Part 2 - DW062 001 027 002

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EDITORIAL Wedgie Benn leads fellow Labour ministers in a chorus of: "OUR PARTY'S FLAG IS PALEST PINK, NOT RED AT ALL, AS YOU MAY THINK; AND JUST TO SHOW WE'RE INSINCERE, WE MEET TO SING IT ONCE IN FOUR YEARS..." T here will almost cer- tainly be a General Election this year. All the parties of capital- ism are getting ready for one, and so should all revolution- ary and progressive people. This is not to say that we should exaggerate the impor- tance of General Elections as such. The ruling class pre- snets these events as the fo- cus of political activity in this country, while we, as Marxist-Leninists recognise that politics is about the class struggle, which in Bri- tain is chiefly between the working class and the ruling capitalist class. This struggle goes on day after day, in one form or an- other; it is not something which only happens every four or five years. Parliamentary elections ge- nerally mean little, because they are contests between par- ties which are not fundamen- tally different, to administer the same capitalist system. A new government is elected by the majority of the registered voters (quite a few people don't register) who bother to vote, and then goes its own sweet way. EXPOSING CAPITALISM Even if a party wants to re- form society through parlia- ment, it cannot do so, for parliament is only a small part of the state machine which serves the ruling mono- poly capitalist class. This is not to say that we believe elections should be ignored. Even though they do not of- fer any real solutions to pro- blems such as inflation, un- employment and bad housing, which concern working people, it is true that people take more notice of politics at election time. The ruling class often tries to use this to promote illus- ions among the people; so it is important that revolution- ary and progressive people also step up their activities at this time. The election campaign has already started. It reveals the contempt which the parties which serve capitalism have for working people. LABOUR TRICKS Everyone knows that the La- bour Party is planning a "give- away budget this year to try to pick up support before the elections; no doubt it will wheel out a few "left-wingers" like Tony Benn to drum up more _support. Since the Tories supported most of the policies the La- bour government followed (only protesting about details), they have even less of an "al- ternative" to offer than usual; this is why they have picked on the issue of racism to try to gain support. They are playing up racism regardless of the suffering they will cause thousands of Black people in Britain, just as an election stunt to win votes from the National Front. Racism will be a big issue in this election. It will be used to divert working people from the real problems they face problems that are pro- ducts of the profit-hungry capitalist system and to turn them against each other. NEED FOR REVOLUTIONARY PARTY It is vital to fight racism, for the unity of the working class, working and progressive people against the common mono- poly capitalist enemy. But it is also important not to let the capitalist parties off the hook about other things. For example, workers have had their wages held down by the "social contract" and then the 10% limit since the 1974 election. This was done thro- ugh Labour government-TUC col- laboration, and Labour should not be allowed to get away with great promises like it made in 1974, when many wor- kers now have such recent ex- perience of what such promises amount to. Nor in the months leading up to the ele- ction whould any section of the working class give up its struggles for the purpose of "improving Labour's election chances". That trick has al- ready been used to weaken sol- idarity with Grunwick workers and the Firemen. One thing that is clear from the electioneering of the bosses' parties is that the working class and other wor- king people cannot rely on any of them to win better living standards and defend their democratic rights. They need to rely on them- selves, but they also need to build their own party - a Marxist-Leninist party which (while being flexible in tactics) will unswervingly work in the people's interest and which will lead workers to victory in the revolutionary struggle for a socialist Britain. Π CHINA'S NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM. continued from p4. cialism, and If you go on strike for this you would be encouraging racialism." This made even bigger "headlines" in the firm. All the other shops were talking about it and sup- ported the women. Seeing the support these women received, Management soon changed their tune and the matter was solved very quickly. Now you don't wear that many people talk about "They have got a chip on their shoulder" or "They get away with murder". But you hear people say "It's not a case of black against white, it's us against the manage- ment." It's a class question, it always has been and it al- ways will be. A CONGRESS OF UNITY AND VICTORY Messages of greetings from all over the world have been sent to China hailing the success of the first session of the Fifth National People's Congress that was held in Peking recently. The NPC is China's 'Parlia- ment' and its highest form of proletarian state power. Unlike farcical bourgeois par- liaments such as that at Westminster, China's NPC is a grand forum where outstand- ing representatives of the workers, peasants and other revolutionary strata meet with the country's top leaders to discuss national and international questions and to map out plans for building China into a powerful socialist country. It was preceded by con- gresses in all the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. This was the first session of the NPC since the the fall of the 'gang of four', self-styled revolutionaries who had plotted to seize power by fomenting chaos. Holding the Congress was a new victory for the line of China's wise leader Chairman Hua, "Grasp the key link of class struggle and bring great order across the land." (Cont'd on page 8) 永远开除王张江姚 的党籍

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