A Message to the Left

A Message to the Left Comrades, it is time to step back and to analyse the present situation with a calm critical approach. It has been clear for some time that the World as a whole faces a series of crises, economically and environmentally. Evidence of this is seen in events in the Ukraine, Gaza and many other Countries and in the behaviour of World leaders such as Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and Modi. The signs are that, here in Britain, this is leading to a deep social crisis. History tells us that, when societies face a crisis, strange things happen.There are wars and rumours of war. Because people are subconsciously aware of the crisis they look for solutions.These solutions are no longer rational but irrational. False profits arise with simplistic solutions that have no basis in reality. But many people have a tendency to see in these mythical ideas a way out. Personal issues overweigh social issues but there is also a tendency towards combined action, scapegoating and witch hunts, as though the problems can be solved by placing the blame on easily identifiable external groups. This is what we are experiencing in Britain at the present time. Ever since Thatcher expressed the view ‘that only the individual matters and that society does not exist’ we have seen the rise of individualism leaving large sections of our community unrepresented, ignored and neglected. What we are now seeing is the irrational response to the social crisis, a crisis caused by the failure of capitalism. The sudden ‘plague of flags’ is but a symptom of this social crisis. It is a modern version of the irrational response to crises seen in earlier times. There is a dangerous aspect to the flags campaign. It is a well known military strategy of ‘rallying round the flag’. A technique we would use in a riotous situation. Sadly, at present, the likes of Reform and those further to the right have shown a more successful approach to exploiting the crisis to build these movements than we wanted or expected. I repeat, those flying the flags, protesting, are being misled, following false profits. What we must not do is to create our own, irrational response. The problem we face is not the presence of flags on roundabouts. There is a deep structural fault in our economic system. The most glaring proof of this economic crisis is the level of debt. We have long known of the problem of Third World debt. The issue that we now have to deal with is particularly manifest in three areas. First is the level of Local Authority debt which means that they cannot provide the services to those people who need them. We have neglected Local Government for far too long. The services that Local Authorities provide are essential to our everyday lives. Yet Local Authorities are being forced to sell off community assets and to cut services because the debt is unsustainable. Student debt is another serious problem affecting young people, but it is only one of the many problems which are blighting the lives of young people. The third, and in many respects the most serious, is the rising cost of living and the decreasing levels of community support affecting large sections of the Working Class. It is this last aspect which Reform and the Racist Right are exploiting. They start from this problem, which clearly exists. In many aspects of social life, homes, education, transport, jobs, even basic items like food and clothing, people are not able to provide for their families. This inability to provide adds to the basic insecurity that people feel. We, all of us, depend upon the communities within which we live. With the modern stress on individuality and the right to express ourselves as individuals, we are losing sight of the fact that we are social beings. With individualism in the extreme comes isolation and deprivation. In stressing the parts we are losing sight of the whole. Whilst stressing the oppression of certain sections of the community and the need to oppose those aspects, we have lost sight of the fact that the basic conflict within society is in terms of Class. The very basis of capitalism. The many issues that divide us, race, sexuality, nationality, religion, cannot be resolved within a capitalist society. Reform and those further to the Right exploit all of these issues, offering mythical irrational solutions in order to strengthen their own position and further exploit the working class. They offer no solutions to the problems that people face in their daily lives. They increase division when what is needed is unity. What then is the way forward? Capitalism is failing, it cannot provide an answer to the problems that face the World. That must be our starting point. Sadly, we are not in a revolutionary situation, the old order is dying but the new order is not yet born. What then can we do? There is a great deal that we can do if we start from the position that capitalism has failed, that individualism leads to oppression and that, as individuals, we can only be free if everyone is free. One immediate political response is to defend in the strongest terms possible the European Convention on Human Rights. This is a convention which expresses the basic human rights, as do the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the UN declaration of the Rights of the Child. These Rights are fundamental to our existence as human beings. We do not belong to a nation or a race but are part of the whole worldwide humanity. Every single person on Earth has an equal right to a full and fulfilled life. We have to state clearly what these rights entail and that means defending all the services which are (or should be) provided by our Local Authorities, social care, health, education, housing, transport. We should see food banks as a blight on society, charity has no place in our society. In general we should seek every opportunity to argue for a socialist/communist society. This means that we should argue for a fundamental change in the nature of society to end what is the extreme and growing differentiation in wealth. It is not only the difference in the amount of money that is of relevance, but also the fact that everything that we need in life is subject to the power of money. This means we must challenge the power of the rich, individuals and corporations. We must work towards a situation in which property no longer exists and in which all things are the common property of society as a whole. In directing our efforts in this direction, seeking at all times to show how the ruling class exploits both workers and the conditions of our daily lives to increase both the wealth and power of that ruling class, we can unite the working class into a truly revolutionary force. What we face is not just a national struggle, but one that has to unite the world wide working class. Struggle is the correct word because at all levels of society, in this and in all other countries, we face a battle against a decaying ruling class. A ruling class which is even more dangerous as it sees the system on which it depends collapsing. What we must avoid is allowing sectional interests to blur the need for a united class response. Every struggle, whether a strike, a campaign for national independence, or the struggles of families to survive in difficult economic conditions, is part of the class struggle. Every struggle is part of the whole process which can lead to the emancipation of the whole of humanity under the leadership of the only Class that has no desire to exploit any other class, the Workers United. Scribar 31.08.25,