SATPAL RAM has finally gained his freedom after a 16- year ordeal in jail.
A JUBILANT crowd carried five men shoulder high from London's Pentonville jail. "Arise ye workers" read the banner at the centre of the celebrations. The date was 26 July 1972, and the words on the banner were no mere slogan. The "Pentonville Five" were trade unionists -dockers -jailed five days earlier for deyfing anti-union laws. Strikes had swept the country in response. They forced the courts into a humiliating climbdown, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Tory government of the day. The strikers defied their union leaders and Labour Party leaders, who denounced the struggle. Derek Watkins, one of the five jailed dockers, spoke to Socialist Worker as he waited for police to t
ONE OF the most popular arguments against socialism is that people are just too selfish for it to work. It is claimed that socialists are unrealistic dreamers for imagining that things will change overnight and people work together for the common good without being made to.
ON 5 JULY 1948 queues formed outside doctors' surgeries and hospitals across Britain. It was the first day of the new National Health Service. Hundreds of thousands of working class people who had never been able to afford proper medical treatment finally had access to basic services.
IN TWO weeks one of the biggest and most exciting gatherings of socialists in Europe will take place at the Marxism 2002 event in central London. Several thousand people attended last year's event.
ONE WAY the defenders of capitalism try to discredit socialism is by claiming it would destroy individuality and reduce everything to a dull conformity. By contrast they give the impression that capitalism provides people with varied, exciting lives.
NO ONE can have missed the fact that the World Cup is taking place. The tournament will mean different things to different people. Some will simply enjoy the games as a sporting event. It will be a chance to briefly escape from the normal routines of life. Others, corporations like Nike and Adidas, the businesses who dub themselves "official World Cup sponsors", and the giant media companies have a very different outlook.
IN 1897, 46,000 plumed and scrubbed troops marched through London to mark Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. They were drawn from an empire that included over a quarter of the world's people. There was a camel corps from India, the Dyak police from Borneo, Muslim zaptiehs in their red fezzes, soldiers from Fiji, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Zanzibar and many more.
FOR MOST people the idea of revolution is closely associated with violence. This message is hammered home in school textbooks, and historical novels and documentaries. There you will find gruesome descriptions of the "reign of terror" of 1793 during the French Revolution.
MAINSTREAM historians argue that the British working class has always accepted capitalism, and prefers family life to fighting back. This is one of the themes running through Simon Schama's History of Britain, currently being shown on TV. The Great Unrest gives the lie to these claims.
THE THREAT of war between India and Pakistan has brought the horror of nuclear destruction back to the world. Leaders from both countries have spoken openly about the obscenity of "first strikes" or "second strikes", and their willingness to use nuclear warheads. A nuclear exchange between the two countries, with a combined population of 1.2 billion people, could kill ten million people in minutes. They are not the only states willing to use nuclear weapons.
THE RICH and powerful always want to put us off the idea of revolution. They have consciously promoted the argument that in Russia the revolution led to terror and dictatorship, that Lenin led to Stalin. This idea has been encouraged for decades and by a wide range of people. Writers who supported the old Stalinist rulers of Russia continually promoted the argument that Lenin led to Stalin.
