What and where is the working class in Britain?
In their writings Marx and Engels describe a capitalism which in many respects is as recognisable today as it was when they began their critique over 160 years ago.
Helen Christopher investigates whether or not the working class in Britain today is capable of making a revolution and overthrowing capitalism.
The Communist Manifesto, one of Marx and Engels' earliest works, is dense with strands of analysis which would be expanded on in their later writings. In it they describe a world which is shrinking due to the development of technology; a world which is becoming more homogenised and globalised and in which material worth and individualism dominate our values and consciousness.
The distinctions between nations, between town and country, between the sexes are all diminishing. Human relationships; family relationships are "reduced... to a mere money relation" and the only freedom is "free trade". Nothing else is respected or valued. These trends exposed with ferocious passion by the young Marx and Engels are the ones which dominate our world today. Despite this amazing analysis of the destructive power and anti-human nature of capitalism, nevertheless 160 years later it is still the dominant force in the world. The opposing power of the socialist world, socialist and progressive movements, the anti-imperialist forces and the non-aligned movement no longer represents the challenge that it did in the 70-odd years from 1917 to 1989. The major capitalist powers have become thoroughly reactionary with shrinking or vanishing communist parties. Social democracy has virtually disappeared in Britain and is being attacked and eroded elsewhere.
The state of Britain's coal industry and its workforce
In 1983/4, with a workforce of 191,700, the National Coal Board (NCB) produced 90.1million tons of deep mined coal from 170 collieries.
Barry Johnson looks at the decline of the coal industry in Britain and the impact this has had on the miners and their trades union organisations.
The great miners' strike occurred in 1985. In the year immediately preceding the denationalisation of the industry (1992/3) 31,700 workers turned out 61.8 million tons from 17 collieries. Since 1984 there has been a constant overall decline of employment in the industry matched by an equally constant increase in the rate of exploitation as measured by output per man shift (opms). There are some indications that this decline might be slowing down, or even reversing. A number of collieries including Harworth (Nottinghamshire) are kept on a care and maintenance regime while Hatfield, in South Yorkshire has been taken out of 'care and maintenance' following an injection of £50 million from the Russian VTB Bank Europe after the Russian coal producer Kuzbbassrazrezugal (KRU) had taken a 51% interest in Hatfield's owner, Power Fuel. A new drift mine under development in the Neath Valley is now extracting 'development coal' with economic production anticipated in early 2008; it is estimated that the mine will be capable of 1 million tons per year and plans are afoot to open more pits in Wales. At the end of May Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, gave his backing to 'clean coal technology' which is being introduced to that country's two coal fired power stations as well as a bid to open a new deep coal mine at Canonbie in Dumfriesshire which has reserves of 400 million tonnes, sufficient to run Longannet power station for 80 years.
Mandela's Continuing Walk to Freedom
In 1999 Nelson Mandela stepped down as South Africa's first democratically elected President after one term in office, and moved, apparently, into a well-deserved retirement.
Verne Harris tells the story of the Mandela Archive.
The appearance of Nelson Mandela's withdrawal from public life did not last long. He quickly founded the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF), which joined the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund he had established five years earlier as a charity designed to continue his work. Soon after his retirement, he acknowledged publicly his regret at not having acted sooner in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic ravaging the country - not surprisingly HIV became a focus of his energies after 1999. This led to the NMF setting up an HIV/AIDS programme and to the launching of the 46664 campaign.
His interests in education and young people resulted in the NMF setting up an education programme, initially dedicated to building schools with money raised by him but soon broadening its focus. In 2003 Mr Mandela founded The Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, built around a scholarship programme but aiming more broadly to promote leadership in Africa. I could go on detailing the work Mr Mandela has presided over since 1999, but I think I've made my point. For him the long walk to freedom is a continuing walk. To quote the final sentences of his 1994 autobiography: "I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
Breaking the silence over the "Miami Five"
In July 2007 Gina Nicholson paid a visit to Cuba for her daughter Rachel's wedding and in the process learned of yet another US violation against socialist Cuba. Gina tells the story of her visit and of Cuba's fight to free the "Miami Five" imprisoned by the US government on spurious charges. www.freethefive.org
We were sailing round the Cuban coast off Havana. With the wind in my hair and the sun at my back, I asked Sesun, "What are those black flags, there?" I had seen them before from the window of my hotel room. The Hotel Nacional is a national monument. It has a 1930s charm combined with a very Cuban, socialist warmth. High on one of its walls is a huge poster: "Viva La Patria!" Near the hotel, right on the coast, is the American Embassy.
Sesun was the boat's entertainer. She was teaching my granddaughter to dance in the Cuban manner. "Use your shoulders!" A cross hung round her neck and I guessed she was not a wholehearted supporter of Fidel's government. But she knew all about the black flags. "They are for the five heroes. You do not know about our five heroes?" She was talking about the Miami Five, arrested by the US government nine years ago and imprisoned on spurious charges and after a flawed trial.
"And their children have not seen their fathers for nine years. And what they are accused of - that is not true. So we built the black flags in front of the American Embassy and we have went there - gone there - and made a spectacle, you know, a show - "A demonstration?" "Si, a demonstration, many, many of us, to say we support our heroes and we do not agree with the Americans."
India: Divide and Rule Britannia
2007 is the 60th anniversary of Indian Independence and the 150th anniversary of the Indian Mutiny. Both of these events were of great significance and continue to have resonance today.
We mark both of these historic events by reproducing articles and writings by Marx, Rajani Palme Dutt and Neil Stewart at the time they took place.
The Indian Mutiny was one of the most significant rebellions against British Imperial rule. Its significance is indicated by the fact that two Commissions, more than twenty years apart, reviewed the causes of the mutiny and the lessons to be learned in order to retain British control of India.
Karl Marx as a correspondent for the New York Tribune wrote an article, The Indian Revolt, published in 1857, in the year of the Mutiny (defined as 'Mutiny' by the British Imperialists: see Commentary, ). We are re-printing this article as it is still apposite today. Marx began the article, "The Roman Divide et empera was the great rule by which Great Britain, for about one hundred and fifty years, continued to retain the tenure of her Indian empire..."
Marx's article captures beautifully his insight into the politics and practices of Imperialism and shows the continuing relevance of the writings of Marx.
The lessons of the Indian Mutiny were well drawn and applied militarily and politically by British Imperialism and not just in India. These lessons are spelled out in the article, "Imperialism and the Indian Army", by Neil Stewart published by The Labour Monthly in May 1947. The mass of evidence taken by the Commissions "showed how the Mutiny had been made easy by the fact that caste and religious differences in the old Bengal Army had been smoothed away
