Issue 18

• Scottish Socialist Party conference
• Popoy Lagman assassinated
• People’s Conference Against Globalisation, Delhi
• DSP congress: globalising resistance to capitalism
• Zapatista march on Mexico City sparks mass support

by Dick Nichols

• A chance to learn
• Mass leaders on show
• What politics?

By Barry Sheppard

The collapse of "really existing socialism" in the USSR and Eastern Europe a decade ago came as a shock to all tendencies in the workers' movement and the political representatives of the capitalist class worldwide. No-one predicted such an outcome beforehand—no-one alive, that is. Why was this so?

To answer this question, it would be useful to review the differing views on the character of the USSR.

Stalin and his heirs claimed that the USSR had achieved socialism in the 1930s and was a classless society. The regime claimed, "We have not yet, of course, complete communism, but we have already achieved socialism—that is, the lowest stage of communism^"1

by Murray Smith

The policy of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), reaffirmed at its annual conference in February 2001, is to work towards an international alliance of socialist parties. This objective is based on the reality of the emergence of new parties in a number of countries. It would be premature to try to launch a formal alliance today. The process is uneven, more advanced in some countries than in others. But it has already been possible to establish links with the emerging new socialist forces in different countries.

by Dianne Feeley

• The rise of the Christian right
• Cultural upheaval and US Protestantism
• What the Christian right want
• The Christian right and the Reagan revolution
• Anti-abortion activism

By Farooq Sulehria

• Imperialism and fundamentalism
• In Pakistan
• Social base
• Divisions among fundamentalist parties
• Immediate perspective
• Alliances

Pakistan is situated in a region where fundamentalism has been posed, of late, as one of the most threatening questions. The process initiated by the Islamic revolution in Iran has even been internationalised by the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan. At the same time, the rise of Hindu radicalism in India has further complicated the situation in Pakistan.

Democratic Socialist Party

This is the text of a resolution adopted by the 19th Congress of the Australian Democratic Socialist Party, held January 3-7, 2001. Except where specified otherwise, dollars in this article are Australian dollars. At the time of writing, A$1 was approximately US$0.55

By Sonny Melencio

• The Marxist concept of nation
• Is Bangsamoro a nation?
• The struggle of the Bangsamoro people
• The SPP's view

As Marxists, we support the right to self-determination of oppressed nations. This right applies to the democratic demand of the oppressed nation to determine its political relationship to the oppressor nation, which includes its right to secede and form a separate state.

It is in this sense that we uphold the right of the Moro people to self-determination.

By Max Lane

• Independence sentiment growing
• Golkar comeback
• Weakness of other bourgeois forces
• Turmoil in the extremities
• Economic attacks
• People's Democratic Party
• New phase

One of the aims when we set out to prepare this issue of Links was to provide readers with an indication of the exciting breadth and depth of Marxist political activity and theory in Asia. Of course, we had no illusions that it was possible to provide even an adequate outline in a single issue, and, as it happens, Asian Marxist parties that have contributed to previous issues of Links are absent from this issue.