Soviet War Memorial (London) - Remembrance Sunday 14.11.21
No one fore-saw the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet in just two years the remaining British Veterans of the Russian Arctic Convoys - who risked and gave their lives for our ally the Soviet Union - have all but passed away into the mists of time... In many ways, a post-war Britain prospered and blossomed for many years on the strength of the sacrifices of these men and women, and yet Britain's slave-like adherence to US anti-intellectualism and Cold War lies and hysteria about the USSR betrayed these good people - the best of us - who had no 'cenotaph' of their own until the Labour Party permitted the Soviet War Memorial to be constructed and opened (in 1999) in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum. A delegation has been present at the Soviet War Memorial representing the Buddhist-Marxist Alliance UK ever since its inception 2013, on at least one of its three annual commemorations. In those early days there about thirty Veterans of the Russian Arctic Convoys which suffered terrible casualties whilst transporting military and civil aid to our allies in the Soviet Union! For instance, of the 35 ships of the Arctic Convoy code-named PQ17 (starting-out from Hvalfjörður in Iceland) all but 11 of these ships were sunk! In 2018 - the last Commemoration before CCOVI-19 struck - there just 'six' Veterans attended. Today, there were none... The delegation of the BMA-UK represented the Socialist reality of the end of ALL imperialist and capitalist wars! We also respectfully remember those who have died in ALL wars around the globe and are sincerely grateful for the freedoms we enjoy today because of the sacrifices of our ancestors! Fascism is on the rise again throughout the United States, United Kingdom and Europe! As an insidious ideology of race-hate, violence and murder, it has penetrated every strata of society and continues to influence political policy from the top-down, and manifests throughout every-corner of society! A callous disregard for the welfare and safety of others is a key indicator of the presence of the fascist ideology. Persistent Socialistic education is the key to psychologically and physically inoculating today's youth against this debilitating and regressive ideology that permeates the mind and body and sheds a permanent dark-shadow across existence! In this regard, and to this extent, the Soviet War Memorial represents an almost 'talismanic' presence within society that not only records the 27-40 million deaths suffered by the population of the USSR at the hands of Nazi German terror (and the allies of Hitler) - but serves as a shining beacon of hope through the world and for all of humanity, joining other similar structures designed to remember the 'Glorious Fallen' of the Soviet Union which was righteously guided by the firm hand of Comrade Joseph Stalin! Today, the Portrait of Master Chan Tin Sang (1924-1903) was held aloft to remember the sacrifices of the Chinese Nation and the Chinese people in their fight against Japanese fascism between 1931-1945 - guided and co-coordinated by the efforts of Mao Zedong of the Communist Party of China (CPC)! Although estimates vary widely, some suggest the appalling number of sixty million men, women and children being murdered in the fight against Japanese fascism! As far as we know, and despite China being an 'ally' of the UK during WWII, no similar monument exists (or has ever existed) in the West to commemorate the deaths of so many Chinese men, women and children! This is not surprising when one considers that a racist backlash across the ('capitalist') UK led to the incumbent Labour Party forcibly rounding up thousands of Chinese people (from the 'Limehouse' area of East London) in 1946, and deporting this mass of humanity back to a war-torn China! A similar situation occurred in 1919, when a similar racist backlash saw a far larger number of Chinese people rounded-up and forcible deported as an 'award' for being 'loyal' to the UK during WWI! Surely, this not so glorious history suggests that not only musy fascism be fought on the one-hand, but that capitalism must be over-thrown on the other and that the two priorities must and should go hand in hand until the International Working-Class seizes the means of production and initiates its own bright era of progressive, Socialist Revolution! ACW 15.11.2021