Ernest (‘Ernie’) Tate, one of the founders of the International Marxist Group and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the 1960s, has died at the age of 86.
World War II was the product of capitalism which is still with us. It is prepared to defend its system of exploitation and oppression at the cost of tens of millions of lives. The opposite course, advocated by the FI and their comrades publishing Arbeiter und Soldat, cannot be dismissed as mere “counterfactual” history.
Protestors around the world have shouted and carried signs proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” alongside the names of people of color killed by police locally – Adama Traoré, in France in 2016 and several cases in Britain – in ways similar to George Floyd. Demands to remove symbols of racist and imperialist oppression such as statues of Belgian King Leopold II who murderously exploited the Congo as a private capitalist space, or statues of slave traders in Britain, center of the transatlantic slave trade, echo demands to remove Confederate statues and Southern (pro-slavery) flags.
It will be impossible to return to the so-called normal state before the Covid-19 crisis – which was a capitalist “normality” that threatened the future of humanity and the planet. It is urgent to change to a new society based on social needs, organized by and for the working classes with public ownership of banks and the main means of production. That is why a radical socio-ecological transformational perspective is necessary.
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Statement issued by the European organizations of the Fourth International on 8 April 2020.
