When the Labour Party was formed in 1900, it was composed of the ILP, the SDF, and the trade unions. It was the beginning of a real mass workers’ party.    Within twelve months, however, the SDF had resigned after failing to get a resolution passed committing the party to common ownership of the means of production and class war. The Labour Party soon fell under the influence of reformism.   Communist Party of Britain.   The SDF evolved in the years that followed and – in 1911 – became the British Socialist Party (BSP). In 1916, the party had ousted the pro-war faction around Hyndman, who then resigned. By this time, the BSP had affiliated to the Labour Party.   In 1917, radicalised by the imperialist war, the BSP were deeply supportive of the Bolshevik Revolution. Many of their members took part in the ‘Hands Off Russia’ Committee.

 With over 13 main games in the franchise, some Assassin’s Creed titles tend to be more underrated than others. That is definitely the case for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate which is currently free to download, no strings attached.

Free access to this game merits a mention here as the original publicity is of interest to socialists.

Surpringly, members of our class wanting  to know more about socialism, and wondering who they’re gonna call – Jeremy Corbyn?  Nicolás Maduro?  Bernie Sanders? No, they can’t see beyond capitalism – will learn more from the console/computer game Assassin’s Creed, where Marx’s call for workers of the world to unite is repeated along with the following biography: ‘Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 – 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, journalist and sociologist considered the founder of the ideology of Marxism … Throughout his life, Marx published several books, the most famous of which are arguably The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. His work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, as well as subsequent economic thought. Although many revolutionaries, such as Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro would later cite Marx as an influence, their fidelity to Marx’s ideas is highly contested.’ 

Landmark UN Report Calls for Sex Work Decriminalization.   End Criminalization, Protect Women’s Rights.

The ‘rights’ they invoke are really modern-day mental chains. The ‘right to work’ is a demand to be employed and employment is servile, exploitative and a denial of workers’ needs according to ability.

Marx saw sex work as ’only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer’ (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, 1844).   Engels showed that the suppression of women had its origin in the rise of private property.     Rosa Luxemburg and Sylvia Pankhurst shared the socialist vision of Engels and Marx: ‘The mass of the proletariat must do more than stake out clearly the aims and direction of the revolution. It must also personally, by its own activity, bring socialism step by step into life’ (Rosa Luxemburg, What Does the Spartacus League Want? 1918). ‘Our aim is Communism. Communism is not an affair of party. It is a theory of life and social organisation. It is a life in which property is held in common; in which the community produces, by conscious aim, sufficient to supply the needs of all its members; in which there is no trading, money, wages, or any direct reward for services rendered’ (Sylvia Pankhurst, What is behind the label? A plea for clearness, 1923).

Prostitution along with human trafficking, female genital mutilation, misogyny, virginity tests, being taught that menstruation is unclean, circumcision for non-medical reasons, caste/class, homophobia, marriage to children, as well as blasphemy as a crime, non-evidence based medicine & cock and dog fighting – all of them should be thrown in the dustbin of history! 

 ‘Perestroika and glasnost had started to unknit Soviet certainties, leaving a society in flux. New enthusiasms included hard rock, horse racing and ballroom dancing, Lacoste sweaters and Pepsi. The influx of visitors for the 1980 Moscow Olympics and a market in ‘much-thumbed western magazines’ had excited new desires, but the average monthly salary of 200 roubles (less than £200) meant most of this remained out of reach for almost all.’

Lenin hastened the development of capitalism in Russia.    With regard to Gorbachev and life in state capitalist Russia post 1917, this candid comment from journalist Vitali Vitaliev is worth repeating:”The main mistake of Western analysts trying to assess Gorbachev’s career is the attempt to treat him as a kind of God-sent Messiah who emerged to save Russia from ‘socialism’. Nothing can be further from reality. Throughout his political career Gorbachev was part and parcel of the apparat. He came not to dismantle ‘socialism’ but to preserve it.   I am putting ‘socialism’ into inverted commas because there has never been anything of the kind in Russia. No other country is so far from the ideas of equality and fraternity as the Soviet Union. If there was a socialism, or even a Communism at all, it was only for the ruling elite who lived and are still living in a separate world.  It is a world of privileges, starting from birth (special maternity homes) going on all through their lives (special shops, hospitals, hairdressers’ salons, canteens, toilets and what not) and not ending even with the end of their physical existence (special cemeteries). Yes, yes, special cemeteries for the rulers of ‘the first working-class State in the world’, where workers are not supposed to be buried’ (Observer, 11 March 1990).

Margaret Thatcher in a meeting with Gorbachev reportedly argued at one stage about the merits of capitalism versus ‘communism’ and she told him ”’We are all capitalists. The only difference is that for you it’s the state that invests, while for us it’s private individuals.” Gorbachev was apparently flummoxed’ (Mission to Moscow, Sunday Times 5 April 1987).   She was correct.  Capitalist hallmarks, such as class society, commodity production, profit motive, exploitation of wage labour, markets, etc., exist in Russia, both pre- and post-Gorbachev, as they do worldwide.   The very idea of socialism in one country is akin to being a little bit pregnant!