How Palestine Action could unite the Communist Parties of Great Britain
Palestine Action isn’t a communist network of direct actionists, however it’s goal is a very internationalist one that shares the anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist characteristics of the communist orgs that are not quite coming close to having any real-world material results in preventing the tsunami of destruction British policy, partnerships and profits has across the planet.
Palestine Action are indeed having almost daily results and victories in this front, closing weapons factories down via lock-ons of the entrances or physically tearing the roof off these building to manually destroy their means of destruction, like UAV engines that were destined to terrorise and oppress innocent people in the name of Elbit Systems profits and to enable western hegemony over the Middle-East, as Israel acts as the puppet for US & UK imperialism.
From January, Palestine action, in its two year of history, has PERMANENTLY CLOSED two Elbit sites — in January, Elbit Ferranti in Oldham was abandoned following eighteen months of sustained direct action. Our victories have demonstrated the necessity of direct action to advance change.
Then, in June, after almost three months of near-weekly action taken en-site, Elbit were forced to leave their central London headquarters. Palestine Action are making Israel’s arms trade untenable, and it’s only a matter of time until the next site falls.
Timeline —
“In our first ever trial for an action, three activists were found not guilty in a landmark case for Palestine Action and a major defeat for both the Crown Prosecution Service and Elbit Systems. Alongside this, countless activists’ cases have been dropped.
In the New Year, activists caused chaos for Elbit as they took the roof down — literally, at UAV Engines LTD. Another notable action was in Tamworth, where activists took to the factory roof and used tiles to smash the site, leaving the site inoperable for weeks!
Palestine Action Scotland launched — their second action causing millions in damage to weapons giant Thales. People across the country are kicking warlords and weapons companies out of our cities, towns and villages.
After we closed Elbit’s London HQ, nine activists marked Nakba Day by storming the company’s state of the art Bristol HQ, occupying and barricading site offices. Activists were placed on remand and made political prisoners, as further attempts at repression are tried.
Two were held on remand for a month — but they emerged with grins on their faces, donning the flag. Over the past two years, 200+ activists have faced arrest and loss of liberty, braving state repression and personal fears in the struggle to end Britain’s collective complicity.
What’s next? In October, co-founders of Palestine Action Richard Barnard and Huda Ammori, amongst others, will be facing trial for a number of actions — our chance to put the spotlight on Elbit’s many crimes.
2 Elbit sites gone in 2 years — our sights are set on making the next one fall. Though the heart of Britain beats to the march of war, our hearts beat for Palestine.”
Direct action works. The cause is worth it. There is enough education around Palestine that we don’t need much more, people can find out for themselves what the situation in Palestine is, all we need now is the action and that’s all Palestine Action lives for.
The Communists Parties of Great Britain have had no successes in decades, or ever…
I’m not counting gathering Instagram followers, having people attend book clubs that they could have just read at home, or having a great year for newspaper sales, i’m talking about the kind of work, internationalism and solidarity that has the most oppressed people on the planet dedicating murials to you.
That means something. That is a meaning worth appreciating it’s significance and trying to replicate, because Palestine Action are clearly loved and admired by the people they fight for.
The proletarian today thinks communists are useless and frankly cringey, because they have never achieved anything for the masses. This is just a historical observation.
Palestine Action’s success is pretty easy to explain: They don’t have a high and mighty goal like “WORKERS OF THE WHOLE WORLD, UNITE” as if that’s a reasonable thing to end the communist manifesto on, if you want success.
Palestine Action’s goal is straightforward, not idealist and is materially achievable: “SHUT ELBIT DOWN”
And they have been doing that. Consistently. It works. One step at a time.
As well as being an actionist, using my privilege to serve Palestine Action — which is legitimately a privilege in of itself — I am also unfortunately for me, a Marxist; That is to say, I perceive the world through a historical materialist lens. I am a revolutionary.
I want to overthrow the bouji state and have a dictatorship of the proletariat. More than nearly anything!
I’ve done exactly (plus more of) the same practice communists are doing up and down the UK — shit — a decade ago. Those protests, the pickets, the speeches, the membership fees to those organisations where does it go, what does it achieve?
Not only did I do the exact same practice as communist orgs, some even replicated a bastardised version of MY practice as a Marxist, the practice of Serving The People, only after I put the pressure on groups like the YCL & Red”fight”back, did they acknowledge that they could organise to prevent hunger and turn that hunger from capitalism into a hunger for socialism, but rather than base-build dual-power they want to collaborate and help the food banks of Britain in their logistical needs, as Red Charity, taking pictures, donations and memberships.
So the orgs with a lot of money coming in from membership dues are doing very well while i’ve struggled out for my wages and the content created for my podcast has paid, via patreon supporters have given material subsistence to the masses; subsistence of my community, but if my struggle to feed mouths consistently is enough to get the air-heads of Red-Fightback to donate to eventually give to foodbanks, then I guess it’s better than a kick in the bollocks.
So, i’ve seen communist parties not know what to do with their members other than education. Education is great. I was educated by the Revolutionary Communist Group.
And now here I stand, apprentice surpassing their master that education isn’t enough, as George Jackson said:
“In order to develop revolutionary consciousness, we must learn how revolutionary consciousness can be raised to the highest point by stimuli from the vanguard elements. We recognize and appreciate the decades of hard, sometimes dangerous work done in the name of revolution by the older socialist parties. Perhaps we wouldn’t exist at all were it not for their efforts. It is our sincere wish to operate in complete harmony with these older groups. But we must create new impetus and greater intellectual and physical energy if the forces of reaction are not to win another extended reprieve.
A joint effort will make the task of overwhelming our common enemy all the simpler.
But if our present differences cannot be reconciled by an honest and fearless search for the correct way, then we will be forced to take the foundation of correct ideals and theory into our own hands and build a positive and more practical superstructure applicable to the circumstances surrounding our lives. In his Guerrilla War-fare Lenin wrote:
“New forms of struggle, unknown to the participants of the given period, inevitably arise as the given social situation changes, the coming crisis will introduce new forms of struggle that we are now unable to foresee.”*
In other words, the old guard must not fail to under-stand that circumstances change in time and space, thatThere can be nothing dogmatic about revolutionary theory.
It is to be born out of each popular struggle. Each popular struggle must be analysed historically to discover new ideas. In the words of John Gerassi: “Building from one to the other, eventually the revolutionary cadre would become equipped with a theory rooted in experience, broadened by historical knowledge, tested by combat, and fortified by re- flection. After ten or fifteen generations of labouring on a subsist- ence level, after a hundred and forty years of political agita- tion and education, we grow impatient-not that we fail to understand the risks and complexities of anti-establishment warfare.
We simply want to live.
We question a strategy that seems to have stopped short of providing a tactic for growth and for survival.”
My Question, is the same as the martyr George Jackson:
Just what level of consciousness will support the violent revolutionary activity necessary to achieve our ends?
And how will we know when this level is reached? Recall: our Mao teaches that when revolution fails, it isn’t the fault of the people, it’s the fault of the vanguard party. The people will never come to us and say, “Let’s fight.” There have never been any spontaneous revolutions.They were all staged, manufactured, by people who went to the head of the masses and directed them.
As we know, our people will make sacrifices for the cause, there have been many public videos displaying their actions logic.
So you see the people, hear our testimonies and we’re here doing direct action without you.Without the support of communist parties and newspapers, internationalism, all of that. Combatting colonialism and Palestine Action won’t stop until they’ve shut elbit down for good, at least out of this Country, where we can’t get our hands on those weapons made to kill and mane
Listen to the people why they took Palestine Action, why there’s no regrets and why the communist parties of britain should use their capital to support palestine action,
There needs to be an event where the board members of the communist parties of Great Britain get together to hear the testimonies of the actionists who have been convicted/charged for their political activism. To hear from the UK public why they are willing to do what they did, so the old guard can moralise and weigh the repercussions of their own members being utilised.
Palestine Action should gather all of these “old guard” organisations, board members, people and after hearing the people’s testimonies as to why the people took Palestine Action, and they should be able to support Palestine Action. Because Palestine Action is making more of a difference than anyone. It is aligned with the goals of communists to end Israel Apartheied and to Free Palestine! Palestine Action are doing what the communist orgs didn’t know what to do, so support us!
Honestly, Pal Action and every Communist board member best get in a room together so tell your party members, to tell the board members that Palestine Action needs your help, you need to fucking mobilize your forces. They’re there, ready and willing.
Palestine Action have achieved SO MUCH on their OWN. Imagine if they had a militant UK communist force to join them.
I cannot imagine how these ‘communist’ board members would not materially and strategically support the people who’ve served Palestine Action.
If you fail to act now, history will not forgive you.
Palestineaction.org/join-the-resistance
Patreon.com/LumpenPodcast
