Syria: Imperialism prolongs a proxy war it cannot win

In the same week in April that Peter Clarke, former head of the Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism unit, was appointed as witchfinder-general tasked with sniffing out and uprooting alleged “islamic radicalisation” in Birmingham’s schools, news broke that an eighteen year old Muslim student from Brighton, Abdullah Deghayes, had just got himself killed fighting against the government … [Read more…]

End note: The Contribution of Agnes Smedley

Agnes Smedley played a tremendous part in helping the Ghadarites in every way, especially in fighting against their deportation to India and certain death. When the Indians were accused by US intelligence officers of being German spies, she replied rightly: ” No – no more than Benjamin Franklin was a French spy”. She was arrested … [Read more…]

End note: A Few Words On Ram Chandra

We return now to the case of Ram Chandra. To repeat, after the departure of other prominent Ghadarites for India and the wider eastern front, Ram Chandra became editor of Ghadar Weekly. He was a dominant, not to say a domineering, figure in the Ghadar Party during that period and no one dared question his … [Read more…]

Report of Iris’s funeral

Iris’s funeral took place on 17 April at Mortlake Crematorium in West London. The service was filled to capacity, not only with Iris’s family and friends and Party comrades, but also with the most diverse of community leaders, as well as leaders and supporters of progressive political parties and broad organisations. The embassies of both … [Read more…]

Iris Cremer – her daughter’s tribute

I really did not want to be up here addressing funeral guests last time when my father’s service was here. And cannot believe we are all back here again so soon! Over the past two years my mum has shown us exactly what she was made of: determination, focus, love and those hugs. After losing … [Read more…]

The sunshine of the oppressed – a poem for Iris

When cancer pronounced its death sentence Iris faced it without fear. “I’ve had a good life”, she said to all She wasn’t concerned that her end was near. Iris’s pride was to be a work horse Toiling gladly in the revolutionary cause Day and night come rain or shine Hour after hour with never a … [Read more…]

CPGB-ML Chairman’s Tribute to Iris Cremer

“Death is not a misfortune for the one that dies but for the one that survives”, Karl Marx used to repeat after Epicurus. The CPGB-ML, nay, the British working-class movement, is poorer for the loss of this indefatigable protagonist of the cause of emancipation of the proletariat and the liberation of humanity at large. We … [Read more…]

Red Salute to Comrade Iris Cremer, soldier of the Revolution

It is with great sadness that the CPGB-ML has to announce the death of one of its key founder members, Comrade Iris Cremer. She died peacefully on the evening of Wednesday 2 April, just five weeks after she had been diagnosed with an aggressive and already far-advanced lung cancer. Comrades and family were at her … [Read more…]

100th Anniversary of the Ghadar movement

Part 5 The German connection and the San Francisco Trial Ghadar Party and Germany At the time it was suggested by some pro-British writers that the Ghadar movement in America was the product of “German intrigues” that succeeded in persuading “uneducated or half-educated” Indians in America to believe that that an armed revolution against British … [Read more…]