I’m writing this post because I feel I have to, because I have to get my frustration out and my voice heard.
I’m 15, and all of the time I’m told to stop thinking about politics and to just relax, but it’s something very difficult to do in a country where the people who care are a minority. Most people would say 15 year olds know little, hence why they can’t vote, but I am writing now because I do not see a tomorrow, I cannot simply wait till I’m older or rely on other older people to fix this country. No, I am writing now because I’m living in a country and a world in which now is the time for change. Now is the time for things to be set right before things go sporadically off course and leave a destroyed world for my generation and my children’s generation.
Capitalism is destroying this planet. It is the reason why it took so long for governments to do anything about climate change, even though the evidence has been so clear that burning fossil fuels warms the planet, and the things they are doing now are so small that there is still a looming catastrophe that I’m going to have to live through. Big oil companies could not care less whether we, the ordinary people, will have to flee our homes due to intense flooding, because they will be able to afford to avoid it. We must become a carbon neutral civilization!
Capitalism is causing such grave injustices across the world, and must be destroyed.
Rupert Murdoch, who is not a British citizen, has decided the outcome of almost every single UK general election with the Sun newspaper. He is responsible for the rise of racism in this country and the attacks on migrants, he plays a huge part in the lack of education of the working class in this country, he decided the result of the EU referendum because he said ‘Westminster does what I say, but Brussels doesn’t.’ He controls the inner workings of our government, so much that he asked Michael Gove to run against Boris Johnson following Brexit because he didn’t want Boris to be prime minister. He has been responsible for brainwashing the populace and inciting racial hatred, and has smeared any candidate who desires reform for this country, calling Jeremy Corbyn incompetent and an extremist. Most recently, he has written that a large number vulnerable child migrants fleeing a horrific war are actually adult benefit scroungers trying desperately to try and get money for themselves. If that is not racist, I don’t know what is. He is an evil man who has no right to control this country's destiny.
Neoliberalism has laid waste to this country since the Thatcher years. Assets that should rightfully belong to the people of this land are owned by big corporations and foreign governments, as much of a third of all our infrastructure. The same system has punished people for getting an university education, and have made it a privilege for the wealthy instead of a right for all people, that particular reform coming from the twisted, zombie, version of the Labour party that emerged under Blair after the consolidation of neoliberalism's power. The academisation of schools has made disability needs plummet down, including my own little sister, who is blind and has been ill nearly all of her life, who now cannot go to the school we for her to go to because the academy trust just decided to do away with all the V.I prevision. The slow and sneaky destruction of this country’s greatest achievement and one of the few things I am legitimately proud of, the NHS, including it’s severe underfunding and it’s privatization. The only people who benefit from this vile system is the immensely wealthy, who are stealing the hopes and dreams of the many. Since the 1980’s income inequality has soared, and we can blame that on Margaret Thatcher, the evil woman who will never be forgiven for destroying and undoing almost all progress made after the second world war.
Any party which dares try and redistribute wealth in this country is met with one of two fates, either is destroyed by the right wing media, which takes up the vast majority of the media of this country, being smeared with untrue information and capitalist propaganda, or simply is not represented by the archaic voting system in this country, First Past the Post. This country never had a democratic revolution, instead, the elites of this country passed reform after reform to try and stop that from happening, but of course they could put their own terms and conditions on it. Whilst most other European countries had democratic revolutions and therefore have truly representative democracies, Britain’s constitution is a complete and utter shameful disgrace. Our upper chamber is unelected and we still have bishops who have a say in how our country is run, even though the majority of people in this country are non religious, and FPTP gives you effectively a choice between two parties, Conservative and Labour, which until the election of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party, were neoliberal or slightly nicer neoliberal, who still go and cause the deaths of millions of people in the middle east. Any third party is wiped out and gets basically no seats, even if they got a large amount of votes. For example UKIP (a party which I absolutely despise, but democracy is democracy,) got 12.7% of the vote but only got 1 seat in the 2015 election. The reason why in 2010 we didn’t have a Lib Lab coalition was because of FPTP, if we would have had a proper representative system that would have happened. Last election we had a 47% error rate, which means all of the votes which were different from the votes and the seats. That is unacceptable and is a disgrace.
Sometimes I wonder if a supposed ‘free’ country like Britain is really that different to a dictatorship. It has all the features of one, just done in a slightly different way. We have propaganda, except instead of the state, it’s private corporations who seek to brainwash people for their own benefit. It kills millions of people, just over in other countries. We say we have freedom of speech and thought, but any time when that freedom of speech and thought threatens capitalism, it is destroyed and the ideas of freedom no longer apply. Look at the miners strike of 1984 or the anti austerity protests of 2011, the arms of the state carry out mass arrests for expressing their beliefs and defending their rights. Unions are extremely suppressed in many ways so they effectively have no power, and the government keeps on trying to bring in more anti union laws. Britain is not a free country, it’s a country which tells you it’s a free country until you actually begin to challenge the system, and then it’s not and you are labelled as a ‘terrorist’
Capitalism as it exists today is fundamentally evil, it’s the reason why Africa is so poor and millions children continue to be illiterate and starving, because big businesses take advantage of some of the most appalling working conditions to increase their profits. All of the institutions which pretend to help these countries, like the IMF and World Bank, are in fact there to increase the power of big business and expand neoliberalism and the expense of human beings. Capitalism is profit before people, and is a wasteful, inefficient, and destructive system which leads millions of people to starve. How come businesses burn crops to keep the price down, or throw away apples because they're not the right shape, when their are people all across the world are starving. Big businesses like News Corp choose their governments, and then these governments topple foreign regimes to benefit themselves. This could be destroying any sense of improvement in the country, for example in Guatemala, when Jacobo Arbenz tried to improve working conditions in his country, the United Fruit Company persuaded the United States to topple him, as the improved working conditions had led to a loss of profits due to the end of brutal labour practices. Companies frequently make profits off arms sold to repressive regimes, and are fine with it, not thinking twice of the people who will suffer under this dictatorships.
I wish for a society when the people have real power, and are educated to make their own decisions and to run the country for themselves, not being played as fools in Murdoch’s game. I wish for a world where resources are shared, and a world which puts people before profit. I wish for a world, where people take care of the environment as opposed to taking care of their own profits. When I see kids much younger than me with their parents in parks or on trains or on buses, I wonder, what kind of world will they have to live in. A world awash with misery and hopelessness? Or can we create a socialist society?
Well if we are to do that, we must create revolution, and there has never been a more ideal time. The working class are angry, hence why they voted Brexit. They are sick of the status quo and want change. Jeremy Corbyn has won by a landslide twice in the Labour Party. These are all great signs, but great signs are not enough, there needs to be leadership, good planning, and organization, and despite Corbyn’s policies being spot on, his personality and charisma are not strong enough to be able to pull back the working class to Labour after the betrayal of the Blair days, let alone having to put up with all of the smearing from the likes of Murdoch.
There are many revolutionary groups, but they lack any kind of unity, cohesion, or a plan. There are over a hundred little groups who all speak for a need for a new party, yet never come together, never merge with other parties who share views basically identical to theirs, and have become little hobby discussion groups as opposed to revolutionary parties to create change. What needs to happen is that all communist parties need to unite into one to create a common front, adhering to the policies of democratic centralism and vanguardism. This one strong party will support a newspaper, which will be geared towards the working class and appeal to their interests, whilst also instilling them with valuable education. This strong party will also have more influence, and therefore more power over the trade unions. Trade union membership must be built up among party members, and all trade union members controlled by this new party will be told that it is their duty to recruit so that a better world can be built.
Remember that division in the left has been the single biggest reason for its defeat in many countries. In Germany during the rise of Hitler, the communists refused to work with the social democrats to form a common front against him. In Spain, the communists alienated the anarchists and formed a civil war within the republican faction, allowing the nationalists to take advantage of the situation. In Iran, the reason why the secular groups were not able to take hold was because they lacked unity. It’s the same story every time, and whilst groups like the Socialist Worker’s Party say they understand this, they frequently denounce other parties as ‘stalinists’ and will very rarely want to work with them.
The working class have turned away from Labour, and the left must follow suit. We should not keep clinging on to Labour, when they have shown time and time again that they don’t care about the working people. It is clear that the heart of the Labour establishment is not on the worker’s side, and they completely trashed what should have been a show of strength after Brexit which would have made them higher in the polls. The Blairite MPs keep on ignoring the will of the people, and constantly trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the people that back him. I love Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, but Labour is not the place for them, it is fundamentally part of the establishment, and that cannot be changed without basically sacking the majority of its politicians. So why not form one, unified, revolutionary party made up of lots of different groups, which will serve as an instrument of the working class?
We will be open to a common front against the Conservatives with Labour and the Lib Dems, as we must get as much power as we can. Over the course of the revolution, it will quickly be proven that these parties are not on the side of the workers. If they refuse to join us, we will not wait for them.
Revolution in Britain would be the first step, but a small country like Britain will not survive in a capitalist world for long. We can quickly hook up with Cuba, but just them alone will still allow capitalism to flourish and us to be crippled with sanctions. Our primary objective should be restoring socialism in Russia, which previously was the beacon of socialism and it’s homeland. If a large superpower became socialist, we would have much more protection. After socialism is restored in Russia, and installed in France, Italy, Spain, and Greece, all of which are achievable goals as both have historic left movements which could be built back up as the workers situation has not changed, I guarantee it will spread to the rest of the world. Lots of young Americans are angry with the status quo as well, hence why they voted for Bernie Sander’s. Now that he has been destroyed by the democratic establishment trying to undermine him, I reckon a lot of their anger can be vented into revolutionary ideas, joining unions and taking control of their workplaces. We must order all small communist and socialist parties across the globe to unite on the national level, and form a strong Fifth International.
