THE wall-to-wall coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth by the bourgeois media, and the way that the TUC has used this massive wave of royalist propaganda to cancel its Congress, where vital life and death issues facing the working class were due to be raised, including the organisation of a general strike to bring down the Tories, confirms that the working class movement in the UK desperately needs a new and revolutionary leadership.
The Queen did have a lot of admirers in all parts of the world. One of them has written a letter that was publicised by TASS.
‘The Romanov Family will always remain grateful to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom for the attention she paid to preserving the memory of the last Russian tsar’s children,’ said Princess Feodora Alekseyevna, who heads the Romanov Fund for Russia, in an interview with TASS on Friday.
She added: ‘The news about the death of Elizabeth II deeply saddened us. She was the witness to many dramatic events almost over the last one hundred years.
‘Her devotion to her responsibilities commanded the admiration and respect of her contemporaries. All members of the Romanovs, with whom the Royal family was closely linked during their long history, deeply mourn the loss of Elizabeth II,’ the Princess noted.
‘Our family will forever remain grateful to Her Majesty and her spouse Prince Philip for their attention to the identification of the remains of Tsar Nicolas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their children, including Crown Prince Aleksey and Grand Princess Maria,’ Princess Feodora noted.
The Duke of Edinburgh – the late spouse of Elizabeth II – was the grand nephew of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the Princess said. In the 1990s, Prince Philip provided his blood samples to assist analyses of the remains of Tsar Nicolas II and his relatives. He aided in ascertaining the remains and the Romanovs remember that, the head of the Fund stressed.
So much for the capitalist press fairy tale.
The TUC leaders are making use of the Queen’s death to try and push back the masses of workers in the trade unions who are taking strike action and have repeatedly made clear that they would welcome a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a Workers Government which would nationalise the banks and the major industries including the oil industry and put them under workers’ management.
In fact, the TUC with its passivity, may well be seeking to make approaches to the Tories that they would support their regime if the ‘levelling up’ facade was seen to be operating.
This passivity is being exhibited at a time when the capitalist system is collapsing under the impact of the energy crisis, and the massive super-inflation that it has caused.
The working class is the strongest force in capitalist society and the TUC is not even attempting to use a fraction of that power to resolve the capitalist crisis by expropriating the bosses.
In fact, the more that the TUC seeks to suppress the anger of the working class at the savage attacks that are taking place on jobs, wages and basic rights, the more certain it becomes that the working class will organise mass actions including a general strike to bring down the capitalists and expropriate them without any compensation.
The Tories are already planning to transfer a large part of the NHS budget into social care, and to bring in new laws that will fine trade unions millions of pounds for exercising their right to strike.
The crisis of working class leadership must be resolved. The working class needs a new and revolutionary leadership.
The masses of workers in the trade unions must insist that the TUC calls its Congress in the next week, and that this Congress must call an indefinite general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers government and a socialist, nationalised and planned economy.
Only the WRP and the Young Socialists are fighting for this revolutionary perspective and policy. The working class must not allow itself to be destroyed by the crisis of capitalism.
In fact, it must put an end to capitalism with a socialist revolution, that expropriates the bosses and brings in a planned socialist economy.
This is what must be done.
