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Most of it but not the western part which at the time (1939) was part of Poland — Lvov for instance was then in Poland. It became part of Russia when under the Ribbentrop Molotov pact of 1939 Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. This part had never been part of Russia and the people there no particular affinity with Russia. Before WW1 it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
By coincidence scanning in articles from the January 1939 Socialist Standard this passage from the editorial would seem to have some relevance to the history of Ukranian nationalism:
“The Czechs, who in the last War declared that they were being loyal to Socialism by fighting to dismember Austria and gain Czech independence, have their counterpart to-day in the Ukrainian “Socialists,” who are prepared to back Hitler-Germany in order to secure Ukrainian independence from Poland. One of them told a News Chronicle correspondent (News Chronicle, December 9th, 1938): “Better an alliance with the devil than continued Polish oppression.” Very short-sighted, of course, and incompatible with Socialist principle, but so is all expediency.”
The Greens are resorting to the same underhand tactic that the LibDems are notorious for — distorting the results of previous elections.
In this video their candidate claims that only 500 votes separate the Greens from Labour and that this is “miniscule”.
Actually this is the difference in the results in May last year the 3-member ward between the lowest placed Labour candidate and the highest placed Green candidate. In terms of votes cast for each candidate it was the Tories not them who were second. And 500 votes is not “minuscule”. In the context of a ward where only 1729 voted (less will this time) it’s enormous.
https://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=226&RPID=67460729
ps. She doesn’t actually live in the ward itself either as she implies right at the start.
It seems the mainstream media are trying to get their revenge on him for his criticism of them, by publicising allegations against him which may or may not be true.
They may have picked a tougher nut than usual to expose (while at the same time increasing their sales and/or advertising revenue) as he has quite a following who agree with him about them. Like his social media followers he is a bit of a conspiracy theorist himself or at least gives these some credence. The media campaign will be seen by them as confirming what he says.
A reconnaissance mission today confirmed that most electors in the ward live in blocs of flats — the rich and super-rich in luxury apartments overlooking the Thames and the rest and the poor literally on the other side of the railway tracks. Not much terraced housing. Which makes the ward difficult for door to door leafletting unless we can get into the blocs on this side of the tracks. We will try on Wednesday. Could well be the most densely populated ward in the country.
We probably won’t bother with the 1500 or so electors living in St. George Wharf and the Tower (a 49-storey skyscraper).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George_Wharf
Came across Labourite canvassers (two different groups) and exchanged leaflets with their candidate. Distributed about 350 but that wasn’t the main reason for touring the ward. 1600 left for Wednesday abd next weekend.
More online publicity:
https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/elections/SW8%202LJ/
If they are right that Lee Rotherham is this one, the Tory candidate is the die-hard Brexiteer and researcher at the Taxpayers Alliance who has also stood for parliament a number of times.
A typical example might be Steve Reed who was leader of the council from 2006 to 2012 when he quit to contest a by-election in next door Croydon which he won, advancing up the greasy pole. He was one of those who resigned from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in a bid to topple him. Starmer has just appointed him shadow Secretary of State for the environment and he is surely destined for a cabinet post if Labour wins next year’s general election, another move up the greasy pole.
It didn’t used to be when Ted Knight was around:
https://www.breviarystuff.org.uk/simon-hannah-radical-lambeth-1978-1991/
The election leaflets have arrived from the printers. Only 2000, since although the electorate is 6,400 and the number of separate households with separate letter-boxes about half that, the number of accessible letter-boxes will be less with gated communities on the waterfront and large parts of the rest social housing blocks. We may still be able to get into some of these.
The leaflets have a QR code which will allow us to count how many went that far.
We will begin distributing this weekend.
The Labourites have already started:
https://events.labour.org.uk/event/389747
Their candidate is a lecturer in philosophy at Liverpool university.
Useful reminder that falling “inflation” does not mean falling prices but that prices are rising less rapidly:
“A recent National Institute of Social and Economic Research survey found that only 44 per cent of respondents understood that ‘inflation falling from 10.1 per cent to 6.1 per cent’ would mean prices rising but more slowly. As many as a third thought it meant prices had fallen.”
A reason, no doubt, why people who know from experience that prices are still rising are sceptical when the government claims to be “beating inflation”. But even if the government achieves its stated aim of reducing “inflation” to 2 per cent a year, prices would still be rising.
Tribute to Stephen from one of his contacts in Russia with links to articles by him in English and Russian:
“I come here with one message today – that the next Labour Government will build an economy that works for working people with a New Deal for Working People. And Labour will start by bringing forward an Employment Rights Bill to legislate for this within the first 100 days of entering office. That is a cast-iron commitment.”
The cast-iron commitment of course is to introduce an Employment Rights Bill not to “build an economy that works for working people”. A Labour government can do the first but we can say with cast-iron certainty that they cannot do the second. For the simple reason that that’s not possible.
As Labour supports the capitalist system this is a pledge to make the capitalist economy work for the benefit of wage-working majority and their dependants. But capitalism is a profit-making system that can work only for the profit-taking few. Both the theoretical knowledge of how capitalism works and the experience of over a hundred years of failure of reformist governments to make it work in any other way demonstrate this.
This empty promise that “the next Labour Government will build an economy that works for working people” has been taken down in writing and will be used in evidence against them.
If the suggestion in that Wikipedia entry is that Dietzgen thought there is a “proletarian logic” different from a “bourgeois logic” then that goes against what he wrote elsewhere. For instance
Just re-read his 11th letter on logic which is cited as the source of the Wikipedia claim. It is true that he uses the term “proletarian logic” a couple of times but not in the sense of a logic special to the proletariat. He seems, rather, to mean that the proletariat has inherited science from the past and that it is its duty to defend and continue it.
Also, far from praising Dietzgen, Lenin criticised his “monism” (“that thought is as material event as any other”) as a concession to idealism.
In any event, YMS’s Geordies were not using any kind of logic, proletarian or otherwise.
There an ongoing discussion of this by-election amongst others here:
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/17581/local-council-elections-october-2023
I like this one:
“I remember Daniel Lambert from when he was SPGB candidate in Brixton Hill in 2013. His answer to every question at the hustings meeting was to smash capitalism.”
Here he is doing just that:
https://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2023/03/danny-lambert-video.html?m=1
You beat me to it Robbo. But, oh dear, we have not been treated to such one-sided propaganda for one side in a war since we parted company with True Scotsman.
Incidentally, I don’t claim any originality for a flag being a rag at the end of a pole. It comes from Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary:
“FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships.”
Here’s a couple more of his perspicacious observations:
“PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.”“BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.”
