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Author Archives: Michael
More deaths in a war trumps defeating a pandemic
More on covid pandemic 2020-2?
Ukraine – what you’re not told
More deaths in a war trumps defeating a pandemic
In Britain the figures for covid infections keep on rising and falling. There’s little talk of hospitals being overwhelmed and no mention at all of deaths. Just over two years ago you were a minor celebrity if you caught covid now no one notices.
Although not strictly a disease of the winter the expectation (at least it is hoped there are some with the responsibility to deal with infections to have such expectations) the figures will again climb due to the sort of social mixing that takes place indoors when it gets cold. Whether it will be as catastrophic as in previous years remains to be seen. If it is not that will be more down to luck than any planning by the Government. Two and a half years since the disease was identified there is still no strategy (and if there is they are keeping it very quiet).
Not surprisingly the Buffoon is more concerned about his own miserable political future than managing the worst pandemic the world has had to face in a hundred years. (That’s, of course, if you ignore the disease of capitalism that has been killing people in their millions every year of its existence.)
As if the deaths from the pandemic were not bad enough he is more concerned with perpetuating the war in the Ukraine and increasing spending on ‘defence’, both of which necessarily lead to more and more death and destruction of populations and economies.
The situation when it comes to vaccines is not really any better now (worldwide) than it was 18 months ago.
The richer countries are now up to four vaccines for the most ‘vulnerable’ and will soon be vaccinating embryos in the womb yet in the vast majority of the ‘Global South’ hundreds of millions haven’t even seen a vaccine let alone gotten ‘full’ protection.
And that situation is fully down to the policies followed by the capitalists in the ‘west’.
They take a cavalier approach to the valuable vaccines and there are constant stories of a million doses here, a million does there having to be destroyed as they have gone out of date. (Whether such a short shelf life is actually necessary I have my doubts. Not being a scientist I don’t know the actual science behind such periods but it does seem like another way to pump more billions into the pockets of ‘Big Pharma’.)
Promises made with great acclaim at international meetings about these rich countries ‘donating’ vaccines to the poorer parts of the world’s population come to nought and once the limelight has been switched down those promises are rarely fulfilled.
But worst of all is the opposition of all the leaders of the capitalist countries to the (just temporary and only in this particular situation) relaxing of the patent laws that would allow for more countries to be able to produce, and thus satisfy, their own vaccine needs.
If reason is needed to demonstrate that the World Trade Organisation – to which all these patent laws relate – was a cartel of the rich to make them richer and to keep the poor in even deeper levels of destitution then what is being played out at this time should dispel all doubts.
Vaccine programme worldwide
What happened to the AstraZeneca vaccine? Now rare in rich countries, it’s still saving lives around the world.
Covid nasal sprays could offer advantages over traditional vaccines – a virologist explains how they work.
Future covid-19 booster shots will likely need fresh formulations as new coronavirus variants of concern continue to emerge.
Covid vaccines for children under five: what parents need to know.
Covid vaccines for children: uptake in the UK is slow – here’s why parents might be hesitant.
Over 82 Million U.S. covid vaccine doses have been discarded as pandemic funding stalls. (Article published 6 June 2022.)
This has been happening everywhere in the ‘west’. And has been going on since the vaccine was first stated to be distributed.
More than a million corona shots in the trash: The surpluses are large everywhere. [This from the Netherlands.]
Growing revolt among medical practitioners against vaccinating toddlers for covid. [From the US.]
Repeat covid
Covid reinfections could be more severe for some – but overall evidence doesn’t give us cause for concern.
The effects of covid
Girls’ mental health has been affected more than boys’ during the pandemic.
Covid variants
Fast and furious Omicron new variants defy explanation – and don’t bode well for the future either.
Covid trials
The inside story of Recovery: how the world’s largest COVID-19 trial transformed treatment – and what it could do for other diseases.
Long covid
Long covid: vaccination could reduce symptoms.
Care for 2 million Britons with long Covid ‘woefully inadequate’.
Long covid: female sex, older age and existing health problems increase risk.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and waste
£4 billion of unusable PPE bought in first year of pandemic will be burnt ‘to generate power’.
Those who benefited from the pandemic
‘Profiting from Pain’: Covid created a billionaire every 30 hours.
Poverty in Britain
From pandemic to cost of living crisis: low-income families in challenging times – Joseph Rowntree Trust – findings, full report. Uploaded to media
To ‘level up’, the UK needs a real jubilee: a mass write-off of debts.
How are people adapting post (first wave?) covid pandemic
Long social distancing: how young adults’ habits have changed since covid.
The Communist Internationals
Second World Congress of the Comintern – 1920
Ukraine – what you’re not told
The Communist Internationals
If the principles of socialism have not international application and if the socialist movement is not an international movement then its whole philosophy is false and the movement has no reason for existence.
The International Working Men’s Association (The First International)
In the history of the world emancipation movement of the working class a special place is held by the International Working Men’s Association – the First International. Founded on September 28, 1864, at an international meeting held in St. Martin’s Hall, London, this first international proletarian mass organisation paved the way for the world communist movement of today. In the ranks of the International Working Men’s Association the advanced workers of Europe and America got a schooling in proletarian internationalism, imbibed the ideas of Marxism, and finally discarded petty-bourgeois sectarianism for the proletarian party principle. ‘For ten years the International dominated one side of European history – the side on which the future lies.’ Engels wrote in 1874.
Documents of the First International, Volume 1, 1864-1866, Minutes, The London Conference 1865, FLPH, Moscow, 1964, 483 pages.
Documents of the First International, Volume 2, 1866-1868, Minutes, Progress, Moscow, 1964, 444 pages.
Documents of the First International, Volume 3, 1868-1870, Minutes, Progress, Moscow, 1964, 534 pages.
Documents of the First International, Volume 4, 1870-1871, Minutes, Progress, Moscow, 1964, 617 pages,
Documents of the First International, Volume 5, 1871-1872, Minutes, Progress, Moscow, 1964, 626 pages.
Documents of the First International, Volume 6, The Hague Congress, September 2-7 1872, Minutes and Documents, Progress, Moscow, 1976, 758 pages.
Documents of the First International, Volume 7, The Hague Congress, September 2-7 1872, Reports and Letters, Progress, Moscow, 1978, 701 pages.
The International Working Men’s association and the Working Class Movement in Manchester 1865-85, Edmond and Ruth Frow, Manchester, 1979, 18 pages.
The Second International
‘By social-chauvinism we mean acceptance of the idea of the defence of the fatherland in the present imperialist war, justification of an alliance between socialists and the bourgeoisie and the governments of their ‘own’ countries in this war, a refusal to propagate and support proletarian revolutionary action against one’s ‘own’ bourgeoisie, etc.’ VI Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International in Lenin Collected Works, Volume 21, pp 205-259.
The War and the Second International, VI Lenin, (London, Martin Lawrence, 1931), Little Lenin Library, Volume Two, 63 pages. Two documents written in 1914, ‘The Collapse of the Second International’ and ‘The War and Russian Social-Democracy’.
The rise and fall of the Second International, J Lenz, International Publishers, New York, 1932, 285 pages.
A History of Socialist Thought, Volume 3, Part 1, 2nd International 1889-1914, GDH Cole, Macmillan, London, 1963, 519 pages.
A History of Socialist Thought, Volume 3, Part 2, 2nd International 1889-1914, GDH Cole, Macmillan, London, 1963, 1043 pages.
The Second International, 1889-1914, Igor Krivoguz, Progress, Moscow, 1989, 393 pages.
The Communist International (The Third International – Comintern)
‘The Third International has gathered the fruits of the work of the Second International, discarded its opportunist, social-chauvinist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois dross, and has begun to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ VI Lenin, The Third International and its place in history, in Lenin Collected Works, Volume 29, pp 305-313.
The Manifesto of the Moscow International, Educational Press Association, Montreal, 1919, 12 pages.
Theses presented to 2nd World Congress of the Communist International, Petrograd-Moscow, July 1920, Editions of the Communist International, Petrograd, 1920, 121 pages.
Manifesto of the Communist International, adopted at the Congress of the Communist International at Moscow, march 2-6 1919, and signed by Comrades C Rakovsky, N Lenin, M Zinoviev, L Trotzky, and Fritz Platten, Arbeiter Zeitung, Chicago, n.d., 14 pages.
The Third (Communist) International, its aims and methods, James Clunie, Socialist Labour Press, Glasgow, 1921, 74 pages.
Resolutions and Theses of the 4th Congress of the Communist International, held in Moscow November 7 to December 3 1922, CPGB, London, 1923, 130 pages.
The Communist International between the 5th and 6th World Congresses, 1924-28, a report on the position of all sections of the World Communist Party, CPGB, London, 1928, 508 pages.
On the Road to Bolshevization, Workers Library Publishers, New York, 1929, 42 pages.
For Unity of the Wold Communist Movement, a letter to the Independent Labor Party of Great Britain from the Communist Party USA (Opposition), Communist Party USA, New York, 1934, 32 pages.
Program of the Communist International, together with its Constitution, adopted at the 46th Session of the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International, September 1 1928, Workers Library, New York, 1936, 94 pages.
The Spanish Revolution, M Ercoli (Togliatti), Workers Library Publishers, New York, 1937, 29 pages.
VII Congress of the Communist International, abridged stenographic report of proceedings, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 604 pages.
The Communist International, No 4, 1940, Modern Books, London, 34 pages.
The Communist International, No 6, 1940, Modern Books, London, 34 pages.
The Communist International, No 12, 1940, Modern Books, London, 44 pages.
Workers of the world, Unite!, declaration on the dissolution of the Communist International, adopted May 27 1943, Labour News Co., New York, 1943, 28 pages.
The Third International and its place in history, VI Lenin, (Moscow, Progress, 1971) 51 pages.
Principles of Party Organization, JV Stalin, (Calcutta, Mass Publications, 1975), 47 pages. Thesis on the Organization and Structure of Communist Parties, adopted at the Third Congress of the Communist International in 1921. It was on this basis of this thesis that JV Stalin based his lectures reproduced in ‘The Foundations of Leninism’.
Communist International Documents, 1919-1943, Volume 3, 1929-1943, Jane Degras, Routledge, London, 2007, 494 pages.
Toward the united front, Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922, edited by John Riddell, Brill, Leiden, 2012, 1323 pages.
To the Masses, Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 1921, edited by John Riddell, Brill, Leiden, 2015, 1309 pages.
The Communist Movement at a Crossroads, Plenums of the Communist International’s Executive Committee, 1922-1923, edited by Michael Taber, Brill, Leiden, 2018, 808 pages.
History and analysis
The Communist Movement, from Comintern to Cominform, Part 1, the crisis of the Communist International, Fernando Claudin, Monthly Review, New York, 1975, 410 pages. From Marx to Mao digital reprint, 2017.
The Communist Movement, from Comintern to Cominform, Part 2, the zenith of Stalinism, Fernando Claudin, Monthly Review, New York, 1975, 450 pages. From Marx to Mao digital reprint, 2017.
The World Communist Movement, outline of strategy and tactics, edited by VV Zagladin, Progress, Moscow, 1973, 480 pages.