Tag: history

Red Flag of Internationalism!

BMA-UK: Solidarity with Migrants – Explained! (23.1.2025)

When they arrived, nobody wanted to help. They had to walk the streets for two-days in the Oxford area until a Police Constable directed them to a local school. Here, they were given food and a bed on the floor of a school hall. Eventually, a local family let them live in a small cottage – where they slowly developed a new life. My grandfather joined the Royal Navy Patrol Service (RNPS) and fought in the North Atlantic fighting in-part alongside the USSR. My grand-uncle joined the Coldstream Guards and guard Buckingham Palace for a time. At the beginning, local Oxford people did not like the Cockney accents of my family – but they soon got use to it. My family eventually got jobs in the local area, joined Unions, and integrated into the local community. This is why I was born in Oxford. I am the product of displacement due to war – albeit within my own country. Today, the bourgeoisie loves to make international “war” as a business option that generates billions of dollars each year.

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UN Began With Good Intentions!

Russia: USSR and [1945] Founding of the UN 80 Years Ago! (21.1.2025)

The creation of the United Nations was the result of the Great Victory in World War II, which was achieved thanks to an unparalleled feat performed by Soviet soldiers and millions of lives of citizens of the USSR, as well as of other states that were part of the Allied troops. The Soviet Union, the successor country to which Russia is now, was at the origins of the UN. It was in Moscow in the autumn of 1943 that the Allies, i.e. representatives of the USSR, the United Kingdom and the USA, agreed to establish an international organisation to protect future generations from another global conflict. Russia then took the leading role in the process, and the idea was refined and finally put into practice at the San Francisco Conference in 1945. The UN became the core of the system developed at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, with the UN Charter setting out the fundamental norms of international law that formed the Decalogue for the behaviour of states in the international arena.

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PRC Places Trade with US Ahead of Solidarity with Cuba!

Cuba: Outgoing Biden Removes Socialist State from “Terrorist” List! (15.1.2025)

I thank all those who contributed to the decision announced today by the United States to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, where it should never have been and which, along with two other measures adopted, has had a high cost for the country and Cuban families .

It is a decision in the right direction, although it was taken late and with limited scope . The blockade and most of the extreme measures that were put in place since 2017 to suffocate the Cuban economy and cause shortages for our people remain in place .

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Women Were Treated Very Well!

London: Broken Biscuits and Paternalistic Capitalism: Was the Bermondsey Biscuit Factory a Worker’s Paradise or is the Truth Less Sweet? (13.1.2025)

The first female clerks, responsible for typewriting invoices and the telephone exchange, were employed in 1885. The new hires may have been surprised to find the company brochure had a dedicated ladies’ section called ‘Matters Feminine’. However, the suffragettes would not have been too impressed with its content. Topics mainly included cooking, family and fashion. 

‘It is all very well for a man to smile at the feminine love of clothes, and dismiss them as being of very little importance in life. Women know better. Husbands, who profess not to admire fashions, are not slow to complain at the dowdy appearance of their wives,’ read one passage. 

In the following decades, many of the women employed found promotions were very much possible. Anne Edwards, who got a job as a clerical assistant in 1957, wrote: “Brilliant employers, they paid for me to attend Pitman’s College to extend my shorthand skills. They monitored my progress, my typewriting skills and promoted me from junior to manager’s secretary in the same department. I loved working there.”

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CSA Aeronaut - Captain John Randolph Bran!

CSA: Confederate Aeronautical Ballon Corps – Peninsula Campaign [1862]! (10.1.2025)

For safety reasons, the Confederates decided to transport their balloon via the water when not in operation (to protect it from enemy fire). The silk balloon was loaded onto the armed (CSA) tug “Teaser” – to transport it from the Richmond Gas Works up to the front-lines along the James River. This system, however, eventually led to the demise of the Gazelle. The Teaser, loaded with the Gazelle, ran into Union Naval Forces patrolling the James River, and was fired upon and captured by the US Marines carried aboard the USS Maratanza. The Confederate balloon was given to the Union expert – Thaddeus Lowe – who cut it up into scraps to give as souvenirs. Some of these pieces are still in existence. The Union lost the Peninsula Campaign due to a lack of reliable military intelligence. The Confederate Aeronautical Balloon Corps was abolished on the 4th July, 1862 – following the retreat of Union Forces out of the South.

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Southern Men Arise!

How Great Britain Assisted the Formation of the Confederate Post Office [1861-1863]! (8.1.2025)

The internationally-known London, England printing firm of “Thomas De La Rue & Co.”, prepared plates and stamps for the CSA until a Southern firm was found to take over the work. That firm, Archer & Daly, began producing stamps in 1863. The US blockade of as many Confederate ports as possible often meant that British ships carrying supplies from London, the UK, or the British Empire to the Confederacy – were often intercepted via acts of piracy on the high seas by the US Navy – with the goods confiscated and/or destroyed. The US government was continuously irritated by the continuous (undeclared) British support for the Confederacy – which for at least two-years extended into the realms of Post Office support! Of course, many of the best weapons the Confederate Army possessed were supplied by the UK. The Postmaster General of the Confederate Post Office Department (POD) – John Reagan (whilst traveling with President Jefferson Davis) – was arrested on the 8th May 1865, and imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Reagan was pardoned and released from prison almost two years later. Jefferson Davis “refused” a Pardon (on the grounds that he had done nothing wrong) – and was subsequently released anyway.

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