Over 19/20 October, the RCG held a national anti-imperialist weekend with a demonstration in support of Palestine and dayschool that filled Bolivar Hall in central London. There were three sessions on the Sunday. In the first, speakers focused on Lenin’s clear exposition of imperialism and its corollary, the split in the working class within the oppressor nation and the creation of a labour aristocracy bribed by the superprofits of imperialist exploitation around the world. This is a position rejected by the majority of the British left. We went on to discuss how racism is inextricably linked to imperialism, being the form national oppression takes within the imperialist nation, and the vanguard role the most oppressed sections of the working class will play in forming a revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement in Britain today. Finally, we concluded with a rallying call to fight for socialism.
‘Humanity stands at a crossroads’
Below we reprint a selection from speeches given during the three sessions of the dayschool. All will be available in full on www.revolutionarycommunist.org
Fight imperialism!
‘Any suggestion that Lenin’s theory is about the labour aristocracy – a privileged minority of the working class whose material conditions depend on receiving an element of imperialist plunder secured by the ruling class – is anathema to the left in this country for whom the labour aristocracy is a sort of semi-fiction, a bee in Lenin’s bonnet… that most certainly does not exist now. And with that, Lenin’s pamphlet [Imperialism and the split in socialism] loses its political significance, and imperialism becomes reduced to a question of militarism and state arms expenditure, and anti-imperialism to a question as to whether such state spending should be redirected into health or education.’
Robert Clough
‘The communist position in relation to the armed resistance is one of unconditional support for their right to determine whatever means they see necessary to achieve liberation. This is part of the indivisible right to self-determination. Such self-determination can only be achieved with the disintegration of the Zionist state through a combination of resistance and its total isolation by the imposition of complete economic, political, diplomatic and cultural sanctions: either you join with the Palestinian resistance and the oppressed masses of the world, or side with the Labour Party and the British ruling class in attacking them.’
George O’Connor
Fight racism!
‘Migrant workers and black people in Britain have regularly been at the forefront of resistance. From migrant workers at Grunwick in 1976… to black youth defending their communities against police repression in Brixton, Mosside, Liverpool, Bradford and other cities in 1981; from Muslim youth leading militant struggles against Britain’s support for Israel… to migrants in Calais storming the Channel Tunnel each night in 2015 – migrant workers and black youth who have no ties to the imperialist system have broken down the barriers of social democracy’s respectable and ineffective protest to mount real resistance. Suffering the brunt of the imperialist crisis, poverty, unemployment and racism, they are forced into direct confrontation with the imperialist state.’
Soma Kisan
‘For too long the British ruling class has grown rich off the backs of oppressed people, first through exploiting oppressed people in their own countries and then through exploiting oppressed people when they migrate into Britain. This has resulted in decades of exploitation and racist violence that, while essential for the survival of British imperialism, has created the political forces that will be imperialism’s downfall. The British ruling class has created its own gravediggers. What is left is to organise. These political forces must unite with socialism and form the anti-racist, anti-imperialist, communist vanguard that will confront the racist British state and smash British imperialism from within its own borders. That is a unity worth fighting for!’
Kotsai Sigauke
Fight for socialism!
‘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.’
Sarah Guebre-Egziabher
– Fight racism! Fight imperialism! Fight for socialism! – RCG National weekend
– Communists and anti-imperialists on the march in London
