TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about
A century of the Communist Party of China: the Great Leap Forward
In his ongoing series, CARLOS MARTINEZ looks at how a failed set of policies aimed at modernising China’s economy and agriculture became so notorious — and misunderstood
A worker installs a flag-shaped flowers decoration with a Communist Party's logo in Beijing, Wednesday, June 16, 2021.
DIANE ABBOTT exposes the misconceptions, rumours and downright lies perpetrated around immigration issues
With 12,000 fewer teachers since 2010 and dwindling resources, Scotland’s schools desperately need investment to support diverse learners rather than empty promises from politicians, writes ANDREA BRADLEY
Reversing outsourcing is the pre-election promise the government must honour, says Unison general secretary CHRISTINA McANEA
EMAN ABU ZAYED reminisces about the perilous time her family and neighbours endured in northern Gaza and how they were forced, in fear of their lives, to flee south
The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER
TO this day, the most popular method for casually denigrating the People’s Republic of China and the record of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is to cite the alleged crimes of Mao Zedong who, from the early 1930s until his death in 1976, was generally recognised as the top leader of the Chinese Revolution.
After all, if the CPC was so dedicated to improving the lot of the Chinese people, why did it engage in such disastrous campaigns as the Great Leap Forward (GLF) and the Cultural Revolution?
The GLF, launched in 1958, was an experimental programme designed to achieve rapid industrialisation and collectivisation; to fast-track the construction of socialism and allow China to make a final break with centuries-old underdevelopment and poverty; in Mao’s words, to “close the gap between China and the US within five years, and to ultimately surpass the US within seven years.”
More from this author
From anonymous surveys claiming Chinese students are spying on each other to a meltdown about the size of China’s London embassy, the evidence is everywhere that Britain is embracing full spectrum Sinophobia as the war clouds gather, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ
The US’s bid for regime change in the Islamic Republic has become more urgent as it seeks to encircle and contain a resurgent China, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ
CARLOS MARTINEZ condemns Europe’s failure to develop genuine autonomy from US hegemony, as leaders like Starmer and Macron cling to a declining imperial order rather than building good relations with the emerging powers
Chinese socialist planning and action over decades have created the world’s greatest reforestation programme, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ, and now its lessons in fighting desertification and climate change are taking root worldwide
