Socialist Standard June, 2006 Vol No.102: No.1223 website www.worldsocialism.org/spgb
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Obituary for Kevin Lennon
Members of North East Branch were saddened at news of the death of Kevin Lennon in March. Kevin had been a member of the Socialist Party since October 1979, almost 27 years. Anyone who ever met Kevin knew him as an activist above and beyond the call of duty – rain, snow or hail, he never missed branch meetings, indeed he was almost always the first one there, regardless of the location of the venue or how difficult it was to get there via public transport. He was always with us at demos and during election activity and always spoke his mind, with passion, on subjects he felt strongly about.
Members who turned up for his funeral at Sunderland Crematorium found it painfully ironic that Kevin should be given a religious send off - a member of his family had said funerals were for the bereaved - for if there was one thing Kevin was famous for at branch meetings it was when someone raised the subject of religion and he’d rise to his feet, finger in the air, venting his spleen on Rome and Mecca. Again he very often turned up at meetings with some quote, or photocopied article on religion that he’d copied from a book in the local library and which he would use to reinforce his arguments. For Kevin, religion taught us to put out faith in Gods to help sort out our problems, whereas, most of our problems being social and economic, rooted in the way we organise our world for production, we were more than capable of solving such problems and creating a paradise on earth - if only the workers could be convinced it was well within their capabilities to create such a world. He would often remark that if the time people spent praying over the past 100 years had have instead been spent campaigning for socialism, then we’d have a paradise on earth already.
Needless to say Kevin was much loved within the branch and each member has their own favourite anecdote of him.
John Bissett |
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Upton Sinclair once wrote than “even Von Papen had to tell the truth sometimes, if only to rest his mind.” The saying applies to all politicians. The time comes when even the most diplomatic will blurt out the real motives of the British ruling class. For example, Sir Anthony Eden. At Norwich recently he said: “The United Kingdom’s vital interest in Cyprus is not confined to its N.A.T.O. aspect. Our country’s industrial life and that of Western Europe depends to-day, and must depend for many years to come, on oil supplies from the Middle East. If ever our oil resources were in peril, we would be compelled to defend them. The facilities we need in Cyprus are part of that defence. We cannot, therefore, accept any doubt about their availability.” -(The Times, 2.6.56). The Prime Minister here admits that British capitalism’s need to protect its profits-which it could not do without oil supplies-comes before the promise which Britain has made, as a member of the United Nations, to uphold the principle of self-government. Socialists have been saying for a long time that capitalism always puts profits before principle, but it is not often that a politician as eminent as Sir Anthony Eden confirms it so explicitly. (From an article by Alwyn Edgar, Socialist Standard, July 1956) |
Our
Object and Declaration of Principles (click
on link for explanation with each one)
This declaration is the basis of our organisation and, because it is also an important historical document dating from the formation of the party in 1904, its original language has been retained.
Object
The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds
1. That society as at present constituted is
based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories,
railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent
enslavement
of the working class,
by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of
interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who
possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation
of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the
conversion into the common property of society of the means of
production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole
people.
4. That as in the order of social evolution the
working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the
emancipation of the workingclass will involve the
emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.
5.That this emancipation must
be the
work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed
forces of the nation,
exists only to conserve the monopoly by the
capitalist class
of the wealth taken from the workers, the working
class
must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the
powers of government, national
and local, in order that this machinery,
including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of
oppression into
the agent of emancipation and
the overthrow of
privilege,
aristocratic and plutocratic.
7. That as all political parties are but the
expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class
is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of all
sections of the the master class, the party seeking working class
emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters
the field of political action determined to wage war against all other
political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and
calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster
under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to
the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that
poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery
to freedom.
To
contents next page
Socialist Standard July 2006 Page 18