JOSHUA Ogunleye, the WRP General Secretary, told the over 100-strong News Line 49th Anniversary rally yesterday: ‘Workers and young people hate capitalism!
‘This is why Deliveroo workers are taking to the streets of London.
‘This is why McDonald’s workers went on strike. This is why capitalism has to be smashed and replaced with a socialist future. ‘The only way young people can have a future is under socialism. Nationalising the means of production will be used to enrich our lives. ‘This is why we are fighting for socialism.
‘This means getting rid of this government, breaking with the EU, and fighting alongside workers and young people across the world to smash capitalism.
‘We must get rid rid of this government and this whole capitalist system. ‘This is why we are building our movement the Young Socialists and the Workers Revolutionary Party to replace capitalism with socialism.
‘What this world crisis of capitalism shows, more than anything else, is the weakness of capitalism and the strength of generations of young people worldwide who are not afraid of capitalism, and are looking for an opportunity to get rid of this system world-wide so that the working class and the youth have a proper future. ‘The revolutionary leadership – that is the revolutionary party – has to be built with urgency world-wide.
‘Workers and young people want a future now. They see that capitalism is in a massive crisis and that it can collapse at any moment. ‘Capitalism offers no future, it doesn’t matter what country you are in, or which part the world you are from, the capitalist system is crashing, and it intends to make young people pick up all the pieces and pay for it.
‘This is why workers and young people all over the world are fighting to get rid of it.
‘In France, workers and young people have taken to the streets against zero hours contracts and cheap labour constitutions. ‘In Germany, they are fighting the destruction of the public services and the attempted rise of the neo-fascists.
‘In Greece, young people have led workers in occupying their schools and universities. They are determined not to surrender their future to the dictates of the European Union and the IMF.
‘In America young people are leading the fight for a basic wage of $15 an hour so the working class can actually live. ‘In Palestine they are fighting against Israeli occupation.
‘In Britain this system is treating young people really badly. It doesn’t really have a future for them.’ He concluded: ‘We must build our party and the Young Socialists to get rid of bankrupt capitalism.’
News Line Editor Jonty Leff told the rally: ‘The News Line is our revolutionary organiser to build the WRP and organise the working class to take the power and establish socialism.’
He continued: ‘Last year we celebrated 100 years of the Russian Revolution, where for the first time in history, the Russian workers and peasants, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, rose up and overthrew capitalism, carrying out the first socialist revolution.’
Leff added: ‘The leaders of the revolution, both Lenin and Trotsky always saw the Russian Revolution as the first step in the world socialist revolution. What was begun in Russia in 1917 must be continued today, through the overthrow of capitalism in the UK and that is the fight that we are in right now. ‘There has never been a situation like this.
‘We are on the brink of a new, deeper world banking crash. Italy is on the verge of collapse, Greece has gone, the EU is breaking apart. ‘There is no deal on Brexit, the Tory government is split, the Labour opposition is split, they are moving towards a national government.
‘The working class is on the move. We have the longest rail strikes and they are escalating – Uber drivers, McDonald’s workers, Deliveroo, cinema workers, a whole new generation have come into struggle. They are rising up and demanding their rights.
‘An entire community around the Grenfell fire is up in arms. Students are up to their eyes in debt and demand free university education. Young workers are demanding jobs. Gig economy workers are demanding rights and youth are demanding a future.’
Leff continued to pay tribute to: ‘This caravan of men, women and children from Honduras and Guatemala, marching across Mexico, with numbers swelling to 7,000, is determined to enter the US to seek a better life. This is a revolutionary movement.’
He added: ‘In the last two weeks they have travelled over 700 miles, and when they reach the US border, Trump has 15,000 state troopers at the ready to shoot. Trump has spat on the Statue of Liberty described with the words: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses”. This evokes the revolutionary history of the US.
‘It was the US working class in blue coats that freed the slaves in the US civil war! ‘Today’s civil war is one between the workers of the world and the different groups of capitalist exploiters. The US workers whose forefathers were migrants must mobilise to defend the caravan.’
He continued: ‘Trump has also declared war on the Palestinians, He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. The great March of Return protests in Gaza have changed everything. Palestinians in their tens of thousands descend on the border fence, battling tear gas, rubber bullets, live fire, explosive dum dum bullets with over 200 men, women and children killed and over 18,000 wounded since the demonstrations began on March 30.’
He concluded: ‘There is no way out for the working class unless it takes the power and establishes socialism.’ l There will be a full report of the rally with all the speakers featured in tomorrow’s News Line.
