After a summer characterised by big political events, such as ‘rebellions’ in parliament over austerity, state repression of the Palestine movement, and the announcement of a new left party, the autumn is not looking to be any different.
Crisis is embedded in every aspect of capitalism, and it’s having a radicalising effect on consciousness. Especially on the youth, in which an increasing layer is open towards communism.
Many of them are wanting to get organised when going into universities.
It was against this background that the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) met to discuss where Britain is going and the tasks that flow from it.
The dire state of British capitalism
The weekend began discussing perspectives, dealing with the economic, social, and political crises of British capitalism.
Adam Booth, editor of The Communist, highlighted that the genocide in Palestine – and Starmer’s role in the slaughter – dominates consciousness. It’s the defining feature of this generation.
The repression of Palestine Action by the Starmer government – with grandmothers being arrested for protesting genocide while the real terrorists sit large in Whitehall – deepens the crises in the pillars of the British establishment, as it continuous to undermine the government, politicians, and the police in the eyes of the masses.
The British economy is entirely vulnerable to the world situation. It’s too weak to compete on the world market, but at the same time incapable of implementing protectionist measures, given its reliance on world trade. Squeezed between mountains of debt and untamed inflation, government borrowing costs have skyrocketed.
Labour has no choice but to push through unprecedented austerity in the autumn budget, with the cost of living crisis and the crises in housing, healthcare, and education continuing unabated.
This is a recipe for a rising tide of anger, giving ammunition to Farage in his scapegoating of migrants. This could be easily cut across with a serious anti-austerity fightback from the left and the trade unions, but unfortunately this is still nowhere to be seen.
With a new left party being waited on with baited breath, it is the duty of communists to build the revolutionary party capable of connecting with this anger, and transforming it into a struggle against the real enemies – not the small boats, but the billionaires, the banks, and the decrepit system they represent.
Connecting with our ideas
The second session was on Trotsky’s Transitional Programme by Rob Sewell, political secretary of the RCP. With many new members within our ranks, we want to educate them about the party’s ideas and methods. Part of that is learning how you connect with different layers within the working class.
One cannot use the same approach when speaking with a young person who is wide open to communist ideas vs speaking with a worker on a picket line.
Raising ideas of world revolution will likely connect with a young radicalised person, but it won’t necessarily land when speaking with a striking worker. Instead Trotsky talks about the need to raise transitional demands, which builds a bridge between the different particular struggles of the working class to the conclusions of fighting the capitalist system.
Rob Sewell quoted Trotsky when he wrote:
“It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist programme of the revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat.”
Milestones reached
On Sunday morning we began the day with an organisational report, which was introduced by myself.
The RCP has reached a number of serious milestones this summer, recruiting over 230 people, selling more papers than ever, and hitting a record number of subs payers. Our membership is growing – up from 1,137 at the congress in May to 1,200 now.
Back in May at our national congress, delegates took the decision to launch a recruitment campaign with the aim to recruit 200 people by August, targeting the layer of people who are radicalised and open to revolutionary ideas.
Central to the campaign was to educate comrades in a flexible approach to recruitment, with more focus on explaining why we are communists, and politically convincing people of our ideas, perspectives, and programme.
The slogan ‘Revolution Against the Billionaires’, together with the pamphlet You Should Be a Communist, were deliberately worked out to encourage comrades to win over people through political discussions.
Filled with political inspiration, RCP branches have actively turned towards the workers and youth. We’ve reached people in many ways: through postering, recruitment stalls, and open meetings.
We’ve also thrown ourselves into the Palestine movement. By protesting against state repression and austerity. By attending picket lines with bin workers in Birmingham and Sheffield. And by standing alongside striking junior doctors. In all of this, we’ve met hundreds who we convinced to join our party.
Youth work: all forces to the point of the attack
Looking forward, the focus for the RCP is going to be our youth work at the universities. It’s where we have the largest concentration of the radicalised youth. To these students we say You Should Be a Communist!
If you want to put an end to war, imperialism, and climate change and free the working class from poverty, misery, and oppression, you must join the struggle against capitalism and get organised. We must bring down the system that always puts the profit of the bosses over human need.
We need you in our fight. But more so, YOU need us. As individuals on our own, we cannot have much impact. But as part of an organisation, based on the revolutionary ideas of Marxism, which not only can explain the world around us, but be a guide to action, we become a force to be reckoned with.
