Upholding Some of the Best Traditions of the British Working Class

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119th Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting:
Upholding Some of the Best Traditions of the British Working Class

Korean War Commemorated at NCP Anniversary Meeting

An estimated 10,000 people attended this year's Durham Miners Gala.   As well as the increased involvement of contingents from former mining communities, what has now become a regular feature is thousands of workers from other sectors of the economy taking part, including health, local authority and education workers. This year, school students also marched through Durham and onto the racecourse with their own band.

            At 12.45pm thousands of people gathered on the racecourse. David Guy, President of the Durham Miners, opened the Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting by extending a warm welcome to all and expressed the union’s gratitude to its members and their families for the magnificent support that they continue to give the Durham Miners Gala. He said that 10 years after the closure of the last pit in Durham it was tremendous to see the Gala going from strength to strength each year and he thanked all the trade unions and other organisations that continue to support by marching in with their banners alongside our banners and our bands.  He made a special mention to the pit communities who have commissioned new community banners and school children who had joined in with their band.   David Guy then welcomed the guests of the Durham miners, local MPs, local authority representatives, regional trade union representatives and national trade union general secretaries.

            Welcoming the international guests, David Guy introduced one by one the Cuban trade union delegation to warm applause. He then a welcomed a delegation from Germany, the ambassador of Mongolia and finally welcomed to warm applause the guests Tony Benn, Rodney Bickerstaffe the pensioners’ leader, and Lord and Lady Orme. Lord Stan Orme is the former Salford West MP, known as a “left-winger”.

            After a Civic Welcome from the Mayor of Durham, the Gala was addressed by Ian Lavery the NUM Chairman, Andy Gilchrist the FBU General Secretary, Dr Alba Portela Sabari who is General Secretary, Provincial Committee of SNTS Santiago De Cuba, Kevin Curran the GMB General Secretary, Mick Rix the ASLEF General Secretary and Dennis Skinner MP.

            During the Gala this year, activists of RCPB(ML) in the northern region called on the workers, in their discussions and in the selling of many copies of Workers' Weekly and distribution of other publications and literature, to take up the spirit of the gala and become that force necessary to change society. They must build the new mechanisms in which to fight for their vision of a new society, a Britain united around socialist values which are forward looking, opening up a path for the progress of all the people.  To be hewers of society the workers must settle scores with the crimes of the present and past committed in their name, take control of what belongs to them and as the working class become the supreme power.

The New Communist Party of Britain (NCP) celebrated the 26th anniversary of its founding at a meeting in London on July 11.   The 50th anniversary of the ending of the Korean War was also commemorated at the meeting.   Guest of honour, who delivered a congratulatory message, was Ha Sin Guk, Second Secretary at the newly opened Embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in London.   Main speaker for NCP was Andy Brooks, General Secretary.  Chris Coleman, National Spokesperson of RCPB(ML), also addressed the meeting.   Chris Coleman’s address is summarised below.

Comrades:  I am very happy to be participating in your 26th anniversary celebrations and bring the warm congratulations of our Party.  To hold high the banner of communism in these days is no mean thing, especially in these last ten or so years of what we characterise as retreat of revolution, when not only communism but everything progressive has been under such unprecedented attack.   Since we got to know your party well we have always been moved by its communist spirit of honesty and principle, which has characterised our increasing cooperation and joint work.   This, of course, is not an exclusive relationship.  It is the type of relationship we strive for with all the serious communist and progressive forces, as a contribution to re-establishing the unity of the communists in Britain. 

            We have also always found your Party truly internationalist.   And thus it is entirely appropriate and characteristic that you are combining the celebration of your anniversary with that of the 50th anniversary of victory in what the Korean people call the Great Fatherland Liberation War, in the presence of our dear Korean comrade.  And indeed it was a victory!  In the past week many articles have appeared in the bourgeois press.  They call it the “forgotten war”.  But in what they remember they seriously distort the facts!  The simple facts are that the US divided Korea in 1945 by force of arms, occupying the south and setting up a puppet regime comprised largely of collaborators with the Japanese, against all international agreements.  In 1950 in what we know as the Korean War they attempted to take over the entire Korean peninsula by force.  The incursion was from the south not the north.  It is somewhat ironic that credence is given to imperialist lies over who invaded whom by the fact that the response of the Korean People’s Army was so swift and vigorous that within 24 hours the invaders of the north were fleeing in the opposite direction.  Seoul was taken within days and the People’s Army was soon at the gates of Pusan in the far south.  Subsequently, of course, we saw the Injon landings, the massive injection of forces by the US and its allies, including Britain, the tactical withdrawal of the People’s Army, and then the devastation of the north, the razing of Pyongyang to the ground and terrible massacres perpetrated by the US forces.  Then followed the heroic fight back by the Korean people’s forces with the invaluable internationalist help of the Chinese volunteers and the invaders found themselves fought to a standstill, back where they started.   Forced to sign an armistice, the world saw the first ever defeat of US imperialist forces.   But an armistice it remained, the US refusing to sign a peace treaty as agreed and maintaining this illegal and intolerable situation right to this day.

            50 years have followed of sanctions, of threatened aggression, of attempts to destroy the DPRK, of US occupation of the south.   On the other side 50 years of heroic defence of national sovereignty, of building socialism under the most difficult circumstances, of mature and painstaking efforts to bring about reunification of the homeland.

            So we celebrate this 50th anniversary not as some remote historical event, but as something which could have happened yesterday, since the US has scandalously ensured that nothing in relation to international law has changed in 50 years.  We celebrate the continuing victory of national self-defence by the DPRK, under the wise “Army First” policy of Kim Jong Il.  We celebrate the continuing efforts at reunification, independently and peacefully, in accord with the historic June 15 2000 North-South Agreement.  We celebrate the firm stand of the DPRK against the current threats where, following the casting aside of international law and the declaration of resolving all issues by war by the US and Britain, as signalled by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the DPRK now faces a huge US arms build up in the south and open threats of nuclear attack. 

            As communists, of course, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Korean comrades.  We have a duty to publicise the truth about the situation, and to support the DPRK’s just demand for talks with the US to resolve the so-called “nuclear issue” leading to a non-aggression pact.  And we continue to demand the withdrawal of US forces from the Korean peninsula.

            So we hail the anniversary of NCP’s founding.   We hail the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Korean people’s Great Fatherland Liberation War.   Thank you.