Workers' Liberty 23: July 1995

Bring the police to justice!

Linda Evans and Colin Whitby, the two police officers on trial for the death of Joy Gardener were acquitted on Tuesday 13th June. Download PDF

Why Lenin got Ireland wrong, part 2

For decades Lenin’s small body of work on Ireland, filtered through a number of Stalinist pamphlets purporting to expound the ideas of “Marx, Engels and Lenin” on Ireland, has helped shape socialists’ views. In this, the second article in a series, Sean Matgamna argues that this “Marxist dogmatism” has meant, in fact, giving up on any serious attempt at Marxist analysis of Ireland. Click here for part 1 of the article. The attempt… to ‘fix’ for all time the point of view Marx held in a different epoch was an attempt to use the letter of Marxism against the spirit of Marxism. Lenin, The Right...

Corruption is corroding Chinese Stalinism

Chan Ying reports from Hong Kong on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre (4 June 1989). The Chinese authorities are once again harassing and arresting journalists, intellectuals and dissidents. Wang Dan, the student leader of the 1989 events, has been arrested again. He has gone into a hunger strike. Wang had already served his prison sentence, although he has been under constant surveillance ever since his release. This time he is one of 27 signatories to a letter petitioning the government to launch a full inquiry into the ’89 events. Another signatory, Ding Zilin...

Prospects dim for new workers' party

By Martin Thomas To download article by PDF, including additional short article on the French left click here In France’s municipal elections, on 11 and 18 June, the fascist National Front won control of its first big city, Toulon, in southern France. It also won two smaller cities, Orange and Marignane, and generally scored well though patchily. The mainstream right did not do as well as it must have hoped after Jacques Chirac won the presidency. The Socialist Party did a bit better than expected, the Communist Party worst. A scattering of “alternative left” lists, including splinters from...

New Labour and New NUT

By Liam Conway On Thursday 22 June the Labour Party unveiled its a policy document on education: Diversity and Excellence. The report recommends the preservation of grant maintained schools (renaming them “foundation” schools), thus perpetuating the two tier-system of education the Tories introduced with their education reforms. The same document says does not recommend any increase in funds for education. This is, as one old-style Labourite, Roy Hattersley, has said, nothing short of a “repudiation of the principle of comprehensive education”. (See next page). More cause for dismay in the...

Bosnia: how to get reconciliation

By Colin Foster According to Alexander Ivanko, a UN spokesperson in Sarajevo, “the Bosnian Serbs are calling most of the shots. I’m sure there are some shots they are not calling. I just can’t think of them at the moment”. Since the Bosnian Serbs seized 370 UN soldiers as hostages in late May (they released the last of them on 18 June), UN troops have moved out of Serb-held areas. They have given up any pretence of protecting the so-called “safe areas”. The Bosnian Serbs may have been given some promise of no more air strikes against them. And the big powers are talking about pulling out the...

Blair's plans for union law revealed

By a BT engineer Apart from general statements assuring the bosses that there will be “no return to the ’70s”, the Labour Frontbench has not been keen to spell out what, if anything, they will do to remove the legal shackles imposed on the unions by the Tories. But a glimpse of the kind of deal that is likely to emerge from top level TUC/Labour Party “consultations” was revealed to Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) activists last month when their union leadership outlined a “radical agenda” for the reform of employment law. The CWU document was written for the most self consciously Blairite...

Brent Spar victory for Greenpeace

By Joan Trevor Greenpeace scored a big victory over international giant Shell in the Brent Spar affair. Shell had got government permission to abandon a 20 year old oil installation at sea, despite many scientists saying it would cause terrible environmental damage. But they had to abandon the plan after bad publicity, and a boycott by drivers of Shell petrol stations. Shell wanted to dump in the sea because it is cheaper than disposal on land. They said that they were being “responsible” when considering this disposal option, because part of being “responsible” is disposing cheaply. Partly...

Fight for a Labour government!

John Major’s decision to resign as Tory leader and stand for re-election, challenging his critics to “sack me or back me”, is desperate rather than brave. Major probably faced a leadership election in the autumn anyway: this way he goes out to meet his enemies in an aura of resolution and leader-like purposefulness. Major is gambling and he may lose. If Major is re-elected, he will be strengthened and the party will look more effective. If he loses, then some Clarke, or, maybe, Heseltine, will replace him, and the Tory party will have changed its mask. It will then perhaps have a better chance...

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