government and the need to replace it with a workers’ and peasants’ government.

As the inevitable conflict between the masses and the government developed, the Bolsheviks raised slogans such as “down with the ten capitalist ministers” aiming to force the Mensheviks and other ‘lefts’ to break with the imperialists…  And later “All power to the Soviets’ as is became clear that the masses’ conflict with the bourgeoisie was headed for civil war. Even though they had to briefly draw back in July, as the danger of a premature confrontation loomed, and Lenin had to go into hiding. When the situation calmed down, and the revolutionary situation further matured, Lenin was able to work with others, notably Trotsky, in pushing forward the organisation of the masses to actually overturn the imperialist government in real life. I will pause the narrative there, as that is a brief, perhaps too brief, description of what we are celebrating. I did say that the October revolution was the greatest event in human history “so far”. We have not quite reached those heights since. Because even though there have been crucial revolutions since, and huge wars of liberation and defeats of imperialism, the 1917 revolution was unique because of the internationalist vision of its leading party.

The Bolshevik Party saw themselves, and the international movement they founded, the Third or Communist International, as a political army fighting for the world socialist revolution in an immediate sense. Whereas later, by the late 1920s, after Lenin had died and Trotsky, among others, had been driven away from the leadership, the international became quite conservative, and retreated from fighting for international revolution. It was would up in 1942. And nothing has been created to replace it since. Trotsky in exile tried hard to create a replacement, the Fourth International, but simply did not have the forces to do so at the time. That is not to speak of the fact that many who should have known better, were hostile to the idea at the time.

Today, we need an international like the Communist International. We face capitalism in decay, with is nuclear destructive capacity, and its irrationality threatening humanity with destruction, either nuclear holocaust, or an environmental holocaust that is on the horizon. We also have several partial gains of the world revolution, direct and indirect, which must be defended at all costs against imperialist attack, and attempts by imperialism to make use of capitalist forces within them. We still have workers states in China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and the DPRK. Some of them are severely deformed, and/or have strong and dangerous capitalist forces within them but must still be defended.

Then there is Russia, where the counterrevolution didn’t really succeed, and there has been a partial return to a new kind of mixed economy, where the state component is not capitalist at all, unlike with nationalisation under capitalism. That must also be defended. In all these places, and the world generally, we need to see the rebirth of something like the Third International, a genuine world party of socialist revolution. Whatever number you put on the International, whether Fourth, Fifth or whatever, it has to be like the early Third.

It needs to fight to complete what Lenin and his comrades – the world socialist-communist revolution, with the party at the head of a class-conscious proletariat. That is what the Consistent Democrats want, and we will work side-by-side with any Communists, from whatever background and tradition, who seek the same thing. That is why we are here today. Thank you, comrades.

This is from the website of the Brazilian section of the LCFI

US imperialism is reviving the Monroe Doctrine in its pursuit of regional hegemony. Attacks on the Bolivarian Revolution have been ongoing since Chávez Frías came to power, including his kidnapping, the guarimbas (violent protests), currency seizures, attempted invasions, and the offer of US$50 million to assassinate Maduro. There have been 930 sanctions against the Venezuelan people, who resist with unity, organization, and constant mobilization. It is necessary to defend all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

International Antifascist – Brazil Chapter

In 2025, the Trump administration intensified the decades-long siege against Venezuela and Cuba and extended its sanctions policy to several other Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. However, the tactic of sanctions and tariffs further amplifies and deepens contradictions, strengthening movements fighting for sovereignty and the unity of oppressed peoples, in opposition to the interests of imperialism and fascism.

Similarly, Trump’s internal war, resorting to ICE, his Gestapo, to persecute immigrants, especially Latin Americans, and the elimination of social programs for the most needy sectors of the US working population, has been strengthening social mobilizations, the left, and the opposition to Trumpism, imposing important political defeats on the White House in the October elections.

Shortly after the 2008 crisis, an economic transition towards commercial independence from the US began in Latin America. The financialization of the imperialist economy, and the inability of the parasitic US and European economies to counter the development of the productive forces and commodity production of the BRICS countries, especially China, makes this transition an unstoppable movement. Even under Milei’s government, the Chinese economy continues to expand its influence in Argentina, contradicting the interests of imperialism.

Defeated both domestically and externally in the economy and in politics, unable to achieve his goal of the surrender and capitulation of the oppressed, Trump resorts to military blackmail and coups in Venezuela and Mexico, that is, carrying out the policy of recolonization by other means, the military, that of civil war.

The most powerful naval fleet on the planet, armed with the largest aircraft carrier ever built, has been summarily executing, in violation of international law, small boats carrying fishermen in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, accused without any proof of being drug traffickers.

Faced with this desperate situation for the US, the Trump administration took on the mission of recolonizing Latin America. The modus operandi of this tactic depends on the weaknesses of each country.

US imperialism is reviving the Monroe Doctrine in its pursuit of regional hegemony. Attacks on the Bolivarian Revolution have been ongoing since Commander Hugo Chávez Frías came to power, including his kidnapping, the guarimbas (violent protests), currency seizures, attempted invasion, and the offer of $50 million to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro Moros. The US has imposed 930 sanctions against the Venezuelan people, who resist with unity, organization, and constant mobilization. Defending Venezuelan sovereignty in all areas means defending all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Given the cohesion of Venezuelan society against imperialism, recolonization there currently takes the form of the threat of direct external military intervention by the Pentagon and the US Department of Justice to divide the Bolivarian Armed Forces and overthrow the popular Maduro government.

In Mexico, the CIA fabricated yet another colorful rebellion, using as its pretext the supposed dissatisfaction of Generation Z with the government of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, which was easily quelled due to the artificiality of the regime change process that had been created.

In Brazil, the right wing was defeated at the polls (2022), in the streets (2025), and in the National Congress itself, where it holds a numerical majority, in important votes such as the “PEC da Bandidagem” (Amendment to the Constitution regarding criminal activity) and the income tax exemption for workers earning up to 5,000 reais. These anti-patriots and Trump agents, after losing in politics and the economy, also escalated their power in Brazil, playing the security card, executing 121 people in a massacre in Rio de Janeiro, also in defiance of the law, and attempting to create a legal situation to justify a US military intervention in Brazil, classifying organized crime as a terrorist organization. But they were defeated in this attempt as well, and Bolsonaro was arrested after an attempted escape.

We, the peoples of Latin America, including the workers of the USA itself, must mobilize, hold demonstrations in defense of our sovereignty and against all interference by imperialism in any of our nations, demand a complete end to tariffs, sanctions and blockades against Cuba or Venezuela, repel this threat and strengthen solidarity and our unity in favor of the great and socialist homeland.

Ukraine

We are not actually in World War III, yet, but with the serious and convulsive nature of the crises the world is facing today, anyone could be excused from wondering if a world conflict was imminent. We have a major proxy war in Ukraine where NATO military personnel, working nominally for the Ukrainian government, have fired US ballistic missiles such as ATACMS and the Anglo-French cruise missile Storm Shadow, into Russia. Trump was recently threatening to allow Ukraine to fire the even more threatening US Tomahawk cruise missile into Russia. In response, a year ago, Russia tested the super-hypersonic multi-warheaded Oreshnik (Hazel) missile on a huge Ukrainian arms complex near Dnipro, comprehensively wiping it out with purely conventional explosives that Ukraine had zero chance of stopping.

In response to Trump’s bragging threats to hand over Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Russia then announced that it had tested Burevestnik or Storm Petrel (a kind of seabird), a low flying, nuclear powered cruise missile with virtually unlimited range, capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads. Soon after this announcement, Trump announce that he would not be giving Tomahawks to Ukraine, supposedly because of a limited supply of these weapons. Instead, Trump announced that the US would be resuming nuclear testing, in effect junking the Test Ban Treaty, which has never formally come into force, but had generally been observed since the 1990s. However, it was not clarified if the testing envisaged was actual nuclear explosions, or something less, and Russia and other countries also made it clear that such an action would have consequences. While the direction of motion is clear, exactly what may take place is not.

The whole reason why such fulminations and risk-taking are going on over Ukraine is because the US and its proxies are clearly losing. More strategic towns are being taken in the areas of the semi-liberated oblasts in South-East Ukraine, particularly Donetsk and Zaporozhe. And Odessa was recently convulsed with rioting as the Russian-speaking population rebelled against conscription. One of the key differences between Trump and his predecessor Biden is that Trump recognises that the US is failing in its proxy war in Ukraine. Various figures in the West whom it is quite appropriate to call “Azov liberals” fulminate against Trump supposedly for being some sort of supporter or tool of Vladimir Putin for his preference for sporadic peace summits with Russian leaders, and his refusal to commit to virtually unlimited funds and arms to Zelensky’s far right Ukrainian regime.

But the real explanation for Trump’s (relative) rationality over Ukraine is that it is the flipside of his activities as a tool of the Israel lobby. Trump’s three Presidential election campaigns, as is well documented, were paid for by the Likudnik Adelson dynasty, the last in 2024 to the tune of $100 million from Mirian Adelson. It is a well-known fact that the most vehemently pro-Zionist regime in Europe, East or West, is that of Victor Orban in Hungary, which openly defied the arrest warrant against Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court recently – and yet is hostile to the war drive against Ukraine. One key reason for this hostility is that there is a strong school of thought among Zionists that the financial and military aid that the Western powers are spending trying to vainly defeat Russia, would be better spent on Israel itself. That is one expression of a latent contradiction between the interests of the Zionist lobby, and US imperialism, where as is well known, the Biden administration was gung-ho about war in Ukraine to the point of pushing the conflict to the brink in the ‘lame duck’ last weeks of his presidency, something that Putin was able to deter by the demonstrative use of the devastating non-nuclear Oreshnik, undoubtedly the most dangerous and dramatic point in the Ukraine conflict.

China

Which brings us briefly to China. The US’s crusade against China has largely run into the ground. Their strategy of provoking China into taking control of Taiwan as a trigger for a Ukraine-style war, by using Taiwan’s advanced NVIDIA chip manufacturing facilities, and embargoes and/or sanctions to starve China of access to such technology, has run into the ground. The unveiling of DeepSeek, the Chinese open source AI feature, in 2024, was a huge blow to this, as it appears that despite such embargoes, China is close to drawing ahead of the West, including Taiwan (as in reality a US/Japanese proxy) in developing advanced chips for use in AI and other advanced applications. Not only that, but it appears that China’s new chips are less prone to gobble up enormous amounts of energy at those the West are using. Which is something of a blow, as it is now possible to envisage that China will in the next decade or so completely surpass the West in terms of high technology without needing Taiwan’s vaunted advanced semiconductor facilities. So, Trump has been blowing hot and cold with sanctions, tariffs and threats against China and yet looking increasingly impotent and ineffective.

Gaza and Zionist Crisis

Then we have Gaza. The conflict supposedly over the Israeli hostages taken on 7^th October was a feeble alibi indeed for the genocide, and the fake ceasefire brokered by Trump shows that quite clearly. The genocide continues, albeit at a slightly slower pace in Gaza, but an accelerating rate of killing and repression in the West Bank more than makes up for that. Gaza is still being starved, very little aid is getting though compared to what was mooted by Trump and so, and preparations are being made to split Gaza into two zones, partly administered by Gaza’s projected new overlord, the Iraq war criminal Tony Blair. And yet there is no agreement with the Palestine resistance forces who reluctantly refused to outright oppose Trump’s fake ceasefire, which was a way of saving Netanyahu’s neck more than anything, as at the end of the more than two years of genocidal bombing and starving, its forces were still undefeated and had steadily recruited and maintained their popular support.

They took the risk of going along with the fake ceasefire to try to get the Palestinian population some relief from the slaughter, not to save their own forces.  Israel still bombs daily, the situation is grim indeed, but Israel is also exposed and in Europe and the US popular hatred for the genocidal regime is becoming an avalanche, causing a major crisis in the US, with the fragmentation of Trump’s MAGA base over their attitude to Zionism, which many say is ‘Israel first’, not ‘America First’. The issue of Jeffrey Epstein, and his relationship with Trump, is crucial, and it is not just a squalid child-sex scandal but is increasingly widely suspected to be something connected to outsized Israeli influence over US politics, which is clearly true. Which puts Trump in a very precarious position.

It has had its impact in Europe too, and sharply in Britain, both with the stripping of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of his former princely royal titles because of his deep involvement, documented in Virginia Guiffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl, with Epstein and sex-trafficking of underage girls. A major blow to the diminishing prestige of the British Monarchy. This is, as indicated, linked intimately to the Israel lobby and its influence over Western politics. Labour’s Zionist monster Peter Mandelson was earlier forced out as British Ambassador to the US over this; the fact that he was ever appointed at all is startling, given his long-known close relations with Epstein. But Starmer, as he noted when becoming Labour leader, supports Zionism “without qualification”. The British body politic is in deep crisis because of the Israel lobby and its hold over politicians, as shown by the crisis over the proscription for supposed ‘terrorism’ of Palestine Action, which Britain’s own intelligence services have said quite clearly (though known intermediaries) that they find counter-productive and impossible to justify. The judicial review of this ban is due in the courts in late November.

And then there is the ludicrous affair of the Europa League football match between Aston Villa and Macabee Tel Aviv on 6^th November. West Midlands Police were denounced as anti-Semitic by all four major Zionist-influenced parties: Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Reform, because they acted to ban Macabees away supporters from attending the Villa match, citing their earlier outrageous rioting in Amsterdam as justification. Then after the pro-Zionist parties had so denounced the police, and the local Independent MP, Ayoub Khan, for initiating the ban, another major riot of these ‘fans’ forced a local ‘derby’ in Tel Aviv itself to be called off. Making the leaders of all four of these parties look like idiots. All of these, combined with the impact of the livestreamed genocide itself, have plunged the Zionist lobby, and those political forces in hock to it, into deep crisis here also.

Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere

One way or another, the US has been forced to somewhat retreat from some overt interventions in the Middle East and Ukraine. Its involvement in the 12-day war against Iran in June 2025 only delivered a severe blow to Israel. The US had to desperately broker a ceasefire for Israel because the Zionists were taking a hammering from Iran’s formidable arsenal of ballistic missiles. A repeat of that attack looks even less promising, as Iran is both better armed and better prepared than in June. So, as Trump mooted with earlier ‘ambitious’ demands for Anschluss with Canada, or to annex Greenland, the US under his command is now seeking to retrench in the Western Hemisphere. Hence the outrageous threats to Venezuela, the murder-attacks on fishing boats pretending they are narcotics smugglers, the $50 million price on President Maduro’s head, and the Nobel Peace Prize for the fascist US puppet María Corina Machado, who wants the US to invade Venezuela so she can hand over literally trillions of dollars of its oil reserves to the US.

The US belligerence against Venezuela is part of Trump’s reconsolidation of the US in the Western Hemisphere, with a view to later expansion. It involves the reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine, that the whole of the Americas belongs to the US. An invasion of Venezuela is entirely possible, the threats against Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro show it goes further than that. Cuba is also under threat, as still the only workers state in the Americas – Venezuela for all its deep-going social reforms and collectivism is still in terms of many of its economic resources privately owned, and the bourgeois class has not been expropriated. Maybe an all-out conflict with US imperialism would bring a tipping point where the Bolivarian Revolution night further radicalise and the working masses move to expropriate the bourgeoisie. A Yankee invasion of Venezuela, a huge country, would enrage the masses in all Latin America and would generate huge resistance and likely a revolutionary wave. So, to conclude this survey of the state of the world at this point, the braggadocio of Trump in the Western Hemisphere could easily be a trap for US imperialism, and could turn the apparent pre-war situation right now, which at times looks very threatening indeed, into a pre-revolutionary situation.

Your Party is a fragile creation right now.  The infant party founded by Zarah Sultana when she resigned from Labour in July and effectively demanded that Jeremy Corbyn act to do what he had been hinting and threatening to do for over a year – create such a party – has both shown signs of some real development, and at the same time been rent by proto-factional divisions. Corbyn is acting as de-facto leader right now, of what both he and Zarah Sultana say will be a member-led socialist party animated by ‘grassroots democracy’.

Corbyn was the left social-democratic leader of Labour from 2015 to 2020 when he was forced out with systematic sabotage of his leadership by a bloc of the Labour Party’s Blairite neoliberal mainstream bureaucracy and its powerful Israel lobby. Corbyn’s leadership was the product of resistance from the base of the working-class movement, or at least its class-conscious section, that had been almost completely excluded for 30 years from any say over the political direction of Labour, the bourgeois workers party that had been the partial political expression of organised labour in Britain since the early 20^th Century.

Neoliberalism on the attack

From the mid-1970s the ruling classes of the US and Britain prepared the so-called “Reagan/Thatcher revolutions”, a war that was not merely against trade unions in terms of repressive laws. It aimed to seriously weaken the traditional working class of the advanced capitalist-imperialist countries through the destruction of strategic extractive and manufacturing industries such as mining and steel, with the jobs exported to lower wage countries such as India and China. They did this in Britain with the cooperation of the core of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy, who as an index of their own servility to imperialism, perversely saw Thatcher’s attacks on the core of the working class as a way for sections of the class to enrich themselves at others’ expense. That was totally delusional, in fact they laid the basis for the current impoverishment and lumpenisation of large sections of the population in key parts of the UK, which is currently fuelling far right despair.

The international counterpart of Reagan and Thatcher’s pioneering neoliberal crusade to weaken the industrial proletariat in these imperialist countries was the war drive against the USSR in the 1980s, which led the USSR’s Stalinist regime to a capitulationist ‘liberalisation’ under Gorbachev and then allowed outright counterrevolution to emerge and take power under Yelstin in the 1990s. Thatcher’s anti-Soviet drive also had the support of the pro-imperialist labour bureaucracy in Britain, with only sporadic resistance from the Bennite left.

Imperialist rampage, the working class on the retreat

Today that seems almost like a different world. Imperialism consolidated itself after the collapse of the USSR around the project of the neocons and the cult of Jewish-Zionism. Such were the ideologues – the likes of Friedman, Joseph, Sherman, Kissinger, etc – of neoliberalism’s attack on the proletariat beginning in the US and Britain. This later spread to the European Union imperialist countries while it produced catastrophic mayhem in the East. This was also true in Britain as the Labour Party bureaucracy consolidated itself about the projects of the neocons. 

Kinnock gave way to Blair, and then you had the central involvement of the Blair government in Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. This was one of a series of imperialist invasions and regime-change operations in the Middle East region since the 1990s that not coincidentally removed every nearby Arab regime that was not servile to Israel as a regional imperialist would-be hegemon. Iraq, Libya, Syria all fell to either outright invasions or proxy wars waged either by the imperialists themselves, as with Bush/Blair’s 2003 Iraq invasion or Obama/Cameron/ Sarkozy’s 2011 Libya invasion, or the Syrian proxy war – with sporadic imperialist bombing – from 2011 onwards — using Western funded ISIS/Al Qaeda jihadists.  This was like the imperialist-inspired jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where Al Qaeda was created by the CIA. The Syrian jihad was thwarted by Russian military support for Assad and then armed intervention from 2015.

This thwarted imperialist regime-change in Syria for around a decade, but it finally succeeded in overthrowing Assad in 2024, during the Gaza genocide. It does even appear that the imperialist drive to provoke a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine at that time was initially intended to put pressure on Russia’s operation in Syria and thereby help the pro-Israel regime-change operation there.  But it acquired a life of its own, and became a major conflict, in which the US and Europe are close to outright defeat by a Russia under Putin that has partially retreated from/negated the counterrevolution that occurred under Yelstin. The attacks on Iran and Lebanon, and now the war in Sudan, were all part of the neocon regime- change agenda revealed by former NATO head General Wesley Clark in 2007, as the Bush era ended – the hit list for regime-change has continued since unabated.

 The Zionist-led witchhunts in Labour under Corbyn, with the IHRA pseudo-definition of anti-Semitism playing a pivotal role, forced out Corbyn and led to a massive purge of the Corbynite left, hundreds of thousands of militants, from Labour membership. This prepared the Labour Party to support the outright Zionist genocide in Gaza, with Starmer publicly supporting (on LBC) the deprivation of food, water and fuel from the Gaza population as Israel’s genocidal Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant announced it. The Starmer government, elected in 2024, has a politically far-right character in that it openly supported the genocide in Gaza and both continued and intensified the previous Tory government’s supply of arms and intelligence to Israel’s genocidal armed forces, including British air-reconnaissance aircraft directly aiding the Israelis in looking for targets for carpet bombing of the Gaza strip.

In fact, the crypto far-right politics of Starmer had found expression on other issues. Such as when Starmer notoriously pronounced that Britain was becoming an ‘Island of Strangers’ echoing the rhetoric of racist arch-Tory Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about immigration, which inspired the fascist National Front in the 1970s and 1980s. The genocidal, pro-Israeli nature of Starmer’s leadership of Labour was evident from the very beginning and totally precluded any support for pro-Starmer Labour candidates in the General Election. Only his outright opponents on the Labour left merited any support, and even that with considerable caution.

Your Party: A project of resistance

This crypto far-right government has attacked the Palestine anti-genocide movement to an extent that Sunak’s previous reactionary government never dared. Bans on demonstrations and the proscription of Palestine Action show this clearly. They also attacked the working class, particularly pensioners – attacking winter fuel payments, and the disabled, and have ostentatiously kept the two-child benefit cap of David Cameron’s Tories. These attacks led to Zarah Sultana not only leaving Labour but effectively becoming the left-wing leading force in what has become Your Party, as yet officially unnamed, with Jeremy Corbyn in the centre, and on the right flank four independent Muslim MPs, who creditably defeated the Labour Party over the single issue of the Gaza genocide in the General Election, but unlike Corbyn, don’t know the basics of working class politics.

Like Adnan Hussain, MP for Blackburn, who made clear in a debate on tenants’ rights that he is a landlord and considers excessive demands for security of tenure and freedom from arbitrary rent rises etc create a “risk of polarising every landlord as ‘evil’ – we must make sure we don’t fall into that trap”. (New Statesman, 8^th September). He also denounced both sides – the fascists and their opponents – in confrontations outside asylum seekers’ accommodation – as “equally absurd”.  Ayoub Khan, the Independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, meanwhile, demanded that troops be used to break the Birmingham Refuse Collector’s (Dustmen) strike against massive pay cuts. A distinct lack of working-class solidarity is in evidenced by both. This is not surprising, it is a product of the uneven nature of building a left-wing challenge to Labour in a period like this when some of those who were prepared to stand up to New Labour over Gaza – it was obviously obligatory to support them – are not workers and/or leave a lot to be desired in terms of class consciousness.

Hussain appears to have been a right-wing infiltrator who caused the early Your Party a lot of problems, trying to witchhunt Zarah Sultana for her leftist views. Just before she appeared on Question Time on 13 November a statement appeared, signed by five Independent MP’s including Corbyn, denouncing Zarah for supposedly delaying the transfer of money collected for membership dues from the portal she initiated in mid-September. But she only took over the sole directorship of MOU Operations, the temporary repository of those funds, a couple of weeks before that statement, and such legal transfers take time to comply with complex data protection and financial guidelines. Corbyn then let it be known that he did not sign or endorse this statement, despite his name being on it, and Hussain, apparently having been caught red-handed, suddenly resigned from the body overseeing the setting up of Your Party. This throws considerable light on the earlier smear against Zarah Sultana over that portal, which she set up on 19^th September because the likes of Hussain were blocking what had already been agreed in principle. This was in effect an anti-left witchhunt against Zarah, who is the real driving force and founder of YP, by Hussein, who has close family and social ties to the Labour Party right-wing and used dishonest tactics to stymie the excellent socialist candidacy of Craig Murray, then in the Workers Party and now in Your Party, in Blackburn in the General Election. It appears he has acted as a crypto New Labour ‘cuckoo in the nest’ and that is the reason for the whole furore around the September membership drive initiated by Zarah, which some on the left just denounced as a shitshow. It was an anti-left witchhunting tactic which principled socialists should have backed up Zarah over. We are proud that we did so and attacked opportunists such as the CPGB/WW and Spartacists for denouncing all involved (including Zarah, the intended victim) as involved in a ‘shitshow’.

The founding conference of Your Party is due to be held on 29^th-30^th November in Liverpool. There a proper name will be voted on, with People’s Party or The Left most likely to be chosen, it seems. The party has as this article is written, around 72,000 members as the most recent estimate – a couple of weeks earlier there was an official announcement that the membership had reached 50,000. In July when the party was first mooted by Zarah Sultana, again 72,000 signed up for a website, TeamZarah, in three days, and when the Your Party website was publicly announced and endorsed by both Zarah and Jeremy Corbyn in August, over 800,000 expressed and interest and in many cases donated money. There were all kind of reports and controversy about the influence of figures such as the ex-Momentum activist James Scheider and the sometime UNITE official Karie Murphy, around Corbyn, as inimical bureaucratic elements who were resisting any real democratic internal life of the party. This was a product of the secretive operation of the ‘Collective’ organisation that existed on a very hush-hush basis for around a year after Corbyn defeated Labour as an Independent candidate in the 2024 General Election, along with the other Muslim independents.

But this now appears to have been partially transcended and the real factional conflict is between the group of Muslim independents, and Zarah Sultana and others on the left of the proto-party, with Corbyn both planting at least one of his feet in the camp of the Muslim independents, and at the same time trying to keep them away from all out factional conflict. That is how things appear from the outside at least. It appears that the bulk of the independent group was not keen on the rapid development of the party, and this led Zarah Sultana to launch the first membership portal in September, in frustration at a membership sign-up that had been agreed but was not implemented. This led to public allegations of a fake portal, and then threats of legal action from both sides, either for having supposedly broken data protection rules, or for defamation (from Zarah Sultana).

This has moved, painfully towards being resolved, but at a snail’s pace with kicking and screaming from the independent MPs, as before the party could be founded as a legal entity, a temporary holding company, MOU Operations, was set up with three prominent left-wingers as directors to get the project off the ground. When the first membership portal was set up and then denounced by the independent MPs in September, legal threats were made and reports under data protection law. This behaviour was counterproductive, as it led to legal difficulties in transferring membership money to the similar precursor body, Project Peace and Justice, on the other side. In October the three directors of MOU Operations resigned and made way for Zarah Sultana to act as sole director in a bid to speed up the legal difficulties, but some remained and have slowed things down. So, we still see regrettable and foolish Open Letters being issued by the all-male independent MP’s group criticising Zarah Sultana, who appears to be trying hard but struggling to resolve a problem that is in large measure a product of the small-c conservative politics and attitudes of this ‘Independent’ group in the first place. This is an unseemly own goal and looks bad, giving ammunition to the bourgeois media.

These organisational issues are manifestations of political problems, which must be resolved in their own terms. What really does not help is denunciations of Your Party as an undemocratic ‘shitshow’ from far-left groupings like the CPGB/Weekly Worker and the Spartacist League, who pose as the embodiment of democratic and/or programmatic virtue, but have terrible histories of heresy-hunting and anti-democratic means of dealing with political differences themselves. The various democratic devices in use in YP so far – the circulation of the four documents: Constitution, Standing Orders, Political Statement and Year 1 Organisational Plan – with their online editing by members and Regional Assemblies to discuss them, are not perfect examples of developed party democracy, but nor are they a sign of a developing totalitarian-bureaucratic regime. The rhetoric from some on the left is sectarian overkill.

Social Democracy and Sect Politics

The attitude of serious revolutionaries to Your Party must be one of sober engagement, not petty denunciation and point scoring. It is necessary to recognise that many of the political problems of Your Party, as well as those of many of its left oppositional forces, flow from left social-democratic politics. That is not just true of the historic political followers of Jeremy Corbyn but is also true of many of the large sects, such the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, and the relatively new Revolutionary Communist Party (formerly known as Socialist Appeal).

Both of the latter two currents, as well as Socialist Alternative, have their origins in the Militant Tendency of Ted Grant and Peter Taaffe from the 1950s to the late 1980s. This spent decades in a kind of strategic entryism in the Labour Party, adopting the parliamentary road to socialism as a kind of parody of a ‘Trotskyist’ credo in terms of an Enabling Act, that would supposedly allow capitalism to be abolished through mass pressure on a left Labour government and the nationalisation of the top 100 or so monopolies. The Militant group became quite clearly social chauvinist over the Irish war and then the Malvinas war in 1982, posing the idea that a ‘socialist’ Labour government would also fight to defeat Argentina for Britain and some kind of liberation of the 1,800 or so Falklanders (who are British colons). They also were historically soft on Zionism and often echoed imperialist anti-Sovietism in the 1980s Cold war.

As did the SWP, who in their early incarnation in the 1950s broke away from the Trotskyist movement’s Soviet defencism over the Korean War. To the point that when the USSR collapsed in 1991, they proclaimed that the “collapse of communism” was something that should have “every socialist rejoicing”. But in fact, the counterrevolution was a disaster, that resulted in the death of several million former Soviet workers from starvation and suicidal despair, which is the only way the five-year (!) fall in life-expectancy in the 1990s can be explained. So much so that it provoked parallel revolts both from below and in elements of the state and productive apparatus of the Russian Federation. This leading to the rise of Putin with a high-level of popularity, because he reversed many of Yeltsin’s attacks, giving rise to a new kind of mixed economy, whose capitalist element can be said to be severely ‘deformed’ by elements of the planned economy and apparatus. That being bound up with the beginnings of a superior, socialist mode of production, which the counterrevolution was unable to simply destroy. Which is why this complex “bourgeois state with socialist deformations”, i.e., Russia, is once again hated by the imperialists. It has nothing to do with any alleged despotic tendencies of Putin, a fairly mild and rational centre-right leader of a non-imperialist country.

Against the Stream – fight for Communism

Today we see divisions on crucial international questions among both the ex-Labour left, and the so-called ‘far left’, many of whom are getting on their high-horses and denouncing various elements of Your Party in a one-sided manner for supposed conspiracies against ‘grassroots democracy’. As communists, we take full part in the political struggles of this party, we do not abstain or set ourselves up as a sect opposed to it, but nor do we go along with the illusions that prevail both among the ex-Labour people and the far left. Some ex-Corbynites, for instance, have better positions on the Ukraine war that many on the ‘far left’. Some recognise that the Western imperialist proxy war against Russia and the people of the Donbass/Crimea is a continuation of the old imperialist crusade against the USSR, in changed conditions. Many on the ‘far left’ are on the wrong side in Ukraine, and were on the wrong side in Syria, and even over the imperialist invasion of Libya. On the question of Zionism, getting Corbyn to denounce it in full was like pulling teeth, but recently he did so at a Your Party meeting in Putney. Softness on Zionism is not entirely unknown on the far left, of course, the overtly Zionist Alliance for Workers Liberty hangs around some Your Party events, but softness on Zionism is not confined to them.

There are those on the far left, from parts of the Jewish left to the SWP and CPGB who smear as ‘anti-Semitic’ those Marxists who point out basic material facts about the social base of Zionism as a racist current centred in the Jewish part of the imperialist bourgeoisie. These trends cross class lines in seeking to ‘cancel’ such criticisms of a key part of the ruling class itself, including from us and previously Socialist Fight. The case of David Miller, the sacked anti-Zionist Professor formerly at Bristol University who now co-presents Palestine Declassified with Chris Wiliamson on Press TV, has become a barometer of capitulation to Zionism on the ‘far left’.  Some line up to call him ‘anti-Semitic’ even when he is in battle with Zionists over crucial class and democratic questions. This is somewhat reminiscent of the way some on the far left – such as the SWP – bought into the imperialist campaign against Julian Assange earlier. Others on the Corbynite left frequently have better positions, notwithstanding the weakness of Corbyn himself on Zionism. On other ‘controversial’ questions such as trans rights, there is great confusion and diversity among the ex-Corbynite, ex-Labour membership, among newer layers of younger militants, as well as some on the ‘far left’.

Your Party is of great importance. We must fight for a revolutionary programme within it. We must fight against reformist parliamentarism and the belief that the existing state can be captured for the working class and somehow turned into a weapon against oppression. We must popularise the Marxist understanding that the existing state cannot be the means of liberation of the working class, but that instead it must be smashed and replaced with a state where the working class, with its own independent armed forces, is the master of society and the repository of all of society’s productive resources. Instead of elected representatives and state officials being bribed by capitalists who thereby become the masters of society, all such elective positions administering the planned economy we need must be paid the average wage of a skilled worker, and subject to recall from below.

That is a different conception of socialism to the social-democratic left, not only the Corbynites, but also the politics in practice of many of the various large social democratic sects. The dissolution of sects and political development along those lines is the real logic of the creation of a genuine mass party of the socialist-minded working class. We must bear in mind that Your Party exists because social-democratic politics failed and dissolved into neoliberalism. That is itself a product of the dying state of capitalism today. We need workers democracy at the deepest level within Your Party precisely to allow the development of class consciousness to undertake this necessary qualitative leap. That is the real purpose of the struggle for democracy in YP. All else is subordinate to that.

This issue is obviously centred on Your Party, which is the most important development in the British working-class movement for many years, and despite numerous problems, appears to be taking root around the country in a manner that is very encouraging. It was not a surprise to us however, as we were well aware that the mass base of the Corbyn movement had not disappeared despite the Zionist/Neoliberal sabotage that drove that mass base out of the Labour Party, it never dissipated, but went into a kind of abeyance/exile, and reconstituted itself dramatically when Your Party was announced in August, when 800,000 expressed interest. Anyway, the progress of the party has since been interrupted by interference by outside forces, which have caused setbacks, but it is still developing. The lead article contains our extensive analysis of that development.

We also have a short programmatic document titled “A Revolutionary Platform for Your Party” which contains an amended version of a platform originally proposed by the Spartacist League/Britain, to which they invited amendments. The original platform contained in our view some serious omissions, most notably in our view an adaptation to right-wing populist anti-immigration sentiment, and not coincidentally, the lack of any demands for how to fight fascism. They invited amendments and discussions about their original platform; we consider our version a considerable improvement, so we too invite similar engagement from revolutionary-minded individuals and groups.

There is an extensive political reply to a former leading member of our tendency who broke with us recently after several years involvement. While we regret his leaving, which we do consider to be a result of some kind of social pressure regarding our strong anti-Zionist politics, we do consider his criticisms to be worthy of a full response, and indeed ironically an opportunity to further develop our understanding of part of the Jewish left who adapt to liberal Zionism and are inclined to try to ‘cancel’ Marxist analysis of the ethnocentric social base of the Zionist movement internationally, an attitude we consider to be social-imperialist and therefore anti-communist in its thrust. This aspect is elaborated at some length in the article.

We have a commentary on the current crisis of Western imperialism, which is convulsing the world and sometimes at least giving at least the impression that World War 3 is breaking out. We deal with the war in Ukraine, with China, with the Gaza genocide, and lastly with Trump’s threats to invade Venezuela, which have already resulted in brutal murders of many fishermen from that country while US imperialism pretends to be killing drug traffickers. An outrage, that could portend a new Vietnam-style war in South America.

And we have a statement from our Brazilian comrades, jointly with other leftists including some from East Timor, to the COP30 environmental summit, which is being held in Brazil, that links the need for resistance to  the capitalist despoilation of the Amazon rainforest with the struggle against imperialism more generally, particularly against Trump’s threat against Venezuela.

The following is the notes/text of a presentation delivered by a Consistent Democrats speaker on 23rd November on this chapter. The recording of the presentation and discussion is here.

Lenin’s work that we are using here is a major primer on the Marxist theory of the state and goes through the various stages of the development of that theory pretty comprehensively.

In hindsight, it probably would have been better to have studied this before taking on Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed, as this gives a grounding in some very basic Marxist concepts that are invaluable to understanding that later work.

But this chapter makes a very clear start on what we are addressing here.

In part 1, Lenin talks of Marx and Engels’s views on the state on the eve of the continent-wide revolutionary crisis of 1848.

In particular, he homes in on Marx’s formulations in The Poverty of Philosophy, his initial polemic against Proudhon, the proto-anarchist thinker. Here he wrote about the destiny of class society to disappear:

“”The working class, in the course of development, will substitute for the old bourgeois society an association which will preclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power groups, since the political power is precisely the official expression of class antagonism in bourgeois society.”

So, the idea that the state will disappear as a consequence of proletarian revolution is to be found in the earliest works of mature Marxism.

Then he highlights the way this is dealt with by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto:

“… In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat….

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

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

And it is that formulation, that the state after the revolution will be “the proletariat organised as the ruling class” that had been, not accidentally, omitted in the various treatises on the state and socialism in the Second International:

“This definition of the state has never been explained in the prevailing propaganda and agitation literature of the official Social-Democratic parties. More than that, it has been deliberately ignored, for it is absolutely irreconcilable with reformism, and is a slap in the face for the common opportunist prejudices and philistine illusions about the ‘peaceful development of democracy’.

“The proletariat needs the state — this is repeated by all the opportunists, social-chauvinists and Kautskyites, who assure us that this is what Marx taught…. “

But then he clarifies:

“But they ‘forget’ to add that, in the first place, according to Marx, the proletariat needs only a state which is withering away, i.e., a state so constituted that it begins to wither away immediately, and cannot but wither away. And, secondly, the working people need a ‘state, i.e., the proletariat organized as the ruling class’”.

So, what is this about? The state, as we touched on in chapter 1, is a special organisation of force for the suppression of one class by another. What class must the proletariat, in power, supress? Obviously, the bourgeoisie. But in what way?

“The exploiting classes need political rule to maintain exploitation, i.e., in the selfish interests of an insignificant minority against the vast majority of all people. The exploited classes need political rule in order to completely abolish all exploitation, i.e., in the interests of the vast majority of the people, and against the insignificant minority consisting of the modern slave-owners — the landowners and capitalists.”

And Lenin points out that the social democrats did away with this with dreams of class harmony, pictured their version of ‘socialism’ as the peaceful submission of the minority to the majority.

Lenin called this a “petty bourgeois utopia” and pointed out that it led to ‘socialist’ participation in bourgeois cabinets in Britain, France, Italy at the turn of the century.

He also speaks of the role of the working class in leading intermediate layers:

“Only the proletariat — by virtue of the economic role it plays in large-scale production — is capable of being the leader of all the working and exploited people, whom the bourgeoisie exploit, oppress and crush, often not less but more than they do the proletarians, but who are incapable of waging an independent struggle for their emancipation.”

So, he summaries that:

“Marx’s theory of ‘the state, i.e., the proletariat organized as the ruling class’, is inseparably bound up with the whole of his doctrine of the revolutionary role of the proletariat in history. The culmination of this rule is the proletarian dictatorship, the political rule of the proletariat.”

And then he asks the question:

“…is it conceivable that such an organization can be created without first abolishing, destroying the state machine created by the bourgeoisie for themselves?”

Which leads straight to the conclusions Marx drew from 1848-51. Lenin cites Marx’s later work The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Noting Napoleon III’s coup of December 1851, Marx wrote:

“’This executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, … this appalling parasitic body, which enmeshes the body of French society and chokes all its pores, sprang up in the days of the absolute monarchy, with the decay of the feudal system, which it helped to hasten.’ The first French Revolution developed centralization, ‘but at the same time’ it increased ‘the extent, the attributes and the number of agents of governmental power. Napoleon [I] completed this state machinery’ … the parliamentary republic found itself compelled to strengthen, along with repressive measures, the resources and centralization of governmental power “

And he quoted the conclusion:

“All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it.”

Lenin noted that here:

“Marxism takes a tremendous step forward compared with the Communist Manifesto… all previous revolutions perfected the state machine, whereas it must be broken, smashed.”

And:

 “This is the question Marx raises and answers in 1852. True to his philosophy of dialectical materialism, Marx takes as his basis the historical experience of the great years of revolution, 1848 to 1851. Here, as everywhere else, his theory is a summing up of experience, illuminated by a profound philosophical conception of the world and a rich knowledge of history.”

And this brings us to the beginning of the three-cornered polemic against reformism (and centrism) on the one hand, and anarchism, which recurs in this work. Lenin writes:

“The bureaucracy and the standing army are a “parasite” on the body of bourgeois society–a parasite created by the internal antagonisms which rend that society, but a parasite which “chokes” all its vital pores. The Kautskyite opportunism now prevailing in official Social-Democracy considers the view that the state is a parasitic organism to be the peculiar and exclusive attribute of anarchism. It goes without saying that this distortion of Marxism is of vast advantage to those philistines who have reduced socialism to the unheard-of disgrace of justifying and prettifying the imperialist war by applying to it the concept of “defence of the fatherland…”

And he notes what happened after the Russian Revolution of February 1917 in that regard:

“Consider what happened in Russia during the six months following February 27, 1917. The official posts which formerly were given by preference to the Black Hundreds have now become the spoils of the Cadets, Mensheviks, and Social-Revolutionaries. Nobody has really thought of introducing any serious reforms. Every effort has been made to put them off “until the Constituent Assembly meets”, and to steadily put off its convocation until after the war! But there has been no delay, no waiting for the Constituent Assembly, in the matter of dividing the spoils of getting the lucrative jobs of ministers, deputy ministers, governors-general, etc., etc.!”

Leading to the conclusion, similar but on a much higher historical place, to what Marx and Engels had discovered in 1948:

“But the more the bureaucratic apparatus is “redistributed” among the various bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties (among the Cadets, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the case of Russia), the more keenly aware the oppressed classes, and the proletariat at their head, become of their irreconcilable hostility to the whole of bourgeois society. … This course of events compels the revolution “to concentrate all its forces of destruction” against the state power, and to set itself the aim, not of improving the state machine, but of smashing and destroying it.”

And on the question of what the working class will put in its place, Lenin touches on that, but it will be explored more in later chapters:

“What the proletariat will put in its place is suggested by the highly instructive material furnished by the Paris Commune.”

One final point regarding this is Lenin’s emphasis and expansion of a point Marx himself made, about his own distinctive contribution to politics. He quotes Marx:

“And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic anatomy of classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with the particular, historical phases in the development of production (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.”

And Lenin expands on that in a devastating criticism of opportunism, both reformist and centrist:

“It is often said and written that the main point in Marx’s theory is the class struggle. But this is wrong. And this wrong notion very often results in an opportunist distortion of Marxism and its falsification in a spirit acceptable to the bourgeoisie. For the theory of the class struggle was created not by Marx, but by the bourgeoisie before Marx, and, generally speaking, it is acceptable to the bourgeoisie…. Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested. And it is not surprising that when the history of Europe brought the working class face to face with this question as a practical issue, not only all the opportunists and reformists, but all the Kautskyites (people who vacillate between reformism and Marxism) proved to be miserable philistines and petty-bourgeois democrats repudiating the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

And finally, to emphasise matters:

“Further. The essence of Marx’s theory of the state has been mastered only by those who realize that the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for every class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from “classless society”, from communism. Bourgeois states are most varied in form, but their essence is the same: all these states, whatever their form, in the final analysis are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to communism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat.”