Sutton: Revolutionay Seasons Greetings – Happy Yuletide!

“The essence of Trotskyism consists, lastly, in the denial of the necessity of iron discipline in the Party, in the recognition of the freedom of factional groupings in the Party, in the recognition of the necessity of constituting a Trotskyist party. For Trotskyism, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union must be not a united and single militant Party, but a collection of groups and factions, each with its own central organization, press and so forth. And what does this mean? It means that following the freedom of political groupings in the Party must come the freedom of political parties in the country, i.e., bourgeois democracy. Consequently, we have here the recognition of the freedom of factional groupings in the Party, leading directly to the toleration of political parties in the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and all covered up with phrases about ‘internal Party democracy’ and ‘improving the regime’ within the Party.” (Joseph Stalin, Leninism, Vol. II, English Edition, pp. 391-393.)

How the Imperial War Museum Relegated the “Black Experience” of WWII to a Back Corridor! (26.10.2023)

When we entered a back corridor – slightly disheartened by the shallowness of the IWM coverage of WWII from an ordinary British and Chinese perspective – we were astonished to find that a ‘Black’ British art exhibition – regarding WWII – had been consigned to an ‘out of the way’ place! The corridor is both bare and bleak – the sort of place one (momentarily) traverses through to get to another place – or perhaps rest for a moment to get one’s bearings. In no civilised way should this location be interpreted as ‘suitable’ for an art exhibition – as it reeks with Eurocentric disdain! Such is the contemporary IWM and the disjointed face it shows to a general public it intends to fleece in its gift shops!

Live on Forever as a Proletariat! (25.10.2023)

Meanwhile, China seems to be following a path of commercialisation which seeks to develop the closest of ties with the US – a country whose people and political system remains the furthest away in relevance from everyday Chinese needs. Maoism or ‘More-ism’? Who can tell – as the Chinese ideologues appear to be relying upon ‘contradiction’ as a means to deflect all criticism of the post-1979 path its leaders have chosen to follow. Perhaps this is as superficial as the American-English the Chinese State choses to use when writing English language articles – a policy that is nothing but an insult to British English. This would be like British people using the Korean written script whilst claiming to be writing ‘Chinese’ language texts. Perhaps this scathing criticism will generate some type of positive change.

Alexander Werth [Part I]: Russian Arctic Convoy PQ-16 – Middlesborough (UK) to Murmansk (USSR) – Merchant Navy Ship “Empire Baffin”! (2.9.2023)

The Russian Arctic Convoy, PQ-16, sailed from Iceland to the Soviet Union in late May 1942, providing vital military and civilian aid amid attacks by Nazi Germany. The fleet comprised British, American, and Allied ships, including the Empire Baffin that Alexander Werth traveled on for four weeks as recorded in his book ‘The Year of Stalingrad’. This account, along with further research, allows for a timeline to be reconstructed for these events, however, full details are limited due to the secrecy required during wartime. Convoy PQ-16 consisted of 36 Merchant Navy vessels, some armed for self-defense, and a number of Royal Navy ships acting as protection. Werth’s account also mentions controversial language used to describe the African-descendent members of the Merchant Navy crew.

Ghana: President Urges UN to Consider Reparations for Slave Trade! (22.9.2023)

“Reparations must be paid for the slave trade,” Akufo-Addo said to an eruption of applause.

“No amount of money will ever make up for the horrors, but it would make the point that evil was perpetrated, that millions of productive Africans were snatched from the embrace of our continent, and put to work in the Americas and the Caribbean without compensation for their labor,” he said.

He also called for the illicit flow of funds from Africa to be returned to the continent.

While the current picture on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals “is not very bright,” Akufo-Addo expressed the hope that “it is within our capacity to turn things around.”

A good start would be to make the needed changes to the structures of the United Nations, “then we can rebuild trust and reignite global solidarity,” he said.

Xinhua Headlines: Unscrupulous Cyber Spying Sheds Light on US Hegemonic Paranoia! (20.9.2023)

According to Campbell, in 1994, the NSA shared relevant information with an American competitor of the European consortium Airbus, helping it secure a 6-billion-U.S.-dollar contract with Saudi Arabia instead of Airbus.

Another case raised by Campbell suggests that U.S. company Raytheon used NSA intelligence to win a 1.4-billion-dollar contract for radar systems supply to Brazil, defeating France’s Thomson-CSF.

Meanwhile, the United States has been working to militarize cyberspace, develop offensive cyber capabilities, and create systematic cyberattack platforms.

In 2017, cyberspace was officially listed alongside the sea, land, air, and space as the “fifth domain” of the U.S. military.

Militarization of the kind will exacerbate the risk of direct military conflict and can lead to unpredictable consequences, Andrey Krutskikh, former director of the Department of International Information Security at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has noted. (Video reporters: Wang Huan, Ali Jaswal, Yang Yiran, Yu Fuqin, Yao Bin, Tariq Hameed, Wang Feng, Liu Weijian, Hu Yousong; Video editors: Zhang Yueyuan, Hui Peipei.)

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