It is the imperialist powers and their allies who use chemical weapons

3rd September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Tom Castle

Propaganda in this country and by the other imperialist powers has sought to portray the use of chemical weapons as a uniquely barbarous act. Nick Clegg speaking in the Commons debate where the government lost in its initial efforts to authorise air strikes claimed they had not been used in a hundred years. More circumspectly, Foreign Secretary William Hague claimed they had not been used in this century.

Both are completely wrong and in trying to create a pretext for attacking Syria attempt to hide the role that the imperialist powers themselves have played in the use of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons are created by industrial processes. The most advanced industrialised countries, until recently solely the imperialist powers, have access to the most sophisticated chemical weapons, either for their own use or for sale to the reliable allies.

Photo: The Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt – why the left needs to learn to tell counter-revolution from revolution

21st August 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

The unfolding counter-revolution in Egypt has been an object lesson in the correctness of Lenin’s insistence on the need to analyse each situation from the point of view of the interrelation of all classes and social layers if its dynamics are to be understood and the correct class lines identified.

Since the beginning of this year Socialist Action has warned that the military and Mubarakite forces in Egypt were preparing the conditions for a counter-revolutionary coup. This analysis has been proven correct in the bloody unfolding of events in Egypt.

The dynamic of Britain’s political situation will pose the need for a left party

20th August 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

In recent months the true character of the Miliband leadership of the Labour Party has been more clearly revealed.

The combination of its commitment to maintain austerity and implement the Tory cuts, attacks on the union role in the Party and nasty and vituperative campaigns against the employment of East European migrant labour marks out the contours of the coming Labour or Labour-led government after 2015.

The US economic slowdown is much greater than China’s

9th August 2013 Socialist Action 0

Discussion about the trends in the world economy emerging from the 2008 financial crisis is dominated by the relative growth rates of the US and China – the world’s two largest economies.

The media discussion has been focusing on concerns about China’s slowdown and its global impact, while the US is portrayed a recovering well. In fact both major economies are slowing in the context of continued global economic weakness, but the US is slowing much more than China.

The following article, by John Ross, looks at these facts in detail and points out that the key question is not ‘why is China slowing?’, but why has the US slowed much more dramatically than China in the last year?