By Jude Woodward
Despite the razzamatazz of Trump’s visit to Asia, the verdict of the international news media was unanimous: the trip had simply served to underline the US’s declining influence in Asia; a decline that Trump is blamed for accelerating by ceding leadership to China on the crucial issues of contemporary geopolitics: trade, climate change, development and multilateral agreements.
By Sammy Barker
On 5 November the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, launched an ‘anti-corruption’ campaign involving the arrest of eleven princes, four serving ministers and ‘tens’ of former ministers. Along with these were some major business people, including Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal, the country’s wealthiest man, reportedly worth $30 billion, Mohammed Hussein Al-Amadi, the second richest man, reportedly worth $10.9 billion. Also arrested was Bakr bin Laden, the head of the biggest construction company in the country. Some Saudi sources put the number of arrests as high as 500, with double that questioned.
Last Saturday (4 November) supporters of the Palestinians’ struggle demonstrated in London to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. This declaration, by the Foreign Secretary in 1917, stated that Britain would support the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine. It represented the first expression of public support for Zionism by a major political power. The colonial project it supported developed into the state of Israel, resulting in the displacement of millions and death of countless tens of thousands of Palestinians. That displacement and loss of life continues to this day.
The article below by Dr. Ramzy Baroud, previously published on Counterpunch, explains how the Balfour Declaration helped destroy the Palestinian’s homeland, but has not succeeded in breaking the will of the Palestinian people.
On 25 October 1917 (7 November in the Gregorian calendar) the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, organised an uprising that overthrew the weak and vacillating Provisional Government that had emerged from the overthrow of the Tsar earlier that year.
At 10am on the 25th the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies announced that the Provisional Government had been deposed and that state power had passed into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee, pending the convocation of the All Russian Congress of the Soviets.
The articles below explore the significance of the October Revolution, the state it created and its contribution to the progress of humanity.
By Brian Jackson
The 1917 October Revolution created today’s world in both an objective and subjective sense. Objectively, the October Revolution delivered the decisive blow to the four-century old colonial and imperialist system from which it has never recovered. Subjectively, in no country has the working class taken power and held it for any prolonged period other than via a political party that originated in the Third International created by the October Revolution (Russia, Yugoslavia, China, Vietnam) or which fused with a party from the Third International and embraced Marxism-Leninism (Cuba).
By Sammy Barker
Introduction
The October revolution of 1917 was the single most important event of the twentieth century. For the first time in human history a state was established, and stabilised, that represented the interests of the labouring majority in society. Society’s resources were to be utilised to advance the welfare, living standards and ambitions of the workers and peasants. The old exploiting classes – the nobility, landlords and capitalists – were stripped of the privileges which they possessed through robbery, deceit, arbitrary violence and grinding exploitation.
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