Since the following article was written the ICC has held an Extraordinary International Conference in which the organisation as a whole was able to discuss and take a position on the behaviour of the 'Fraction'. In next month's WR there will be an article on the work of this conference.
Revolutionary organisations have always had to defend themselves against attempts to discredit them (see our article in WR252, "The struggle of revolutionary organisations against provocation and slander"), and the ICC has not been spared this task during its more than 30 years of existence. Today, it is once again the target of a destructive attack by a small number of its own 'discontented' militants, who for months have been carrying out a scorched earth policy within the organisation. They have produced a text titled On dit qu'ils ont la rage! (Note 1) [1], which some of our subscribers have received in the post. This text was also distributed at the ICC's Paris public forum on 16th March, along with another titled New exclusions from the ICC. Our intention here is to make our own position clear, and to counter this flood of lies and slander with the truth. We will return to a more in-depth analysis of the significance of a method which consists in covering a revolutionary organisation in dirt.
The two texts protest against several of the ICC's political positions and attitudes:
The exclusion of Jonas, "a founding militant of the ICC [whose] only fault was to have been one of the first and most determined to combat, without hesitation or compromise, what we had begun to analyse in recent years (and not only in France) as an alarming turn within the ICC both on the level of its internal functioning and at the level of its general political orientations".
The supposed 'persecution' directed against a 'fraction' which has emerged within the ICC, and which is the author of the two texts in question: "Today, it is not just an isolated ex-militant who has been treated as unclean and expelled from the ICC; the exclusion of a fraction is in progress. It only remains for the ICC to find a 'credible' justification in order to make public the exclusion of the other members of this fraction, one after the other".
Still according to the authors of these two texts, this situation is the result of a serious crisis within the organisation, which is described as follows: "The ICC is today confronted with a flagrant contradiction between the image it wants to give of a healthy, open, fraternal organisation that encourages debate and (...) the reality of its present refusal of any expression of internal disagreement, along with a regime of constant pressure, rumours, and slanders against its own militants". In fact, the ICC is supposedly in a state of degeneration, as one of the two texts suggests elsewhere: "The ICC's accusation of 'political unworthiness' has as much effect on us as that directed by a degenerating Communist International against Bordiga, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik militants to justify their exclusion".
We are thus confronted with a group of militants, proclaiming themselves an 'internal fraction of the ICC', who openly defend an ex-militant of the ICC, Jonas, whose exclusion we have made public in a communiqu� published in WR252.
The exclusion of Jonas: an individual whose behaviour was that of an agent provocateur
Among the reasons we gave for this exclusion was the following: "One of the most disgusting and intolerable aspects of his behaviour was the veritable campaign that he both led and promoted against a member of the organisation (...) with accusations, behind the scenes and even before people outside the ICC, of manipulating both friends and family, and the central organs, on behalf of the police" (Communiqu� to our readers (Note 2) [2]). The members of the so-called 'fraction' cannot deny this fact which is obvious to all within the ICC, nor have they ever done so any more than Jonas himself. In reality, "the fact that Jonas has refused to meet the ICC to explain his behaviour is in itself an admission of the fact that he is aware of having become a sworn enemy of our organisation, despite the theatrical declarations to his 'comrades' whom in reality (with the exception of those he has succeeded in dragging in his wake) he depicts as either 'cops', inquisitors, or poor manipulated cretins". In deciding to exclude Jonas, we have done no more than adopt the traditions of revolutionary organisations within the working class: "Since the beginning of the workers' movement, its political organissations have always reacted with unbending severity (including with exclusion) against the authors of slanderous accusations against their militants, even when these were in good faith...". (Note 3) [3]
The militants of the 'fraction' recently informed us of their disagreement with the decision to exclude Jonas, which they considered 'iniquitous', and 'demanded' that the ICC give them the right to reply in our press.
It is perfectly possible that the facts with which a militant is charged may be contested either by himself or by others (which is not the case as far as Jonas is concerned), but the press is not the place for the expression and discussion of such disagreements. The organisations of the working class have adopted specific means for dealing with such delicate questions, in commissions mandated to do so. As a last resort, a militant who considers himself unjustly dishonoured can also appeal to a jury of honour drawn from groups of the Communist Left. Needless to say, we have also proposed this possibility to Jonas.
However, we have accepted that the members of the 'fraction' should put forward an opposing viewpoint on the sanction, but with the following proviso: "For it to be productive, the defence of such a viewpoint should make critical reference to our article on 'The struggle of revolutionary organisations against provocation and slander'; in particular it should demonstrate in what way our predecessors in the workers' movement were mistaken, or in what way historical conditions have changed such that their practice in the defence of the organisation is no longer valid today". The 'fraction' has answered the ICC's proposal by distributing, behind our backs, one of the two texts denigrating the ICC (our subscribers informed us of its existence as soon as they received it), while we only discovered the existence of the other at our public forum in Paris.
In reality, Jonas' refusal to defend himself according to the rules and methods in the workers' movement corresponds to the fact that his real concern, above anything else, is that the group that has remained faithful to him should take his defence by covering the ICC in dirt. And this is indeed what the 'friends of Jonas' are doing.
The 'fraction': a parasitic body within the ICC
After trying for months to destroy the organisation from the inside, Jonas' friends have now begun the same destructive attack against the ICC and the contacts around it on the outside. Why are they behaving like this?
This is not the first time that the ICC has confronted organisational problems. We have already given an extensive account of these in our press (Note 4) [4], in particular as regards a tendency to personalise political questions, more especially as the result of the domination by criteria of affinity and individual loyalties, to the detriment of a party spirit, which presupposes the fullest development of militants' individual commitment and responsibility in the service of the collective body that is the organisation.
We have also highlighted the similarities between the problems with which we have been affected and some of the episodes of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) in 1903. Faced with the attitude of the Mensheviks, the attacks of which he was the target, and the subjectivity which had infected Martov and his friends, Lenin replied: "The 'minority' regroups within the Party heterogeneous elements united solely by their desire, conscious or not, to maintain the relations of the circle, the forms of organisation that preceded the Party". These elements "naturally raise the standard of revolt against those vital restrictions that the organisation demands, and they erect their spontaneous anarchism into a principle of struggle, wrongly describing this anarchism (�) as a demand in favour of 'tolerance', etc". Later he continues, "When I consider the behaviour of Martov's friends after the Congress (...) I can only say that it is an insane attempt, unworthy of Party members, to tear the Party apart (�) And why? Solely because they are displeased at the composition of the central organs, since objectively this is the only thing that divides us, the subjective considerations (offence, insults, expulsion, pushing aside, wounding, etc) being nothing more than the fruit of wounded pride and a diseased imagination" (Lenin, Account of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP).
The historical experience of revolutionary organisations shows that questions concerning their functioning are political questions in their own right, and deserve to be treated with the closest attention and the greatest depth. This is why we will return in our press to the analysis of those weaknesses which have made it possible for such difficulties to reappear in our own ranks. For the moment, we will concentrate on this concrete expression of those difficulties.
These comrades' discontent was crystallised by the fact that the ICC's 14th Congress called into question certain orientations that they had defended, both within and outside the old central organ. Contrary to the 2nd Congress of the Russian party, the make-up of the central organ was not in question, since those among them who had previously belonged to the central organ were re-elected by the Congress, which counted precisely on their experience and the confidence which up to then they had deserved.
As the 14th Congress' resolution on its activities demonstrated, the ICC diagnosed the existence of a threat to its organisational tissue and functioning, resulting from the persistence of a circle or clan mentality, an idea to which the comrades were bitterly opposed. The Congress also rejected their previous positions by highlighting the danger of over-optimism in our ranks, leading us to underestimate these difficulties. Moreover, the Congress appointed an investigation commission mandated to shed light on the malfunctioning in the permanent commissions of our central organs, something that these comrades saw as a real threat, with the consequence that they shortly began to do whatever they could to sabotage the investigation commission's work.
Just like the Bolshevik party before its Stalinist degeneration, the ICC does not have a monolithic conception of the organisation. The existence and expression of disagreements within the organisation are not a problem in themselves. The existence of differences is recognised in our statutes as being a part of the necessary process of clarifying political disagreement. What is a problem however, is the fact that since then a certain number of militants in our French section have adopted a policy of systematically violating our organisational rules. Reacting out of "wounded pride", they adopted an anarchistic attitude of violating the decisions of the Congress, of denigration, slanders, bad faith, and outright lies. After several violations of our organisational rules, some of them serious to the point of forcing the organisation to react firmly, these comrades held a series of secret meetings during August 2001, which finally gave birth to a group baptised a 'collective for reflection'.
The organisation has since acquired a copy of the proceedings of one of these secret meetings � something the participants would have liked to avoid. These proceedings demonstrated clearly to the other members of our organisation that these comrades were fully aware that they were fomenting a plot against the organisation, demonstrating a total lack of loyalty towards the ICC, which was expressed in particular through:
the creation of a strategy to deceive the organisation and impose their own policy on it;
a putschist, leftist approach, which posed the political problems we were confronting in terms of "recovering the means of functioning" (in other words, control of the central organs);
the creation of an "iron solidarity" among the participants and against the central organs, clearly turning their backs on the freely accepted discipline of a proletarian organisation.
We have since learnt that at the same time, some of these militants were already establishing a secret correspondence with members of other ICC sections.
After lengthy discussion, notably on the significance of the approach expressed in the notes of the secret meetings, those taking part in or supporting the 'collective' decided to dissolve it, and to rejoin the debate within the organisation's framework. They recognised in particular that a real desire to clarify has nothing to fear from an open debate, where every comrade is called to involve himself completely with a view to strengthening the organisation. They recognised that only after such a debate would it be possible to see whether there existed two irreconcilable political orientations, and if such were the case, whether it were necessary to form a tendency or fraction with a real and responsible content. Moreover, the comrades committed themselves to undertake a profound reflection on the reasons that had led them to behave as enemies of the organisation.
Sadly, a month later some of the members of the late 'collective' turned their backs on their own previous decision and formed a group which they called 'internal fraction of the ICC'; they then began a campaign of systematically and repeatedly violating our organisation's statutes. To cite only a few examples: the use of other comrades' personal addresses; refusal to pay their dues in full; refusal to attend the meeting of the central organs to which they belonged or were invited, under the pretext that the ICC should "first discuss the 'fraction's' status"; threat to publish in public the internal documents of the life of the organisation; refusal to deliver to the organisation a document that circulated among certain militants and apparently contains extremely serious accusations against other militants; refusal to meet with other members of the organisation on the pretext that the organisation had decided to retain the notes (which could be consulted at any moment) from any meeting of this kind. (Note 5) [5] On top of this long list, we now have to add yet another: the theft of the file of addresses of the subscribers to R�volution Internationale by the member of the central organ to whom this responsibility had been entrusted, even before the 'collective's' existence was openly declared.
Faced with such destructive behaviour, and not because of any political differences, the organisation had no other choice than to defend its own survival by adopting the sanctions laid down in the statutes. Without the common respect of those organisational rules which are embodied in our statutes and freely accepted by all, there is no organisation.
This phenomenon of an organisation within the organisation, acting within it like a parasitic and destructive body, is not new either. It existed in the First International in the form of Bakunin's Alliance for Socialist Democracy, against which Engels declared: "It is high time to put an end, once and for all, to the internal struggles which are provoked daily within our Association by the presence of this parasitic body.
These quarrels only serve to waste that energy which should serve to combat the regime of the bourgeoisie. By paralysing the International's activity against the enemies of the working class, the Alliance admirably serves the bourgeoisie and all its governments" (The General Council to all the members of the International).
Contempt for the spirit and the letter of the ICC's statutes
Each time that a group of militants has left our organisation, trying as they did so to cause it the maximum possible damage, they have never failed to accuse the ICC of 'Stalinist' degeneration, and to present themselves as its real continuation. The militants who today have grouped under the banner of the 'internal fraction of the ICC' are no exception. Their declarations claiming that they want to undertake a political struggle within the ICC are nothing but a fig-leaf to hide their constant war against its internal life and its activity.
In fact, it was these comrades' own behaviour that created a growing conviction within our organisation that their proclaimed desire to undertake the work of a real fraction was nothing but a bluff. The problem is that � for a while at least � they are likely to create confusion and distrust outside the organisation, now that they have decided to reveal their idiocies in public. We can only answer whatever doubt they may succeed in sowing by reminding our readers that throughout its existence the ICC has only very rarely excluded a militant, and then only on the grounds of extremely serious faults that endangered the organisation. Never has any militant been excluded for political disagreements. Today, the ICC attributes the greatest possible importance to the clear expression and confrontation of disagreements, on the basis of texts and contributions to its internal bulletins, while all the discussions are summarised in reports at every level of the organisation, to give an overview of the advance of the debate. However, for us as for Rosa Luxemburg, the principle of freedom of criticism within the organisation is accompanied by this non-negotiable precondition: "independent thought is of the greatest importance to us. But this is only possible if � all slanders, lies and insults aside � we welcome gratefully and without distinction of tendency, the opinions of people who may be mistaken, but whose only aim is the health of our Party" (Freedom of criticism and science). (Note 6) [6]
As for the accusation that the ICC is violating its own statutes by refusing to recognise the 'fraction', this is a gross falsehood.
The 'collective' and the 'fraction' that followed it were not formed on the basis of a positive alternative orientation to a position adopted by the organisation, but by a gathering of the 'discontented', who put all their disagreements into a common stew and then tried to give them a semblance of coherence. This is why the premature and totally unprincipled formation of the 'fraction' has nothing to do with what the fractions in the workers' movement represented historically: "Unlike the tendency, which only arises in the case of differences of orientation on circumstantial questions, the fraction is justified by programmatic disagreements which can only end either in the exclusion of the bourgeois position or in the departure of the communist fraction" ("Report on the structure and functioning of the revolutionary organisation", point 10, in International Review n�33). The organisation could not simply ignore this analysis because of the 'fraction's' temper tantrums and its demands for recognition. Nor has it in any way violated its statutes by calling into question the right of organised tendencies or fractions to exist within the ICC. Quite the contrary. It is precisely because, as our statutes say, "the organisation cannot judge when such an organised form should be either constituted or dissolved", that the members of the 'fraction' can meet as they choose to put forward collectively within the organisation whatever positions they choose. Just as for any other comrade of the organisation, the press is also open to them to put forward clearly elaborated minority positions. Indeed, it is for this very reason that we proposed that these militants should use the columns of the International Review to express their disagreements with our conception of the fraction's historical role, as we presented it in an article in n�108 of the Review. Needless to say, they hastened to 'accept' this proposal� by posing a whole series of preconditions which were completely unacceptable to us because they implied that the whole organisation should in fact adopt their positions. This episode is eloquent in demonstrating that the expression of their disagreements with the ICC, in public and before the working class, is the last of their concerns.
Far from adopting an approach aimed at convincing us of their positions through serious political argument, these militants' 'struggle' for the official recognition of their "fraction" has in their eyes justified a series of gross violations of our statutes (to the point where within the ICC these comrades are commonly known as the 'infraction'). They have trampled underfoot one basic principle of our functioning: "the fact that they defend minority positions in no way absolves members of the organisation from any of their responsibilities as militants" (extract from the ICC's statutes). Without this, a united organisation that allows disagreements to exist within it, is impossible. One of their violations � the reduction by 70% of their dues (obligatory for all), in order to cover their own expenses � is a clear demonstration of this. If the organisation were to accept this, then it would be violating its own statutes, and would open the door to a situation where every militant could vary his dues according to his level of agreement with this or that position of the organisation. Such a situation would lead directly to the destruction of the organisation.
The 'friends of Jonas' clearly intend to drag the organisation to its destruction. And against such 'rabid' destructiveness, the ICC is more determined than ever to defend itself and to defend the principles of the workers' movement.
ICC, 21st March 2002
NOTES
(1) We can render this roughly as "They claim we have rabies", a reference to a French saying according to which if you want to kill your dog, you first accuse it of having rabies. (Back) [7]
(2) In the same communiqu�, we also reported that the militant of the ICC accused by Jonas of being "a cop" demanded that a vigorous enquiry into the truth or otherwise of the accusation be conducted, before being allowed to continue to work within our ranks. The enquiry concluded that these accusations were totally without foundation and were indeed slanderous and ill-intentioned. This did not prevent Jonas from continuing to spread his slander. (Back) [8]
(3) Extract from a resolution voted during a discussion in a meeting of the ICC, and for which those members of the 'fraction' who were present also voted. (Back) [9]
(4) See in particular the International Review n�82, and the article on the 11th ICC Congress and the struggle to build the organisation, and the "Theses on parasitism" in International Review n�94. (Back) [10]
(5) A practice on the organisation's part which was all the more justified by the blackmail to which we were subjected by the 'fraction' threatening the public distribution of our internal documents. (Back) [11]
(6) This restriction, apart from the extreme measures of suspending comrades, has taken another form. All the militants who had taken part in the 'activity' of the 'collective' were asked to develop in writing the reasons that they had already given orally for its dissolution. Our organisation's intention was to allow all its members to get to the roots of the incomprehension which had allowed such hostile and destructive behaviour to develop amongst us. Since no such contribution was forthcoming, we decided that the comrades concerned could not write on organisational questions in the internal bulletins, until this condition was satisfied. This is the reality that the 'fraction' now fraudulently travesties as a demand for Maoist-style 'self-criticism'. When the 'fraction' appeared, the organisation changed this requirement, given that the 'fraction' actually defended the late 'collective'. We no longer asked the militants concerned to undertake an in-depth criticism of their destructive behaviour, but only to take an argued position on the facts, either for or against. To this day, and despite the promise published in the "fraction's" own Bulletin n�1, they have failed to do so. This is why the members of the 'fraction' who took part in the meetings of the late 'collective' cannot publish contributions in the ICC's internal bulletins. This has not stopped the organisation itself from taking the decision to publish certain of their texts when it was necessary for one reason or another that the ICC be aware of their content. (Back) [12]
The escalation of barbarism in the Middle East is part of the escalation of military conflicts across the whole planet. Following the September 11th attacks the USA launched a long term crusade against 'terrorism', starting with the war in Afghanistan, an intervention which had been planned well before the destruction of the Twin Towers. This was followed by the increase in tensions between India and Pakistan. Then came the build-up towards a new attack on Iraq, supposedly to make it accept UN weapons inspectors again, or even to depose Saddam. And to emphasise the seriousness of the USA's intent, the Pentagon 'leaked' US plans to use nuclear weapons, if necessary, against anyone else alleged to possess weapons of mass destruction, such as China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, Libya or Iraq.
All this is an expression of the US strategy to maintain its status as the world's sole superpower against any potential rival. It is not Afghanistan or Iraq that threaten the world's most powerful imperialism, nor even Russia or China, despite being nuclear powers themselves, but the great European powers and Japan. Germany has the greatest potential to form an imperialist bloc to rival the USA because of its industrial might and geographical position at the heart of Europe; but it is far from being able to realise that potential today because its military arsenal is puny in comparison to the American armed forces. This has been demonstrated time and again, in Iraq in 1991, in the Balkans and most recently in Afghanistan when the USA was able to go it alone in a military campaign half way round the world. (See 'The real motivations for the US offensive', p.8 and 'Is Britain America's poodle?', p.2 for more in-depth analysis).
Yet each time the US demonstrates its massive power and imposes its 'order' on the world it stirs up new instability and more resentments which can in turn be aggravated and used by its most important rivals. After war in Afghanistan, conflict between India and Pakistan. After new threats against Iraq, increased fighting in Israel and Palestine.
Palestinian suicide bombings have increased in number and in their horrifying effects. Following the killing of 22 Israelis in Netanya at the start of the Passover holiday, Israel launched its largest military operation for 20 years. This spiral of violence can only be understood as part of the growing imperialist chaos in the world today. When preparing the Afghan war, the US talked of support for a future Palestinian state, much to Israel's irritation, but only to keep the support of the Arab countries. The success of the Afghan operation "has dealt a serious blow to the 'Arab cause', and is therefore a catastrophe for Arafat who has been greatly weakened. This helps Israel to push its Palestinian enemy onto the ropes with the consequence of aggravating the open war that it has been dragging out for years" (International Review 108). Since these words were written (last November) Arafat has found himself confined to a cellar in his headquarters, unable to communicate with the outside world except by Israeli agreement.
This has allowed Israel - acting on behalf of the US - to block the European powers from gaining influence in the Middle East conflict; it openly prevented the delegation of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy spokesman, and Josep Pique, Spanish foreign minister, from meeting Arafat, unless he agreed to leave the area with them. They were allowed to meet Peres, but would get little change from such a firm US ally. Nevertheless, the European powers can only base their attempts to gain some influence, or destabilise this US sphere, on contact with the Palestinians and Arabs. Hence the rearguard actions such as the British, French, Italians and others who have travelled to the West Bank to act as human shields, or the balance of media propaganda in Europe, which is highly critical of Israeli actions.
The US, Israel's greatest ally, has been mindful of its wider imperialist interests in its approach to the Middle East. It is clear that the USA supports the present Israeli action: Bush has condemned terrorism and supported Israel's right to defend itself. Both Bush and Colin Powell have said that Arafat and the Palestinians brought their situation on themselves.
But the US is also aware that Arab countries' support for further attacks on Iraq will depend on it appearing to make some attempt to restrain Israel and work for 'peace' in the region. So they have also called for Israeli withdrawal and insisted on US envoy Zinni being allowed to meet Arafat, even if the media were kept well away. This is a real dilemma that seems to have caused disagreements within the US administration, and explains the constant changes in the Americans' language about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
There is no lack of peace initiatives - from the US, from Europe, from Saudi Arabia. These follow the Madrid conference, the Oslo Accords, the historic handshake at Camp David. Leaders of the conflict on both sides, Arafat, Peres and Rabin, have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which is their reward for fomenting war and terrorism for decades. The more they talk of peace the more they drag the population of the region into war.
On the one hand the Palestinians face the bombardment of their homes and refugee camps with the destruction of vital infrastructure, the shooting of anything that moves including children and ambulances. And more recently tanks in their streets, curfew. This is used by the Palestinian bourgeoisie and its backers to feed anti-Jewish hatred and recruit more suicide bombers.
On the other hand the Israeli population is facing murderous attacks by gunmen and suicide bombers, whether dispatched by the Islamic radicals of Hamas or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is directly linked to the Palestinian Authority. This is used by the Israeli bourgeoisie and its backers to feed nationalist anti-Arab propaganda.
In reality it is not one 'people' or the other, but the global imperialist 'game', involving both Israel and the Palestinian Authority as well as their more powerful backers, that is responsible for all this barbarism. And this game will not be stopped by campaigns that advocate solidarity with Israel or with Palestinian nationalism. The only force that can oppose imperialist war is the proletarian class struggle, which owes no allegiance to any nation, and whose ultimate aim is to make the entire planet a homeland for humanity.
WR, 6/4/02
The anti-terrorist crusade that the American ruling class has been carrying out for the past 6 months has been a considerable success.
The USA has installed its military headquarters at the heart of a new strategic region, Central Asia, not only by directly occupying the former military bases of the former USSR republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizstan, but also, more recently, by sending US military advisers to Georgia. This country, still run by Gorbachev’s former minister Shevardnaze, is thus totally outside of Russia’s control at the precise moment when Russia had envisaged intervening in Georgia, which has been accused of acting as a base for ‘Chechen terrorists’. We are also beginning to see America’s attempts to take control of Yemen, which occupies a key position between the African and Asian continents via the Gulf of Aden which links the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.
A military escalation across the entire planet
With its intervention in Afghanistan, the US has reaffirmed its status as the only world cop, demonstrating its ability to intervene in any part of the planet, even in Afghan mountains reputed to be impregnable. After the installation of the provisional government in Kabul, which has been struggling to survive the bloody skirmishes between the factions who make up the fragile anti-Taliban coalition, Operation Anaconda aims to wipe out the last pockets of Taliban/al Qaida resistance in the Afghan mountains. This has involved two months of incessant bombings which have cost the lives of more Afghan civilians and even eight US soldiers. The US has warned that the war is far from over, thus preparing the ground for further murderous raids in the area.
At the same time, the US has taken new steps up the global military escalator. Alongside the 11 March speech by Bush about the “dangers that face America”, a Pentagon report revealed an “emergency plan” for the use of nuclear weapons against other major nuclear powers such as Russia and China, but also against the threat of chemical and biological weapons by Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Syria and Libya. Strengthened by their success in taking control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal (a little publicised benefit of the intervention in Afghanistan), the USA is upping the stakes in its policy of dissuading other powers from opposing it. At the same time it is conditioning its population to live in permanent fear of attack and to accept as ‘normal’ the US of these kinds of weapons in response or even as a deterrent.
US policy in the Middle East
Today, the US is offering a sordid trade to the Arab states as well as to the European powers: the recognition of a Palestinian state in exchange for war against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. This is why we are seeing the return of US emissary Zinni to the Middle East and Vice-President Cheney’s tour around nine ‘friendly’ Arab states and Israel. The USA’s about-face, which took the form of getting a vote in the UN for a resolution which “recognises the right of existence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel”, when it has for years been exercising its veto against similar resolutions, costs it very little and doesn’t change much on the ground. At the same time, the retreat of Israeli tanks from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the efforts to resume bi-lateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, are also the product of pressure from Washington. But they in no way mean that we will see an end to the violent exactions by Israel or to Palestinian suicide bombings, or to Israeli pressure on the Palestinian Authority. On the other hand they do serve to sweep the carpet from under the feet of international protest. This benefits the US as well as Israel. The multiplication of massacres and outrages, such as the killing of an Italian journalist in Ramallah or the firing at ambulances by the Israeli army, only plays into the hands of the European powers, adding fuel to their criticisms of the US and enabling them to present themselves as defenders of the Arab states. With the ‘affair’ of the US-based Mossad agents who didn’t pass on to the US government all the information they had relating to September 11, alongside Colin Powell’s criticisms of Israel’s policy of reprisals and repression, the US is hoping to put pressure on the Sharon government not to be too much of a Lone Ranger.
As for the peace plan presented by Saudi Arabia, the US has expressed a lot or reticence towards it, seeing it as an attempt by regional powers to assert their own claims and squirm away from US tutelage; at the same time the US has remodelled the plan to suit its own purposes. For America, the essential thing is to remain master of the game and leave no space for any of its imperialist rivals.
Getting ready for a new Desert Storm
If the American bourgeoisie is preparing so actively for a new and spectacular operation against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (a mobilisation of 200-300,000 men has been announced), it’s because the latter is a major strategic objective for the US. There are two main reasons for this. First, a new demonstration of force is vital. Through their intervention in Afghanistan, the US has proved that is still a superpower, the only one that can play world cop. It has also demonstrated its capacity to act alone, indicating to the other powers that if they want to keep their slice of the imperialist cake, they can only do this on the coat-tails of the US, playing out the role assigned to them by Washington. However, even though they have been paralysed in this campaign and incapable of offering any alternative, the European tendency to challenge the US has still been more rapid and direct than it was eleven years ago, after the Gulf War. Right after the fall of the Taliban we had the European media campaign about the USA’s Camp X-Ray prisoners being kept in conditions outside the provisions of the Geneva Convention. In mid-February, the French minister of foreign affairs, Vedrine, described the American approach to the struggle against terrorism, which presents it as a struggle between good and evil, as being “simplistic” and based on a “utilitarian unilateralism”. This exasperated the White House and led to the French ambassador being called in. But there have been many other criticisms of US arrogance, notably in Germany (the ‘Green’ minister Fischer saying that “the allies are not satellites”), in Spain and even in Britain (as the European Commissioner for foreign affairs, Chris Patten put it, “true friends don’t lick your boots”). This is why the US is once again banging the drums of war, well aware that the European powers can do little about it. Indeed in the last few weeks there has been a real change of tone: France, which for years has been protesting against the sanctions and military operations that have continued to be directed against Iraq by the US (and Britain), now admits that “it is necessary to act against Saddam Hussein’s policy of re-armament” and participated in the ultimatum concerning the readmission of UN arms inspectors to Iraq. Even if the resistance is stronger in the Arab states (Dick Cheney was faced with having to respond to the argument of the crown prince of Bahrain, who said that “the people who are dying in the street today are not victims of any Iraqi action but of Israeli action”), these states lack the means to stand up against American ambitions for very long.
The second motive is that the USA is animated by a major strategic interest in intervening massively against Iraq. In its offensive aimed at ensuring control of the main strategic zones of the planet, the USA is being pushed to more and more exploit its advantageous position. And here Iraq plays a key role. From now on, "Washington intends no longer to count on allied states which enjoy a certain margin of manoeuvre, but on vassal states which owe it absolute allegiance. The establishment of such a regime in a country like Iraq would be the first step in this direction" (from the newspaper Al Hayat published in London; cited by Courrier International of 14 March). In the perspective of anchoring its presence and influence in Central Asia right up to the gates of China, Russia and the Indian sub-continent, America is seeking to establish a single and continuous geostrategic sphere of influence: "the strengthening of hegemony over Iraq and its transformation into an axis of US influence is a matter of the first importance, because Iraq is the junction of the two areas: the ‘far east’ of the Arab world, it is also a look-out post onto Central Asia. On this chessboard, states and their frontiers, their peoples, their destinies, are nothing but pawns. And there is only one player (op cit). We should add that from Iraq it is also possible to keep a close watch over the neighbouring states which are least reliable or most threatened by instability: Iran and Syria on the one hand, Jordan and Turkey on the other.
Today, contrary to 1991, the US is seeking to exert a direct control over Iraq and the Baath party, which demands the elimination of Saddam Hussein, especially because today there is no longer the same threat of Iraq breaking up: the Kurdish and Shiite minorities have become too weak to play a major role. Again this is unlike 1991, when Bush Senior cynically pushed these minorities to rebel, the better to leave them to the mercy of the Republican Guard � the very part of the Iraqi army that the Americans allowed to survive so it could carry out its dirty work.
At the time of the Gulf war, we showed that the operation against Iraq was just a pretext which was really aimed at halting the dynamic towards the dissolution of the western bloc; in particular, that it was mainly directed against the European powers, to prevent them from freely pursuing their own imperialist agendas. Today, the dominant trend in imperialism all over the world is ‘every man for himself’, and this is being aggravated by the phenomena of decomposition (terrorism, exacerbated nationalism). If it is to preserve its imperialist dominion, the US gendarme has only one resort: massive force directed at the least challenge to its authority, no matter where it comes from. Twelve years ago we were promised a new world order of peace. Every day since then has proved this to be a lie. The multiplication of US operations aimed at ‘restoring order’ all over the world really demonstrates that capitalism as a whole can offer us nothing more than ever-widening military chaos and barbarism.
ED, 22/3/02.
This article is adapted from Revolution Internationale No 322, publication of the ICC in France. Since it was written there have been several shifts in the situation. For the most recent developments see the lead article of this issue [16].
The recent election in Zimbabwe was, according to a Guardian editorial (14/3/2) a "crime against the people". The election was "thoroughly fixed, fiddled, manipulated, and comprehensively stolen". Surveying the scene the editorial-writer found that "The evidence of massive fraud, rooted in intimidation and skulduggery of every kind, was to be found in every province, every township and every polling station. In short, the whole thing stinks."
There was indeed a lot of evidence for this fraud. There was the intimidation by the army, people forced to vote for the government in postal ballots, the reduction of polling stations in the areas where the opposition MDC had the strongest presence, rural no-go areas for the MDC, voting procedures made deliberately laborious with queues of 20 or 30 hours in the biggest towns, ballot boxes already stuffed with votes before they arrived in polling stations, people just removed from the electoral roll, the last-minute appearance of a second voters' list with an extra 400,000 names on it: all these were cited by those who condemned the election as not being 'free and fair'.
On the other hand, there were those, not just in Africa, who thought that the election was 'legitimate', that criticisms of it sprang from 'colonialist' interests, or were at least tinged with hypocrisy.
The Mugabe government was foremost in describing the colonialist manoeuvres of the British government and its allies in trying to 'destabilise' Zimbabwe. That the British High Commissioner had previously played a sinister role in Belgrade was grist to the 'anti-imperialist' mill. It was claimed that Britain had set up bases in Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique in preparation for an invasion. A Zimbabwean paper reported that the MDC had requested British military intervention if it lost the election.
Meanwhile, some commentators gave examples of other recent elections, some of which had been 'rigged', and others that were at least 'flawed', saying how two-faced it was to single out Zimbabwe for the full glare of publicity. Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, the Republic of the Congo, Montenegro, Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia and Italy have been among the countries cited for varying degrees of electoral irregularity. In addition, the example of George W Bush's election to the US presidency has often been mentioned, as well as the complete absence of elections in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
The situation facing the mass of Zimbabweans
With all this concern about elections there has been little space left in the media for reporting what life in Zimbabwe is like. Inflation is between 100-120%, unemployment is at 60% (80% for young people), life expectancy has gone down 10 years during the last decade, and 25% of adults have HIV/AIDS. These are the things that concern people in Zimbabwe, along with the terror of state repression, Zimbabwe's participation in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the hunger that comes from extensive food shortages. Until recently Zimbabwe was a net food exporter, now nearly half its domestic needs have to be imported. After the election it was reported that Zimbabwe "plans to import huge amounts of food to stave off starvation caused by drought and agricultural chaos. It wants 200,000 tonnes of corn from Kenya, Brazil and Argentina" (Guardian, 23/3/02).
In government for the last 22 years, ZANU-PF have presided over a deterioration in the living standards of the working class and other exploited strata. Their land policy - redistributing white-owned farms to Mugabe's cronies, 'war veterans' and others who want to become small proprietors - has not so far benefited a hungry population, nor is there any prospect that it will in the future.
As for the 'alternative' of the MDC, it has gradually evolved since it was founded by unions in 1999. In accordance with the demands of the IMF and the World Bank, it is committed to privatisation and similar 'free market' policies. There is no evidence that such an approach has ever worked in favour of the exploited or oppressed. In Zimbabwe, as everywhere else in the world, bourgeois democracy means the continuing domination of the same exploiting ruling class. When Jack Straw said that "Zimbabweans have been denied their fundamental right to choose by whom they are governed" (Guardian, 15/3/02) he was showing what 'democratic rights' mean in decadent capitalist society. ZANU-PF and the MDC have expressed many violent differences of view, but they are united in their desire to maintain capitalist exploitation and the order of the state.
The poison of democracy
Although the bourgeoisie can't offer any genuine improvements in the conditions of life of the non-exploiting population, through its democratic campaigns it tries to convince us that we have common interests with our rulers. They have all their armaments, but we are told that the power of the ballot box is the greatest force on earth. In one sense that is close to the truth, for the mystification of democracy is one of the most powerful weapons that capitalism has.
A week before the election the Daily News in Zimbabwe declared that "It is now left to Zimbabweans themselves to deliver themselves from evil. And their only weapon is their vote." In a few short phrases the classes in society, with their different, opposing interests, are reduced to a mass of atomised individuals, fodder for the parties of the bourgeoisie in its democratic system.
The opposition of the MDC fed on widespread discontent throughout the country. It called itself the Movement for Democratic Change, but while it offered lots of democratic rhetoric it could not offer any change in the situation for those who live in Zimbabwe. Before the election MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said of ZANU-PF: "They may want to arrest me, and at worst kill me, but they will never destroy the spirit of the people to reclaim their power". Elsewhere Trevor Ncube, publisher of a weekly newspaper insisted that "the people's passion and craving for change is palpable." These oppositionists respond to the discontent and unrest in Zimbabwe, but only with propaganda for a capitalist system that has proved itself bankrupt. Talk of the indestructible "spirit of the people" and "the people's passion" is not going to keep hunger at bay nor miraculously dissolve the state's repressive apparatus.
It is worth adding that the left-wing Socialist Workers Party has a sister organisation in Zimbabwe, and an MP who is part of the MDC. They say that "Only struggle can win real freedom" (Socialist Worker 16/3/02), but before the election result was known thought that "If Mugabe declares he has won and gets away with it, most workers will feel crushed, intimidated and beaten". If workers feel 'beaten' it's because they swallowed the illusions that the SWP sowed in the democratic farce.
Capitalism's democratic campaign
It's not just in Zimbabwe that capitalism's democratic campaign is important. Just as with the first post-apartheid election in South Africa, where lengthy queues were shown as evidence of people's gratitude for the opportunity to vote, the Zimbabwean election has been used as an argument against growing 'cynicism' about the democratic process in Europe.
A typical article, from Hugo Young in the Guardian (12/3/02), headlined "The people of Zimbabwe have put us all to shame", praises the commitment to democracy shown by people in Zimbabwe. The election "sets an example to all democrats". The political "literacy" of the people "produces an understanding of what democracy means, and an extraordinary willingness to fight for it against obstacles which, in Europe, could not be contemplated". He says there are "universal values and ... democracy is one of them". He talks of the betrayal of "people who in the last few weeks have suffered more for the cause of democratic representation than any western politician has ever had to do".
This is an appeal for people to value and treasure the 'democratic way of life'. By criticising Mugabe's 'cheating' the bourgeoisie elsewhere implies that they are custodians of systems that are 'free and fair'. In reality all the various capitalist parties have their differences of emphasis, but when it comes down to basics - the defence of the interests of the bourgeoisie through state capitalism, imperialism and the repression of the working class - they are united in their commitment to the continuation of the capitalist mode of production. All capitalism's elections are 'rigged' - in ways that are more or less sophisticated - because democracy is an integral part of the bourgeoisie's class dictatorship.
Car, 4/4/02.
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#note01
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#note02
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#note03
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#note04
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#note05
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#note06
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#back01
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#back02
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#back03
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#back04
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#back05
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/253_parasites.html#back06
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/internal-fraction-icc
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/57/israel
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/58/palestine
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/253_lead.html
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/50/united-states
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/56/middle-east-and-caucasus
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/russia-caucasus-central-asia
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/afghanistan
[22] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[23] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/zimbabwe
[24] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/20/parliamentary-sham