We currently have live issues 11, 12 and 14. 15 is being worked on now. We will then probably start from issue 1, this is due to the number of articles which reference previously published ones making the process slightly easier.

The most current issue available is issue 16. To purchase this or any other issue go to the Contact/Subscribe page.

Issue 17 will be published soon. We aim to have an issue go live on the site no more than 1 issue behind publishing schedule and will occasionally publish other articles. Real life can interfere in this schedule though.

Mass actions

In that time, the SSP MSPs have played a tremendous role in being at the forefront of working class and democratic campaigns throughout Scotland. From the nursery nurses fight for better pay, the fight to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons, to campaigning against the war in Iraq, against the G8 at Gleneagles and defending the right to stay of asylum seekers, our MSPs have been at protests, picket lines and demonstrations, participating in mass actions, not embedded behind the brushed metal and the distressed pine of the Scottish parliament building.

The Scottish parliament will never legislate socialism

However, the impact of having six MSPs revealed that the party was, initially not best prepared to deal with the demands placed on them. This criticism is not aimed at our MSPs. Instead the party needs to take responsibility for the accountability and activity of any elected representatives whether they are MSPs, councillors or trade union representatives.

The political situation has changed quite considerably since May 2003. In some ways, conditions have improved for socialists. The Labour Party continues to rule at Westminster, Holyrood and in many local councils. They continue to pursue a mixed agenda of right wing populism and the promotion of corporate interests. These include attacks on civil rights, the criminalisation of large sections of society, the ‘War on terror’, the Iraq war, PFI and privatisation, cash for honours and the cover-up over the BAe corruption enquiry.

In some ways this year’s Holyrood election resembles a replay of the 1997 Westminster election. Then, New Labour was able to win a substantial vote from all those people thoroughly disaffected, after 18 years of Tory rule. Now, the SNP hopes to garner a protest vote from people disillusioned both with Blair’s wretched Westminster government and McConnell’s toadying Scottish Executive. In 1997, New Labour promised us, Things could only get better in the UK; now the SNP is, in effect, promising us, ‘Things can only get better in Scotland’. However, the SNP’s social democratic credentials are also fading fast as its business-friendly, independence-lite policies attracts some of the great and the good of Corporate Scotland.

Electoral gift

Yet, the SNP has been handed an
electoral gift on a plate. In 2003 many people looked to the united SSP to protest against warmongering New Labour. The SNP was weak. Now it is the Left which is divided, and a lot of the protest vote will go to the SNP in 2007.

Therefore, things are far worse for the Left in Scotland than in 2003. The events around the libel trial instigated by Tommy Sheridan in the summer 2006 have had a seriously detrimental effect on the struggle for socialism. His splitting of the SSP with the establishment of ‘Solidarity’ was a serious blow against the principle of socialist unity. (For extensive coverage of these issues see E&L 13 and Frontline Volume 2, Issue 2).

What does this mean for the Scottish parliament and council elections?

The SSP has taken the correct decision to stand candidates in all the Regional Lists. Unfortunately, so has Solidarity. Unless some sort of ‘socialist common sense’ prevails, based on a broader and more mature class perspective, this will ensure that the impact of any socialist vote will be diminished as it will be split between the two organisations. So who does this benefit?

This will serve to reignite the cynicism and defeatism by some sections of what’s the point in voting for any of you when you can’t get your act together to fight the real enemy.

The split by Solidarity has appeared to give added confidence to the BNP, announcing they intend to stand in all regional lists – something they have never attempted before. Surely this is no coincidence.

However, any socialist unity must be on a principled basis. At this time though, progress to any type of unity is extremely difficult. Electoral agreement is impossible while leading Solidarity members continue with their attempts to destroy the SSP. One concrete example of this is evidenced in a document presented to the National Steering Committee of Solidarity in December by Steve Arnott entitled Strategic objectives, priorities and tasks for May 2007. In it he writes:

A good result in the Scottish Parliament in 2007 would be the re-election of Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne as Solidarity MSPs, with the winning of any other regional seats and/or council seats a marvellous bonus. If, however, Solidarity can poll 2-3% elsewhere across the country, that would also give us the added benefit of assuring the wipeout of the SSP at Holyrood.

(emphasis added). Solidarity? More like sectarianism!

Sadly, the elections are likely to heighten the divisions and thereafter there will undoubtedly be recriminations. Despite this, the principled unity of all socialists or communists into a single organisation must still be our goal. Without it, socialism in a real sense is a pipe dream. The SSP is still the vehicle for that unity.

Whatever the outcome of these elections, as socialists we must be clear why we fight in bourgeois elections. Whether it is the Scottish parliament, local councils or Westminster, the principle is the same. Standing in these elections gives us an opportunity to raise the ideas of socialism in a period of heightened political activity. It enables us to win new recruits to the ideas of working class struggle, solidarity and socialism. Parliaments – Scottish, The Scottish parliament will never legislate socialism Westminster or European – could not legislate for socialism. The organised power of the capitalist state would not allow it. Socialism will only come about through the self organised, mass movement of the working class. This is why it is vital that socialist representatives, whether in local councils or at Holyrood, must remember that the cause of socialism is best served by being an organiser in their working class communities and by being a tribune of those communities when in the debating chambers.

(A more detailed analysis of the rise of Scottish nationalism is published on our website at: The SSP, ‘Independence First’ And The Scottish Independence Referendum)

Learn the lessons and defend the SSP

The last two years have been a turbulent and destructive time for the SSP. Starting with the Emergency Executive meeting in November 2004, which led to Tommy Sheridan’s resignation as convenor, through to the ordeal of the libel court case he brought in the full glare of the media, concluding with the split and the launch of Solidarity.

Most members, including many who have joined Solidarity, will have gone through emotional turmoil and will have kept asking the question – when will this all end so we can get back to fighting imperialism and rallying the working class to the cause of socialism?

As the dust settles over the chaos of the court battle and the impact of the split becomes clearer, it is time to attempt to make some assessment and ask some searching questions about where the SSP stands now, what its immediate tasks are and what are the lessons to be learnt?

In this edition of Emancipation & Liberation we attempt to bring together the central events and their political significance, supported by some of the key documents and articles produced to explain them.

It will be quite clear to the reader that we have not only reproduced those that support our position to stay in the SSP. We need to understand why others have walked away from the SSP. A drawing up of a balance sheet is vital, for socialists to learn the lessons of these regrettable events. The SSP conference in October will be significant in dealing with these and moving on.

Why did the RCN decide to stay with the SSP and not join Solidarity?

We are clear. The decision of Tommy Sheridan to pursue his court case against the unanimous advice of the SSP Executive Committee represented a rejection of inner party democracy and the accountability of party officials to the membership – an anti-party action, which has had dire consequences for the SSP. It was a gross political mistake.

The subsequent decision to form a new organisation, Solidarity, on little other political basis than personal support for Tommy Sheridan, represents a continuation of this anti-party action and heralds one of the most serious mistakes made by socialists in post war Scottish politics. It places personality and individual egos before principled politics. It weakens the working class in the face of the current ruling class offensive.

Sectarian agendas

The decision of the SWP and CWI to back this split, further demonstrates their own sectarian agendas. These organisations’ lack of commitment to principled socialist unity has already been clearly shown by their separate ‘unity’ initiatives in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland (Six Counties); whilst in Ireland (26 Counties) the SWP and CWI just promote their own organisations.

From the birth of the Scottish Socialist Alliance through to its transformation into the SSP and beyond, the RCN and its members have been partisan and dependable SSP activists. The political and organisational development of the SSPhas been at the core of our work. We continue to recognise that a united socialist party is essential if there is going to be any chance of socialism being established. In that sense unity is strength. To this end, the RCN has put the building of the SSP above the recruitment to our own platform. Unlike the SWP/CWI we have never seen ourselves as an alternative ‘leadership in waiting’ focussed on toppling the incumbents but rather concerned ourselves with promoting the major lessons of the international class struggle. First and foremost amongst these is the necessity of promoting and defending a comradely and democratic culture within a united socialist party, the SSP. A key strategy of the SSP was to unite the Left

However, while doing this we have also been fierce and vocal critics of some of the directions and policies that the SSP has pursued. We have not been afraid to voice our opposition to proposals that we feel would have a negative effect on the socialist movement in Scotland.

Socialist morality not bourgeois morality

One of the key lessons that must be learnt is that a socialist party must have a socialist morality at its core, informing its politics and practice. This should not be confused with bourgeois morality. This socialist morality has to be built on honesty, transparency, democracy, accountability and an absence of the hypocritical double standards displayed by bourgeois politicians. To establish genuine and lasting roots within the working class and to be worthy of the name Socialist, a socialist party must be honest with our class. Honesty has to extend from policies to organisational matters, such as membership figures and the numbers who attend demonstrations or meetings that we organise. The SWP is notorious amongst the left and the organised workers’ movement for deliberately inflating attendances at its events.

Do they not trust their readers and members with reality? How can the working class movement, and socialists within it, be expected to make informed decisions on deliberately distorted information? If you are fast and loose with the truth, why should workers trust you? To paraphrase Trotsky, one small cut can lead to gangrene!

Democracy, transparency and accountability must go hand in hand. These combine to act as a guard to ensure that the party leadership is in touch with the membership, reflecting and representing its collective view and acting as a check on the rise of the cult of a particular personality or leader.

For open and principled platforms

From its founding the SSP has, almost uniquely, allowed open platforms/factions to exist in our party. This is a healthy tradition that must continue. Some blame our current predicament on this tolerance of platforms. While the behaviour of some platform members has been unacceptable, this is also true for some SSP members who are not in platforms.

Furthermore, Tommy was himself a member of the International Socialist Movement, the dominant platform in the SSP, along with Alan McCombes and Keith Baldassara. A strong argument could be made that it was the weakening and decline of the ISM platform which removed much of the discipline that had reined in Tommy’s destructive ego, and permitted Tommy’s strengths as a communicator to be used for the benefit of the SSP. Principled and open platforms can be one way to increase accountability. The alternative can be the formation of an undeclared ‘leadership faction’, which tries to avoid accountability and hides the truth from the members.

The socialist transformation of society requires the widening and deepening of democracy within society including the democratic control over all the resources of society. This commitment to democracy must be reflected within any socialist organisation otherwise it is just another political cul-de-sac which working class activists and their allies should rightly shun.

1) We believe another world is possible – a genuine new world communism which emancipates us from all oppression and liberates us from all exploitation and forms a new sustainable relationship between humanity and the environment. We seek a society based on the principle of from each according to their ability; to each according to their needs, where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Socialism is not the ultimate aim. It can either be a phase on the way to a genuine communism or a temporary high point reached before a descent back into capitalism. The state ‘communism’ of the 20th century proved to be no answer either, but a barrier to achieving human emancipation and liberation. There are no socialist ‘gods’ – we treat al contributions critically and place most emphasis on popular struggles against exploitation and oppression.

2) We advocate the abolition of all forms of slavery – wage, domestic, chattel and debt. Such a society will be judged by its ability to revolutionise all political, economic, social, sexual and personal relationships.

The task before us involves the complete uprooting of al forms of exploitation and oppression. Some parties, tendencies or groups merely focus their attentions on one aspect of the problem – emphasising economic solutions (winning better wages or more control over the means of production), attaining political power, getting the theory right or combating male domination. All forms of slavery are linked under capitalism. Therefore, the resistance arising against each needs to be linked in a common challenge.

3) We are revolutionary democrats. A new society can only be built by a revolutionary extension of democracy. The fight for wider democracy is the key to building support for a total transformation of society through mass participation.

Top down revolutionary changes have led to new ruling elites and new repressive regimes. The least harmful have effected some economic and social improvements but have not transformed all social relationships, leaving real political power confined to a minority. The economy, when planned, must not just be for the people, but it must be by the people.

4) We are principled internationalists. We view the continued existence of the UK with its unionist, imperialist and monarchist state and its anti-democratic Crown Powers and enforced partition of Ireland as the biggest obstacle to immediate democratic advance in these islands. Therefore the struggle for democracy today within Britain and Ireland necessarily takes the form of a militant republicanism. We are part of the international socialist republican opposition in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England.

The history of the United Kingdom is a story of cooperation between an increasingly united British ruling class at the expense of the exploited and oppressed classes of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The UK imperial state with its Crown Powers gives this ruling class its continued strength. These Crown Powers give full sanction to the ‘hidden state’ with its armoury of repressive powers. Any serious challenge will soon come up against these powers as the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland found out. Only a popular republican struggle to confront the UK state and its powers can prepare the ground for a wider socialist challenge.

5) We fight for working class independence from the state and employers and for democratic control of all organisations formed to advance working class interests.

Elected-for-life trade union full-timers enjoy many privileges and have many more ties with the employers and state than their own members. They can not seriously advance working class interests, even if they started off wanting to. There is no chance of a few full-timers ‘doing it’ for our class. We need rank and file control and real democracy to ‘do it’ for ourselves. Neither can state controlled agencies, e.g. for women or ethnic minorities, seriously combat oppression. Independent organisations are needed for this.

6) We seek the unity of all genuine communists, socialists and socialist republicans in Scotland within the Scottish Socialist Party. We oppose all attempts to promote sectarian organisational advantage above socialist and working class unity. Within our party, the SSP, we advocate democratic discussion and debate; genuine comradeship and shared social and cultural enjoyment.

The members of the Republican Communist Platform have come together from varied political backgrounds. We have al had to learn to work together. We have all had to learn that we can sometimes be wrong; that our ideas can be revised without loss of face. We have gained enormously from each other. We have been involved in the SSA and SSP from an early stage; some as founding members. We have tried to encourage genuine debate and common work as the best way of bringing about real unity in the SSP. In debate this means being prepared to listen to uncomfortable contributions, rather than seeking the easy comfort of ridicule or pre-arranged voting down. We oppose the methods of petty sectarian point-scoring and bureaucratic manoeuvring. An organisation that can recognise when it is wrong is one that can learn, grow in strength and command respect. From the early days of the SSA the SSP has developed these methods of working but we will still be tested from time to time.

7) We promote an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy to counter the bureaucratic ‘internationalism’ of left Unionism and the separatism of left nationalism. In the current political situation we advocate a federation of socialist parties and organisations from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.

The SSP has mainly drawn together socialists from organisations from either a left unionist or left nationalist tradition. Much of the underlying divisions and tensions in the party reflect this. We oppose the top-down bureaucratic control sought by British unionists and the ‘go-it-alone’ separatism of the nationalists. We need a new strategy of ‘internationalism from below’. This seeks the widest level of cooperation between socialists and the wider working class of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as well as other socialists in Europe and across the world. Socialism is international.

The left is best known for being anti – anti-cuts, anti-poll tax, anti-Nazi, anti-fascist, anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-globalisation or anti-capitalist. Some will argue that as long as we stand as socialists or communists then it will be clear that we also offer a positive alternative. Unfortunately both words have become tarnished. Socialism has been used to describe a variety of states from National Socialist Germany to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; a whole host of authoritarian populist regimes in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and the now much diminished and compromised forces of social democracy. Communism became synonymous in many people’s minds with such brutal tyrannies as those led by Stalin, Hoxha, Kim Il-Sung and Pol Pot or the dull grey bureaucracies led by Honecker in East Germany and Husak in Czechoslovakia.

Since September 11th, Bush and Blair have raised the political stakes considerably by invoking the defence of civilisation and enduring freedom. Without offering this positive vision, these politicians would find it far harder to legitimise their new-found crusade – the Coalition Against Terror. If they confined themselves to being merely against terrorism, it certainly wouldn’t take long to expose their hypocrisy. It is indeed a strange Coalition Against Terror which includes the USA, Russia, China, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan and the Northern Alliance!

Triumphalism offers no positive vision

During the Cold War, US and British imperialist propagandists knew how important it was to oppose the socialist or communist challenge with a positive alternative – the defence of the free world. When USSR style communism/socialism imploded after 1989, George Bush senior coined the phrase the New World Order, whilst Francis Fukuyama hailed the end of history. But these phrases reeked merely of triumphalism and offered no positive vision.

This triumphalism became less certain as murderous civil wars maintained their momentum in Afghanistan, Somalia and Angola, even though their previous Great Power sponsors withdrew or lost interest. With the end of the bi-polar world dominated by the USA and USSR it became more difficult for the imperialist powers to calculate their immediate interests and intervene effectively. This situation allowed the embers of old civil wars to flare up or provided kindling for new ones. Hence the re/emergence of troubled hotspots from Algeria to Rwanda and Zaire; Palestine, Iraq Kashmir; and the Balkans, with its succession of wars.

Yet none of these conflicts presented a fundamental problem for the spin-doctors of the New World Order precisely because they offered no real threat to the imperialist heartlands. But a serious challenge did occur with the emergence of the Zapatistas. Just as the USA government launched the North American Free Trade Alliance, the prototype for US transnational corporation global domination of the world, a consciously internationalist anti globalist movement emerged in Mexico. This has acted as a beacon to all those challenging the New World Order. This has inspired an increasingly coordinated and international opposition.

The World Trade Organisation was forced to cancel some of its meetings in the face of massive opposition at Seattle, in the very heart of the beast – headquarters to Microsoft and Boeing. It became clear that the Capitalist Offensive, which took off after 1975, had finally produced the possible seeds of its own destruction. And up until September 11th, this anti globalisation/anti-capitalist movement continued to gain strength. The political high points last year were the meeting of the World Social Forum at Porte Alegre in Brazil in January and the fierce contest on the streets of Genoa in July, involving tens of thousands of Italian workers, along with trade unionists from elsewhere in Europe and the international left.

September 11th came as a shock not only to Bush but to the left as well. After Seattle it was possible to conceive of a massive anti globalism/anti-capitalism protest, which either blockaded or occupied the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon or the White House in Washington. The notion that a direct attack on the commercial and political capitals could be initiated in one of the most undeveloped countries on this planet, with such devastating impact, was beyond most people’s comprehension. Islamic supremacist organisations had caused problems for US imperialism in places such as Beirut, Aden and Dar-es-Salaam, but these were far away from the imperial metropoles. An earlier attack on the Twin Towers had been relatively ineffective, especially when compared with the terror launched in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh, one of the USA’s own domestic terrorists.

New challenge

Yet, clearly the emergence of al-Qaeda represented a new challenge. One of the reasons why Islamic supremacist organisations have been able to establish networks within the USA and UK, is that key personnel were initially invited into both these countries by their respective state security agencies. Such people were seen as key to organising opposition to the USSR and the secular, left nationalist PDPA in Afghanistan. Their terrorist capabilities were looked on most favourably then. For similar domestic political reasons, a whole host of terrorist and criminal organisations opposed to Cuba and to the left nationalist forces in Latin America have been able to operate freely from the USA; whilst the UK has been a haven for Italian fascists responsible for the Bologna bombings. These far right wing emigres were just not subjected to the same surveillance as those who were thought to have any sympathy (real or imagined) with the USSR. Fascism develops its initial strength by doing the dirty jobs that employers or governments cannot do or don’t want to be seen doing themselves.

In Afghanistan the CIA gave the most favoured treatment to the most reactionary and brutal forces, including those led by bin-Laden. Many fascist organisations never get beyond such a servicing role. Some though, such as those led by Mussolini and Hitler, utilise this training and official licence to attempt a later direct challenge to their previous masters. Bin-Laden’s Islamic supremacism had originally been sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabian and Pakistani states for purely local use. However, he gained in confidence, especially since he had been massively aided in the crushing of all progressive forces in both Afghanistan and north west Pakistan which could act as a restraint on his activities.

Islamic supremicism

After the defeat of the Taliban, al-Qaeda’s pan-Islamic world pretensions might now have been decisively punctured and no longer represent a fundamental threat to the Great Satan. However, clerical fascism still represents a double threat to the left. Many members of al-Qaeda and Taliban have quietly gone native. In their new role, many will attempt once more to revert to the servicing role they once performed for US and British imperialism (and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), particularly if the left and other revolutionary forces (e.g. the Labour Party Pakistan, Afghan Revolutionary Labour Organisation or the Revolutionary Alliance of Afghan Women) increase their influence. Islamic supremacists continue to murder socialists, trade unionists and women in the refugee camps, cities towns and villages of Pakistan.

The other threat lies in Bush and Blairs’ attempt to link the atrocities of September 11th with the left and the anti-globalisation/anti capitalist movement. Much of their drummed-up moral outrage is designed to disguise the fact that it had been US and UK imperialism, which had done so much to create the monsters which bit the hand that once had fed them. Indeed, so close were Bush’s personal connections with the Bin-Laden family, that those members still resident in the USA had to be quietly spirited out of the country immediately after September 11th to save him embarrassment!

USA: world’s number one rogue state

Furthermore, as leading American dissident, Noam Chomsky, has well demonstrated, the world’s number one rogue state is the USA itself. It has a record of mass killings stretching from Horishima and Nagasaki to Korea, Indo-China and Iraq. Yet, it is only the steady decline of British imperialism from its glory days in the nineteenth century, which has allowed the USA to usurp this particular title. The recent televised showings of Bloody Sunday and Sunday, along with the assasinations in Northern Ireland of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson, Martin O’Hagan and William Stobie, also highlight the fact that state terror is not confined to nasty rogue states in the Third World.

You can see why Bush and Blair are so desperate to deny responsibility for the murderous beasts they have created. If they can link the challenge of al-Qaeda to the challenge of the anti globalist/anti-capitalist left, they will have effectively offloaded their responsibility for the creation of the former, whilst better positioning themselves for the marginalisation of the latter.

Their task has become even more essential, now that easy military victories in Afghanistan threaten to be overshadowed by very obvious economic failures in Argentina. Argentina was meant to be the flagship economy which relaunched NAFTA to cover the whole of the Americas. The catastrophic collapse of the Argentinian economy and its abandonment of dollar parity represents a considerable blow both for the global corporations and the New World Order. However, things are unravelling even closer to home, with the spectacular bankruptcy of Enron and the illegal dealings of Arthur Andersen, both US companies with far-reaching tentacles. These reach close to Bush (and Blair) and won’t necessarily be as easy to spirit away as the Bin Laden family!

Bush and Blair know that an ideological battle confined to the terrain of the struggle of the antis – anti-terrorism versus anti-war or anti-left versus anti-capitalism, could get tricky for them. One decade after the demise of the Evil Empire, Bush and Blair have once more been able to launch a new crusade against a more defined enemy. In the War on Terrorism they have repackaged the older positive alternative – defence of the free world, or as it is now called civilisation. The freedoms they offer today, in a world increasingly dominated by the transnational corporations, are consumer choice and electoral choice. Whether it be commodities or parties, the offers are the same – brightly packaged but very similar products and the best that money can buy.

Beyond the anti campaigns

Therefore, it is absolutely essential that we also move beyond our anti campaigns – anti-war, anti globalisation and anti-capitalism to our own positive agenda. When the New World Order apologists focus on consumer choice andelectoral choice, they highlight the division lying at the heart of capitalism. The economic and political spheres are separated, although both need to be linked and carefully coordinated behind the scenes for capitalism to continue. Similarly, we need to overcome this division in our own political activity.

Underlying the capitalist promise of consumer choice through the free market (however illusory even that may prove for countless millions in the world) is the stark reality of wage slavery. Therefore, it is not economic freedom but continued exploitation which forms the economic basis of capitalism. Yet today, most of the left cannot see further than higher wages – house slavery rather than field slavery. To counter wage slavery we need once more to raise the banner of Emancipation. Furthermore, contemporary capitalism is not at all averse to absorbing, perpetuating and even extending earlier slaveries to meet its greed for profit – the chattel, debt, domestic, child and bonded labour slaveries. A truly global challenge to the global corporations means linking all those resisting every form of exploitation.

Raise the banner of liberation

Behind the capitalist promise of electoral choice in parliamentary elections lies the reality of national states which ensure that their key repressive institutions lie beyond popular control. Whilst imperialist globalisation spreads, its key decision making centres lie beyond even any formal democratic accountability – G7/G8, WTO, IMF and NATO. Furthermore, as the politicians representing this new global power concentrate ever more power in their own hands, they exploit real differences or manufacture artificial identities, the better to divide-and-rule us. Therefore, it is not political freedom but continued oppression (and where opposition becomes serious, violent repression) which forms the political basis for capitalism. To counter this we need to once more raise the banner of Liberation. Liberation means the thoroughgoing democratisation of society. In the past socialists and communists have divided on Economist and Politicist lines – one claiming the primacy of economic struggle, the other the primacy of political struggle. However, a genuine new human society can only emerge by overcoming the profound division between the economic and the political found in capitalism. Real political democracy can not be sustained on the basis of wage labour. True economic freedom can not be sustained on the limited democracy found in parliamentary government.

Now that we have the beginnings of a new internationalism in the growing anti-globalisation/anti capitalist movement, we need to ensure that we rise to the challenge of Bush and Blairs’ New World Order and its military wing, the Coalition Against Terror. Emancipation from wage and other slaveries and liberation from all forms of oppression must be our clear aims.

Struggling for what we wish to be

Our relaunched magazine intends to further these aims. We will chronicle the resistance to exploitation, including those workplace struggles upholding the sovereignty of the workplace against the sovereignty of the trade union Headquarters. We will chronicle resistance to oppression. As well as covering key international issues we will place special emphasis on the republican struggle for democracy, upholding popular sovereignty against the sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament. We intend to highlight cultural challenges to oppression and alienation, especially where these have contributed to communities of resistance. Or, hopefully in the near future, contribute to communities of liberation, where we get our fulfilment not only from what we have but in struggling for what we wish to be.

And of course, we will be contributing to the debates on the necessary forms of organisation, including the various Alliances, both in these islands and on a European basis, as well as such global developments as the World Social Forum. We need not only to make the growing protest and resistance effective politically, but to create the basis for a truly human global society, based on the principle of from each according to their ability – to each according to their needs and where the freedom of each is the condition for the freedom of all – a true emancipation and liberation – the genuine communism Marx originally outlined.