The strategically vital Middle East has long been a focus of rivalries between the great imperialist powers. In the First World War Britain and France led the charge to displace the crumbling Ottoman empire, which had been supported by Germany. In the Second World War Germany and its local agents once again confronted the British and theirs. After the war, Britain and France were progressively pushed aside by America, which was soon facing up to its Russian rival, each side using the ‘Arab-Israeli’ conflict to further its own ends. The collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 didn’t bring peace to the region. On the contrary, the efforts of the USA to reinforce its control over the Middle East and the Persian Gulf has provoked the growing chaos sweeping through Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Lebanon. The Middle East has become the principal theatre of the ‘war of each against all’ which now predominates in international affairs. What this means for the populations of the region is becoming plainer every day:  wholesale massacre of civilians, devastation of the infrastructure, disintegration of entire countries into bloody sectarian and nationalist conflict. The agony of the Middle East is the reflection of the agony of world capitalism in the absence of the proletarian revolution.      

 

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Yet another barbaric checklist in the Middle East: 700 airstrikes on Lebanese territory; over 1200 dead in Lebanon and Israel, over 300 of which were children under 12; more than 5000 injured; a million civilians forced to flee their homes in the combat zones, while many others were too poor or weak to flee and had to endure the daily terror of the bombardments. Whole neighbourhoods and villages reduced to rubble; hospitals full to bursting. Without including the military cost of the war, the economic damage is estimated at 6 billion euro.

For the main protagonists, the balance sheet is calculated on a different basis. For Israel it’s been a major set-back, puncturing the myth of the invincibility of the Israeli army. As a result it has also been a further step in the weakening of America’s global leadership. On the other hand Hizbollah has been strengthened by the conflict and has acquired a new legitimacy throughout the region.

But whoever benefits in the short-term, this war has marked a new surge in the tide of chaos and bloodshed in the Middle East, and in that all the imperialist powers, from the biggest to the smallest, have played their criminal part.

They are all warmongers!

The impasse in the Middle East situation was already illustrated by the coming to power of the ‘terrorists’ of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, itself a response to the intransigence of the Israeli government which has ‘radicalised’ a large part of the Palestinian population. It was further confirmed by the outbreak of open hostilities between Hamas and Fatah. Israel’s retreat from Gaza was not a move towards peace but a means of enforcing its control over the more vital West Bank area.

Israel’s ‘solution’ to reaching this dead-end was to act against the growing influence in southern Lebanon of Hizbollah, which is financed and armed by Iran. The pretext for unleashing the war was to obtain the release of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbolla. More than two months later, they are still being held, and the UN (now aided by Jesse Jackson’s ‘independent’ mission) has only just opened negotiations for their release. The other stated motive for the offensive was to neutralise and disarm Hizbollah, whose incursions into Israel were a growing threat to its security.

 Either way, this was using a bazooka to kill a mosquito and neither objective has been achieved. But the Israeli state has certainly visited its fury upon the population of Lebanon. The people of the southern cities and villages have seen their houses destroyed and been forced to survive for weeks with almost no food and water. 90 bridges were smashed, as well as innumerable roads and three electricity generating plants. The Israeli government and army told us over and over again that they were trying to “spare civilian lives” and that massacres like the one in Qana were “regrettable accidents”, like the famous “collateral damage” in the wars in the Gulf and the Balkans.  In fact 90% of those killed were civilians. 

This war could not have been launched without the USA giving it the green light. Up to its neck in the quicksand in Iraq and Afghanistan, its ‘Road Map’ to peace between Israel and Palestine in tatters, the US is suffering blow after blow to its strategic plan of encircling Europe, the key to which is control over the Middle East. In Iraq in particular, after three years of military occupation, the US is powerless to prevent the country sliding into a terrible ‘civil war’. The daily conflict between rival factions is costing the population 80 to 100 deaths a day. All this expresses the historic weakening of the USA’s grip over the region, and is part of a growing challenge to its domination of the entire globe. This in turn is providing the opportunity for other powers to step up their imperialist ambitions, with Iran leading the charge. The Israeli action thus served as a warning to states like Iran and Syria and shows the perfect convergence on this occasion between the White House and the Israeli bourgeoisie. Within the UN, the Americans spent several weeks sabotaging any prospect of a cease-fire in order to allow the Israeli army to ‘finish the job’ against Hizbollah.

Although there was never any question of Israel installing itself for a long period in Lebanon, there is a real symmetry in the methods used by Israel and the US, and in the problems that result. Both are forced to throw themselves into military adventures, and both have found themselves trapped in a total mess. In Israel, as in the US, politicians and generals are blaming the government for launching a war without adequate preparation. And Israel, like the US, is finding that you can’t fight a guerrilla group which is dispersed within the population in the same way that you would fight a ‘normal’ state army. Like Hamas, Hizbollah in the beginning was just another Islamic militia. It arose during the Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon in 1982. Because of its Shiite affiliations, it benefited from the generous support of the Iranian mullahs. Syria also supported it and used it as an important internal ally, especially after Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in 2005. Hizbollah also recruited heavily through its policy of providing medical, social and educational benefits to the population, again made possible by Iranian funding. Today it continues to win support through its policy of paying compensation to people whose houses have been destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombs. It is worth noting that many of its recruits are street kids aged between 10 and 15.

For the moment, Syria and Iran form a homogeneous bloc behind Hamas and Hizbollah. Iran in particular is staking its claim to becoming the main imperialist power in the region. Obtaining nuclear weapons would certainly give it that status. These ambitions explain its increasingly belligerent and arrogant declarations, including its intention to “wipe Israel off the map”.   

The cynicism of all the great powers

The height of cynicism and hypocrisy was reached by the UN, which throughout the month the war lasted proclaimed its “desire for peace” but also its “powerlessness”.  This is a disgusting lie. The “peace loving UN” is a crocodile-infested swamp. The five member states on the Security Council are the biggest predators on the planet. The USA’s world leadership is based on its huge military armada and since Bush Senior announced a new era of peace and prosperity in 1990, on a succession of wars (Gulf war of 91, the Balkans war, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq…). Britain has in most cases acted as the USA’s accomplice, but for its own imperialist reasons (see article in this issue). It is trying to regain the influence it had in this region up until just after the Second World War.

Russia, which is responsible for the most terrible atrocities in its two wars in Chechnya, is trying to get its revenge for what it lost in the implosion of the USSR. The weakening of the USA is stirring old imperialist appetites. This is why it is playing the card of support for Iran and, more discretely, for Hizbollah.

China, profiting from its growing economic influence, is dreaming of gaining new zones of influence outside South East Asia, and is currently making eyes at Iran. Along with Russia, China has been sabotaging a series of UN resolutions tabled by their rivals.   

As for France, it has just as much blood on its hands. It took a full part in the 1991 Gulf war; it supported the Serbian side during the Balkans war and, through its role in the UN, had a major responsibility for the Srebenica massacre in 1993; it has also been involved in hunting down the Taliban in Afghanistan (the death of two French ‘special forces’ soldiers has shed light on an activity that has been kept very discreet up till now[1] [1]).

But it’s above all in Africa that French imperialism has shown its real face. It was France which provoked the genocide in Rwanda by encouraging the liquidation of the Tutsis by the Hutu militias which it had trained and supplied.

The French bourgeoisie has never stopped dreaming of the days when it shared spheres of influence in the Middle East with Britain. After its alliance with Saddam Hussein was undermined by the first Gulf war, and then the assassination of its protégé Massoud in Afghanistan, France’s hopes were then focused on Lebanon. It had been brutally ejected from this area during the 1982-3 war, first by Syria’s offensive against the Lebanese-Christian government and then by the Israeli intervention, commanded by the “butcher” Sharon and manipulated from afar by Uncle Sam. It was this offensive by the western bloc which forced Syria to quit the Russian bloc. France has not forgiven Syria for assassinating the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005: Hariri had been a good friend of Chirac and France. This is why, despite its desire to get a foothold in Iran by adopting a conciliatory stance towards it, France decided to rally to the US plan for Lebanon, based on UN resolution 1201, and helped to concoct plans for the redeployment of the FINUL UN force. Despite the reticence of French military HQ which is protesting that France’s overseas forces are “overstretched” (nearly 15000 troops involved in numerous fronts: Ivory Coast, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Darfur, Kosovo, Macedonia, Afghanistan), the French government has taken the plunge. It agreed to increase its contribution to FINUL from 400 to 2000 soldiers, getting certain advantages in exchange, notably a mandate to command the 15000 man force until February 2007; and the right to use force if attacked. The French ruling class still has hesitations about passing from the diplomatic to the military terrain in the Middle East. It still has bitter memories of the attack by Shiite terrorists on the Drakkar building that housed the French contingent in Beirut in October 1983. This resulted in the death of 58 parachutists and led to France’s departure from Lebanon. And today it faces a very tricky task. FINUL’s mission is to give support to a very weak Lebanese army (it only has 15000 troops and has hardly been reconstituted) in its efforts to disarm Hizbollah. The job is all the more difficult given that Hizbollah has two members in the Lebanese government, has gained enormous prestige from standing up to the Israeli army and retaining the ability to launch rockets into Northern Israel throughout the conflict, and in any case has widely infiltrated the Lebanese army.

Other powers are also lining up to get what they can out of the situation. Italy, in exchange for giving the biggest contingent to the UN force, will take command over FINUL after February 2007. Just a few months after withdrawing Italian troops from Iraq, Prodi is dispatching a new force to the Lebanon, showing that Italy still has ambitions to be at the imperialist top table.   

The patent failure of Israel and the US in this war represents an important new step in the weakening of US hegemony. But this will in no sense attenuate military tensions. On the contrary, it can only whet the appetites of the other powers. The only perspective it announces is growing chaos and instability.

The Middle East is a concentrated expression of the irrationality of war in this period, in which each imperialism is dragged from one increasingly destructive conflict to the next. Syria and Iran are now on a war footing, and the situation is pushing the US and Israel towards even an even more terrible response. The Israeli defence minister has made it clear that the ceasefire is just a pause to prepare for a second assault, aimed at the definitive liquidation of Hizbollah.

The extension of combat zones across the planet shows that capitalism is ineluctably sliding towards barbarism. War and militarism have become capitalism’s way of life.

How can we oppose the slide towards military barbarism?

The class struggle in this region has not disappeared. Last year, there were large demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Haifa against the rising cost of living and the government’s policy of increasing military spending at the expense of social welfare budgets. The failure of the war is likely to provoke further expressions of social discontent.

In the Palestinian territories, “Palestinian civil servants are demanding the payment of overdue wages from the Hamas government. Around 3,000 marched yesterday in Ramallah, while in Gaza City over 300 unemployed workers demanding jobs and unpaid welfare fought riot police and attempted to storm the parliamentary building, breaching the gates before police fired live warning shots… Hamas have condemned the strike as an attempt to destabilise the government and called for teachers to scab, saying anger should instead be directed against Israel ‘which imposes the siege on our people’. Hamas claim the strike has ‘no relation to national interests’ and is being co-ordinated by the Fatah party ‘that has no ties with employees’  many union leaders are Fatah members. However, despite these party-political manoeuvres the grievances are very real; with unemployment running at around 30% and around 25% of the workforce affected by the current withholding of wages, over half of the workforce is surviving on very little income. The UN estimates 80% of the population lives in ‘poverty’”. (www.libcom.org/news [2], 31.8.06).

Even if Fatah politicians are trying to exploit this discontent, this is an important development because it is a small breach in the national unity which serves to stifle class struggle on both sides of the conflict.

In response to this war, all sorts of fraudsters, many claiming to be ‘socialists’, have been running around telling us that ‘we are all Hizbollah’, that workers should support the legitimate ‘national resistance’ of the Lebanese people, or else arguing that Israel has the ‘right to defend itself against terrorism’.

These are just pretexts for mobilising us behind one side or another in an imperialist war. Against these lies, revolutionaries can only declare that the working class has no country, that its struggle has indeed “no relation to national interests”, that in the epoch of imperialism all wars are imperialist, and that we have nothing to gain from supporting any side in any imperialist massacre.

“The only opposition to imperialism is the resistance of the working class against exploitation, because this alone can grow into an open struggle against the capitalist system, a struggle to replace this dying system of profit and war with a society geared towards human need. Because the exploited everywhere have the same interests, the class struggle is international and has no interest in allying with one state against another.  Its methods are directly opposed to the aggravation of hatred between ethnic or national groups, because it needs to rally together the proletarians of all nations in a common fight against capital and the state. 

 In the Middle East the spiral of nationalist conflicts has made class struggle very difficult, but it still exists – in demonstrations of unemployed Palestinian workers against the Palestinian authorities, in strikes by Israeli public sector workers against the government’s austerity budgets. But the most likely source of a breach in the wall of war and hatred in the Middle East lies outside the region – in the growing struggle of the workers in the central capitalist countries. The best example of class solidarity we can give to the populations suffering the direct horrors of imperialist war in the Middle East is to develop the struggle that has already been launched by the workers-to-be in the French schools and universities , by the metal workers of Vigo in Spain, the postal workers of Belfast or the airport workers of London” (ICC statement ‘Middle East: Against the slide into war, the international class struggle is the only answer’, 17 July, 2006).

These movements may make less noise than the rockets and bombs that have been raining down in the Middle East, but they announce the one and only alternative to the descent into barbarism: a future of growing solidarity among workers in struggle, paving the way for a society founded on solidarity among all human beings. 

WR, 2/9/06. 

Tony Blair seems to be increasingly isolated in his position over the conflict in the Lebanon. In the G8, the EU and the UN, Britain opposed calls for an immediate ceasefire. The Foreign Office, the Cabinet, the Labour Party, and the media all seem ranged against him. A former ambassador openly called for him to go. For some this is just another expression of Blair’s subservience to Bush, summed up in the “Yo Blair!” exchange overheard at the G8. In fact, what the conflict in the Lebanon has done is to put the strategy of the British ruling class under intense pressure and expose more sharply than before the enormous difficulties it faces.

 

The impasse of the American superpower

The difficulties go right back to the collapse of the eastern bloc in 1989. The collapse meant that the western bloc, led by the US, lost its reason to exist, and its constituent parts increasingly went their own way and began to challenge their former leader. This could be seen throughout the conflicts of the 1990s when countries pursued their own interests, and alliances tended to be short-lived and unstable. For the US, as the only remaining superpower, this confronted it with a situation where, despite its military and economic power, things seemed to slip away from it. In the former Yugoslavia for example, it faced Germany, France and Britain all struggling for their own advantage and initially having some success in frustrating the US. The US responded by asserting itself through force, by giving exemplary displays of its might to any who would dare to challenge it. The first Gulf war seemed to restore some order but was immediately followed by renewed challenges around the world. The Dayton Accord imposed a momentary order in the carnage of the former Yugoslavia, only to be followed by renewed fighting culminating in the bombing of Kosovo. While no country can openly challenge the US for global dominance the chaotic nature of the international situation presents opportunities to disrupt US plans and frustrate its ambitions. The bombing of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 allowed the US to launch a new offensive, dressed up as the ‘war on terror’. This was aimed at countering its most powerful rivals in Europe and led to the invasion first of Afghanistan and then Iraq. Today this strategy has run into the ground with the US mired in increasingly bloody wars that are sapping its military resources. This is one of the reasons it has held back from taking action against Iran.

It is not yet clear whether Israel launched its offensive against Lebanon with American blessing or not. Tel Aviv has shown in the past that it is prepared to take action to defend its interests in defiance of Washington. Although still heavily dependent on US support, especially military, the present situation has given it the initiative and, predictably, the offensive itself was presented as part of the war on terror. The attacks on Hizbollah, in that they also had the potential for striking a blow against Iranian and Syrian influence in the region, fitted in with American strategy. Israel was given the time and weapons to complete the job, but Hizbollah emerged with enhanced prestige in the region – further evidence of America’s increasing lack of control.

The dilemma of British imperialism

Following 1989, the main part of the British ruling class defended the need for an independent strategy, which essentially meant manoeuvring between America and Europe and playing one off against the other. Another part, which had a particular strength in the Tory party, defended the need to remain much closer to the US and was one of the reasons for replacing the Tories with Labour in 1997. The Blair government defended the independent strategy through its so-called ‘ethical foreign policy’. However, with the American offensive after 9/11, it was forced to reconsider how it positioned itself between the US and Europe and this seems to have opened up a debate within the dominant circles of the ruling class. The faction around Blair sought to position Britain closer to the US, not in order to be subservient, but as the best position from which to continue the previous independent strategy. In the wake of the second Gulf war, unease about this strategy changed into criticism and pressure to distance London further from Washington. The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly saw the civil service break its own rules to release incriminating documents while Blair was called before the inquiry and humiliated. As we said at the time, this marked the British bourgeoisie’s biggest crisis over imperialist orientation since the late 1930s and the change from the policy of appeasement.

The London bombings last year led to a revival of criticism, with a group of former high ranking officials publishing a report asserting that the foreign policy of Blair was responsible for making Britain a target, and that keeping so close to the US was a dangerous strategy. The fact that the US offensive of the last five years has seriously faltered - that the US itself is beginning to seem like a declining power - can only intensify imperialist rivalries by emboldening their rivals and goading America to lash out. This deepens the existing dilemma of British policy and is beginning to move the discussion from one of tactics to one of fundamental strategic orientation. The question is being posed of whether Britain should decisively distance itself from the US. Fifty years ago the Suez crisis forced the British ruling class to concede that it was no longer a first rank power and that America was the dominant world force. For the next thirty-odd years it became one of the more stable parts of the western alliance. It did not give up the defence of its own interests but recognised that this could best be done from within the heart of the alliance. Today, a question of equal weight is being posed and the conflict in the Lebanon is bringing it to the fore.

Re-opening the divisions of the ruling class

Over the last few months Blair has defended his policy and tried to show that it is effective. In the June ’06 issue of WR we noted that Britain had been able to take advantage of the US’s difficulties to advance its own interests: in Iran where to some extent it succeeded in playing Europe, China and Russia against the US; in Afghanistan where it has sought to take a more prominent role through the deployment of additional troops; and in Iraq where it was able to hand over one area to the Iraqi government and reduce the number of troops. However, we warned then that all of these initiatives were fraught with dangers and noted especially that new military action by the US, which we suggested could be against Iran, “would cut the ground from underneath Britain since it would be forced again to take sides” (WR295, ‘British imperialism: the difficulties of maintaining an independent role [5]’). The Israeli offensive against Lebanon has accomplished this, while in Afghanistan and Iraq the military seem to be more and more bogged down.

The confrontation within the ruling class

From the first bombing of Beirut the British media gave extensive coverage of the destruction, listing the dead, interviewing the survivors and showing the agony of the injured. We have been given a glimpse of the reality of war in advanced capitalism. But this coverage, which runs from the main television channels, through liberal papers like The Guardian and The Independent to tabloids of the left and the right like The Mirror and The Mail, is not an exposé of a humanitarian nightmare as they would like us to think. Rather it is a weapon in the struggle that has broken out within the British ruling class. One only has to compare it with the coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the daily atrocities, which are every bit as bad, and often worse, are briefly reported. A UK general in Afghanistan has recently admitted that British troops haven’t faced such ‘persistent, low-level fighting’ since the Korean or Second World Wars. Or even more clearly in the coverage of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where some four million have been slaughtered in recent years with only a flicker of interest.

As the weeks of the Israeli offensive went by more and more voices were raised against Blair:

-          officials of the Foreign Office were reported to consider the bombing disproportionate and counter-productive;

-          Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, was attacked within the Foreign Office and by MPs and former ministers for her poor understanding of the situation;

-          a former senior Foreign Office official openly called on Blair to “use his credit in Washington and Israel to persuade President Bush and prime minister Olmert that their strategy has failed, and must be abandoned” (Guardian Unlimited, 1/8/06);

-          Kim Howells, a Foreign Office Minister, denounced the Israeli campaign in a visit to Beirut: “The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hizbollah, then go for Hizbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation” (Observer, 23/07/06);

-          reports emerged of splits in the cabinet, one minister saying of Blair “we could do with sounding a little more like Kim [Howells] and a little less like Condi [Rice]” (Guardian 29/7/06);

-          a Commons committee revealed that arms sales to Israel have doubled in the last two years;

-          Jack Straw, the previous foreign secretary, denounced the attacks in words similar to Howells: “There are not surgical strikes but have instead caused death and misery amongst innocent civilians” (Observer, 30/07/06). It was also revealed that Kofi Annan, the head of the UN, had phoned Straw to express his concern;

-          a senior UN official called for Britain to keep out of negotiations and follow the lead of powers like France;

-          two former ambassadors attacked Blair, one Sir Rodric Braitewaite asserted “Mr Blair has done more damage to British interests in the Middle East than Anthony Eden, who led the UK to disaster in Suez 50 years ago…Mr Blair’s total identification with the White House has destroyed his influence in Washington, Europe and the Middle East itself; who bothers with the monkey if he can go straight to the organ grinder?” (Guardian Unlimited 3/8/06). He accused Blair of making Britain vulnerable to terrorist attacks and called on him to resign immediately;

-          a memo from Britain’s retiring ambassador to Iraq was leaked to the press. This foresaw a future of war and chaos: “The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de-facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy” (Guardian, 4/8/06).

Despite this onslaught Blair did not bow down and defended his policy. While in America in early August he described an “arc of extremism stretching across the Middle East” and called for an “alliance of moderation” to confront it. He defended the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a global confrontation between values: “We are fighting a war – but not just against terrorism, but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values” (Guardian 2/8/06). This was the third in a series of speeches begun earlier in the year and echoed what he said in the first: “The different aspects of this terrorism are linked. The struggle against terrorism in Madrid or London or Paris is the same as the struggle against the terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the PIJ in Palestine or rejectionist groups in Iraq” (Guardian Unlimited, 21/3/06). Blair has also consolidated his position by replacing Straw, who had firmly rejected the idea of military action against Iran, with Beckett, who has limited experience of foreign affairs but is loyal to Blair.

On his return from the US Blair made a slightly stronger criticism of Israeli attacks, but rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire: “I have got to try and get a solution to this, and the solution will not come by condemning one side, it will not come simply by statements that we make, it will only come by a plan that allows a ceasefire on both sides and then a plan to deal with the underlying cause, which is the inability of the government of Lebanon to take control of the whole of Lebanon” (Guardian 4/8/06). Shortly after this America and France began to draft a resolution to go to the UN and froze Britain out. According to a report on Channel 4 news this was at the insistence of the French who expressed irritation about the way Britain is pro-Europe when in Europe and pro-America when there; in short, that it is two-faced. Initially Blair announced that he was delaying his holiday to stay in London to deal with the crisis but after a couple of days he gave up the pretence and left to join his family.

Towards a new crisis for British imperialism

The options facing the ruling class are all very risky: the way Britain was pushed out of the negotiations between France and America over the war in Lebanon gives an indication of what the future may be like. The essential point is that while Britain may still have options at the imperialist level, the one that it doesn’t have is to be able to resolve the fundamental contradiction of its position. Playing America off against Europe was the way Britain sought to ‘punch above its weight’, to quote the former Tory Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. With reduced opportunities for playing this card British imperialism faces the prospect of a further decline in its standing. In this sense it is confronted with an unpalatable reality just as it was fifty years ago.

With the struggle within the ruling class, Blair will face yet more pressure. The demands for a recall of parliament, the resignation of a junior member of the government, Labour MPs calling Bush’s policy ‘crap’, and the continuing media chatter in what should be the holiday ‘silly season’ all confirm that. What is clear is that this is a deeper crisis than at any time since 1989, and possibly since the Suez crisis of 1956, and that the difficulties facing the ruling class and the divisions within it can only intensify.
North, 19/8/06.

 

Apologists for the brutal assault of the Israeli armed forces on first Gaza and then Lebanon have scraped the bottom of the barrel for dubious ‘justifications’. In the face of attacks using indiscriminate air strikes, cluster bombs, phosphorous incendiary bombs, vacuum bombs, chemical weapons and all the rest of the devices available to a country that has nuclear weapons and warheads armed with depleted uranium, we are told that at least Israel issues warning leaflets before its bombardments. When the range of targets has included airports, roads, bridges, ambulances, UN personnel, civilians, factories, ports, farms and a whole range of other essential infrastructure (including an attack on a power plant that has resulted in tons of oil pouring into the sea), the propagandists for the Israeli offensive blame the hundreds of dead victims because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the military talk of “cleaning out” southern Lebanon, the apologists insist that Israel is defending itself, as any nation has the right to do. Nationalism is used to justify everything.

In Lebanon the main force set against Israel has been Hizbollah, as it has been since the early 1980s. It claimed to have 13,000 artillery rockets at the start of the latest conflict. It has generously deployed these against towns and cities across northern Israel. With a limited accuracy they have been launched against places including densely-populated Haifa and mainly Arab Nazareth.  Hizbollah claim to attack military targets, but the majority of its victims have been civilians, just like the Israeli state’s. The fact that it has so far killed dozens where Israel has killed hundreds only reflects the latter’s superior resources.

There should be no doubt as to Hizbollah’s intentions. Human Rights Watch criticised attacks on civilian areas in Israel on 18 July in part because “the warheads used suggest a desire to maximize harm to civilians. Some of the rockets launched against Haifa over the past two days contained hundreds of metal ball bearings that are of limited use against military targets but cause great harm to civilians and civilian property.” This is to be expected because Hizbollah’s ideology is identical to Israel’s – it is defending the state in which it plays a role in parliament and government, and over more than twenty years has proved itself as an effective military force. Nationalism is used to justify whatever it does.

Hizbollah’s role as part of the Lebanese state is not limited to the political and military sphere. It already fulfils basic state functions, alongside the ‘official’ state, with a basic welfare network of schools, hospitals, clinics and various development projects. The Lebanese ruling class is dependent on its contribution which, in turn, is supported by Iran and Syria.

Demonstrations for imperialist war

Many on the left are loud in their support for Hizbollah. George Galloway is blatant when he says “I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement” and recent demonstrations have been solidly pro-war in their backing for the Lebanese/Hizbollah military effort and against Israel.

Sponsored by the Stop The War Coalition, Muslim groups and CND the 5th August demo in London was a typical endorsement of the war. During the rally held at the end of the march we heard the insistence that Israel should be forced to pay reparations, sounding just like the French and British imperialists making demands on Germany after the First World War.

One speaker demanded “Yellow bellied Arab leaders get off your knees!” – a clear demand for the escalation of the war to draw in other countries and engulf the region.

Members of the Respect party claimed to be the only “anti-war” party as they dished out pro-war leaflets focussing exclusively on the damage inflicted on Lebanon. The main slogan of the march was “Unconditional ceasefire now”, but the qualification – “Stop Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza” - confirmed that there was a condition to the  ceasefire: it does not apply to Hizbollah, Syria or Iran, whose war-drive the march and rally saluted.

Telling lies about the ‘resistance’

There are other ways of selling what Wilfred Owen called “the old Lie” of how sweet it is to die for a patriotic cause.

The Socialist Workers Party has called for “solidarity with the resistance” because “the resistance Israel is meeting in Lebanon is a barrier to further wars and further destruction”. This is the opposite of the truth. The current conflicts involving Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon did not start a few weeks ago. To understand the roots of the conflicts, just like those in Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Egypt, you have to go back to the First World War and the break up of the Ottoman Empire. The biggest imperialist powers then grabbed different parts of the strategically important Middle East and have been manoeuvring in the region ever since. Smaller powers, groups and factions have either been used by bigger powers or tried to satisfy their own individual appetites. The 1948 formation of Israel, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1978 invasion of Lebanon, the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq – these are all moments in imperialist war from which no power, big or small, can stand aside. Today every faction says it agrees with a ‘two states’ solution – but Israel wants it to mean a Greater Israel and its opponents a unified Palestine. Far from being a ‘barrier’ to further wars the current conflict between Israel and Hizbollah shows every sign of having the capacity to escalate and involve other forces, thereby letting loose much greater destruction.

The SWP says that Hizbollah “is being supported by a growing wave of solidarity across the Arab world”. This is a weakness in the struggle of the exploited and oppressed because it shows that there are widespread illusions in the nationalist forces that are thrown up by imperialist conflicts and can only play a part in their exacerbation. The various ‘resistance’ forces, whether in Palestine/Lebanon or Iraq or Afghanistan, are presented as the only possible responses to Israeli offensives or US/British repression.

For example, the SWP quotes an activist in Beirut as saying that “Hizbollah, and Hamas in Palestine, are the only models of resistance we still have, the only ones that work.” Yet both of these organisations owed their origins to factions engaged in imperialist conflict. Israel had a hand in the setting up of Hamas as a counter to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Hizbollah was in many ways the brain-child of Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Iranian ambassador to Syria in the early 1980s, and has had the support of Iran and Syria in the years since then. They are not ‘models of resistance’ but models of auxiliary forces to the main capitalist battalions.

You will not find any ‘barriers’ to future wars and destruction in the ranks of those who are engaged in the current conflicts. The only force that has the capacity to strike at the heart of the capitalist system that engenders imperialist war is the international working class.

Demonstrators internationally are not only being asked to support the current conflict; they are also told to ‘put pressure on western governments’. In this they are being asked to believe that big powers like the US, Britain, France, or Germany could behave in any other way than as imperialist predators. As for the ‘national resistance movements’, they are either already integral to capitalism’s forces of repression and war or have that as an ambition. Capitalist society puts the international working class in conflict with the capitalist state world-wide, but where imperialist war can only lead to increasingly massive destruction, the class war of the working class can lead to a society without national divisions, to the liberation of humanity. 

6 August 2006

 

 

Although the political horizon seems to be darkened by war and barbarism, the proletarian perspective is still alive and growing. This is demonstrated not only by the development of workers’ struggles in numerous countries, but also by the appearance around the world of new groups and politicised elements trying to defend the internationalist positions which are the distinguishing mark of proletarian politics. The article on the congress of our French section in this issue refers to the OPOP in Brazil, and our current International Review contains correspondence with elements in Russia and Ukraine.

The Enternasyonalist Komunist Sol (International Communist Left) group in Turkey is another expression of this trend. Below is a leaflet produced by the group in response to the war in Lebanon. The emergence of this internationalist voice in Turkey is particularly significant, given the strength of nationalism in that country (peddled in particular by the so-called ‘left’), and the fact that Turkey is deeply implicated in the inter-imperialist rivalries which are creating such havoc in the region. The Turkish state is about to launch a new offensive against the Kurdish nationalist PKK – a military campaign which will certainly be justified ideologically by the recent wave of terrorist attacks in a number of Turkish cities, which have been attributed to Kurdish nationalist factions. The Kurdish question is directly related to the situation in Iraq, Iran and Syria, and Turkey is one of the few states in the region to have close ties with Israel. The war in Lebanon is thus very ‘close’ to the working class in Turkey; and at the same time, the Turkish working class, which has a long tradition of militant struggle, could play a major role in the development, throughout that region, of a proletarian alternative to imperialist war.

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On the Situation in Lebanon and Palestine

On July 12, right after the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by the Hizbollah, Israeli president Ehud Olmert promised Lebanon a “very painful and far-reaching response”. During the early hours of July 13, the State of Israel started an invasion and pushed its working class into another nationalist and imperialist war. The Israeli state started this invasion for its own interests and without caring about the blood that would be shed. In fifteen days, about four hundred Lebanese civilians lost their lives. Not even the current ceasefire guarantees that the massacres won’t start again as the Israeli state showed that it would destroy anything threatening its own interests, not only with the last conflict but with the ongoing torture of the Palestinians.

Yet, it should not be forgotten that Israel is not the only side responsible for this conflict. Neither Hizbollah, which is attracting the attention of the world nowadays with the fight they gave to the Israelis with a violence that could match their own, nor the PLO and Hamas who have been carrying out a nationalist war in Palestine for years, can be considered ‘clean’. Hizbollah, which was the excuse Israel showed the world before the beginning of the conflict, killed Israeli civilians with rockets provided by Syria and Iran throughout the war. Hizbollah is an anti-Semitic and religious fundamentalist organisation. Most importantly, contrary to what some think, Hizbollah did not fight to protect the Lebanese; instead Hizbollah forced the Lebanese working class to join a nationalist front for its own interests, and it struggled only for the territories they controlled and the authority they had. The PLO which pushed the Palestinian workers from class struggle into the claws of their national bourgeoisie, and Hamas which is an organisation that is as reactionary, violent, anti-Semitic and religiously fundamentalist as Hizbollah, also act only for their own interests.

At this point, it is necessary to briefly describe imperialism. Contrary to what most people think, imperialism is not a policy strong nation states practice in order to take over weak nation states’ resources. Instead it is the policy of a nation state, or an organisation that functions as a nation state, that controls a certain territory, resources on that territory and authority over the population in that territory. To phrase it simply, imperialism is the natural policy any nation state, or organisation that functions as a nation state, practices. As we have seen in the last conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, in some situations nation states or organisations functioning as nation states have clashing interests, and this clash finally reaches the point of an inter-imperialist war.

As the situation is like this, what leftists in Turkey and the world are saying becomes even more ridiculous and inconsistent. Both in Turkey and the world, a great majority of leftists have given full support to the PLO and Hamas. In the latest conflict they become one voice and said “We are all Hizbollah”. By following the logic of saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, they fully embraced this violent organisation which pushed its working class into a disastrous nationalist war. The support leftists gave to nationalism shows us why leftists don’t have much to say that is different from what parties like MHP (Nationalist Movement Party – the fascist Grey Wolves) not only on Hizbollah, PLO and Hamas, but on many other subjects. Especially in Turkey, leftists don’t have any idea what they are talking about.

Both the war between Hizbollah and Israel and the war in Palestine are inter-imperialist wars and all sides use nationalism to draw workers in their territories onto their sides. The more workers get sucked up into nationalism, the more they will lose the ability to act as a class. This is why neither Israel, nor Hizbollah, nor PLO nor Hamas should be supported under any circumstances. What should be supported during this conflict is the workers’ struggle to survive, not nationalist organisations or states that are getting them killed. Yet more importantly, what should be done in Turkey is to work for class consciousness and class struggle that will develop here. Imperialism and capitalism bind all countries together; this is why national independence is impossible. Only workers’ struggle for their own needs can provide an answer.

For Internationalism and Workers Struggle!

Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol, 1/9/06.

 

The following article was sent to us by members of the Midlands Discussion Forum. As well as putting forward a very clear general perspective on the recent council workers’ strike, it contains some very interesting information about a small but significant expression of class solidarity in the wake of the strike.

28 March 2006 saw the biggest strike in Britain since 1926. More than 1 million workers in local government – in housing departments, refuse collection, street cleaning, libraries, school meals and cleaning, and other departments – were called out by eight unions including Unison, Amicus, T&G and GMB. This was a union ‘day of action’ against proposed reforms to the pension system, which would mean local government workers accepting the same pension deal as most private sector workers and continuing to work to 65 at least, instead of the current rules that allow many state workers to retire at 60.

The proposed reform to pensions matches similar reforms in other European countries, such as France and Austria in 2003, and in the USA. The proposal is part of a wider attack by the British state on ‘the social wage’, including an extension of the working age to 68 for those currently under 30, and is a sign of capitalism’s historic bankruptcy. No longer able to provide anything for the working class other than long-term unemployment or overwork until an early death, workers are told we cannot expect the state to support us in our old age, after a lifetime of toil, or a lifetime wasted on the dole.

As in France and Austria, as in the New York transport workers’ strike at the end of 2005, there has been massive anger from workers over these reforms, which call into question the very idea of the future capitalism has to offer. This anger has led to the unions putting themselves at the head of the protests against them. The issue of pensions is an issue that affects the whole of the working class; it is an attack on whole class; it is an issue that unites all workers, whatever sector they work in, whatever their age, whether they are employed or unemployed. The massive mobilisations in France showed the extent of workers’ anger there; the massive strike in Britain showed the workers’ anger here; this isn’t just an issue for British workers or British capitalism, but a worldwide sign of capitalism’s historic failure.

From the beginning, the unions tried to divide workers into categories to fragment any sense of solidarity. There was no call to extend the strike to other categories of state workers who can also retire at 60, but whose pensions were not under threat – civil servants, teachers, or health workers for example – or those in the private sector who generally must work to 65. Even within council departments, there were divisions – some areas and departments would work normally, others would be closed or partially closed as workers went on strike.

 The press also attacked the most basic principles of working class solidarity: the council workers were presented as ‘privileged’ (because their working conditions had not been attacked quite as savagely as other workers in the 1980s) and out of touch with economic reality, a throwback to the ‘bad old days’ of the 1970s and ‘80s (in other words, to the last time large numbers of workers in Britain were expressing their combativity).

In one town in the Midlands, several council departments were on strike, including the street cleaning department – this department is made up of both permanent-contract workers, mostly GMB members, and temporary-contract workers, mostly young workers who have come to Britain from Poland after the eastward expansion of the EU, and are employed by job agencies. These workers are not unionised; in general, very few workers employed by job agencies are members of unions.

As a result of the strike, those strikers who were on permanent contracts but not union members were disciplined, for instance by having the option to do overtime withdrawn – in a job as badly paid as street cleaning, overtime is for some workers absolutely vital to make ends meet. The young Polish agency workers, however, who struck in solidarity with their union colleagues, were sacked.

The reaction of the permanent staff at the street cleaning department was anger at this blatant provocation. An impromptu meeting of around 35 workers – about half of those on shift the next morning – was held in the works canteen to decide how to get these young workers re-instated. Representations were made to the GMB shop steward in the department, who informed the workers that as the agency workers were not union members, the union would do nothing to help. Three workers’ delegates demanded from management that the agency workers be re-instated. The management’s reply was that the agency workers had not actually been sacked by the department; because their contract of employment was with the agency, it was the agency, not the council, that had declined to re-employ them as the contract had been breached.

This hypocritical response provoked the workers at the department even further. A further meeting with management followed, at which the workers demanded re-instatement of their sacked colleagues. Management agreed to write a letter to the agency informing them that the Polish workers were not to be blamed for not coming to work; that in the ‘confusion’ of the strike it was difficult to know who had or had not turned up. This letter was then delivered by two of the workers to the employment agency – in order to ensure that they arrived, as the workers did not trust management to see that this was done. As a result, all of the sacked workers were re-instated.

United, the working class is an irresistible force; when workers show solidarity with each other, striking in sympathy and solidarity, demanding from management the re-instating of sacked colleagues, transcending the barriers that capitalism tries to erect between us – union/non-union, permanent/temporary, contract/agency, native/migrant – each action, though in itself tiny, is a part of the process by which the working class as a whole begins to re-discover its own identity as a world class, and as an historic class too; the class that holds the future of the humanity within itself, the bearers of communism.

1/9/06.
 

 

At the time of writing a number of workers’ struggles were developing up and down the country:

-               on the railways, 900 South West Trains workers staged a 24-hour strike in protest against management strike-breaking tactics in a previous dispute, and further strikes could take place in September. Workers on the Heathrow Express were also on strike in a  separate dispute;

-               in the health sector, there has been a series of strikes by domestics, porters and catering workers employed by Rentokil Initial at Whipps Cross hospital in Leytonstone, London. They are demanding the same pay and conditions as NHS-employed workers. The strikes have been escalating from one to two to three days and the next one could be five days and/or indefinite. Striking workers have gathered in large numbers at the entrance to the hospital, providing the opportunity for other hospital employees, hospital users, and workers from other sectors to discuss with them and express their support.

-               in the fire service, Merseyside fire fighters began a strike at the end of August that could last 8 days or more. The workers are angry about massive cuts that will lead to job losses and shift changes that will increase working hours. Anger has been further fuelled by management attempts to operate a scab service

-               in the post office, workers have been going though a  long drawn-out rigmarole of balloting for official action over job losses and other issues, but the discontent of the workers has exploded into spontaneous action in a number of centres in the last few months: Plymouth and Belfast in March, Wolverhampton in May, Oxford in July.

The most recent of these outbreaks in the postal service was at Exeter mail centre, where 300 workers walked out quite spontaneously after a local union representative was accused of taking fake sick days and was docked pay as a result. Postal workers employed at Exeter airport came out as well.

The fact that workers have walked out in defence of a union rep has been used by leftists like the SWP to present this as a strike for ‘trade union rights’. No doubt many of the workers see it that way, but at the same time they are fighting against the victimisation of a fellow worker and against management bullying in general. 

These strikes are still very dispersed and fairly well-controlled by the trade unions. But  there is an overall change of climate in the class struggle, not only in Britain but internationally, as illustrated in particular by the massive movement of young ‘workers to be’ in the French schools and universities in the spring, by the mass assemblies organised by the metal workers of Vigo in Spain, by the current struggles of miners in Chile, car workers in Brazil, education workers in Mexico, and many others. A key element in many of these movements has been a growing recognition of the need for class solidarity, and we have seen this again in some of the current strikes in Britain. It is this recognition that will lead workers to try to widen their struggles beyond the immediate limitations of workplace or union membership.  Amos, 2.9.06

The depredations of imperialism in the Middle East and Asia have been so violent in recent years that the bourgeois media has been unable to black them out. Yet there has been less focus on the continuing confrontations taking place in Africa. Whole swathes of this continent have plunged into war and ruin, and yet the bourgeoisie is very careful to keep this away from the headlines. This is because Africa shows in frightening detail the real future that the capitalist mode of production has for humanity. Particularly instructive is the case of Somalia, as analysed in this article written by a close sympathiser.

Somalia in the Cold War

Throughout the Cold War, Somalia played a key role in the antagonism between the US and Russian-led blocs, whilst also attempting to pursue its own imperialist interests. First serving as a Russian client state, it rapidly switched sides in order to secure the Ogaden region from a weakened Ethiopia in the late 70s. This particularly bloody and senseless war nonetheless cemented its position in the US bloc, which made use of its strategically important naval bases to dominate the Red Sea and Arabian Sea.

Collapse and Decomposition

In the late 80s and early 90s, the Russian bloc completely collapsed, exhausted by the strain of competing with the superior US. The US bloc was not immune to this economic pressure, however, and Somalia had been pushed to the brink of social collapse by the protracted struggles of the Cold War. In 1991, the US-backed regime there crumbled and the state began to fragment. The US attempted to retrieve the situation by sending a “peace keeping” force under the banner of the UN. This effort was shipwrecked by the now infamous Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, which led to a swift and humiliating withdrawal by Uncle Sam.

Following the US withdrawal, Somalia effectively disintegrated as a nation-state, with regions claiming independence.  Today, there is still no central authority; power is exercised by regional militias. To a certain extent Somalia has stepped back to a debased version of pre-capitalist social organisation – based on clan and tribal forms. Somalia today thus expresses, in an advanced form, the same tendencies of decomposition that have also been noted in Russia and elsewhere: collapse of the state, complete gangsterisation of the economy, etc. Nonetheless, this has not prevented larger capitalists from exploiting the working class. Coca-cola opened a bottling plant in Mogadishu in 2004!

In May 2006, the capital Mogadishu was rent by a battle for control between two main factions: the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and the Islamic Court Union (ICU). The former is a coalition of warlords connected to the Somali Transtional Government (STG) that rules central Somalia. At present, the ICU has the advantage, having routed the secular warlords and seized control of the capital.

The threat of wider war

The situation in Somalia is not simply the product of internal difficulties. Regional and global interests are driving various powers to intervene, stoking up wider tension in the region. The forces of the STG are strongly backed by Ethiopia. The STG is even said to have requested up to 20,000 Ethiopian troops to come to their aid[1] [11] and rumours persist of Ethiopian forces operating on Somalian soil. Although the Ethiopian government has denied this, they have vowed to “crush” any ICU advance on Baidoa, seat of the STG[2] [12]. Not to be outdone by Ethiopia, other regional powers are trying to get in on the game. Eritrea is providing arms and materiel to the ICU, undoubtedly as a way of containing any advance by its Ethiopian rival. Eritrea also has interests in Sudan, which is itself currently at war with Chad. Yemen, meanwhile, is rumoured to be supplying the STG, probably in pursuit of its own rivalry with Eritrea.

The US is also funneling support to the anti-Islamic coalitions[3] [13], while US officials have accused the ICU of harbouring al-Qaeda. Under the pretext of the “War on Terror” it is attempting to reassert its military interests in the area – Somalian naval bases occupy an important strategic position, allowing the US to assert naval power across Eastern Africa, into the Middle East and into the Indian Ocean. This is part of an ongoing effort by the US. In 2003, Bush used a tour of Africa as a cover for building up US military power on the continent. Djibouti, which borders Somalia to the North, serves as a base for “more than 1,800 members of the US military [that] have been placed in Djibouti for counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa”[4] [14].

The loss of Mogadishu will only make the US even more determined to assert itself in the region. Earlier this year, the Pentagon indicated that “the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, north Africa, central and south-east Asia and the northern Caucasus”[5] [15] would all be areas of operation for US forces. With its never-ending spiral of wars, social collapse, grinding poverty and repugnant barbarism Africa represents the future that capitalism has for the whole of humanity. The working class has nothing to gain from any accommodation with any faction of the bourgeoisie. Whether degenerated “radical” Islam or the moribund “great powers”, none have the capacity to take humanity beyond the catastrophic impasse it now faces. Only the working class and its communist revolution can offer anyway out.  DG, 1/9/06.

The British policeman who announced the arrest of a number of suspects in the latest bomb plot said that the group had been planning “mass murder on an unimaginable, unprecedented scale”.

If they were indeed planning to destroy planeloads of passengers above US cities, this was certainly a plan for mass murder. The methods of Bin Laden and the ‘jihadists’ who admire him are the methods of barbarism. The victims of their attacks are first and foremost the exploited and the oppressed, the workers, the poor. In New York, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Beslan, in Iraq every day, the “Islamic resistance” massacres those going to work, those trying to survive day by day in a hostile society. In fact the methods of the ‘jihadists’ are the same as those of the ‘infidel’ powers they claim to oppose – the US, Britain, Israel, Russia and the rest.

And just as the governments of the ‘west’ try to stir up Islamophobia and racism against those identified as Muslims, the jihadis’ response is to preach racism against the ‘kafirs’, and in particular against the Jews, reviving the worst lies of Hitlerism. These ideologies are used to justify the mass slaughter of non-Muslims (in which Muslims also die by the thousands, as in Iraq today). The jihadis are the true mirror image of Bush and Blair and their ‘war on terror’.    

But that is our point. Terrorist atrocities against the innocent are neither “unimaginable” nor “unprecedented”. Those in power who condemn this most recent intended atrocity carry out far greater ones, because they have the superior firepower. These are the ‘democratic’ jihadis in charge of the world’s major states, those responsible for slaughtering civilians on a far higher scale – in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Lebanon, in Chechnya… The wars unleashed by the ‘democratic’ powers are the supreme model of terror: what else can you call the use of massive military force to intimidate entire populations? What else is Israel’s devastation of Lebanon, what else was the USA’s “shock and awe” campaign in 2003, or for that matter Churchill’s “area bombing” of Germany at the end of the Second World War?   

The ‘democratic’ state manipulates terrorists

Imperialist war is terror against humanity. And the states that wage it are equally adept in the shadowy methods of the ‘terrorists’ as they are in the open, massive terror of aerial bombardments. Who else trained Bin Laden to fight the Russians but ‘democratic’ America? Who used the Protestant gangs to carry out assassinations and bombings in Ulster? ‘Democratic’ Britain. Whose ‘founding fathers’ were also terrorists like Menachim Begin? ‘Anti-terrorist’ Israel. And through its spies and informers, the ‘democratic’ state can also make subtle use of the terrorist gangs even when they are on the ‘other side’. Despite the official polemics against ‘conspiracy theories’, there is mounting evidence to suggest that the US state allowed al Qaida to proceed with its attacks in September 2001; the aim – which had already been openly considered by the ‘Neo-Con’ theorists – was to create a new Pearl Harbour to justify a huge imperialist offensive in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it is equally capable of manufacturing terrorist plots when nothing really exists: Jean Charles de Menezes gave his life to one of these set-ups in Stockwell, and the massive raid in Forest Gate last June nearly resulted in another ‘accidental’ death. Because whether the threat is real or invented, the state will always use the activities of the terrorists to strengthen their arsenal of repressive laws, their vast apparatus of informing and surveillance.

After September 11 Bush offered us a false choice: with us, or with the terrorists. Today millions have seen what Bush stands for, but they haven’t escaped the false choice. Many young people who see that the world we live in is heading for disaster are being misled towards the terrorists as the only ‘alternative’. But it is a false alternative, an equally disastrous dead-end, turning them into recruiting agents in a suicide-march towards imperialist war. This is evident in the warfare spreading throughout the Middle East, warfare that is also rebounding to the USA and Europe

The class struggle is our only future

But faced with the inexorable decay of present day society, which is sliding into war and chaos, there is another side: the side of the exploited class, the proletariat, the vast majority of us, who have no interest in being dragged into fratricidal conflicts and inter-imperialist massacres.

Faced with the accelerating collapse of capitalism, which, in every part of the globe, has proved that it is endangering the very survival of humanity, there is one war still worth fighting: the class war, uniting the workers of all countries and colours against the gangsters who rule the planet but are now increasingly losing control of it.  

The battle between the classes, which many claimed to be buried, is once again breaking out. It can be seen in a number of recent movements:

 

• In the assemblies and demonstrations of the French students, massively on strike in the schools and universities, all colours and creeds combined; a movement which, like 1968, shook the powers that be, above all when growing numbers of waged workers began to join the students,
• In the wildcat strike by the postal workers of Belfast: officially ‘Loyalist’ and ‘Catholic’, they unofficially marched together down ‘enemy’ streets in defiance of the national schism and the paramilitary gangs of both camps,
• In the strike at Heathrow last year, where the baggage handlers walked out in solidarity with the Gate Gourmet workers, united across racial and sexual divisions by their common indignation against the grossly tyrannical methods of management, and in doing so, once again defied all trade union legislation. 

 

These expression of working class solidarity are the outlines of the true community of mankind, a community made by human action for human beings, and thus no longer in thrall to religion or the state.

World Revolution, 14/8/06.

The 17th Congress of the section of the ICC in France took place at the same moment as the movement of the young generation of workers in response to growing uncertainty in employment. The movement of the students against the CPE expressed the highest point reached up to now by the international resurgence of workers’ struggles, which has also just been reconfirmed in Vigo, Spain (see WR no. 295). The class struggle is now entering a new period. Faced with this situation, our organisation, as a matter of priority, had to focus the work of this Congress on the demands posed by such an important situation.

The work of the Congress was thus clearly oriented towards understanding all the implications that this struggle could have on our activity, particularly our intervention. In this situation, conscious of its responsibilities, the Congress succeeded in fulfilling its responsibilities and its tasks. The presence at this Congress of a revolutionary organisation from Brazil thus took on a particular significance. It is undeniable that the proletarian political milieu is about to enter a new phase of development after the one that we saw at the end of the 1960s and the beginnings of the 70s. This is an essential given of the new historic period. And it was in order to be up to the necessities of the new situation that our organisation invited the Brazilian group Workers’ Opposition (OPOP)[1] [29] to take part in the work of the Congress.

The 17th Congress of RI draws the lessons of the struggle of the younger generation

Since 2003 we have highlighted the turning point taking place in the international class struggle. As we wrote at the time, “the large scale mobilisations, from spring 2003 in France and Austria represent a turning point  in the class struggle since 1989. They are the first significant steps in the revival of workers’ combativity after the longest period of reflux since 1968” (International Review no. 119). This resurgence of class struggle certainly turned out to be difficult but, with the movement of the students in France, it underwent a very important political advance. At the close of long and rich discussions, the Congress underlined the importance of this first combat of the younger generation of the working class in a text bringing together all the characteristics and the lessons of this movement. The ‘Theses on the students’ movement of spring 2006 in France’ were thus adopted by the 17th Congress of RI. It says that “no matter how the bourgeoisie manoeuvres, it cannot suppress all the experience accumulated through weeks of struggle by tens of thousands of future workers, their awakening to politics and their developing consciousness. This will be a real treasure-trove for the future struggles of the proletariat, a vital element in their ability to continue down the path towards the communist revolution.” (‘Theses’, International Review no. 125). The international dimension of this movement was clearly developed in the debates of the Congress, as well as the importance of drawing out the lessons and experience from it. The OPOP, during the Congress, situated itself entirely within this framework: “ …(the) preoccupation (of) proletarian internationalism (…) was explicit in the majority of discussions, (we’ve) seen that the class struggle has been examined, in the majority of interventions, through an internationalist prism, even when it was a question of the situation in France” (position of the OPOP on the work of the RI Congress).

Solidarity and culture of debate: the ICC develops on the experience of the Communist Left

This capacity to understand the historic and international significance of the struggle of the young generation in France was also concretised in the strengthening of the internal cohesion of the ICC. This Congress showed a very strong desire for political clarification on the part of all the delegations of the ICC and of all the militants. But this clarification isn’t possible without a solid proletarian internal life. At the Congress this was manifested in the profound spirit of camaraderie in the debates.

Solidarity, the confidence of comrades among themselves and towards the organisation is indispensable for a real proletarian culture of debate. This culture of debate, the will to confront arguments was saluted by the delegation of the OPOP which, thanks to the fraternal climate of the discussions,  was able to join in the debates quite naturally: “We think that, following the debates which have already taken place between our two organisation both  in Brazil as in France, we have  the  elements for  a common activity, or at least common work where possible. This will play a part in the development of our two organisations, with the wider aim of  developing the consciousness and organisation of  the  workers of the whole world”.

The OPOP’s capacity to clearly join in the activity of the proletarian political milieu, such as we saw at the Congress, has been welcomed with enthusiasm by our organisation. Despite the disagreements that may persist between organisations, any group of the proletarian political milieu needs to actively participate in the theoretical elaboration of the central problems posed to the proletariat. It is vital to develop a common intervention in response to crucial situations for the proletariat. Against all sectarianism, immobilisation, and opportunism, OPOP manifested an understanding which is rich in promise for the future: “Despite some differences that we’ve noted, treated and deepened in the discussions and meetings, we want to put forward the points we have in common. We are two organisations which belong to the camp of the proletariat, who are not looking to dispute the political space of the bourgeoisie, who have no illusions in union organisations that are chained to the capitalist state.” The political approach shown by the OPOP in this passage on the work of the Congress is unequivocal. It is the same approach that we have put forward since the foundation of the ICC. It is this approach which will help to fertilise the new proletarian groups, against all the erroneous conceptions which have helped to weaken the left communist milieu that came out of the historic resurgence of the class struggle at the end of the 1960s.

The Congress faces up to the responsibilities of revolutionaries

On the basis of these debates our organisation, while continuing to be an active part of the youth movement  against the CPE, also managed to trace perspectives for its future activity. The Congress clearly affirmed that it is intervention that must orient the activity of the ICC in the period of the re-emergence of the class struggle at the international level. But in this domain particularly, the present is not opposed to the future. The intensive mobilisation of the organisation for intervention in the general assemblies of the students and the demonstrations has also helped us to situate our perspectives for activity in the context of the historical movement of the proletariat. As the struggle in the universities and schools has concretely demonstrated, the young generations, while struggling against the degradation of the living conditions of the whole working class, have immediately and simultaneously posed much greater political questions: what perspectives does capitalism offer to humanity? Why is the world sinking into misery and war? Responding to these questions posed by the new generation must be one of the priorities of revolutionaries. The Congress was firmly involved in the orientation of activities along these lines. It was these orientations, drawn from the discussions on the international struggle of the proletariat and its demands, which were particularly underlined by the OPOP: “…we recognise that it has permitted us to participate in a meeting where the preoccupations and the discussions have been determined by the class struggle at the international level. In these discussions it has been verified that for some time now we have been  engaged in a historic period of  resurgence in  the consciousness of the working class at the world level. The debates have also confirmed  the importance of the role of new generations unaffected by the weaknesses and political conditioning of their predecessors, in the future struggles of the entire world. The OPOP shares the vision that there exists a dynamic of the resurgence of consciousness, the result of  the aggravation of the crisis of capitalism and the necessity to react faced with the uncertainty engendered by the system.

Beware however of having  too optimistic a vision in the short term, which could have existed in the Congress and which expressed itself in the heat of the students’ and workers’ struggles in France.”

It is perfectly clear that the OPOP shares with the ICC the understanding of the international resurgence of class struggle initiated in 2003, and of the growing importance within this of the young generations. On the other hand, we want to note here that our organisation doesn’t share the idea that the ICC, at the time of the Congress, was being too “optimistic”. We cannot, in the framework of this article, develop a real response to the remarks of the OPOP. We invite comrades to read attentively our theses, which argue for the historic and international importance of this movement in the long term. However, we would like to draw attention here to the political significance of the fear felt by the bourgeoisie about the possibility of the extension of the movement to the whole of the working class around April. It was faced with this danger and with the example that it could represent for the whole of the proletariat in other countries that the bourgeoisie developed its political counter-offensive. In France, it was obliged to withdraw the CPE after the big demonstration of April 4th. In other countries of Europe such as Germany, the dominant class had to put to one side, at least for the time being, the plans for laws similar to the CPE. This reality demonstrates the highly proletarian content of this movement, its importance in the immediate but still more for future struggles.

The working class must appropriate proletarian morality

In this Congress there was a particular discussion on the evolution of an internal debate begun at the international level in June 2004 on the questions of proletarian ethics and morality. This discussion is crucial for the combat of the whole of the working class, but equally for strengthening the life of revolutionary minorities. Our organisation, from its foundation, has been preoccupied with these questions. But this preoccupation has been shown in an intuitive manner rather than being consciously assumed. It was necessary for us to be confronted with behaviour worthy of thugs and informers by the self-proclaimed “Internal Fraction of the ICC” to understand the necessity to theoretically confront the question of ethics and its link to the political behaviour of revolutionaries.

The degeneration of morals in capitalist society, the growth of every man for himself and the decomposition of social ties has provoked an undeniable development of pessimism about human qualities, a rejection, denial even, of the importance of the moral values which distinguish the human species from the animal world. According to the celebrated formula of Hobbes, man will always be a wolf to man. To the bourgeoisie’s nihilist vision of “human nature”, revolutionaries must oppose the vision of the proletariat. To the negation of all morals in decadent capitalism, revolutionaries must defend a proletarian morality. It’s for this reason that, for two years now, our organisation has developed in depth a reflection and theoretical debate on this subject. For marxism, the origin of morality resides in the entirely social and collective nature of humanity. Understanding the origins of morality and its evolution throughout history is indispensable for the capacity of the proletariat to develop its own morality. It is equally necessary to reappropriate the struggle of marxism against bourgeois “morality”. The discussions at the Congress took off from a theoretical debate that is already well underway. It decided to pursue this debate so that the fruit of this collective elaboration can be taken up in our press and transmitted to the whole of the working class.

The importance of the question of proletarian morality and ethics for the combat of the working class has not escaped the OPOP. During the Congress, this organisation showed, through its delegation, the desire to concretely participate in this discussion. We welcomed this initiative from the OPOP with the greatest interest: “Another aspect to underline has been the discussion on ethics. It is salutary that an organisation of the proletariat should preoccupy and involve itself in the formation of its militants, general political formation, but also concerning militant behaviour. Although we’ve only been involved in some relative discussions and some partial conclusions of a discussion which (as was said) has already developed over two years, we have been able to see an attempt to deepen the subject, although there also seems to be the risk of a certain fragmentation (that said, we haven’t the knowledge of all the discussions taking place).” OPOP expresses here in its position a profound understanding of the political importance of this question. It correctly underlines the existence of a certain dispersion in the debate on ethics during the Congress. But what could appear to be a fragmentation in this discussion is in fact the reflection of the immensity of the theoretical task to be undertaken. The questions of ethics and proletarian morality, of “human nature” necessitate investigating the field of sciences so as draw out everything that can enrich the marxist vision. It has always been a preoccupation of marxism to be well informed and assimilate the scientific advances and techniques of human civilisation. The work of Engels in The Dialectics of Nature is, amongst others, a clear illustration. It is this same type of theoretical work that our organisation is engaged in today through the debate on proletarian morality[2] [30].

The appearance of new proletarian groups in this period of the re-emergence of workers’ struggles demands that the ICC lives up to its responsibilities as an organisation of the communist left. The Workers’ Opposition (OPOP), which arose in the 1980s, in its openness towards serious and fraternal debate, in its desire for the common intervention of revolutionaries, has shown that it is a true expression of this new proletarian milieu. Faced with the emergence of this new proletarian milieu, the ICC will continue to assume its responsibilities, in the same spirit that it did in this Congress, which the OPOP saluted: “We have had the very great honour of participating, in spring this year, in the Congress of the ICC section in France. We took part, as an invited group, in the unfolding of the work of the Congress, which we attentively followed, intervening each time we judged it necessary”.

The ICC must be a motor element in the clarification and regroupment of the revolutionary forces of the future. The experience accumulated by the ICC on the conception of organisation and functioning is an indispensable element for new proletarian organisations. A congress is an essential moment in the life of a revolutionary organisation, a means to demonstrate concretely its conception of organisation. “The agenda of the Congress included a balance sheet of the activity of the organisation, a discussion which helped us to discover a great deal about  the functioning of this organisation, with the possibility of drawing from it lessons for our own political life. We also learned a lot about how we treat the revolutionary press and the importance of using the internet as a supplementary instrument in the service of a really proletarian intervention” (OPOP). It is this experience of our internal life that the Congress strove to transmit to the OPOP.

After more than ten years dominated by the tendency towards the mutual isolation of groups coming out of the communist left current, the present development of the international wave of workers’ struggles opens the perspective of a new pole of regroupment at the international level. The presence of the OPOP at the 17th Congress of RI, its fraternal participation in the debates, its will to pursue discussion with the ICC, constitutes a clear illustration of the dynamic of the resurgence of struggle and consciousness of the working class at the international level.

ICC, 1/9/06.

Marking anniversaries is a favourite way for the ruling class to make nationalist or militarist propaganda. However, the capitalist class in Britain is probably grateful that in October and November this year there will be a flurry of publicity for the fiftieth anniversary of the USSR’s crushing of the Nagy regime and the workers’ councils in Hungary: it probably hopes recalling the horrors of ‘Communism’ will distract a little from having to retell the embarrassing story of the Suez crisis of 1956.

There’s really only one way of presenting the events and the inevitable outcome. There’s no way of hiding British and French humiliation and the confirmation of America’s dominant position. As a recent article on the subject in The Economist (27/7/6) acknowledged: Suez “marked the humiliating end of imperial influence for two European countries, Britain and France” and “made unambiguous, even to the most nostalgic blimps, America’s supremacy over its Western allies”.

End of illusions

In the post-war world, while allowing for economic difficulties, both Britain and France continued to deploy military force in defence of their imperialist interests. British intervention in Malaysia and Kenya, French action in Indochina and Algeria are just the most obvious examples of force being used by these two old imperial powers before Suez.

However, the Second World War had severely undermined Britain’s ability to function as a major power. As we explained in a text on the ‘Evolution of the British situation since the Second World War’ in International Review 17: “Britain’s capacity to remain a global imperialist power was broken by the systematic efforts of the US during the Second World War and its aftermath… By the end of the war the US was well on its way to achieving its wartime goals regarding Britain and the Empire … while the US demobilised at speed, Britain had to support substantial forces in Europe … Several other measures were taken to keep up the economic pressure on British capital…” The article demonstrated that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US meant the dominance of the US.

However, Britain had not abandoned the possibility of an independent imperialist policy. This led to its downfall with Suez.

The US had withdrawn aid to Egypt for the construction of the Aswan Dam following Egypt’s purchase of weapons from countries in the Russian bloc. This was among the factors that led to Egypt’s perfectly legal nationalisation of the Suez Canal, which was jointly owned by Britain and France.

These two countries – although lyingly denying it at the time – made an agreement with Israel that it would attack Egypt, and then Britain and French forces would pose as peacekeepers trying to keep Israel and Egypt apart. In reality, after the initial Israeli offensive, the two powers attacked Egypt, which retaliated by sinking all the ships in the canal.

In response to this the US dusted off its anti-imperialist rhetoric to denounce Britain and France. President Eisenhower showed sympathy toward the Arab nations and their “continuing anger toward their former colonial rulers, notably France and Great Britain”. The leader of the only country to use atomic weapons in war said in a broadcast “we do not accept the use of force as a wise and proper instrument for the settlement of international disputes”. Eisenhower asserted that the US “had laboured tirelessly to bring peace and stability” to the Middle East, and, accordingly, used the United Nations, in conjunction with Russia, to impose a cease-fire on Britain and France.

The US also put economic pressure on Britain, standing in the way of IMF loans that it was desperate for, and threatening the value of the pound through the sale of US reserves.

Britain and France had to accept the cease-fire. The US had posed as the friend of nations emerging from colonial rule, while at the same time confirming its position as the dominant power in the western bloc. The shock for France and Britain lay in losing their illusions and facing up to their real status on the world stage, both now transparently second rate imperialisms.

This realisation led to furious rows in the ranks of the British ruling class. Tory government and Labour opposition agreed that Nasser’s behaviour was like that of Hitler or Mussolini. But where Prime Minister Eden insisted on the military option (which Labour didn’t rule out), Gaitskell, Bevan and co asserted the role of the UN with the slogan ‘Law not War’. There were cries of ‘treachery’, ‘appeasement’ and ‘Nasser’s lackeys’. The fierceness of the disagreements stemmed from the weakness of British imperialism’s position. Neither law nor war would serve British interests.

At the same time that the main factions of the bourgeoisie were painfully acknowledging their real position, leftist groups sowed illusions in anti-colonial national liberation struggles. Tony Cliff, leading figure in the SWP, for example, wrote at the time in Socialist Review (August 1958) that “the Suez adventure - which ended in a fiasco, weakened the Western Imperialist foothold in the Middle East” and that whatever the US and Britain did “imperialism is doomed to defeat”. In reality, while the British and French position was weakened, that of the US was not, nor was that of the USSR. In the Middle East “The 1948 war served to dislodge British imperialism from the region. That of 1956 marked the reinforcement of American control. While those of 1967, 1973 and 1982 represented American imperialism’s counter-offensive against the growing penetration of Russian imperialism which had made more or less stable alliances with Syria, Egypt and Iraq” (International Review 68). In these imperialist conflicts Cliff’s group, like other Trotskyists, while saying that imperialism was ‘doomed’, demanded support for its Russian variety. “Nasser represents national independence and progress. As such his fight against imperialism should be supported by every socialist.”

After Suez

The impact of Suez echoes down the years. Among the paratroopers in the Israeli action was Ariel Sharon. On the other side Anwar Sadat edited Al Gumhuriya, a voice of the government. He accurately described the situation at the time: “There are only two Great Powers in the world today, the United States and the Soviet Union . . . The ultimatum put Britain and France in their right place, as Powers neither big nor strong.” Decades later, following the break-up of the USSR, the US is the only remaining super-power, but how do the lesser powers stand?

The Economist article mentioned above quotes remarks of German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, to French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, as the Suez invasion was being aborted. “France and England will never be powers comparable to the United States...Not Germany either. There remains to them only one way of playing a decisive role in the world: that is to unite Europe...We have no time to waste; Europe will be your revenge.” 1957 saw the signing of the Treaty of Rome which turned the Iron and Steel Community into the Common Market, an important step on the way to today’s EU.

But the EU is not ‘revenge’ for Suez. It remains fundamentally an economic organisation. European unity exists only in name and each national capital is still determined to defend its own interests, using its own military resources. There are occasional temporary alliances, but only insofar as they correspond to each national capital’s perceived interests.

The Economist article reminds us that De Gaulle’s suspicion of Britain was due to its appearance as America’s Trojan Horse. The publication suggests that the ‘special relationship’ has continued without interruption. “The major lesson of Suez for the British was that the country would never be able to act independently of America again. Unlike the French, who have sought to lead Europe, most British politicians have been content to play second fiddle to America.”

This hints at the basic dilemma facing the British bourgeoisie. The interests of British imperialism are obviously only sometimes going to coincide with those of the US or the major European powers. But while British capitalism wants to pursue its interests independently from the other major powers, realistically, to achieve anything significant, it needs to enter into various alliances, however temporary.

Recently Tony Blair has been severely criticised for following the US line on the Israeli offensive on Lebanon. This points to the very real difficulties facing the British ruling class. Although the independent strategy corresponds to its needs, every practical alternative only serves to emphasise the further loss of position experienced by British imperialism. The example of France and its pursuit of a more independent line shows the reality of the alternative. France’s status was briefly raised during its negotiations with the US, but, when asked to commit troops to southern Lebanon, it became very shy of making a serious contribution.

Fifty years on from the Suez crisis, the relative impotence of the second-rate powers is clear to see. Britain and France are still significant imperialist powers but, ‘independent’ or not in their overall policy, their capacity to impose themselves on situations is increasingly limited.   Car 18/8/6