Workers' Liberty

Come to the Reclaim the Campus conference on 17 May to discuss the way forward for the student movement!

On 1 April, the National Union of Students conference in Blackpool narrowly voted to reject the NUS leadership’s “Governance Review”, which would have abolished what little democracy remains in our union and institutionalised its conversion into a pro-government lobbying organisation.

How should student and labour movement activists respond to fascists being given a platform to speak — in student unions for example? Do normal considerations about “free speech” not apply?

On 21 February, around 100 students from the University of Nottingham and the local area took to the campus grounds in a demonstration demanding their basic democratic right to free speech.

The demonstration followed a number of recent protests at the University where this right had been denied. One of these involved the arrest of a member of the Palestinian Society for “breach of the peace”. The University authorities had called the police while he was protesting peacefully against the abuse of human rights in Palestine.

It’s very simple. We want to see social change in the world in which we live. We want to see this social change because we are human beings who have ideas. We think, we talk, we discuss, and when we’re done thinking and talking and discussing, well then, we feel that these things are vacuous unless we then act on the principle that we think, talk and discuss about. This is as much a part of a university education as anything else. - - Jack Weinberg, Berkeley Free Speech Campaigner

The NC notes: 1. The rise of workers' struggles in Iran
2. The anti-worker repression of the Ahmedinejad regime
3. The much increased international clout of the Iranian regime. (a) As an unintended consequence of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Tehran has huge influence in western Afghanistan and southern Iraq. (b) The rise in oil prices and the paralysis of the Iraqi oil industry strengthens Iran's position as an oil and gas exporter

The government wants to extend the time for which terrorism suspects can be detained without charge from 28 to 56 days.

On Sunday 4 November, a meeting was held at Birkbeck College in London to launch a united campaign against the attacks on democracy included in the “Governance Review” of the National Union of Students. Attended by 50 student activists and student union officers — including members of Education Not for Sale, Workers’ Liberty, the SWP, Socialist Students, the Young Greens, and a variety of independents — the meeting discussed the nature of the attacks within the context of years of NUS inaction and mismanagement, began to plan a campaign against them, and elected a steering committee to take things forward.

Several thousand people, including many hundreds of London students, marched from Trafalgar Square to Parliament on 8 October as part of a Stop the War Coalition protest timed to coincide with Gordon Brown’s Commons statement on Iraq — in defiance of the police’s refusal to grant permission for the demonstration.

Police have banned a demonstration on Iraq scheduled by the Stop The War Coalition for 8 October.

What follows is a diary, recorded day by day, of the week in 1997 when Britain seemed to go mad. - Sean Matgamna

By Max Shachtman

The 1917 revolution was one of the greatest democratic moments in history.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38646

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 24 (IPS) - Late last month, President René Préval announced that Haiti's public telephone company, Téléco, would be privatised. Meeting recently with the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Senator Jean Hector Anacacis of Preval's Lespwa political party, the president finalised plans to sell off the aging enterprise.

Click on "read more" to download the whole pamphlet as pdf, or to read it section-by-section online.

Richard Preece discusses the recent anti-government demonstrations in Turkey

Much mainstream liberal and centre-right reporting on the crisis in Turkey has portrayed the debate as being a kind of “clash of civilisations in one country” between “Islamists” (or even “Muslims” according to others) supporting the ruling Adalet ve Kalk¦nma Partisi and “secularists” supporting the army and the opposition Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi.

Workers' Liberty 17, January 1994, is a special issue on Socialism and Democracy.

Appendices to the Workers' Liberty pamphlet, with texts by James P Cannon, Max Shachtman, V I Lenin, and Hal Draper on socialism, democracy, and the Russian Revolution of 1917; and articles by John Bl

Debate between then Labour Party leader Michael Foot, and John O'Mahony, in 1982 on socialism and democracy, with a 1994 introduction.

By James P Cannon. This is an extract from Cannon's reply to a criticism of his court evidence in 1941.

Comrade Munis [1] is dissatisfied with our assertions at the trial that “we submit to the majority”.

By James P Cannon, from Socialism on Trial, 1941. This is an extract from Cannon's evidence in the court where, during World War 2, he and other American Trotskyists and trade unionists were put on trial and jailed for hindering the US war effort.

By John O'Mahony
(Socialist Organiser, 5 January 1989)

By John Bloxam and John O'Mahony

"After the rising of the 17th of June [the East Berlin workers uprising of 1953] the Secretary of the Writers Union had leaflets handed out in the Stalinallee in which it can be read that the people had forfeited the confidence of the government, and could only win it back by redoubled efforts. Would it not be simpler if the government dissolved the people and elected another?"

THE FATE OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY.

When, after Korniloff’s adventure, the paramount parties on the Soviets made an attempt to make amends for their previous attitude of indulgence towards the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, they demanded the speedy convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

Lenin called for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a great expansion of democracy.

The Russian revolution was the most important event of the 20th century.

By Amina Saddiq

Occasionally, just occasionally, you find something in the "left" press which is so bad it makes you sit up, blink and wonder if you've read it correctly. Even by the usual low standards of the Morning Star, its 22 March article on the House of Lords was an astonishing example.

Note, March 2007:
Michael Foot, then leader of the Labour Party, wrote the articles reproduced here on democracy, revolution, socialism, and Stalinism in the Observer. John O'Mahony wrote the reply in Socialist Organiser.

Why parliament? Can those old arthritic limbs still move as the nation needs?

Part 1.
Off and on during these past two and a half years since Labour's electoral defeat of May 1979, Goldsmith's famous lines have floated incongruously through my mind: