Asia

Nearly thirty years have passed since Deng first introduced his “market reforms”. What started as an attempt to stimulate growth within a planned economy has ended up by establishing capitalist relations in the Chinese economy. How did all this happen and where is China going today?

Faced with a mass revolutionary movement the king of Nepal has been forced to reinstate parliament. Now the movement is being channelled towards some form of bourgeois parliamentary rule. But much more could have been achieved had there been a genuine Marxist leadership.

The dominant wing of the Chinese Communist Party has pushed through capitalist counter-reforms in the Chinese economy over the past couple of decades, achieving immense economic growth but also devastating effects on the conditions of the workers. Here we publish an interesting letter by an anonymous group of “veteran CCP members, veteran cadres, veteran military personnel and intellectuals” who are opposed to this course.

With Iraq as the focus of world opinion, Canada, Germany, France and Italy are quietly conducting an imperialist war in Afghanistan. The recent deaths of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan highlight the need to oppose the intervention.

Last Saturday the biggest general strike ever was held in the Pakistani held Kashmir. What used to be the main base towns of the Islamic Fundamentalists are now being taken over by the Marxists. The most significant aspect of this strike was that it was without violence or destruction. Above all, this general strike shows the rising force and strength of revolutionary Marxism in Kashmir.

The struggle against privatisation is heating up in Pakistan. Today, all the major papers contained articles and reports on Comrade Manzoor’s magnificent intervention in the National Assembly against the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills.

Nepal has entered its third week of a revolutionary crisis. The people of Nepal have once again taken the road of revolution, including two weeks of demonstrations and an indefinite general strike, taking their destiny into their own hands in an attempt to bring down the King and transform society.

A wave of protests and strikes has swept the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir, Muzafferabad. As we reported yesterday, several comrades were arrested yesterday at a demonstration. The response of the people of Kashmir was immediate and decisive - demonstrations were held and roadblocks were erected. In the end our comrades were released.

China’s headlong drive towards capitalism is beginning to meet resistance. Workers’ protests are growing. Opposition is even being voiced within the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party itself. It is merely a matter of time before the class struggle erupts on a grand scale.

The widening income gap in China and the resulting social explosions, threatening the interests of the ruling bureaucracy and capitalists, is a top item on the agenda of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In a bid to ease the revolt, the 11th five-year economic plan is nominally focusing on more equal distribution, but this cannot solve the contradictions created by the move towards capitalism.

Comrade Manzoor Ahmed, Member of the Pakistan National Assembly, along with several other MNAs has submitted two motions against the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL). We publish the following report from DAWN, Pakistan's most widely circulated English daily newspaper. 

After the PTCL workforce, now it is the workers of WAPDA who are faced with the prospect of privatisation. Such a measure would be detrimental to the interests not only of the WAPDA workers but of all the workers and poor of Pakistan. The PTCL workers put up a brave fight but were let down by the union leaders. Let this not happen again!

On February 22, the Chinese government shut down the China Workers' Website and Discussion Lists, a website that allowed Chinese workers and farmers to discuss their struggles and the problems they face. The developments and changes in China are of extreme significance for workers and youth of the whole world and in this regard, this interview, conducted by Stephen Philion for the Monthly Review Magazine, is extremely interesting and important, and provides an insight into the conditions of the Chinese workers, youth and peasants.

We provide this report by Alan Woods from Kashmir, which details the beauty of the region, the pride and strength of its people, as well as the terrible destruction caused by the earthquake.

Over 200 people attended a recent meeting in Rawalpindi for the launching of the book Kashmir's Ordeal,by Lal Khan. Among the speakers were Alan Woods, editor of Marxist.com, trade union leaders from the Rawalpindi-Islamabad region, leading figures of the revolutionary youth movement in Kashmir, and Member of the National Assembly, Zulfiqar Gondal, who all came to discuss the way forward for the workers, peasants, and youth of Kashmir.

We are publishing an exchange of letters between a Chinese Communist, RY, and Fred Weston of the Marxist.com Editorial Board. They give an insight to the problems that many genuine Chinese Communists are facing, as China moves further and further down the road of capitalism.

We are proud to announce the launching of a new website by the Pakistani Marxists of The Struggle: www.struggle.com.pk. The site will be in Urdu and will publish both articles on the general situation in Pakistan and translations from Marxist.com.

In his preface to the recently published Indonesian edition of Reason in Revolt, Alan Woods points out that the intense anti-Islamic propaganda in the West is merely a “crude ideological cover for the pretensions and arrogance of imperialism and especially US imperialism, which seeks to dominate the entire world and subject it to its pitiless exploitation”. In answer to all this what is needed is that the rational, scientific outlook of Marxism should become the viewpoint of the labour movement in all countries.