John Wight: A patsy for imperialism

It's a sign of the times when you find so called progressive left wing writers and commentators flogging their wares at the likes of Russia Today. It's not as even if Russia is in any way shape or form any kind of socialist country any more. Long gone are the days when the left was divided on the theoretical nature of the Soviet state. The main stream Communist Party saw Russia as a "socialist or workers paradise", the Trotskyists mused about a "degenerated workers state" and Tony Cliff simply described it as "State Capitalist".

No arguments anymore though. Communism (such as it was) has fallen and the remains of the Soviet Union has pushed the remaining comrades to the side-lines, become a full bloodied capitalist society complete with its own imperial ambitions, though it's clientele remain remarkably similar to the one from their soviet glory days.

One of the odder left wing websites is Socialist Unity, inhabited by lefty caricatures such as Andy Newman and Tony Collins who mix old fashioned Stalinism with a large dash of Islamism with a twisted measure of what they disingenuously call anti-Zionism. However it is the third member of this unsavoury coterie that is under the spotlight tonight, a certain John Wight.

In an article on Russia Today (the clear propaganda arm of the Putin regime) John Wight plays the role of a "Lord Haw-Haw" in promoting the agenda of the Russian regime by seeking to undermine the British prime Ministers visit to China in tones that would have done Goebbels proud. No country has a perfect past, not Britain and certainly not China, but times move on even if political malcontents like Wight cannot recognise it. For the record once China saw all outsiders and foreigners as "inferiors" and became insular, a move that stunted its' development and allowed competing colonial powers to gain the upper hand.

Of course this is all history, the worlds a smaller place now and most nations (North Korea and Iran excepted) have recognised the new reality. The growth of Chinese capitalism has been phenomenal, a point which is beyond doubt. But the people of China have paid a terrible price. Despite being ruled by a "Communist" Party, the country is a nightmare for large sections of its' workforce. No trade unions, a lack of health and safety in the workplace, widespread corruption and a large entrepreneurial business class that has made vast amounts of money on the workers backs.

Did I mention the all too obvious pollution?

Then there's the genocide being perpetrated in Tibet, suppression of the Uyghurs and other minorities. Please don't try to practise your religion either. Your Christian faith could leave you in jail. According to the pro-Assad, pro-Ayatollah John Wight these "pale into insignificance" when compared to Britain's. Even if true (which it isn't) there is still no excuse for dismissing the all too obvious Human Rights issues in China.

And that's without even considering the millions murdered by Chairman Mao and the Communist Party over the years they were in power .

Wight then criticises the US and Japan for not recognising the suddenly imposed "air defence zone" around some uninhabited (and contested) islands in the middle of nowhere. Of course that couldn't be a Chinese imperialist manoeuvre could it? Exactly who is the provocateur here?

Of course Wight's hatchet job serves another imperialism, that of Russia, which combined with his oft said support for the brutal client states under the imperial Russian banner (Syria and Iran) its no wonder he seeks to earn a rouble or two with his twisted words.

Putin has found his man in John Wight.