This speech was delivered by Sarah Guebre-Egziabher at the RCG’s National Meeting and dayschool ‘How do we fight back against racism and imperialism?’ on Sunday 20 October 2024.
We live in a state of global crisis. Environmental destruction and climate change, fuelled by incessant exploitation of the earth and its resources, has taken the lives of thousands, and threatens the livelihoods of millions more. War and displacement continue to be an everyday reality for millions of people, disproving theories of the ‘liberal peace’. Poverty, inequality, and insecurity are widespread not just in the ‘developing’ world, but in the imperial core as well. In Britain, one of the wealthiest states in the world, 30% of children live in poverty, while the top 20% of earners own 63% of the country’s wealth. Even the so-called ‘Scandinavian Model’ of social democracy is revealing its true nature: the Swedish government is ‘boasting’ a negative immigration rate, with more people leaving the country than entering due to tighter restrictions on racist immigration controls.
We understand Capitalism to be the root cause of all these issues. The owners of the means of production, the capitalists, make profits from the exploitation of the working class, through the extraction of surplus-value, and the destruction of our natural environment, from which they find the resources essential for production. The highest stage of capitalism, Imperialism, divides the world into oppressor and oppressed nations, as capitalism goes abroad to find abundant resources, cheap labour, and captive markets. This goes beyond colonial rule; international financial institutions, monopoly companies and banks continue to be pillars of imperialism. The way the world exists today is no coincidence: it is with the deliberate action of capitalists that most of the world finds itself unable to escape ‘underdevelopment’. However, we also find within the capitalist system the force necessary for its own destruction and for the possibility of a new world: the working class.
We have seen and continue to see what socialism can achieve; how it can lift the masses out of destitution and give them real ownership over their own lives, and how it can allow for real, meaningful democracy. We are inspired by the people of Cuba, of Venezuela, and all those who came before them who held high the banner of communism.
Humanity stands at a crossroads: before it lies the choice of socialism, or barbarism. Barbarism is war, it is continued environmental destruction, it is fascism and it is racism. We must understand that capitalist crisis, the general decay of capitalism, inevitably leads us towards barbarism. No other solution exists except for socialism. But capitalism is resilient, and it is only with the conscious and united action of the working class that it can be overthrown and socialism ushered in. We must pave the road to socialism ourselves. The revolutionary moment does not lie some time in the future, it is for us to make now, in the present.
That is why the Revolutionary Communist Group in its 50 years of existence has fought for the creation of a genuine, anti-imperialist communist movement in Britain, has relentlessly defended those fighting for their own liberation, whether they be Irish, Black British, South African or Palestinian, and we have been been unfaltering in our solidarity with Cuba, which today stands today as an example of what can be achieved in a socialist society.
In our commitment to oppressed peoples, we reject the solutions put forward by the imperialists and opportunists who have appointed themselves at the head of the ‘official labour movement’ in this country. We understand these, whether they be Labour party members or its many defenders on the left, to be the “left lieutenants” of British imperialism and the racist British state. They are more afraid of the potential of a revolutionary working-class movement than they are angry about the poverty and hardship imposed by the bourgeoisie on the working class everywhere. This shows today in their lack of meaningful support for the Palestinian resistance, or of solidarity for the Cuban people, or defence of the construction of socialism in Venezuela, and how quick they are to censor real anti-imperialist voices, including that of the RCG.
The RCG is committed to the building of a revolutionary anti-racist and anti-imperialist trend within the working class in Britain, and to defending an open and democratic way of organising. This is the type of movement we need today; one that does not shut people out, but brings them in; that gives everyone the opportunity to speak; that resists single issue campaigning and identity politics and instead builds a broad movement for the liberation of all. This is the only way forward for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism.
If you share our goals, join your local RCG branch, read our newspaper, donate to our organisation and join us on the streets.
Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism, Fight for Socialism!
