Four weeks after unleashing its terrifying war machine over Iraq the US bourgeoisie is getting ready to claim victory. Overmatched and out-gunned by an enemy far superior in every military aspect Iraq’s armed forces have been practically destroyed. Sadam Hussein’s regime has collapsed; all major sate functionaries (included Hussein) have been killed or are in the run. The so-called “coalition” forces have taken military control of all the main strategic areas of the country. Ten of thousands -perhaps hundreds, no body knows exactly or has cared to count, of Iraqi soldiers and civilians have been slaughtered or maimed by the US killing machine. The devastation of basic infrastructure and the destruction of material wealth by the aerial bombardment of the war and the fighting in the ground, is being compound by the destruction caused by mobs acts of revenge against perceived symbols of the fallen Iraq’s regime, the settling of accounts between ethnic and religious groups and the mass looting undertaken by some sectors of the “liberated” Iraqi population.
The main phase of the war over, now the American bourgeoisie will have to deal with the political instability and economic ruins of a country ravaged in grand part by the accumulated effects of three major wars in the last two decades. Accordingly the bourgeois media is already phasing out its high pitch war propaganda campaign and switching over to a peacetime “war reconstruction” theme.
And while the American bourgeoisie parades in front of the noses of friends and enemies the prowess of its military muscle and prepares itself to celebrate its war victory by a new barrage of lies aimed to justify the conquest of Iraq, revolutionaries have the duty to reveal the real reasons for this war and thus to unmask the false explanations that the ruling class is using to make the working class identify itself with the imperialist interest of American state.
The Bush administration has given over the last months many “praiseworthy” explanations for this new military adventure. It has said, attempting still to exploit the patriotic feelings awaken in the American population after the terrorist attacks of September 11 to the cities of New York and Washington, that this war is a war against terrorism. It has said that this war is a pre-emptive action to disarm Iraq of “weapons of mass destruction” that could have been used in the future against American interest. It has said that this war has the goal of changing Iraq’s regime and the overthrowing of a bloody dictator that threatened its neighbors and oppressed its own people. It has said –and this is the prefer theme lately- that this is a war aimed to liberate the Iraqi population, a war meant to bring prosperity, peace and the democratic panacea to the Iraqis and the Middle East region at large.
These explanations are cynical lies. The use of the weapon of terrorism, the possession of “weapons of mass destruction”, the oppression of its “own population” was not the sole attribute of Hussein’s regime, but the share characteristic of all capitalist states in the world nor matter how democratic or dictatorial their political regime. The US is not exception to this rule, historically its dominant class has not hesitated either to use terrorism or “weapons of mass destruction” when its suited its political interests. Lets not forget that the US posses a military arsenal able to destroy the world several times over. However there is nothing out of the ordinary about the dishonesty of the bourgeoisie. The dominant class can’t just tell the exploited class –the one that has always bared one way or the other the brunt of the military adventure of its exploiters- that a military action is needed in order to advance or defend the political, economic or military strategic needs of the State. In order to convince that killing and being killed is a worthy cause, the dominant class has to ideologically mystify the population and in particular the working class. The imperialist WWI, and WWII and the none less imperialist various local wars in which the Western and the Stalinist blocs confronted each other for decades had always been justified with one or other ideological them. The “anti-terrorism” and democratic banner that the US is today waving to justify its world-wide war campaign is nothing but a façade behind which stand the desperate efforts of a frightening imperial power determined to defend its hegemony over the world.
The collapse of the Stalinist bloc and its leader the USSR at the end of 1989-90 left the US as the hegemonic imperialist superpower in the world. Thanks to its unsurpassed military apparatus, its powerful economy and its privileged geographic position the American bourgeoisie set for a moment at the top of the world gloating on its political leadership. However this dominant position was challenged immediately by major and minor imperialist powers, included the states that during the cold war period have been American’s closest allies. The end of the “cold war”, rather than putting an end to military confrontations and brining in “peace and prosperity”, opened up a period of increasing violent confrontations between national states that are plunging the whole world into a growing state of barbarism. This drive to war is not due to “bloody” dictators or particularly bellicose bourgeois fractions, but to the fact that in the epoch of capitalist decadence all sates are obliged to wage a life or death imperialist struggle in order to maintain their economic and political viability. This is the underlying dynamic at work behind the first Gulf war at the beginning of the 90’s, the wars in Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Africa, the menace of nuclear war between the Pakistan and India, the September 11 events, the war in Afghanistan, the ongoing massacres in the war between Israel and Palestine and today’s US conquest of Iraq.
US imperialism, at the center of this war dynamic, has for over a decade followed a coherent strategy designed to defend its hegemonic world power. This strategic orientation has at its core a political, economic and military policy aim to prevent the arising of a new superpower –in reality an imperialist bloc- that could pose a serious challenge to the American worldwide dominance. The massive American display of military power during “desert storm” in 91, just after the disappearance of the bloc system that dominated the world since after WWII, was already meant to send a message to the US would be challengers. The diverse political-military initiatives of the US bourgeoisie during the last decade, ranging from the revival of the “star wars” program, the relocation of troops around the world under the cover of “peace-keeping” and “antiterrorism” slogans and the direct territorial control of strategic zones of the world, are all elements of this strategy aim to defend American hegemony.
In the last year, after the events of September 11, the US bourgeoisie has ratchet up its campaign against its would be challengers. Under the cover of the war against terrorism it has through a more massive military intervention started an offensive directed to the encirclement of Europe and Russia by gaining direct control of Central Asia and the Middle East. This is the real explanation of the war in Afghanistan, the present conquest of Iraq and the declared intention of the Bush administration to deal with Iran. Thus the aims of this intervention are beyond the question of oil considered as a source of capitalist profit. In reality to the extent that the question of oil plays a role in these events this due to the strategic importance that the control of this raw material has in the over all imperialist chessboard game being play in the international arena between the US and its challengers.
The US new offensive has called forth a corresponding response by its rivals. France led the efforts to resist the American intervention in Iraq plunging the UN into crisis and obliging the US to go to war without the “legal” coverage of this organization and thus undermining its credibility. But even more important is the open Germany’s challenge to the US policy, which has brought unquestionable to the open the opposition between America and the only other power which could pose as the candidate to lead a new anti-US imperialist bloc.
The divisions between the great powers over Iraq has also exposed the fiction of the NATO alliance and at the same time has also reveled the great divergences that exist in Europe over inter-imperialist relations and the nonexistence of a European bloc for the moment.
The military victory of the US in Iraq, despite the fact that it has allowed once again to show-case the US enormous military superiority will not stop its rivals from continuing challenging its world hegemony. On the contrary this war will have the immediate effect of adding fuel to imperialist tensions and chaos all around the world.
--Eduardo S .
On November 30 and December 1 2002 an event of great importance took place for the working class, and particularly for its bastions in North, Central, and South America, as well as in the Caribbean area. The ICC held its first Pan-American Conference, which brought together the sections in the USA (Internationalism), Mexico (Revolucion Mundial), and Venezuela (Internacionalismo). This assessment is not an expression of arrogance. Instead, its importance is a historical fact.
The ICC statutes set down that each of its territorial sections must hold a conference every year. The aim of these conferences is to make a balance of the activities and give the perspectives for intervention for the following year, within the context of the agreements reached at the International Congresses, held every two years. In the last few years, the ICC central organs have encouraged the holding of regional meetings for those sections which intervene in a common geographical area. In this way the international and centralized character of the central organs is reaffirmed, the collective character of the organization is strengthened, and possible localist tendencies within each section are counterbalanced. In addition, the tendency toward ‘each for themselves’, characteristic of decomposition, are also counterbalanced.
The regional conferences are not a sum of each section’s representatives. Instead, their objective is to make common balances of activities, national situations, and intervention, as well as tracing perspectives in a collective manner, without neglecting the discussions around the most relevant aspects of each section involved. This is why the task of the first ICC Pan-American Conference was to make a collective balance of the activities of the American sections of the ICC, and a balance of the economic, political, geopolitical, and social situation in a region that traditionally has been the US bourgeoisie’s backyard. One of the myths that this conference tore down is that of the separation between the proletariat in the US and that in the rest of the continent, a separation drawn by the left, the leftists and their new version, the ‘anti-globalists.’ It portrays the US working class as ‘privileged’ or as ‘working class aristocracy,’ when in reality they are being affected by unemployment and a significant increase in the level of poverty.
The dominant aspect of the Pan-American Conference was the balance of our activities, especially as they relate to the functioning of the sections concerned, which had been particularly affected by an internal crisis, which led to the formation of a clan within the organization. This clan in turn constituted a supposed ‘internal fraction’ which today is a parasitic group. It is made up of ex-militants who had violated our organizational principles, (see the article Extraordinary Conference of the ICC: The struggle for the defense of organizational principles, International Review 110).
The Conference has deepened on the root causes that made the formation of this new clan possible within the organization. It based itself on the orientation texts generated by the central organs for the internal discussion. The discussion brought to light the fact that affinitarian-type relationships made it possible for the clan to have an influence on the American sections, and particularly on the Mexican section, where a number of its militants have been co-opted by the ‘internal fraction.’ The Conference has also highlighted the vestiges of leftism in organizational matters which facilitated the penetration of alien ideologies within the sections, as an expression of the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. The Conference resolved that the aspects of the weight of affinitarism and leftism will have to be deepened by each one of the sections.
After extending the invitation to the four comrades co-opted by the ‘internal fraction’ in Mexico, the Conference has once more witnessed its disrespect for the organization. Instead of making use of this regional event to defend its positions and try and convince the militants of the correctness of their positions, these comrades opted for political ostracism. In this way, these comrades (like the ones in the Paris ‘fraction’, who rejected our invitation to the Extraordinary Conference of the beginning of this year) have placed themselves outside of the organization, by consistently violating organizational principles.
The Conference reaffirmed the priority of the defense of the organization for our intervention. The deepening of the understanding of the causes of the crisis, along with the open yet firm and sustained attitude toward our organizational principles, which we have held vis-à-vis the attacks by the parasitic internal ‘fraction’, are conceived as a process of decantation. During this process the expressions of the penetration within our ranks of ideologies that are alien to the working class are rejected.
In this sense, the balance made by the Conference is very positive. A concrete demonstration is that at the time of the Conference, a new section of Revolucion Mundial in the north of Mexico was integrated. This shows the vitality of the ICC and the strengthening of our section in Mexico. In this way, the basis for the future proletarian party in the region are strengthened.
The situation in the proletarian political milieu is another aspect discussed at the Conference. We observed that a number of organizations show a tendency toward opportunism. We can see this, for instance, in the positions taken by several groups in the milieu on events that happened in the region. These groups have posed the question of the existence of the combativeness of the proletariat at the time of the events in Argentina. In reality, the working class was actually integrated in the masses of the unemployed, the ‘piqueteros’, who live in the cities’ slums, trapped in inter-bourgeois struggles. In the case of Venezuela, they identified the political crisis as a struggle of the big bourgeoisie against Chavez’s ‘reformist’ government. But it was really a conflict between fractions of capital, which are decomposing rapidly, and where the Venezuelan proletariat is trapped between the options offered by either fraction of the bourgeoisie. The ICC, in particular its sections in the Americas, takes the responsibility to intervene in a coordinated fashion to arrest the opportunist expressions of the milieu, which at times get to the point of flirting with the positions of the left and the leftists in the region. This works against the process of development of class consciousness which we see in elements in search of political clarification, even though they are a minority.
In order to strengthen our intervention, the Conference discussed and laid out the orientations to make a more efficient use of our press. We need to integrate global analyses on the political crises of the regional bourgeoisies as well as the analysis of the geopolitical situation. Above all, we aim at generating analyses on the class struggle in the region, tracing the perspectives that open up for the proletariat, and confronting the tricks laid by capital against the proletariat. One of the central aspects we need to develop in our press is how decadent capitalism, in the face of its inability to present humanity with solutions, accelerates the pauperization of the proletariat and the poorest strata in the region. In particular, we need to analyze further on the living conditions of the proletariat in the US, because there exists a belief that the US working class lives in a ‘heaven’. The left, the leftists, and ‘globalists’ are mainly responsible for this mystification, when the very statistics of the bourgeoisie show the acceleration of the conditions of misery and poverty in the world’s greatest economy.
Because the Conference prioritized the questions of organizational functioning, it could not develop on the national situations, where we deal with the economic, political, and geopolitical aspects and the class struggle. Given the importance of these aspects, the Conference decided that each section should develop them. We will then publish the analyses in our press and report upon them at public meetings.
As we said in the Resolutions on activities drawn at the Conference: ìThe conference has marked a positive dynamic as to the capacity to diagnose, to deepen, while also showing a great will to take on the struggle. That is, not only has there been a connection with the rest of the ICC, but also the Pan-American Conference has marked a moment in the enrichment of the international politics of the ICC.î
This ‘political enrichment’ is the basis to strengthen the development and intervention of the revolutionary minorities in the region and to counteract the effects of capitalism’s decomposition on the militants. ìÖWe canít, however, fall into fatalistic attitudes which are nothing but the expression of decomposition (giving up, passivity, let things passÖ) We have to take up this struggle collectively. In this sense:
-we must take individual responsibility as militants of an organization of combat;
-we must make an effort in theoretical deepening. While it is an antidote against the erosion of militantism, theoretical deepening is also a weapon against clannism, and affinitarism, and the loss of acquisitions;
-we must strengthen the political and fraternal ties between militants (idem)
We are today witnessing an acceleration of history at every level, particularly a forward movement of the decomposition of a decadent system that has nothing to give other than pauperization and war, that is to say, barbarism. Notwithstanding the fact that the proletariat in the different countries of the region is entangled in the inter-bourgeois confrontations, it also makes efforts to develop its struggles of resistance against the attacks of capital. This shows that the proletariat continues to push for the perspective of class confrontations. Today more than ever the revolutionary minorities of the region have a very important role to play in the intervention toward the elements and groups in search of a class perspective. The Pan-American Conference is an effort, albeit modest, fully inscribed within the efforts our organization makes on a world level to strengthen the perspective of the only possible solution to this barbarism: communism.
The war in Iraq is being used by the American ruling class as a pretext to ram austerity measures down the throats of the working class. The attacks on the workers’ standard of living were actually initiated by the Bush administration last year, and have escalated sharply this year, constituting the most significant degradation of working class living conditions in more than twenty years. Patriotism and war propaganda are being used to push through these cuts with only minimal opposition. Not only is the working class paying for the war with the lives and physical well being of its young men and women in uniform on the battlefield, but it is being forced to endure a permanent decline in its standard of living to finance US imperialism’s war mongering policies.
Military costs are escalating at a feverish pace for American capitalism, which more and more feels compelled to employ brute force to defend its imperialist hegemony throughout the world. Forty-seven percent of federal spending goes to military related costs. The $2.2 trillion federal budget proposed by the Bush administration for the next fiscal year increases military spending yet again, while at the same time introducing drastic cuts in spending on social programs, through sharp cuts in funds turned back to the state and local governments. According to the Los Angeles Times, measured in real dollars, Bush is spending more on the military than Johnson did during the Vietnam war. “In 2003 dollars, defense spending would peak at $451.9 billion, compared with the peak during the Vietnam buildup of $439.9 billion, according to analysis of administration figures by the generally liberal Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (LAT March 12, 2003). And these figures do not include the costs incurred in waging the war in Iraq, occupying that country for at least six months, and reconstructing the Iraqi infrastructure, which has originally been estimated at $80-100 billion, but which many expect will run even higher. As we go to press, the war in Iraq is costing $12,000 per second, $366,000,000 per 8-hours, or a staggering $1.1. billion per day!!! (Figures computed by War Resisters League, based on published federal budgetary data.)
The cuts in social programs proposed by the Bush administration are planned as long-term measures to permanently shrink the social wage – that portion of the cost of the reproduction of the working class provided by the state in the form of social services rather than in money wages paid directly by employers to workers. For example, over the next ten years, the budget plan will cut $470 billion from medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and student loans. On the immediate level, “federal spending on poverty alleviation, science, environmental protection, transportation and health care would be cut below current levels” (Washington Post, March 13, 2003).
One of the remarkable strengths of American state capitalism is its ability to mask the imposition of austerity by means of its federal structure, and apparently decentralized power. Rather than announce a uniform national austerity program imposed by the central government in Washington that might risk provoking a working class uproar, the American ruling class uses its federal structure to decentralize the attacks. A key element in this sophisticated approach is the control of tax levy funds that are distributed to the state governments, and through them the distribution of these funds to municipal level governments. The cutoff of federal funding puts pressure on local governments to slash programs, raise taxes, or a combination of the two – any of which constitutes an attack on the workers’ standard of living. Each state and municipality cobbles together its own spending plans, producing all manner of diverse austerity measures, which obscure the fact that austerity is a direct result of national policy decisions made in Washington, and foster a climate that encourages useless local struggles against this or that particular program cutback in this or that locality, rather than against the attacks at the national level.
So for example, the New York State government will be cut 12.7 billion in funding for Medicaid programs over the next ten years, $2 billion for Supplemental Security Income, $1 billion in Earned Income Tax Credit, $1.8 billion for food stamps, and $1.2 billion for welfare. New York Gov. George Pataki has proposed cutting public education funds by $2.1 billion next year alone. In Cleveland, Ohio school officials have proposed canceling summer school sessions. Portland, Oregon school officials plan to raise the student-teacher ratio from 30 to 1 to 42 to 1. California state officials warn that they may have to lay off 30,000 teachers. In Massachusetts, where the 180-day school year has been in place for generations, officials are considering cutting the school week to four-days.
New York City, site of the Twin Towers disaster, is particularly hard hit by the austerity program. The city government faces a $4 billion budget deficit, and has already announced 5400 public sector layoffs, and these are expected to eventually reach 15,000. At the same time, property taxes have soared by 27 percent, public transit fares will increase by 33%, and the city will begin charging tolls on bridges across the East River that bring traffic into Manhattan from Brooklyn and Queens, which have always been free since they were constructed a century ago.
The impact of these layoffs and austerity measures on the working class standard of living is devastating. These layoffs don’t simply signify the number of people being thrown out of work – which is devastating in itself – but they also represent a degradation in the standard of living. On the economic level, these layoffs will have a cascading effect, as unemployed workers reduced to surviving on unemployment benefits will spend less on goods and services in the areas where they used to work, and where they live, and will eventually lead to layoffs in businesses that depend upon their patronage. Workers lucky enough not to be laid off will face pressure to work harder and produce more. On the level of social conditions for the entire working class, these attacks will mean a deterioration in fire protection, education, sanitation, health services, and the physical infrastructure – which means a degeneration in the health, safety and future of the working class. But in the meantime, as the suffering of the working class increases, the government will have no difficulty or compunctions about appropriating more and more funds to finance its imperialist military operations abroad. — JG