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| Volume 50 Number 2, January 18, 2020 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Activists and friends of RCPB(ML) ushered in 2020 by gathering at the John Buckle Centre in London on January 11 to look forward into the new year and new decade, with the spirit of redoubling their efforts to create the conditions for a new democratic personality to emerge, where we speak in our own name. The social was shot through with this optimistic spirit.
Toasting the New Year, Michael Chant, General Secretary of RCPB(ML), spoke about the Pyrrhic victory* for the establishment, who went all out to defeat the striving of the people for real change and win a Conservative majority in the election. Despite the Conservative victory, the resolve of the working class and people is not to be reduced to spectators to the programme and agenda of the ruling elite. On the contrary, their spirit is to build the resistance movement to the anti-social offensive and refuse to be reconciled to relinquishing control of their lives to any other force.
Congratulations are due to all the Party activists and sympathisers for what they achieved in 2019, which was the 40th anniversary year of RCPB(ML), with everyone playing their part. And 2020 will see the redoubling of their efforts on every front.
In particular, the Party's work to raise the demand of establishing an Anti-War Government has been central to its programme, and our pledge is to take this crucial political and organisational work forward in 2020. It is a demand which has been taken up widely in the anti-war movement. The profundity of this demand is that it provides a new horizon, the people's forces themselves beginning to forge a modern democratic personality, speaking in their own name, and recognising the need for political power. Such a demand recognises that the cartel party system is a block to the empowerment of the people.
In opposition to the factionalism and sectarianism engendered by the cartel party system, much in evidence in the general election and a feature of the anachronistic political institutions, a strength of the Party has been its striving to unite everyone around the aims and goals of the movement.
The Party social hailed the struggles of the people throughout the world, their struggles for socialism, against imperialist intervention, against the anti-social offensive, and for control of their lives. In toasting not only the New Year, but the new decade, the social emphasised the necessity for working people to take up their individual and collective social responsibility to oppose imperialism. It is necessary to speak out and oppose the ruling elites of the financial oligarchy and defend the people's interests. We must set the agenda, not the rich. Their claims that in government the ruling elite represent the people is false, and the people will not accept them. The British working class and people have an especial responsibility to condemn and oppose the lawlessness of the Anglo-US ruling elite, settle scores with the old Cold War outlook, and organise for democratic renewal and empowerment.
In conclusion, the speaker said, in 2020 let us go all out, stepping up the tempo of our work and redoubling our efforts to achieve successes in fighting for the interests of the working class and people, for democratic renewal, and for an Anti-War Government. He gave a call for everyone to join in in this work, actually redoubling the efforts on all fronts. In 2020, let us create the conditions for a new democratic personality to emerge, where we speak in our own name! All out to build the New!
Following the toast, friends, comrades and supporters joined in songs, music and poetry taking up aspects of the people's struggles and all that is best in the people's culture.
*A Pyrrhic victory is one that is only achieved with heavy losses on one's own side, named after the ancient Greek general Pyrrhus of Epirus, who, in a rough translation, exclaimed after defeating the Romans: "Another such victory and we shall be utterly ruined!"