ROGER D HARRIS and SARA FLOUNDERS challenge propaganda against the blockaded socialist island
A century ago today was the mid-point of the third British Ypres offensive on the western front. It was not then popularised as the Battle of Passchendaele, because the taking of that pulverised former village (by Canadian soldiers) was more than six weeks away.
Ordered by King George V’s friend and working-class enemy commander-in-chief Sir Douglas Haig but carried out — with vast casualties — by his troops, the campaign began on July 31 (after 10 days of artillery bombardment) and was concluded on November 10, without any confession of guilt for another bloody failure.
Haig had believed that the German armies were close to breaking point, that attacks aimed at extending the Ypres bulge at the front would pierce the German lines, and enable the British armies to swing northwards and on to the Belgian coast.
Outrage greeted Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that Britain stayed off the front lines. But evidence suggests our forces were at times pulled from the most dangerous fighting — not by military failure, but by pressure at home, says IAN SINCLAIR
CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history
In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out
Corbyn and Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ represents the first attempt at mass socialist organisation since the CPGB’s formation in 1921, argues DYLAN MURPHY



