Sixty years ago, in January 1933, an event of historic importance struck capitalist civilisation: the arrival of Hitler to power and the installation of the Nazi regime in Germany. To listen to the bourgeoisie, fascism was brutally imposed on capitalist society, forced onto its reluctant body. Not for a moment does this lie stand up to the test of historic facts. In reality, Nazism in Germany, as fascism in Italy, is the organic product of capital. The victory of Nazism came about democratically. As to the repugnant racism, the nationalist hysteria or the barbarity which, again, according to the democratic bourgeoisie, characterises the fascist regimes, they are not at all specific to these regimes. They are, on the contrary, the product of capitalism, in particular in its phase of decadence, and the attributes of all factions of the bourgeoisie be they democratic, stalinist or fascist.
The terrible reality of the holocaust is often used, by appealing more to the emotions than to objectivity, in order to back up the idea of a nature of fascism which basically differentiates it from capitalism in general and democracy in particular. The examination of the facts themselves show that barbarity is not exclusive to fascism but that capitalist democracy, so quick to denounce Nazi crimes, is directly responsible for millions of deaths and of equivalent suffering for humanity (the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The height of this criminal cynicism reaches the point of the categorical rejection by the democratic powers, notably Britain and the US, of any proposition aimed at freeing several hundreds of thousands of Jews from Hitler's camps. Moreover, contrary to the official propaganda claiming that the extermination camps weren't known about until the end of the war, the major Allied states were perfectly well aware of their existence from 1942 (see our pamphlet in French "Fascisme et democratie, deux expressions de la dictature du capital").
The victory of Nazism in Germany
The lie that the ruling class didn't know the real plans of the Nazi Party, in other words that they fell into a trap, doesn't for one moment stand up to the evidence of the historic facts. The origin of the Nazi Party has its roots in two factors which were to determine the whole history of the 1930s. On the one hand the crushing of the German revolution opened the door to the triumph of the counter-revolution on a world scale, and, on the other hand, German imperialism was still suffering from its defeat in the First World War. The early Nazi Party's objective was to finish off the crushing of the proletariat in order to reconstitute the military forces of German imperialism - on the basis of the terrible bloodbath inflicted on the working class in Germany by the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) of Noske and Scheidemann. This objective was shared by the whole of the German bourgeoisie, despite real divergences as much on the means to use as on the most opportune moment to implement them. The SA, the militias upon which Hitler depended in his march towards power, were the direct heirs of the Freikorps which had assassinated Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and thousands of other communists and militant workers. The majority of the SA leadership began their careers as killers in this same Freikorps. They were the 'White Guard' used by the SPD in power to crush the revolution in blood, and all with the support of the victorious democratic powers. The latter moreover, while disarming the German army, always took care that these counter-revolutionary militias had enough weaponry to carry out their dirty work. Fascism was only able to develop and prosper on the basis of the physical and ideological defeat inflicted on the proletariat by the left of capital, which alone was in a position to stem and then defeat the revolutionary wave which overwhelmed Germany in 1918-19. This is what the General Staff of the German army understood completely in giving a free hand to the SPD in order to deal a decisive blow to the revolutionary movement which was developing in January 1919. And if Hitler didn't follow up his attempted putsch in Munich, 1923, it's because the most lucid sectors of the ruling class judged it premature to put the Nazis in power. It was necessary, first of all, to complete the defeat of the proletariat by using the card of democratic mystification. This was far from being exhausted and still benefited, through the Weimar Republic (although presided over by the Junker Hindenburg), from a radical gloss, thanks to the regular participation, in successive governments, of ministers coming from the so-called 'socialist' party.
But, as soon as the proletarian threat was definitively exorcised, the ruling class - and we want to emphasise this - in its most classic form, through the flower of German capitalism such as Krupp, Thyssen and AG Farben, swung behind the Nazi Party with all its forces in its victorious march to power. The will of Hitler to bring together all the forces necessary for the restoration of the military power of German imperialism corresponded perfectly to the needs of the national capital. The latter, beaten and plundered by its imperialist rivals following the First World War, could only attempt to reconquer lost ground by engaging in a new war. Far from being the product of a so-called congenital Germanic aggressiveness which found in fascism the means of unleashing itself, this will was only the strict expression of the laws of imperialism in the decadence of the capitalist system as a whole. Faced with a world market which was entirely parcelled up, these laws leave no other solution to the injured imperialist powers in the carving up of the 'imperialist cake' than that of trying, by engaging in a new war, to grab the largest part. The physical defeat of the German proletariat, and Germany's status as a ransacked imperialist power following its defeat in 1918, made fascism - contrary to the victorious countries where the working class hadn't been physically crushed - the most appropriate means for German capitalism to prepare itself for a second world war. Fascism is only a brutal form of state capitalism which was about to strengthen itself everywhere, including the democratic states. It is the instrument of the centralisation and of the concentration of the whole of capital in the hands of the state faced with economic crisis, in order to orient the whole of the economy towards the preparation for war. It was thus with the total endorsement of the German bourgeoisie, that Hitler came to power. In effect, once the proletarian threat was definitively removed, the ruling class no longer had to preoccupy itself with maintaining the whole democratic arsenal, following the process that was already underway in Italy. There is no antagonism between Nazi barbarity and the values of democracy
'Yes, perhaps...' we're told, 'but aren't you making an abstraction of one of the traits which distinguishes fascism from all the other parties and fractions of the bourgeoisie, that is its inherent anti-semitism, when it is exactly this characteristic which provoked the holocaust?' It is this idea which is defended by the Trotskyists in particular. The latter in effect, formally recognises the responsibility of capitalism and of the bourgeoisie in general in the genesis of fascism, only to immediately add that this latter is, despite everything, much worse than the democratic bourgeoisie, as the holocaust shows. For the Trotskyists, confronted with this ideology of genocide, there's no hesitation in choosing the camp of anti-fascism, that of the Allied imperialisms. It is this argument, along with that of the defence of the USSR, which has served to justify their betrayal of proletarian internationalism and their passage into the camp of the bourgeoisie during the Second World War, on the side of the Allies against the Axis powers. It is perfectly logical to find today in France for example, the Trotskyist groups - the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire and its leader Krivine with the discrete but very real support of Lutte Ouvriere - at the head of the anti-fascist and 'anti-negationist' crusade, defending the vision according to which fascism is the 'absolute evil' and, from this assertion, qualitatively different from all other expressions of capitalist barbarity. Faced with this, the working class must be in the vanguard of the combat and defend, even revitalise democracy.
That the extreme right (Nazism in particular) is profoundly racist has never been contested by the Communist Left, nor moreover has the dreadful reality of the death camps. The real question lies elsewhere. It consists of knowing if this racism and the repugnant designation of Jews as scapegoats, responsible for all evil, could only be the particular expression of fascism, the evil product of sick minds, or if it is not rather the sinister product of the capitalist mode of production confronted with the historic crisis of its system, a monstrous but natural offspring of nationalist ideology defended and propagated by all fractions of the ruling class. Racism is not an eternal attribute of human nature. If the entry of capitalism into its decadence exacerbated racism to a hitherto unknown degree in the whole history of humanity, if the 20th century is a century where genocides are no longer the exception but the rule, that is not due to some perversion of human nature. It is the result of the fact that, faced with the now permanent war that each state must prepare for in the framework of a saturated world market, the bourgeoisie, in order to be able to support and justify this permanent war, must, in every country, strengthen nationalism by all means. What is more favourable, in fact, to the spread of racism than this atmosphere, so well described by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of her pamphlet denouncing the imperialist carnage of the First World War: "(...) the population of the whole town changes into a mob, ready to denounce anybody, molesting women, shouting: hurrah! and reaching paroxysms of delirium by starting crazy rumours: a climate of ritual crime, an atmosphere of pogrom where the sole representative of human dignity was a policemen on the corner of the street". She continues saying: "Defiled, dishonoured, wading in blood, covered in filth, here's how bourgeois society presents itself, this is what it is..." (The Crisis of Social-Democracy). One could use exactly the same terms to describe the multiple scenes of horror in Germany during the 1930s (looting of Jewish shops, lynchings, children separated from their parents) or evoke, amongst other things, the atmosphere of pogrom which reigned in France in 1945 when the stalinist paper of the PCF was odiously headlined "To each his Boche!" No, racism is not the exclusive prerogative of fascism, no more than its anti-semitic form. The celebrated General Patton of the democratic United States of America, the very person who was supposed to free humanity from 'the vile beast', declared at the time of the liberation of the camps that: "The Jews are worse than animals"; whereas the other great 'liberator', Stalin, himself organised a series of pogroms against the Jews, the Gypsies, the Chechens, etc. Racism is the product of the basic nationalist nature of the bourgeoisie, whatever the form of its domination, 'totalitarian' or 'democratic'. Its nationalism reaches a culminating point with the decadence of its system.
When the proletariat is absent from the scene of history, capitalist barbarity knows no limits
The only force that can oppose this nationalism which oozes from every pore of rotting bourgeois society, i.e., the proletariat, was beaten, physically and ideologically defeated. Arising from this, Nazism, with the consent of the whole of its class, could rely particularly on the latent racism of the petty-bourgeoisie to make this, under its anti-semitic form, the official ideology of the regime. Once again, although the professed anti-semitism put into practice by the Nazi regime was irrational and monstrous, it cannot be explained alone by the madness and perversity - in other respects quite real - of the leading Nazis. As the pamphlet published by the PCI, "Auschwitz or the great alibi" , very correctly underlines, the extermination of the Jews "... took place not at any moment, but in open crisis and imperialist war. It is thus inside this gigantic enterprise of destruction that one must explain it. The problem is found from this clear fact: we no longer have to explain the 'destructive nihilism' of the Nazis, but why the destruction is concentrated in part on the Jews".
In order to explain why the Jewish population, even if it was not alone, was designated first of all for general prosecution, then exterminated en masse by Nazism, it is necessary to take two factors into account: the needs of the German war effort and the role played in this sinister period by the petty-bourgeoisie. The latter was reduced to ruin by the violence of the economic crisis in Germany and sunk massively into a situation of lumpen-proletarianisation. From here, desperate and in the absence of a proletariat which could provide an antidote, free range was given to the most reactionary prejudices characteristic of this class without a future, and, encouraged by the fascist formations, threw itself, like a furious beast, into racism and anti-semitism. The 'Jew' was supposed to represent par excellence the 'stateless person' who 'sucked the blood of the people'; he was designated as responsible for the misery to which the petty-bourgeoisie had been reduced. This is why the first shock troops used by the Nazis came out of the ranks of a petty-bourgeoisie which was about to go under. And this designation of the 'Jew' as the enemy par excellence also had the function of allowing the German state, thanks to the confiscation of Jewish goods, to scrape together funds to contribute to its military rearmament. At the beginning, it had to do it discretely in order not to draw the attention of the victors of the First World War. The deportation camps, initially, had the function of furnishing the bourgeoisie with free labour, entirely dedicated to war preparation.
It is in the name of Nazi barbarity that the democratic Allied forces try to justify their part in a war marked out for its massive butchery and other crimes. Far from avoiding a future of new holocausts, the defence of democratic values by the ruling class can only help perpetuate a capitalist system the survival of which will mean the further accumulation of massacres and genocide.
RI, February 2003.
We are publishing here an item of correspondence received from a comrade who read our article How Australian imperialism benefits from the Bali massacre [4] from World Revolution 259, November 2002. This article is reprinted below and our reader's comments appear in red. Click here [5] to read our reply.
How Australian imperialism benefits from the Bali massacre
When horrific terrorist outrages occur, it's useful to ask who benefits from them. The answer usually sheds light on who could be responsible for these deeds. The Bali bombing on 12 October is no exception to this rule. The accused Indonesian Islamists certainly do not benefit from the Bali bombing. Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual leader of one of the country's principal Islamist organisation, has been arrested and faces a possible death penalty for alleged complicity.
Abu Bakar Bashir was not at the time arrested for complicity in the Bali bombings. At the time he was under arrest for suspected involvement in 3 church bombings in 2000.
New 'anti-terrorist' laws have been announced in Indonesia, after these were demanded by Australia in the wake of the bombing. Some 400 Australian Federal Police and some FBI agents have rushed to Bali and are working in 'partnership' with Indonesian police investigating the bombing.
There were no where near as many as 400 AFP agents deployed in Indonesia.
Australia has also donated A$10 million in 'counter-terrorism aid' - allegedly to assist Indonesia to build an effective 'counter-terrorism' capacity, but really to institutionalise an Australian security presence there and to bring Indonesia closer to Australia's expanding sphere of influence.
What exactly is wrong with providing funds to nearby country that is in desperate need to police its own population?
To ask the question of who benefits is to answer it. The answer is clearly neither the Islamists nor even the Indonesian state, but, most directly, Australia, but also, indirectly, the United States. The bombing provides Australian imperialism with a golden opportunity to impose itself directly on Indonesia in an unprecedented manner.
How exactly?
And back in Australia, the bombing has provided the most warlike fraction in the bourgeoisie with a very big stick to cow and morally blackmail workers not convinced of the need to wage all out war on Iraq in the near future. A relentless media campaign from the bombing onwards keeps the horror of this outrage constantly in public consciousness.
I wouldn’t call it a campaign, as there was barely any coverage on television for the first days after the bombings. Sure it got an extensive workout in local media in the days following, but why wouldn’t it? With, at that time, hundreds of Australians missing, it seems only natural that local media attention would be primarily occupied with the bombings.
Accompanied by injunctions to "get the bastards who did this" (Prime Minister Howard's words) and to enthusiastically prosecute the 'War on Terror'.
John Howard has never said this in relation to the Bali bombings. His response to the bombings was calm and he never made a claim to “get the bastards who did this” (although if he did, please provide me with a link to mainstream news web site that reported this).
Opinion polls taken just before the Bali bombing indicated that a majority of the population did not support a new Gulf war. Although new polls have not been taken since the bombing, it is clear that there has been a certain shift in opinion in favour of war.
As of last Saturday (January 18), only 6 percent of the population of Australia supported a war that was not backed by the UN, hardly a “certain shift in opinion in favour of war”.
A majority of workers probably still do not support the war, but the number who do has probably risen.
So who did carry out the Bali bombing? Given the facts stated above - and the precedents of Pearl Harbor and the US World Trade Center attacks, it is quite possible that this horrendous crime was at least perpetrated with the full knowledge of the Australian and US bourgeoisies, in order to obtain the political results listed above. Was it carried out by Islamists as the bourgeois media alleges? Possibly - but then, the Australian and US bourgeoisies, not to mention the Indonesian bosses, have been manipulating various Indonesian Islamist fractions since at least the 1950s.
“Indonesian bosses” have been in cahoots with fanatical Muslims for years.
In Indonesia's recent history, Islamist fractions have been used to first bring the last Indonesian President, the 'moderate' Islamist Abdurrahman Wahid, to power in October 1999 and then to help throw him unceremoniously out again less than 2 years later.
Furthermore, there is something decidedly fishy about the wealth of information now flooding out of the Australian media - most of it openly acknowledged as being from 'security specialists', if not from actual intelligence agencies. These include extremely detailed accounts of numerous alleged meetings of Islamist terrorist leaders in South-East Asia, to plot various atrocities. According to Australia's most respected current affairs programme (and one of the most unwatched, like the television network it is shown on) Four Corners on 28 October, one such meeting was held in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in January 2000. According to Four Corners:
"The CIA got wind of it ahead of time and tipped off Malaysian intelligence, which carried out video and photo surveillance. The meeting was attended by some of Osama bin Laden's most trusted operatives, including two of the hijackers who would die in the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"The gathering was hosted by Hambali [who is now accused by Australia of being Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant in South-East Asia], who'd come from Indonesia. Bin Laden's man in Manila, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was there as well. Among the others present were the September 11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were at the controls of the plane that hit the Pentagon. Also there was another al-Qaida bomber later accused of the attack in Yemen on the warship 'USS Cole'".
The meeting is thought to have been a key planning session for those attacks.
The purpose of these claims by Four Corners was to garner support for Australian imperialism's new imperialist ventures (what ventures?) In Indonesia, as well - in a turnaround from its attitude prior to the Bali bombing - to build support for the US push for war against Iraq. But perhaps Four Corners tells us too much. For, if the CIA had indeed got wind of the Kuala Lumpur meeting ahead of time (and the meeting did actually take place), why did it not intervene to have the terrorists plotting against it arrested and nip these plots in the bud?
There is no way it would have been approved by Malaysian authorities, who are deeply anti-West, although are only too happy to put their hands out for foreign aid mainly of the Australian government.
Of course, it could be that the meeting did not take place at all, and that this is just one more strand in the mendacious web being woven by the pro-US bourgeoisie to transfer real working class hostility to its war plans into enthusiasm for new imperialist war. But if Four Corners is actually telling the truth, it surely lends considerable weight to the argument that the Bali bombings were carried out with the full knowledge of the Australian and US bourgeoisies, in order to benefit from the bombing's political fallout.
Other evidence tends to support this last, chilling conclusion. Despite claims by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer that warnings were given to Australians intending to travel to Bali before the bombing, cautioning them against the strong possibility of terrorist attacks on that island, this is simply a lie. Downer's department issued travel advice on 20 September, warning of such a danger in Jakarta - but adding in bold type that tourist services in Bali were 'operating normally'. A further statement, issued this time by the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on 3 October, repeated the earlier advice.
I can’t verify that, although it is likely this is the case since Bali is mainly a Hindu populous, and the local population is extremely friendly towards Westerners.
This also fits into a pattern. Just as US governments were warned before both Pearl Harbour and September 11 that massive attacks were imminent, so it appears that the Australian Government knew what was afoot in Bali but sat on its hands, in order to make political gains from the ensuing carnage.
You tell me how the Australian Government could gave responded practically to intelligence that there is a threat to “bars, clubs, hotels, places of worship or any other place where Westerners would gather” (however it goes) in Indonesia?
The upshot of all this is that Australia now has the biggest presence in Indonesia since that country's independence in the 1940s.
If Australia really wanted revenge, wouldn’t it (with the help if it's allies) just launch a military attack on Indonesia?
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has been able to cobble together a new 'anti-terrorist' alliance with Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.
Any leader with half a brain would do the same no matter what their own political views are. In fact, the US has been helping the Philippines bomb the Philippines to remove Muslim fanatics. I would hardly call any deal done with Malaysia an alliance. The Government of that country has continued with their anti-Western rhetoric, which will lead to only further problems again. What hypocrites the Malaysian Government can’t get enough of Australian funds let alone continues with anti-Australian rhetoric.
The new alliance is officially intended to guarantee the safety of regional trade against terrorist attacks. But there can be no doubt that this scheme will be used to force more active support for the US' war plans. This will be particularly useful against Malaysia (whose fiercely nationalist President has denounced the US war drive against Iraq) and Indonesia (whose current President, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has tried to balance between Islamist forces opposed to the US war plans and pro-US elements in another section of the local bourgeoisie). Howard will visit the Philippines and Vietnam in the New Year, to twist these countries' arms to be more active at the regional level in the 'War on Terror'.
Hardly twisting arms, but any leader of any country that faces the threats that Western nations currently do and does nothing about it is a few tacos short of a combination plate.
The various Asian and Western governments involved and the assorted Islamist fractions are all equally reactionary. Neither 'democracy' (or 'anti-terrorism') nor the US' 'War on Terror' will put an end to the fundamental cause of terrorist atrocities such as the Bali bombing, for the simple reason that it is decomposing capitalism which is producing such massacres across the globe. Just like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the forces most likely to have been behind the Bali atrocity are former clients of the United States. And just as in the cases of Pearl Harbour and September 11, the country whose citizens were the main victims of this particular massacre (Australia) almost certainly conspired to stifle warnings of the impending atrocity from reaching the light of day. In other words, whatever the particular details, innocent people are once again the victims of decomposing capitalism, which is everywhere and in all its forms (Third World, terrorist and democratic) prepared to commit the most horrendous deeds to extend its bloody rule.
I was only pointing out factual inaccuracies within the article, so I’ll just leave this alone.
J, January 03.
In January the ICC participated in an Anti-War Day School organised by Disobedience, which belongs to the same milieu as the No War But The Class War (NWBTCW) group in London. The group states in a broadsheet given out at the February 'Stop the War' demonstration that "To say No War But the Class War! means that we don't take sides between America and Iraq, Iraq and the Kurds, America and France...Rather we make sides, by asserting that the dispossessed, the workers, the poor of all nations have one enemy - the exploiters who dispossess them, who make them work, who make them poor". In the present circumstances, with the progression of wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and soon Iraq, the importance of even a small milieu opposing war on a working class basis should not be underestimated. For this reason we produced a contribution to the discussions at the Day School (see WR 261) emphasising the historical experience of the working class in opposition to war.
The most important point to come out of the experience of this Day School, is that only by drawing on the historic experience of the working class in its struggle against war, defended by the Left Communist groups, can we really put forward the perspective of a class opposition to imperialist war. This is because the intervention of these groups stems from a coherent platform that integrates the historical experience of the working class. Unfortunately there is a tendency in this milieu to cut all contact with the groups of the Communist Left, as shown by the fact that the London NWBTCW group will not give the dates or times or venue of its meetings to either WR or Sheffield No War But the Class War in which the Communist Workers Organisation has a major influence.
The danger of stunts
The intervention posed by the Disobedience group resolves itself largely into a discussion on 'stunts' that do not even take the workers on demonstrations as their point of focus. For instance, one orientation put forward at the day of study was for people to go to the US's British airbases and cut the perimeter wire, in order to go into the airbase and create a nuisance. The important point about this kind of proposal is not just that it will have no conceivable impact on what the bourgeoisie is doing, but that it is not orientated towards an intervention in the working class.
As with the Zero War conference in Australia, which raised many similar issues, there was a preoccupation with such stunts, despite the serious discussion:
"The conference now departed from the mortal world, as the majority of participants appeared to ascend into a sort of magical world in which even the most fanciful and adventurist 'direct action' schemes were portrayed in all seriousness as realistic - not to mention 'revolutionary'. The most nonsensical - and perilous - stunts were proposed." (WR 261).
At first sight these actions may seem to indicate revolutionary zeal, but, as we said in our contribution to the discussion, "The problem with many who are critical of the STWC is that too often they still buy the argument that 'at least it's doing something' and end up either tailing along in its demonstrations, or trying to devise radical-looking 'protest' stunts which substitute themselves for the real development of the proletarian movement."
This desire to 'do something' expressed itself in the Day School in two ways that both lead to a loss of any sense of the slow development of the struggle of the working class, the only force that can really stop war and put an end to the capitalist system. The first presentation given at the day of study was a review of the 'achievements' of previous anti-war movements. This was presented in a quite uncritical way and emphasised the size of the movements rather than making a critique of their class character.
A fundamental problem with this milieu is that it has no real concept of the class struggle - typical of the autonomists, modernists, anarchists and libertarians in such groupings. They see things in terms of their own 'individual' struggle. This was exemplified by one handout at the day of study that explained what the author meant by class struggle. This suggested that people take jobs in the defence sector so that they could engage in sabotage of the war effort. In other words, the class struggle is understood as individual acts of sabotage.
Therefore intervention becomes simply a matter of will. The overall state of the class struggle does not provide the context within which we can understand our intervention. In response to this we pointed out that the working class currently faces enormous difficulties and that while this makes intervention against war on a class basis very hard it is the only basis on which we can go forward.
The open defence of imperialism at the day of study
One of the sessions at the day of study was run by an element called Karvee (we are not sure of the spelling). He has also at times referred to himself as the 'Melancholy Troglodyte'. He advocated supporting certain bourgeois groups in the Middle East - Kurdish Maoist groups. He said that these groups had arrived at a class position because they opposed both Saddam and the US. Since they are Kurdish nationalists no doubt they do 'oppose both sides' in some sense.
His view is that if the 'bourgeoisie is weak' then a renewed assault on Iraq would open the door to the 'formation of soviets' - that is to the Kurdish nationalists. In terms of practical proposals he proposed that the Disobedience group should send a message of solidarity to these groups, and that the group should send people to the Middle East in the aftermath of the conflict. He emphasised that he was not speaking of 'revolutionary tourism', but was not very specific as to what people were supposed to do when they got there (assuming the US did not take them off to Cuba, or the nationalists didn't shoot them).
The ICC pointed out that what was being suggested was to send messages of solidarity to bourgeois imperialist gangs in Iraq and Iran. However, the majority at this session were not convinced of the need to oppose such groups.
It is not as strange as it seems to have bourgeois positions in support for their wars put forward in an anti-war meeting. In fact this is simply a reflection of what is happening at the anti-war demonstrations themselves. And, as we have mentioned above, even in the 'clearest' discussion of all the sessions - the first one - the Disobedience group showed a clear tendency to assimilate itself to the anti-war movement - to become simply its radical wing.
This shows how fragile is the group's grasp of its basic position that only the class war can oppose imperialist war. It also shows just how difficult it is to oppose war on a working class basis, and just how important it is to spend the time in frank and open discussion, and particularly the need to reappropriate the historic experience of the working class, through discussion with the organisations of the Communist Left. It is therefore tragic that this milieu does so much to cut itself off from the ICC and the CWO.
Hardin, 27/2/03.
France's 'pacifist' stand over the impending war in the Gulf has confused many: as in Germany, the 'peace' march in France was very much a march of 'national unity' in support of the government against America's military plans. Placards reading 'Vive la France' were also displayed at the demo in London.
The following article, reproduced from our paper in France, Revolution Internationale, exposes the myth of France's 'anti-war' position by highlighting their involvement in the bloody conflict now ravaging the Ivory Coast. In the epoch of imperialism, there can be no 'peace-loving' capitalist states!
Ivory Coast: France shows its real imperialist face
The might of French imperialism has deployed a large number of heavily armed troops into the West African state of the Ivory Coast in the middle of the 'civil war' raging between the various bourgeois fractions in that country. It has also used its strong diplomatic influence with the various armed fractions disputing power to bring them to Paris to attempt to strong arm them into finding a negotiated settlement.
While, officially, France has intervened to avoid a generalisation of the war in this country, to preserve the unity of the country and to protect its French nationals, no-one is really fooled by this. As a former colony of France, it is clear that France is really engaged in this war for one reason only, to defend its own imperialist interests and to do this, it is prepared to do whatever is necessary.
French imperialism's stake in this region
Since the coup d'etat of 1999/2000 that started the present chaos, France has been losing influence in this country with other imperialist vultures gaining at its expense through the different Ivorian factions. The French bourgeoisie wants to reverse this situation. It has strong commercial interests in the region and is determined to defend them at all costs. The Ivory Coast is a country that has a rich supply of raw materials, like cocoa and coffee (just to mention two) and it is one of the three top producers and exporters of these in the world. France has a lot of commercial interests in these sectors, as in others (they control electricity, railways, petrol, etc) and the capital, Abidjan, is still the financial centre of the West African region, with the French banks still very active there. Because of this, the control of the Ivory Coast, one of the main bases for its continuing domination in this region, is an important strategic stake for French imperialism and for its rival imperialisms too. If the war in the Ivory Coast was to totally spiral out of control, it could affect many of its neighbouring countries, in particular Mali and Burkina Faso.
French imperialism's large deployment of forces on the ground is thus a declaration of war against all its imperialist opponents, large and small. Moreover, the situation has united the different factions of the French bourgeoisie and the French government has received support from its left and right wings, some of whom have called for a more 'muscular' intervention. A dozen leading parliamentarians from amongst the Socialist Party, the Centre UDF and the Gaullists have asked the Chirac government "to give its support to the legitimate government of the Ivory Coast by helping it regain sovereignty over its whole territory, that the permanent presence of 'unruly' military elements is undermining (sic)." (Jeune Afrique of the 5th January 2003).
Clearly these prominent fractions of the French bourgeoisie are prepared to see France fully committed to using brute force in order to defend its interests in the Ivory Coast at the risk of it getting fully embroiled in the fighting between the different Ivorian gangs.
Negotiations can't halt the barbarism
Since the attempted coup on 19 September 2002, the toll of deaths has continued to mount up. France has deployed 2500 heavily armed troops under the pretext of trying to keep the warring parties apart, while itself engaging the other belligerents in battle. Its legionnaires, pretending to be there for 'legitimate defence', have already killed dozens of rebels (between 50 and 100). These encounters between its forces and the rebels, notably the MPIGO and the MJP, the two groups who hold sway in the west of the country, are increasing. Despite the continual announcement of cease-fires, the rebels and the government forces continue their assaults and raids, particularly against the civilian population, leading to further killings. This was confirmed by a recent discovery of mass graves, packed full of hundreds of bodies of ordinary civilians, women and children included. In all this, France pretends to be acting to keep the various Ivorian armies apart, while, it is in fact actively involved in the killings itself. Through its engagement with the other forces on the ground, it is directly contributing to the bloody chaos, as these armed factions fully understand. They have threatened to attack the French forces directly. The major grouping of the MPCI (rebels who have control over the northern region) decided at the beginning of January, to give 'carte blanche' to its forces to march on Abidjan with the clear intention of confronting the French forces if they stand in its way. The other groups of rebels (MPIGO and MJP) have also declared their intention of marching on the Ivorian capital and engaging the French legionnaires. In fact, France is now in the front line faced with having to deal with all the armed factions: the rebels to the north and the west and the government forces in the south.
The negotiations can't pretend to be a solution
Faced with this dangerous situation on the ground, the French bourgeoisie is doubtful that it can impose a military solution. Because of this it brought all the various groups contesting power together in Paris, to try and exert some control over them. But France has few illusions. It knows better than anyone that that the armed militias are something of a law unto themselves. Furthermore France's rival imperialisms are undoubtedly providing them with support. By organising the 'round table' conference back in Paris, the French government hopes that it can avoid the influence of its main imperialist opponents, who have been sabotaging its attempt to find a negotiated settlement since the conflict started. And France is faced with formidable and numerous opponents. African countries like Burkina Faso, Togo, Senegal, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, etc have been providing arms and finance, or have disputed control of the negotiations or the cease-fires for their own interests. Then there are the big powers like the US and Britain, pressing for a stake to satisfy their own interests; and they want at every opportunity to thwart the French plans. France doesn't even seem to be able to count on the heads of state of its former colonies, such as Senegal or Togo. While they were previously in charge of the 'peace negotiations', France sidelined them by transferring the talks to Paris. The French gangster-boss carried out a 'hold-up' right under their noses.
Meanwhile, the real game is taking place on the military terrain, and no-one still has the dominant hand. During the negotiations in Paris, the situation remained explosive with the strong-armed gangs, the mercenaries and the government death squads continuing to terrorise the civilian populations. Innocent people are gunned down. And all these odious crimes are the dirty work of the supporters of those involved in the Paris talks since 15th January. Some sources accuse the government forces particularly. They are responsible for the deaths of more than 600 persons (on top of the official death toll that followed the coup). Most of the victims were Ivorians from the north of the country or immigrants from neighbouring countries. For their part, the rebels subject the civilian population to their racketeering and terror. Many people don't even dare any longer to go to work or go out shopping for food. The French forces have witnessed all of these horrors, without taking any action to stop them. Quite hypocritically, France has, been gathering evidence of the murderous goings-on, in the event that it is called to give this evidence to any enquiry of the UN High Commission. In fact the French state is washing its hands of any responsibility by expressing support for the Ivorian government and its crimes. The French bourgeoisie is haunted by the spectre of Rwanda and remains 'traumatised', undoubtedly, by its complicity with the authors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Nevertheless, the French state cannot hide from the eyes of the world its cynical complicity with the bloody murderers that terrorise and kill innocent civilians in the Ivory Coast.
RI, February 2003.
Thank-you for your critical comments on the ICC article 'How Australian imperialism benefits from the Bali massacre', from World Revolution 259. This letter responds to your criticisms, point-by-point. Please pardon the length of this letter; the questions you ask actually touch on matters of immense importance to the working class. For this reason, it was necessary to respond in some length - and to therefore take some time responding to you.
We wrote: Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual leader of one of the country's principal Islamist organisations, has been arrested and faces a possible death penalty for alleged complicity.
You objected to this, writing: Abu Bakar Bashir was not at the time arrested for complicity in the Bali bombings. At the time he was under arrest for suspected involvement in 3 church bombings in 2000.
You are, of course, correct. But we were actually very careful not to state at the time that Bashir had been charged with complicity in the Bali bombings - although it was obvious that that was what he would eventually be charged with.
We wrote: New 'anti-terrorist' laws have been announced in Indonesia, after Australia demanded these in the wake of the bombing. Some 400 Australian Federal Police and some FBI agents have rushed to Bali and are working in 'partnership' with Indonesian police investigating the bombing.
You commented: 'There were no where near as many as 400 AFP agents deployed in Indonesia'. You are right about this. ABC Radio National gave out the figure of 400 at the time that Commonwealth Police were initially sent to Bali, after the bombing. The WR article was written at this time. The figure now cited is 200 Commonwealth Police.
We wrote: Australia has also donated A$10 million in 'counter-terrorism aid' - allegedly to assist Indonesia to build an effective 'counter-terrorism' capacity, but really to institutionalise an Australian security presence there and to bring Indonesia closer to Australia's expanding sphere of influence.
You responded: What exactly is wrong with providing funds to nearby country that is desperate need to police its own population?
Our answer to this is based on our assessment of the role of the police everywhere, as well as our knowledge of the Indonesian capitalist regime and what all states (which are all capitalist in our view - including Cuba, North Korea, etc.) must do in order to survive in today's world. Contrary to the lies we are told, the police are not neutral, with just a few 'bad apples'. They play a clear role on behalf of the capitalist class as a whole. They (together with the armed forces) are the chief physical defenders of the capitalists' interests - especially defending capitalist property. Certainly, there are cops who help children cross roads, etc., and there are soldiers who create emergency health clinics in devastated zones. But this is not the main role of any sector of the state apparatus, which is above all the creature of the national bourgeoisie in each country.
The Australian capitalist class is no different from any bourgeoisie on this planet. The severe crisis of the capitalists' economic system (fundamentally a crisis of capitalist over-production) compels every bourgeoisie to compete with each other for control of as much territory as it can get away with grabbing, just in order to survive (though this is not just a matter of "economic" necessity, and usually has more to do with national strategic imperatives: we suggest you look at some of the articles published in our International Review, especially on the questions of imperialist tensions in the Middle East today).
Australian capitalism has created a sick myth of how it has never "imperialised" another country. The truth is starkly different - especially in South-East Asia, but also in the Middle East, where the behaviour of Australian imperialist troops during World War I repelled even the hardened imperial armed forces of Great Britain.
Australia's connection with the territories that came to be absorbed into Indonesia such as East Timor starkly demonstrates that their armed forces were not the philanthropists they pretend to be. The fact is that every time capitalist Australia has any connection with East Timorese and Indonesians, it is workers and poor farmers who die on all sides.
During World War II, Australian imperialism fought part of its war with Japan using the East Timorese as canon fodder.
In 1965, the Indonesian Government of the day was overthrown in a brutal military coup. Java's rivers ran red with the blood of hundreds of thousands - including many workers - for months. Australia warmly supported the new military dictatorship of Suharto and Co.
Australia and the Western Alliance turned a determined blind eye to the Indonesian military's repression of workers and poor farmers over the next 30 years.
In the final analysis, the West had no serious problems with the way the Suharto regime conducted itself. Strikes were brutally crushed, and Indonesian imperialism forcibly extended its scope to West Papua and East Timor. Undaunted, the West - including Australia - continued to provide military aid to Jakarta. The only thing that has changed recently is that Australian has sensed an opportunity to raise its stake in the Indonesian archipelago and has acted accordingly. This is due both to local factors (events in East Timor and in Indonesia generally) as well as factors of a more global nature. Let's look at the global factors first because it's always advisable to start from the biggest possible 'big picture', in order to put smaller, localised, elements into perspective.
The break up of the former USSR and the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s meant the end of the Cold War, but it has hardly ushered in the golden era of international peace and brotherhood that we were promised by capitalism at the time. Indeed, military tensions, genocidal massacres and wars have only multiplied ever since.
Without the threat of Russia, the United States is no longer able to prevent its former allies from competing directly with it and each other for a share of the imperialist pie. Powers both large (France, Germany, etc.) and small (Iraq, Serbia etc.) have clashed with America either directly (the smaller powers) or by proxy, through the training and deployment of local nationalist gangs.
Australian capitalism's admittedly minor, but nonetheless bloody, record on the world stage - and especially with respect to Indonesia and East Timor - demonstrates that it could only bring more bloodshed with its international force of 'peacekeepers'.
The truth is that Australian capital sees the misery of the East Timorese as a burning opportunity for it to at long last strike out for its share of the post-Cold War booty, by leading its own military adventure. The Australian Government even caused a major embarrassment to an over-stretched US on this issue, not to mention severely disturbing Washington's cosy relationship with Jakarta.
Now consider the 'local' elements. In fact, the stakes are big for Australia. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country. Australian capital aims to bring it forcibly under its wing - over the bodies of not only East Timorese civilians, but also the soldiers on all sides whom never asked to be there, workers and peasants in uniform. And that is without reckoning on the chilling possibility of an escalating conflict that spreads to other Indonesian territories. As with all wars this century, the major casualties will be civilians.
Once again capitalism thus shows us its real face, time and again: an endless barbarism, good only for death and destruction. 'Bad' or 'weak' world leaders do not cause wars. They are capitalism's only answer to its insurmountable economic crisis.
It is the crisis that is sharpening the rivalries between nations, pushing them to seemingly endless military confrontations. The more the crisis deepens - as we are seeing once again right now - the more capitalism will wallow in blood, and the closer war will come to the developed countries.
The countries who made war against Yugoslavia not that long ago hypocritically claimed that this was urgently necessary to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovars. This lie relied upon 'forgetting' that it was the NATO invasion itself that provided Belgrade with the best excuse - and practical opportunity - to do this.
Similarly, in East Timor, it was much the same powers who helped create the conditions for the massacre that Australia used as its excuse to intervene in 1999. Australia and the United Nations 'assured' the East Timorese that they could deliver 'peace' and independence' to them, if only the East Timorese would vote for it. It was always obvious that Jakarta would never accept losing this territory.
In June 1999, communications intercepted by the Australian Signals Directorate proved that the Indonesian military was meticulously planning the current ethnic cleansing. Undaunted, the Australian Government publicly denied the veracity of these reports. Yet, as PM Howard has since admitted, Australian troops had been preparing since at least early 1999 to play an active interventionist role in East Timor, when Jakarta's violent post-referendum campaign inevitably erupted there.
No other conclusion makes sense: Canberra was banking on Jakarta's present murderous offensive in East Timor, just like Washington was on Belgrade's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. This also fits quite well into the plans of US imperialism, as we wrote in the November 2002 issue of World Revolution:
In the period leading up to the bombings, there were a number of visits to Indonesia by top US officials, including Colin Powell and the director of the FBI. Moreover, well-known 'hawks' like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, have been demanding an official resumption of US military aid to Indonesia, which was suspended in 1992 following massacres by the Indonesian forces in East Timor. In October the issue was debated in Congress, having received a letter from Indonesian human rights organisations opposing the resumption, given that there was no improvement in the country's human rights record. The letter also argued that the threat of terrorism - which the Bush administration was citing as the main reason for unblocking restrictions on military aid - was "very much exaggerated".
Add to this the fact that there have long been very tight connections between the radical Islamist groups and the Indonesian secret services and military forces, then suspicions can only increase that the bombings are extremely 'timely' for US imperialism, enabling it to strengthen its arguments in favour of military aid, of using Australia as a local gendarme, and of establishing a much more direct presence itself. This would allow the US to impose its version of 'stability' on a political entity which is vital strategically but divided up into a myriad of islands, many of which are agitating for independence from Jakarta; at the same time a direct military presence in the region would allow the US to begin the effective encircling of its principal imperialist rivals in the region, China and Japan. Little wonder that the Bush administration wants to blame the bombings on groups linked to al Qaeda and thus integrate its Indonesian strategy into the global 'war on terrorism'.
You next cite the following passage from our article: To ask the question of who benefits is to answer it. The answer is clearly neither the Islamists nor even the Indonesian state, but, most directly, Australia, but also, indirectly, the United States. The bombing provides Australian imperialism with a golden opportunity to impose itself directly on Indonesia in an unprecedented manner.
You ask: 'How exactly?' In much the same way that it has done in East Timor - by imposing its armed agents. And also, in this case, by compelling the Indonesian Government to dance to the 'War on Terror' tune. This time, of course, it does all this not in partial opposition to the United States, but as US imperialism's local 'deputy sheriff' (to use another phrase of John Howard - this time made a few days after the September 11 massacre, to describe the 'security' role he envisaged for Australia in the Asia-Pacific. Check the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age or The Australian for this period.)
We wrote: And back in Australia, the bombing has provided the most warlike fraction in the bourgeoisie with a very big stick to cow and morally blackmail workers not convinced of the need to wage all out war on Iraq in the near future. A relentless media campaign from the bombing onwards keeps the horror of this outrage constantly in public consciousness�
You respond to this as follows: I wouldn't call it a campaign, as there was barely any coverage on television for the first days after the bombings. Sure it got an extensive workout in local media in the days following, but why wouldn't it? With, at that time, hundreds of Australians missing, it seems only natural that local media attention would be primarily occupied with the bombings.
That is simply not true. Every day in the newspapers, for weeks afterwards, there were literally pages of coverage picking over every point not only of the atrocity, but also of the victims' lives. It was actually quite sick, because the purpose was not to grieve for the victims but to use their horrible deaths to beat the drums of war. The plan was to put out the message that 'these people' (for the moment, Muslims, especially) really had to be put in their place. Of course, the Australian state is very well aware that the Islamic establishment in Australia is quite prepared to support it in any war, as it always does. But that was not the point. The point was to divide the working class on false, sectarian, lines and on that basis (i.e., by thus dragging it onto bourgeois ideological terrain) to build hysteria, with the central aim of breaking down working class opposition to war against Iraq. This was also the purpose of the door-smashing early morning raids by ASIO in the same period. And, to a certain extent, it had the desired effect. In the first couple of weeks after the Bali bombing and consequent media vilification campaign, literally dozens of attacks on Muslims (mostly working class Muslims, too) occurred and the idea of war against Iraq received more support.
We wrote: Accompanied by injunctions to "get the bastards who did this" (Prime Minister Howard's words) and to enthusiastically prosecute the 'War on Terror'.
You claim: John Howard has never said this in relation to the Bali bombings. His response to the bombings was calm and he never made a claim to "get the bastards who did this" (although if he did, please provide me with a link to mainstream news web site that reported this).
Actually, John Howard did say this - it was literally front page news - once again check especially the Sydney Morning Herald, but it was more than likely also reported in The Age or The Australian for this period, as well.
We wrote: Opinion polls taken just before the Bali bombing indicated that a majority of the population did not support a new Gulf war. Although new polls have not been taken since the bombing, it is clear that there has been a certain shift in opinion in favour of war.
You comment: As of last Saturday (January 18), only 6 percent of the population of Australia supported a war that was not backed by the UN, hardly a "certain shift in opinion in favour of war".
Two points here: (1) There has been a clear but small increase in the support for a war; (2) a war backed by the UN will still be a war on Iraq, that can be expected to kill at least 200,000 civilians. The US has tabled plans to carpet-bomb Baghdad in the first 48 hours of the coming war with an equivalent force of bombs as it dropped in the entire Gulf War of 1991. The Australian bourgeoisie's reactionary and highly mendacious post-Bali campaign has been the primary factor in building support for a UN-conducted war.
We wrote: So who did carry out the Bali bombing? Given the facts stated above -and the precedents of Pearl Harbour and the US World Trade Centre attacks, it is quite possible that this horrendous crime was at least perpetrated with the full knowledge of the Australian and US bourgeoisies, in order to obtain the political results listed above. Did Islamists carry it out as the bourgeois media alleges? Possibly - but then, the Australian and US bourgeoisies, not to mention the Indonesian bosses, have been manipulating various Indonesian Islamist fractions since at least the 1950s.
You comment: "Indonesian bosses" have been in cahoots with fanatical Muslims for years.
We essentially agree here - although it would be more accurate to describe the 'fanatical Muslims' as capitalist political leaders who find it useful to manipulate Islam for wholly temporal and modern political purposes. Capitalism employs a range of outmoded images to mask reality. Thus (and similarly), Chief Buthelezi in South Africa is not really the 'tribal leader' he masquerades as, but a capitalist businessman, with his own very material interests to defend and extend. There are very few true tribes in today's world. A tribe is a little world falling back upon itself, a defence organism. It is a traditional and conservative institution, a community or a confederation of communities for the protection of its members against outside aggression and for the maintenance of its outdated racial customs and way of life. The term only has scientific meaning when applied to a 'relatively undifferentiated society, practising a primitive subsistence economy and enjoying local autonomy'. It cannot be applied to societies 'that have been effectively penetrated by European colonialism, which have been effectively drawn into a capitalist money economy and a world market'. (See Archie Mafeje, "The Ideology of 'tribalism'", in Journal of Modern African Studies, Volume 9, No. 2, 1971, p. 258.) Far too often the term 'tribe' is misused, when another term is arguably more appropriate. Entities called 'tribes' still exist, of course, as do supposed 'tribal chiefs', but these are qualitatively different from their pre-capitalist predecessors.
Similarly, none of the Islamist organisations that Western nations have named as terrorist are principally religious. Al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam (in Iraqi Kurdistan) Abu Sayyaf (in the Philippines) etc., etc., are all certainly terrorist, but their aims are very political. What's more, they are frequently used by states (such as Iran) for their own strategic purposes.
We wrote: In Indonesia's recent history, Islamist fractions have been used to first bring the last Indonesian President, the 'moderate' Islamist Abdurrahman Wahid, to power in October 1999 and then to help throw him unceremoniously out again less than 2 years later.
Furthermore, there is something decidedly fishy about the wealth of information now flooding out of the Australian media - most of it openly acknowledged as being from 'security specialists', if not from actual intelligence agencies. These include extremely detailed accounts of numerous alleged meetings of Islamist terrorist leaders in south-east Asia, to plot various atrocities. According to Australia's most respected current affairs programme Four Corners on 28 October, one such meeting was held in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in January 2000.
You object: And one of the most unwatched, like the television network it is shown on.
No offence, but this does not prove that it is wrong. It might, however, indicate that a minority trend in the Australian bourgeoisie wants to sabotage the current war drive, because it considers it not in its own interests.
We quoted further from the Four Corners programme: The CIA got wind of it ahead of time and tipped off Malaysian intelligence, which carried out video and photo surveillance. The meeting was attended by some of Osama bin Laden's most trusted operatives, including two of the hijackers who would die in the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The gathering was hosted by Hambali [who is now accused by Australia of being Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant in south-east Asia], who'd come from Indonesia. Bin Laden's man in Manila, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was there as well. Among the others present were the September 11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were at the controls of the plane that hit the Pentagon. Also there was another al-Qaeda bomber later accused of the attack in Yemen on the warship 'USS Cole'.
The meeting is thought to have been a key planning session for those attacks.
And we added: The purpose of these claims by Four Corners was to garner support for Australian imperialism's new imperialist ventures [you ask, "what ventures?"] In Indonesia, as well - in a turnaround from its attitude prior to the Bali bombing - to build support for the US push for war against Iraq. But perhaps Four Corners tells us too much. For, if the CIA had indeed got wind of the Kuala Lumpur meeting ahead of time (and the meeting did actually take place), why did it not intervene to have the terrorists plotting against it arrested and nip these plots in the bud?
The point about 'what ventures?' has already been answered above, with regard to East Timor, especially. But you don't accept the broader claims in the passage that you've just cited above, writing:
There is no way it would have been approved by Malaysian authorities, who are deeply anti-West, although are only too happy to put their hands out for foreign aid - mainly of the Australian government.
The Malaysian bourgeoisie, like all bourgeoisies, first and foremost looks after its own interests. This means looking over its shoulder at its neighbours, who are its rivals. Malaysia participated willingly and fully in Western anti-USSR military and trade alliances during the Cold War and benefited tremendously from them. Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc it sees the opportunity - and the need - to strike out more openly for its own interests, just like every other state on the planet. This translates into an increasingly strident rhetoric against its larger rivals (most of the world!) but especially against Australia, whom Malaysian PM Mahathir denounces as alien to Asia. But in today's world, it is becoming increasingly meaningless to call a country 'anti-Western', given that there is no longer a united, disciplined Western Bloc any more, for the reasons discussed earlier.
We wrote: Of course, it could be that the meeting did not take place at all, and that this is just one more strand in the mendacious web being woven by the pro-US bourgeoisie to transfer real working class hostility to its war plans into enthusiasm for new imperialist war. But if Four Corners is actually telling the truth, it surely lends considerable weight to the argument that the Bali bombings were carried out with the full knowledge of the Australian and US bourgeoisies, in order to benefit from the bombing's political fallout.
Other evidence tends to support this last, chilling conclusion. Despite claims by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer that warnings were given to Australians intending to travel to Bali before the bombing, cautioning them against the strong possibility of terrorist attacks on that island, this is simply a lie. Downer's department issued travel advice on 20 September, warning of such a danger in Jakarta - but adding in bold type that tourist services in Bali were 'operating normally'. A further statement, issued this time by the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on 3 October, repeated the earlier advice.
You comment: I can't verify that, although it is likely this is the case since Bali is mainly a Hindu populous, and the local population is extremely friendly towards Westerners.
We shall see who is correct on this, ultimately. But consider the mounting evidence of a totally unbelievable number of 'security errors' in the US, warning of the September 11 atrocity, long before it happened. See also the Sydney Morning Herald, especially for October 2002.
We stated: This also fits into a pattern. Just as US governments were warned before both Pearl Harbour and September 11 that massive attacks were imminent, so it appears that the Australian Government knew what was afoot in Bali but sat on its hands, in order to make political gains from the ensuing carnage.
You object strongly to this, writing: You tell me how the Australian Government could gave responded practically to intelligence that there is a threat to "bars, clubs, hotels, places of worship or any other place where Westerners would gather" (however it goes) in Indonesia?
The point here is that there are reports in the Sydney Morning Herald and other Australian media that terrorist attacks against Australian tourists in Bali were imminent and the Australian Government chose deliberately to ignore these. If this is true, surely it had ulterior political and strategic motives for this? For us, the point is that the capitalist class is utterly ruthless, being literally willing to stop at nothing in order to protect its interests. The terrible bloodbath on September 11 and the smaller bloodbath in Bali, were not sudden bolts out of the blue by 'fanatical Muslims'. On the contrary, they were both a new, and qualitatively more serious, link in a long chain of wars, acts of destruction, developing militarism and arms build up.
We wrote: The upshot of all this is that Australia now has the biggest presence in Indonesia since that country's independence in the 1940s.
You comment: If Australia really wanted revenge, wouldn't it (with the help if its allies) just launch a military attack on Indonesia?
Certainly, but given (as we strongly suspect) Australian authorities knew beforehand of the impending bombings, the aim is not revenge but political and strategic, as argued above.
We wrote: Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has been able to cobble together a new 'anti-terrorist' alliance with Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.
You comment: Any leader with half a brain would do the same - no matter what their own political views are. In fact, the US has been helping the Philippines bomb the Philippines to remove Muslim fanatics. I would hardly call any deal done with Malaysia an alliance. The Government of that country has continued with their anti-Western rhetoric, which will lead to only further problems again. What hypocrites - the Malaysian Government can't get enough of Australian funds - let alone continues with anti-Australian rhetoric.
The 'Malaysian Government can't get enough of Australian funds' - and the Australian Government can't get enough US military bases! But both the Australian and Malaysian bourgeoisies, like all the others, are always ruthless in seeking to advance their own interests, as discussed above.
We wrote: The new alliance is officially intended to guarantee the safety of regional trade against terrorist attacks. But there can be no doubt that this scheme will be used to force more active support for the US' war plans. This will be particularly useful against Malaysia (whose fiercely nationalist President has denounced the US war drive against Iraq) and Indonesia (whose current President, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has tried to balance between Islamist forces opposed to the US war plans and pro-US elements in another section of the local bourgeoisie). Howard will visit the Philippines and Vietnam in the New Year, to twist these countries' arms to be more active at the regional level in the 'War on Terror'.
You remark: Hardly twisting arms, but any leader of any country that faces the threats that Western nations currently do and does nothing about it is a few tacos short of a combination plate.
Certainly, every state will seek to defend its territory etc. But this is not the point, which here is twofold: (1) the Australian bourgeoisie is here using the 'War on Terror' franchise it has had bestowed on it by Uncle Sam to simultaneously advance both this war and to look after and if possible expand its own interests and (2) the problem of global terror is one very much created by the capitalist states themselves. On the one hand, terrorism feeds off the crushing poverty and desperation in the underdeveloped countries that has resulted from capitalism in its decadent (or imperialist) phase. On the other hand, terrorism is now used by states (Iran, Syria, the US�) for their own security and political purposes. The only way to eliminate both terrorism and war is to stamp-out the cause - capitalism.
We wrote: The various Asian and Western governments involved and the assorted Islamist fractions are all equally reactionary. Neither 'democracy' (or 'anti-terrorism') nor the US' 'War on Terror' will put an end to the fundamental cause of terrorist atrocities such as the Bali bombing, for the simple reason that it is decomposing capitalism which is producing such massacres across the globe. Just like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the forces most likely to have been behind the Bali atrocity are former clients of the United States. And just as in the cases of Pearl Harbour and September 11, the country whose citizens were the main victims of this particular massacre (Australia) almost certainly conspired to stifle warnings of the impending atrocity from reaching the light of day. In other words, whatever the particular details, innocent people are once again the victims of decomposing capitalism, which is everywhere and in all its forms (Third World, terrorist and democratic) prepared to commit the most horrendous deeds to extend its bloody rule.
You conclude: I was only pointing out factual inaccuracies within the article, so I'll just leave this alone
Actually, it would be interesting to know what you think about this paragraph, which is the most important in the article and complements our last response, above.
We don't know what you'll make of our response to your comments and questions. We hope at least that we've responded adequately to you. In any case, we'd be interested to learn of what you think about our answers.
Thanks again for responding to our article.
Yours fraternally,
JE, for the ICC. (7/2/03)
When the Bank of England takes up Corporal Jones' cry of "Don't panic!" it is clearly time for the working class to take a good hard look at the economy. On 12 February the Bank "attempted to avert a crisis of confidence in the economy as it urged the public not to panic about the country's prospects" (The Times Business 13.2.03). So, what is it we should not be panicking about?
This advice followed the Bank of England's surprise quarter-point cut in interest rates which triggered a near 90 point drop in the FTSE 100 index, and the repeated cut in its predictions for growth this year and next - now down half a percentage point on 3 months ago at between 2 and 2.5%, and a whole point below the Chancellor's Pre-Budget Report forecast last November. In addition the pound has fallen against both the Euro and the dollar and the governor of the Bank has told the Treasury Select Committee that he has no idea how low it will fall or how long it will go on.
Behind all this we can see some very disturbing statistics. Corporate debt defaults higher than at any time since the Depression, with 141 companies defaulting £163billion. Investment has fallen £11.7 billion or more than 10% since 2001, the largest fall in Britain since records began 36 years ago. In manufacturing the fall was 17.7% with investment at its lowest since 1984. The trade gap has increased to £34 billion after exports fell to a 3 year low. Business confidence is down, with a CBI survey showing manufacturing confidence down in every region. Bosses are worried about the fact that house prices are not rising so quickly, since the housing market was fuelling consumer spending. They are also concerned about the insolvency of pension funds. And, as always, the loss of business confidence means brutal attacks on the working class, with the CBI survey predicting 42,000 job cuts.
Economic crisis in Britain, part of the crisis of capitalism
The CBI is criticising the Chancellor for hampering business with too much tax and too much red tape, the Engineering Employers' Federation and the T&G union is demanding the government take urgent measures to encourage investment, but the present economic problems are not confined to the UK and are not the result of faulty government policy. The fall of the pound shows that Britain is not doing as well as its competitors, but problems for British business are just expressions of the weakness of capitalism globally. While manufacturing is in recession here, in Germany industrial production fell 2.6% in December. While Britain has a huge balance of payments deficit of 2.1% of GDP, the USA deficit is 4.6% of its much larger GDP. And consumer confidence has also fallen sharply in the USA.
The present economic difficulties are part of a long series of crises since the end of the 1960s. Recently we have seen the dramatic convulsions in Latin American countries, affecting Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela, following on from the collapse of the 'tiger' economies in 1997-8. Despite all the hype about new technology and globalisation the reality is that the world economy has been slowing steadily. Growth rates in the OECD countries fell from 5% in the 1960s to 3.5% in the '70s, 2.8% in the '80s and 2.6% in the '90s. Even this has been based on increased debt, both public and private, necessary to provide a market to fuel the current very modest growth rates. In the USA, the massive balance of payments deficit and projected record budget deficit of $304 billion (without taking account of any spending on war in Iraq), and the fact that American households are on average in debt to the equivalent of one year of their income, are just some of the most immediate illustrations of this trend.
Attacks on the working class
The best the British ruling class can hope to do in this crisis is to make its industry more competitive on the world market, try and outdo more of its competitors and take a bigger share. That competitiveness is always obtained at the expense of more attacks on the working class.
Despite the projected loss of 42,000 jobs (and the continual announcement of factory closures such as Boots skincare plant in Airdrie which will cost another 1000 jobs), recent government statistics appear to show some hope. The total out of work and claiming benefit fell in January to 928,500. It is claimed to be a 27-year low, but since the way of counting unemployment has changed so much, and the government itself admits to 1.5 million out of work, no-one really believes the figures. At the same time income tax revenues fell 5% on the same month a year ago, which is a government statistic that gives a far more honest idea of the reduction in working class living standards. In effect workers are faced with more low paid and temporary and insecure jobs.
The prospect of war
While the information about the economy in general is largely confined to the business pages, speculation about the effect of a war in Iraq is much more up-front. A short successful war would be a fillip, according to the Bank of England; a long war would be harmful as it could fuel panic buying of oil. The prospect of war is blamed for many ills, particularly reduced consumer confidence in the USA. This is compared to the fall in confidence after September 11, but without ever pointing out that the economic problems of the time and the loss of confidence started way before the fall of the Twin Towers. War is not the cause of the economic crisis, but is a result of the increasingly bitter competition between nations that flow from it. Nor can war against Iraq provide a real stimulus to the economy in 2003, any more than it could in 1991. It will have no more benefit on the economy than war in Afghanistan or the Balkans, whatever may be the momentary ebbs and flows of speculative capital. But if the aftermath of war destabilises the Middle East it has the potential for a distinctly negative effect on the economy as well.
What the crisis and the approach of war really show is that capitalism has nothing to offer humanity but misery and war. It shows the importance of the working class understanding the need to overthrow the system that's based on its exploitation.
Alex 28/2/03.
The parasitic group which calls itself the 'Internal Fraction of the ICC', formed around the individual Jonas who was expelled from the ICC for behaviour unworthy of a communist militant (see our communique in WR 252), is now openly revealing its true nature. The method of informers
On its website, the IFICC has published two texts which tell us a great deal about the destructive activities of this so-called 'Fraction'.
The first text is the letter which the ICC's section in Mexico sent to the four members of the 'Fraction' living in that country. The publication of the content of this letter is not a problem for us. But what is a problem for us (and should be for all the groups of the communist left) is the fact that the IFICC has published in advance the date of an internal meeting of the ICC (the territorial conference of our Mexican section). In this letter, the ICC's section in Mexico gave the members of the 'Fraction' the date of this conference in order to allow them to defend themselves at it and make an appeal to it (which they have refused to do).
By publishing the whole of this letter on its website, the clique around Jonas deliberately put at the disposal of all the world's cops the date on which our conference in Mexico was being held, with the participation of militants from other countries (since as our press has always noted, international delegations always take part in these kind of meetings). This meant that the police organs concerned with such matters could strengthen their surveillance at the airports and borders. This disgraceful action by the IFICC, which facilitates the work of the repressive forces of the bourgeois state against revolutionary militants, is all the more shameful in that the members of the IFICC know perfectly well that certain of our comrades have already, in the past, been direct victims of repression and in some cases have had to flee their country of origin (note 1) [17].
But the police-like methods of this parasitic group don't stop there.
In number 14 of the 'Internal Bulletin' of the IFICC, published on its website, our readers can also find a text entitled 'Une ultime mise au point' which has the pretension (and above all the hypocrisy) to try to defend the PCI (Le Proletaire) against the "incredible attack" supposedly launched against this group by the ICC. In fact, our readers can see for themselves that this text is not at all a defence of the PCI, given the total absence of arguments to refute the elements we have published in our press about this incident (see WRs 260 and 261).
The IFICC's text is really devoted to hurling the worst kind of slanders against two of our comrades (and thus against all the militants of the ICC, who are accused of being in the pocket of "the person who runs the ICC" and his partner, about whom Jonas spread the rumour in the ICC that she was a "cop"). In doing so it exposes the abject methods of the friends of Jonas.
The real "political disagreements" of the friends of Jonas
In this 'Ultime mise au point', the IFICC begins by asserting that "we have always remained on a strictly political terrain". Our readers can make up their own minds about this by examining the IFICC's 'political' arguments aimed at showing its 'fundamental disagreements' with the ICC, disagreements which are supposed to justify the formation of an 'Internal Fraction' in continuity with all the left fractions of the workers' movement from the Spartacus League to the Italian left. Here we will only cite one small extract from these arguments. Readers can judge whether they prove that the IFICC has always remained "on a strictly political terrain":
"This text is written by CG, alias Peter, as can be seen from the style and above all the somewhat fantastical reference to a lamentable operation of recuperation carried out under his direction. This same Peter is the person who runs the ICC and who, after having excluded or pushed out the majority of the founding members of the ICC, claims to be the sole heir of MC. But it should also be known that if Peter is leading this hate-filled cabal against our comrade Jonas, it's for the very simple reason that Louise (alias Avril), the militant about whom Jonas has clearly expressed his doubts, is none other than the partner of the chief" (note 2) [18].
On the fallacious pretext of taking up the defence of the PCI, the Jonas camarilla is exposing the real colour of its money and the "strictly political" disagreements upon which this so-called Fraction has been founded: the ICC is led by a little Stalin ("the chief") manipulated by "the chief's partner" who is a dubious element ( a "cop", to use Jonas' term).
As we have already underlined in an article in WR 252 ('The struggle of revolutionary organisations against provocation and slander'), the workers' movement has always insisted that introducing suspicion into an organisation in order to destroy confidence between militants is precisely the method used by agents provocateurs (notably the GPU in the Trotskyist movement in the 1930s).
Today through this 'Ultime mise au point' the Jonas camarilla is carrying on outside the ICC the dirty work it did inside it, with the aim of sowing suspicion throughout the proletarian political milieu. It is clear that, having failed to convince the militants of the ICC of the necessity to exclude the "chief" and the "chief's partner", this parasitic grouplet is now trying to draw other groups of the communist left behind its slanders in order to erect a cordon sanitaire around the ICC and to discredit it (as can already be seen from reading the press of the PCI).
The method of blackmailers
But the IFICC shows the police-like nature of its activities most clearly by its insistence on the initials of the "chief" ("this text is written by CG, alias Peter"). What "strictly political" interest do Jonas and his friends have in putting the initials of a militant in public? Apart from the fact that this really is worthy of an informer, in the same way as publishing the date of our territorial conference in Mexico, this is also the method of blackmailers, aimed at intimidating militants. By publishing on the internet the real initials of one of our comrades (when will they include the complete name and address?), Jonas and his pals are trying to deliver the following message: whoever dares to support the ICC will be denounced to the police. This is one of the main reasons why the address list of militants and subscribers was stolen from the ICC several months before the formation of the IFICC: apart from the fact that this theft allowed them to inundate our militants and subscribers with its squalid denigrations of the ICC, it also allows the IFICC to permanently intimidate them. How else can we explain the fact that the IFICC, even though its bulletins are now on the internet, continues to send its bulletins by post, including to those who have explicitly asked the IFICC to stop sending them? (note 3) [19].
Furthermore, what political interest does the IFICC have in shouting from the rooftops that "this text is written by CG, alias Peter, as can be seen from its style"? From the proletarian point of view, what interests the serious reader is above all the political content of our articles and not which individual is behind such and such a signature or such and such a "style". On the other hand, it is true that thanks to the analysis of "style", the bourgeois state's repressive forces can indeed try to identify those who write for the revolutionary press (even if, as is the case with the ICC, the articles published in our press are discussed and edited collectively). This enables the bourgeoisie, in periods of repression, to try to paralyse the publication of the revolutionary press by arresting and imprisoning militants whose "style" they have, or believe to have, recognised.
With such methods, worthy of the work of police spies, this 'final' mise au point is in fact a 'final' threat: if the ICC continues to warn the proletarian milieu against the manoeuvres of Jonas and his friends (as we did in our article in reply to the PCI), the IFICC will publish the famous 'documents' which purport to prove that the "chief's partner" is a dubious element, with the aim of convincing the proletarian milieu about this. As the IFICC's article says "Comrade Jonas is by no means the only one to have reasons for doubting this militant: here again numerous documents written by the ICC, which we have in our possession, prove this".
We are only too familiar with this threat. The IFICC is now carrying on outside the ICC the same blackmail which it carried on for a year and a half inside the ICC in order to try to force us to accept its permanent violation of our statutes and the thuggish behaviour of the members of the 'Fraction' (theft of the ICC's documents and money, slanders against militants spread through secret correspondence and meetings, etc).
This method of blackmail and insinuation, of spreading calumnies against two of our comrades, of proclaiming loud and clear that "once again we have the documents which prove what we are saying" is not new from the IFICC. When its members were still in the ICC they behaved in the same way with regard to a document called 'The history of the IS' ((International Secretariat, permanent commission of the ICC's central organ). They circulated this in a selective manner and presented it as the proof of their accusations against certain of our comrades, particularly Louise and Peter. Despite the importance which they attributed to this document (which they described as "historic"), they always refused to place it in the hands of the organisation, including those of the Investigation Commission nominated by the 14th Congress of the ICC to shed light on these problems. Finally, this document was published in no. 10 of the IFICC Bulletin, after its members had deliberately placed themselves outside the organisation. At the express request of the central organ of the ICC, it was read by all our comrades who read the French language. All the sections and all the comrades were nauseated by the avalanche of lies contained in this document, as well as by the repulsive way it made use of comrades' private lives.
This is the kind of document that the IFICC is threatening to make public!
The organisations of the workers' movement have often been confronted by this kind of blackmail: "We have the documents which prove our accusations". Faced with these methods, the attitude of proletarian organisations has always been to demand the publication of these famous documents so that they can be publicly refuted. As for those which the IFICC goes on about, it's clear that the ICC is perfectly capable of refuting them as well. However, these documents deal with the details of the functioning of our organisation and the private life of its militants, and their publication could only be a gift to the police. This said, the ICC is perfectly willing for this document to be made available to a commission made up of trusted militants of the organisations of the communist left and to be discussed in this framework.
The ICC has nothing to fear from the truth because the truth can only
ICC, February 2003.
(1) We often read or hear that the special organs of the bourgeois state have no interest in a small organisation like ours and that today the ruling class is unaware of the role that the communist left is destined to play in a future revolutionary movement. Such ideas express an enormous naivete, as can be seen for example by the 'anti-revisionist' campaigns which aimed to put into the same bag the groups of the left communist current who denounced anti-fascism and the extreme anti-semitic right. The whole history of the workers' movement attests to the fact that the special services of the bourgeois state never underestimate the potential danger represented by revolutionary groups, however small they might be, however little influence they may have in the working class at a given moment. Furthermore, despite the fact that for the moment the 'democratic' state does not generally use open repression against the groups of the communist left, the latter have already suffered from acts of repression (such as the raids on the PCI in the 1970s). The ICC itself has not been spared since certain of our militants, including in the most 'democratic' countries, have been subjected to raids, surveillance aimed at intimidation, prolonged interrogation at the frontier, and commando actions by armed elements probably mixed up with the state. The members of the IFICC know this perfectly well. Back [20]
(2)) MC is our comrade Mark Chirik, who died in 1990. He lived through the revolution of 1917 in his native town of Kishinev in Moldavia. A member of the Communist Party of Palestine at the age of 13, expelled from the PCF in 1928, he carried on the struggle for the defence of revolutionary positions in different organisations of the communist left, notably the Italian Fraction which he joined in 1938 and the Gauche Communiste de France from 1945 onwards. From 1964 in Venezuela and 1968 in France, MC played a decisive role in the formation of the first groups who were to be at the origins of the ICC, giving the political and organisational experience he had acquired in the various communist organisations he had belonged to. You can find out more about the political biography of our comrade in our French-language pamphlet The Communist Left of France and in the articles in International Review 65 and 66, written at the time of his death. As for the ridiculous claim that Peter aims to be the "sole heir of MC" (completed by a note exclaiming "this shows the conception he has of the revolutionary organisation"), the members of the IFICC will have a hard time proving it. This shows the sick imagination and stupid spite of the members of the IFICC, as well as their own warped view of the organisation. Back [21]
(3) In its Bulletin no. 11, the IFICC published a reply to a letter that we sent to each of its members asking them to return the internal documents in their possession. In its reply, the IFICC writes: "As for the copy of the subscribers' list, it is to say the least striking that you are claiming, like a shopkeeper jealous of his clients, a 'property' of people�But perhaps your concern is the security of these documents which could fall into 'indelicate' hands? We can assure you that they are being well looked after, and it will be difficult, not to say impossible, for 'indelicate people' to get their hands on them". After the IFICC's recent informer-like behaviour, we have an idea of how much confidence we can place in them! Back [22]
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/world-war-ii
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/germany
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/20/parliamentary-sham
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/259_bali.htm
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/262_bali_reply.htm
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/readers-letters
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/asia
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/50/united-states
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/135/internationalism
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/war
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/war-iraq
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/france
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/ivory-coast
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/australasia
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/262_infraction.htm#note_01
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/262_infraction.htm#note_02
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/262_infraction.htm#note_03
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/262_infraction.htm#back_01
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/262_infraction.htm#back_02
[22] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/262_infraction.htm#back_03
[23] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/internal-fraction-icc
[24] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/parasitism