Militant rally celebrates New China’s birthday
On Saturday 4 October, a diverse audience of over 80
people packed into Southall’s Saklatvala Hall to attend a highly spirited
meeting organised by Hands off China and the Communist Party of Great Britain
(Marxist-Leninist) (CPGB-ML) celebrating the 59th anniversary of the founding
of the People’s Republic of China, which fell on October 1.
In addition to the representatives from the Chinese
Embassy and the Xinhua News Agency, there were comrades from Europe, Asia,
Africa and Latin America, plus of course lots of locals. The meeting opened
with all standing for the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China.
Chairing the meeting on behalf of the CPGB-ML,
Comrade Harpal Brar explained that the Hands off China campaign had been formed
in response to the barrage of anti-China propaganda in the run-up to the
Olympic Games. These games, he said, had caused great embarrassment not to China but to its detractors – the Beijing Olympics had truly been a festival of friendship
and peace.
Comrade Harpal pointed to the extraordinary
achievements that have been made by China, especially in the area of poverty
alleviation. He noted the stark contrast between China’s ongoing success and
the credit crisis affecting the capitalist countries. Ironically, the US financial institutions will probably be forced to come cap in hand to China, which has $2
trillion in currency reserves!
Harpal also addressed the issue of human rights,
ridiculing the British press and NGOs for criticising China’s human rights record whilst keeping silent about the human rights abuses perpetrated by Britain around the world. He pointed out that the Chinese people have employment, shelter,
food security and national security – things that imperialism denies people
everywhere. He ridiculed the outrageous hypocrisy of those who accuse China of exploiting Africa, when China has had a massively positive impact on developing African
infrastructure, with no strings attached. Contrast this with the British record
of stripping tens of millions of Africans, loading them onto ships and
enslaving them in the cane and cotton fields of North America and the Caribbean.
Harpal concluded his speech with a discussion on
the importance of Mao’s theory of people’s war and its crucial relevance today,
from Nepal to Iraq to Afghanistan.
Comrade Hardev Dhillon, giving a message of support
from the Indian Workers’ Association (Great Britain), explained that the
IWA(GB) had a long and consistent history of support for China, even when supporting China was considered by the Indian ruling class to be an act of
treachery. He said that the IWA(GB) had always understood that there would
never really be freedom in India without socialism, without traversing the path
of popular liberation forged by the Chinese and others. He concluded with a
call to step up our efforts to defend China’s independence and sovereignty,
saying: “If China goes down, we all go down”.
Comrade Kojo Amoo Gottfried, former Ghanaian
ambassador to China, congratulated Hands off China for helping to counter
imperialist lies about China. Talking about China’s long term plan to develop a
prosperous socialist society, he cited the Chinese proverb: “If your vision
is one year, you grow rice; if your vision is ten years, you plant trees; if
your vision is 100 years, you train people to do what is needed to uplift
humanity”. He said that, in 59 short years, China had shown the world what
could be achieved by a formerly backward and oppressed country – banishing
poverty, seeing to people’s education, seeing to people’s health and providing
crucial support to other countries.
Kojo admonished the audience to give China their unstinting support. He concluded by saying that, with the support of
progressive people, China will always prevail.
Comrade Taimur Rahman, speaking on behalf of the
Communist Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (CMKP) of Pakistan gave a detailed and
extremely interesting presentation on China’s rate of growth since its
revolution in 1949. He showed that GDP growth had on the whole been remarkably
even since the early 1950s (around 9% – an extraordinary rate of growth to
sustain for such a long period of time). He also gave the lie to the idea that
China’s growth is only due to foreign direct investment, pointing out that
those provinces with high levels of FDI do not always achieve higher rates of
growth than those provinces with low levels of FDI.
Taimur also pointed out that China’s long term
variation in growth rate is unusually low; this is evidence that China, with
its predominantly socialist economy and its strict economic controls, is not
subject to the ‘business cycle’ of boom and bust that all capitalist countries
are subjected to.
Comrade Taimur concluded
by paying tribute to China’s extensive social programme, which has so greatly
benefited the Chinese people. He noted that, at a time when – according to
official statistics – poverty levels are rising in Europe, central Asia and
Africa, China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and is
responsible for 75% of all global poverty alleviation over the last 30 years.
Taimur congratulated China for its achievements, which are built on the efforts
of the Chinese people and which can only be attributed to the Chinese socialist
revolution of 1949.
Comrade Mohammed Arif made
a statement of support on behalf of the British Afro-Asian Solidarity
Organisation (BAASO). He discussed how the Chinese revolution had unleashed the
creative energies of the Chinese people in a land that had for so long been
pillaged by imperialism, which was able to ravage China with the help of three
things: compass, printing press and gunpowder – all Chinese inventions! Arif
supported Taimur’s point about the progress made during the first 30 years of
New China, noting that, between 1949 and 1978, life expectancy increased from
under 40 to over 62 and child mortality fell from over 20% to under 4%. He
pointed out that China had not relied on exploiting other countries; far from
it – it had always helped countries in Africa and elsewhere.
After Mohammed Arif’s
speech, messages of support were read out, including one from Hands off China patron Isabel Crook, a veteran communist revolutionary and one-time member of the former
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who lives in China. The message from
Vidya Sagar Anand, writer and veteran political activist in the Asian
community, said that the 21st century would be China’s century. He recalled the
dream of Sun Yat-Sen, the leader of China’s democratic revolution in the early
20th century: that all Chinese children would have shoes and clothes to wear
and food to eat. He said that this dream had been realised and surpassed.
Comrade Jack Shapiro,
Hands off China’s Honorary President and veteran communist, inspired the audience,
declaring that China had not simply stood up, it had leapt up! Pointing to the
success of the recent Beijing Olympic Games, he said: “Have you ever seen
such an incredible spectacle in your life?!”
Jack talked at length
about the treatment afforded to disabled people in China, which is far better
than the treatment afforded them even in rich countries such as Britain. He said that the Disability Law enacted by China’s National People’s Congress was
the first piece of legislation of its kind anywhere in the world. It was
amazing, he said, that China – only 60 years ago a totally devastated country –
had become the world leader in enabling and truly liberating disabled people.
“In Britain, we still have a long way to go before we treat disabled
people as full human beings.”
Jack said that China is leaping forward in every
respect and that it would soon be the world’s leading economy. He said that China would “show the world how to run an economic system that benefits all the people,
not just a few fat cats”. He concluded on a grave note, pointing out that
we are going into a deep crisis of imperialism and that it is the workers who
will suffer most. However, he said, this crisis is a signal to us: capitalism
is weak; we must be strong and we must use that strength to defeat capitalism
for once and for all.
Jack’s inspiring speech was greeted by a standing
ovation.
The last speaker of the evening was Comrade Keith
Bennett, who remarked on the extraordinary progress made by China since its revolution. China had gone from being “in every respect a ruined and
humiliated nation” to being a beacon for peace and progress.
Keith spoke at length about China’s record of proletarian internationalism, pointing out that, less than a year after the
formation of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese People’s Volunteers
advanced into Korea wave upon wave to roll back the armies of the United States, Britain and more than a dozen other countries. This heroic contribution cost the
lives of hundreds of thousands of fighters, including Comrade Mao Anying, the
son of Comrade Mao Zedong.
Comrade Keith also paid tribute to the principled
stance taken by the Chinese Communist Party in response to Khrushchevite
revisionism and its attacks against Stalin and the dictatorship of the
proletariat. China maintained its stance in spite of being effectively placed
under a double embargo – by the United States and the Soviet Union.
Keith spoke of the great joy felt not only by the
Chinese people but by the oppressed people of the whole world when, in October
1964, China successfully detonated its first atomic bomb. Malcolm X described
this event as “the greatest thing that has ever happened in the 20th century
to the black people”. Keith cited the Xinhua report that contained Malcolm
X’s comments: “Referring to the present struggle of the American Negroes and
the firm support given to this struggle by the Chinese people, he said that the
US imperialists would never loosen their grip on the 22 million colonised
American Negroes before the peoples of Asia and Africa cast off the yoke of
imperialism and became strong. Bearing this in mind, we therefore appreciate
the great strides that the Chinese people have made toward true independence
and the unlimited contribution they are making to help the oppressed peoples in
other parts of the world to throw off the chains of imperialism.”
Keith went on to note that, as the household names
of imperialist banking and finance capital collapse like a pack of cards, it is
only the socialist road, walked in the past by the USSR, and today by China,
Cuba, Korea, Vietnam and Laos, increasingly joined by the peoples of Venezuela,
Bolivia, Nepal and elsewhere, now also beginning this journey, that represents
humanity’s only hope of a decent future.
“This is why it’s so important for us to
celebrate the birthday of the People’s Republic. It is China and the other socialist countries that represent the guarantee of a better tomorrow
for all working and oppressed people, not just the people of their own countries.
It is therefore our absolute duty to support them through thick and thin.”
After the speeches, Comrade Harpal read out a
resolution, which was unanimously agreed by the audience. The formal part of
the meeting was concluded in fitting style with the singing of the
Internationale, after which comrades enjoyed delicious food and continued their
discussions.
The text of the resolution passed at the meeting is
as follows:
This meeting, organised by Hands off China and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), in celebration of the 59th
founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China conveys its warm
fraternal greetings to the Communist Party of China, the government of the
People’s Republic of China and the Chinese people.
We take this opportunity to renew our
heartfelt congratulations on the huge success of the Beijing Olympics and
Paralympics as well as the Shenzhou-7 mission, in particular the space walk.
Through these epic events, the people of the whole world have been able to see
the enormous progress and tremendous achievements of socialist China, which stand in stark and growing contrast to the crisis, chaos and despondency now
gripping the capitalist world.
We reaffirm our invariable solidarity
with the Chinese party, government and people in their struggle to build a
powerful, modernised and prosperous socialist nation, to reunify the country
and to contribute to the building of an independent and peaceful world against
imperialist aggression and war.
Long live Marxism-Leninism and
proletarian internationalism!
Long live the People’s Republic of China!
Forward to the 60th
anniversary!
The meeting was reported the next day in Xinhua in
the following glowing terms:
Britain’s Communist Party celebrates
59th anniversary of New China
LONDON, Oct.
4 (Xinhua) — The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) celebrated
on Saturday evening the 59th anniversary of the founding of the New China, lending its unswerving support to China’s pursuit of socialism.
Reviewing China’s development since
1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded, Harpal Brar, chair of
the party, hailed China’s evolving in the past decades into a “thriving
economy.”
“China has come a long way since it had
been the miserable place under imperialist control. When 13 million children in
Africa under the age of 15 die every year, over 400 million Chinese people
have been lifted out of poverty in the last 30 years… China has achieved the basic human rights. It’s a living example of socialism,” he said.
Although the Chinese people know they
still have a long way to go, “so far it has been fantastic,” he added.
According to Brar, China has long been supporting countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America in their struggle for
independence and development.
The Chinese revolution has inspired the
world with great lessons, therefore, celebrating China’s National Day, which
falls on Oct. 1, is actually “paying back a little to China for what it does for us,” he said.
Some 80 party members and
representatives from the Indian Workers’ Association, [and the] Communist
Workers & Peasants Party of Pakistan attended the celebration.
Jack Shapiro, a veteran member of the
Society for Anglo-China Understanding who had facilitated exchanges between
Britain and China on rehabilitation for the disabled, and Kojo Gottfried,
former Ghanaian Ambassador to China, also shared their memories of China experience.
A resolution passed at the meeting
congratulated China on the success of the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics as
well as the Shenzhou-7 manned space mission, in particular China’s first ever
spacewalk.
“Through these epic events, the people
of the whole world have been able to see the enormous progress and tremendous
achievements of socialist China, which stand in stark and growing contrast to
the crisis, chaos and despondency now gripping the capitalist world,” said the
resolution.
The party also reaffirms its
“invariable solidarity with the Communist Party of China and the Chinese
government and people in their struggle to build a powerful, modernised and
prosperous socialist nation, to reunify the country and to contribute to the
building of an independent and peaceful world against imperialist aggression
and war.”
In July this year, the Communist Party
of Great Britain launched a “Hands off China” campaign, supporting China in the waves of China-bashing in western media in the run up to the Beijing Olympics.