Elections, Events and New Archive Material

GREATER LONDON and WELSH ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

The Socialist Party will be standing in the 5th May elections to the Welsh Assembly and the Greater London Assembly. In London we will be contesting 3 of the 14 super-constituencies and in Wales Swansea West.

SWANSEA – Street Stall – Saturday 23rd April – 10:00am, and Saturday, 30th April – 10:00am. Offers of help in the campaign gratefully received – please contact Swansea Branch at 01792 643624.

LONDON FELTHAM – Street Stall Saturday, 23rd April – 11:00am – 1:00pm

LONDON CHISWICK – Street Stall Saturday, 23rd April – 12:00pm – 2:00pm

LONDON DALSTON – Candidates’ Hustings for London Assembly Saturday, 23rd April 5:00pm. Including The Socialist Party’s candidate, Bill Martin.

LONDON CLAPHAM – Stall and leafleting for GLA elections Sunday, 24th April – From 11:00am, AND Sunday, 1st MAY – From 11:00am

LONDON KINGSTON – Street Stall Saturday, 30th April – 11:00am – 1:00pm

LONDON BRENTFORD – Street Stall Saturday, 30th April – 12:00pm – 2:00pm

 

Other Meetings

LONDON CLAPHAM – The 1916 Dublin Easter Rising Sunday, 24th April – 3:00pm. A talk by guest speaker Dr Ivan Gibbons.

DONCASTER – How Can We Oppose the Trade Union Bill? Saturday, 30th April – 1:00pm – Debate between Tosh McDonald (Labour Party/ASLEF member, and Bill Martin (SPGB)

FOLKESTONE – Street Stall Saturday, 30th April – 12:00pm

MANCHESTER – March and Rally Saturday, 30th April – 12:30pm Leafleting and literature sale at Manchester Trades Union Council event.

LONDON CLAPHAM – Turkey: Recent Developments and Future Prospects Saturday, 30th April – 4:00pm. A talk by Richard Field.

 

MAY DAY IN LONDON – Leafleting and Literature Sales Sunday, 1st May – 11:00am. Assembles at Clerkenwell Green from 11.00 on Sunday 1st May – marching to Trafalgar Square. Meet us outside Marx House.

BURNLEY- May Day Rally Monday, 2nd May – 1:00pm. The Socialist Party will have a stall at this event.

 

SWANSEA – Street Stall – Saturday, 7th May – 10:00am. Also subsequent Saturdays at 10:00am.

BRIGHTON – Discussion Group Tuesday, 10th May – 7:30pm – 9:30pm

CANTERBURY – Street Stall Saturday, 14th May – 12:00pm

MANCHESTER – The EU Referendum Saturday, 14th May – 2:00pm. Discussion.

 

For details of these and other branch meetings, see the Events calendar.

Also check out the Party’s Meet-up page.

 

SOCIALIST STANDARD LATEST ISSUE – APRIL 2016

 

Recent Additions to the SOCIALIST STANDARD archive

WALES

The Party in Wales (W. Brain, September 1964)

Welsh Nationalism (Adam Buick, April 1964)

Plaid Cymru claims that English domination is the cause of the social ills, such as bad housing, old age poverty, unemployment and rural depopulation from which the people of Wales suffer.

The Welsh Nationalist Party and the Workers (W. Brain, October 1953)

 

1966

African Hothouse (Vic Vanni, January 1966)

In 1957 Ghana became the first of many Colonies to achieve independence within the Commonwealth. Much has been said and written about these new Nations in the intervening period and those who were loudest in their support and praise have usually seen their hopes drowned in a welter of dictatorship and suppression.

Vietnam and the Anti-War Movement (Stan Blake, September 1966)

Vietnamwill one day take its place beside Hiroshima and Auschwitz as an example of a time when the sickness of capitalism exploded into a kind of psychotic nightmare. It is no mere piece of sensationalism, either, to compare Vietnam with Hiroshima and Auschwitz, for there is a direct parallel between the causes, method, and results of all three events.

The Law and Homosexuality (May 1966)

Editorial: The Seamen’s Struggle (July 1966)

 

BOOK REVIEWS

The Fed by Hywell Francis and David Smith. (Reviewed by Adam Buick, November 1981). This book is not so much “a history of the South Wales miners in the twentieth century”, as its subtitle claims, as a chronicle of the so-called Communist Party in relation to the South Wales Miners Federation (to give “the Fed” its full title) in the 1930s.

The Communist International by F. Borkenau. (Reviewed in February 1939). A by no means insignificant reason for the lamentable condition of the international working-class movement is to be sought in the baneful influence of events in Russia. Hypnotised by its mythical Socialist character, bull-dozed by its offspring, the Communist International, thousands of militant workers have fallen victims to its spell.

The Class Struggles in France by Karl Marx. (Reviewed by Jack Fitzgerald, October 1924)

William Morris. His Life, Work and Friends by Philip Henderson, and ‘Political Writings of William Morris’, ed. by A. L. Morton. (Reviewed by Adam Buick, January 1974)

 

CHINA

The Red Capitalist Class (John Crump, November 1969)

Trade Unions in China (Paul Bennett, November 1972)

Some of those most vocal in their opposition to the Tory Government’s Industrial Relations Act have been the various Maoist groups in Britain. One wonders, however, how many of them have bothered to examine the situation of trade unions in their “own” country.

Contradicting Mao (Paul Bennett, October 1979)

China is Capitalist – Official (By Paul Bennett, September 1986)

Editorial: After Tiananmen (June 1990)

It takes guts to stand up against a brutal dictatorship. One year ago in China those who exhibited such courage were slaughtered on the streets. They paid the price for expressing dissent in what is absurdly titled a “people’s democracy”.

 

1930s

The Purpose of Socialist Organisation (Gilmac, June 1934)

A Question for Members of the Labour Party (Edgar Hardcastle, February 1937)

The Uselessness of ‘Practical Politics’ (Eric Boden, February 1934)

Most Socialists are familiar with the type of criticism which consists of arguing that Socialism is a vague proposal for general change, whereas what is needed is a series of definite, practical reforms…

Socialists Do Stand for Equality (Edgar Hardcastle, August 1936)

… It is not correct that Marxists have always used the term Socialism to mean a “period between the seizure of power by the working-class and the epoch of full Communism.” Marx did not, neither did Engels, and Lenin knew this even if the Daily Worker does not know it…

 

 (With thanks to Darren O’Neil, ALB and Rob S. for transcribing and blogging)