Porto, Portugal – At an event in Porto on July 4 attended by around 200 people, leaders of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) firmly condemned the privatization of a key state energy company, Efacec, to a German shareholder. Mutares, the German shareholder, submitted a bid to acquire a 71% ownership of the currently nationalized company that specializes in transformers, appliances and equipment, automation solutions and electric mobility.

The Communist Party leaders who spoke at the event said that this new privatization would deepen the process of deindustrialization and have a serious impact on the country's financial situation, negatively impacting the working class.

Paulo Raimundo, general secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, spoke at the event in Porto, condemning the privatization and announcing actions the Communist Party will take to try to stop it. One action he said the party will take is that its members who are elected to the Assembly of the Republic will present a resolution there to try to block the imminent privatization.

Privatization and other harms inflicted on the Portuguese economy by multinational capital have resulted in one in five people leaving Portugal to work in richer countries – the highest emigration rate in the European Union.

#PortoPortugal #Porto #Portugal #EU #PCP #Europe

We demand the life we deserve, a life with modern rights based on our time, a better future for us and our children.

Two weeks have passed since the crime in Tempe, Larissa and the country is shaking with anger and daily struggle. The strike on March 8 that shook every city in the country with the pulse of the workers and youth, the big rallies, the daily mobilizations, the banners in schools, neighborhoods, stadiums are the best answer to those who try to hide the crime and to shake off all responsibility.

The demand not to cover up the crime in Tempe means to strengthen now the struggle against the system of profit, its state and its governments. This means that the whole country to go on halt again on Thursday March 16, the day of a nationwide General strike.

PAME called on all trade unions, the National Federations, the Regional Trade Union Centers, the base level unions, to take into their hands the preparation for the success of the strike on 16 March! To make use of every second, to work night and day to reach every workplace, the factories, the yards, the ports, the shops, the hotels.

Let Thursday’s strike become a volcano of struggle that the voice of those killed in the murderous trains to be heard all over the country!

Their profits – Our dead!

The days pass, but nothing can erase the real responsibilities of the murder in Tempe! It is now clearer that the cause of treating human life as fuel for the profitability of business groups is not some personal oversight or a simple human error.

The culprit is the state of the few, the policy of commercialisation that degrades human life and weighs it in the cost-benefit ratio, where the cost is the life of the people and the benefit is the profits of the business groups.

We have around us more ‘valleys of the Tempe’!

All these days, there is a growing concern in the minds of many workers from every sector, from every workplace.

Is it modern and normal for our lives to be characterized by the phrase “we go and whatever happens”? To start our shift with our lives on the line? The dozens of workplace “accidents”, i.e. the employer crimes that are on the increase, have the same cause as the crime in Tempe. The profits of the few! Our safety, the protection of human life is being squeezed to the limits of corporate profitability. Low “cost” is the cheap worker, the worker who works without protection measures, the worker whose access to the public and free health care system is made more difficult, who is pushed to the private clinics for his health.

In the system of profit and exploitation, “good” transport is the expensive transport with the lowest possible wage costs. This is why behind the windows of the “silver arrows” on the Greek railways, the telecommand system was non-existent, layoffs and retrenchment of workers led to cuts in safety and intensification of work, with outsourcing escalating (e.g. cleaners). These are now coming to light despite persistent warnings from workers and their unions.

We do not fit a life where protection comes at a cost, dignity will lie between evictions and auctions of homes, wage raises-breadcrumbs which force us to cut even basic necessities. We must not accept a future that is being prepared for a life of living on coupons and dying on a one-way ticket.

You count profits and losses – We count human lives!

Not only is it not modern but it’s outrageous to count 2 more dead, young workers in the last 10 days and this passes in silence. We cannot accept living in agony whether we will return on two feet back to our families because in modern ghettos, intensification is harvesting deaths along with occupational diseases, which are on the increase due to the lack of health and safety measures.

Questions have been raised especially in the last few days about the simple things that are not taken for granted. Where are the emergency exits in stations, in workplaces? What escape plan is there in large workplaces in case of natural disasters? Where are the famous occupational physicians in large factories, in logistics, in large shopping centers, in workplaces where large numbers of workers are concentrated? The lack of safety measures seems to exist in all transport, in buses, trolleybuses, metro, trams, ferries, airports! This is what the unions in these sectors have been denouncing for years. Now they must be listened to, now immediate action must be taken to ensure that human lives do not become mere numbers.

The experience of the last 12 years and the tragic disasters that have put their stamp on this course of capitalist barbarism confirm that there are no “messiahs”! Our lives are worth living and we want them safe for ourselves and especially for our children! Dozens are the young people who “didn’t make it”. We will not let it pass!

It is a debt for every worker, every young person and youth, to continue to demand the obvious: The crime must not be covered up!

To strengthen the struggle for:

• Modern, safe, cheap mass transport against the policy that puts the safety of passengers and the rights of workers in the balance of the costs and profitability of business groups.
• The strengthening of the public and free health care system
• Immediate flood, fire and earthquake protection measures. Control here and now of earthquake armoring in schools, colleges, hospitals, workplaces.
• Immediate measures to protect health and safety in all workplaces.
• Recruitment of permanent staff in health, education, social services, civil protection services
• Let the whole country STOP again on Thursday!

EVERYONE ON STRIKE!

#Greece #Labor #generalStrike #Europe

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following message of condolences from the leadership of Freedom Road Socialist Organization to the Workers Party of Belgium.

November 16, 2022

To: Workers Party of Belgium

From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Dear Comrades,

We were saddened to hear the news of the passing of Jean Pestieau, and we send out condolences to the Workers Party of Belgium and Jean’s family and friends.

As a leading comrade in the PTB International Department, comrade Jean was friend, advisor and inspiration to revolutionaries around the world. He had was extremely knowledgeable, yet modest. He was friendly and diplomatic, yet firm on issues of principle. Jean was always ready to answer questions and explain his point of view in a down-to-earth way. He was an example of what a communist should be.

Many leading comrades of Freedom Road Socialist Organization had the opportunity to met with Jean, and the comrade played a role in the development of our organization. We benefited greatly from his political clarity and helpful advice. When we met with the PTB in the mid-1990s, a period before the internet, it made a huge difference to find comrades who were thinking along the same lines as we were.

Comrade Jean was an outstanding fighter for socialism who never doubted that humanity has a socialist future. He will be missed by many.

In solidarity,

Mick Kelly

Political Secretary of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

#UnitedStates #WorkersPartyOfBelgium #Belgium #Europe

Gelsenkirchen, Germany – The Marxist Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) celebrated its 40th anniversary with a weekend of celebration from August 25-28. Among the 1500 who attended were party members from across Germany, their families, residents of the local community, and international guests representing revolutionary parties and organizations from 31 countries across five continents. Andy Koch, the National Organizer of Freedom Road Socialist Organization attended the celebration.

The climax of the weekend on Saturday, August 27, was the unveiling of a new statue of German revolutionary thinker Karl Marx, which joins the statue of Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin which has stood on the lawn of the MLPD headquarters complex since 2020.

Before the unveiling, MLPD Chairwoman Gabi Flechner led a ceremony honoring comrades with more than 40 years of membership. These veterans were nearly all retired industrial workers, with decades of experience organizing in the factories and mines of Germany while also building revolutionary organization. Today, the membership of the MLPD remains more than 70% workers, and includes many nationalities.

The weekend program included seminars, workshops, discussion forums and cultural performances. Topics included the history of the MLPD, the importance of theoretical work in party-building, and current work among the industrial working class.

A discussion on the importance of theoretical work in the task of Marxist-Leninist party building was opened with a presentation by Stefan Engel, who was chairman of the party for 35 years. He currently oversees the production of the MLPD's theoretical organ, Revolutionärer Weg (Revolutionary Way). Engel explained the systematic and collective way in which the party trains all cadre not only to read and study the classics of Marxism-Leninism, but to grasp the dialectical method, which lies at the heart of these writings and to learn to apply it to current concrete conditions.

Immediately before the opening event of the celebration weekend was the first ICOR (International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations) Women's Conference, an effort to build and advance theory and practice of revolutionaries around the question of women's liberation. Many in attendance will participate in the upcoming World Women's Conference in Tunis, Tunisia September 3-10. Monika Gärtner-Engel, a long-time MLPD leader, current head of the party's international department, and main coordinator of ICOR, addressed the conference, emphasizing that women make up a large and growing section of the working class, and that the struggle against oppression of women is an important issue for revolutionary organizations to engage in both practically and theoretically.

The day after the MLPD 40th anniversary weekend, a joint international seminar of ICOR and the MLPD was held. The international representatives from 31 countries discussed along with German comrades the issue of the development of new imperialist countries, the tasks of party building and the practical organization of an international united front against war and fascism.

#GelsenkirchenGermany #Gelsenkirchen #Europe #PeoplesStruggles #Socialism #MarxismLeninism #MarxistLeninistPartyOfGermany

Porto, Portugal – Around 100 people gathered in the northern Portuguese city of Porto to show solidarity with the Cuban revolution. They came together at the People's University of Porto (Universidade Popular de Porto, UPP) to demand an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

The United States government imposed a blockade to strangle the Cuban economy soon after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Ilda Figueiredo, representing the Portuguese Cuban Solidarity Association, gave a sharp message condemning the oppression that Cubans face on a daily basis due to the U.S. blockade.

Claudia Amador González, ambassador of Cuba in Portugal joined the meeting via video conference to express, “the importance of international solidarity with Cuba, and that every effort done in favor of Cuba is very important, since we need to fight the blockade from everywhere.”

The participants chanted “Cuba vencerá!” (Cuba will win) to demonstrate that the Cuban revolution isn't isolated or forgotten internationally, and that the Cuban socialist system is seen as a great hope for humanity.

At the end of the meeting all the participants committed to continuing the fight and to coming together in solidarity with Cuba.

#PortoPortugal #Porto #Cuba #PeoplesStruggles #Portugal #Europe

Lisbon, Portugal – Thousands of Portuguese workers marched July 7 to condemn inflation and stagnant wages.

People traveled from across the country to gather in Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal. Many traveled by train from Porto, the biggest city in the northern region of Portugal, where the train departed from Campanhã Train Station with around 800 protesters aboard.

The thousands converged on Marqués de Pombal Park in Lisbon then marched to the Portuguese parliament. They demanded a 35-hour work week without salary reduction, a minimum salary of €850 (around $865), an end to employment insecurity, and permanent work contracts to avoid financial instability. They also demanded pension adjustments to keep up with the rising cost of food and housing.

Many call center workers joined the protest to speak out against their job insecurity, inflation and stagnant wages.

The protesters chanted, “A luta continúa,” which in Portuguese means “The struggle continues!”

The Confederação Geral de Trabalhadores Portugueses (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers – CGTP) organized this demonstration to strengthen the fight of the Portuguese people against neoliberalism and to stand up for union rights, for better working conditions and for increased investment in public services and social functions of the state.

Jerónimo de Sousa, General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party joined the protesters to express solidarity and commitment to the struggles of Portuguese workers.

In spite of the hot weather during the march, the protesters succeeded in expressing their disagreement with the growth of social injustice and disparity in the context of the COVID pandemic.

#LisbonPortugal #Lisbon #Europe #PeoplesStruggles #Portugal #ConfederaçãoGeralDeTrabalhadoresPortugueses #CGTP #PortugueseCommunistParty

Fight Back News Service is circulating this account of an important protest by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

On Tuesday, May 31, members of the Thesprotia Sectoral Organization of the KKE proceeded with a symbolic blockade of a convoy of 17 NATO military vehicles from the UK returning from a NATO exercise in the Balkans, outside the port of Igoumenitsa.

The protesters demanded that the port of Igoumenitsa should not be used as a base of the imperialists, sending a message against our country’s involvement in the imperialist war.

Police forces attempted to intimidate the protesters; however, their efforts failed thanks to the determination and composure of the communists. After blocking the road for some time, the members of the KKE left in an organized manner.

#Greece #AntiwarMovement #Europe #PeoplesStruggles #CommunistPartyOfGreece

The struggle for peace and for the democratic demands of the workers and others oppressed by imperialism is the necessary condition for preventing aggressive imperialist wars and fascism. Since the end of World War II and the advent of the nuclear arms race, the fight for peace and democracy must be one united struggle.

As a freedom fighter in the U.S. I’m opposed to my government claiming that it is a defender of democracy in Europe while it fails to muster up the courage and fortitude to defend democracy in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, or New York. Our government has failed to save the lives of hundreds of thousands during this pandemic, is not building back better, is not addressing the insidious attacks against democracy organized by Trump and his fascist hyenas.

People can shamelessly utter the words of Dr. King, saying “I have a dream” and equate that with a clarion call for war but this is merely indicative of the fact that the U.S. is ready to wage war in the name of defending democracy.

We must reject this blatant hypocrisy that war prosecuted by imperialists can bring peace and democracy. War carried out by the imperialists can only bring an end to democracy, can only bring death and destruction to the peoples of the world.

Frank Chapman

Executive Director

National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression

#ChicagoIL #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #Ukraine #Russia #Europe

Dallas, Texas – On March 6, over 30 anti-war protesters showed up at the Grassy Knoll in downtown Dallas to condemn NATO's involvement in Ukraine, its hostility to Russia, and to call for the disbanding of NATO. The protest was called by the Dallas Anti-War Committee, CODEPINK Dallas, Dallas Peace and Justice Center, Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialist of America, and Party for Socialism and Liberation. Signs present at the protest included “Peace in Ukraine! No to NATO!” “No to NATO expansion” and “Abolish NATO!”

“Over the past couple of weeks, a war has broken out between Russia and Ukraine. The American media and government tend to ascribe Russian aggression as to the reason for this war. This war, however tragic it may be, however is not the result of Russia simply deciding to invade and annex Ukraine. The causes for this war can be traced several decades ago with the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and its subsequent expansion decades later,” stated Cassandra Swart of the Dallas Anti-War Committee.

#DallasTexas #DallasTX #International #AntiwarMovement #Europe #PeoplesStruggles #NATO #NoToNatoNoToWar #Ukraine #NoWarWithRussia

So who is the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America? It's basically the Ukrainian version of the pro-Nazi German-American Bund. It was founded in 1940 to conduct propaganda in the U.S. in favor of anti-Semitic Ukrainian quisling organizations that would collaborate with the Nazi Wehrmacht and SS during the war, sending hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Polish Jews to their deaths in the extermination camps of the Third Reich.

The organization has a leadership body called the National Council, composed of groups like the Society of Veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a fascist paramilitary that helped the Nazis round up Jews and communists. Another notable National Council member is the Brotherhood of Veterans of the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army. Another name for the Ukrainian National Army is 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. It was also known as the 14th SS Volunteer Division Galicia. Their führer was Pavlo Shandruk, who was responsible to the German High Command.

One of the Nazi dog-whistles they use is “renewed independence.” This is not simply a reference to the paperwork signed in 1991 that put post-Soviet Ukraine on the path to becoming a U.S. satellite state. It is a reference to a different, earlier phase of fake “independence” as a part of the Third Reich in WWII. They close their letter with the infamous phrase, “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Our Heroes!”, which is the Galician Nazi version of “Sieg Heil!”

The current “independent” regime in the failed state known as Ukraine (now officially the poorest country in Europe) dates back to violent, Nazi-led 2014 Maidan coup. This orgy of anarchic violence led, with U.S. assistance, to the illegal overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovich, who was forced to flee the country. The post-Maidan ruling junta has been a revolving-door government of billionaire oligarchs backed by their privately-owned Nazi paramilitaries. The term “external governance” has been coined by Ukrainian dissidents to describe Kiev's relationship with Washington.

The oligarchic regime has tried to impose a right-wing agenda that is discriminatory against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east.

After it became clear that the Kiev junta intended to impose this reactionary agenda by force, Russian-speaking Ukrainians formed their own independent republics, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic (DPR-LPR). The regime of the Galician oligarchs responded to this by unleashing a war against civilians in the LPR-DPR. Most Ukrainian soldiers have no taste for the blood of their sisters and brothers in the east, so the murder of civilians has been left up to the state-sanctioned Nazi paramilitaries like the infamous Azov Battalion and the Misanthropic Division.

The Chicago parade has nothing to do with Ukrainian “independence” because Ukraine isn't independent. Rather, it is a celebration of the OUN-UPA WWII Nazi puppet state and the genocide it carried out against Jewish Ukrainians, communists and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. All progressives, people of conscience, anti-racists and revolutionaries should condemn this outrageous fascist provocation.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #Ukraine #fascism #Antifascism #Europe

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Italian Marxist- Leninist organization Fronte Popolare.

“Health is first and foremost, but without money no masses are sung”: so, we read on one of the many banners laid out during the spontaneous protest marches in Naples in these hours. The contrast between health and work, between physical well-being and economic well-being is a choice that in a real democracy we should not even imagine to make. Yet this is the choice put in front of us, in the South as well as in the North, throughout the all country. While the North – and especially the Milan metropolitan area – tend to maintain a modest semblance of widespread economic well-being, the same is not true in the large cities of the South. Naples is the third largest city in Italy and perhaps the most important in the whole South. And it is here that the expected anger of those who have to choose between health and work erupts.

The easy para-journalistic theory of the conspiracy by the mafia does not hold this time. Above all, artisans and self-employed people are mobilized, crushed by an economic crisis that has been going on for over ten years and that worsened in the hot months of the first wave of the covid. If we superimpose the structural character of the crisis of the South on top of this emergency, it is easy to expect the radicalization, in some ways violent, of the riot. And the detestable and instrumental participation of fascist organizations, which generally do not gather a large consensus in the south of the country, does not explain this radicalization.

Beside the shop keepers take to the street all the others, including the sub proletariat. And that someone has taken advantage of this to perform “criminal” acts, this does not explain even a little bit the participation extended to the many sectors in crisis of the catering and artisans. That is, of that micro-enterprise, the backbone of the real economy of our country, which actually produces a good part of the national wealth. The rent, the salaries, the ruthless competition of the web big companies (Amazon in the lead, which since the beginning of the pandemic has seen their earnings grow exponentially), the incessant and depressing bureaucracy: all these factors have concurred in progressively pushing the small business owners out from the middle class. Over time, the proletarization of that middle class in which shop keepers and artisans were inserted has become increasingly evident. For this reason, they are protesting against the announced curfew ordered by the Campania Region of Vincenzo De Luca, who in the precedent days was the first among the Presidents of the Regions to review the model of the school in attendance developed by the government. Already the day after the riots, De Luca finally put in standby the plan for a full lock down of the region. He claims now that such provision is unfeasible without the support of the central government.

It should not scandalize the violence of the masses, but the choice we have come to have to make: health or work. In the wake of the age-old Taranto issue – where we still have to bargain between having a meal on the table and trying to survive the harmful fumes of ILVA, so we have to choose whether to risk “catching” the coronavirus or not to reach the end of the month. The issue of the covid, throughout Italy and with greater vigor in the tormented South, has simply opened up a whole series of pots in which, for too long, has wallowed in the great business bourgeoisie, colluded with the crookedness, which has shared among itself the cake of health care, transport, services.

We must say once and for all that the problem is not “curfew yes or no”, the problem is which social and economic system we have built up until now and which, instead, we must start to imagine right now. The State must regain ownership of all strategic sectors: centralize decisions on health care, which should be 100% public; have a public transport infrastructure plan in line with the population density of each area of the country; provide when necessary concrete economic aid to the most vulnerable sectors of the population. Finally, the State should identify and strike the organized crime with the violence necessary to re-establish the sacrosanct concept that a citizen will never again have to borrow money from usurers – as many shop-owners are often forced to do. Restore the essential principle: health and work are not and must never again be opposed.

#Italy #Europe #PeoplesStruggles #COVID19 #FrontePopolare

While there are numerous reports of tampering and confusion regarding foreign ballots, as Polish people who live abroad – from the U.S. to the different European Union states – get to participate, it should also be stressed what the election means for Poland. Duda and the Prawo I Sprawiedliwosc (PiS) represent the worst elements of reaction that have come out since the 1989 fall of the People’s Republic of Poland, which ended socialism.

Just a brief list of controversies connected to the PiS-led administration since 2015 includes their repeated attempts to further restrict access to abortion despite Poland already having some of the most restrictive laws on abortion; their refusal to allow Syrian refugees settle in Poland; the continued attack against leftist organizers and activists by attempting to make the KPP, the Communist Party of Poland, and any Marxist-Leninist organizing illegal; illegally attempting to sack Constitutional Judges the PiS did not place in order to seat PiS-lackeys in 2015 and 2017; and finally their sickening attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in Poland, which has led to one third of the country, specifically 100 municipalities and five “vovoidships” (think Polish equivalent of states) declaring themselves “LGBT Ideology-Free Zones” as of July 2020.

Duda himself, on the campaign trail a day before the first round of elections, had called the LGBTQ+ community “worse than communism!” And all the forces of reaction, from ‘trade union’ Solidarnosc that toppled the People’s Republic via CIA funding to the hyper-conservative sections of the Catholic Church, have gathered around in supporting the PiS in their attempt to make Poland as it ‘once’ was. Poland’s independence day, November 11, has become a prop for these reactionaries – as they have infamously gathered in Warszawa for years on end with thousands saying “Pure Poland, white Poland,” and to make Poland remain “White, Catholic and Polish!”

We will need to give our support and solidarity with those in Poland fighting against the reactionary regime of Andrzej Duda and the PiS.

Nie dla Duda, Nie dla Faszyzmu, Wolna Polska!

No Duda, No Fascism, Free Poland!

#Poland #Europe #CommunistPartyOfPoland

Fight Back! interviewed Andy Brooks, General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain, on the impact of the pandemic in Britain. Fight Back!: How are the working people of Britain being impacted by the pandemic?

Brooks: Well the pandemic is something no one in living memory has ever experienced. Thousands of workers, including many pensioners, have died due to the coronavirus. The emergency measures that were eventually taken in late March have now reduced the mortality rate. But many of those deaths could have been avoided if the Johnson government had taken emergency action when COVID-19 first spread to Britain at the beginning of the year.

Most schools and all “non-essential” shops have been closed for over two months, along with all sporting and social events under a lockdown regime not seen since the Second World War.

The government’s emergency measures to stave off social unrest were taken in consultation with the unions as well as Labour and the other opposition parties in Parliament. These included the suspension of business rates for small firms, extending sick pay and increased NHS [National Health Service] funding and providing subsidies for furloughed workers and the self-employed. But they only went part of the way to tackling the escalating threat of a devastating epidemic that has stretched the health service to its limits and seriously undermined the economy at the same time.

Workers have responded cautiously to the easing of some of the restrictions in June. Boris Johnson’s decision to shelve the plan to get primary school pupils back into the classroom before the summer break was welcomed by parents and teachers fearful of a premature return that could trigger off a second wave of the coronavirus plague, particularly given the government’s failure to get an adequate track and test system running and still no sign of a COVID-19 vaccine in sight.

Fight Back!: Are the big factories and large workplaces still functioning? If so, how are workers resisting?

Brooks: Manufacturers were exempted from the UK coronavirus clampdown on “non-essential” work, travel and gatherings. Staff were encouraged to work from home in large parts of the financial sector but in other areas the imposition of social distancing has led to massive cuts in their services.

The social restrictions, which banned all meetings of more than two people, has paralyzed the unions at the grassroots level. Many national union elections have been deferred for a year and all union conferences have been postponed until September at the earliest. The union bureaucracies, of course, continue to function and at a national level; they continue to negotiate with employers while lobbying the Labour Party leadership and the government in the usual way. But the rank and file have not been completely side-lined. While health service workers’ demands for personal protective equipment have still to be adequately met, transport and postal workers have had more success by threatening or taking wildcat action to enforce health and safety demands.

The actions of some Royal Mail depot managers, [which were] indifferent to the government’s emergency health and safety regulations, led to worker walkouts in a number of sorting offices in April that forced management to deep clean the sites and enforce the two metre spacing guidelines.

In London at least 33 London bus drivers have died from COVID-19 and a further ten underground and railway staff have also fallen to the deadly infection. In the absence of any serious response from management, many drivers began taping off the front of their buses to avoid close contact with passengers. This forced Transport for London to suspend all bus fares on April 20 when passengers were banned from using the front door in a bid to shield drivers because the emergency measure meant the card reader next to the driver's cab was out of bounds.

Now we’re seeing workers, particularly young workers, taking to the street in support of the new Black Lives Matter campaign that erupted over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. When they pulled down the statue of the Bristol slave dealer Edward Colston and dumped it in the river last week they sent a message to the ruling class that goes far beyond the issue of the trans-Atlantic slave trade which built the British Empire in the first place.

Fight Back!: How does your organization view the government's response to the pandemic?

Brooks: The Tory government’s response has been evasive and ambiguous. It’s led by Boris Johnson, a vain man clearly unfit to hold public office even by the low standards of the Tory Party he leads. Initially Boris Johnson’s plan for dealing with the coronavirus plague was to let the infection sweep through the population to keep people working to protect the capitalist economy, while accepting that tens of thousands of vulnerable elderly people would die prematurely as a consequence. But Johnson was forced to abandon the “herd immunity” ideas of his Rasputin, Dominic Cummings, which would have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable pensioners, through public pressure that included doctors and pensioners’ groups.

Government figures say that some 41,000 people have died, so far, from coronavirus. Others say the real death toll, when all the deaths in care homes are factored in, is much, much higher. What is certain is that Britain has the highest death rate in the whole of Europe. The easing of the lockdown has led to a surge in the numbers returning to work in central London. Trains and buses are, once again, packed in the rush hours, firing fears that a new round of infection will spread like wildfire across the capital.

Fight Back!: What is the New Communist Party doing in response to this crisis?

Brooks: Our regular fund-raising events have been cancelled. We cannot hold public meetings. Our bookshop outlets are closed and our street sales have been suspended. This has produced a cash-flow problem, but our supporters have responded to the call and our weekly paper continues to come out, as it always has since 1977, for regular subscribers who receive it in the post.

As soon as we can, we will return to campaigning on the street. In the meantime, we fight to put the communist answer to the capitalist crisis back on the working-class agenda in the columns of our paper and in the social media. We stand for Marxism-Leninism. We fight for peace and socialism, solidarity with Venezuela and national liberation movements all around the world and the people’s democracies of China, Cuba, Democratic Korea, Laos and Vietnam. We’ve got plenty to say and everything we’ve said in the past has been proved right.

Our paper represents the voice of struggle in all its forms. It gives a clear communist line on the issues of the day, a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the problems facing the working class and it provides a window to the world communist movement and the national liberation movement; the bigger the readership, the greater our influence. This is our paramount task.

#Britain #International #CapitalismAndEconomy #Opinion #Europe #Healthca