5th Bop against Debt. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, 7.30pm. Entrance £3/£1.50 concessans. 6th Women for Socialism social, Conway Hall, London, 7.30pm. 6th Picket of Pentonville prison in support of Poll Tax Meet at main gates, Caledonian Ra., .30pm 11th Mass picket in support of NUI strikers at Marshall Havendiet. Outside Mar- IPC and Haymarket. Outside Marshall Cavendish, 119 Wardour St., London WC1, 1pm. 13th National Cancel the Debt demonstration. Assemble Imperial War Museum 12 noon. Rally Trafalgar Square 2.30pm 13th 'Write it Off', social and Page 12 July6, 1991 No. 5 meeting, 7pm- 11pm, Conway Hall, London. Speakers: Bernie Grant MP, Martha Osamor, Theresa Hayter. Followed by live music. Organised by the Socialist Movement. 14th Bastille Day picket of Wadsworth Prison in support of Poll Tax prisoners. 2.30pm August 24th-30th Socialist Outlook residential summer school, North Wales. Contact Socialist Outlook for details.
November
23rd Socialist Movement Trade Union Committee conference on Women in the Unions - Fighting for our Rights'. 10am-5pm, Wesley House, 4 Wild Court, WC1 29th-Dec 1st Socialist Outlook rally on 'Crisis in the Third World' Socialist Outlook supporters note change of date.
Red Whole sections of the world map. were coloured red (or pink) as Britain conquered by ar the biggest empire. From the beginning imperialism was based on the import of cheap raw materials the colonies, and the export back of manufactured goods from the imperialist hartlands. Native industries, like the Indian textile industry, were destroyed in the interests of the imperialist nations.
Imperialism gave rise not just to the exploitation of colonies, but to intense inter-imperialist conflict as the major powers battled for control of world markets. The first world war stemmed directly from this new stage of capitalism.
In the last century imperialism has been through major economic and political changes. The upsurges of anti-colonial struggle in Ăfrica, Asia and La'.n America, forced the major capitalist powers to change their form of domination.
Formal independence has been granted to most former colonies. But control of the world economy still rests with the major multi-national corportions. This new arrange ment is described by Marxists as 'semi-colonialism In most ex-colonies the local capitalist class, which gains its own rake-off from imperialist profits through trade, subsidies and bribery, forms the government. With the exception of a of a few 'semi-industrialised' cornares. But even these countries are not independent centres of capital accumulation. They are still economically dominated countries.
The oppression of the semi olonia countries is multifaceted. They suffer not just economic repression, by the violence of direct military intervention, but are forced to be the dumping grune of the toit wasto of imperialist countries, and are forced to 'export' labour in the form of immigrants and suffer all the consequences of racism. The debt crisis and the Gulf war are just two of the latest examples of mperialist oppression o break out of this cycle of imperialist domination, it is not just enough to have formal national independence -a national flag, a home-grown government and a seat at the UN. It is necessary to break imperial domination of the economy. That is a truly revolutionary task, which involves socialist tovocn.
Only countries like Cuba and China where the anti-imperialist struggle has grown over into conquest of political power by the working class has the imperialist stranglehold begun to be broken.
Anti-imperialist revolution, as Che Guevara said, will be either 'socialist revolution, or a caricature of revolution'.
Super-profits
Both the world wars of this century started as inter-immilitarily, politically, economically - of the United States.
The development of the long period of capitalist crisis during the 1970s fundamentally altered the situation. Each world crisis has involved a re-division of labour between the imperialist powers.
This crisis has seen the rising economic power of Japan and Germany, 'vis-a-vis the United States. The crisis and collapse of the Eastern bloc has deepened the rivalry between the three strongest nations.
While the United States has upped its use of militarism, so far this has been against the lessdeveloped COTTlTTAS But despite nuclear weapons, the danger still exists that as the economic crisis worsens, catastrophic new inter-imperialist war could occur.
How is imperialism to be destroyed? Spectacular struggles against imperialism in the semi-colonial countries, like the Vietnam war in the 1960s, gave rise to many illusions on the left that imperialism could be besieged and defeated 'from the periphery'; by a series of third world revolutions.
But the recent experience of the Gulf war shows that the basic question determining whether imperialism can be thrown back is that of the balance ot power between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the workers in the advanced capitalist countries. Without revolution in the West, the defeat of imperialism is a pipe dream.
Readers may have gained the wrong impression of our view of Welsh nationalism from our article in SO 2. We feel that the essential point about Plaid Cymru is that the Welsh nationalist move ment, of which Plaid Cymru is a part, represents a new challenge to the British left.
Whilst we believe that Plaid is not an alternative to Labour, it is not enough to baldly state this as some kind of definitive, finalised fact, which is unfortunately the practice of most of the left.
Our approach must be to address the issues that have created Welsh nationalism, recognising both its weaknesses and its progressive content, and engaging Plaid acWe welcome letters on any subject but please keep them brief. Letters over 350 words will be cut. Send your letters to: Socialist Outlook PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU Like Liam MacUaid I would disagree with the recent editorials on the Walton by-election. It is true that serious tactical objections could be made the Broad Left's decision to stand but by themthe editorials indicate a strong adaption to labourism. The question as to whether standing was tactically correct cannotbereduced to how many votes Mahmood might win or whether it would create a pretext LU Intensity the witchunt, though important, these questions are secondary. The decisive question was Whether Mahmood's candidacy could be used as an effective means of intervention into the class struggle and parLetters Who will be laft holding the baby after the by-election? ticularly as a focus to build an opposition to the cuts and privatisations currently being ushed through in Liverpoo This was what the editorials should have posed as the main focus for debate.
Faced with the accomplished fact of two labour movement candidates in Walton and given that the most politically advanced workers will support the Broad Left, Socialist Outlook should have called for a vote for Mahmood irrespective of whether it regarded the decision to stand as tactically Of course it is correct to argue against a generalised policy of standing unofficial labour canbut noone has argued this and the argument as such has no relevance.
A coherent case for a vote for Kilfoyle was to argue that the Broad Left was an ultra-left formation with no significant base but this was not the analysis of the editorials and correctly so.
Socialist Outlook can be as critical as it likes of the Labour leadership in pushing through the suspensions and expulsions of the left in Liverpool and enthusiastic as it likes in defence of the Militant and Broad Left against any future witchunt.
Despite this it will be an unfortunate day when Socialist Outlook finds itself to the right of a significant minority of the working class who will be supporting the Broad Left in Walton.
Patrick Scott Enfield A local Once the decision had been taken by a significant section of the labour movement in Liverpool to stand against Labour candidate Kilfoyle in Walton, socialists should have gone all out to maximise support for that candidate.
The decision meant that, from then on, the election was not simply about national politics, but very much a local referendum about the cuts and redundancies strategy of Liverpool council. Counterposed here were the council strategy of capitulation, and that of the Militant-dominated far left- to defy the goverment, to fight to defend jobs and services in the interests of the working class.
For this reason, the more votes Mahmood receives the better. Unfortunately, the by-election will still also be a national political event, and so