 revolutionary greetings to the revolution festival in London and I will have one single message for you and this is study Marxism to defeat imperialism. Solidarity with Palestine. Hi comrades, I'm Pietro from Webordissimo, the French section of the IMT. There's never been a better time in history to be a communist. The crisis of capitalism is threatening to bring humanity back into barbarism and by studying Marx's theory we understand that the world can be changed and that capitalism can be overthrown. The working class in Britain, in France, and in the rest of the world is waking up and we cannot let this potential slip away from us. Our task today is crystal clear. We need a communist international. Comrades in the IMT across the world are proud of the successes of the British section and I am certain that this revolution festival will be yet another milestone in the building of the IMT in Britain. Solidarity from France and the French section of the IMT. Comrades, we wish you a very educational revolution festival. You need to get fit for the fight. The greetings from the Swiss section of the IMT. We are currently hosting our own revolutionary autumn school, so let's build a revolutionary organization in Britain, Switzerland and across the world. The IMT has the solution, give it the power of revolution. Welcome comrades, welcome. Welcome to the revolution festival 2023. My name's Ben, I'm the national organizer for socialist appeal. This year for the revolution festival, we're meeting at a time when the need for revolutionary solutions to the problems faced by poor and oppressed people all over the world has never been clearer. The ruling class has never looked more bankrupt, more barricaded into a dead end than it does today. The genocide being inflicted upon Palestinian people by the Israeli state is a really horrific reminder about the desperate need to rid the world of imperialism, capitalism, exploitation and war. And it is a reminder also about the importance of this weekend, of the ideas that we are here to discuss. Because there's no shortage of reformists or pacifists, people calling for ceasefires, relying on UN declarations. But there is a total vacuum of revolutionary leadership all over the world, leadership that will base itself not on the UN or pacifism, but on class struggle waged by the proletariat in Britain and everywhere else. So we will spend this weekend studying Marxist ideas as a guide to building an active revolutionary organization in the weeks and months ahead. And that is why it's so good to see so many of us here in this room today. I'm sure anyone who's been to revolution festivals before will realize that the room is a lot more full than it normally is on a Friday night. And I think you will see tomorrow that the room is even more full than it's ever been before. Before we came here this morning, we'd sold just over 900 tickets, which is extraordinary. And I would anticipate that we will sell on the door as well, we will get to the thousand ticket mark. And the attendance here this weekend includes many visitors from around the world. Many international comrades are here, many more than normal. Just very briefly to run through the the delegations that we have, and hopefully I'm not, I haven't missed anyone out of this list. They should stand. Alan says you've got to stand up. So we've got Austrian comrades here. We've got, I think it's just the one we've got, Brazil. We've got comrades from Canada, from Denmark. That's a lot of games. It's a Viking invasion. We've got French comrades here, I think. And the Hungarian comrades here. Irish comrades, we've got some comrades from Ireland. And the Italians. We've got Italians here. Are the Polish comrades here? Portugal. Yeah, Portuguese comrades here. We've got comrades from Russia present. That's a very important comrades to be here this weekend. Spanish comrades, or from the Spanish state, I should say. Yeah, the Swedish comrades. Swiss comrades. And I've got Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia. Any comrades from, yeah? Have we got comrades from anywhere else? That's the end of my list. Germany. Yeah, of course Germany. And Belgium. Germans. Yeah, they're the Germans. I knew that. I knew that because Franz texted me earlier in the week and he told me they were coming. And the Netherlands. Yeah, they're on the Netherlands. There you go. We're awash with international comrades. I can't keep up. And where? Oh, the US. Oh, that's fantastic. That's a very long way to come. It's very good to see you all. So with so many people here, both today and over the course of the weekend, we just have to run through a few things very briefly. Keep your wristbands on that you should have got a registration. Try and keep them on all weekend because they will be checked to all the doors to all the sessions that you're going into. There will be stalls. I don't think today, but in the corridor outside this room there and also that way, there'll be books and merchandise over the course of the weekend. Make sure to make the most of those. Obviously, there's a lot of us, so please be patient with the comrades on the stalls if you're trying to buy things. On transport in London tomorrow, there are four tube lines that are closed. So getting here might be a little bit more difficult than normal. So make sure to allow enough time. The sessions they will start on time. So make sure to allow enough time to get here. Check your routes in the morning. There'll be a party on Saturday night, about half hour walk from here. You will be able to buy your drinks, tokens and things like that in advance and I recommend you do that to avoid several hundred people all trying to get to the bar in this in this place at the same time. And this is a very important one. Please do not take photographs or film anybody that you don't know, especially the faces of anybody that you don't know, because there are comrades who cannot for serious security reasons cannot have their face on social media in connection with this event. So photos of the stage is okay and the people speaking and selfies and all the rest of it is fine as long as you know the people in the pictures. Don't put faces of people online who you don't know who they are. And we will, if you're putting stuff online, use the hashtag revolution festival partly so that everyone can see all the nice pictures, but also partly so we can check that there are no people in the background who shouldn't be in the pictures if there are. We will contact you and ask you to take the pictures down. And obviously briefly on the question of conduct especially at the party but over the whole course of the weekend everybody here is expected to conduct themselves as a revolutionary communist. That is a high standard of behavior and anybody falling below that standard will be spoken to and non-revolutionary behavior. Behavior unworthy of communists will not be tolerated. If you have any questions about the event you can contact Harry. His number is in the program that you should have received from your sign-in. If you've got any other problems or questions that are not directly related to the organization of the event then you can contact me or Fiona and our numbers are on the program as well. So we have 38 sessions in total this weekend. I hope you've all brought something to take a lot of notes because you'll be learning a lot. We start with this evening's session which will be Alan Woods, the member of the international secretariat of the IMT, the political editor of course of Marxist.com and of the indefensive Marxism theoretical magazine. Alan's going to be introducing the session for us on why we're communists. Ben, you are a very bad man. You forgot the most important section of the international. What about Wales? Anyway, I was born in Wales but I am a convinced internationalist and therefore we believe the national question temporarily to one side. So the subject is not why we are communists. Well the first question is are you communists? Well, pardon I didn't hear you. I think I heard something. Are you communists? That's better. Now where shall we start? Where can we start on this very interesting and broad subject? And I can count too many. Do you like stories? So do I. So do I. If you like stories, fairy stories in particular, then you should definitely tune into the BBC. Known by its friends as the British Bullsetting Corporation. Okay. Yes, there are specialists in telling stories, tall stories, fairy stories and they have a special program which is suitable for all audiences, all ages, especially the very young members who don't understand very much. It's called the six o'clock news. I strongly recommend it. Don't miss it. Recommend it to your friends. Of course, a pack of lies can start to finish. Sometimes I just scratch my head when I listen to this stuff which they say. Anyway, let's leave that to one side because I'm now going to tell you a true story. Once upon a time, it wasn't wrong to go actually, but there we are. You've got to start stories like that. Once upon a time, there was a young chap from Italy, from Rome. Okay. And this young gentleman from Rome, he went on a holiday to Paris. When he was in Paris, he saw, to his establishment, on all the walls and the mattresses and stickers saying, are you a communist? Well, he didn't quite believe it. He scratched his head. He continued on his holiday. But when he went back to Rome and looked around on all the bus stations and metro stations with the same poster, are you a communist? He therefore said, hey, these people are serious. I'm going to join you, which he did. That's the story. Now then, now then, how many of you have seen our stickers? Are you coming? Put your hand up. Oh, there we are. Good. So we're not doing too badly. That's a, you've all seen it anyway. You're not the only ones. This campaign, comrades and friends, is having an absolutely astonishing effect. I've been around for quite some time, quite some years, many years, more than I care to recite. But I can tell you what I've seen, good situations, I've seen bad situations, I've seen difficult situations. But I have never in my life seen anything remotely resembling what I've seen in the last few months. When we started this campaign, by the way, it was Comrade Bentley Nessie who had the idea. I hate him, you know. I should have thought of that. It was Ben's idea. Give him a clap. And you have just seen, you may have seen in these marvelous clips, these videos, very short videos, but I thought very effective videos of comrades from all different countries, all different continents. And all of our sections now are going forward at a fast rate. Extraordinary. You heard what the Comrade from Canada said, they increased their membership by 50%. It's up to over 600 now in Canada. And of course, if there's any country in the world, they would twist my arm and say, which is the country least liable to have a socialist revolution? I think Canada'd be fairly high on the list. With no disrespect to our Canadian comrades. On the contrary, this makes their success even more pleasing to me and more satisfying. And what it proves, by the way, I'm a bit tired of that. I feel so often I've heard this ridiculous expression, you know. Oh, we can't grow because the objective conditions are not favourable. You know, I never accepted that. And I know what are what unfavourable conditions I know very well what they are. And I've never been in a position where you couldn't grow. You can always grow. The only difference is growing faster, growing slower, with greater or lesser difficulties. But this kind of growth is tremendous. Really speaking, you know, we're very self-critical, aren't we? And I'm the most critical of the lot. But, you know, sometimes when we get something right, we should really shout it from the rooftops, you know. And we shouldn't be ashamed to praise the work that we've done, where we've done something right. And this is very right. It's really connecting. Now, this is important. This is important. Our successes, by the way, which are considerable, are noted by our friends, who naturally are very pleased. They're also noted by our enemies, who, for reasons best known to themselves, are perhaps not so pleased. You know. But the thing about our enemies is they don't really displease. Their displeasure is enormously increased by the fact. They can't understand it. They can't. All of a sudden, these guys from the IMT, they're coming from nowhere. They're doing this campaign and they're actually building. And everybody knows you can't build because the situation is unfavorable, isn't it? You know. Now, this enormous confusion extends right across the so-called left. How I hate that expression, you know. Göring once said, when I hear the word culture, I'll reach for my revolver. And when I hear the word left lately, well, I don't possess a revolver, but if I did, I think I would reach for it, you know. The left. What left? Where? What left? You tell me where the left is. I can't. I can't see it for the life of me. And the left is in disarray. Total disarray. At this precise moment, my friends, when the capitalist system, I mean, a child of six could understand this for goodness' sake, precisely at the moment in history where the capitalist system is in its deepest crisis probably in 300 years. You look anywhere in the world. You look at the whole damn thing from top to bottom. Economic crisis, financial crisis, monetary crisis, political crisis, diplomatic crisis. Look at the Middle East. If it wasn't so terribly tragic, which it is, you know, you could even laugh at the comic spectacle of Mr. Blinken. I think there's an English poem, isn't it, for kids? Winking, blinking and nod. He's one of those. Blinking. He's a blinking fool, you hear this, man? I mean, for goodness' sake. By the way, you can see the depth of the capitalist crisis reflected in the absolute incompetence, stupidity, blockheaded sortsightedness of all the political representatives. You know, I mean, take Britain. And everyone says, no, you take Britain. Take Britain. Tomorrow, if you didn't know, foreign commons wouldn't know this, we're having a special day. It's Armistice Day. It's the anniversary of the Armistice, which ended the Second World War, where millions of workers in uniform were slaughtered. And it's a day in which all these damned hypocrites of the ruling class, all the ladies and gentlemen, all the political class, all the heads of the clergy, the bankers, the capitalists, they will gang with them, don their finest suits and finery and fur coats. That's the only reason they turn up. In front of the senator, the tomb of the unknown soldier, where they pretend, you know, cheer pretend, they pretend to weep tears about the fate of some unfortunate soldier, some unfortunate young kid that was killed for no good reason over 100 years ago. And these same damned hypocrites are quite prepared to support actively the slaughter of men, women and children by the thousands in Gaza, which we see at the present time. Not only that, not really, that's bad enough. But these same gangsters, these same Democrats, you know, we live in a democracy band, did you know that? You've noticed it? Or as Ted Grant used to call it, my great friend, leader of the teacher, he didn't call it a democracy, he said, a democry, that's about right. We live in a democry, you know. This democracy, these great Democrats are striving to silence, and not just in Britain, in Austria, in Germany, in France, in France, they're charging, I don't know, how much is it, 150 euros? Anyone that dares to go on a demonstration in France, in Democratic France? In this country, they're trying to ban the demonstration, the mass demonstration. These are probably the biggest demonstrations that I can remember in Britain. Probably half a million. Are they aiming for a million? They probably won't get a million. It's absolutely astonishing, the way that things are. What are you doing, Ben? Moving the microphone, why? Oh, I hate this modern technology. Can you hear me okay? Okay. I must believe you. You know, all these countries are clamping down on democracy. In Britain, they're trying to ban the monster demonstration, which will take place tomorrow in spite of them. And we've got this creature as our Home Secretary, Minister of the Interior, I think you'd call it in other countries. It sounds better. What's her name, he has? Suella, something like Suella, doesn't it? Suella Braveman or Braverman or whatever her name is, you know. Who is demanding that they ban this demonstration, because it causes distress, you see, among the sexes of the population, like her, for instance. Okay. Now, some sexes, some unkind people describe Ms. Braveman. Oh, by the way, isn't it great of a woman minister? Doesn't it make all the difference? You know, if you listen to the feminists, the identity politics, got this, oh, she's purple. He's not just a female, she's a female of color. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And she's a person on the extreme right, extreme extreme right, who seems to take a delight in putting forward racist, openly racist, anti-immigrant, there are all kinds of stuff. For example, sending the immigrants on a plane to Rwanda, for example, and so on. And this person, some people have unkindly described her as right wing. Now, I beg to differ. Yeah, I think that's very unkind. It's not even particularly precise. If I were to be asked for my precise definition of where Ms. Braveman stands, in the political spectrum, I would say, well, she probably stands a little bit to the left of Genghis Khan, probably, not quite sure. I've got, with apologies to Genghis Khan, who after all was a man of stature. He was a monster, but he was a great general, you know. Oh, yes. Yes, he was. He was a very effective general. No doubt about that. He's very popular in out of Mongolia. But there we are. Genghis Khan. But he was a great figure in history, whereas Ms. Braveman, even in the miserable context of our wretched political class in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, is just a pygmy. And they're all pygmies, every single one of them, from Biden all around the world. Absolute useless elements. At any event, we have this position that we are succeeding and our enemies can't understand. I don't know why can't they understand it? They can't understand it. And by the way, I include in this gang, not just the lefts, the left reformists, the Stalinists, of course, who were in a terrible crisis, I might deal with that later on, but also all the 57 varieties of sectarian imbeciles who vegetate on the periphery of the Labour movement of all countries, making a thorough nuisance of themselves. However, you see, all of these people are united on one question. They're all pessimistic. You speak to any of them. They're all thoroughly pessimistic. They're demoralized. They can't see anything positive. In other words, in this moment of the crisis of capitalism, these so-called lefts have not got a clue. The events which are really taking place in the variable have passed them by completely. And I would maintain, I would say this. And this is the first reason why you should be a Marxist and a communist, because Marxism and communism allows us to see further than the end of our own nose. It enables us to penitent deeply beyond the superficial appearance of things and understand the deeper processes, the underlying processes and contradictions that are taking place in society silently, perhaps. You know, this is what Trotsky referred to in a brilliant phrase, as the molecular process of revolution. That is to say, beneath the apparent surface of tranquility, of quiet, of nothing's happening here. Have you heard that? Oh, nothing ever happens in this country. Where's the strikes? Where's the demonstrations? Yes, but beneath the surface in all countries, without any exception, there is silently maturing a colossal building up of rage, of discontent, of hatred, of bitterness above all of frustration, everywhere. And this subterranean process, like the subterranean process is taking place beneath the Earth's surface, is looking for a point of reference, looking for a way out. It's now founded, by the way, suddenly. And it's taken the ruling class by surprise. They're shocked. It's found a point of reference, a focal point in the terrible events in Gaza, which really are the distilled essence of what Lenin said a long time ago, 100 years ago, over 100 years ago. Lenin said the following. Capitalism, he said. Capitalism is horror without end. Horror without end. That's what it is. And you see that written very clearly on the pages of every newspaper you care to open at the present time. And this, of course, is bound to have, and is having, a profound effect on consciousness. And we've come to that in a moment. As far as the so-called lefts are concerned, of course, they understand precisely, precisely nothing. But to be fair, most people, think about it, most people, when they switch on their television every night, they see these events, they're horrified by these events, but they don't understand. You see, that's where this weekend places us in a very privileged position. Comrades and friends, it is an enormous privilege to be alive at this particular moment in human history. It's a great privilege. To be in this situation where the capitalist system has reached its limits. I'll come to that assertion in a moment. But more than that, you know, there was a, you know, the books are always described, they try to describe revolutions as terrible events, as madness, and bad things, and barbarous, and so on. Nothing of the sort. Nothing of the sort. You know, I was once, when I was young, and handsome, and slim, like you guys a long time ago. And I was studying Russian. I spent, to Moscow, to study at the State University. I happened to meet an old woman who had been a Bolshevik school teacher. I think she was in the, in the Volga region, I think. And she'd spent 14 years in one of those hellish places, one of Stalin's labour camps. She didn't want to talk about that. She wouldn't talk about it at all. Terrible experience. But then one day, I said, I've forgotten her name. I said, what's her name, they might be Natasha, Maria, whatever. What was it like in the October Revolution? Do you know she's an old woman, wrinkled, old, gray, bent, bitter? And I'll never forget the expression that came over her face. Her eyes lit up. It lit up. She became young again. And she said, oh, you can't imagine. You can't imagine what it was like. The Russian Communist president, you'd understand the phrase. What an uplift. Padyom is a word that suggests to me like a spiritual uplift. What an uplift in the people. And then the next minute, the expression faded off her face and she said, not like now. This was in 1970. And de Brescia, not like now. That literally just showed me what a revolution is. And here's another example from this country. You heard of the great poet, the great English poet Wordsworth, William Wordsworth. As a young man, he went to France, I don't know if you know that. It's at the time of the French Revolution. I think he was in 1792. He wrote his great work, The Prelude. And the sections of that poet, that marvelous poem that deals with the French Revolution contains a marvelous phrase. And it is this. Bliss was in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven. William Wordsworth. That, my friends, is what a revolution is. And that potential is contained in the present situation. I mean, it's all the barbarism and the suffering. How much more barbarism and suffering do you want than what the Russians had to put up during the First World War and afterwards. And yet out of all that came this tremendous spiritual uplift. That's what a revolution is. Never forget. I'll come back to this question later. I'll come to this question of consciousness later. The benefit of our organization, of our international, because we are an international, first and foremost, that we have been able to detect this undercurrent potential, this embryonic revolutionary consciousness, which is present and is developing. It finds its clearest expression among the youth. I'll deal with that in a moment, but it is there. And yet all these ladies and gentlemen who like to call themselves Marxists, Communists, even Trotskyists, I don't know why, are blind. It reminds me what Communists know that I like, I like to quote the Bible. Oh yeah, have you read the Bible? Hands up, all of you have read the Bible. Oh, bless you, my children. Oh, there's some intelligent people present. I've read the Bible, all of it. Start to finish it. I tell you, it's full of wonderful poetry and philosophy and interesting insights and so on, into human nature and so on. And there's marvelous phrases which I'd like to quote. And here's one of them. Eyes have they, but they do not see. Eyes have they, but they do not see. And that sums them up. That one sentence sums up all of these hopeless blind empirics who go around strutting around like peacocks and calling themselves Marxists and revolutionists, and they don't, excuse the Welsh expression, you know the Welsh language? Can I say something in Welsh? Okay, Swansea expression, Swansea dialect. They don't know the arse from the elbow. That's good Welsh, and I meant every word of it. So there we are, they can't see. But you see, even ordinary people can't see. Ordinary, and that's why people suffer. People suffer because they don't know, not so much because the crisis, the stuff that's bad enough, they don't know why, why is this happening? They can't understand it. You know, the ancient Greeks, hard to say, those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make them mad. And anyone that looks at any ordinary person that looks at what's happening in the world, in Gaza, anywhere, can only come to one conclusion, the world has gone mad. This is madness. We wanted to stop. You know something, they're not entirely wrong. This statement is not entirely wrong. There is madness, oh yes, there is madness, extreme madness, but it's not normal madness. This madness is not the madness of individuals, of horrible people, this that and the other. It's the madness of a system, of a socio-economic system that has reached its limits, cannot develop any further and is now in the process of terminal decline. Now you see, this statement might sound a bit extreme, but no, no, no, if you look at history, if you care to look at history, scientifically, not the postmodernist imbeciles for whom history has got no meaning at all, that's, that's, if you think about it, that's a monstrous thing to say, it's a crazy thing, how is a crazy thing to say? For goodness sake, think for a moment, you know, think. What Trotsky said, when all else is lost, when you really have no other alternative, start to think. It's not a bad thing to do, start to think, you know. And if you think about it, the whole idea that history has no meaning, it's just a string of accidents or because it's all individuals doing their own thing and so on, can't, there's no law funders to it, that's what they, that's what they teach the unfortunate students of history. Are there any history students present to put your hand up? They're not, they're ashamed to admit it. There's, there's one or two courageous people that went like this. I saw you. Well, I tell you what, my heart bleeds for you. And it bleeds for the philosophy of your students even more. I mean, what a stupid thing to study in university, good God. Come on, own up, own up. How many philosophy students are present? Put your hand up. Nobody owns up. I don't believe you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, it's, it's, it's, it's a monstrosity. The only, there's no logic to, no, let's just think for a moment. Look, all of science informs us, okay, that everything in the universe, okay, from the largest galaxies to the tiniest subatomic particle are governed by laws for Jesus Christ's sake. It's a, well, it's ABC. Is this not true? Of course it's true. Everything, everything except for us. Except for human beings. Maybe not. No, we can't be too important, you see me. We can't be reduced to cold logic and stuff like that. No, no. Our history means nothing. On the contrary, anyone that's got the slightest knowledge of human history can see immediately patterns emerge, definite patterns emerge. And you can see clearly that what we, what is occurring now is not something new. It's not something that ought to surprise anybody. Every single socioeconomic system in history is born, develops, flourishes. Then it reaches its utmost point of development and ends into an irreversible process of decline, okay, which isn't necessarily a straight line, but that's the general development. And from that process of decline, no escape is possible, you know, and therefore that's why we say we assert it bluntly and without any, without any qualifications. The downfall of capitalism, my friends, is absolutely inevitable. It is an historical inevitable. Nothing can stop it. Nothing whatsoever. They do what they like. Can't, can't be stopped. They now pass that stage. They might delay it, but they can't stop it. And the longer that that process of dying is continued, the worst things will be for the planet of the human race. Terrible suffering. The capitalist system now, it resembles one of these monsters from kids, fairy stories, Russian fairy stories in particular, also German fairy stories, of a horrible creature, a monster, that's dying on its feet, that's falling to pieces, that's moribund, that stinks, and so on. And yet clings desperately to the life and will always live until, of course, some ways and means, magical means, is found to put an end to it. That's the capitalist system. That's precisely what has occurred. It is a monster that ought to have been killed a long time ago. What have died a long time ago? But by prolonging its rotten existence, it is poisoning the entire fabric of civilization, of culture, of life, of life itself. It's destroying the planet, that's true, perfectly true. Of course our friends, the environmentalists, the petty boos are environmentalists, they complain about the planet being destroyed, they're quite right to draw attention to it. But the trouble with all these petty boos were groups, the feminists, the ecologists, the pacifists, the only capable of pointing to symptoms, that's all. None of them ever point to the cause, to the disease itself, it's only symptoms. And you can't solve the problem by dealing with symptoms. You must deal with the root cause, or it will never be solved. Some of these petty boos types, they say, well no, the problem is there's too much growth. You heard that one? Too much economic growth. Too much economic growth. Well it's only economic growth that can build houses and put food on the table that can give people clothes on their back, and give people an education and culture and health and so on and so forth. Oh no, no, no, no, no. These people stand typical of the petty boos, well, they understand nothing. They stand the truth on its head. It is not economic, it's not the lack of economic growth the excessive economic growth that causes the destruction of the environment. It's the rape of the planet by a handful of irresponsible giant monopolies and banks that are only interested in one thing and one thing only, and that's the profit. The obscene profits which they're deriving out of the suffering of the majority of the human race. I've got the figures here somewhere. If I can find them I will give them to you about the inequality in the world which is absolutely without precedent by the way. I think speaking from memory, now better not speak from memory, but I've got the figures here better than memory, but you see the two-thirds of all the wealth that was created since the year 2020, two-thirds of it is in the hands of the 1% of obscenely rich families and individuals, that's it. And that is vastly more, I think it's twice as much wealth that's in the hands of 99% of humanity. I think it's 85 million people are dying of starvation every year. They don't need a limit of growth, they need an expansion of growth. Yes, but it's got to be growth in the interest of the majority and that can only be achieved by the abolition, by the overthrow of the dictatorship of the bankers and capitalists, the overthrow of the giant monopolies and the replacement of this anarchic system of, necessarily implies the destruction of the planet, by a rational harmonious planned economy, democratically controlled with the participation and control of the working people in the interest of the majority, for the satisfaction of the needs. That's socialism, if you like, the satisfaction of its production for the satisfaction of the needs of the majority are not for the profits of the minority. That's a brief definition, but we'll come to that. We come back to the question of economic growth at a later date. Now, where was I? You see, we've been through a situation of crisis since what, 2008? It's the same crisis actually that's continued. They've never, they've never gone out of it and they will not get out of this crisis. They can't, they're powerless to get out of it. But see, this period did see big movements as a matter of fact. You see, if you think, oh, well, yes, you could say, well, there was a crisis, but where's the revolution? Good question. Where's the revolution? There is no revolution. What there has been undoubtedly is an enormous development of consciousness, this molecular process of revolution to which I have, and yes, there have been big movements. There was a revolutionary movement, for example, in Sri Lanka, not long ago, which could have taken power. If it didn't take power, it was only for one reason, and that was the absence of a revolutionary party like the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917. There have been similar movements, you know, but I'll come to that in a moment. There have been movements, but if you put it this way, in the advanced capitalist countries, the first expression of this development of consciousness after the crisis of 2008 was the emergence in one country after another of what I would refer to as left-reformist tendencies, or to put it more accurately, of a series of political leaders who spoke in very radical language, at least that, at least that. For example, I'm thinking of Bernie Sanders in the USA. There was a huge movement, people forget that, a huge movement of hundreds of thousands, particularly young people, in support of Bernie Sanders, who made some very radical language, yeah, that's true, or Tsipras in Greece, Syriza in Greece, similar situation, or Podemos in Spain, Pablo Iglesias, I met Pablo Iglesias in Caracas. A few years before that, he knew me, I didn't know him, at that time, but he struck me as being fairly sincere, but hopelessly confused, which he was, undoubtedly. And of course, why not in Britain? Jeremy Corbyn, you remember him. Hands up, those who remember Benjamin Corbyn. Oh, quite a few of you, there we are. You know what he's doing now? He's writing books of poems, and I wish him success, plus he'd be more successful with his poetry than what he was with his politics. Now you see, put it this way, I don't wish to disparage any of these individuals personally. Personally, I'm convinced that they're very sincere people, they mean well, they don't beat their wife, they don't swear, they probably don't drink, they don't kick the cat, they help old people to cross the roads and so on. Yeah, but when it comes down to it, there's a problem with left reformism, okay? They always surrender. They never carry out the strike to the end, never. Now the question is, why is that? All the examples I've given, all the examples, the hopes of the mass of people were raised, were raised to the skies. Think of the enthusiasm that met Jeremy Corbyn in this country. For goodness sake, I'll give you an example, this is very graphic. You know the Glastonbury Festival? Yes? No? I feel like a schoolmaster here. Hands up, all those that have heard of the Glastonbury Festival, you've heard of it, somehow, some haven't. Well, it's like a kind of mass hysteria and madness of a mixture of the crazed petty bourgeois and the lumpen proletariat. They're nice kids actually, they're young kids, they're young kids, they're young kids. Go in there to enjoy music and get thoroughly soaked in the British weather and above all, covered in mud. You must get covered in mud. You're not covered in mud, you haven't been there, right? Okay? This is the glass. But I mean, this is all, it's a big thing, it's huge, it's massive, okay? And it's never had a political leader invited to speak to it, except this once. The organizer invited Jeremy Corbyn to come and address to this mass of young people in Glastonbury and he was received ecstatically by these young kids covered in mud as they were, you know, long hair and well, I better not say anything about long hair. Anyway, these hippies are so on. I don't know how to describe them anywhere. Like I said, no, no, I'm not, I'm serious now. Good young kids, you know, just come to listen to the music. They were bowled over. Why? Because he was arousing in them. No, that's wrong. He was addressing himself and he linked, he connected with the mood that already existed in their hearts and souls. And that mood is this. We've fed up with this society, we've had enough, we need a change, we need a fundamental change, we need a revolution. That was in their mind. And he appealed to this, perhaps unintentionally, but he appealed to it, and he could have done a lot. I won't go into that because it would take too much time. Suffice it to say, at the end of the day, he surrendered to the right wing gangsters in the parliamentary Labour budget, to the right wing reformists. And that's always the case, always, not sometimes, it's always the case with left reformists. Now why is this? Of course, we cannot pardon them for their individual weakness and cowardice, if you like, they have to be a little bit hard, that they surrendered. Yeah, but that's not really the point. What we are dealing here is not individual psychology, not people individually weak or individually cowardly, so that's not what we're dealing with. No, this weakness and cowardice is inherent in left reformists. It's inherent. It's buried deep into the DNA of even the most left wing of the left reformists. Why is this? Very simple. Because if you look at it closely, what you'll find, in every case, they do not disagree fundamentally with the right wing reformists. They all accept the existence of the capitalist system. That's the point. Oh, you must be realists, you see. You've got to be realistic, my friends. It mustn't be utopian, you know. In other words, you've got to bow your head, bow to the dictatorship of the banks, the city of London and capital. Why? Well, because that's how things are. That's how things are, just accept it, that's all. And therefore, in the last analysis, they were always surrendered. That's why, I think it was Trotsky that said that betrayal is inherent in reformism. In all reformism, and I would add, particularly left reformism, this does not mean to say, let me clarify this, it doesn't mean to say that individuals want to betray and consciously betray. I'm not saying that. I don't think for a moment that any of these people consciously betrayed anybody. But at the last and last, they could not make the break. They could not accept the need for what is necessary. And what is necessary is not to tinker with the capitalist system, but to overthrow the capitalist, and that they can't accept at any price. Now, I'm delighted to see so many young people here today, like myself. Young at heart, anyway. I'm glad to see so many people. I mean, looking around the room, I see some faces that I recognize, not many actually. I've seen some people, some of the older comrades, veterans of 30 years of age and things like that. Yeah, 30s old, by the way. You are laughing, I'll tell you. Now, what Lenin said about that, I'll tell you. Lenin said a lot of things. But what I'm particularly pleased about is this, about this gathering is this. What Lenin said, and this was true of the Bolshevik party in 1917, the young party, he said, he who has the youth has the future. That is absolutely true. By the way, he also said that any revolutionary above the age of 30 ought to be shot. I see Adam is quaking in his seat. How old are you now, Adam? 38, you've had it. Calm down, calm down. She's trembling. Calm down, don't worry. I'm quite convinced that Lenin, he had a good sense of humor, Lenin. He was cracking a joke. And he didn't mean, he didn't mean, I think he did. I think he didn't mean it, I'm sure he didn't mean it literally. But what he wanted to emphasize, he was always doing that, Lenin. He really emphasized it, emphasized it, emphasized it. And sometimes he emphasized a bit too much. What he was emphasizing is the absolute need, we must reach the youth, which they did in Russia. The Mensaviks, you know, used to laugh at the Bolshevik party in 1917. Ah, it's a party of young kids. We got the workers, we got the trade unions, which is true. Who took power? Not the Mensaviks, not the Mensaviks, no. They are very young kids in the ranks of the Bolshevik party. 14 years of age. That's the kind of people that we should be looking for. But this is it. The youth is the future. Because they open to revolutionaries. Now, let's come back to the opening remarks. You see, all these other guys, they understand nothing. By the way, I hope they haven't come to this meeting because we don't really want to teach them anything, you know. No, it's not. They're incapable of learning anyway, so it doesn't matter. There'll be any difference. They never will learn. But the question is this. This last period, how do we sum it up? This period, yes, from 2008 to the present time. How do we characterize this period? I'll tell you what. It's a period comrades of preparation. That's what it is. That's what it has been. And it's a period of selection. Okay. These people who went through the school of Corbin, of Tsipras, of Podemos and so on, they learned lessons the hard way. They learned lessons. And what has happened in this period? You see, Trotsky made the point in a marvelous book, which you should all read, as well as the Bible. You should read this marvelous gold mine, this classic of Marxist theory. A very readable book also, you know. Trotsky was a brilliant writer. The history of the Russian Revolution in three volumes. Read it. Read it. It's an amazing book. It really is amazing. It will change your life if you haven't read it. But Trotsky, in this book, he explains that part of the process of revolution, revolution is a process. It's not a one-act drama. It's a process. The Russian Revolution, 17 was a process. Okay. But it's characterized, he said, by the rise and fall of political parties and leaders on their programs, in which, he said, the less radical is always replaced by the more radical in the course of a revolution. That's true. Now, what you see now is this. You see it in elections. By the way, in elections, yes, you see swings, enormous swings in elections. In France, in Italy, it's one. In Britain too, you'll see in the next day, enormous swings. Yeah. From the left to the right, up on the right to the left. It's true. And whenever there's a swing to the right, the sex always run around clutching, they say, oh, it's terrible. Oh, fascism and so on. Trumpets, oh, Trumpets is fascist. Oh, you know, Jesus Christ. Oh, well, let them alone with the little games. It's part of the process for Christ's sake. It's inevitable. What these swings represent is an enormous political instability. That's a symptom of the crisis for goodness' sake. And it's new. This is new. You never had that kind of, look, you might not believe this. You're now sitting in a hall in the capital city of the country, which until very recently was considered to be the most stable political country in Europe. You know, the United Kingdom of Great Britain ruled by his majestic majesty now, although nobody's friends as big as, you know, Charlie, Charlie Boy. These characters. But in any case, no, it's still Britain was stable. It was stable for a long time. And the key to that stability was the alternation between the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party was not too bad. The Labour Party was not too left-wing. It was similar to the Tory Party. And so they just voted it. Same in America, Republicans and Democrats, Democrats and Republicans for donkeys' years. Not anymore. Look at the terrible crisis in Britain. Look at the crisis of the Tory Party. Look at the crisis in the States. The terrible crisis between the Republicans and Democrats and within the Republicans, split down the middle, unprecedented. And since when has it ever been known, outside of the Civil War, that is, that a huge group of furious demonstrators stormed the capital, which they did. That was a warning. Of course, that was an incident. But all these things reflect what a tremendous underlying instability in Bygore, the ruling class is terrified. They are terrified. And they're losing control. Look at the position in them, at least look at the position in Gaza. The Americans controlled, or they thought they controlled, Israel. Good God, they put in enough trillions of dollars into it over the years. You'd think they'd have some leverage. And yet Netanyahu does what he likes. Blinking, blinking, blinking and not turning. Blinking turns up. The Adams wouldn't speak to him. He was supposed to have a meeting in Jordan. They said, no, no, thanks, bugger off. So he went to see him speak to the Israelis. I said, no, listen, guys, look, you know, you've got to massacre a few thousand people, but be gentle about it, like, you know, be humanitarian when you massacre people for goodness sake. You know, this kind of stuff. And Netanyahu turned around and said, fuck off. In plain language. That's what he did. He did. He did so many. I mean, this is unknown. Then blink and then he's got this. He said, well, look, how about not a ceasefire, how about a little pause? It could be five minutes, so what if five for a little pause? And Netanyahu says, get stuffed. You're not on. You're not on. Go away. And with this refusal ringing in his ears, he then goes to speak to the Arab leaders, to the other pawns, the other agents, Jordan, the Gaustites, Saudi Arabia. Yeah. And what are they? He said, hey, hey, hey, look here, you ceasefire, straight away, because they terrified. They terrified of their own people. When we put the slogan of an intifada, that's not just directed, it's directed against the Arab leaders. That's on the cards. They're terrified. This is undermining them. So what do they say to blink in? Well, how about a pause? They say, in Arabic, f off, same thing. Get stuffed. They can't. So therefore, this is, I mean, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be a bit funny, I suppose. But the serious point is this. What this shows clearly, anyone with eyes to see, US imperialism has completely lost control of what was there, the main area of interest, the Middle East. The splits, by the way, in the administration, it's not been made public, but it exists. I'm telling you, it was a secret memorandum from a faction, must be an important faction, in the State Department, has been circulating, denouncing blink and denouncing the government, denouncing American foreign policy in the Middle East, which is a disaster. It is a disaster from the standpoint of imperialism, but they can't help it. And what really terrifies all of them is precisely the radicalizing effect that this terrible bloodshed is having throughout the whole world, particularly in the Arab states, and watch this space, you ain't seen nothing yet in the Arab world. I'm telling you, revolutionary potential is there. But in all countries, it's mass demonstrations in London, in Washington, in Tokyo, in Rome, everywhere, everywhere you look. Now, this in part, of course, it reflects the fury of people and the indignation of people and the repulsion of people for this atrocity, which is taking place. That's true. But isn't it something more than that? I think so. I think so. What the people are looking for is a focal point to express all the contented, the accumulated discontent, rage, fury, frustration. It's reflected in this, and that shows that the whole system is very shaky now. Now, to come back to the earlier point, the masses have been through the school of left reformism, and it's come out a gigantic zero. I don't think they'll go down that road very easily. They may well do. It won't be too hasty on that point. But above all, what is significant for us, what we detected, that's the reason for this campaign, is a whole layer of the most advanced elements, mainly the youth, not entirely, but mainly the youth, have now swung sharply to the left. They've been through the business of left reformism, and they want to know. Even to the extent, some of them don't want to know they're with socialism. I'm not a socialist. I'm a communist. Why? Well, because socialism is like Bernie Sanders. It's like Jeremy Corbyn, people like that. It's not good enough. No, no, no. This new generation wants communism. They want revolution, and they don't want anything less than that. They only want the genuine item. And therefore, our tendency, because we detected this, wasn't an accident. We didn't stumble across this. What an accident. We are now in the right place at the right time, and we are getting the benefit from it, which is a very good thing. I've got the statistics here. I think I have a little time to reply at the end, will I, if the iron shaman permits? Yes. Well, when I reply, I'll give the actual figures. But the statistics are there, in black and white. Even in the United States of America, I think it's 20% of young people between the age of 15 and 30, I think, call themselves communists, not socialists. By the way, in the States, don't forget, you've had decades, generations of the most vicious anti-communist propaganda. These right-wing Republicans, they even consider Biden to be a communist. There we are. What do you think of that? Oh, yeah. Even a milk and water proposal like health, free health, like the NHS. No, no, no, that's communism. That's communism. Apologies to my American friends, my appalling accent. But you know what I meant. I mean, and therefore, 20%, that's millions. My math is not very good. Someone will tell me how it. It's millions and millions of young people, whether it be from places like Arizona, Texas, and so on. We're getting reports of people that are joining our organization right now. Why? Because we're offering them something which they were looking for. That's a fact. And you've got to do that in all countries. Don't be bashful. Don't be excessively modest in your aims. In this situation, it calls for boldness. The words of the great French Revolutionary Danton, de la das, de la das, encore de la das, boldness, boldness, and still more boldness. That's what's required. And therefore, I think that we are on the right track. Now, I don't think I've got much time left, have I? Five measly minutes. How time flies when you're enjoying yourself. Einstein said that time is relative, but it's not my experience. Anyway, how do we sum up? Let's ask ourselves a fundamental question. Why are we communists? That's the question. What are we fighting for? What are we fighting for? By the way, I want to make one thing absolutely clear here. As communists, as revolutionaries, we are fundamentally opposed to reformism. We're against it, okay? Yes, but that's often distorted. It's often twisted, maliciously, to imply, oh, you're not interested in reforms. Then you're only interested in bloody revolutionaries. On the contrary, on the contrary. You read the Communist Manifesto. Perhaps if I got time in the summing up, I'll quote what Marx said about what is a communist. Communist must be in the forefront of the struggle for every, each and every reform, each and every demand insofar as it means an improvement of the conditions of the working class and the masses. Of course. We should be the boldest advocate of reforms. The most energetic participants in strikes and so on and so forth for economic demands. Of course, of course. Our difference with the reformists is not that they fight for reforms. On the contrary, our difference with the reformists, how criticism of the reformists, is that they don't fight for reforms. They never have fought for reforms. On the contrary, they always try to be moderate, to avoid conflict, to avoid strikes, to avoid violence, and so on and so forth. No, no, no. If there's a strike, they'll hasten to do a deal as quickly as possible with the employers and so on and so forth. In order to get what they're basically looking for, which is not reforms, certainly not revolution, what they're basically looking for is a quiet life. And that's what the trade union officials, the reformist trade union officials, but they wanted a quiet life. Unfortunately, if they wanted a quiet life now, they'd been born at the wrong time. There ain't no quiet life now for anybody, for any of us. On the contrary, we have entered into the most stormy period in history. Get your heads around that and certain things flow from that. Certain things definitely flow from that. But what are we aiming for? Yes, of course, we'll fight for homes and jobs and wages and so on. Of course, we'll fight for all this. Fight for a living wage and a job for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, but that is not our aim. That's not the end. These things are only the means to an end. The Socialist Revolution only really begins after those things have been achieved. And by the way, now this should be easily achieved. Easily achieved. Some people say, well, it's utopian. By the way, a word to our young comrades, a word of advice. Now, I don't know hardly any of the young comrades in this room. We've never met before. I've never been in your home. And yet, you know, I'll tell you something that might surprise you. I know exactly what will happen tonight when you go home or when you go home. I know the conversations that would take place with mom and dad. I know just what they're going to say. You say, oh, we've just been with this marvelous conference and this nice Allen Woods was speaking and he made a lot of sense. And yeah, and I think I'm a communist and so on. And then he asked me, no, no, no, no, no, don't say that. Don't do this. Don't waste your time. Don't waste your life. Please don't waste your life. Look, when I was your age, I had those ideas or similar ideas, but I've got older and wiser and I've understood. I've understood some things that it's all nonsense. It's completely utopian. You cannot change the world. You can't change the world because you can't change human nature. And therefore, forget about communism, forget about revolution, go into your studies, get a nice job, put on a nice suit or a nice dress and live a nice, comfortable, bourgeois life existence like me. Yeah? Is that right? Yeah? Am I right or am I right? I can't hear you. Am I right or am I right? I think I'm right. I think I'm right. No, I'm right. And the question is this. Look, how many times have we heard this stuff? How many times have you heard this stuff? Let's, it's a simple answer. The answer is this. You know. Why do you say that it's impossible to change the world? Why do you say this? You know. Are you telling me that the human race with all its combined abilities and consciousness and learning is not capable of having a better social system than this? Is that what you're saying? I would say that that's an affront to the human race. It is an insult to the human race to say that this is the best system that you can get. It's not. This system is condemned. It's finished. And the only question is how long is it going to continue to exist? Because the longer it exists, the more this poisonous system will destroy culture, democracy, the gains of civilization. Even the future of life on earth are being put in risk by this criminal system. And therefore, our fight is of a fundamental character. It's of a fundamental character. And what are we aiming for? You see? Under capitalism, the outlook is bleak. Even when there's advances, the capitalist system turns these advances into gigantic negatives. Example, look at this big debate taking place now on artificial intelligence. Okay? Now, I think, looking at it logically, this new technology is not something we should be afraid of. It should really, logically, rationally, represent a gigantic step forward, freeing human beings from the slavery of work of labor. You know? They say that this system could actually, they say it could abolish labor. I think that's false. You will never completely abolish labor. Labor will always be a component. What it can and should do is reduce the hours of work to a very tiny proportion. Okay? And what that means, this is the important point to grasp. That's the material premise for communism. That's the material premise for a higher society, where men and women for the first time in 10,000 years are freed from the slavery of work of labor. You know, Aristotle, the great, one of the great thinkers, he actually said in his metaphysics, he said the following. Man begins to philosophize. He used to be a man because he didn't speak about women. He means human beings. It doesn't matter. Man begins to philosophize. That's to think big ideas and so on. Man begins to philosophize. He said, when the necessities of life are provided, consequently, he added, geology and astronomy were discovered in Egypt because the priests did not have to work. That's in Aristotle's metaphysics. Two and a half thousand years before Karl Marx, a profoundly materialist idea which explains the whole of history, you know. One last word. You know, I think sometimes Congress, the biggest self-criticism of ourselves, sometimes we very clever people. We think we know what we're doing as one. Sometimes I feel we don't show sufficient imagination. You know, think. I mean, there's a song by John Lennon. It is a bit utopian, you know. Imagine it's called, you know. Yeah, but you've got to give it to the man and he was quite progressive. That's why he was killed, I think. But seriously, seriously, seriously. But anyway, imagine what this means. We're under a rationalized, a rational planned economy, you know. Freed from the dictatorship with the bankers and capitalists. It would be possible to make all this technology work for people. Work to solve all the problems. All this, not utopian for Christ's sake. Nothing utopian about it. It's a fact. The actual material possibilities are present now. Not in the distant future. Now, right now. Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock. If this technology were put to work in a proper way for the benefit of people. One final word. Now, if you know this, out of all the Marxist literature, there's a little known text. It's not by Marx or English. It's by Marx's son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, Frenchman. Interesting title. He wrote a book called, The Right to Be Lazy. You ever heard of that, right? You heard of the right to work, the right to have a house, the right to live even. You never heard of that. The right to be lazy. The right to have all the spare time which you require to develop yourself as a human being. To develop yourself physically, intellectually, spiritually if you like. What genuine communism means for the first time in history is that the road to culture which has been barred to the masses for 10,000 years will be flung open for the first time. The doors will be open for the majority of people to acquire culture. That means, therefore, to acquire the ability to run society in the first instance and to command their own lives and to develop themselves, as I say, physically, mentally, and spiritually. And, therefore, to raise the human race, to raise men and women, to raise the human race to a higher level than what's ever been dreamt of in the whole of human history. That is what we're aiming for, communists. That is why we are fighting for the only cause which is worth fighting for at this dramatic stage in human history. Comrades, I'm sure that this rare festival will be an enormous contribution to this revolutionary task of ours. And, therefore, let us combine and work together to ensure that it's the best event ever. Okay. Thank you very much. Comrades, thank you, Adam. We've got a little bit of time now for a few, to hear from a few comrades who are going to speak a little bit about why they are communists and the ideas, the reasons why they're attracted to those ideas in the first place. We're also going to hear from, especially a number of comrades from around the international, about the situation in their own countries and the campaigns that our sections have been running on the IU communist campaign. So we start, first of all, with Maya, who is from the British section, from York, and she's going to kick us off with a discussion with Maya. Hi. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. So, hi comrades. I'm Maya. I'll step off the mic. Okay. I'm a comrade with the international master's tendency in York here in Britain. So my contribution, a lot of what I've written, Alan actually said a lot of it in his talk, so I'm going to try and add to that rather than just repeat it. So this session, comrades, is titled Why We Are Communists. Well, if I ask you all to think back to the first time that you began asking questions about the world or about politics, asking questions like, you know, why is this war happening or why are those people being oppressed or why are this many people homeless? Why are so many people in poverty or why did this horrific event in history occur? Whatever it was that first got you thinking, whatever it was that first got you thinking, I'm sure many of us would say that the information and the answers we would be offered in return were quite depressing and quite demoralising. As Alan said, you know, just everywhere you turn these answers, everywhere it's just kind of doom and gloom, either because of the lack of the answers or the pessimistic nature of those answers themselves. So I'll use myself as an example. So from a young age, my first questions were like, you know, why does racism exist? Why are people racist? So whether I look to school teachers, the bourgeois press, the Labour Party, other random left organisations or even academia for answers, all I got was just things like, some people are just nasty because they're just nasty. They just conjure up these ideas. And all we can do is try and convince them otherwise. Meaning humans have been racist and xenophobic for millennia because humans are just inherently bad and suspicious of those who look different. So what's the logical conclusion from that? Don't bother trying to change it because you can't. Like that's depressing. So it's no wonder that obviously coming from quite an orthodox Muslim family, I turned to religion to fill that void. Of course, if everything is doomed or seems doomed, there's no hope, there's no solution anyone can give you for change, then you're going to look to an afterlife, a heaven, a god for solace. You would look to that god and his divine plan. In Islam, for example, there is a hadith that says, if Allah wants to do good to someone, he afflicts them with trials. So Islam essentially teaches that any hardships you suffer are a test from God or they're a punishment for your sins. But either way, don't worry, it's a good thing because they'll help you gain entry into a paradise in the next life. So as to say these terrible things, such as the racist oppression you're facing, the poverty, your inability to heat your home, your inability to feed yourself or your children, the wars that we see now, even so far as the people in those wars themselves, essentially saying that this is all just predestined from God, get on with it and you can go to heaven where it'll all be worth it somehow. So I hope from that we can understand why millions of workers, I being one of them when I was younger, millions of workers turned to religion in this way. And I should add that this is actually very convenient for the ruling class because it leads to these millions of workers to not question the real root of their suffering, to not bother engaging in the class struggle in favor of just sticking it out, waiting for an afterlife. And I actually remember engaging in anti-racist movements or political movements generally from quite a young age and my family members dissuading me from doing so and telling me this life is a test from God, it's not going to get better, kind of like what Alan said about parents, just focus, except mine were religious, so they were like just focus on getting into heaven. And it wasn't until I found the international Marxist tendency that I discovered the rich scientific philosophy of Marxism that could actually explain why our world is the way that it is, finally like why racism exists and has historically existed and thus how we can actually change it. And I finally came to understand that racism is a most cynical tool of the ruling class who have historically used such ideas to justify their own interests at the expense of the rest of the working class continuing to this day as a means to keep the workers divided. Finally I could understand that the only way to eradicate racism along with any and all forms of oppression and all those ailments and all the things that previously would fill me with despair and millions of people are filled with despair by it is to abolish capitalism itself. And I could finally learn and understand how we overthrow capitalism and how we can build a better world. And that's why you'll find like the comrades within this room, the comrades within the IMT are the most, if not the only optimistic people about our future. Like Alan, there's been a lot of age jokes dropped tonight and I don't want to add, I don't want to, that's not what I mean when I say that they've been fighting in the class struggle for decades. Alan, you've got Fred, since they were really young and others. They've been fighting in the class struggle for decades and they've not stopped and he's full of optimism, they're full of optimism, all of us are. Why? Because we actually have the answers, we know what needs to be done and we know how we can do it and we know that it's possible. We know that we don't need to wait for anyone, we don't need to wait for anyone or anything to come and save us in a different life or a different world. We don't need to come, for them to come and save us because we, the working class, have all the power and all the tools to build a paradise on this earth and in our lifetime it's entirely possible, in our lifetime and a better one in our children's lifetime. We in this room have the ability to change the future of Britain, to build a world socialist federation. So comrades, if you haven't already, you need to join this organisation because this is the only place that can offer that. We have nothing to lose for our chain. Thanks. So next up we have another comrade who has travelled a very long way to be with us this weekend. We're going to hear now from our Brazilian comrade Lucy. He's going to tell us about the Are You a Communist campaign and the situation in Brazil. It's possible to hear. I'm a bit nervous but I have the confidence from all of this energy from you. So comrades, as you know, Brazil is a fast country and an territory and natural resources. But under capitalism this immense territory is nothing more than a semi-colony that is a country with relative what it's called independence and total economic submission. Economic submission expresses material and objectively in nearly 80% of GDP consumed by public, internal and external debt. An impayable debt, a modern punishment of sizefuls, imposed on the Brazilian working class. Our political independence is only formal. Both the Brazilian bourgeoisie enable to present independently. As the opportunists of the worker movement led by Lula are submissive to their interests of imperialism. Lula is cutting the approval of the new fiscal framework, tax reform and the so-called new high school which opens the way for the privatization of the secondary education are recent examples of this submission Brexit by the Lula government. Recent data demonstrate that almost 50% of all wealth produced in Brazil is concentrated in only 1% of the population. This is the perfect demonstration of the concentration of wealth in one hand and the growing misery on the other as Max explained it. Thus, Trotsk explained to us the policy of the proletariat in these countries like Brazil is forced to combine the most elementary claims with a struggle for the socialism and against imperialism. Ten years ago when huge mass demonstrations exploded in Brazil, 17 million went to the streets require elementary demands of health, education, transportation, housing, democratic freedoms, etc. Today a fairly broad layer of young people and workers who have made experience with Lula governments, Dilma, fear and particularly the generation that experienced both an idol government and now live under Lula are quickly reaching much more advanced conclusions than that generation that got up ten years ago. This generation is fighting for its elemental demand and coming to the conclusion that their problems will not be solved by this or that government. The root of their problem is in the capitalist system and the answer to solve them is in communism. They seek by organizations capable of giving the answers they need. Opportunists have sold out to capital. The defenders of the outdated minimum social democracy program, the stages, I just learned this word, yeah, Manchiviks of Stalin's current defenders, the sectarianism of identity and post-modern ideas, all of them abandoned or betrayed the program of the international proletarian revolution. They do not trust the working class. None of them can offer the answers that this new generation of militants seeks. This answer is in our hands. This is the reason why we reached the historical brand of 300 members in Brazil. From that around 130 are youth comrades and from that around 45 are high school students and we can quickly reach 400 members in the coming months through the campaign. Are you a communist? Just some small phrase about the campaign. We have recruited 150 members, new members in the first 60 days of this campaign in Brazil. As Lenin explained, Marxist is one who with Earth glued the ground. Here's the plant grow. This is poetry like Ben said to me today early. The time we live is very special comrades. A new generation is getting up and looking for a global response to the problems it's faced. It will be, they will be the future caters of the movement that will overthrow the capitalist system. From years attentive to the growth of this special layer that our Congress in Brazil has just approved our departure from the PSOL, Socialist and Freedom Party and we have changed our name from the name of the Brazilian section from lefty Marxist to Internist, some comments already saw this, but internationalist, communist organization. I'm getting, use it. This was just last weekend. Our youth front is also undergoing deep changes and we are changing our name from fight and freedom to internationalist, communist youth. These are concrete steps to better position us at this historical moment and connect with this new layer of communist young people. Is it in our hands to fulfill the task that Trotsky was prevented from making? Has we the flag of communism from the hands of Stalinist defenders? Find the communists who are outside of these doors and educate them under the real principles of internationalist proletariat and the science of Marxism. I'm sure that this festival will contribute enormously so that we will succeed in fulfilling our tasks on behalf of the internationalist, communist organization and its youth, the Brazilian section of IMT, I welcome the revolution festival to the flag of international communist comments. Thank you, Lucy. Okay, next up we have another international guest this time all the way from Canada. I've seen him already on the screen and now we've got Donovan to speak to us in person. I feel a bit awkward because you've heard from me already, so hopefully you don't mind. I do have a few more things to say. So you heard me mention the figure of one million communist youth in Canada and I guess an interesting question is where did we get this figure from? For this we have to thank the Fraser Institute which is a right-wing bourgeois Canadian think tank. They actually commissioned this poll just over a year ago and I think they made a terrible mistake in asking a very straightforward question which is what do you think is the ideal economic system? And it's because of this poll that we have statistical confirmation of the existence of, you know, what our perspectives, what we've talked about in our perspectives with the existence of an advanced minority within the working class, one million communist youth in Canada and even more in Britain and the U.S. I think actually this is part of what gave Ben the idea for the are you communist campaign initially. I think the more important question though is why? Why are there one million communist youth in Canada? You know, Alan said earlier that Canada is not known to be a country of revolution but nor is it exempt from the general contradictions of the system as a whole. We do have fundamentally the same situation as you do here today which is that of, you know, poverty amidst plenty, you know, crises at all levels and just overall a completely bankrupt system which can provide no future. In Canada we have the additional factor that our country has literally been on fire for about half of this year. Wildfires never before been seen to the extent that actually in June there was smoke that wafted and hung low in the streets of our major cities in Toronto and Montreal. It was provided a distinct taste of apocalypse actually. Now the working class has really, you know, yet to move in Canada as it has in Britain but we've seen the youth increasingly on the streets in greater and greater numbers as, you know, the active ethnic cleansing in Palestine has been undergoing. And, you know, we've been on the front lines of this struggle. We've organized or helped to organize rallies in every city where we are present across the country raising the need for a revolutionary solution to the conflict which is really the only practical solution period. More recently, a group of school students in Toronto has made the call for a province-wide indefinite walkout to begin this Monday. And in their public announcement they, not only did they condemn imperialism and ethnic cleansing but they're also demanding as a result, as the main demand of the strike, a ceasefire. Now the most interesting thing about this is that these students actually proactively reached out to us to discuss with us and we've met with them twice since. Now they have both their teachers and other left groups have advised them to water their demands down and to just focus more on identity but we actually encourage them not to do that and to stand firm and they've done exactly that so far. And I think this shows that, you know, we as much as, you know, we're a very small organization, we have already become a point of reference on the left as a result of our intervention in the movement and, you know, we'll be out there with them in full support on Monday and we'll see just how far and why this strike movement goes. Now what does it mean to be a communist amidst the tumult of world events? I think, you know, it is to hold a firm belief basing oneself on the scientific method of Marxism that a better world can be won through the developing molecular process of revolution. It means studying Marxist theory as a guide to action and reaching the inescapable conclusion of the need for a revolutionary party, a leadership in the organization, as well as an international. Now it was at our International's World Congress just this past August that our entire delegation of 30 was absolutely electrified by the discussions on the R. U. Communist campaign. We launched our own version of the campaign just a month earlier but I think it was only at the World Congress that we came to understand its full significance. You know, such a turn in consciousness demands nothing less than a full, you know, revolution in our work, a turn towards these youth. And in the process that we rethink and change every aspect of our work to boldly and flexibly connect with the million communists that are out there. And we've been attempting to carry out this internal revolution within our organization over the last three months and I'm happy to report a few results. We've shaken our branches really from top to bottom from coast to coast and we've nearly doubled actually from 40 branches now to 72 branches in the section. We've had about 1700 write-ins to the website with the campaign and of those we've recruited almost 300. I reported. Now I mentioned earlier that we eclipsed the 600 mark. We're actually closing in on the 700 mark very rapidly and we actually announced this a bit prematurely the summer before last but I think we can confidently say now that with our recent growth that we are now officially the largest Trotsky's organization in Canadian history. Of course this is only the beginning. There is much work left to be done and education is really the key to much of this process and this is why we're all here this weekend. And so speaking on behalf of the Canadian section we're all ecstatic to be here this weekend at the revolution festival. So let's use these discussions to deepen our understanding of Marxist theory and attempt to rise to the task of history. Thank you Donovan. Do we have Benita here and ready to speak. Yeah brilliant. Okay so Benita is from the Swiss section of the IMT and can you give us an update on how they've been getting on. Hi comrades I'm Benita from the Swiss section of the IMT and I mean Switzerland is the richest country there is and when you grow up there you'd constantly hear phrases like Switzerland is the definition of eternal stability and there's this huge ideological pressure that the Swiss are too well and too privileged for communist ideas and I mean this is so so so wrong especially for the youth. I mean depression and suicide rates are going through the roof of hospitalization because of cell palm and and suicide attempts in young girls from 10 to 14 have risen by 16 60 percent and these are old figures from 2021 and at the same time there hasn't been a single pay rise in 30 years while the cost of living crisis is burning and there's no perspective that it will get any better. Two weeks ago there were the most boring elections ever more than half of the people didn't even vote and and the results were the same as the past 30 years. The propaganda of the ruling class has been the same for the past 100 years and they tell the same lies like they did for the past 100 years even though day to day life has changed fundamentally for Swiss people and Swiss youth but and that's an important but there's a layer that cuts through those lies a new generation of communists thousands of youth and young workers in Switzerland and despite or precisely because of this doomerism and pessimism that reigns in society they say if I don't do anything no one will I have to get active I have to fight and and the success of the Swiss section lies on the shoulders of these young revolutionary fighters and we've really just started to connect with that layer in the last few months and these are the results since the IA communist campaign we grew from 180 to 310 members from from 18 branches in seven cities to 37 branches in 15 cities we opened our second office after burning Geneva we employed three new full-timers and have a total of 11 now and we had 230 writings through the posters and stickers and we revolutionized our social media game now I don't have time I don't have time how did how did we do that by being very unswis as in not shy not polite but standing openly and and and proudly and representing our ideas by intervening more widely and boldly and more boldly and widely as Lenin once put it and just to give you an example and with my student comrades we would organize so-called stunts and where we would take our red flags our posters our banners our papers and the megaphone and organize a mini demonstration through the whole university court quarters we would walk from from campus to campus talk to everyone about communism and ask him to join us and right now to find and organize more communists and and now it's obviously very cold outside so no one's outside so we would go to the cafeteria where there are 400 people having lunch and and just one courageous comrades would literally stand on a table and hold a mini speech shouting through the hall that the fight for free yet for a free Palestine is the fight for communism and and that they should join us right now and after the after that all the comrades would go from table to table very proudly with with our donors our papers like this like join us right now and talk to everyone separately as well and I think in the last four weeks the most important question was Palestine and the repression of the swiss state and the bourgeois media against us as an organization was on another level so if you ask me what it was like to be a communist in Switzerland those past four weeks it was first of all to oppose the pressure of the whole bourgeois bourgeois media and not buckle and we needed to be rock solid in our positions and I mean I'm not exaggerating when I say that every fucking bourgeois paper wrote about us daily and dragged our name in the mud saying we're terrorists and anti-Semitic and our events got canceled by the uni direction the demonstrations we wanted to organize got banned it was brutal and it still is brutal and we really were the only ones who stood up in in full solidarity with the Palestinians so we just had to be out there we took our signs with the free Palestine fight for communism and we were everywhere every day on tables in the uni in in schools on the streets in the train in the tram in front of supermarkets every day we were outside and one person I met was like fuck you really are the most active organization I can't be one day in the city without meeting meeting one of you guys we then we then had our event in our office because we couldn't have the room in in the university and it was so full that people had to stand till like till the door like outside and we recruited 11 new members on spot on the spot and two two weeks before our two weeks before our national autumn school they even kicked us out of the room that we had rented a year ago and refused us to give any to give us any room in the city of burn and and other organizations would have buckled and drawn pessimistic conclusions but as bolster weeks we don't do what's possible but we do what's necessary and we fight for it and oh my god how necessary was the school with that many new members and well you saw it in the video in the video like last weekend we had the most successful and biggest national event ever where we were talking about the lessons of bolsterism for two days straight and I think on this basis we will train a new generation of communists and and enable them to do the same and you see like bold bold is my new favorite word I use it every week in my branch meetings but it's just necessary comrades and but being bold is training and to be honest I'd rather not stand here but sit over there with you but it's just necessary and also our shy young comrades shouting our slogans and on the streets those new comrades are the biggest fighters I've ever met and I'm a fighter and you all are class fighters and and out there are thousands of unorganized fighters who who who are waiting to be found and we need to find them so there's no reason for any of you to not stand on a table at your workplace in your school in the metro on your way home I don't care where just be visible right so there's a deeply optimistic mood in this in the Swiss section and we will explode in the next months I can get to you that and I can't even imagine what's to come but I'm so incredibly proud to be a part of the the IMT and I'll fight every day as hard as I can and all Swiss comrades will do this will do too so let's make the Swiss ruling class and those faster bankers trembling other heretic socialist revolution thank you amazing and next up we have a comrade who unfortunately has to follow that incredible contribution but he will do so with his own incredible contribution is we've got Amadeo up next from the Italian section of the IMT. Hi comrades I'm Amadeo from the Italian section of the IMT and we started the are you a communist campaign two months ago and we are obtaining extraordinary results in September we were 420 comrades now we are 480 and we are going to surpass 500 until the end of this year we formed a dozen of new branches all around the country and we gained the comrades in 14 cities where we were not present before dozens of young students are getting organized with us every week why is this this is the result of a more general process that have been taking place for years and now becomes visible a process inside the young people consciousness of millions millions of young people an accumulation of contradiction that now is leading to them to be to have an active role we need to understand what students see around them at the moment in Italy many families cannot make it to the end of the month cannot pay bills unemployment has never been so high climate change is stronger every day and we have the most conservative government since the fascist regime a government whose politicians released interviews against immigrants against women against homosexuals against worker strikes and against students the minister of education a few months ago said that we should use the humiliation as a method of teaching in schools young people can no longer accept this and the lies about Palestine outrage many honest workers in these days the government is discussing a law that would bring back the high school system the situation previous to the 70s when there were school for rich students and school for poor students students this is what students see all around them this is what they see in their future only exploitation and humiliation more and more people are getting to the simple but clear conclusion that this system has to be broken of course they don't know how to do it they don't know what can we substitute it with but for the first time in their life they are looking for answers to these questions and we have these answers comrades many groups defines themselves as communists but no one of them can explain the simple and the fundamental connection between the simplest the specific problems of the working class and a general strike and a general struggle against capitalism we are the only one with a real solution to this crisis with a revolutionary solution the numerical growth allows us to intervene better in the movement we participate to the demonstration for Palestine we sell the newspapers the magazines in front of high schools we give alternative agendas in the training union assemblies we organize public speeches about history and about recent events in Palestine and in Modena a city in the center of Italy last week we organized and led a demonstration with two thousand people we participated to the struggle of the students against climate change in September against cooler form against fascist attacks that are increasing in this period because fascist feel and are protected by this government and some of our comrades in Trieste and Milan have been attacked by fascist but we know how to answer to these aggressions and we turned single personal attacks into massive demonstrations to support our comrades in general we don't care about single small actions extremist action by small groups but we look for masses last but not least we'll have a theoretical seminar about learning in December new comrades are really interested that they have are angry for maxis theory I don't have time to give examples of this but they are really looking for an organization like our a young student an ice-cold student who that now is a comrade since last week told me a month ago that he was looking as he has been looking all his life for a group with these ideas and with this conductivity and enthusiasm and now he is a comrade of the IMT in Italy and well with all with theoretical discussions our comrades learn from experience from discussions and action this approach is working well we are building numerically and politically IMT at a very high rhythm and I'm sure it's going to be better in the next month with the participation of all these new comrades okay we have one more one more comrade to make contribution and then I'll hand back to Alan so his comrade is not from quite as far away as some of the other places although the accent might be equally difficult to understand Mike is down from Liverpool and he's gonna make contributions for us now all right comrades well in Liverpool we have a saying we're scousers but not English and so I have an international speaker we'll have to get that little bit of show with us a minute well comrades I first came into this movement I first came across the ideas of communism and first regarding myself as a communist at school 48 years ago was a 15 year old school student I came across the ideas of somebody up there Vladimir Lenin and the reason why I was attracted to his ideas is because I was interested in history and the history I was taught at school was the history of kings queens of lords ladies not so much of ladies but most mostly of lords and their particular battles but it was never taught about the history of the waking class and the waking class struggle and I learned that Lenin led my class and when I say my class I mean my class yes they were Russian workers but as Mark says it's workers of the world and we have to we are an international waking class just as we are an international so face was enthused about those ideas of communism so I wanted to join the communist party it was natural and so we applied to join the communist party and they never got in touch with me they never rang me they never knocked on me door we had to go out and call nights back in those days and knock on doors we couldn't telephone people however long it took within 24 hours nobody got in touch with me so eventually I went along to a meeting at the Labour Party young socialists and it came across those ideas there and one of the first meetings I went to was a debate with the communist party which I found very interesting because I found that those ideas of that party that I thought were revolutionary and thought were followers of Lenin were in fact reformists were in fact about reforming gradually the system that we lived in no difference to the ideas of Jeremy Corbyn or of the other left reformists and I found that the ideas of revolutionary Marxism was the ideas at that time within the militants so I joined the militants and the reason why I was attracted to those ideas is because it came from a council estate a council estate that was blighted with the crisis of capitalism and what was happening around me on that council estate was explained by the ideas of another comrade up there Ted Grant who explained to us about the special crisis of British capitalism which I could see right in front of my face every time I left the council house where I lived I walked past picket lines on my way to school of the struggle in the 1970s of the working class and so those ideas really spoke to me those ideas of because capitalism was in a fundamental crisis and a fundamental decline now that fundamental decline was arrested by the attacks on the working class of that year but also by the collapse of the of the Soviet Union and so on and they've right and they had somewhere to go with the re-establishment of capitalism in Eastern Europe in China but now capitalism has nowhere to go that same fundamental crisis of capitalism has returned for young people like I was at that particular time and like like the young people that would attract the militants there are there are now thousands of young people that regard themselves as communists in our society and we need to get through to them we need to say to them that we are communists and we need to make sure that we follow up on them and make sure that they get into our organization sorry so I just yeah so I just want to stop talking about the past and start talking about the future of why I believe that we need to fight for communism another thing I was interested in was the environment was nature and we look at human progress and under capitalism there is always that cost there's been a cost to the environment from from capitalism from that sort of human progress and you and the sort of message that we can't you can't have your cake and eat it you can't preserve the environment and and and have human progress you can't have your cake and eat it where we could get to a society where we could have progress we could have human progress and get to a society where we could preserve the environment then in fact we should fight for that society and that society is communism but I want to end because I've been told to to sum up taking too long and one is one end on on on this this sort of message the power of the ideas that you're going to lean over this revolution festival hugely powerful ideas that you're going to lean but those ideas mean nothing unless they're organized into a communist organization and a communist international so if you go away with those ideas and you understand those ideas then you have to join our communist organization and you have to join with us in the fight for a communist future on this planet to bring those ideas together the power of those ideas with the power of the working class will take an instrument and that instrument is the revolutionary party help us build that party help us build the revolutionary international and fight for the communist future of humanity thank you mate so Alan will now sum up the discussion for 10 minutes and then we will have to make a fairly swift exit out of the building immediately after that so the staff have time to to clean everything up tonight so Alan well I should I should actually do what Salvador Dali once did the painter you know he was attending a a dinner organized by his wealthy patrons in somebody in New York I think and when they finished they were all waiting for to give a speech to give some profound remarks closing remarks he stood up and he said I will be brief and therefore I've already finished and he sat down well I won't be as I won't be as brief as that communist I think we have an excellent discussion very brief but very very much to the point I will be I will have to be very telegraphic in my reply I haven't got time to answer some of the very interesting questions that were raised but Comrade Donovan mentioned this this yes the poll conducted by the Fraser Institute isn't it and the question that was asked that he found that this poll found that huge numbers of young people between 18 and 34 years I got I got the dates wrong regard communism as the ideal economic system and here are the figures just one or two figures Britain 29% USA 20% Canada Australia 20% 13% in Canada and so on now you see these figures are striking I won't hammer the point home it shows that millions not one or two not one or two thousands millions of young people are looking for communism and they're looking for this organization and therefore our task is really very simple it's to show them that we are we exist that we are we are here and that we want them to join as simple as that of course they will they will join they will join of course they will probably be attracted to communism in the first instance almost as an instinct something instinctive they will join they will not have read the three volumes of capital they will not perhaps have read the communist manufacturer doesn't matter now I'm comments who know me I'm very insistent I always was even when I was very young a long time ago very insistent on the importance of theory as Mike Hogan just said theory is fundamental that's why all the other groups are collapsing and we wish them luck in their collapse you know it's like again if I might quote the good book yet again like unto the man who built this house upon the sand and the wind came and the rain and it blew upon the house and the house fell and great was the fall of it on the other hand we must be as Jesus Christ said like the man who built this house upon the rock and the wind came and the rain came and it blew upon the house and the house fell not now what he was referring to was the rock of religious faith I will do a few say say a few words but what comic maya said at the beginning about religion but you see we have no need whatsoever for religious faith we don't need that it leads nowhere it's based on nothing it's based on thin air the rock of our organization is the solid rock of Marxist theory and that must never be forgotten that's the solid base upon what Lenin made it clear he said and I quote that the building of a revolutionary party is impossible not difficult impossible without theory without a serious study of Marxist theory that of course is the purpose of this meeting I won't believe the point but to come back these youngsters will join us of course they don't start off with the knowledge of theory they'll start off with the encyclopedia Britannica they have they have very little knowledge only only instinct yes but that's the important thing to me that is more important we mustn't by the way belittle these young comrades for the fact that they they can't recite the ins and outs of of Marxist theory I'll tell you that frankly I don't really trust people who can rattle off you know so clever they are by rattling off a few phrases of Marx it doesn't impress me in the slightest degree yeah and book and book that doesn't impress me either and of course from purely book knowledge put it put it put it this way you can always learn from books and you should learn from books of course but book knowledge can never give you that spark that enthusiasm which comes from the from these young people to join our organization we have to base ourselves on that and that was so brilliantly I thought with the contribution of Benita from Switzerland marvellous she should be summing up here not me that's that's the fact this is why this is why I think the Swiss comrades are building not that they despise theory they don't quite the contrary but they have this drive this enthusiasm Ted Grant the man that taught me everything that I knew like Mike Hogan he used to say this with with with enthusiasm you can do anything without enthusiasm you can do nothing that's why people who've been around around a long time and have lost this park they don't inspire inspire any interest in me whatsoever we must base ourselves solidly on the young comrades who are here today and the others who are not here but will join us very soon I am sure now I don't have much time I don't have any time left because we've run out of time just to say this come back to comrade Meyer who spoke first by the way the first Meyer do you mind if I say how we first met is it okay she gave me a terrible row you know she did this is I'm not joking I made a speech which I thought was reasonably okay ish I think it was on philosophy and I might have mentioned it religion in passing at that time she was a very convinced young young Muslim and she gave me hell you know you shouldn't attack religion it's very offensive you couldn't do this and the other I thought well I didn't attend to cause offence and so I explained what the Marxist study was religion the next time I met Meyer 12 months later I can't remember what it was I greeted her in the traditional reading aslam aleikum she said no don't use that language to me I'm not a Muslim I was I was quite amazed but just to say this you see it's true what what Meyer said when people have been dispossessed of everything they don't have anything all that if you take away the idea that after a miserable life then there's no life after death no heaven and she that's really something you know I was in Pakistan one time and I gave a speech and I said well because I was actually launching an atheist book reason and revolt it was about the new rule I thought well I better be careful how I handle this I said well I don't I don't really understand much about religion perhaps you could help me to understand but I don't know about Islam but the christian religion if you're good all your life that's to say if you're a wife and your husband beats you up and tortures you and you turn you turn the other cheek you see or if you're a worker and you get exploited you just accept it as part of if you're patient and accept all this suffering patiently all your life then you'll be very happy everything we find when you're dead I don't quite understand that that's perhaps you can explain it to me and a few of them started to laugh and I said yes yes but I think this for millions of people in Pakistan today the problem is not is there a life after death the problem is is there a life before death and then they all started to laugh so I thought well I'm in business that's okay but just to just to sum up what we are fighting for somebody I think it was Maya that said this what we are fighting for is this it's to build a paradise in this world they make people present here that are still religious ideas that's okay we don't even mind don't mind you can join us anyway look anyone can join this organization we don't care if you're black white whatever religion your language your country your nationality your sex your sexual orientation your taste we're not interested in that you're welcome to join us on one condition that you stand on the class program of Marxism and the Revolutionary International you stand with the working class and and and I went on yes we're against racism nationalism anything of that sort we are also implacably opposed to the poison of identity politics which is equally divisive and and frankly it's a we're not we're not we're not having any of that you join this organization you put yourself at the standpoint of the working class irrespective of language religion color sex or anything we're not not interested we are colorblind in that respect but you're here as class fighters make make make up your mind that this is the case and we are fighting of course for because the point is this but somebody who is religious I'd say this to you listen in my opinion you only live once my friend you only have one life and it's a miracle that you have this life it is literally a miracle that we are alive that any of us are alive it's precious life is precious and therefore we should surely strike struggle and fight to ensure that life is beautiful that life is good that life is fulfilling and that that we live in a world in a society which is fit for men and women to live in that's what we're fighting for we are fighting my friends for a paradise in this life because there is no other a paradise in this world because no other word exists that's our fight and we must get on with it with all the power and energy and enthusiasm that we can we can master okay let's make this the best school ever okay thank you comrades we'll begin the sessions we'll begin tomorrow at half past 10 in this building so arrive before that to visit the stalls and so on the rest of the evening is your own see you first thing tomorrow