For over a year now the ‘Aufhebengate’ affair has been causing major divisions in the libertarian communist wing of the proletarian political movement. The affair raises a number of important issues for revolutionaries, and although we have held back up till now (for reasons we will explain below) from saying anything about it as an organisation we feel it is necessary for us to make this statement on how we see it.
Aufheben is an annual journal produced by a group based mainly in Brighton in the UK. Its politics are a fusion of anarchist, autonomist, left communist and other political traditions. An archive of its publications, going back to 1992, can be found on libcom1. Aufheben has for some time played the role of a kind of theoretical vanguard of a wider libertarian communist movement, its journal eagerly awaited to provide analysis of contemporary events and more general or historical political questions. The ICC has never shared this admiration and has written some sharp polemics against the group’s most defining notions, in particular its series on the theory of capitalist decadence which many in the libertarian milieu have seen as the definitive critique of this theory, but which we saw as a sophisticated way of rejecting the foundations of marxism2. 3But despite these criticisms, we have not considered the Aufheben group to be outside the frontiers of the proletarian movement.
The Aufhebengate affair began in October 2011 when the Greek group Ta Paidia Tis Galaria (‘Children of the Gallery’, but more generally known as the TPTG) published an ‘Open letter to the British internationalist/antiauthoritarian activist/protests/street scenes (and all those concerned with the progress of our enemies)’.4
Whereas we have seen Aufheben as essentially a magazine circle strongly marked by academicism (although this has not prevented its individual members participating in a number of activist campaigns), we regard the TPTG as a serious communist group, one which has consistently tried to defend revolutionary positions in the social movements that have convulsed Greece in the last few years. This is why we have published contributions by or about them on our website5. Although the TPTG defines itself as the communist wing of the anti-authoritarian movement in Greece, their activity corresponds much more closely than that of Aufheben – which to our knowledge has never engaged in any specific group intervention in the class struggle apart from its journal - to our conception of what a militant communist organisation exists to do: participate as a distinct and organised tendency in the movements of the working class.
In its open letter of October 2011 the TPTG announced that one of the members of Aufheben, JD, a social psychology lecturer at Sussex University, had written and/or co-written a number of articles, in particular ‘Knowledge-Based Public Order Policing: Principles and Practice’, which was featured in Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, analysing police tactics at demonstrations and other manifestations of public ‘disorder’. He had also participated in conferences and ‘professional development’ training programmes dealing with the same or similar issues (such as the response of ‘emergency services’ to public disasters). This body of ‘academic work’ has often been carried out by a team composed of academics such as C Stott and S Reicher who have made no secret of the fact that their work has been aimed at, and certainly used for, assisting the police to develop more ‘friendly’ and intelligent tactics for containing social protests. These academics have on several occasions referred to JD as part of the team or have acknowledged the contribution made by his research.
The TPTG were deeply alarmed by this discovery – they had hitherto taken Aufheben seriously as a group and been influenced by some of its output. More to the point, directly facing police repression at public demonstrations in Greece, and aiming to participate in social movements on an international level, the question of how the police deal with popular protest is for them one of very immediate as well as more theoretical concern. The idea that a member of a group which they had always seen as part of the internationalist movement might be implicated in improving police tactics was seen as a betrayal of basic principles.
The response of Aufheben was published on the internet forum www.libcom.org [2] shortly after the Open Letter6: it strongly criticised the TPTG for ‘outing’ one of their members without asking them for their version of the facts and described the Open Letter as a smear. Aufheben acknowledged that JD is required by his university job to share platforms with police sometimes but these events have been essentially focused on emergency situations rather than social protests or revolts. Regarding the particular article on the containment of political demonstrations and social movements, JD didn’t write the article in question. His name was simply added by Stott and Reicher as a favour. Aufheben accept that it was an error on JD’s part to allow this, but insist that he entirely rejects the content of this text. Furthermore, the aims of Stott and Reicher were essentially “liberal reformist” and largely harmless, based as they were on the illusion of reducing police violence against demonstrators. Furthermore, the recommendations of these liberals were of limited usefulness to the police.
This text provoked a second open letter by the TPTG7, which subjects Aufheben’s response to a scathing and in our view justified criticism.
In this text, the TPTG recount how their efforts to get in touch with Aufheben prior to publishing their first open letter had been thwarted by the fact that the group’s official email address had in the past always been answered by JD himself, and pointed out that they had been unable to obtain the email addresses of other members of the group.
They then attack the idea that Stott and Reicher are harmless reformists and show how pernicious their approach is. Not only does it offer advice to police on how to make best use of divisions among the ranks of protesters, but clearly puts forward targeted repression as a last resort if all other methods of containment fail. They also reject the argument that it was merely a question of academic politeness to include JD’s name at the end of the text, since Stott and Reicher had plenty of reason for considering that JD was indeed part of their team, and provide a number of other examples of JD’s work which have similar implications to the ‘Knowledge-based public order policing’ article, much of which has now disappeared from JD’s online profile8. Far from these studies being of little use to the police, the TPTG see the research carried out by these academics as being of real interest to a repressive apparatus which, confronted with growing social rebellion, cannot afford to use outright violence as a first response – and this is precisely why research into more ‘knowledge based’ methods of police control is generously funded by the state.
Finally, the second letter challenges Aufheben’s claim that there can be any hard and fast separation between emergency situations and the problem of social control, since the ‘team’ itself argues that lessons drawn from one area can easily be applied to another, as stated in the 2009 article ‘Chaos Theory’ published in Jane’s Police Review.
The TPTG succinctly summarise Aufheben’s argument: “while we prove that one of their members has been heavily involved in consulting the police how to repress struggles ‘correctly’, instead of just refuting this, they also feel obliged to both present such expert intervention as harmless and to relativise police repression (soft or hard) as if it had no importance at all”.
The TPTG’s initiative provoked a veritable storm of accusations and counter-accusations on various threads on libcom in 20119 and resurfaced recently, as well as being raised on other forums such as red-marx10.
The ‘defence’ of Aufheben was taken up by the libcom collective and in particular by JK, a former member of Aufheben.
Initially the libcom collective accused the TPTG of engaging in smears and lies and then, after consulting Aufheben, offered some very unconvincing arguments, essentially repeating the weirdly contradictory points made in Aufheben’s reply (JD didn’t write the articles, and in any case these people are indeed ineffectual liberals, etc). The TPTG’s second open letter responds to a number of libcom’s arguments.
Libcom’s defence of JD looks much more like a response of ‘standing by my mate’ than one of defending political principles. This is not altogether surprising given that membership of the libcom collective seems to be based much more on friendship links than on an agreed political perspective.
However, one point they made does need careful consideration and we will return to it: the way the TPTG brought up this matter broke libcom’s rules about naming individuals; and JK in particular insisted on the seriousness of making public accusations against an individual in the movement for collaborating with the police
The libcom collective’s arguments were answered in some detail by other contributors: Samotnaf (who had played a central role in bringing up this issue in the UK11) ocelot, blasto, avantiultras etc. There were some posts by our comrade Leo on libcom and revleft which expressed basic agreement with the TPTG’s position Eventually threads were locked, and after most of those criticising the libcom collective quit the site the issue died down. It flared up again briefly in January 2013, but the debate was at a very low level12: for example, with numerous posters assuming false or spoof identities to ridicule others’ points of view, making it impossible for others to even follow the disagreements being expressed. The issue was also raised on red-marx by a member of the Internationalist Communist Tendency in Italy and the response by Alf of the ICC was discussed collectively before being posted.
The affair is therefore not likely to go away and it has created a very toxic legacy in this milieu. An example: in February 2013 the anarchist Freedom bookshop in Whitechapel, London, was firebombed. This was probably the work of fascists or Islamists but a poster on indymedia had this to say:
“Cop collaborators 01.02.2013 17:01
Freedom is the headquarter of cop-collaborator libcom. If they work with police they deserve all the fire”
Obviously Freedom has never been the HQ of libcom and there are two long leaps from criticising libcom’s evasions regarding JD to first branding the entire site as “cop collaborationist” and then advocating terrorism against them...We refer to this incident not because we want to get drawn into speculation about the motives of the indymedia poster but because it is an illustration of the kind of atmosphere Aufhebengate has produced. The charge of cop collaborators (though not the call for violence) is more widespread and is irresponsible. Whatever criticisms we have of its politics and its attitude to debate, libcom is an important resource for the proletarian movement, both as a discussion forum and as a library of material; and for that very reason the serious mistakes it has made in this affair need to be discussed in a calm manner, as part of a more general debate about the issues of ethics and principle which this business has posed.
Given this atmosphere, it has been difficult for ICC comrades say anything about this issue on libcom itself, especially given the hostility towards us that can be expressed by some of the participants on both sides of the debate. At that stage we felt that anything posted ‘officially’ by the ICC would merely pour oil on the fire. But both because we feel the issues are as relevant as ever and because there is perhaps a greater possibility for considered reflection, we feel the need to elaborate our point of view in this statement.
It is not possible to go into the various arguments and counter-arguments that have been aired, especially on libcom, in any depth or detail, not least because a lot of the incriminating articles linked to JD can no longer be found on the web. Nevertheless we think we have understood the issues sufficiently to conclude that the TPTG were quite right to raise this issue. The involvement of the police in the revolutionary movement is not at all a product of fantasy, as recent revelations about the British state’s infiltration of ‘activist anti-capitalist groups’ confirm (see for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21316768 [3]). By the same token, any concession to collaboration with the police by elements within the movement means the flouting of a class line, a point that we ourselves have been obliged to make in previous crises in our organisation13. And in this case, it seems to us that there is substantial evidence that JD has crossed the line between the inevitable compromises forced on any worker by his job, and a real collaboration with the forces of repression.
At the same time, the libcom collective, which has strict rules about using people’s real names on their forum, were right to point out that accusing someone within the movement of collaborating with the police is a very serious matter and should not in the first place be done in public. But aside from their contingent difficulties in contacting Aufheben as a group, the TPTG were faced with the fact that, in contrast to the past workers’ movement, solidarity between its different components has become extremely tenuous, and there are certainly no structures which might allow the question of police involvement or unacceptable behaviour by revolutionaries to be discussed and resolved in a more discrete and responsible manner. The TPTG did propose in their first open letter a ‘proletarian counter-inquiry’ into this matter and to this extent they were reviving a rather buried tradition of the movement. However, the aim of this proposed inquiry was largely one of researching the general problem of police reactions to social unrest rather than examining the specifics of the JD case.
During the course of the exchange on libcom14, the poster ‘proletarian’ made a rather interesting point:
“I can't see what actually can be done to rectify the situation. I would argue he should be 'disassociated from revolutionary circles' - you know what I mean. But I'm not sure there is the organisation or structure to do this. And there certainly doesn't appear to be the will. I don't really want to bring this up (but I will) because it looks like I'm antagonizing people but the ICC and their calls for a Jury of Honour or whatever were ruthlessly taken the piss out of but wasn't there some 'method in the madness'? There needs to be some kind of way of dealing with these and similar incidents. And I think it's worth looking at how previous workers struggled with difficult questions like this. (I obviously think the guy has crossed a class line)”
We obviously agree with the comrade that there was “method in our madness” when, during some painful crises in our organisation, we called for the establishment of ‘juries of honour’ to look into some of the serious accusations that we ourselves had felt compelled to make against former members of the ICC whose behaviour we found unacceptable. And we did so precisely because these proletarian courts or juries were the method used by the past workers’ movement to investigate such issues.
In an article entitled ‘Revolutionary organisations struggle against provocation and slander’15 we pointed out how dangerous the spreading of suspicion about individual comrades can be, not just for the individual concerned, but for the whole fabric of the organisation and the workers’ movement as a whole. The article cites Victor Serge in his book What everyone should know about state repression, published in 1926:
“Accusations are murmured about, then said out loud, and usually they cannot be checked out. This causes enormous damage, worse in some ways than that caused by provocation itself (...)This evil of suspicion and mistrust among us can only be reduced and isolated by a great effort of will. It is necessary, as the condition of any real struggle against provocation - and slanderous accusation of members is playing the game of provocation - that no-one should be accused lightly, and it should also be impossible for an accusation against a revolutionary to be accepted without being investigated. Every time anyone is touched by suspicion, a jury formed of comrades should determine whether it is a well-founded accusation or a slander. These are simple rules which should be observed with inflexible rigour if one wishes to preserve the moral health of revolutionary organisations”.
However, what was common practice in the past workers’ movement has been all but forgotten in the movement today, which has on its shoulders the trauma of decades of counter-revolution, the weight of sectarianism and the spirit of the circle, a series of divisions which affect the whole internationalist movement – divisions not just between the libertarian/anarchist wing and the communist left, but among the groups of the communist left itself. The ICC’s own experience in this regard has also not been particularly fruitful: in 1995, when we pressed for a jury of honour to look into the ‘Simon affair’ (a militant expelled for engaging in secretive and manipulative practices inside the organsiation), the only organisation of the communist left that was prepared to take part was the IBRP( now the ICT); a few years later, following the 2001 crisis which gave rise to the ‘Internal Fraction of the ICC’, whose members we had expelled for theft and informer-like activities, there was virtually no response at all to our appeal for a new ‘jury of honour’, with relations between the ICC and the IBRP being progressively soured by the latter’s own relationship with the IFICC. Given the difficulties of the communist left to renew its links with the past movement in this area, we don’t have any illusions in the capacity of the libertarian milieu to deal with the ‘Aufhebengate’ affair. Nevertheless these questions will become more acute if revolutionary movement grows and is seen as more as a threat. A wide-ranging and inclusive discussion on the question of solidarity between revolutionary organisations, both at the theoretical/historical level, and at the level of its more immediate and practical implications, is clearly long overdue.
‘Proletarian’ also raises the question of the immediate implications of this matter: he argues that JD should be 'disassociated from revolutionary circles', but doubts whether there is the organisation, structure, or the will to do this. We could raise a further question: should Aufheben itself be ‘disassociated from revolutionary circles’ until this issue is clarified? But again the problem is the lack of any collective structure capable of making such decisions, or even of any shared agreement about what the diameter and circumference of the ‘revolutionary circles’ might be. This is why for us the prerequisite for any such common structures emerging is the beginning of a serious debate about the basic principles of the internationalist camp: not only at the level of general programmatic positions, but also at the level of behaviour and ethics. This debate, which already exists in a very tentative form through various internet forums, would need to incorporate face to face meetings and conferences at various levels and in different areas of the world. The Aufhebengate affair has highlighted the degree to which today’s internationalist milieu is immature, divided and cut off from the traditions of the past. But perhaps some serious reflection on its implications can constitute a first step towards moving beyond this state of dispersal, which in the end can only help “the progress of our enemies”.
ICC, April 2013
7 ‘Second open letter to those concerned with the progress of our enemies (including some necessary clarifications and refutations of the cop consultant’s defence team’s claims’: https://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/OPEN_LETT... [11]
8 In particular: JD’s involvement in the article ‘Chaos Theory’, published in Janes Police Review 117 in April 2009, two years after the policing article; in the HMIC (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary) report into the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London; and JD’s original academic profile on the Sussex University website, which (prior to being quite substantially changed in the period after January 2011) stated that “[My] consultancies include the National Police CBRN Centre, NATO/the Department of Health Emergency Planning Division, Birmingham Resilience, and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat. I run a Continued Professional Development (CPD) course on the Psychology of Crowd
Management for relevant professionals, and I teach on the CPD course on Policing Major Incidents at the University of Liverpool”
9 For example: libcom.org/forums/feedback-content/why-article-has-been-removed-07102011 [12]
11 See in particular libcom.org/forums/general/aufhebens-crowd-controlling-cop-consultant-strange-case-dr-who-mr-bowdler-1610201 [14]
12 libcom.org/forums/general/anarcho-leftism-politics-libcom-13012013
13 For example, in 1981 when the ICC’s former Aberdeen section (later the Communist Bulletin Group) threatened to call the police to intervene against the ICC in response to our efforts to recuperate material stolen by the tendency which they supported.
14 Nov 5 2011, libcom.org/forums/general/aufhebens-crowd-controlling-cop-consultant-strange-case-dr-who-mr-bowdler-1610201?page=2 [15]...
15 "Revolutionary organisations struggle against provocation and slander [16]"; see also "The Jury of Honour: a weapon for the defence of revolutionary organisations (Part 1) [17]"
The verbals around the question of the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Assad regime and its possible consequences have been wound up by the western wing of the 'international community', i.e., Britain, America, France, followed by some of the Gulf States, Israel and the wings of the Syrian opposition. Last week, US Secretary for Defence, Chuck Hagel, said that Sarin had been used in some attacks in Syria by the regime. Without at all underestimating the brutality of this regime, why would they use chemical weapons when their positions are consolidating and they are on the offensive? Maybe that's why the west is raising the stakes. Dr. Sally Leivesley, a chemical and biological analyst who has worked for western governments said, in The Independent, 27.4.13: "There are things here which do not add up. A chemical attack using Sarin as a battlefield weapon would leave mass fatalities and very few people alive". But, as our leaders insist 'with caution', some elements of some chemical and biological agents have been found. In the southern town of Daraya on April 25, two rockets released a gas that affected about a hundred people, according to the opposition, and there were reported attacks in other areas. There was a report from Alex Thomson on Channel 4 from the Al-Bab district close to Aleppo, where the al-Nusra Front is in control, that Syrian soldiers were among the 26 killed from a chemical attack. There are a number of secret services and special forces here with all their various agendas, including the Qataris who were particularly ruthless in Libya. It's possible that some elements of the regime have used chemical weapons, as have the rebels.
Overall, this current farce echoes the tragedy of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction and the blatant lies of the British government and US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN just over 10 years ago about the 'evidence' thereof in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Great parts of Syria are now being destroyed in an imperialist war. Bombs are falling on factories, rockets fired at utilities and all sorts of toxic combinations are brewed up by the explosives, which people have no choice but to breathe in. Building material dust can be toxic in the atmosphere and there's plenty of that about. And this is quite apart from the destructive power of the explosives themselves - the chemical fall-out is a sort of imperialist bonus.
There's no doubt that the Syrian regime has one of the largest, if not the largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the Middle East. The town of al-Safira, close to Aleppo, holds one of Syria's main facilities for the production of chemical weapons, including the nerve gas Sarin. Commentators in the west say that there is a concern that these will fall into the wrong hands, that is into the hands of rebels who are being directly or indirectly supported by the west and the Gulf States. Weapons falling into the 'wrong hands' has been one of the consequences of the actions of western imperialism from Afghanistan in the 1980's to the spread of decomposition in Mali this year. Prime Minister Cameron, despite his 'caution', has already decided that Assad has committed a 'war crime' (Telegraph, 26.4.13). The Obama administration has been more circumspect but says it "retains the ability to act unilaterally" and talks about 'red lines' and 'game changers'. The Israeli government has said that Assad has used chemical weapons and a 'red line' has been crossed. Israel has an interest in US imperialism adhering to 'red lines' in relation to the war it's building up for against Iran. The US and Britain are demanding, through their spokesmen in the UN, that the Assad regime grant "unconditional and unfettered access" to test for WMD in Syria. Such an inspection would be nothing less than an American and British spying mission, which is exactly what it was in Iraq with its cover of lies and misinformation.
And there's the hypocrisy of it all: Israel with its use of phosphorous against the tightly-packed civilians of Gaza. Witness the use of the same chemical weapons by the US in Fallujah, Iraq, where birth defects are still on the rise. Another example is Desert Storm in 1991, where napalm, fuel-air explosives, cluster bombs and uranium-tipped shells were used by the British and Americans. And before that, when Britain and the US were supporting Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran in the 1980s (and he was a "good friend" of France), they looked the other way when he used chemical weapons (most of them provided by the west) against the Kurds, killing at least five thousand in Hallabjah alone. But Britain had already found that dropping chemical weapons from warplanes on the Kurds was very useful in the 1920s.
The western bourgeoisies are banging the war drums and feel that they have a free hand to up the ante around the question of chemical weapons. What their precise reaction will be can take a number of escalating forms through the already existing military/intelligence set ups that they have in place both within Syria and in the wider region. We can be certain though whatever course is taken it will further exacerbate the immediate and potential instability, just as the misery imposed on the working class and the masses is increasing. The destruction of Syria, as an expression of militarism in decomposition, apart from the immediate death and devastation, is a further attack on the whole working class.
Baboon. 29.4.13 (this article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)
It’s not only the hierarchy of the Venezuelan state that lamented Chávez’s demise, but also in many Latin American governments and others around the world, who have said their ‘last farewells’ to the leader of the “Bolivarian revolution”. Several of those attending the funeral did so because of commercial and political agreements, such as the members of ALBA1, along with those benefiting from oil agreements. But they were all united in their grief at the loss of the state boss in whose name a ‘struggle against poverty’ and for ‘social justice’ took place, who, over the course of 14 years, carried out a project in the interests of a good part of the bourgeoisie, aimed at attacking the proletariat's living conditions and consciousness. They, along with the leading representatives of the national capital, whether officials or ‘opposition’, recognised that this was an excellent opportunity to make propaganda about ‘the world's solidarity with the Venezuelan people’ and to puff themselves up by exalting the international significance of their ‘great leader’.
The proletariat has its own historical experience to draw on in order to reject and unmask this torrent of bourgeois and petty bourgeois sentimentality and hypocrisy. Chávez is a myth created by capitalism, nurtured and strengthened by the national and international bourgeoisie, a figure who came to their rescue with the bourgeois hoax called “21st Socialism”. The international bourgeoisie, principally its left tendencies, want to keep this myth alive. The proletariat however needs to develop its means of struggle against Chávist ideology in order to show the most impoverished layers of society the real road to socialism.
Chávez first came to public notice when he led the attempted military coup against the Social Democrat Carlos Andrés Péres in 1992. From then on his popularity underwent a spectacular growth until he was elected President of the Republic in 1999. During this period he capitalised on the discontent and lack of trust across broad sectors of the population towards the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic Parties who had alternated power between themselves since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958. This discontent was particularly marked amongst the most impoverished masses affected by the economic crisis of the 80s, who were the main protagonists of the 1989 revolt. The two main political parties were undergoing a process of disintegration, characterised by corruption at the highest levels and the neglect of government tasks. This was an expression of the decomposition that had engulfed the whole of society, principally the ruling class, which had reached such levels that it was impossible to cohere its forces in order to guarantee reliable governance and ‘social peace’.
Chávez's charisma and his ascendancy amongst the most impoverished masses, his ability to convince them that the state was there to help them, enabled him to strengthen his hold on various sectors of the national capitalism: the armed forces and above all the parties of the left and the extreme left. The latter in particular changed their political programme from one based on 60's ‘national liberation’ struggles against ‘Yanqui imperialism’, to one in favour of the creation of a real national bourgeoisie, ideologically supported by the Bolivarian myth of the ‘great South American fatherland’, and materially sustaining its aims with the important income from the export of oil. To this end various leaders and theoreticians of the Venezuelan left and extreme left (amongst them ex-guerrilla fighters and members of the Venezuelan Communist Party) set about the task of visiting various ‘Socialist’ and ‘progressive’ countries in order to understand which model to implement in Venezuela when Chávez came to power: China, North Korea, Libya, Iraq, Cuba etc...There is no doubt that from the very beginning the Chávist project was understood as a bourgeois project by the nationalists of the left, based on civil-military unity, taking as its reference points the most despotic regimes in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, many of them allies from the old imperialist Russian bloc.
Throughout his 14 years in government, Chávez was developing his government project that came to be known as “21st century Socialism”, based on the exclusion of and confrontation with those sectors of national capital that had held power until 1998, and sectors of private capital who opposed him; this went together with an aggressive regional and world geopolitics based on radical anti-Americanism. His great secret, recognised by a good part of the world bourgeoisie, was that he was able to renew the hopes of the immense masses of the abandoned poor in Venezuela, bring them in from the cold, making them believe that one day they would be able to get away from their poverty. In reality, what has happened is that the whole population has become impoverished, the workers above all, through the application of the left's principal of ‘levelling from below’. In this way Chávismo managed to contain the social unrest of the mass of the poor, a social layer produced by the course of decadent capitalism throughout the 20th century, when it has been increasingly impossible to incorporate them into productive work. But he also achieved an aim that was the envy of other bourgeoisies: he gained the support of an electoral mass which allowed the new civil and military elites of the ruling class to perpetuate themselves in power. It is not by accident that during 14 years in power the Chávists won 13 of the 15 national elections that took place.
Chavismo's rise was not due to the failures of the preceding governments, nor to Chávez's charisma (an idea typical of the bourgeoisie which sees personalities as the motor force of history). Rather it was the expression of the decomposition of the whole capitalist system. The collapse of the Russian bloc at the end of the 80s marked capitalism's entry into this new phase in its decline, the phase of decomposition2. The events which broke up the imperialist blocs that had been in existence until then had two main consequences: the progressive weakening of US imperialism at a world level and an attack on the proletariat's class consciousness, around the campaign developed by the international bourgeoisie identifying the collapse of the Stalinist bloc with the ‘death of communism’. The left wing of capital, in order to be able to carry on their task of containing the working class and the impoverished masses, had to generate ‘new’ ideologies. This led to the emergence in the 90s of the “third way” in Europe, and left wing movements in the countries of the periphery. It was from this seedbed, the product of the decomposition of the capitalist system, that Chávez and his project emerged, along with other leaders and left movements in different Latin American countries. There was Lula with the support of the Workers' Party, the MST and the Social Forums in Brazil; Evo Morales in Bolivia with the indigenous movement; the Zapatistas in Mexico with the support of indigenous and peasants movements, etc.
The significance of Chávez from the beginning was that his project was seen as a movement for Latin American integration (sustained by Bolivarian thinking) founded upon radical anti-Americanism. From this point of view, he was seen as a second Fidel Castro, but who substituted the ‘social movements’ of the workers and socially excluded masses of the region for the 60s ideology of ‘national liberation’. Chávez's Venezuela of the 2000s was transformed into the shop window for the benefits of ‘real Socialism’ that Cuba had been in the previous century. With the importance difference that Chávism was able to finance the franchise of “21st century Socialism” through the large incomes from oil exports.
The Chávez regime however could not stop the overwhelming advance of social decomposition in Venezuela; rather it was turned into an accelerating factor at the internal and regional level. It replaced the old business and state bureaucrats with a new civil and military bureaucracy who have amassed great fortunes and properties inside and outside the country, who have superseded their predecessors in government in the levels of corruption. Chávism has bought loyalty for its ‘revolutionary project’ by sharing out the oil incomes. This method was used to replace the old military High Command and to buy the necessary loyalty of the Armed Forces, principally after the 2002 coup which removed Chávez from power for a few hours. In fact the Armed Forces have been transformed into the regime's ‘Praetorian Guard’, and it carries a lot of weight in the regime.
The hegemony of the Chávista bourgeoisie is based on the reinforcing of the state at all its levels and through a permanent confrontation with the sections of the national capital that are opposed to the regime, principally against the emblematic representatives of private capital, who have been subject to expropriations and controls. A form of government justified to its followers as a struggle against the ‘bourgeoisie’, when in reality many of the Chávistas used to be ‘leading members’ of private capital. Thus the confrontation between fractions of the national capital has dominated national politics throughout Chávez’s time in power. In this struggle each fraction tries to impose its own interests, thus dragging down the whole of society and affecting every level of society. At the economic level, the general crisis of the system has inevitably evolved and a high price has been paid for making Venezuela a ‘regional economic power’. This can be seen in the abandoning of the industrial infrastructure of the country (even affecting the ‘the goose that lays the golden egg’, the oil industry); the roads infrastructure and power services (one of the best in Latin America only two decades ago) are practically on their last legs; at the level of telecommunications Venezuela is technologically lagging behind the rest of the countries in the region. The main drama has been at the social level: the deterioration of public health and education services (which Chávez has sold as one of the great ‘gains’ of the revolution) is much worse than a decade ago; public safety has been practically abandoned (although this has not stopped the police repression of protests by workers and the population); in the 14 years of ‘Socialist’ government more than 150,000 people have been murdered, which has given Venezuela (above all Caracas, the capital) one of the highest crime rates in the world per 100.000 inhabitants, surpassing Mexico and Colombia3.
At the time of the death of the great leader of the “Bolivarian revolution”, the homeland of “21st century Socialism” found itself in a serious economic crisis. In 2012 all the indices showed that the economy was as ill as the President: high fiscal deficit (18% of GDP, the highest in the region), the result of public spending reaching 51% of GDP; imports were the highest in 16 years, at $56 billion, equal to 59% of exports; 22% inflation, the highest in the region. State spending which up until now has been covered by internal and external debt, which have grown steeply in the last years, has reached 50% of GDP; the printing of money has led to the highest inflation rates in the region, seriously undermining workers' wages, pensions and the crumbs distributed by the state. The economic crisis can no longer be hidden and cheated by the state's control of the economy: 2012 began with the devaluation of the Bolivar by 46%in order to try and cover part of the immense public spending and shortage of products (of the order of 22% according to the Central Bank of Venezuela), mainly food items; inflation is estimated to be going to increase to 30%. China, an important lender to the Venezuelan state in recent years, is now making matters worse by refusing to give more resources to an economy that looks like a bottomless pit. Doubts about the health of the economy have made the issuing and realisation of shares more difficult, and the activity that does take place is done at a high price, a premium of 13.6%.
The Chávist project of “21st century Socialism” is another bourgeois failure: a version of state capitalism in the 21st century that engulfs workers and society in poverty whilst enriching the bourgeoisie, which includes the Chávist elites. It shows that neither right nor left, nor the leftists represent a way out of the poverty and barbarity that capitalism subjects us to.
One of the things that the top representatives of organisations such as the UN or the World Bank have stressed since Chávez’s death has been his concern for the cause of the poor, which according to them allowed the reduction of levels of poverty in Venezuela. The representatives of the left parties, the leftist groups and social movements, have acted as the mouthpieces for the manipulation of statistics and the well-thought out propaganda of Chávism in order to show the world the great gains made through a ‘redistribution of riches’ by orientating the state’s food, health, and education resources towards the parts of the population most in need. According to the figures of the INE, the organisation charged with collecting the statistics to show the ‘gains of the revolution’, the number of households living in poverty in Venezuela was reduced from 47% to 27.4% between 1998 and 2011 (about 4 million people). This in turn is part of the 37 million people who have been lifted out of poverty over the past decade in Latin America, according to the World Bank. The international bourgeoisie need to exalt any countries under the capitalist regime that have been able to ‘overcome poverty’ and are near to achieving the “Millennium Goals” proclaimed by the UN.
The reality is that the Chávez regime widened poverty, maintaining the poor in poverty, worsening the living conditions of employed workers and the lower layers of the middle class. Chávism carried out a programme of social engineering, taking part of the mass of surplus value produced by the workers to provide social benefits and directing it towards the most desperate sections of society. What this did was to worsen the precariousness of work that already existed before Chávez came to power: non-official studies from 2011 show that 82% of the employed population are in precarious jobs4. The government claims to have increased employment (an increase of 1 million jobs in the public sector) while the official propaganda show how unemployment has grown in the US and Europe. Employment has certainly grown in Venezuela, along with other countries in the region; but it is a question of precarious work, without fixed contracts or only part time, violating the state’s own employment laws and depriving workers of basic social benefits (health, help with education for workers and their children, etc). The state has created parallel health, education and other services, whilst worsening workers’ living conditions in these sectors and throughout the public sector, to the point where they accumulated vast debts, to the sum of thousands of millions of dollars. This social engineering has been a real bloodletting for workers in the productive sectors, driving down wages to around the minimum wage ($300 if the official amount is applied or $100 in the informal sector).
Chávism has rejected workers' demands, saying that they will worsen the ‘people’s’ living conditions. But this is the great lie: through states social plans (which to a greater or lesser extent each national bourgeoisie tries to implement in order to maintain ‘social peace’) the bourgeoisie has tried to redistribute some of the crumbs from oil profits to a limited part of the poor, whilst the majority are left to hope that one day that they too will also benefit from this or that plan for social assistance. The reality of this can be seen with the distribution of price-regulated food, which can only be obtained after long queuing and only in limited quantities; or the limited amount of housing built by the state (constructed in high visibility areas in order to show off the ‘gains of the revolution’), which are given to a few government supporters and without any deeds. Others receive money benefits, pensions, scholarships etc from the state but this money does not cover the cost of food. On the other hand, inflation (the highest in the region) generated by the incessant costs of the state, make these hand-outs worthless overnight, whilst further undermining workers’ wages. According to official figures over the last 14 years of the Chávez government there has been an accumulated inflation of 1500%, which has meant a real cut in wages over this period.
The franchise of “21st century Socialism” which is sold by the left, the leftists and leaders of ‘social movements’ in the region, has fed the illusions of the weakest parts of the proletariat about the creation of a model of the capitalist state – one that in reality is just as savage as the state in other countries.
Chávez gave a new life to the democratic mystification with the idea of ‘participatory democracy’. This has allowed the state to penetrate and place under its control the poorest sections of the population and their social movements, through the use of such organisations as the Bolivarian Circles and more recently the Communal Councils. In this way Chávism appeared to carry out the egalitarianism promoted by the left as ‘levelling from below’, which means the spreading of poverty to the whole population, above all the working class.
Chávez's government has also brought about a major strengthening of the state against society, which corresponds to the left's vision that ‘Socialism’ means more state. The state has not only been reinforced at the economic level through the expropriation of businesses and land from sections of private capital opposed to the regime, but it has also fortified the totalitarian state: making it all pervasive in society. Chávez has militarised society and expanded the political character of the state in order to control and repress the population, principally the working class.
At the internal and external level, Chávism, like the Cuban and other bourgeoisies in the region, has used the scapegoat of ‘North American imperialism’ to justify its own imperialist policies. Historically the Venezuelan bourgeoisie has not hidden its intention to be a great regional power, an orientation intensified by Chávism with the weakening of the USA in the world and in its own backyard. With the excuse of the ‘threat of the Empire’ Chávism has justified increased arms spending, to such a point that according to the Report on the Tendencies in the Arms Sales 2012 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Venezuela is the main importer of conventional arms in South America, despite its constant talk about peace and unity. This swelling of the arms sector is part of the growth of militarisation of the bourgeoisies in the region and contributes to regional destabilisation. This arms spending represents greater indebtedness and directs of society's riches against society itself. It is more likely to be used for controlling social discontent than for confronting the ‘Empire’.
The Chávez regime has carried out a more aggressive geo-political policy than any of its predecessors. With the end of the construction of ‘Bolivar's great fatherland’ and using oil incomes as the means of penetration, it has become a factor of destablisation due to its competition with the other aspiring regional ‘little’ imperialists, principally Brazil and Colombia. With Cuba it has formed the ALBA, which brings together countries who have bought into the “21st century Socialism” franchise; it has set up “Petrocaribe” in order to penetrate the Caribbean and made agreements with the countries of Mercosur, principally with Argentina. These countries receive benefits in the form of oil exports and ‘aid’ from the Venezuelan state. In this manner Chávism has bought loyalty at a regional level through investing a good part of oil profits – and this policy has further worsened the living conditions of the proletariat in Venezuela.
For over two decades the international bourgeoisie has proclaimed the ‘death of Communism’ following the collapse of the Stalinist bloc in 1989, with the aim of trying to weaken class consciousness and the proletariat's struggle for a new society. Chávism has reinforced this campaign by trivialising and undermining of the idea of socialism, with the aim of destroying its real proletarian essence. The sections of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie who are opposed to the regime have also have contributed to this, calling the regime ‘Communist’ or ‘CastroCommunist’. This is one of the major contributions of the Chávist bourgeoisie and its counter parts in the rest of the bourgeoisie, since it represents a direct attack on the proletariat's class consciousness, not only in Venezuela but at the regional and international level.
This was not the development of a ‘revolution’, but the implementation of ‘Socialism in one country’ by a handful of military and leftist adventurers taking control of the capitalist state and strengthening it. The ‘overcoming of poverty’ was by achieved through state hand-outs, which has been presented as being against capitalism and imperialism because of the regime’s diatribes against the US. To present it as a ‘revolution’ is to repeat in the 21st century the tragedy that was the so-called ‘Cuban revolution’ and its impact upon the development of class consciousness amongst the proletariat in Cuba, Latin America and the world. Thus it is no surprise that Chávism has close links with the Castro brothers and their clique. The Chávist regime has been maintaining them in their 50 year rule through paying for their ‘advice’ in oil.
The so-called “Bolivarian revolution” has nothing to do with socialism. The Communist Manifesto, the first political programme of the proletariat, in 1848 proclaimed “the proletariat has no homeland or national interests to defend”, whereas Chávism is a patriotic and nationalist movement. The Chávist ‘revolution’ dreams of going back to pre-Colombian society and is based on the thinking of Bolivar, which was already reactionary at the time since his struggle against Spanish rule could only replace it with a creole oligarchy. It is a bourgeoisie project that has nothing to do with the workers' struggles, but everything to do with sections of the leftist, civil, military and petty bourgeoisie, who are full of social resentment for having been excluded from power following the fall of the dictatorship in 1958. It has also been sustained by the impoverished masses and the weakest sections of the proletariat who the Venezuelan bourgeoisie have manipulated for decades through a policy of hand-outs and cronyism, since they are vulnerable to the crumbs thrown to them by the state and the illusions that go along with this. The organisation of the Bolivarian Circles and the Communal Councils, which can be mobilised against the employed working class worse (whom they accuse of being the ‘aristocracy of labour’), and even confront them with armed gangs, are the continuation of this policy. The Chávist project is an integral partof the ‘social movements’ promoted by the left and leftism which use the most impoverished masses, those who are accustomed to living in poverty and precariousness, and who are not united with the struggles of the proletariat – a class which produces in an associated way, which uses strikes as the means for confronting capital, which can become conscious of the social force it represents and which is capable of struggling to overcome the poverty that capitalism subjects it to.
Chávism has used the full strength of the state in order to confront the workers' struggles, which have been obscured by the intense political polarisation introduced by the bourgeoisie. It has had recourse to the most barbaric means to attack the proletariat: in 2003, following the strike in the oil industry promoted by bourgeois fractions opposed to Chávez, a veritable pogrom was unleashed against the workers, using unemployed workers and supporters of the government. Not content with laying off 20,000 oil workers, the government made it impossible for them to find work inside or outside the state enterprises and subjected them to permanent harassment. This has been an important attack on class solidarity amongst the proletariat in Venezuela, which has accentuated divisions and polarised politics within the working class. Chávism has weakened class solidarity and consciousness.
Chávist ideology seeks to trivialise the class struggle, presenting it as a struggle of the ‘poor against the rich’. In his frequent speeches on TV and radio Chávez constantly repeated that “to be rich is bad”, with the intention that workers should passively accept a precarious life, whilst at the same time the hierarchy and the state bureaucrats, along with their families, disport themselves as the new rich . Chávez constantly went on about how he was struggling against ‘the bourgeoisie’, presenting his government as being the government of the poor, because he came from a poor background. In this way he tried to hide from the workers that the capitalist system is based on antagonistic social relations between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and that those who govern the state are part of the bourgeois class.
Chávez's death does not mean the end of Chávism. Chávez has not been nor will he be the only populist leader in Latin America. The 20th century gave birth to various leaders with a similar profile, which were thought to now be an extinct species. The bourgeoisie needed Chávez in order to maintain control of and spread illusions amongst the most impoverished masses, including the weakest and most atomised sectors of the proletariat, sectors which will inevitably continue to grow as long as the capitalist system sinks into decadence and decomposition.
This drama poses a historic challenge to the proletariat, to develop its struggles and transform them into a reference point for the masses that have placed their hopes in the state and the Messiah Chávez. The proletariat in Venezuela has struggled, despite the weight of ideological poison and state repression, and the political polarisation created by the different factions of capital. Workers in the industrial and public sectors have used the strike weapon and protests in order to confront the state; despite many of them being sympathetic to Chávism, they have thus shown a lack of trust in the State-boss. The constant attacks by the ‘Socialist’ state have obliged them to resist, and they have had no other road5. This has also happened in sections of the most impoverished where the proletariat is weakest, although to a much more limited extend due to their atomisation and not being integrated into the productive apparatus.
Faced with the Leftist ideology of Chavism and the other ideologies that are generated and will be generated in order to preserve the system, the proletariat in Venezuela and internationally need to develop their struggle against capital, going beyond immediate demands, developing their consciousness and organisation as an autonomous class, which also means a development on the theoretical level, based on historical materialism. This task places a great weight on the most politicised minorities of the class – those who have already recognised that our struggle is for communism on a world wide scale.
Internacionalismo (Venezuela) 24/03/2013
1 Alternativa Bolivariana para las América, which is formed by Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and other countries
2 See Theses on Decomposition. https://en.internationalism.org/ir/107_decomposition [21].
3 See the article. Incremento de la violencia delictiva en Venezuela: Expresión del drama de la descomposición del capitalismo
On the morning of Saturday 16 March, the radio informed the million inhabitants of the island of Cyprus that a European aid plan had been agreed for the country that included the introduction of a tax of 6.75% on bank deposits up to €100,000 and 9.9% for deposits above that amount. Obviously, everyone rushed to the banks to withdraw their money. In vain! Banks and markets were closed, withdrawals from ATMs were limited. For more than a week, the country was at a standstill, with the population not knowing what tomorrow would bring. Finally, after many twists and turns (a rejection of the European plan in the Cypriot parliament, many official, behind-the-scenes negotiations...), the tax targeting the small investors was cancelled, but instead, accounts of more than €100,000 were hit harder (eg those of the Bank of Cyprus - the first bank in the country – would lose amounts between 30 and 40%) and the second largest bank, Laiki Bank, was declared bankrupt.
We have had no end of explanations to explain this disaster. ‘It’s Merkel’s fault!’ ‘It’s the fault of the European Union!’ ‘It’s the fault of the IMF!’ That’s what the victims (and those who showed solidarity with the families of workers affected) were told. And ‘It is the fault of irresponsible Cypriots!’ ‘It is the fault of international capital laundering its money!’ ‘It’s a healthy and necessary fight against harmful excesses of the financial world!’ These explanations for the catastrophic state of the Cypriot economy were offered elsewhere.
In reality, all these explanations are not only crude and pathetic lies, they are particularly poisonous for working class consciousness and struggles because accepting them would imply that:
In either case, the anger and reflection are deflected away from what is the real root of the current dramatic situation: capitalism. And worse! By blaming only certain parties (this individual, that government or that institution), by making believe that a more humane form of capitalism is possible, the bourgeoisie ultimately leads the exploited into defending the system that is attacking it!
To support its propaganda, the bourgeoisie draws on the appearance of things, on what seems obvious, on basic common sense. Or, in the words of Albert Einstein, “What we call common sense is actually all the ideas we have been taught up to the age of 18” (and even later, we should add). So, we must make a real effort theoretically to go beyond appearances to discover the real cause of the current downturn that’s not just in Cyprus but all over the world.
Owing to its geographical position, Cyprus has always been a highly coveted and fought over transit point1. So the island was one of the first points of contact between East and West in prehistoric times. It was independent in the Middle Ages and it became successively the flagship for the republics of Genoa and Venice. In 1571, Cyprus came under Ottoman domination.
There then followed a long period of decline until, in the nineteenth century, a new master, Great Britain, arrived. Cyprus was added to Gibraltar and Malta on the maritime route leading to Egypt and the Levant. It took advantage of this, waking from its torpor, but without really making a big leap forward. It gained its ‘independence’ in 1960.
In 1963 and 1964, the Turkish community was the victim of atrocities. On 6 August 1964 the Turkish air force bombed Tillyria. In the context of the Cold War when Americans forces were based in the area of their Turkish and Iranian or Iraqi allies, there could be no question of letting Cyprus become the Cuba of the Mediterranean.
Washington and Ankara, fearing a Soviet intervention on the island, agreed to the unification of Cyprus with Greece, provided that the Turkish army had a base there the same size as the English bases. But against all odds, President Makarios, who had, in the 1950s, defended the idea of enosis, the union of Greece and Cyprus, but had become a staunch defender of the independence of his country, refused to play ball. The Turkish army intervened, communities were uprooted and populations relocated. Shortly afterwards, the United States, worried about the weakness of Greece and always fearing a Russian intervention, colluded in deposing the monarchy, establishing a military dictatorship on 21 April 1967.
However, these same generals, supporters of a Cyprus united with Greece, did not go along with Makarios’s desire for independence and, moreover, the Americans didn’t trust him, fearing that he took his reputation as the ‘Castro of the Mediterranean’ too seriously. On 15 July 1974, the ‘colonels’, with no opposition from Makarios, launched a coup d’etat. Then, fearing Cyprus’s integration with Greece, Turkey landed 7,000 soldiers on the island on 20 July to ‘protect’ the Muslim community. The Turks wanted to have two geographically and ethnically distinct states, united under the authority of a federal government with limited powers, and organised the removal of the Christians to the south and the Muslims to the north. The southern Christian part claimed to represent the whole of Cyprus and was recognised by the international community. The northern Muslim part, took the step, in 1983, of declaring itself independent, but the international authorities consistently ignored this decision.
Thus, since 1989, Cyprus is the last European country with a dividing line and a capital divided by a wall. Cyprus would ‘benefit’ from another regional conflict, the Lebanon war. Lebanese capital, fleeing the war-torn country, invested in and dramatically transformed the southern region for a decade. When peace returned to Lebanon, Cyprus was fearful of a decline in foreign investment, but Soviet Perestroika and the revival of the Russian economy would provide new financial support.
According to some journalists and PhDs in economics, Cyprus’s ‘delicate’ position is due to the irresponsibility of its leaders (and therefore ‘the people who elected them’) that have transformed the island, out of pure greed, into a place for massive speculation and even into a giant laundry room for dubious capital, especially that from Russia. In fact, the brief history of this country shows the extent to which the current situation is the product of the history of world trade and imperialism.
With the Turkish invasion of 1974, some sectors and whole parts of the national economy were lost. With no agriculture, with no heavy industry, the Cypriot bourgeoisie had to find a new sector for capital accumulation, or perish. But which one? As a former colony, Cyprus had had a close historical relationship with Britain for over a century: English, for Cyprus, is still the lingua franca and the language used in education. It is used within and between its major institutions. This British culture is surely what explains why Cyprus spends 7% of its productive capacity on education, putting the country in the top three of the European Union. Lots of Cypriots go to study in universities in the UK or North America: nearly 4 out of 5 Cypriots study outside their island. And 47% have a graduate degree, the highest rate in the EU. Cypriots are an educated and mobile people. This is why they are uniquely positioned to provide accounting, banking and legal services of a high quality. In addition, they are members of the EU with all the benefits that come with the free flow of payments, capital and services, and have an exchange taxation treaty with Russia and low taxes.
Adding all this together, it explains its success hitherto as a European centre for trade and services. ‘Yes, but to then become a tax haven!’ exclaim all those who refuse to see that it’s not this or that leader, this or that financier who is in the dock but the world capitalist system as a whole. If tourism, chartering sea vessels and banking have gained an excessive weight in relation to the real economy of this small island, if all the banking facilities and charges have been introduced to encourage the development of foreign financial investments, the economy would no doubt have collapsed without it. If this tax haven had not been created, its current bankruptcy would have been avoided because ... it would have occurred much earlier!
Moreover, the entire global economy actually needs this ‘haven’. Since 1967, capitalism has suffered recession after recession, crisis after crisis. The real economy, industry, has become more and more lethargic. Investing in new plant is more and more risky; investments can be lost. That is why today, many investors are putting their money into loans to states at rates that are zero or negative. In other words, they have nothing to gain! Why? Because by investing elsewhere, they risk losing everything. This means that finding a profitable investment has now become incredibly difficult. Speculative bubbles (property, stock exchanges …), like sifting money away into the countless tax havens, are a necessary product of the global economic crisis of capitalism. Otherwise, the Cypriot bourgeoisie, like all others, would be unable to make a profit from its capital. This explains the existence of speculation.
But why is the world dotted with major financial centres which respect no law other than the lack of transparency? Is this not, on this occasion, the product of the immorality of the investors and their insatiable greed for money? Well no! Again, this is only how it looks on the surface. So let’s dig down a little.
With the real and legal economy being less and less profitable and more and more risky because of the severity of the global economic crisis, financial profits in capitalism tend to come increasingly from illegal activities. Drugs, arms trafficking, prostitution, trafficking in women and even children are all now an important part of the global economy. All funds invested in these obnoxious and inhuman activities must seem to come from out of nowhere and the mass of profits that they bring must be ‘laundered’ before being put back, when needed, into circulation. But capitalism’s greed doesn’t end there. All over the planet there are millions of human beings labouring in workshops manufacturing flasks or shoes; a whole multitude of workers reduced to slavery with no ‘legal’ sanction.
This shameful economy, this hidden economy, is a source of huge profits that get channelled via thousands of invisible links to the largest banks and financial institutions in the world. All the profits from the blood of the exploited must be first of all be carefully hidden and after long cycles of ‘cleansing’ in laundries like Cyprus, then brought back into general circulation, in the banks on the high streets or in the official stock markets. At this level, the ‘skulduggery’ of capital holds no bounds. A very large part of global speculation is therefore placed out of view, outside of any regulation, any law, or any control. This hidden and illegal ‘black’ economy has spread throughout the capitalist economy.
Today, leaders complain when states are facing bankruptcy; because all of the money that is going untaxed. But this also plays a particularly important role in bolstering profits, in the way a drug addict needs a regular supply of drugs. This is why all the slogans such as ‘Clean up capitalism!’ ‘Close the tax havens!’ ‘Impose stringent regulation!’... are nothing but expressions of outrage! Capitalism is sick, its real economy is not running smoothly; to survive, it is forced to more openly cheat its own laws. The rhetoric of the political leaders on the need for ‘economic morality’ is therefore a bluff! Neither Cyprus, nor Luxembourg, and even less the City of London is actually going to be forced to stop their speculative activity
The endless negotiations between Cyprus, the EU and Russia over an aid package can only be understood through the prism of the imperialist tensions that have shaped this small island. First, its military geo-strategic position is of the highest importance. NATO has a base there as well as Britain. Moreover, Cyprus is recognised as Europe’s Mediterranean aircraft carrier. The only Russian naval base is located in a country which, to say the least, is unstable and looks out towards Cyprus ... Syria! The problem here is that Russia, which supports Bashar Assad, is in danger of having to leave Syria in the event that the current regime is defeated. If the Russians were to leave Syria, Cyprus, located a hundred kilometres away, could make the ‘move’ much easier by letting Moscow retain a base in the Mediterranean. Europe, dependent to a large extent on Russian gas, would then, in exchange for financial support, be eager to partake (out of necessity) in the exploitation of Cypriot gas resources estimated to be several hundred billion cubic metres. Obviously, the Russian leaders would see this as a threat to their capacity to negotiate with Europe since Cypriot gas would allow Europe to counter any Russian ‘blackmail’ with regard to gas supplies. Finally, Cyprus has become a haven for twenty years for the more or less secret funds of the Russian oligarchs and manages tens of billions of Russian euros! Russia also has, in this respect, every reason to support Cyprus or to ‘buy’ Cyprus. Obviously, there is no clear agreed approach within Europe. The Cypriot economy will be ‘rolled over’ if necessary but Europe will not lose Cyprus or only at the cost of a bitter struggle.
It’s always the working class that pays the price. Taxing accounts of more than €100,000 is only one of the consequence of Cyprus’s bankruptcy. Taxes and charges of every kind will rise dramatically, austerity will increase sharply, and recession will worsen the economy, unemployment and poverty will spread like the plague. In fact, like those living in Greece or Spain before them, the workers in Cyprus are today suffering the fate that capitalism has in store for the world’s working class. One myth, the belief, deliberately cultivated by leaders across the world, has just been toppled: ‘Do not worry, whatever happens, the money in your bank is safe!’
The initial proposal to tax all Cypriot accounts has destroyed this illusion. The idea of the EU agreeing to this measure of direct theft was that it was the peculiar product of a tax haven that for years was granting dividends on savings that had been excessive, immoral and unbearable for economy. Cypriots had thus benefited unfairly from the system, and as a result they had to accept responsibility for the ‘repairs.’ But you can see right through this! Especially in Europe, the dominant idea was not ‘Cyprus is an exception’ but rather ‘It can happen to us too tomorrow,’ ‘They are thieves’, ‘They have no right to interfere in our economies’. It was necessary to stem a possible run on the banks on the island and also possible contagion: the EU backtracked and spared the ‘small fries’. But the out and out guarantee for the bank accounts has to be taken for what it is: an illusion. This is what is in store for the entire working class tomorrow: in order to replenish the coffers, States, regardless of the colour of the governments in place, in every country, will not hesitate to take money from us, to reduce us to poverty, to throw us into the street. Cyprus is not an exception! If it isn’t seizing hold of our bank accounts, we’ll be robbed with higher taxes and larger bills, or by soaring prices due to rampant inflation. Under capitalism, all roads lead to poverty. Our trust in the future remains firmly with the struggles of the working class and their increased unity and solidarity in confronting the capitalist state in all the countries of the world.
T and P (20/4/13)
1. This part is based to a large degree on the work of Alain Blondy, Cyprus or Europe, at the gateway to the Orient.
The justification declared by one of the Woolwich “jihadis”, David Adebolajo, was anger at what the British state is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Carnage on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul doesn’t make the headlines, even though its toll is far worse than what has just happened in London, or even what happened on 7/7/2005. And the USA and Britain have played a central role in all this. Their intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan has brought chaos and bloodshed on a huge scale. Both states are responsible for massacres and torture, like the decimation of Fallujah, or the atrocities in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Camp Nama.
But the methods of al-Qaida and other jihadis are not in any way a barrier to the killing. On the contrary: with their indiscriminate suicide bombings in market places and Shia mosques, the majority of al-Qaida’s victims are Muslims, which makes a mockery of their claim to be defending Islam against the western invaders.
Adebolajo also wanted to tell passers -by that the British government “doesn’t care about you”, that we should “remove them”. The British government certainly doesn’t care about the majority of its citizens, nor does it care about the soldiers it sends to their graves in endless wars. But murdering individual soldiers, who are not the architects of these wars and are also its victims, does anything but inspire the population to overthrow their government. On the contrary, it drives people to look for the state to protect them and fuels the worst kind of nationalism. Already there has been a spate of attacks on mosques and Muslims and new life has been breathed into the ultra-patriots of the EDL and BNP.
The respectable Muslim institutions have condemned the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby and insist that Islam is a religion of peace. For the EDL and BNP, on the other hand, what happened in Woolwich is indeed Islam, a religion based on violence and hatred.
Both views are entirely misleading. Islam was born out of rebellion and war in the 6th century. But in those days, there was something revolutionary in Islam: it stood against the old pagan despotism of Mecca, it wanted an “umma” or community of believers that would cross racial boundaries, it significantly improved the status of women. Even when it became a state power and an empire, it had its epoch of progress, where science and philosophy were held in respect and which served as a bridge to the Renaissance in Europe. But that was a long time ago. Today, when the time has come for humanity to finally free itself from the old mythologies, all the world’s religions can only pull us backwards. In its moderate forms, Islam, like Christianity, teaches submission to the state and thus participation in the wars of the state. In its “radical” forms, like all the Christian end-of- the- world sects, it has become a true cult of death, an expression of the growing tide of nihilism and despair which has affected the younger generation in particular. This sense of hopelessness is the reflection of a social system which has reached a total dead-end. The Woolwich jihadis embodied this very clearly: after the murder, they waited for the police to arrive and when the armed units came, they rushed forward to embrace death.
It’s pretty obvious that the Islamists and the EDL/BNP are mutually interdependent. They feed each other’s rage and their ideologies mirror each other perfectly. The EDL/BNP worship the sacred ground of Britain, as though it truly belonged to the people and not the tiny minority of exploiters who actually run the country. For them, this sacred land has been polluted by the invasion of foreigners, a position crudely disguised as opposition to militant Islam. But when the militant Islamists talk about the invasion of “Muslim lands” by the “Jews and crusaders” they reveal that their vision of the world is as racist and as nationalistic as that of the far right.
Those who defend the democratic centre ground, the main political parties and the dominant media, can’t find enough words to denounce the action of the Woolwich murderers, while distancing themselves from the likes of the EDL/BNP. They love to talk about the liberal, tolerant traditions that supposedly characterise the “British way of life”. But those who manufacture mainstream democratic opinion are by far the most adept at using the actions of the “extremists” to justify the nation’s imperialist wars and to strengthen state repression. The horror of 9/11 gave the US state the excuse it needed to invade Afghanistan and crack down on domestic dissent. The activity of the 7/7 bombers or the Woolwich duo enables the government to whip up support for the “mission” in Afghanistan or Iraq. At the same time it enables them to bring in draconian anti-terrorist laws and to send police and security agents into colleges and universities to sniff out signs of “radicalisation” among students. This kind of snooping can be used not only against potential Islamists, but against those who really do make a “radical” critique of society – one that goes to the root, which is the total obsolescence of capitalist social relations.
The political and social atmosphere created by the Woolwich killings is putrid through and through. We are asked to take sides for one form of nationalism against another, one justification for war and murder against another. Even acts of genuine humanity, like that of Ingrid Loyau-Kennet who approached the knife-wielding Adebolajo to try to help the victim and avert further violence, have been taken up by the politicians for their own ends.
In the cacophonous ranting of the dominant ideology, one voice is rarely heard: the voice of the working class, of its movement for emancipation.
Some of course claim that right wing groups like the EDL and the BNP are the voice of the “white working class”. But the working class has no colour and no country, because it is everywhere subject to the same system of wage slavery. Those who stand on the “left” of the political machinery, like the SWP or George Galloway, also pretend to speak for the working class, for socialism and internationalism. But their “socialism” means giving more power to the state, and their “internationalism” means supporting the smaller imperialist state or armed gang against the bigger: Saddam against Bush, Hezbollah against Israel (although now they have to choose between Hezbollah and the Syrian opposition), Russia or China against the US.....
The real tradition of the working class is internationalism, based on the simple premise of the Communist Manifesto: the workers have no country, because they own nothing but their labour power. The interests of the workers, whether employed or unemployed, “native” or immigrant, black, white, yellow or brown, are the same in all countries. They are directly opposed to the interests, and policies of all states, all governments, all bosses, all capitalist parties, all popes, bishops and ayatollahs. And against the methods of bourgeois violence and warfare – indiscriminate massacre, state terror, or the terrorism of small gangs – the working class has its own methods of struggle. And they are genuinely radical because they point towards a profound re-organisation of human society based on solidarity rather than division: such methods as wildcat strikes, general assemblies, mass pickets and demonstrations calling on other workers to join the movement. And at a higher stage: councils of delegates, fraternisation with the troops of “enemy” armies, mutiny against military commands, armed insurrection organised by the workers’ councils: in sum, the proletarian revolution.
Amos 25.05.13
Just how quickly a modern capitalist state can descend into a devastating imperialist hell-hole is demonstrated by the war in Syria. We horror we view the growing death and mutilation of men, women, children, endless atrocities and the destruction of whole areas on televised reports; these are followed by the thoughts of 'experts', the think-tanks that inform the governments, then the nauseating speeches and policy decisions of politicians; and not only is there no end to all this carnage and the hypocrisy surrounding it, but it threatens to get worse. The social revolt in Syria of March 2011 is buried under the debris and devastation of this country and the present bloody stalemate of the military forces involved, as well as their different imperialist backers, threatens not just more of the same but increases the dangers of this war spreading - an extension of war and instability that is already underway.
One of the factors explaining this stalemate is, against all the propaganda to the contrary, the cohesiveness of the Syrian military, fear-driven support from large elements of the population for the Assad regime, and the military support to the latter from Russia and Iran. On the other side, the Free Syrian Army and the jihadists have been strengthened by the military support of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, Britain, the USA, Jordan and Turkey. Britain and France have been particularly active in stepping up economic, military and diplomatic support recently, with both looking to alter the terms of the UN arms embargo, and Foreign Secretary Hague saying at the beginning of March that Britain was considering arming the rebels in order to 'save lives'. In a sign of its growing weight Germany has, for the moment, firmly blocked any attempt to ease any restrictions of arms to the rebels wanted by France and the UK. In fact Britain, along with France, the USA, Turkey, via Jordan, as well as the arms deliveries by Qatari and Saudi forces, are already providing lethal assistance to opposition forces along with direct military training. Britain has also shown a propensity to support the Muslim Brotherhood in various Arab countries in the past and throughout the "Arab Spring" and we should assume that the same is happening here as they are a significant element in the Syrian opposition forces.
On April 10, a BBC report stated that the Syrian al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) has been confirmed from Iraq to be part of al-Qaida in Iraq[1]. Somewhat embarrassingly for the freedom-loving west this has been a fact on the ground for the last six months or more; but backing elements of Islamic fundamentalism has a long tradition from British imperialism, imperialism in general in fact. There's no doubt that al-Nusra is a well-armed and cohesive fighting force. It has had major successes around Aleppo and is reportedly instrumental in the constant fighting in and around Damascus where it's used car bombs and rockets against civilian targets. It looks like that it's also used chemical weapons with devices improvised from chlorine used for water disinfection[2]. Not that there's any moral high ground in this war which, from the most rabid fundamentalist to the most well-spoken democratic politician, shows their dedication to defending their own sordid and bloody imperialist interests. The external opposition forces, the "government-in-waiting", conjured up by the US, France and Britain, and largely based in Turkey, has undergone change to yet another "legitimate representative of the Syrian people". First it was old, long-term Syrian exiles from the US with links to the CIA and various US state organisations, then the President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the preacher Moaz al-Khatib, who lectured the US on the merits of martyrdom (he's gone) and now Ghassan Hillo, another long-term US exile. Hague met Hillo and this new "interim government" on April 10 at the Foreign Office, where he once again talked about what help Britain could give them in order to "save lives" (gov.uk, April 10). Increasing killing to "save lives" is part of the normal doublespeak of politicians.
The regime itself has been strengthened by the interests of Russian imperialism which has provided it with diplomatic and military support as well as the diplomatic and economic support that it gets from China. In some sense this echoes the old Cold War proxy wars but it's much more unstable and chaotic than that, given that we are living in a period of decomposing entities, the weakening of the US and tendencies to everyman for himself. An example of this is the pro-opposition "allies" of Turkey and Saudi Arabia having diverging and opposing interests in the war and their own role as aspiring regional powers. The Syrian ally Iran has recently (Press TV, 16.4.13) reaffirmed its long-term support for Syria and calls for the deepening of "cooperation between the two countries to boost the resistance front against the Zionist regime of Israel". And here Iran is asserting itself, via its Sh'ite identity with Iraq, Hezbollah and the Syrian Baathist Party, against Turkey, Saudi Arabia and, most importantly, the leading military power in the region, Israel.
The potential for escalation is clear. In early April Syrian jets fired rockets 3 miles into Lebanese territory, the first direct attack since the war began. This has further destabilised the fragile state of Lebanon as Sunni-Shia tensions are on the rise and there's a wider destabilisation in relation to Israel. Israeli territory has been fired on from the increasingly "hot" area of the Golan Heights, and Israel as returned fire into Syria. Israel was also involved in the bombing of a suspected Hezbollah-bound arms convoy near Damascus on January 30. The Israeli resort of Eilat was also hit by rockets from jihadists active in the similarly unstable region of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula this week where, worryingly for the Israelis, their "Iron Dome" missile protection system failed to respond. And the background to all this is the continuing Iranian-Israeli tensions which this week were expressed in threats of the latter to invade the former with Israeli Chief of Staff, Lt. General Gartz saying "we have our plans and forecasts... if the time comes we will decide" (on military action) (AFP, 16.4.13). Israel is concerned about weapons going into and coming out of Syria, about threats against it from all sides; and a further concern must be, if it needed any, the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood from elements such as Britain.
The US is "leading from behind" in this war and just to make its position clear NATO's top commander, US Admiral James Stavridis, on a visit to Turkey this month, described Turkey as "Nato's border with Syria" (Reuters, 17.4.13). On the same day, the Los Angeles Times reported that 200 US military officials would be going to Jordan, where the British army has a presence, and adds that plans have been made for the extension of this force. In the meantime Assad's artillery and jet bombers are pounding civilian areas, often populated by refugees who are fleeing previous attacks (when the war started there were already two million Palestinian and Iraqi refugees living in Syria). Similarly, when they are not carrying out direct massacres of civilians as al-Nusra have done, the rebels have ensconced themselves in civilian areas from which they launch attacks, inviting retribution from the regime's forces. And for these civilians there is no end to their misery, hunger and terror which, if anything, threatens to spread beyond the borders of Syria with the complicity of the local, regional and global imperialist powers, all of which contains no perspective whatsoever for the working class.
Baboon. 19.4.13 (this article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)
[1]It deserves more than a footnote but we must mention the situation of "liberated" Iraq, which remains an imperialist battleground particularly between the USA and Iran: according to Islamic Relief, facts which have been generally verified, one quarter of Iraqis are living in poverty. The unemployment rate is over 50% and one million children under 5 are suffering from malnutrition; there are at least 2.6 million displaced persons in the country and most of the country is dependent on UN aid. Poverty, disease, rising prices and lack of health facilities, electricity and clean water are rife. Amidst all this misery flourishes the most blatant corruption with billions of dollars disappearing into bank accounts with little or no work being done for it. And the bombs and terror, from the local Sunni and Shia gangs and their political masters, continue to kill on an almost daily basis. Iraq continues to show all the weaknesses and divisions imposed by various factions of the regime's own making which themselves have emanated from the "regime changers". Rather than the reconstructed Iraq that was promised us the country is being pulled apart, threatening further instability through the region.
[2]The US and it British and French allies here are holding the card of "chemical weapons" in order to intervene. It was one that they used during the first Gulf War in the early 90's where a single chlorine drum used in water treatment was designated as evidence of large-scale "weapons of mass destruction".
The death toll from the Rana Plaza factory building collapse in Dhaka has gone past 1000. Another 8 people have been killed in a fire in the Mirpur area of the same city – the death toll would certainly have been higher if the fire had broken out during the day, as it did last November at the Tazreen garment factory where 112 workers died1.
These ‘accidents’ are nothing short of industrial murder. There is no hiding the fact that there is a total disregard for the safety for the Bangladeshi garment workers who toil in appalling conditions for miserable wages. But this is not a regrettable excess to be blamed on a few rogue employers. It is inscribed into the very structure of the world economy. Cheapening the costs of labour power benefits not only the local gangsters who own the factories, but also the big international clothing companies like Primark who have swelled their profits on the cut-price labour they can find in the ‘third world’.
Furthermore, despite all the alleged reforms and advances of industrial production in the ‘west’, capital everywhere puts profit high above human life. Almost simultaneously with the terrorist attack on the crowds attending the Boston marathon, a fertiliser plant in West, near Waco in Texas, was destroyed in a huge explosion which left 14 dead and 200 wounded and levelled five city blocks. At the time, this was described as an accident. More recently, a paramedic who went to the scene has been arrested on suspicion of causing the explosion. But whatever the truth, the West explosion reveals the profound irresponsibility of capitalist production, since this plant containing such highly volatile materials was situated close to a nursing home, a school and a number of residential buildings. It brings to mind the Toulouse fertilizer factory explosion in early 2000 where 28 workers were killed plus one child. Ten thousand five hundred were injured, a quarter of them seriously. Total, who ran the plant, was cleared of all responsibility in subsequent proceedings. We could equally point to the siting of the Fukushima nuclear plant in an area highly vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis and again situated far too close to residential areas……
Sickened by the latest reports from Bangladesh, a sympathiser posted these observations on our discussion forum. We can only say that his anger is totally justified:
“the Bangladesh situation is reaching grotesque proportions, with horrific disasters - industrial murder - happening with sickening regularity. Why does anybody still bother to go to work in Bangladesh at all? God knows they barely even get paid! So why go? The answer of course is that under capitalism we all need even the most ridiculous and tiny amount of money the bourgeoisie can spare - wages: “a just wage for a just day’s work” or some such crap - just to keep going from day to day. We live on pittances squeezed out of the capitalists in circumstances that often threaten our very lives. And the threats don’t all have to be physical (fires and building collapses, or poisoned polluted surroundings) they can be psychological too, producing appalling miseries and unhappiness. Oh! How grateful we all should be, to the bourgeoisie; its generosity and love of humanity; its endless concern for the planet and the reign of peace world-wide! Where would we be without them? How could we manage without them, enforcing their extortionate mode of life on our existence, just so they can make their profit? And fight their vicious wars! If you don’t get crushed in a collapsing badly built factory, or burned to death locked inside one, there’s always the possibility of slow death at the hands of radioactive tsunamis, sudden extinction by remote bombings, rockets or drones, distasteful and agonizing elimination via chemical weaponry, or sudden erasure at the hands of sharp shooters from one side or another of their perpetually warring gangs: official or otherwise.
It isn’t just ‘industrial murder’ the bourgeoisie have invented, they have turned mass murder into an industry. It’s the only thing they’re good at now”. Amos 11.5.13
1 See the article written by our comrades in India: Workers burn to death in Bangladesh [36]. See also also this article the Rana Plaza collapse by Red Marriot [37].
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/images/icc.gif
[2] http://www.libcom.org
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21316768
[4] https://www.libcom.org/aufheben
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/168_polemic_with_aufheben
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/internationalreview/201206/4981/decadence-capitalism-part-xiii-rejection-and-regressions
[7] https://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/OPEN_LETTER.pdf
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2011/07/notes-on-popular-assemblies-greece
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/2009/wr/328/greece
[10] https://www.libcom.org/library/response-tptg
[11] https://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/OPEN_LETTER_2.pdf
[12] https://libcom.org/forums/feedback-content/why-article-has-been-removed-07102011
[13] http://www.red-marx.com/aufhebengate-t1076.html
[14] https://libcom.org/forums/general/aufhebens-crowd-controlling-cop-consultant-strange-case-dr-who-mr-bowdler-1610201
[15] https://libcom.org/forums/general/aufhebens-crowd-controlling-cop-consultant-strange-case-dr-who-mr-bowdler-1610201?page=2
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/worldrevolution/200412/678/revolutionary-organisations-struggle-against-provocation-and-slander
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/jury_of_honour_01
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/56/middle-east-and-caucasus
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/syria
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/images/chavez_jesus.jpg
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/107_decomposition
[22] https://es.internationalism.org/node/3417
[23] https://vprimero.blogspot.com/2011/05/826-de-la-poblacion-ocupada-tiene-un.html
[24] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2010/05/guayana
[25] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/hugo-chavez
[26] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/7/1801/death-chavez
[27] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/images/wr360-cyprus-banking-protests.jpg
[28] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/6/1808/division-cyprus
[29] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/angela-merkel
[30] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/25/1807/makarios
[31] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/economic-crisis
[32] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/7/1806/euro-crisis
[33] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[34] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/7/1821/woolwich-terror-attack
[35] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/images/wr360-bangladeshgarmentworkers.jpg
[36] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201302/6431/workers-burn-death-bangladesh
[37] https://libcom.org/article/house-cards-savar-building-collapse
[38] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/7/1809/bangladesh-factory-disaster
[39] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/7/1810/rana-plaza
[40] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/7/1811/waco-fertiliser-explosion