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| Proletarian issue 3 (December 2004) |
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| Salute to Lalkar |
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This year sees the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first issue of the anti-imperialist newspaper Lalkar. Over the years, Lalkar has consistently upheld the principles of Marxism Leninism. It has clearly analysed the world we live in, explained what is necessary to change it, exposed the class forces at work behind surface appearances and courageously highlighted and fought against all forms of opportunism in the socialist/anti-imperialist movements in Britain and abroad.
Lalkar has never sought the kind of popularity that comes from obsequiously dishing out praise to working class struggles and organisations purely because they are working class and regardless of their defects, Rather, it has sought to explain things as they really are.
For 25 years, Lalkar has championed causes that the majority of the ‘left’ have shied away from. These include supporting the anti-imperialist struggles of the Palestinian (although now only very few of the ‘left’ would openly speak against the struggle of the Palestinian people, choosing far more cowardly ways to renege on that particular cause), Korean, Irish and Zimbabwean peoples, all of which are still much maligned in the so-called ‘left’ press.
One only has to look at the present situation in Iraq to recognise that, with the exception of Proletarian, no other paper comes near it for analysis, understanding and consistency of principle. The comrades of Lalkar have not championed these struggles because they wish to be unpopular, but because these struggles are just and this must be explained to workers. While tactics can change, principles must never be discarded for short-term popularity (this is the opportunist step that the vast majority of the ‘left’ in Britain have taken). Instead, we should suffer a term of unpopularity in the knowledge that when we are proved correct this will raise our esteem in the eyes of workers.
This devotion to principle and the correct analysis, along with the fact that Lalkar, following Lenin’s advice (see What Is To Be Done?), aims itself at the advanced workers, means that it has often come in for criticism for its “lengthy” articles that use “words that are not readily understood by all workers”. Such criticisms and invitations to dumb down and discard principles always come from people who claim that they themselves “can understand it, but worry that the workers just cannot get their heads around long articles and big words”. These people, usually the peddlers of social-democratic/Trotskyist/revisionist pap, are actually concerned that Lalkar will show up their anti-communist, pro-imperialist claptrap for the class treachery and bourgeois-inspired pessimism that it is.
If something has to be explained properly it often has to be in the form of a long article, and Marxist evaluation undoubtedly requires a bit of Marxist terminology. This isn’t really what bothers the opportunist critics, though. When such sophists argue against the form, it is usually the content they are objecting to. They understand only too well that we all learn at different speeds, come into the movement at different ages and different times with different experiences, and they understand too that Lalkar is very well understood by the advanced workers (who it is aimed at) and who will teach others.
This education of workers cannot be achieved overnight. Under the conditions of imperialism, bourgeois mentality and prejudice is all around us, constantly reinforced at school and by the media. It runs through the proletariat (forcefully pushed by the labour aristocracy), infecting both individuals and organisations. And yet this infection can be defeated, if we are determined to do so.
Lenin wrote that “newspapers, pamphlets and manifestoes perform the necessary work of propaganda, agitation and organisation”, and Lalkar has performed this task in spite of the many organisations that have tried their best to silence it. While Lalkar has always had the support of many advanced workers it has never enjoyed the support of a political party until now. At last, a political party exists that shares the principles, vision and the devotion to the cause of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin that have become the trademark of Lalkar. The CPGB-ML appreciates and marvels at the sacrifices and struggles of those who have for 25 long years brought out Lalkar – the editor, writers, printers, distributors and sellers.
The CPGB-ML recognises Lenin’s thesis on imperialism; the split in the working class engendered by imperialist superprofits in the imperialist heartlands and the need to combat opportunism in all its forms as a necessary part of the fight against imperialism. We cherish the example of the Great October Revolution and of the mighty Soviet Union that resulted from it and in doing this we salute and state our support for Lalkar.
Long live the CPGB-ML!
Long live Lalkar!
Long live Marxism Leninism! |
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