Position Post of Reddebrek on the RCP and Bigotry

Warning this is going to be a long one

Background

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) founded in 1975 but it had existed as the Revolutionary Union (RU) prior to this.  The RCP’s official ideology is Maoism though according to some critics including from fellow Maoists is more interested in validating its leader Bob Avakian. The RCP despite its small size has managed to become known around the world; unfortunately its reputation is nothing to be proud of.

In 1973 the RU published a well very odd paper that would become the backbone of it’s and then the RCP’s most controversial social policy. The title of this paper was “Position Paper of the Revolutionary Union On Homosexuality and Gay Liberation” it doesn’t make for pleasant reading.  It’s a list of justifications for opposing homosexuality, for a start it outright states you can’t be a Communist if your gay.

While gay people can be anti-imperialists we feel that they cannot be Communists.

Overall it seems hypocritical and incoherent. For example Male homosexuality is accused of 

reinforcing male chauvinism because it apparently “turns its back on the struggle between men and women”. Lesbianism on the other hand is an escape from Male Chauvinism even though the paper accuses both putting a barrier between men and women.

RMT Joins up with North Korea

Regular readers will know that I'm a Wobbly so I'm not really too surprised when I hear of some bad news concerning the mainstream Trade Unions but this particular development is kind of hard to swallow. It seems the Rail and Maritime Transport union (RMT) arguably Britain's most militant mainstream trade union and one I personally quite admire has found some new rather dodgy friends.

From Workers Liberty

Why link with North Korean “unions”?

Author: 

Luke Taverner 

The Council of Executives of the RMT, at its June 2013 meeting, decided to affiliate to the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).
The WFTU traces its history back to the end of the Second World War, when an attempt was made to revive the old trade union international. Soon, opposition to the Marshall Plan by unions in the Stalinist bloc, and the anti-Communism of many Western unions, made the organisation untenable. Most big union centres outside the Stalinist world left, and set up what is now the ITUC.
The WFTU continued as an organisation of state labour fronts and unions historically linked to or led by their national Communist Parties (like the French CGT) around the world. Its biggest remaining affiliates include the Vietnamese General Confederation of Labour, the Cuban CTC, and the General Federation of Trade Unions in North Korea. These are not unions in any meaningful sense, but the state-run labour fronts of totalitarian regimes, often used to police and repress working-class self-organisation and dissent.

Recently the WFTU has experienced a slight revival, in part by placing itself to the left of the ITUC, which it criticises for being in favour of social partnership. The WFTU has rebranded itself as “class-based” and “democratic.” Some unions in South Africa have affiliated to it and are pushing COSATU to do so.

The RMT say they will “seek to facilitate a meeting between the ITF (International Transport Workers Federation) General Secretary Steve Cotton and the transport section of the WFTU.”
But the move may also be shaped by people in the RMT who have some sympathy for the sorts of regimes for which the WFTU provides cover.

Regardless of the motive, the sad fact is that the leadership of a militant industrial union in Britain seems to have no problem aligning themselves with an organisation which includes within it representatives of some of the most repressive, anti-worker regimes in the world.

Fascism and Football

 Football or "soccer" for American readers is very serious business. From punch ups in the car park outside a pub with Sky sports to pitch invasions across the world the game has ignited passions and sadly those passions tend to be expressed quite negatively. As a Grimsby Town supporter (not fan, supporter) for a few years I think that's a shame because there's a lot of good things football does that doesn't get much attention because the negatives are so graphic.

Unfortunately those positives, bringing people together, instilling some pride in yourselves and your "team" getting people active and passionate for 90 minutes has made football a very attractive tool for some shady forces. Nowadays every club no matter how small will have adverts plastered everywhere trying to get to buy something (anything no matter how irrelevant it is to football). But in Dictatorships football has also been used to sell the official ideology and loyalty to the regime. And the lengths that the authorities will go to (bribery, threats, murder) show how important a tool of social control the beautiful game can be.

Perhaps the most blatant use of football as a pillar of propaganda was by the Fascist regimes, Italy, Germany and Spain put a lot of resources into football, even building their own clubs from the ground up like Real Madrid and using secret police to rig games up to the international level.



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