Introducing an event to launch the book "Storming the Heavens" by Jenny Clegg, Keith Bennett described this book as confronting one of the most important issues of the twentieth century: How could a Marxist-Leninist party, a proletarian party, make a revolution in a country that had but a small and young proletariat and a vast mass of peasantry,

The book launch was held in Marx Memorial Library, featured a discussion of the book’s themes with the author along with China specialists and leading Marxist scholars, including Vijay Prashad and Cheng Enfu (by video link), Michael Dutton, John Foster, and the event’s chair, Radhika Desai.

It was organised by Friends of Socialist China, Manifesto Press, Morning Star and the International Manifesto Group.

In his introductory remarks, Keith Bennett said:

“I think there’s probably no one better qualified than Jenny to bring this history to light. She has devoted her life to studying, understanding and explaining China and the Chinese revolution. From her first visit to China in 1971, through her working life as an academic, her groundbreaking book on ‘China’s Global Strategy – Towards a Multipolar World’, to her current work on the BRICS, situating them within the context of the struggle for an international new democracy.

“But Jenny has not just studied and learned and taught. She has put her knowledge to work in social practice and at the service of others. In fighting against racism, in supporting struggles against imperialism in all parts of the world, in building broad-based friendship with China, and today especially and vitally, in the work of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition.”

 

The full text of Keith Bennett’s introductory remarks are available here.