Against Ukraine repression: ‘In Donetsk and Kharkov, The people continue to fight’

By Greg Butterfield, Workers World
 April 10 – Desperate to stamp out a popular uprising in Southeastern Ukraine, the fascist junta in Kiev -which came to power through a violent coup against elected President Viktor Yanukovich -is moving to crush the newly declared People’s Republic of Donetsk and rebellions in other cities.  But anti-fascists throughout the region continue to resist in the face of increasing repression by the U.S.-backed regime.

Arsen Avakov, the junta’s Interior Minister, arrived in the Southeast April 9, delivering a 48-hour ultimatum to protesters occupying government buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk to surrender or face military attack. The deadline expires at nightfall on April 11. Avakov, a leader of the far-right Fatherland party, was tasked with bringing the various neo-Nazi groups under the regime’s discipline. To this end he created a “National Guard” composed of members of the Right Sector, Euromaidan Self Defense Forces, and other racist gangs from Western Ukraine. The Communist Party of Ukraine’s headquarters in Kiev was set on fire April 9, just hours after a court ordered the Interior Ministry to remove fascists who’ve occupied it since the coup. Euromaidan Self Defense goons, now employed by the Interior Ministry, were photographed tearing up red flags outside the building shortly before it was torched. In the Southeast, police and military units unwilling to act against the local populace have been replaced by “special task forces” from Western Ukraine.

 According to Ukrainian and Russian sources, Avakov has also enlisted foreign mercenaries from the U.S.-based Greystone Ltd.  U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, in charge of NATO forces in Europe, told the Associated Press April 10 that U.S. troops could soon be deployed in the region. NATO has scheduled an “emergency meeting” on Ukraine for April 14.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy destroyer U.S.S. Donald Cook was expected to arrive in the Black Sea April 10 near Russian waters, where it will join other U.S., Bulgarian and Romanian warships in provocative “war games” aimed at Russia. All of these forces are now deployed against the popular resistance in the largely Russian-speaking Southeast, where the anti-fascist and working-class traditions of Soviet times still run deep, and where some look to Russia as a last line of defense against the neo-Nazi threat from Kiev.

 But instead of intimidating the resistance, the fight-back has continued and spread. After losing ground earlier in the week, anti-fascists in Lugansk held onto government buildings. Miners in the Donbas region have downed tools to go to the defense of Donetsk. Hundreds have remained in the streets of Kharkov despite a ban on protests. And even in the Western Ukraine city of Lviv, near the Polish border, activists briefly seized the local prosecutor’s office to protest a new appointment by Kiev.

Donetsk prepares to fight
In Donetsk, capital of the Donbas mining region, protesters seized the Regional State Administration building April 6 and declared an independent People’s Republic of Donetsk. The new people’s council, with the support of thousands of demonstrators in the main square, announced a referendum for May 11 to determine the future of the region. The demand for a referendum has gripped the masses throughout the Southeast, who want autonomy or independence from the fascist, pro-NATO regime in Kiev, which is in the process of imposing austerity in return for International Monetary Fund loans. Calling for a general mobilization of the populace, the People’s Council said April 9: “According to information from our activists at civilian roadblocks, Ukrainian armored vehicles are on their way to Donetsk. The Kiev junta has decided to solve the problem posed by our protest by military force.  “But their politicians and security forces are afraid of the presence of civilians near the building, where a large number of foreign journalists are also present.

 “Last night, thanks to the presence of thousands of people around the Lugansk state security headquarters, people formed a human shield around the building to protect it and the presence of militias barricaded inside prevented police from carrying out their orders to kill our comrades.  “Let’s be worthy of our comrades from Lugansk! Protect our militia guarding the building of the People’s Council! Let’s defend our independence and freedom!”

And the people responded. Activists and volunteers, including many youth and retirees, have built barricades around the RSA building and other protest strongholds, set up checkpoints on roads, gathered food, water and medical supplies, and joined defense trainings against the expected military assault.

 On the night of April 9-10, teams of activists blocked several military buses and prevented them from deploying troops near the RSA.  “We will be on duty here all night, because the assault could begin at any moment,” one activist on nightwatch duty told Ria Novosti.  Sergey Tsyplakov, deputy director of the People’s Militia of Donbas, said: “In Donetsk airport, about 100 people from the National Guard have been housed. Around 100 Right Sector bandits are also in the city, as well as a hundred employees from a private U.S. military company operating under contract with the Kiev junta. “In total, there are around 300 professionals or well-trained and motivated fanatics,” Tsyplakov said. “This is a major force, but we are ready to fight.”

Kharkov: ‘Resistance does not subside’
  In the city of Kharkov, where the struggle has been led by the People’s Unity coalition and the leftist Union Borotba (Struggle), protesters seized the local RSA building and declared a People’s Republic on April 7.  The People’s Council called for regional autonomy, including independence of NATO, re-nationalization of former Soviet industry, and priority to collective forms of ownership.

That night, hundreds of fascists and mercenaries wearing Special Forces uniforms attacked the building. They arrested 70 people and dispersed the protesters – but only temporarily. Kiev-allied city officials declared they would ban mass protests in Freedom Square and the city center.

But the next day, hundreds again gathered on the square and outside the fascist-occupied RSA building. On April 9, more than 500 people turned out to demand the release of the detained activists, Borotba reported. The fearful authorities had the courthouse surrounded by 1,000 police and refused to admit members of the public. People picketed the courthouse for several hours, chanting “Power to the people, freedom for the Kharkov defenders,” while parents shouted, “Free our children!”

 The activists were sentenced to two months imprisonment or a fine of 180,000 hryvnia – about $14,000 each. Simultaneously, hundreds more rallied at Freedom Square ahead of a court hearing on the planned demonstration ban. “The ban is aimed not only at us, but at all Kharkovites,” charged Borotba’s Svetlana Tsiberganova.  Borotba and People’s Unity have called for a major demonstration on April 12 in defiance of the ban.  “Despite the repression, the resistance does not subside,” declared Borotba coordinator Sergei Kirichuk.  “The people are going to continue the fight.”

Savvas Michael-Matsas: From the trial of the antifascists to a murder by the fascists

Savvas Michael-Matsas:

From the trial of the antifascists to a murder by the fascists

From UK Left Network, September 2013.
The trial of Savvas Michael-Matsas, General Secretary of the EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party of Greece), and of Konstantinos Moutzouris, former Rector of the National Technical University of Athens, took place on September 3-4, 2013, after a lawsuit deposed by the Nazi party “Golden Dawn” on May 8, 2009, and promoted in 2013 by the Greek “democratic” State and its judiciary arm, after the entry of the “Golden Dawn” in the Greek parliament in June 2012. The trial had enormous repercussions and produced a huge outrage internationally and nationally.

As many statements by many organizations noted, from well known as well as little known personalities from the cultural and political arena, including the mainstream international Press from all parts of the world: it was the first time after the end of the Second World War, and the defeat of Nazism, that two antifascists, including a Jewish communist intellectual and leader of a Trotskyist Party, in the case of Savvas Michael-Matsas, were brought to court by Nazis, with the complicity of the official State institutions in a member nation of the European Union.

It was this powerful tsunami of protests and solidarity that created a political dynamic permitting the victory of the “accused” in an initially very difficult trial. Parties of the Greek Left, many trade unions, anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist collectives, cultural associations, and dozens of artists and intellectuals issued public statements of solidarity or sent witnesses for the defense of Savvas Michael-Matsas. About a thousand people gathered in and around the court in the two day trial. The trial concluded with a unanimous ruling by the court of “not guilty” for both of the accused.

The three interconnected aims of this outrageous prosecution were, as Savvas Michael pointed out in his final “apology” to the court:
· To outlaw any antifascist discourse and action in conditions of social polarization and mass upheaval, in a country where the ruling class in a state of emergency uses the fascist gangs as an instrument to re-impose its control;

· To begin, starting from the Trotskyist party, the process of outlawing the entire Left and the dismantling of democratic popular rights in Greece ;

· Last but not least, to institutionalize the virulent anti-Semitism that accompanied from the start, the persecution of Savvas Michael-Matsas, an “instrument of the world Jewish conspiracy to impose a Judeo-Bolshevik regime in Greece in crisis”, according to the Nazi non-stop hate campaign.

The organizers of this witch hunt failed. For the first time, after its ascent, the Golden dawn lost a trial in Greek courts – a fact which says a lot about the current state of the judiciary in Greece. An important tactical victory was achieved, hailed by all throughout the workers movement (particularly in general assemblies where strike action in the public sector was decided) and among the popular masses identifying this battle with their own struggles against the escalating social disaster and barbaric repression by the bourgeois State forces and fascist paramilitary gangs.

But, as the EEK stressed in its first statement after the trial, a battle was won but the class war continues. What followed proves the truth of that statement: Within minutes after the trial concluded, many youth participating in it in solidarity with the accused were stopped and bullied by the special DELTA police forces, shouting to them “are you coming from the trial of the dirty Jew?” This is the same DELTA force, which had attacked the EEK in a peaceful demonstration in December 2009 nearly killing comrade Angeliki Koutsoumbou and seriously injuring dozens of comrades. A similar attitude was expressed by the police after the massive workers demonstration in Thessalonica on September 7, where 130 demonstrators were arrested, including many comrades of the EEK who were insulted by the police as “dogs of the dirty Jew Matsas”. The same insult was used the next day against another comrade arrested in an antifascist demonstration in Larissa. Even more sinister was the murderous attack, the day after the trial, on September 5, by a fascist gang in Pyrgos, Peloponnesus, against the 19 year old young son of a well known trade unionist cadre of the EEK, an attack that sent the young man to the hospital with serious injuries.

The fascist criminal activities escalated the last two weeks after the end of the trial: there was another murderous attack by dozens of Nazi storm troopers – a gang financed and supported by Greek ship-owners- in the Perama shipyards area against a group of members, trade unionists and supporters of the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) peacefully campaigning for the Festival of KNE (Communist Youth of Greece).

The climax of these activities was the murder, on September 18, of the 34 years old Pavlos Fyssas, a young left wing antifascist activist, musician and metal worker- a cold blood murder organized at the highest level by the Nazi Party and by its protectors in the bourgeois State, and executed by the “Golden Dawn” Nazi Mafia in the working class area of Nikaia, a historic stronghold of the communist movement. The murder produced huge popular uproar and anger, and sharpened the political crisis of the bourgeois regime and the Samaras government. Nevertheless, and despite the hypocritical crocodile tears of the government and the announcement of the “imposition of the rule of law”, the mass antifascist demonstrations that followed the murder were savagely repressed by the riot police, sending dozens to the hospital with serious injuries (one demonstrator lost his sight), and arresting hundreds of demonstrators.

This on-going confrontation is insolubly tied to the new phase of the class struggle, the eruption of a powerful strike movement of the workers in the entire public sector, in Education, in the Health services, the struggle in three major industries (including the LARKO factory, one of the biggest in the country and in Europe) facing closures under the diktat of the hated troika. The LARKO workers, who have been fiercely resisting the closure of their factory by blocking passage on the Athens-Thessalonica motor way, have been met with brutal attacks by the hordes of riot police sent by the government.

The murder of comrade Pavlos Fyssas, the fight with the murderous Nazi gangs, and their protectors, the repressive State apparatus, the sharpening struggle against the social devastation imposed by the troika of the EU/ECB/IMF and the Samaras government deepen the crisis of the regime, and reveal the bankruptcy of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.

The EEK fights throughout the country to bring together all these struggles into a General Political Strike – with no expiration date –
to bring down the government,
to kick out the imperialist troika,
to smash its catastrophic policies,
to build a United Front of the workers and popular organizations,
to organize Workers Self Defense groups and workers militias against the Nazis and State repression,
to open the road to workers power and a socialist way out of the crisis,
for a socialist Greece in a United Socialist States of Europe.
Savvas Michael, 9/24/2013

Sussex University Student Occupation 2010 -The Full Story

                       SUSSEX UNIVERSITY STUDENT OCCUPATION

 SUSSEX STOP THE CUTS
The Stop the Cuts campaign formed in response to plans by the University administration to cut back on spending by millions in the next few years. The University is planning to cut £3 million this academic year, and £5 million next year.

Sussex Stop the Cuts is a group for all staff and students concerned about the negative effects these cuts will have on the quality of education, research and livelihoods at Sussex. Everyone who studies or works at Sussex needs to challenge the decisions being made on their behalf. And ask whether the millions of pounds spent on new buildings and managerial salaries would have been better spent on courses, jobs and pensions.

 The Stop the Cuts campaign demands the university administration makes no compulsory redundancies and resists student fees and cuts in higher education spending. It argues for the reining in of executive pay, the postponement of new building projects, and the protection of academic freedom. Sussex Stop the Cuts also calls for a concerted student effort to prevent the threatened 5% cut to USSU’s block grant from the University. Instead, the campaign calls for the University to provide USSU with the financial assistance it needs to provide students with fundamental support services through the recession. Now is the time when students need their Union the most!

 SUSSEX HOUSE
Last week students occupied Sussex House (the management buildings of Sussex University) in solidarity with lecturers who had voted in favour of strike action. Roger Morgan (Head of Security) and John Duffy (Registrar and Secretary) stopped some staff from leaving, herded them in to an office and joining them, locked the door. They represented this to the police as a hostage situation. The result was 16 vans of riot police were called onto campus. Students were beaten back with fists, knees, batons and police dogs. Senior managers including Robert Allison (Pro-Vice Chancellor) and Michael Farthing, (Vice Chancellor), were eye witneses to students being attacked by the riot police.

Senior managers including John Duffy (Registrar and Secretary) and Roger Morgan (Head of Security) repeated their hostage story to the High Court in order to get an injunction against the entire student body. The injunction made occupational protests on campus illegal. Michael Farthing then suspended 6 students indefinitely. They have not been given a reason  as to why they have been suspended, nor have they been told when they will be reinstated. This is a politically motivated attack on 6 students by the management. An attempt to intimidate the student body in the face of unprecidented cuts to their education. A warning to students not to support the UCU lecturers’ strike.

BUT WE SAY
– STUDENTS, LECTURERS AND STAFF UNITE!
– UNCONDITIONAL IMMEDIATE REINSTATE OF THE SUSSEX 6!
– NO POLICE VIOLENCE ON CAMPUS!
– NO CONFIDENCE IN VCEG! (Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group)
– THE REMOVAL OF ROGER MORGAN, HEAD OF SECURITY
– THE RIGHT TO PROTEST!

 THURSDAY – 11^th
Around two in the afternoon there was a demonstration around an entrance to the University.  I arrived as the last speaker, Simon Hardy from the Fight Cuts at Westminster Campaign addressed the cowed. Simon Hardy is a member of Workers Power and led the recent occupation of Westminster University.

The rally concluded with a unanimous vote to re-oocupy Sussex House. Around eight hundred students and staff marched around the campus and then to Sussex House. Once inside students seperated and  made their way around the building. From the roof of the building several stories high, students could still be seen entering the building and protesting outside. After some time it was decided to vacate the building. The demonstration continued around the campus until it reached a lecture theater, Arts A2. This is now the venue for the occupation.  Once the building was secured, an open meeting was convened. A letter was drafted to the Vice Chancellor, Michael Farthing listing a series of demands and a petition for him to collect in person.

The main demand was the unconditional reinstatement of the six students. There was some discussion wether the letter should include wider demands such as no compulsory redundancies, however a more focussed campaign was decided upon. An assurance that no disciplinary action should be taken against any one involved in this present occupation, the last occupation and any future occupations was added to the demands. Around five hundred students and staff  unanimusly voted to stay in occupation until their main demands were met.

Cuts campaigners were able to rerout lectures, sheduled for the occupied theater- and contacted lectureres to minimise the disruption to teaching. Meanwhile the meeting decided that it wasn’t the occupation that might disrupt teaching, but the Vice Chanacellor’s refusal to collect the petition and engage with the meeting.          

 A delegate from the Brighton Workers Support Committee spoke to the meeting. He spoke of the unity between students and workers in Brighton. He referred to the students’ support for the postal workers  as an example of students and workers coming together. And spoke of last week’s Brighton March For Jobs, where the Sussex Six addressed a rally of workers and students. Another speaker from The Portsmouth Cuts Campaign called the Sussex students “an inspiration to us all”.

 After a break, the meeting reconvened with a discussion on what to do whilst occupying  the lecture theater. There was a feeling in the meeting that the theater should be used as a creative and educational space during the occupation. Films were suggested, talks and workshops. A need to make publicity materials like banners and flyers was highlighted, along with a press release and internet messages.

EVENING RALLY
The meeting broke up for a while. Some people came and went whilst others were busy organising pratical things. I went around the campus postering and alerting students to the occupation. At six oclock the meeting came together again for an evening rally. A packed lecture theater of around five hundred students and staff were joined by trades unionists and supporters. Prof Dave Hill, TUSC Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton and Socialist Resistence member spoke to the rally. He said, “Social studies conducted in the ‘70’s showed the optimum size for a seminar is twelve people, but today classes have thirty people. And the attacks on education will mean a further fifteen thousand lecturer jobs will dissapear around the country. Dave Hill emphasised that the students’ struggle is the workers’ struggle.. He said he was “humbled by the number of students on the TUC organised March For Jobs in Brighton which numbered six to seven thousand”. “Students unite and fight- It reminds me of 1968” he said. [lol]

He went on to say, “The students and workers struggles are one because life is about living in society not just about education and jobs. You can’t live on a five pound eighty minimum wage. Some people earn  five pound eighty a second. Its all down to surplas value.- As workers, don’t get to keep the value of what we produce”. “Over the time of the Labour government, the richest one percent has halved the proportion of tax they pay, while the poorest ten percent have doubled their’s. And still the poor is expected to pay for the bankers’ crisis. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable, but if we cut trident, cut the id scheme, and taxed the rich, education cuts would not be necessary. He summed up by calling for the reinstatement of  the Sussex Six and demanded those that made false allegations of hostage taking be called to account.

The RMT delegate described the Sussex students as a “real inspiration to the whole trade union movement”. And promissed to support them “until they are victorious”. He went on to tell how the RMT has recently voted for industrial action. Not over pay, but over the loss of fifteen thousand, rail infrustructure job loosess. These job losses are vital for the safety of the railways and will take the railway network back to the days of accidents. A UCU official spoke to the rally about their forthcomming strike next Thursday. He said the strike demanded “No compulsory redundancies and ACAS negotiations” and warned of more strikes next term. He called for student and lecturer solidarity, “We all have a common interest in good working conditions.The cuts are an attack on all of us” he said. “The management has been pressurised by the occupation of the theater, in defiance of the injunction. This is a result of the solidarity between workers and students.”

 PLANNING MEETING 
After an interval of some time a planning meeting was called. The meeting voted unanimously to stay over night, and perhaps indefinitly. Priorities were identified, such as to arrange a “teach-in” for the following day and to build support within the ancillary staff, as well as the wider community. Two support workers told the meeting of the solidarity the support staff of the Unite union felt toward the students and lectureres. The meeting organised itself in to working parties with groups for banner making, food, publicity, bedding and the like. A teach-in, a day of debate and critical discussion was planned. The meeeting arranged a demonstration and a talk by a History of Art lecturer from Portsmouth University on the student struggles of 1968.

 THOUGHTS
The student body on show here today unanimously recognised the context in which these cuts were taking place and laid the ultimate blame on the very capitalist system itself. The students involved in today’s action were not necessarily socialists, but of a more libertarian anti-capitalism. A most immediate indication as to where the students took their political cue was in their propensity to use hand waving gestures instead of hand clapping to signify approval. A practice popularised by the eco and libertarian trends in the anti-capitalist movement. The use of hand waving was a conscious reference of these trends. And expressed an identification with them.

Another thing that struck me was the amazing efficiency and coolness of the students. These guys were experienced pros – and any group considering an occupational protest would do well to speak to them. They knew what to organise and how to organise it.  The students emphasised their wish to make creative use of the space they occupied. Creative arts were high on the agenda. And they lost no time in forming creative working parties to set up events and workshops for the following days. The students’ demonstration exhibited the very best of contemporary anti-capitalist protest.

 UPDATE – FRIDAY 12th
Students at Sussex are continuing to occupy a lecture theatre in protest of the suspension of the Sussex Six. After twenty-four hours. The students still haven’t had their demands met or had any further contact with management, since they came to collect the list of demands and  petition yesterday afternoon.

 Today Sussex staff publicly defied a court injunction to come to the occupation and show their support. Sussex management are on the verge of being forced to make a humiliating climbdown and unconditionally re-instate the 6 students. Sussex UCU, following an unprecedented 80% turn out in their ballot, are now set for strike action over 115 job cuts. Staff at Leeds will be going out on strike against cuts this week, and unions at many other campuses are balloting for action. Ballots for strike action are underway or imminent at King’s, UCL and Westminster, along with London FE institutions. Student sit-ins have taken place in Essex, Sussex, UCL and Westminster.

 There was a demonstration on Library Square at 3 pm, in support of the occupation and against the cuts and suspensions. Management have granted a conditional return to the students suspended last week -but the conditions of their return mean they continue to be singled out and prevented from taking part fully in campus life. A video link was arranged so that the suspended students could speak to the occupation. Throughout the day the forum has been receiving messages of support from workers and students from all over the country and abroad. We need to seize the moment and apply as much pressure as we can nationally to Vice Chancellors, Peter Mandelson and the government. We need to stand in solidarity with all staff facing compulsory redundancy.

Take action this week! Support the strikes and the Sussex 6! Come to the demonstration on the 20th of March! We call for you to JOIN US in our programme across the following days, student, worker or ‘just someone intrigued’.

Download Word Version of this document with pictures: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-pics.doc
Download Word Version of this document -text only:  https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-only.doc 

Come to the UCU demonstration against cuts in London on the 20th of March http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3787
Attend the Education Activists’ meeting, Kings College London. 16^th March. 6.30pm https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/16th-march-regional-meeting-flyer.pdf
Details of further action: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-further-action.doc

LINKS: 
Visit our blog https://suacs.wordpress.com/ for the full story to date and further updates.
Or join our F/b page: Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

Join the  F/b group: Sussex Stop The Cuts
Or Visit http://www.defendsussex.wordpress.com

Dan Vockins, Sussex NUS addresses a meeting of academics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ar1KjLKME&feature=channel

National Campaign Against Fees And Cuts – Statement of intent (6th February 2010)

This is the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts statement of intent, passed at the National Convention on 6th February.

Statement of Intent
Fees, debt and marketisation are increasingly turning education from a right for all into a privilege for the wealthy. The NCAFC opposes all proposed and existing fees, course cuts, staff redundancies or reductions in education spending. Cuts are compounding 30 years of neo-liberal reforms which are turning our universities and colleges into businesses organised to produce profit and a pliant workforce, not critically thinking people and a better society.
Education can and should be funded not by student fees and taxes on the poor, but by progressive taxation. It should be an emancipator right, free and available to all.

We will fight for:
– A halt to all education cuts, the abolition of all fees and a living grant for every student, in FE and HE. Tax the rich to fund education

– Education not profit: business out of our schools, colleges and universities.

– A mass movement of students, including occupations, direct action and walk-outs from FE and 6th form colleges and schools, against fees and cuts. Solidarity with our lecturers, teachers and workers.

– Fees, cuts and marketisation are affecting all areas of education; schools, FE colleges, adult and part-time education institutions are being hit and must work together in the response. Regional meetings much be concerned with issues affecting all students in different types of education.

– This campaign also recognises that oppressed groups are being scapegoated due to the crisis, and that cuts will affect them the most. This campaign therefore commits itself to opposing all forms of racism including Islamophobia

– We are committed to solidarity and co-operation with Liberation organisations that share these values (including, but not limited to, the autonomous NUS liberation campaigns, all of which have free education policy), and condemn all forms of discrimination. Black, Disabled, LGBT and women students are systematically disadvantaged and discriminated by society and are disproportionately affected by fees and cuts.

– We are an internationalist campaign. We are for solidarity with students and workers across the world in our common struggle against exploitation and oppression. We are opposed to the victimisation of students and education workers over immigration status, as well as all deportations and immigration controls. We are opposed to all imperialist wars, sanctions and occupations: UK troops out of Afghanistan now.

– We will compile a national education activists’ contact database for co-ordinating activites

– We agree to initiate a national boycott of the National Student Survery (NSS) to oppose marketisation of education

– To send representatives to the Bologna process counter-conference on March 11th

– To support the call for a national demonstration outside the Autumn conference of whichever party wins the General Election.

– To support the teach-in at King’s College London on 27th February called by KCL UCU, No Cuts @ King’s and the London Education Activist Network

– Where possible ‘cultural evenings’ will be put on in student unions nationwide with poetry, theatre, music exhibitions and other artictic forms, with guest speakers and performers invited, in opposition to fees and cuts.

– To convene a meeting dedicated to the discussion of a united left slate in the NUS elections. All groups, networks, student unions and individual activists should be able to attend and participate.

– To change our name to the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts

– That a national convener be elected from each region (North, South, London, East Anglia) to convene a regular open national steering committee with the regional conveners. This national organising meeting be open to all education activists.

N.B. The grammar of the statement is not perfect, as it is based on the original script from the conference; this will be addressed at the next national meeting. Please send corrections to ucl.free.education@gmail.com or againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com

Join the National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts F/b group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=108319208229

 NCAFC London Area: 
 http://ncafclondon.wordpress.com/

 27^th February: “Teach In” An alternative day of lectures  with speakers and guests. See F/b event. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=285147785052 

The Voice Of Anti-Capitalism – Blog Statistics (February 27th, 2010)

BLOG STATISTICS (27th February)

Its our Blogs Birthday. It is 4 months old today.  Below are the most popular views of the week.

Click on the link below for more statistics and a couple of sorry- looking graphs.
Blog Statistics – February 27, 2010

Title Views Home page 20 Support Alberto Durango – Sacked for Organising A Union 14 Treachery & Stalinoid Bourgeois Liberalism in Guildford 12 Park Lane Squat Party Kicked Off By The Police 10 Workers Movement Rallies To Defend Victimisation 10 National Campaign Against Fees And Cuts 9

Treachery and stalinoid bourgeois liberalism in the SWP, Guildford.

23rd February ‘10

I never thought for a minute that the young SUAC (Surrey United Anti-Capitalists) ‘comrade’ in the SWP took his party seriously. He always criticises ‘his’ party, it’s policies and methodology.

His great work in local environmental issues, housing and squatters’ rights- together with his tireless efforts promoting local, anti-capitalist unity- is a contradiction to the opportunism, sectarianism and theoretical vacuity of his party.

The recent expulsions and witch-hunts pervading the SWP have thus far passed Guildford by. Guildford is far enough from London to be out of the eye of the centralised SWP bureaucracy. The unprincipled political manoeuvrings within the SWP have given us in SUAC a great deal of amusement. The ‘crimes’ of those expelled or forced to resign appear petty compared to the Guildford membership’s autonomous disregard for their party’s policies. In Guildford, the two active SWP’ers put their efforts in to building anti-capitalist unity rather than their party’s sectarianism.    

The young comrade in question, Mr X agrees on the need to build up pluralistic Action Committees and Anti-Cap groups similar to our own –supported by a bottom up Anti-Capitalist Party. Being in the SWP however, he refuses to mention the Call for A New Anti-Capitalist Party because his party didn’t think of it first.

With this background in mind, I was shocked at the flagrant use of SWP tactics at this evenings SUAC meeting. Sneaked onto the agenda was Mr X’s proposal that before posters were distributed, they should be agreed by a meeting. This is something I’d insisted on for some time.

After some discussion the meeting decided that in cases where time is short, a minimum Coram of 4 people would be needed to approve a poster. During this debate it became evident that Mr X’s idea of ‘posters’ weren’t actually posters at all.

Mr X had raised objections to pictures on the SUAC Facebook group before. He had described them as “not respectable” and “giving SUAC a violent image”. Mr X thought he would be able to claim at a later date, an agreement regarding the approval of posters gave him a mandate to remove the pictures from the Facebook group. 

Mr X knows very well posters and Facebook pictures are quite different things – But he sought to conflate the two in order to avoid opposition to deleting the Facebook pictures. Mr X’s plan was to delete the Facebook pictures, performing a fate-a comply and claim afterwards the pictures were unapproved posters.

Such underhanded Stalinoid tactics will never succeed or be tolerated.
Names have been changed to protect the guilty

Down with the Stalinoid Triumvirate of Mr X, Mr T and Mr J
All power to the Left Opposition!!!

Download This Here:   Treachery and stalinoid bourgeois liberalism in the SWP, Guildford