Pro-Palestine demonstration in Cardiff

Welsh Communist Party members joined the march in solidarity with Palestine in Cardiff on Saturday the 4th of October. Comrades from branches in South Wales formed a red block with the Party’s bilingual banner “Bydd Palesteina yn rydd – Palestine will be free”. Despite the strong winds, the red flags were flown and the Morning Star was distributed. As almost always is the case, the presence of the Communist Party symbols initiates interesting discussions which gives us an opportunity to clarify an important point:

Critics say: What is the point of the Communist Party? Does the Communist Party flag turn people away from the march thus undermining the cause for solidarity with Palestine? The argument is that people are offended by the communist symbols and therefore are put off from joining the demo when flags with these symbols are flown in the crowd, thus harming the potential for larger crowds marching in solidarity with Palestine.

We respond:

• The Communist Party has expressed solidarity and supported the struggle in Palestine for many decades and long before many of the other parties and groups in the march were even formed. It has marched and demonstrated consistently for decades. The position of the Communist Party on Palestine has been known and has remained unchanged. To imply that the Party is somehow external to the Palestinian cause is simply ignoring basic facts.
• The Palestine solidarity marches attract a range of political groups. Palestine demos are organised by groups that include people whose affiliation to political parties is known and who are politically very active. Several parties of the left fly flags during the demo. To imply that the Palestinian struggle is separate to politics can only be considered as a result of a naive social analysis. The core of every conflict, and especially at the scale of the genocide in Gaza, is politics. A march itself is politics. The Communist Party is active in politics with clear positions based on Historical Materialism and, from that point of view, its presence to the demo is essential.
• The Communist Party and the Communist symbols have been the subject of negative media coverage over the past three decades in a consistent effort to weaken working class struggle. There is no historical basis to equating Putin’s Russia with the Soviet Union, or equating Communism with Fascism, or presenting Socialism as an authoritarian system. To be offended or put off by Communist Symbols is to refuse historical truth and to accept the very neo-liberal type of thinking that eventually leads to actions such as the genocide in Gaza. Fellow travellers need to critically examine anti-communist narratives and consider why would Communist Symbols put off anyone.
• Communists around the world are typically persecuted because of their working-class and anti-imperialist stance. We have seen that again and again in history, recently in Ukraine and we see it now in Israel and Gaza with many comrades from the Palestinian People’s Party becoming the very victims of the genocide and many comrades from Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel being threatened, silenced and punished for speaking against the genocide. The Communist Party must be present at pro-Palestinian marches in solidarity not only to all Palestinians but also to communists in Israel and Palestine.
  

We ask that people who are quick to accuse the Communist Party of negatively impacting the pro-Palestine marches to respect the Party’s consistent position on the issue for decades and the solidarity shown to the people of Palestine by Communist comrades. We also ask that people adopt a more critical view of neo-liberal narratives that point to historical revisionism with the aim to damage solidarity across the working class.

The Communist Party has always been and must and will continue to be present at all marches in support of Palestine!