The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC) in Pakistan has been active all over the country in organising relief for the victims of the floods. We provide here a second photo gallery documenting some of the activities of the Revolutionary Flood Relief and Protest Campaign described in the latest report. These pictures were sent by PTUDC activists in Malakand, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rahim Yar Khan, Islamabad, Hyderabad and in Kashmir.

China has been making news due to its powerful economic growth. The other side of this story, however, is to be found in the terrible conditions and low pay that many of its workers have to suffer. Here is one example of a milkman.

The PTUDC in Pakistan has been active all over the country in organising relief for the victims of the floods. In some areas, however, they have met opposition from the Pakistan Army which prefers to back fundamentalist organisations. The Pakistan state has failed abysmally to help its own people, but still finds the forces to harass genuine socialists who are merely trying to help their own brothers and sisters.

Bangladesh has attracted investment from multinational corporations, particularly in the textile industry, because of its supply of very cheap labour. Now, however, this new working class is starting to flex its muscles and a wave of militant strikes has spread across the country. The conditions have been created where the left could unite and struggle for the overthrow of capitalism.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign has launched Revolutionary Flood Relief and Protest Committees across Pakistan, especially in the intensely affected areas, to conduct an efficient and effective rescue and relief effort. Fifty seven camps of this campaign have been set up in various regions and is appealing for help.

The PTUDC has set up a Mobile Medical Relief Team, which include volunteer doctors and other medical staff that are providing medical aid to the flood victims.

National Marxist Youth Summer School was held from 30^th July to 1^st August 2010 at Abbottabad. In spite of the heavy floods and landslides due to disastrous rains, long distances and difficult economic situation, more than 100 comrades from all over the country participated in the school with a great revolutionary spirit.

In this second part of Jeppe Druedahl's contribution to the discussion on China, he explains how initially the Chinese bureaucracy, after the death of Mao, introduced market methods as a means of stimulating production within a planned economy. However, over time the capitalist methods began to dominate and the relation between the plan and the market were overturned. Quantity was transformed into quality, and capitalism has come to dominate. [part one]

Does the development of China on a capitalist basis deny the theory of permanent revolution? Does it mean that capitalism on a world scale has a new lease of life? What was China under Mao? In this first part of a two part article, which we publish as a contribution to the discussion, Jeppe Druedahl looks at these and other questions and draws lessons from the development of the Soviet Union after the revolution and under the Stalinist bureaucracy.

The split between the US generals and politicians could not have come at a worse time. The sacking of McChrystal just at the beginning of the fighting season could disrupt the entire counter-insurgency campaign, which was already going badly. The fact is that a military victory is out of the question. The greatest military power in the world is now overstretched in the region.

The Summer 2010 edition of the Asian Marxist Review is soon coming out. Here we provide the Editorial, which makes a comment on the crisis affecting all Asian countries to one degree or another.

On 5^th July 1977 general Zia Ul Haq overthrew the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in a military coup. He later proceeded to have Bhutto hanged. This year that dark day in 1977 was marked by a day of remembrance in Rawalpindi, where the speakers emphasised the need to carry out the founding socialist programme of the PPP.

A huge rally and conference was organised by the Jammu Kashmir National Student Federation (JKNSF) on June 24. Lal Khan was one of the main speakers, stressing the point that genuine self-determination for the Kashmiri people can only be achieved as part of a socialist federation of the whole of the South Asian subcontinent.

Over the weekend the Punjab People’s Student Federation (PSF) held a convention under the title “Bhuttoism—Socialism”, officially organised to mark the 57^th birthday anniversary of Benazir Bhutto. The convention, representing a large number of campuses across the Punjab, elected Zohaib Butt, a Marxist and supporter of The Struggle, as its President.

The workers at the Foshan Honda plant in China won a 35% wage increase after taking strike action which started on May 17. The agreement, which was reached on June 4, represents an average monthly pay rise of 500 yuan. A regular front-line worker whose wages were 1544 yuan before, will see his wages increased to 2044 yuan after the pay rise - a raise of 32.4%. The intern employees, who represent a large part of the workforce and have played a key role in the strike but receive much lower wages, will get a raise of 634 yuan from the current rate of 900 - a raise of more than 70%.