REVOLUTION is an international socialist youth group. We are against capitalism and the war, poverty and climate chaos it creates. The rich and powerful clique responsible for slashing our public services, privatising education and throwing millions on the dole won’t give up their wealth and privilege by being voted out. They are launching a class war to make youth and workers pay the cost of capitalism’s crisis. We want to seize their wealth and abolish class society through a socialist revolution. This is what we are fighting for. www.socialistrevolution.org

Defend the right to

protest

Five articles

REVOLUTION PRESS

BRITAIN 2012

Cover art by RB

Layup by ChewDesigns

CONTENTSCONTENTSCONTENTSCONTENTS

[[[[PAGE 1]PAGE 1]PAGE 1]PAGE 1] INTRODUCTION

[PAGE 2][PAGE 2][PAGE 2][PAGE 2] WHO’S AGAINST

THE RIGHT TO PROTEST?

[PAGE 6][PAGE 6][PAGE 6][PAGE 6] FIGHTING CUTS IS

NOT A CRIME

[PAGE 7][PAGE 7][PAGE 7][PAGE 7] THE POLICE: ONLY

DOING THEIR JOB?

[PAGE 10][PAGE 10][PAGE 10][PAGE 10] FASCISM: NO

DEBATE – NO PLATFORM

[PAGE 13][PAGE 13][PAGE 13][PAGE 13] OCCUPY

EVERYWHERE?

web: www.socialistrevolution.org

email: info.socialistrevolution@gmail.com

phone: 020 1905 1917

First print 2012

Introduction

1 2

Who’s against the

right to protest? Why is the right to protest being

attacked and how can we defend

it?

The cuts have provoked massive

resistance – from the students to

NHS workers – millions have come

into struggle.

Yet from demonstrations to strikes,

the government has fought back,

using the courts, police and

parliament to crackdown on our

democratic rights.

Hundreds of students and youth

were beaten and arrested during

the revolt against fees. Strikes have

been declared illegal, and

communities affected by the August

Riots terrorised by punitive jail

terms.

And we’re not the only ones.

The vicious crackdown by security

forces on the Occupy camps in

Wall Street and Oakland took place

while revolutionaries in the Arab

Spring rose up in the face of

murderous repression from regimes

armed and funded by the USA.

Like every other right, the ‘right’ to

protest is not given automatically.

Just like the right to vote, it had to

be won, struggle by struggle, from

the capitalist class, who are

permanently trying to limit and

diminish its power.

All these attacks on the right to

protest are attacks on our right

to reject the politics of endless

war, cuts and poverty.

This pamphlet contains five articles,

each dealing with a particular topic

– from the role of the state and its

police in repressing the anti-cuts

movement, to the fight against

fascism and the rise of new

struggles like the Indignados.

We hope you enjoy this pamphlet. If

you like what you read – join us!

Editorial Board March 2012

When the world economy went into

meltdown in 2008, total collapse

was only avoided because

governments – the state - bailed out

the banks’ debts with $trillions of

their citizens’ money.

The economic crisis is a crisis of the

Capitalist system, and the

capitalists are determined to make

ordinary people shoulder the cost,

with cuts to our jobs, wages,

healthcare and education.

The Con-Dem government, and the

levers of state power it controls, are

the capitalists’ primary weapon for

achieving this. After all, there’s a

reason why the Lib-Dems are

mainly funded by giant private

healthcare firms…

But isn’t this a democracy? Isn’t the

state just a set of neutral institutions

enabling democracy to flourish?

What is the state?

Whenever we challenge the

multimillionaire corporations that

rule the world, against every march,

every protest, every picket, boycott,

strike and action... there is an

organised force trained, prepared

and waiting to block us, smother us

and stop us. What is this force?

It's the police that threaten us,

move us on, caution us, batter us,

arrest us and imprison us.

It’s the judges who try us and

condemn us, even though they

know nothing about how we live

and never will.

The faceless civil servants,

bureaucrats and lawyers who

create tax loopholes, outlaw strikes

and create the laws that protect the

privileges of the rich.

3 4

The State is, in the words of one of the

first revolutionary communists,

Frederick Engels, the product of the

division of society into "irreconcilable"

classes, groups of people whose

interests directly clash and collide.

In short, the state is not a referee in a

football match who blows the whistle

when either team commits a foul. It is

a weapon that allow one class to rule

over another.

This means that there is no point

imagining that the states which exist

today will help the people do away

with capitalism. It exists to defend the

property of the capitalist minority from

the working class majority.

The division of society into a tiny

capitalist class and a huge majority of

working class people is an obstacle to

progress. At every step the capitalists

increase the threat of global warming,

destroy public services in favour of

private corporations, tighten the hold

of the banks on third world countries

through debt and build up ever bigger

nuclear arsenals. Production has

reached the stage where we can feed,

clothe and house the whole population

of the world a hundred times over - but

still millions starve in shanty towns.

To overthrow the rule of the capitalist

minority, we will first have to overcome

their resistance, which means we have

to overcome their state power.

Reformists and liberals believe that

this can be done peacefully through

parliamentary and constitutional

action. But from the Paris Commune of

1871 to the 1917 Russian Revolution

to Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, all

history proves otherwise.

That is why the most determined part

of the working class, throughout the

history of modern capitalism, has

always argued that the state cannot be

reformed; it has to be forcibly

overthrown.

And there's the last deadly line of

defence for the system, the Army -

a killing machine waiting to spring

unthinkingly into action when their

paymasters' dirty work needs to be

done.

So how did the state come into

being? What makes it tick, and

can it be abolished?

If we want to be free and to break

the power of the corporations and

the billionaires, we need to try and

answer these questions.

Where do states come from?

It was only when societies had

advanced far enough for each

person to be able to produce a

little bit extra that a surplus arose -

and it is at this stage that a part of

society struggles to control that

surplus. Suddenly it is worthwhile

forcing other people to work for

you. It is possible to get rich - but

only by oppressing others. At this

stage, a class seizes control. It

makes the surplus of the group its

own private property. And it can

only do this by holding the rest of

the people down - by using force.

In other words, by establishing a

state - kings to rule, priests to lie

to the people about the king being

holier than everyone else, soldiers

to take action if the people see

through the lies and demand a

fairer share. Liberals believe that

the state is a neutral force that

exists to ensure fair play between

different interest groups in society.

To them, the state mediates

between the classes.

Many liberals argue that the way

to control global capitalism is to

strengthen the powers of the state.

The state will then be able to take

steps to limit the abuses of the big

corporations, cutting them down to

size and restricting the extent of

their control over the world's

resources.

It sounds nice - but it completely

misunderstands what the state is

and what it exists to do.

As we have seen, the State comes

into being when society is divided

into classes with different

relationships to the wealth that its

members have produced.

Fighting cuts is not a

crime

The only way this can be done is

by forming mass councils of

delegates from the working

population as alternative centres

of power, and by organising a

popular militia from among the

armed people to take action

against the capitalists, their allies

and protectors.

In short, it will take a revolution

to smash the capitalist state.

But does this mean we can move

overnight to a stateless society?

The capitalists will use every

means at their disposal to get their

property and their power back.

Until such time as a planned

socialist economy can redistribute

wealth and do away with class

division altogether, the old ruling

class will continue the fight. While

classes exist, there will be a need

for a state.

But after a socialist revolution, a

completely different type of state

will be needed - a working class

state.

The capitalist state exists to

defend the power and property of a

tiny minority. A working class state

would exist to do the opposite -

defend the property of the

overwhelming majority of the world's

population from a tiny former elite.

Instead of police – democratic

popular militias to defend our

communities. Instead of

parliamentary careerists and liars –

elected delegates from mass

councils of ordinary people. They

would be paid an average wage and

be subject to instant recall if they

broke their promises.

As classes disappeared there would

be less and less need for even this

special state machine. The functions

of the working class state could be

increasingly be taken over by

society as a whole.

The future lies in a society without

classes and states - a society based

on real freedom, fairness and

fulfilment. But there is only one road

to freedom: the revolutionary

overthrow of the capitalist state, and

the establishment of a democratic

working class state.

5 6

The government is doing its best to criminalise protest and create a climate of

fear. In this task it is helped by the courts, police and private businesses –

including university managements.

These are just some of the most punitive sentences imposed. Their

purpose is to intimidate people and paint those fighting back as

‘criminals’. We refuse to be silenced.

Frank Fernie – threw placards at police – 12 MONTHS

Omar Ibrahim – threw smoke bomb – 12 months

Zenon Mitchell-Kotsakis – threw placards at police – 12 months

Alfie Meadows – beaten into coma - charged with violent disorder

Cambridge uni student – read poem to David Willetts

Jordan Blackshaw – ‘incited riot on facebook’ – 4 years

- suspended for 2 and a half years

15 young muslims – accused of violent dis- order on protests against massacre in Gaza

January 2010 – 12-30 months

The police: only

doing their job?

7 8

The media portrays the police as

the thin blue line, defending

'normal' people from the hordes of

criminals waiting to rob, rape or

murder us. Recent events have

shattered this myth.

The truth is of an organisation that

ignores the security and well-being

of the majority of people. Anti-

social crimes committed against

against working-class families are

ignored. Women who are victims of

rape or domestic violence find the

police unsympathetic. Black people

are victimised. Many hold this up as

proof that the police should have

more money and power. Such a

conclusion is utterly wrong. The fact

is that the fundamental role of the

police is not to protect us from crime.

First and foremost, the duty of the

police is to defend the existing social

order. This means repressing

resistance to capitalism and its

effects. This is their 'law and order',

and it is not in our interests. As such

the state must disguise this true

purpose.

The police need the trust of ordinary

people, to ensure our day-to-day

obedience and our acceptance of

law and order policies: more power,

more weapons. They need to con us

into believing that without them

Into believing that without them

crime would explode. Press and

politicians - Tory, Lib Dem and

Labour alike - spread this lie. It is all

based on the idea that communities

would be incapable of policing

themselves, if allowed to.

These lies have been smashed.

Thousands of ordinary students,

exercising their democratic right to

protest, have over the past year

experienced the true brutality of the

police at first hand. For all the smoke

and mirrors deployed by the state

and the media, the violent,

repressive nature of the police can

no longer be hidden from the people

it claims to serve.

Police power

At the student demonstrations of

2010, the police armed themselves

with batons, horses and kettling

tactics, and used them ruthlessly in

medieval displays of force. Alfie

Meadows suffered brain damage as

the result of a truncheon blow. Jody

McIntyre was pulled from his

wheelchair and beaten. The media

has done its utmost to cover up or

distort these acts of barbarity.

Meadows and McIntyre were lucky.

Others have died as a result of

police repression. Ian Tomlinson

was a victim of such indiscriminate

violence. And we are far from seeing

the worst of what the police are

capable of.

There are suggestions that water

cannon be used at demonstrations,

despite a protestor in Germany

having been blinded by them. There

is even a strong lobby for the routine

carrying of guns. Given that Met

chief Sir Paul Stephenson described

the protestors that vandalised the

royal car as having been “lucky” for

not being shot, the results of all

police carrying guns are not hard to

predict.

Who they really police

The true role of the police exposes

itself most nakedly when the working

class and oppressed organise

together and fight back.

In 1984, the most militant section of

the working class, the miners,

9 10

fought against the Tory

government's attempts to destroy

their industry. The Tories knew this

was a movement they had to crush

at any cost - they pumped billions of

pounds into the police force and

intelligence services like MI5.

Thousands of police were poured

into the pit villages. Pitched battles

were fought as they tried to break

the strike. The state was determined

to smash the miners, and the police

force was the weapon of choice. Any

opposition to the established order

was attacked ruthlessly. The march

against the BNP in Welling and the

demonstration against the Criminal

Justice Act at Hyde Park were both

attacked by a tooled up police force

on government instructions.

We cannot turn the other cheek to

the repressive aims and methods of

the police. We need to organise

disciplined defence, so that we are

capable of defeating police attacks.

On demonstrations, stewarding

should be geared to defence and

organised enough to resist attack.

On pickets, defence squads run

On pickets, defence squads run by

the workers need to stop the police

breaking strikes.

Imagine if a movement, supported

by the mass of working people, tried

seriously to change the distribution

of wealth from the rich to the poor. It

is clear what side the police would

take. They are an arm of the state -

ultimately the state will always

defend the greed of the elites

against the interests of the people.

The state is not neutral and neither

are the police. This has been proven

by the attacks on our protests.

A generation of students has been

shown the brutal truth of how our

'democracy' works, of how their

basic human right of education is

worth less than the profit and power

of the elites. We cannot let this pass

unopposed.

The police are a real, daily threat to

ordinary people and an obstacle on

the road to socialism. We must strip

them of their powers, and fight for

democratic self-defence of our

communities.

Fascism: no debate –

no platform

This article looks at the tactics

necessary to oppose the rise of

fascism as a violent force on the

streets of Britain.

The economic crisis has given a boost

to racist and fascist organisations as

some workers are persuaded by the

media lies that immigrants are to

blame for the lack of jobs and housing.

Groups like the English Defence

League and the Infidels have

broadened out from abusing Muslims,

to targeting trade union, socialist and

anti-cuts meetings and protests.

Fascists today might seem

marginalised, but history shows they

are always the capitalists’ last line of

defence against a revolutionary

working-class.

Despite splits, setbacks and infighting,

the last 12 months has seen the

the last 12 months has seen the

English Defence League

successfully exploit prevalent

Islamophobic ideas to develop the

basis for a fascist street force

prepared to wage a violent

campaign of hate and intimidation

against minorities in working-class

communities.

Fascist tendencies thrive during

times of economic crisis, and the

EDL seek to capitalise on the fallout

from the economic crisis, by stoking

fires of division in working class

communities between white workers

and the new scapegoats, Muslim

and migrant workers.

11

The media exposure extended to tin-

pot fascists like Nick Griffin and

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka

Tommy Robinson, hooligan and EDL

ringleader, has presented

Islamophobia as a mainstream

political opinion, rather than the

prejudiced hatred of racists and

bigots.

Airtime for fascists and racists

reflects the role of media and the

purpose of fascist ideology in

capitalist society; that is, to allow the

ruling class to divide and rule.

The ideas of the BNP and EDL are

no threat to the established powers;

they strengthen the bosses’ rule by

dividing the working class along

ethnic lines. This is why the police

defend the fascist marches, and it is

why the EDL ‘whiteshirts’

volunteered to help the police

‘restore order’ during the riots.

The lessons of history ar

implacable. In the 20

everywhere fascism rose to power

as the last resort of the capitalists

confronted by the revolutionary

struggles of the working

examples of Spain, Germany, Italy,

are proof of fascism’s historic role as

the final defence

property relations against workers’

control and socialism.

Blame the bosses, not foreign

workers

It is no coincidence that fascist ideas

gain a wider audience just as the

bosses are launching a de

offensive on working

pensions and public services.

The bosses ruthlessly exploit

immigrant labour during the boom

years, paying lower wages,

strengthen the bosses’ rule by

dividing the working class along

ethnic lines. This is why the police

defend the fascist marches, and it is

why the EDL ‘whiteshirts’

volunteered to help the police

‘restore order’ during the riots.

The lessons of history are

implacable. In the 20th century,

everywhere fascism rose to power

as the last resort of the capitalists

confronted by the revolutionary

struggles of the working-class. The

of Spain, Germany, Italy,

fascism’s historic role as

defence of capitalist

property relations against workers’

control and socialism.

Blame the bosses, not foreign

It is no coincidence that fascist ideas

gain a wider audience just as the

bosses are launching a devastating

offensive on working-class jobs,

pensions and public services.

The bosses ruthlessly exploit

immigrant labour during the boom

years, paying lower wages,

refusing to recognise trade unions and

impoverishing their communities. All

the while the capitalist media wages a

constant campaign of sensationalism,

lies and racism which manages to

vilify immigrants in general, Muslims in

particular, and the welfare state in

general as the root of moral decay.

The fascists blame unemployment on

the poorest, most exploited sections of

society, despite the fact that the only

people who benefit from

unemployment are the bosses – who

use it to lower wages and make

ordinary people turn against each

other when there aren’t enough jobs

to go round.

However, opposing fascism isn’t just a

battle of ideas. Based on a reactionary

and illogical ideology, fascism can

only demonstrate its value to the

bosses through “well-directed boots

and fists.”

This is why the EDL have stepped up

their campaign of attacking left-wing

and trade union meetings – to disrupt

working-class organisations and

weaken our ability to resist the

bosses’ offensive on our jobs.

12

refusing to recognise trade unions and

impoverishing their communities. All

the while the capitalist media wages a

constant campaign of sensationalism,

lies and racism which manages to

vilify immigrants in general, Muslims in

state in

The fascists blame unemployment on

the poorest, most exploited sections of

society, despite the fact that the only

people who benefit from

who

use it to lower wages and make

ordinary people turn against each

other when there aren’t enough jobs

isn’t just a

battle of ideas. Based on a reactionary

and illogical ideology, fascism can

only demonstrate its value to the

rected boots

This is why the EDL have stepped up

wing

to disrupt

class organisations and

weaken our ability to resist the

In times of economic and social crisis,

the fascists will offer racism and

violence as a solution to people’s

desperation.

The question of No Platform must be

posed as an issue of working-class

unity against the bosses’ efforts to

divide and rule.

It is also a question of our right to

organise self-defence against fascist

pogroms and attacks on our meetings

and demonstrations.

That's why, when the English Defence

League march in our cities and towns,

attacking black and Asian areas,

screaming racist abuse, we need our

own "Antifascist Defence League" to

drive them off the streets. A trained,

organised and democratic defence is

the best way to protect our

communities from racist thugs and the

police alike.

No platform

works

“ ”

13 14

Occupy everywhere?

The economic crisis has hit all the

major economies of the world. While

trade union leaders across Europe

were still pleading for negotiations, the

youth of Spain and Greece took

matters into their own hands.

The movement born from these

protests – los indignados – ‘the

outraged’ spread across Europe,

drawning hundreds of thousands of

young people into radical protest

against the system they identified as

the source of their problems.

Occupying central squares and plazas

in major cities, defending them against

police attack and organising through

democratic General Assemblies, the

uprising of the Indignados was an

inspiration to millions across the

world.

Inspired by the Arab Spring and the

Spanish youth camps against

austerity, the Occupy Wall Street

movement has laid the blame for the

economic crisis squarely at the door of

of the 1% - the elite class of

international bankers, speculators and

their governments who are

determined to make the 99% pay for

their crisis.

By taking the slogan 'we are the

99%' to the heart of every major

financial district in the world, the

movement has opened the door to

putting an anti-capitalist alternative

at the centre of international

resistance to austerity.

Yet the camps have now all been

cleared, some peacefully, most with

the use of police, private security and

public-health laws. So what went

wrong, and is this a good model?

Ultimately, Occupy's consensus-

based model proved incapable of

providing a practical alternative to the

existing power structures. But in just

three months on the steps of St.

Pauls, OccupyLSX played a pivotal

role in galvanising a wider social

movement alongside the historic

actions of the organised labour

movement last year.

Resistance to austerity and

exploitation is escalating

throughout our society - from

Primark staff to nurses, people are

fighting back.

If we are to succeed in bringing down

the government to stop these cuts,

then we need to win the argument by

leading the struggles to show how

collective action gives us the potential

to transform our society. We want to

channel the anger and energy into

a united organisation capable of

rallying all those committed to fighting

for an anti-capitalist alternative.

Faced with the enormously centralised

violence and power of the capitalist

state - which employs the combined

wealth of society to forcibly defend the

privileges of the 1% - any Occupy

movement must

movement against the cuts must be

prepared to react by building its own

organisations, capable of defending our

camps, demonstrations and

communities.

The economic crisis is a crisis of

capitalism which can only be resolved at

the expense of one class over another.

We stand with the working class, the

youth, and the unemployed who produce

all the world's wealth, against the

capitalist class - the 1% who defend their

exploitation with the bullet and the ballot

box.

We stand for resistance to the massacre

of jobs, education and public services.

We stand for the creation of a new

organisation of struggle which can

unite those fighting for an alternative

to capitalism – now is the time to fight

– join us!