PaulHampton's blog

Galloway compares John Reid to Stalin (favourably)

Interesting article in Saturday’s Guardian magazine, highlighting John Reid’s tankie background.

Also contained some nuggets from or about Galloway:

The benefit of Reid's resurrection is now acknowledged by George Galloway: "John's a very good political operator - remorseless, unremitting and...

Great Brazilian election result

Heloisa Helena, the presidential candidate for the Party of Socialism and Freedom (P-Sol), got 6.8% of the vote - over 6.5 million people.

This is a fantastic result for the Brazilian left, indicating that the socialists expelled from the Workers Party (PT) have managed to regroup significant...

Tagged

Janine "tagged" me with these questions:

1. One book that changed your life.

The Communist Manifesto. After reading it, I knew what I was, would be, am.

2. One book that you've read more than once.

Lenin’s Moscow by Alfred Rosmer. It’s so well written, I tend to read it when I’m sick. It...

How much surplus value is pumped out of the workers?

Ever wondered how much surplus value is pumped out of the working class? A rough and ready guesstimate in The Observer reveals the following figures:

  • The 20 largest quoted companies in the UK make an average of over £96,000 pre-tax profit per employee
  • British Gas, made by far the most -...

Solidarity with Argentinian workers!

Message from some workers in Argentina via the Argentina Solidarity Campaign

Dear friends,

We are writing to ask for your solidarity in our difficult struggle. We are workers of The Value Brand (TVB), a soap and cleaning products factory in San Justo, Buenos Aires province. TVB is an investment...

Background to the Thai coup

This is an unpublished review I wrote in 2002, with some background to the Thai coup.

Thailand has developed into a modern independent capitalist country, where capitalist relations of production dominate both the cities and the countryside, and where the class struggle is played out between the...

Venezuelan National Guard represses striking workers

The Venezuelan National Guard has repressed a group of striking workers belonging to the UNT in Carabobo state, according to reports on the Aporrea website.

Workers at Alfarería Internacional (International Pottery) had their three-week-old strike broken up on 10 August by the National Guard. Two...

LGBT Iraqis targeted by Islamist militias

A report in today’s Observer by Jennifer Copestake which documents how Islamist militias in Iraq are targeting LGBT people, with the backing of Iraqi law.

There is a film of her report on More4 News tomorrow (7 August) at 8pm.

The Observer report is horrific. We should take this up with LGBT...

Francis Wheen - disappointing on Das Kapital

I’ve been reading Francis Wheen’s new book Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography, part of a series, “books that shook the world”. An extract was in Saturday’s Guardian

It's entertainingly written as you'd expect - like his biography of Marx - but weak on explaining the ideas of Capital.

Wheen argues...

Mexican elections on 2 July

The presidential elections in Mexico on 2 July are taking place amid turmoil. There are bitter strikes taking place by miners and teachers, which have met with repression. An independent union front, the National Front for Unity and Union Autonomy (FNUAS) has called a general strike for 28 June...

Tehran police break up 5,000-strong demonstration against women's oppression

A demonstration by nearly 5,000 Iranian women and their supporters on 12 June in Tehran was broken up by police, according to reports from the Iranian Revolutionary Socialist League (IRSL).

The women demonstrated with placards, with slogans such as "The right to divorce, the right to give evidence...

Women in Iraq in The Independent

An interesting article in yesterday's The Independent on women in Iraq.

Below is the intro:

The women of Basra have disappeared. Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women's secular freedoms - once the envy of women across the Middle East - have been snatched away because militant...

The Cuban revolution revisited: Part VI - the Cuban working class

The key test of Castro’s movement was and is its relationship to the working class in Cuba. Farber’s book does not contain much new information on workers struggles during the period, though it clearly identifies the control Castro attained over the labour movement as a crucial turning point on the...

The Cuban revolution revisited: Part V – the role of the USSR

Farber tries to explain the evolution of the Cuban regime by grounding his interpretation in the context of the period. By the late 1950s, many people had the perception that the USSR was catching up and even surpassing the US – symbolised by the first Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile and...

The Cuban revolution revisited: Part IV – the role of the US

If US-Cuban relations were neo-colonial in the 1950s, US policy was essentially one of “law and order and business as usual”. In the context of the Cold War, support for any Latin American government professing anti-Communism, whether they had been democratically elected or were military...

The Cuban revolution revisited: Part III – Castro’s group

Fidel Castro was undoubtedly the central historical figure in the Cuban revolution. Farber locates Castro within the long Cuban and Latin American tradition of populist nationalism - as a caudillo with particular political ideas and organisational practices that “transcended” that tradition....

The Cuban revolution revisited: Part II – Political economy

Any Marxist account of the Cuban revolution has to be rooted in an analysis of Cuba’s political economy, to explain the relative weight of the contending classes and of the existing state, and to understand what drove millions of Cubans to support Batista’s overthrow.

Cuba was the last Spanish...

The Cuban revolution revisited: Part I – Overview

Review of Samuel Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered (University of North Carolina Press, 2006)

What was the class character of the Cuban revolution of 1959-61? More than any other Marxist over the last forty-five years, Sam Farber has tried to tackle this question from the...

Venezuelan UNT congress ends in acrimony

The Venezuelan Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT) congress broke up in acrimony this weekend, with two distinct tendencies holding separate plenaries at the end after bitter disputes.

The congress took place on 25-27 May and was the first conference the confederation has held since it was...

Anyone but England: the SWP and the World Cup

SWP man of letters Keith Flett really surpassed himself in today’s Morning Star (19 May 2006), with an article, Anyone but England: Socialists and the World Cup.

Flett says he won’t be supporting England in the World Cup because:
1) There are often racist attacks after England games,...

How left is Chávez?

Three comments from Chávez in London this week that might help some of his cheerleaders sober up:

I put it to Chávez that under him, Venezuela has all the good things about Cuba - the great schools and hospitals - without the revolting things - dictatorship, censorship, repression. "I don't think...

Report on Chávez meeting 14 May 2006

I went to the Chávez meeting in London today, hosted by Ken Livingstone. I sat through two and half hours of the most turgid, vapid, empty rhetoric interspersed with self-congratulation and pontification.

On the platform and around were Chávez’s array of hand raisers, from Tariq Ali to Richard...

SW on Chávez in London

Socialist Worker editorial this week (13 May 2006 | issue 2000) on Chávez’s visit to London is entirely lacking in criticism.

It says: “Chavez has become a symbol for a revolt across Latin America.”

It ends: “When Chavez talks about “socialism of the 21st century” he is reflecting something real...

Livingstone excuses Tiananmen Square massacre

Ken Livingstone in Beijing this week, putting business before workers’ rights:

Touring Tiananmen Square on Sunday, Livingstone said that Trafalgar Square too had seen its share of violence, for example the 1990 poll tax riots.

"All countries have done terrible things. The question is what are we...

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