Rally militantly celebrates 60 years of New China
On Saturday 3 October, the
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPGB-ML) and Hands off
China organised a militant rally and lively social to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Well over 100 working and progressive people of
many nationalities packed into Saklatvala Hall in Southall, west London, to participate in a rally with speeches, followed by a social evening in which
excellent food and drink were served.
The proceedings of the rally were opened and
chaired by Comrade Harpal Brar, Chairman of the CPGB-ML and of Hands off
China, as well as editor of Lalkar, who introduced the guests of
honour: Comrade Ma Xin, Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy; Comrade Wang
Yingchun, Second Secretary of the Chinese Embassy; and Comrade He Dalong,
Bureau Chief of the Xinhua News Agency, accompanied by three of his
colleagues; along with the main speakers, George Galloway MP, veteran communist
Jack Shapiro, Dr Jenny Clegg, academic and anti-war activist, and Keith Bennett
from the CPGB-ML Central Committee.
Following the playing of the Chinese national
anthem as well as The East is Red, the famous Chinese revolutionary song
in honour of Mao Zedong, Harpal said that we celebrate the victory of the
Chinese revolution with great joy, as a world historic event. As Comrade Mao
Zedong had observed, it was the salvoes of the October Revolution that brought
Marxism-Leninism to China. For the first time, the Chinese people embarked on a
road that led them to success.
Harpal denounced the British and other imperialist
powers who had reduced China to semi-colonial status: “It makes me sick to
hear the British ruling class claiming there are no human rights in China,”
he said, going on to note how Britain had collaborated with every other
imperialist power, including Japan, in the rape and pillage of China.
The Chinese people, he said, had won the human
right to run their own affairs after more than 100 years of struggle. And, when
the Chinese people stood up, this was something that reverberated throughout Asia. Mao’s writings on people’s war had become something that every warrior of every
national liberation movement throughout the world carried in their pocket.
Despite all their technology, people’s war could defeat any imperialism. This
had been proved in the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese revolutions and was today
being proved in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Comrade Ma Xin extended greetings to the meeting
from the Chinese comrades, saying they were very pleased and honoured to be
present and paying tribute to all friends of China and all those who have been
supporting China’s revolution and construction. In his view, the biggest change
that had taken place in China over the last six decades was the improvement in
the people’s living standards. Poverty eradication was the most important human
right and in one generation China had lifted nearly 400 million people out of
abject poverty. He quoted Chinese President Hu Jintao’s speech on the 60th
anniversary, two days previously, saying that developments of the last sixty
years duly testified that only socialism could save China and that China would continue on the socialist path.
Comrade Jenny Clegg was introduced by Harpal as the
author of a recent book on China’s global strategy, a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, and also the daughter of Comrade Arthur Clegg, who had
organised the China Campaign Committee after Japan invaded China in the 1930s.
Jenny took the rise of China as her theme, saying
that this rapid process was concentrating peoples’ minds on the future shape of
the world. The founding of the People’s Republic had, she said, set an “early
limit” on US global hegemony. But China was still engaged in a complex
struggle against imperialism and was still the main target for the USA’s vast arsenal of nuclear weapons. China’s rise, she said, was promoting the “rise
of the rest”, namely the great mass of developing countries.
Messages were read to the meeting from the three
distinguished Patrons of Hands off China, Comrades Avtar Singh Jouhl, Isabel
Crook and Kojo Amoo Gottfried, all of whom were overseas.
Comrade Avtar, General Secretary of the Indian
Workers’ Association (IWA GB), extended greetings to the Communist Party and
government of China, praised China’s rapid economic progress, and warned
against renewed imperialist attempts to create discord between India and China, including by using their agent the Dalai Lama.
Comrade Isabel Crook, lifelong revolutionary
communist, wrote from Beijing:
“David Crook and I came to China in late 1947
with a recommendation from the CPGB [Communist Party of Great Britain].
We came here as a team – he as a journalist and myself as a student of
anthropology. We were smuggled into the Liberated Areas and given the
opportunity to observe the land reform and the life of ordinary farming folk.
The two great lessons we learned from our eight months in the village was that
the liberation of China was being won not only through its great military
victory but also by a major economic victory, whereby farming folk were being
led to take ownership of the land into their own hands.
“Then came the biggest change in our lives.
Victory of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] was in sight and the CPC [Communist
Party of China] needed to train personnel who could speak English for the
future diplomatic service. We were asked by the CPC to stay and teach English
in a small school they had set up in a village – and we readily agreed. This
meant we were no longer just observers, but participants in the Chinese
revolution. This is why – instead of just staying for a year or two, we
stayed for the rest of our lives. Over the past 60 years we had the
opportunity to take part in China’s lengthy, arduous efforts to build not just
a better society in China, but a better world…
“I congratulate the CPGB(ML) for its active and
comradely support of China. And especially for its efforts to study, understand
and publicise this rich experience.”
Writing from Ghana, Comrade Kojo Amoo Gottfried,
former ambassador to China and currently Chairman of the Ghana China Friendship
Association (GHACHIFA), recalled his first visit to China for the 10th
anniversary celebrations in 1959 and stressed the importance of Sino-African
friendship and unity:
“China is the great hope of the
developing countries, who yearn to be free of imperialist hegemony, oppression
and bullying. That is why everyone who opposes imperialism must do their best
to support China. That is why the work you are doing is so important.”
Brief remarks were also made by Comrade Hardev
Dhillon, President of the IWA(GB), who said his organisation was very proud to
support Hands off China. Imperialism, he said, was on its death bed, but
it was still carrying out its dirty work against China. He said that India should not make the same mistake it made in 1962, when it had allowed the United States to inveigle it into a disastrous war with China. Any differences between the two Asian
neighbours should be resolved by talking. The IWA had been accused of treachery
at the time of the 1962 war, but in reality they were the true Indian patriots.
Introducing Comrade George Galloway, Harpal Brar
said that his expulsion from the Labour Party for having taken his side with
the oppressed people was a badge of honour and we were delighted that he had
been elected to parliament for the Respect party by defeating the incumbent
Labour candidate.
George went on to electrify the audience with his
characteristic oratory and anti-imperialist spirit. Saying that he had been a
friend of China since the age of 14, he declared that the victory of the
Chinese revolution and the founding of the People’s Republic was one of the
very greatest events in human history.
He had, he said, three reasons for having always
counted himself as a friend of the People’s Republic.
First, because anti-imperialism was the “cornerstone,
the most important thing in the world for me”, something he had first
learned from his Irish grandfather, and he continued:
“The east is red. The
sun is rising in the east. And they [the imperialists] had better get
used to it.”
The liberation of more than one billion people from
imperialism is worthy of celebrating, irrespective of the political colour of
the Chinese government, he continued.
“That is their business and their business
alone. It is not our job to issue political certificates of approval to those
who overthrow imperial rule…The days when foreign countries could order China what to do are gone and gone forever.”
George’s second reason was that he considered that
the collapse of the Soviet Union had been a disaster for the world. The
existence of a sole superpower was profoundly unhealthy. With the rise of China, the ability of the United States to act unilaterally in the world would be increasingly
constrained. Already, it was acting as a roadblock to the preparation of war
against Iran.
The third reason, Comrade Galloway explained, was
that, in his view, China is a socialist country. Although problems existed,
such as wealth and regional disparity, the Chinese state saw it as its
responsibility to deal with them.
“I trust the Chinese government to solve its
problems better than I trust Gordon Brown and New Labour.”
In conclusion, George borrowed from a phrase
associated with the great Scottish Bolshevik and ‘Red Clydesider’ John MacLean
to declare:
“All Hail the People’s Republic!”
Veteran communist
revolutionary and Honorary President of the CPGB-ML and Hands off China,
Comrade Jack Shapiro, recalled that at its founding the Communist Party of
China had less than 60 members, but today it was leading the building of
socialism in what had been one of the poorest countries in the world, “so
there is hope for all the poor peoples of the world”.
“We owe China a huge debt for having come out
from imperialist exploitation to be a beacon showing the world to a socialist
future.”
The CPGB-ML, said Comrade Jack, would also forge a
party in this country that will overthrow capitalism and bring socialism.
The final speaker in the formal part of the meeting
was Comrade Keith Bennett for the CPGB-ML Central Committee. Much of Comrade
Keith’s speech was based on articles already carried in Lalkar as well
as in the CPGB-ML paper Proletarian. These articles may also be read
online: http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=540
and http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/sep2009/hoc.html
Towards the end of his speech, Comrade Keith noted:
“In China, the oppressed and down-trodden
rallied behind a communist party. They overcame innumerable and indescribable
hardships. But finally they were successful. They sent domestic and foreign
exploiters packing and working people set up a state and a society in which
they are the masters and the government exists to serve them. It is a matter of
which class holds power and hence whose needs are considered paramount.
“In celebrating the 60th anniversary of the
founding of the People’s Republic of China, as with the Great October Socialist
Revolution that created the Soviet Union, this is by far the most important
lesson for working people in Britain.”
And, as all comrades rose to sing
the Internationale, this really defined the theme of the evening. It was a
magnificent expression of solidarity with socialist China but equally it was
another important step forward in building the revolutionary working-class
movement, the forces of Marxism Leninism, in Britain.