Solidarity 143, 4 December 2008

As I walked out one autumn day (verse)

A poem about the capitalist crisis. Joshua is 12 and lives in Cambridge As I walked out one Autumn day, I saw a banker and did say; “How fare you my noble man Is it going all to plan? For I doth spy yonder youths robbing your armoured van!” "Oh Calamity, calu-calay I must pelt those pesky kids away! For they will surely see!" Quoth he, "All that glitters is not gold, And all that armoured van doth hold is lost. "Your hopes and dreams I built on sand, But I have nothing in my hand; My suit is cold. "Though I grow old and rich I stay, In gold, you my debt must pay for greed. "But when you age...

The myth of Baader-Meinhof

Review of the film: The Baader Meinhof Complex This film traces the history of the German “Red Army Fraction” (RAF) from its origins in the predominantly student protest movement of the late 1960s through to the prison suicides of its remaining leaders in 1977. In total, the RAF had 39 members, but never more than 20 at any one time. It was the most famous — or infamous — of a flurry of similarly-sized groups which emerged in Germany in the 1970s and which equated “anti-imperialist struggle” with armed struggle: bombings, kidnappings, hostage-taking, and killings, all financed by armed bank...

Defend the cleaners, protest against Amey plc!

On 2 December, 20 protestors entered the offices of Amey plc in High Holborn to protest at the sacking of five Colombian cleaners and the rejection of their appeal. The protestors attempted to present a petition to an Amey representative, but were prevented. The cleaners had been employed by Amey at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and were suspended then sacked for daring to criticise Amey for putting an excessive workload onto ever fewer staff, for unilaterally changing terms and conditions, and for failing to respect grievance procedures. The workers are all members of the Prospect...

William Morris: Romantic or revolutionary?

The Fourth Part of a series; the other articles are collected here: http://www.workersliberty.org/category/marxist-theory/history/marxists/… Morris has been claimed by a wide spectrum of socialists — often without careful reference to his views. However a comprehensive study of writings indicates that he was not a utopian socialist, nor an anarchist, not a Fabian state socialist nor a sentimental socialist, as some have characterised him. Morris was never enamoured by the socialist colonies and experiments organised by Robert Owen, Etienne Cabet and others. He argued that it was...

Trotsky’s programme

So far in this series we have looked at how Marxist socialists developed their ideas about how a political programme should look. We have also seen, by looking at programmes for the current economic crisis, a little of how the left relates to this task today. But what about the tradition on which the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty bases itself — the politics personified by the activity and writings of Leon Trotsky? When in 1938 Trotsky wrote the document which became known as “The Transitional Programme”, the founding statement of the international group he helped set up, what was he trying to...

How the reformists saved capitalism. The German revolution, 1918-19

Part 2. The first part of this article can be found here The pact between Ebert and Groener had been sealed on the evening of 10 November. Thereafter, with the full support of the SPD leadership, the General Army Command recruited, organised and trained new military detachments (the Iron Division, the Freikorps and the Republican Soldiers’ Defence Corps) for the purpose of crushing the revolution. The working-class military forces — for which the “revolutionary government” of the SPD provided no support – were much weaker: a trade union-based security force which had been set up by Emil...

Lessons from Antifa and UAF

The closest thing many of us will have seen to “militant anti-fascism” in recent times is an entirely or partly staged scuffle with the police at the front of a demonstration. These altercations are more often than not born out of frustration with the police for “protecting the Nazis” than any coherent tactical considerations. They have very little long-term impact on the ability of the fascists to organise. The stories of the 43 Group and of the Teamsters’ “Union Defense Guard”, featured in previous issues of Solidarity, illustrate the place of mass, confrontational mobilisations against...

Popular Front, London-style

Ken Livingstone has launched an organisation called “Progressive London” ( http://www.progressivelondon.org.uk ), backed by a “broad alliance of individuals, campaigns, communities, artists, trade unions, environmentalists, political parties and groups”. It is for “all those who believe in social justice, environmental protection, good community relations, cultural innovation and the many other areas in which London has made a contribution recognised throughout the world.” The CWU, GMB, Unison and Unite — or at least senior figures from these unions — seem to be backing this “campaign”, and it...

How not to fight the BNP

Some on the left seem to have decided that the size of the leaked BNP membership list is bad news for the fascists. “A weak divided party exposed”, the Socialist Party headline tells us: the list “makes it clear that the BNP is a relatively small party... with just over 3,000 members classed as activists, it is welcome news that the BNP has capitalised so little on the enormous anger against New Labour, Tories and Lib Dems that exists.” The coverage in Socialist Worker has been more ambiguous on this point, but SWP members have also been using the argument that the BNP is still a very small...

Programme needs a political voice

The November National Executive of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) carried a motion on the “Impact of the Economic Crisis”. The motion was written and submitted by two left-wing Executive members, Ian Murch of the Campaign for a Democratic and Fighting Union (CDFU) and Kevin Courtney of the Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA). The central idea behind the motion is a positive one — a call for the development of demands to be debated in each trades union and then decided on at a recalled TUC Conference and this to form a labour movement response to the economic crisis. It’s an attempt to...

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