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Joe
Richmond
Joe
Richmond died a few months ago. He was a marvellous member. He taught
me what little I know about the Materialist Conception of History and
he was the best member I ever heard on Engels’s Transformation
From Ape To Man. He was a great guy. He was a shipwright on the
Clydeside and came across the socialist case from a trade union
background (as an apprentice he has been involved in the unofficial -
and illegal - 1944 apprentices’ strike). He later became a school
teacher. I remember him best as a lecturer at the Glasgow branch
rooms in Berkley Street using fretwork pieces of wood to show how the
continents were formed. Years later on television I saw the same
thing. He was also an attender at various classes on philosophy at
extra-mural Glasgow University courses where he embarrassed the
lecturers with his corrections about the works of Hegel, Engels and
Marx. After retiring Joe emigrated to Australia to be near his two
sons. He rejoined the Socialist Party and kept up his interest in
political matters. We have had many great members, he was one of the
best. To his wife Anna and his children we extend our sympathies.
Thanks
a lot Joe,
RD
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Under
the title “Do not willingly contribute to the mass suicide of the
human race” the Empire News (24 June, 1956) had the
following:
“The highest
radioactive deposit in a single day from a thermo-nuclear weapon test
was 100 microcuries a square mile at Milford and 25 at Harwell. Daily
deposits at Harwell and Milford, however, are generally similar.
Danger from these radioactive particles is very slight, say
scientists. But one of the radioactive substances, known as strontium
90 may be deposited in grass which is cropped by animals. This gets
into their bones and may cause cancer. So the experts warn: limit
the number of atom tests. Fears that rainwater may be contaminated
from the Monte Bello atom test have arisen in Queensland, Australia,
and people have been warned not to drink it for a few days.”—The
above was taken from a news item, “Atom-Rain Tests.”—(Empire
News, 24.6.56.)
But
such is the nature of capitalism; that even though the rival
Governments know they may be instrumental in causing the “virtual
suicide of the human race.” They dare not let up; for fear of
conceding an advantage to their rivals; yet they have the effrontery
to call capitalism a civilised society! Why, by comparison with this,
even the most senseless butchery in history seems like sanity. The
human race may be virtually dying on its feet; and still the people
do nothing about it; when will they get wise; and act on their own
behalf instead of waiting and hoping for someone else to put the
world right for them?
Workers
of the world, put not your trust in leaders. Instead fashion the
world the way you want it yourselves by organising for socialism;
then you can rest secure in the knowledge that the only developments
which will be undertaken will be those which will be of benefit to
all.
(From
article by Phil Mellor, Socialist Standard, October 1956)
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Object
and
Declaration of
Principles
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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 working class 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.
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