We are publishing here an analytical text from the ICC’s section in Turkey on the current wave of revolts and protests in North Africa and the Middle East. The text aims to provide a general overview of these movements, as did the text ‘What is happening in the Middle East? [1]’. The text by the Turkish comrades offers a somewhat different analysis on certain points, particularly regarding the level attained by the class struggle in Egypt, and whether or not the current inter-bourgeois ‘civil war’ in Libya was preceded by a form of social revolt from below.  Since the situation is still very fluid and is still raising a lot of questions, it is all the more important to develop the discussion about the significance and perspectives contained in these events.

1. What is going on and why it is important to understand it.

‘Revolution’, today with the events currently going on in the Arab world this seems to be the word on everybody’s lips. The first thing that it is necessary to understand when discussing the subject is that not everybody means the same thing by it. The term revolution seems to have been completely devalued today so that any change of bosses is deemed a revolution, from the ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia to the now called ‘Lotus Revolution’ in Egypt, where not even the bosses have changed, with seventeen of the old twenty-seven cabinet members still in government, we have been treated to a whole series of so-called ‘revolutions’ by the media; the ‘Orange Revolution’ in the Ukraine, the ‘Tulip (or Pink) Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan along with the ethnic cleansing that accompanied it, the ‘Cedar Revolution’ in Lebanon, the ‘Purple Revolution in Iraq (this one was actually a term used by Bush, which didn’t catch on at all), and the ‘Green Revolution’ in Iran, the list goes on and on.

For us as communists, a revolution is not just the change in management of the current system. It means a fundamental, the overthrow of the capitalist class, not just a change of faces. That is why we completely reject the idea that what is happening today in the Arab world and Iran are in any way revolutions. If they are not revolutions though, it raises the question of what the nature of these events actually is. It is not only the mass media that is talking about revolutions but also many of those on the left as well. Are they all wrong? And if they are wrong what do these events mean for the working class? 

1. Putting the events into a historical context.

If we are to try to understand current events, it is necessary to be able to place them in a historical context. It allows us to understand the balance of power between different classes, and the dynamic of the situation. Certainly over the last decade the working class has began a slow return to combativeness after the dreadful years that were the nineties. However, it would be a terrible mistake to think that class struggle today is at the same level that it was in the 1980s, let alone the 1970s.

While the past ten years has shown the beginning of a return to class struggle, it must be recognised that it is a very slow process. To put it into context we must look back a few years. The wave of international struggles that began in 1968 were reaching a crescendo at the end of the 1970s. The mass strike was a very real possibility internationally. Possibly the three high points of the period, in chronological order, were the ‘Winter of Discontent’ in the UK in 1978-799,  the mass strike in Iran in 1978-79, and the Polish strikes of 1980-81. The defeat of these movements was catastrophic for the working class, and led to the years of the 1980s being years of, not a general class offensive, but of defensive actions. The struggles of the 1980s although at times very intense, essentially involved different groups of workers being picked off, isolated, and defeated.

The period also saw the rise of neo-conservatism, represented internationally by Reagan, Thatcher, and Kohl, and in this country by Turgut Özal. The end of the decade saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the whole ideological campaign, which accompanied it, with bourgeois academics and ideologues proclaiming the end of both class society and even the end of history. How wrong they were, yet for a very, very short while it could have seemed like that, and the lack of class activity in the 1990s only emphasised the point.

By the turn of the century it was becoming obvious that things were not the way they imagined. After Saddam had been defeated for the first time, and this new era of global peace had broken out, the rest of the decade, after the end of history brought over fifty wars across the world, and as the crisis deepened, not openly as in the past few years, but slowly, creeping up, hitting some countries like ours Argentina dramatically, we began to see the working class return to struggle.

Of course it came slowly, ten years without class struggle, after ten years of defeat had taken a terrible toll on the working class. A lost generation, remember how people said in Turkey “Don’t talk about politics, it is dangerous”, meant a loss of vital experience within the class.

Although the last decade has seen this slow increase in struggles, they had still until very recently still been generally struggle of isolated groups of workers. The past few years, however, have seen a growing realisation that in order to win, workers have to fight together. Witness the TEKEL movement here, or even in America, for so long a backwater of class struggle, generalised attacks are leading to a generalised with masses of workers supporting Wisconsin teachers, and many calls for a general strike. It is in this framework of understanding that we have to try to comprehend the events going on today, and to do this we need to look at a couple of recent large scale struggles.

2. Putting the events into the context of recent struggles.

The current struggles in the Arab world are, in our opinion, certainly not struggles where the working class is the leading force. This does not mean that masses of workers are not participating in them, but that the working class has not been able to assert itself as a class, and has ended up being dragged along within an agenda set by others, and in Libya today we see the disastrous consequences of this,with workers on both sides enthusiastically joining up with what is effectively a civil war on behalf of different bosses. We think that it would be instructive at this point to try to situate the events in relation to the recent movement in Greece and Iran.

3. Greece

The movement in Greece in December of 2008 erupted after a fifteen year-old anarchist was shot dead by two policemen on a Saturday night. Within an hour of the murder violent confrontations with the police had begun in the area around Exarcheia Square in Athens, an area which is traditionally a stronghold of the anarchist movement. By the end of the evening confrontations had occurred in nearly thirty different locations across Greece. The next day the demonstrations continued, and on Monday morning thousands of high school students walked out and demonstrated outside of police stations.

On the Wednesday following the shooting there was a general strike involving over a million workers. This strike, however, was not in response to the murder or the demonstrations, but had been organised prior to these events. In fact the country at the time was also in a period of large scale labour unrest due to the government’s economic policies. It is in this context that we need to try to understand the weakness of the Greek movement.

Despite their being widespread anger against the government’s policies and the mass protests over the murder of a child, the two never seemed to connect. The only strike in support of the protest movement was a half day strike of primary school teachers. Although there were of course many workers involved in the protests, the workers did involve themselves as workers, but on an individual level. This is not to say that attempts weren’t made to link the struggle to the working class. Militants occupied the HQ of the General Confederation of Greek Workers in Athens and called for a general strike. And yet the working class didn’t move as a class, and ultimately the protests died out.

We see this as a recurring theme in today’s struggles, large scale protest movements without any real input from the working class. If we go back to the struggles that we mentioned earlier, in the UK, Iran, and Poland, it is clear that the working class played a central role. In these struggles today that is not the case. Why it is not the case and what it means for struggles in the current period is a crucial question. Before we attempt to analyse it, we will first look at another example, the struggles in Iran following the elections of the summer of2009.

4. Iran

In June 2009, following allegations of electoral fraud, mass demonstrations broke out in the streets of Tehran, and rapidly spread across the entire country. The state reacted viciously and unleashed its repressive forces resulting in hundreds of deaths. Whilst the initial protests were clearly fermented by anger caused by the obvious fraud in the elections, more radical slogans quickly began to emerge.

Similar to the movement in Greece we saw massive violent clashes with the forces of the state, this time on an even larger scale, but again we saw workers involved as individuals and not as workers. Although information was hard to come by, it seems that there was only one strike, at the Khodro car factory, which is the biggest factory in Iran, all three shifts walked off for an hour each,  in protest against state repression.  As in Greece the movement on the streets lasted for a few weeks and then faded out.

In March of 2007 there were massive workers struggles, which started with a 100,000 strong teachers strike, and spread to many other sectors continuing for months. Yet two years ago the working class didn’t move despite the massive repression the state unleashed against the demonstrations, in which most of the participants were working class people.

Without the strength of the working class behind them, movements such as this have a tendency to wear themselves out. If we look back to the period at the end of the 1970s in Tehran, by the autumn of 1978 the movement seemed to have exhausted itself. A popular movement, similar to those we see today, including all of the disposed, but also other classes seemed to be running out of steam. It was in October when the working class entered the struggle with massive strikes, particular those in the vital oil sector, that the situation changed, and revolution seemed to be a real possibility, workers councils were formed and the government fell. After Khomeini power, the state spent the next few years struggling against the workers committees in the factories.

Of course, we could have talked about other popular struggles, the ‘Red Shirt’ movement in Thailand being a prime example, again another mass movement mobilising tens, even hundreds of thousands of people, many of them workers, against the state, another movement that lasted a few weeks, and then burnt out, and another movement where workers weren’t involved as a class.

5. What were our perspectives before the movement in the Arab world?

How did we characterise the period before the recent series of revolts that has spread across the Arab world, and to what extent were we right? Basically we perceived of the current period as one in which the working class was slowly recovering its will to struggle. The reopening of open economic crisis across the world in 2007, certainly changed this dynamic somewhat, but not substantially. It is very clear that it caused a momentary dip in working class confidence with workers being afraid to struggle due to the possibility of losing their jobs. However this can be counterbalanced by the vast number of workers who were forced to struggle due to the severity of the bosses’ economic attacks. Also important was the lack of experience within the working class itself, and the lack of workers consciousness of their power as a class.

The mass outburst of struggle in countries including, but not only, Greece and Iran were seen in this context. The mass austerity programmes taking place across the world were seen as likely to force the working class into struggle and not only the working class, but also other disposed classes, witness the mass food riots in various countries across the world in 2007-08. However we believed that the working class was not yet strong enough to take a definitive role in these struggles. Of course, it was always possible that something could happen and the working class would impose itself on a struggle.  “The day before a revolution nothing seems more unlikely. The day after the revolution nothing seems less likely” said Rosa Luxemburg. However we felt that the development of working class consciousness and strength would be a slow process, punctuated by mass revolts where the working class would be unable to play the central role. 

Then on 17thDecember last year a young man burnt himself to death in idi Bouzid in Tunisia, and the world seemed to change.

6. Tunisia

Following Mohamed Bouaziz’ self-immolation outside the town hall hundreds of youths gathered to protest and were met by tear gas and violence. Riots broke out. As the scale of the protests increased the town was sealed off by the state. It was too late though the fire had already begun to spread. Four days later there was rioting in Menzel Bouzaiene, and within a week in the capital Tunis. After 28 days President Ben Ali had run off to Malta on the way to his new refuge in Saudi Arabia.

The thing that we need to analyse here as communists is the class nature of this revolt. Many commentators in the mainstream press have drawn an analogy with the events of Eastern Europe twenty years ago when the bosses were changed across eastern Europe, and with the more recent ‘colour revolutions’. For us the class nature is of central importance.

The causes of the revolt seem to be widespread discontent amongst the working class, mass unemployment and low wages as well as anger against a kleptocratic government. Certainly the demands of the movement were centred on working class demands concerning jobs and wages, and of course anger at the resulting police repression played a huge part. Mass youth unemployment and a overwhelmingly young demographic lead to much of the movement being centred around rioting and street protest of, mainly, unemployed youth. However, there were also big workers strikes particularly amongst teachers and miners as well as a general strike in Sfax. The state also used lockouts in the attempt to stop the strikes spreading, a tactic that we will see used again in Egypt. Also we saw the UGTT, the regimes union confederation, taking the side of the struggles and seeming to ‘radicalise’, a sure sign that there was widespread struggle amongst the working class.

It seems clear to us that in the events in Tunisia, although not exclusively, represented on the whole a working class movement. In Egypt this would be less so with the working class still playing an important role, and in Libya the working class would be conspicuous by its absence.

To return to the events in Libya though, after the fall of Ben Ali, a ‘Unity Government’ was announced, with 12 members of Ben Ali’s RCD, plus the President and Prime Minister who had just quit the party in an attempt to gain credibility, , three representatives from the trade unions and a few individual representatives of small opposition parties. Despite the Prime Minister’s assurance that all members of the RCD in the government had ‘clean hands’, the protests continued. The union representatives resigned after a day in office, obviously keen on keeping their new found credibility, and the rats started to leave the RCD like a sinking ship with its central committee disbanding itself on the 20th.

And as protests continued in Tunisia and people continued to protest, and governments continued to fall, a spark had been lit.

7. Egypt

Algeria saw the first signs of flames with large scale rioting hitting many cities in early January, but it was in Egypt that the fire really started to burn. The first protests were held on National Police Day, 25thJanuary. The protests were widely advertised on social media, and particularly through Asmaa Mahfouz’ , a female journalist, youtube video going viral. The media have picked up on all this calling it a ‘FaceBook revolution’, but it is worth remembering that hundreds of thousands of leaflets were also distributed by various groupings.

The protests on the 25thdrew tens of thousands of people in Cairo, and thousands of others in cities across Egypt. As the movement grew there became a real possibility of Mubarak falling just as Ben Ali had done. The government closed workplaces with a clear intention of stopping workers strikes breaking out. There seemed to be splits within the state as the military as an organisation, not individual troops on the ground, refused to fire live ammunition. Mubarak promised to form a new government, then promised that he would step down at the next elections in September. Meanwhile the protests continued. On 2ndFebruary, the ministry of the interior organised an assault of the demonstrations by Mubarak loyalists. The army stepped in, although at times somewhat half heartedly, to divide the two sides, clearly preparing the way for if Mubarak was forced to go. The next week, the reopening of workplaces meant the reopening of workers strikes Workers in many different industries in Cairo and across the delta began strikes. These strikes and the very real possibility of them spreading seemed to be the final point that convinced the military that Mubarak had to go.

On the 11thof February, the military’s representative new Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned and two days later the military enacted a constitutional coup. Strikers were instructed to go back to work, and strikes were forbidden. For a while they continued, but then went back to work mostly after winning wage increases and concessions.

The class nature of the Egyptian events seems different from those in Tunisia. While the movement in Tunisia seemed to have a mostly working class character the events in Egypt seemed to have a wide cross class character encompassing all social classes. Whilst the working class played an important role, possibly even a crucial one, it was never the leading force.

Many on the left talked about their being a mass strike in Egypt. The protests in Egypt saw many more workers strikes than the struggle in Tunisia. We can put this down to Egypt having a more experienced and militant working class. While we believe that the potential for the mass strike was there, and that it was quite possibly this that scared the military into dumping Mubarak when they did, we don’t believe that it materialised. All in all around 50,000 workers were involved in strikes, over 20,000 of them at one factory. While this demonstrates an important movement it was not the mass strike, and was not even on as big a scale as the strike wave in Egypt a few years earlier. The speed with which the movement dissipated showed that it was not as strong as many on the left were saying.

8. Libya

The protests in Libya began on 15thJanuary, and from the start it was clear that these were very different in their nature. The thing that started the protest was the arrest of Fathi Terbil, a lawyer representing Islamicist militants murdered in a massacre in a prison, in Benghazi. Police violently broke up the protests in Bengahzi, but that didn’t stop them from spreading to nearby al-Bayda, as well as Az Zitan near to Tripoli in the West. In an effort to make concessions as the demonstrations spread the state accede to some of the protestor’s demands and realised 110 members of al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, a Jihadi group from prison. Still the protests continued.

The state reacted in an extremely violent way with death squads used to demoralise the protestors. Massacres were reported on both sides as senior Islamic figures and tribal leaders issued declarations against the regime, and called for the government to step down. By now protests had spread to the west where demonstrations in Tripoli were crushed viciously by the state. In the South the Tuareg people were called into the revolt at the request of the powerful Warfalla tribe.

On the 22nd Gaddafi appeared on state TV to deny reports that he had fled to Venezuela, and vowed to fight “until the last drop of his blood had been spilt”. The next day as demonstrations grew in size and many tribal leaders, who had been previously silent started to call for Gaddafi to go, William Hague the British foreign minister, first started to talk about ‘humanitarian intervention’. By this point the situation had clearly developed into a civil war.

And where was the working class in all of this? To a large extent Libya, like many of the Gulf oil states, relies on foreigners to do the majority of its manual jobs. The vast majority of the working class in Libya was desperately trying to get out of the country as the situation deteriorated and the violence increased. Unlike in Tunisia, and Egypt, the working class didn’t appear to play a significant role in any way. The movement from the start seemed to be dominated by Islamicism and tribalism. There were no workers strikes that we know of, and the one report of an oil strike in the Arab media was later shown to be just the management closing down production. 

Of course there are Libyan workers too. Evidently though they were too weak to play any role in these struggles as a class. That doesn’t mean that workers had no role at all in the events. The demonstrations that took place in Tripoli all seemed to occur in working class districts. However the working class was too weak to assert its own interests and have basically been used as cannon fodder in a civil war in which they had no interest, and are now dying under the bombing raids of the US and its allies. Before we continue with the story of how the war developed and how the imperialist powers became involved, we will quickly look at what was going on in other Arab states.

9. Events in other States and Reaction in Bahrain

The first country to follow Tunisia’s lead was neighbouring Algeria. Protests started there on 3rdJanuary in response to increases in the price of basic foodstuffs. Whilst isolated riots have been common in Algeria over the past few years, these were different in that they spread over the entire country within a week. The protests were virtually entirely around class demands, and were beaten back by a mixture of repression and concessions.

In January large scale protest also began in Jordan and Yemen. In Jordan protests against high prices inflation and unemployment were organised by the Muslim brotherhood. It ended up in the King changing a few faces in the government, and having to make wide-reaching economic concessions.

The protests in Yemen are still continuing as we write. It currently seems that the military is in the process of changing sides with Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a leading generalfor massacres in the 1994 civil war switching to the side of the protestors.

Outside of the Arab world Iran and TRNC have also seen protests with a revival of the ‘Green Movement’ in Iran and protestors shot dead in the streets. Bahrain has also been another focal point of demonstrations eventually resulting in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf co-operation council sending in troops to help to ‘stabilise’ the situation as the Bahraini state unleashed its repressive forces against demonstrators. The movement in Bahrain seems to have taken more and more of a sectarian dimension with members of the Shia majority which was the leading force in the protests against the Sunni monarchy, now openly calling for Iranian intervention. Also protests in the Northern Shia majority areas of Saudi Arabia have been held in support of the Bahraini rebels. Bahrain has also seen attacks launched upon foreign workers, mostly from South East Asia by the demonstrators. Events of this sort have also been reported in Libya.

Finally the Syrian army has just massacred 15 protestors outside a mosque in the small southern town of Daraa, which has been the centre of the protest movement due to local anger about the arrest of a group of children in a school for writing pro-Egyptian revolt graffiti on a school wall.

Virtually unnoticed amongst all of this have been the protests in Iraq, where a minimum of 35 people have been murdered by the state. Of course Iraq is already a ‘democracy’ occupied by US military advisors, which is probably why these murders received less news coverage than others.

10. Libya and the Descent into All Out War

Now to return to Libya where today we have a full scale NATO bombing campaign going on. Of course it isn’t the first time that Libya has been bombed by the Western powers. Nor was the 1986 bombing of Tripoli by the US the first time. In fact the first time aerial bombing was used in history was 1911 by the Italians in the Italo-war. The Italians soon upgraded from using bombs to chemical weapons.

At the end of February it looked like Gaddafi had lost the initiative, but by the middle of March, he had regained the upper hand with thirteen of the country’s twenty two districts back under state control, and two more seeming that they were about to be retaken. The road to Benghazi to be open, and the end of the rebellion in sight. It was at this point on the 17thof March that United Nations resolution 1973 was passed authorising a ‘no-fly zone’. After getting a poorly attended Arab League meeting, with only about half of its members present,to back to bombing campaign to give it some sort of ‘legitimacy’, the military operations are now under NATO control with the Arab League criticising the bombings that they called for. It seems like they, like much of the world, had somehow imagined that a ‘no-fly zone’ would just involve shooting down any aircraft trying to bomb civilians, and not a mass bombing campaign murdering civilians. It almost as if Iraq had never happened. For those with short memories 110 Tomahawk missiles and bombing raids by the British and French air forces on March 19thwould have acted as a sharp reminder.

Now it is clear, beyond any doubt, that the events in Libya have degenerated into an all out civil war with workers on both sides being massacred on behalf of those who control, or would control Libya.

11. Where are we now?

It seems now that the reaction has firmly set in. The events in Libya show only the worst extent of where the weakness of the working class, and its inability to impose itself on the situation have left us. How resilient the Gaddafi regime will be and whether it can hold on remains to be seen. We think that it should be remembered that back in the middle of February people were only giving Gaddafi a few days, yet he is still in power in Tripoli. We suspect that he will hold on for longer than the West imagines. At the moment he is appealing to the idea of protecting the homeland and national defence. The Warfalla tribe, over a million strong and nearly 20% of the population are nowfor reconciliation, claiming almost unbelievably that no significant tribal figures are involved in the rebellion. As loyalties shift to and fro large amounts of cash are said to be changing hands. 

In Yemen it is becoming increasingly clear that whoever ends up on top it will just be a reshuffling of leaders. Bahrain has seen another rebellion crushed just as the one back in the 1990s was. Syria will probably manage to ride out the protests even if it takes a few more massacres. After all those who remember the tens of thousands of civilians murdered in the city of Hama at the start of the 1980s know that the Assad regime isn’t adverse to a bit of blood.

And so it seems that a movement which began in Tunisia is now drawing to a close. That isn’t to say that there won’t be more murders of protestors, or even the odd dictator falling, such as Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, to be replaced by a military strong man. However the movement that erupted at the end of last year with such promise seems to be over, or at least dead to the working class.

12. What conclusions can we draw?

For us our general analysis of the period remains unchanged. The working class is returning to struggle slowly but surely, but is not yet strong enough to stamp its imprint firmly onto the times. We expect that the future will show us more struggles along the lines of the revolts in the Arab states and those previously in Greece and Iran. As the economy continues to stagnate, a process that cannot but be aided by the increase in oil prices caused by an ongoing war in Libya, and the massive withdrawal of capital to Japan that is almost bound to happen in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami of March 11th, states will have no other solution but to resort to increasing austerity and increasing repression.

The working class in some of the Arab states, most notably Tunisia and Egypt, but also Algeria, has made a step towards recovering its experience of how to struggle. In others the weakness of the working class has been brutally exposed and the resulting repression and increase in sectarian tensions, not to mention Libya being dragged into a civil war will almost certainly act as a weight around the neck of the working class. 

Those on the left who talked of workers’ revolution in the Arab world have been shown to be wrong. The working class is still too weak to assert itself. The road to rebuilding the lost experience and class consciousness will be long. Yet there are reasons to hope. The speed with which the Egyptian military jettisoned Mubarak after workers strikes broke out shows that the ruling class, at least, is still well aware of the potential that the working class holds, and in a faraway country where working class struggle has for years been conspicuous by its absence, workers in Wisconsin fighting against cuts in the largest struggle the US has seen in years raised banners supporting Egyptian workers implicitly recognising that the class struggle is an international one of workers across the world facing the same sort of attacks. 

25/03/11

“Expressing grave concern at the deteriorating situation, the escalation of violence, and the heavy civilian casualties…

Condemning the gross and systematic violation of human rights, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and summary executions…

Considering that the widespread and systematic attacks currently taking place in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya against the civilian population may amount to crimes against humanity…

Expressing its determination to ensure the protection of civilians ….

 Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General….to take all necessary measures…. to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack”

From UN Resolution 1973,17 March 2011 

Once again, the great leaders of this world are full of fine humanitarian phrases, ringing speeches about ‘democracy’ and the safety of populations, but their real aim is justify their imperialist adventures.

Since 20 March an ‘international coalition’[1] has been carrying out a major military operation in Libya, poetically named ‘Operation Dawn Odyssey’ by the USA. Every day, dozens of war planes have been taking off from powerful French and US aircraft carriers, or from bases inside the UK, to launch a carpet of bombs at the all the areas containing the armed forces loyal to the Gaddafi regime[2]. In plain words, this is war!

All these states are just defending their own interests

Obviously Gaddafi is a bloody dictator. After several weeks of retreat in the face of the rebellion, the self-proclaimed ‘Guide’ of Libya was able to reorganise his elite troops to make a counter-attack. Day after day, his forces were able to gain ground, crushing everything in his path, ‘rebels’ as well the population in general. And without doubt, he was preparing a bloodbath for the inhabitants of Benghazi when the Operation Dawn Odyssey was launched. The air strikes by the coalition took a heavy toll of Gaddafi’s forces and thus in effect prevented the massacre.

But who can believe for a moment that the real goal of this use of force by the coalition really has the aim of ensuring the welfare of the Libyan population?

Where was this coalition when Gaddafi slaughtered over 1000 prisoners held at Abu Salim jail in Tripoliin 1996? The fact is that for 40 years this regime has been jailing people, terrorising them, making them disappear, executing them…with complete impunity.

Yesterday, where was the coalition when Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt or Bouteflika in Algeria were shooting at crowds during the uprisings of January and February?

And what is the coalition doing today when massacres are taking place in Yemen, Syria or Bahrain? Oh yes, it’s closing its eyes to Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Bahrain – to help the state repress the demonstrations there.

Sarkozy, Cameron, Obama and Co. can present themselves as saviours, as defenders of the widow and the orphan, but for them the suffering of the civilians of Benghazi is just an alibi to intervene and defend their sordid imperialist interests. All these gangsters have a reason for launching this imperialist crusade:

-          This time, unlike in recent wars, the USA has not been at the forefront of the military operation. Why? Why is the American bourgeoisie playing a balancing act over Libya?

On the one hand it can’t allow itself to carry out a massive land intervention on Libyan soil. This would be seen by the whole Arab world as an act of aggression, a new invasion. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have greatly increased aversion to ‘American imperialism, the traditional ally of Israel’. And the change of regime in Egypt, a long-term ally of Uncle Sam, has further weakened its position in the region.

But at the same time, they can’t stay outside the game because this would risk totally discrediting their status as a force fighting for democracy in the world. They obviously can’t give a free hand to the Britain and France tandem

-          Britain’s participation has a dual objective. It is also trying to polish up its tarnished image in the Arab world following its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is also trying to get its own population used to the idea of foreign military intentions which are bound to get more and more frequent. ‘Saving the Libyan people from Gaddafi’ is a perfect opportunity for that[3]

-          The case of France is a bit different. This is the only big western country which still has a certain popularity in the Arab world, acquired under De Gaulle and amplified by its refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

By intervening on behalf of the ‘Libyan people’, president Sarkozy knew very well that he would be welcomed with open arms by people there and that this would be seen in a good light by neighbouring countries, for whom Gaddafi is a bit too unpredictable and uncontrollable for their taste. And we have indeed heard the cry of ‘Vive Sarkozy’, ‘Vive la France’ in the streets of Benghazi. France has, for once, taken good advantage of the USA’s difficulties[4].

Sarkozy has thus made up some of the ground lost by his government’s gaffes in Tunisia and Egypt (supporting the dictators that were eventually kicked out by the social revolts, allowing its ministers to stay too close to their regimes while the struggles were in full flow, even offering to send its police forces to help with the repression in Tunisia….).

We can’t go into all the details about the particular interests of each state in the coalition now at work in Libya, but one thing is sure: there’s nothing humanitarian or philanthropic about it! And the same goes for those who abstained from voting for the UN resolution or did so with great reluctance:

-          China, Russia and Brazil are very hostile to this intervention, simply because they have nothing to gain from Gaddafi’s departure;

-          Italy actually has a lot to lose from it. The present regime has, up till now, assured it easy access to oil and a draconian control of its borders. The destabilisation of Libya could put all this into question;

-          Angela Merkel’s Germany is still a military dwarf. All its forces are tied up in Afghanistan. Participating in this operation would have made its weakness at this level even more obvious. As the Spanish paper El Pais put it on March 21, “We are seeing a rerun of the constant balancing act between Germany’s economic giantism, demonstrated during the euro crisis, and France’s political strength, which is largely based on its military power”.

In sum, Libya, like the whole of the Middle East, is a huge chessboard on which the great powers are trying to advance their pawns.   

Why are the great powers intervening now?

For weeks Gaddafi’s troops were advancing on Benghazi, the rebels’ fiefdom, slaughtering everything in their path. Why did the great powers, if they had so many interests in intervening in the region, wait so long to do so?

In the first days, the tide of revolt originating in Tunisia and Egypt also hit Libya. The same anger against oppression and poverty was welling up in all layers of society. At this point it was out of the question for the ‘world’s great democracies’ to really support this social movement, despite their fine speeches condemning the repression. Their diplomacy hypocritically rejected the idea of interference and proclaimed the right of peoples to make their own history. Experience shows that it’s the same with every social struggle: the bourgeoisie everywhere closes its eyes to the most horrible repression, when it’s not directly lending a hand with it! But in Libya what seems to have begun as a real revolt by ‘those at the bottom’, by unarmed civilians who bravely attacked military barracks and torched the HQs of the so-called ‘Peoples’ Committees’, quickly turned into a bloody ‘civil war’ between bourgeois factions. In other words, the movement escaped the control of the non-exploiting strata. The proof for this is that one of the leaders of the rebellion and the Transitional National Council is al Jeleil, Gaddafi’s former minister of justice! This is a man whose hands are equally as bloodsoaked as those of his former Guide, now rival. Another indication: while the proletarians have no country, the provisional government has adopted the flag of the old Libyan monarchy. Finally, Sarkozy has recognised the TNC as the “legitimate representatives of the Libyan people”.                  

The revolt in Libya thus took a diametrically opposed turn to what happened in Tunisia and Egypt. This was mainly due to the weakness of the working class in this country. The main industry, oil, almost exclusively employs workers from Europe, the rest of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. From the beginning these workers took no part in the movement of social protest. The result was that the local petty bourgeoisie stamped its mark on the revolt – hence the ubiquity of the national flag for example. Worse, the ‘foreign’ workers, who could not therefore identify with these struggles, fled the country. There were even persecutions of black workers by ‘rebel’ forces, following numerous rumours about the regime’s use of mercenaries from black Africa to repress the demonstrations, casting suspicion on all black workers.

Workers’ struggles vs imperialist wars

This turn-around in the situation in Libya has consequences which go well beyond its frontiers. First Gaddafi’s repression, then the intervention of the coalition, is a blow against all the social movements in the region. This has permitted other dictatorial regimes to embark on a course of bloody repression: in Bahrain where the Saudi army has come to the assistance of the regime in dealing brutally with the demonstrations[5]; in Yemen where on 18 March government forces fired on the crowd, killing 51 people; and now in Syria where scores have also been gunned down.

Having said this, it is not at all certain that this will be a fatal blow. The Libyan situation is like a ball and chain on the world proletariat’s feet, but there is so much anger against the development of poverty that it will not paralyse it completely. In Egypt and Tunisia, where the ‘revolution’ is supposed to have triumphed already, confrontations continue between demonstrators and the now ‘democratic’ state administered by more or less the same forces who ran it under the ‘dictators’. Demonstrations have also continued in Morocco, despite King Mohammed VI declaring a constitutional monarchy.   

Whatever happens, for all the populations facing the most terrible repression, or the bombs of this or that international coalition, the sky will not clear until the proletariat of the central countries, particularly western Europe, develops its own massive and determined struggles. Armed by its experience, especially with the traps of trade unionism and democracy, it would then be able to show its capacities for self-organisation and open up a genuinely revolutionary perspective, the only future for the whole of humanity.

To be in solidarity with all those today falling under bullets and bombs does not mean supporting Gaddafi, or the ‘rebels’, or the UN coalition. On the contrary: we have to denounce all of them as imperialist bloodhounds!

To be in solidarity is to choose the camp of proletarian internationalism, to struggle against ‘our own’ exploiters and killers, to participate in the development of workers’ struggles and class consciousness all over the world!

Pawel 25/3/11 

"Fear the worst!" That's the message now splashed across newspaper front pages, in all the media, and on the lips of the world's leaders too. But it can't get any worse! Because from the earthquake, to the tsunami and then the nuclear accidents, and it's not finished there, it means the current predicament of the Japanese population is horrific. And because now there are millions of people on the planet living under the Sword of Damocles of the nuclear cloud released by the reactors at Fukushima. This time round, it is not a poor country like Haiti and Indonesia that is being hit hard but the heart of one of the most industrialised countries of the world, one that specialises in cutting-edge technologies.
It's a country that has first-hand experience of the devastating effects of nuclear energy, having suffered the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Capitalism makes humanity more vulnerable to natural disasters

Once again, the madness of capitalism and irresponsibility of the bourgeoisie has become front page news. Only now is the world finding out that millions of people have been crammed into wooden houses, along coastal shores, permanently threatened by the risk of earthquakes and giant waves that can consume all before them. And this in a country that's the world's third largest economic power!
As if this were not enough, they have also built nuclear power stations, which are all real time bombs, at the mercy of the earthquakes and the tsunamis. Most of Japan's nuclear power plants were built 40 years ago, not only in densely populated areas but also near the coast. They are therefore particularly vulnerable to flooding. Thus, of the 55 Japanese reactors spread over 17 sites, 11 have been affected by the disaster. As a direct consequence, the population is already exposed to radiation levels that have officially[1] risen to more than 40 times the norm as far away as in Tokyo, 250 km from Fukushima, a radiation level which the Japanese government nonetheless declared to be of “no risk”! And it’s not only nuclear power stations that have been hit but also petrochemical plants built by the coast, and some of these have set on fire, which will only make the disaster worse and add to the existing ecological catastrophe.

The bourgeoisie is still trying to make us believe that it is all the fault of nature, that we cannot predict the power of earthquakes and the magnitude of tsunamis. This is true. But what is most striking is how capitalism, after two hundred years in which it has produced phenomenal scientific knowledge and technical know-how that could be used to prevent this kind of disaster constantly increases the monstrous danger to humanity. The capitalist world of today has enormous technological machinery but is not able to use it to benefit humanity, as it is only concerned with the profits of capital... to the detriment of our livelihoods.
Since the Kobe earthquake disaster in 1995, the Japanese government has, for example, developed a policy of constructing earthquake resistant buildings that have withstood the quake, but which are intended to house the very rich or to serve as city office blocks. 

The bourgeoisie tells big lies

Today, comparisons abound with previous major nuclear accidents, especially with the melt-down of the reactor at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979. Officially no-one died in that one. In comparison, all the political leaders are saying that the current disaster is not "for now" as serious an incident as the explosion of the Chernobyl power plant in 1986. Should we be reassured by these outrageously optimistic remarks? How do we assess the real danger to the populations of Japan, Asia, Russia, the Americas… and the world? The answer leaves us in no doubt: the consequences will be dramatic in every sense. There is already major nuclear pollution in Japan and the TEPCO officials who operate the Japanese nuclear plants can only deal with the risk of an explosion by fiddling with the problem day by day and shamelessly exposing hundreds of employees and fire-fighters to fatal levels of radiation. Here we see the fundamentaldifference between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. On the one hand there is a ruling class that has no hesitation in sending ‘its’ people to their deaths and, more generally still, endangering the lives of tens of millions of people in the name of its sacrosanct profits. On the other hand, there are workers ready to sacrifice their lives and to suffer the slow and unbearable agony of exposure to radiation on humanity's behalf.Today, the impotence of the bourgeoisie is such that after a week of desperate attempts to cool the damaged reactor, its specialists are forced to play the sorcerer's apprentice, trying to reconnect the different systems for cooling the reactor's core onto the electricity network. Nobody knows if this will work: either the pumps work properly and succeed in cooling the reactor, or the cables and equipment are damaged which could create short-circuits, fires and... explosions! The only solution then will be to cover the core of the reactor with sand and concrete, like... Chernobyl.[2] Faced with such atrocities now and in the future, our exploiters will always respond in the same way: with lies!

In 1979, Washington lied about the radioactive effects of the meltdown of the core of the reactor, while still evacuating 140,000 people; if no actual deaths were reported, the cancers still multiplied one hundredfold in the population, something which the U.S. government never wanted to acknowledge.

With regard to Chernobyl, when the problems mounted with the plant and its maintenance, the Russian government hid the urgency of the situation for weeks. Only after the reactor exploded and an immense nuclear cloud was dispersed miles up in the air and thousands of miles around did the world come to see the magnitude of the disaster. But this kind of behaviour is not just peculiar to Stalinism. The western officials behaved exactly the same. At the time, the French government excelled itself with a whopping great lie about this cloud coming to a full stop right at the western border of France! Another interesting fact, even today, is that the WHO (World Health Organisation), no doubt colluding with the IAEA (International Agency for Atomic Energy), produced a derisory and even laughable review of the Chernobyl explosion: 50 people dead, 9 children deaths from cancer, and a possible 4,000 more cancer fatalities! In fact, according to a study by the New York Science Academy, 985,000 people perished due to this nuclear accident.[3] And today these very same agencies are responsible for producing a run-down on the situation at Fukushima and informing us of the risks! How, after that, are they at all believable? For example, what is going to become of those they call "the liquidators" (those who are now dealing with the emergency) at Fukushima when we know that at Chernobyl "of the 830,000 liquidators brought onto the site after the event, between 112,000 and 125,000 are dead."[4] Even today, the bourgeoisie tries to hide the fact that this reactor is still highly dangerous as there is still an urgent necessity to continue enclosing the reactor core under more and more new layers of concrete, just as it hides the fact that there have been no less than 200 incidents at the Fukushima power stations during the past ten years!

All countries lie about the dangers from nuclear power! The French State expresses unerring confidence that the 58 nuclear reactors of L'Hexagone, the company in charge, are perfectly safe, when most of these power stations are either in seismic zones, or in coastal areas, or on rivers vulnerable to flooding. During the stormy weather of 1999, when gales inflicted serious damage across France and left 88 dead in Europe, the power station at Blaye, near Bordeaux, was flooded and this nearly caused the melt-down of a reactor. Few people knew about it. And then there's the power station at Fessenheim that was so obsolescent that it had to close-down for a few years. But by using replacement parts (many of which aren't the approved standard), it is somehow still in operation, and no doubt the maintenance staff will suffer the consequences of exposure to the radiation. That’s what they mean by "being in control" and “transparency”!

From the beginning of the earthquake in Japan, on Friday, March 11th, the media advisedly reassured us that the Japanese nuclear power stations were among the "safest" in the world. Two days later it contradicted itself and recalled that the company, TEPCO, which manages the power stations in Japan, had already hidden incidents of nuclear radiation leaks. How can it be that the power stations in France, where "in the space of ten years, the number of minor incidents and faults at nuclear sites has doubled"[5], like they have elsewhere in the world, "are any "safer"? In no way at all. "Around 20% of the 440 commercial reactors in operation worldwide are located in areas of ‘significant seismic activity’, according to the WNA, World Nuclear Association, a grouping of industrialists. Some of the 62 reactors under construction are also in areas of seismic risk, just like many of the 500 other projects especially in countries with emerging economies. Several nuclear power stations - including the four reactors at Fukushima damaged by the tsunami on March 11th - are on or near the ‘Ring of Fire’, a 40,000 km arc of tectonic faults around the Pacific."[6]

Thus, reliable information "suggests that radioactive elements are more and more around us. For example, while plutonium did not exist naturally before 1945, we are now finding it in the milk teeth of British children."[7], and this despite the fact that Britain has ended its commercial nuclear programme.

Capitalism is pushing mankind towards more and more disasters

And Japan is not just suffering from the nuclear catastrophe but from another humanitarian disaster too. Thus, the world's third largest economic power has been plunged into crisis, unprecedented since the Second World War, in the space of a few hours. The same terrifying ingredients are present: massive destruction, tens of thousands dead and to top it off, radiation, like that from the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Millions of people in north-eastern Japan are having to live without electricity, without drinking water, with diminishing supplies of food, supplies which may already be contaminated. 600,000 people have been uprooted by the tsunami that has devastated entire towns close to the Pacific Ocean, and have been left destitute, out in the cold and the snow. Contrary to what the Japanese government says – it has continued to downplay the seriousness of the situation, and the numbers affected, providing small details of the increase in people dead, day after day - we can already, without hesitation, begin to count the deaths in the tens of thousands for the country as a whole. The sea is continually depositing dead bodies along the shores. This against a backdrop of massive destruction of homes, buildings, infrastructure, hospitals, schools, etc.

Villages, buildings, trains and even entire towns were swept away by the power of the tsunami that struck the north-eastern coast of Japan. For some towns, located in what are usually narrow valleys like at Minamisanriku, at least half the 17,000 people were swept away and perished. With the warning given by the government of only 30 minutes, the roads were quickly congested, putting the "laggards" at the mercy of the waves.

The population has been saluted by all the Western media for its "exemplary courage" and "discipline", and has been called on by the Japanese Prime Minister to "rebuild the country from scratch", i.e. in plain language, the working class of this country must now expect fresh hardship, increased exploitation and worsening poverty. Admittedly, all this fits in nicely with the propaganda abouta servile population that exercises with the company boss in the mornings, who are silent and submissive, and who remain quite stoical and carry on as normal while the buildings are crashing down on top of them. For sure, the Japanese population is extraordinarily courageous, but the reality is completely at odds with the "stoicism" described in the papers. Apart from the hundreds of thousands who packed into gyms and other communal areas, and whose anger rose to a fever pitch and rightly so, hundreds of thousands of others tried to flee, including a growing number of the around 38 million people in Tokyo and its suburbs. And those who remained, did not do it to brave the dangers but because they had no choice. With no money, where can you go? And who's going to take you in? In every sense, being an ‘environmental refugee’ isn't acceptable in the eyes of the bourgeoisie. About 50 million people are forced to migrate every year for reasons connected to the environment but they have no status under the UN Convention, even if they are victims of a disaster, be it "nuclear" or whatever. Clearly, the Japanese with no money who wants to try to escape the nuclear disaster, or simply to relocate elsewhere in the world, is going to be denied the ‘right of asylum’ all round the world.

This insane system of exploitation is moribund and shows itself to be more barbaric with every passing day. Although immense knowledge and enormous technological power has been acquired by mankind, the bourgeoisie is incapable of putting it to work for the good of humanity, to protect us all against natural disasters. Instead of this, capitalism is a destructive force, not just here and there, but all over the world.

"We have no other choice, faced with this capitalist hell: it's Socialism or Barbarism. We must fight it or die"[8].

Mulan 19/3/11

On 23 March the Egyptian state passed a law banning strikes and demonstrations. How many people, reflecting on the upheavals there in January and February, thought that it had turned out to be just an '18-day wonder'?

In reality, the events that led up to the resignation of Mubarak were not just a flash in the pan, but had roots going back years and involved forces that are still intact today. For a start it should be underlined that the removal of Mubarak came about after working class action. For all the activities by the many social strata gathered in Tahir Square, it was workers' strikes that convinced the dominant faction of the Egyptian ruling class that it had to dump an unpopular figure.

As we said in an article first published online in mid-February “the power of this movement was not acquired overnight. For the past seven years, it is the workers who have been at the frontline of resistance against the poverty and repression imposed on the entire population. There were a number of strike movements in 2004, 2006-7 and 2007-8, with the textile workers of Mahalla playing a particularly significant role, but with many other sectors joining in.” But also, as we said in ‘What is happening in the Middle East?’ published in mid-March, referring to the various recent movements throughout the region, “we can characterise them as movements of the non-exploiting classes, social revolts against the state. The working class has, in general, not been in the leadership of these rebellions but it has certainly had a significant presence and influence.”

So, although the working class in Egypt is a powerful force it is not the only non-exploiting class. And all sorts of ideas that have been floated in recent years as offering 'alternatives' to Mubarak still have the potential to be employed by the ruling capitalist class.

Observations from the barricades

In a complex situation there will always be a range of explanations available. In late 2009 Zed Books published Egypt: The Moment of Change. Earlier on this year Zed re-publicised the book in the light of events saying that “With many of the chapters written by Egyptian academics and activists who are now on the very first line of the barricades, this is the one book that has all the answers.” The 'answers' are familiar enough – opposition to 'neo-liberalism', support for reforms – but some of the observations give a good impression of the complexity of the situation.

The book describes how there were, for example, many competing currents in the opposition to Mubarak but they were able reach a consensus: “People with radically different aspirations – ranging from the secular socialist state to the Islamist theocracy – have agreed on the need to end Mubarak's rule” (p98). The way the opposition operated allowed for groups with “different ideological leanings, class interests and long-term projects to work together” (p98). This was indeed the view of an opposition that saw the removal of Mubarak as the number one priority. Although the working class has shown its strength and ability to organise outside the official unions, it would be wrong to ignore workers' many illusions. At the moment the possibility of free trade unions or the potential for post-Mubarak capitalism are particularly significant. In the past there were also illusions in what the state could offer. There have been “Popular slogans like 'In the days of defeat, the people could still eat' (raised by strikers in 1975) or 'Nasser always said “take care of the workers” (heard in 1977)” (p71) which show the hold that modern myths and ideology can have. There is a claim that during a 2005 strike “workers believed that they and the broader public were the real owners of the enterprise, not the state mangers” (p78). Although this is just an impression by the author, it does correspond to ideas that many workers have accepted from state capitalist demagogues.

The actions of other groups in society show the situation in which workers find themselves. In 2006 when dissident judges who had criticised corruption and malpractices were taken to court a crowd chanted “Judges, judges, save us from the tyrants” (p99). Whatever the social makeup of the crowd it clearly had illusions in the possibility of an independent judiciary, in the legal process rather than in a struggle against the state.

The book outlines another incident where in 1986 “thousands of police conscripts abandoned barracks and marched on Cairo and Alexandria, destroying many hotels, shops and restaurants in protest against their slave like conditions.... the regime was compelled to bring tanks onto the streets to defeat what was in, in effect, an uprising of peasants in uniform” (p32).

In 2007, alongside protests over food shortages were protests over shortages of drinking water. “For several months demonstrations across the Nile Delta involved large numbers of the country's poorest people in what Cairo newspapers called a 'revolution of the thirsty'”(p32-3).

Overall, all the expressions of protest, all the actions by different social forces are described as “different forms of contention.” These include “social movements, revolutions, strike waves, nationalism, democratisation, and more” (p101).

What makes a revolution?

The listed forms of 'contention' cover a wide range of phenomena. When groups of workers struggle they can inspire others, one strike leading to others until a whole wave of strikes has unfolded. This is not a workers' 'policy' but an expression of the solidarity and the common interests of the working class. When workers struggle they come up against nationalist and democratist ideas that can only undermine the struggle for their own interests. When the social movements of other strata emerge workers have to relate to them, while appreciating that the class dependent on wage labour is the only class that can challenge capitalism.

The working class has only two weapons, its consciousness and its capacity for organisation. Every question it faces has to be seen in terms of the development of consciousness and the implications for its self-organisation. How does the working class organise? What ideas assist the development of the struggle and which hold it back? What institutions and ideologies does the ruling class use against workers' struggles and the development of its consciousness? How do workers relate to other non-exploiting social strata? And, as we are now inundated with glib references to 'revolutions' as just another 'form of contention', what is a revolution in reality?

Over the last couple of decades all sorts of social phenomena have been called 'revolutions', despite the fact that capitalist rule has nowhere been overthrown and the capitalist state is entrenched everywhere. If we take a contribution from someone who could draw on the experience of a real revolution, that of Russia in1917, Lenin's remarks on revolutionary situations are particularly relevant. “For a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the 'lower classes' do not want to live in the old way and the 'upper classes' cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph”(Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder, 1920).

If we look at Egypt we can see that, for all the changes that have happened and are promised for the future, the ruling capitalist class remains secure in its position. The nationalist, democratist and Islamist opposition have their differences, but they do not challenge the rule of the bourgeoisie. As for the working class, it has shown its strength, especially in contrast to other strata, but is not yet challenging the rule of its exploiters. As everywhere else in the world, the more we see outbreaks of workers' struggles, developments in the organisation of the struggle, and evidence of the discarding of illusions, the more we can look forward towards mass strikes and open confrontation between the working class and the ruling bourgeoisie.  

Barrow 29/3/11

Since this article was written by the ICC’s section in France, it looks as though the presidency of Laurent Gbagbo is nearing its end, as the ‘rebel’ forces led by Alassane Ouattara strengthen their grip on the capital. But this does not diminish the accuracy of its description of this barbaric conflict.

The murders with small arms fire which began the day after the proclamation of the Presidential election results on 28 November 2010, have given way to large-scale massacres right out in the open. According to diverse sources (such as the spokesman of Ouattara on French TV), there have already been a thousand deaths, tens of thousands of injured and hundreds of thousands of refugees, 300,000 of whom fled the town of Abidjan. Fighting is unfolding in most areas of this town, particularly in the densely populated suburb of Abobo

The population is caught in the cross-fire of both camps of assassins who don’t hesitate to march over the bodies of their victims, including women and children. These are not only assassinations and sudden assaults by death squads, there are also tanks, helicopters and other heavy weaponry stepping into this danse macabre. Now the war is moving from Abidjan to the official capital Yamoussoukro and is spreading to the Liberian border where these bloodthirsty gangs are settling accounts. Elsewhere, those that escape death inevitably come up against the misery of a state of war with its scarcity, mass unemployment and permanent insecurity.

“Here, a woman, ‘housewife, a mamma’ as the people affectionately and tenderly refer to the mothers of families, had her head taken off by a soldier shooting in Abobo, the insurgent quarter of Abidjan. About six or seven other women were mown down with bursts of gun fire from an armoured vehicle of the defence forces (FDS) loyal to Laurent Gbagbo which came, according to the crowd, from a neighbouring camp of the Republican Guard, supported by men of the Anti-Riot Brigade (BAE). Diabolical columns are crossing now hostile zones, followed by ambulances and hearses in order to get rid of the corpses (...) Thursday 3 March, the march of women who thought that they could demonstrate peacefully in the style of Egypt or Tunisia with placards saying ‘Gbagbo go!’, turned out not to be the beginning of a ‘revolution’ called for by Guillaume Soro, ex-chief of the rebellion and now first minister of Alassane Ouattara, the President recognised by the international community. The FDS fired on the women with heavy machine-guns whose bullets were capable of tearing off heads, arms and legs. Seven deaths” (Le Monde, 10/3/11).

And the carnage continued on 8 March (during another march on the occasion of International Woman’s Day) at the end of which we saw the extreme barbarity in which the forces loyal to the criminal Gbagbo excelled. But we also shouldn’t ignore the responsibility of the no less criminal camp of Ouattara which has knowingly sent these women to their death without any protection. This same Soro, the right-hand man of Ouattara, has profited from the revolts in the Arab world to push these women into an abattoir under the pretext of unleashing a 'revolution' against the power of Gbagbo. This really monstrous procedure consists of manipulating civilians and women with the single aim of satisfying the politicians’ criminal ambitions. But these two camps of vultures don’t stop there; they enrol the population in absolute horror:

“The unthinkable is happening: each in their own camp, an ill-wind for the neutrals. There are more and more armed civilians; more and more situations where innocents are killed, burnt alive, wounded, martyred, in the two camps. The Ivory Coast is falling apart and the meeting organised by the African Union for Tuesday in Addis-Ababa to communicate a solution ‘constraining’ the two rivals for the presidency of November 2010, doesn’t give rise to great hopes... At the same time, the scale of the violence diversifies. Three mosques have been burnt in the last few days. Groups of militias have also sacked the homes of the leaders of the RHDP of Alassane Ouattara, who is holed up in the Hotel du Golf, discretely tucked away in the country. Eighteen houses have been ransacked based on the growing fears of seeing a new wave of atrocities hitting those that their neighbours suspect of being pro-Ouattara. On the other hand, the inhabitants of Anokoua, an area of Abobo peopled by the ethnic Ebrie, supposedly belonging to the Gbagbo camp, have been attacked the night before. Three deaths, including a woman burnt in her house and numerous injuries. Arms have been distributed to the Ebrie. If the spiral of violence is not stopped it will affect everyone (Le Monde, ibid).

This is the hell in which the populations live their daily lives, unfortunately without hope of escaping. Given the protection given to the killers the most likely outcome is for the entire country to end up in a conflagration.

Facades of sanctions, but real imperialist confrontations

In order to support Alassane Ouattara, designated the winner (by them) of the second round of presidential elections last November, the United States and the European Union announced a series of economic and diplomatic 'sanctions' against the Gbagbo clan to force him to cede power to his rival. But three months later, Laurent Gbagbo is still there and openly mocks the sanctions because he knows that they have been implemented with a double language and there is unity on nothing. On the contrary, behind the scenes there is a battle to defend the respective interests of those countries involved.

Faced with the attempted blockade of Ivorian cocoa, Gbagbo decided on a reorganisation of the commercialisation of the raw material, calling into question “all powerful western groups” and looking for new outlets. His entourage boasted: “Gbagbo has paid the wages for February; he will pay them for March and April (...) International condemnation of his regime persists, but Laurent Gbagbo is not giving up. He hopes to profit from the disagreements appearing within the international community and thinks that time is on his side. Pharmacies are beginning to run out of medicine because of an unannounced maritime embargo. But European businessmen continue to knock on his door, even if Gbagbo only receives them when the indiscreet cameras are out of the way” (Jeune Afrique, 6/12 March 2011).

The case of France is particularly edifying. In fact, on one side, Monsieur Sarkozy publicly announces a series of measures to sanction the government of Gbagbo, including the threat of an economic boycott, whereas, on the other, he is taking care not to incite the big French companies present (Bouygues, Bollore, Total, etc.) to leave the country. On the contrary, all these groups continue to do business with the Gbagbo regime, mitigating and skirting around the so-called 'economic sanctions'. Yet again, we see the odiously hypocritical character of the 'African policy' of the French in the Ivory Coast. In reality, French imperialism is above all concerned for its capital and cares nothing for the fate of the population, the first victims of this butchery; moreover, the guard dogs of its military operation “Licorne” will be released if French interests are threatened. Clearly, in this business of 'sanctions', no gangster can leave an advantage to the profit of its rivals.

The UN and the African Union let the assassins loose

At each big explosion of violence in the Ivory Coast since the beginning of the bloody electoral process at the end of 2010, the Security Council of the UN has been quick to meet up to pass resolutions, but never to stop the massacres. On the contrary, each one of its members more or less openly supports one or the other of the armed camps on the ground. That clearly shows the sordid behaviour of these gentlemen of the Security Council; so cynical that their 11,000 soldiers on the ground do nothing other than record the numbers of victims; worse still, they cover up the fact that armed groups, even when surrounded by Blue Helmets, bombard and fire on the population with impunity.

Thus, not only do the UN authorities remain scandalously indifferent to the suffering of the victims of war, but they have also put in place a black-out on the killings.

Once again, the French president, addressing the entire world, launched an ultimatum to Gbagbo, giving him the 'order' to leave power before the end of 2010. Since then? Nothing... He has observed a scrupulous, total silence on the horrors unfolding in front of his interests and the 'soldiers of peace' on the ground.

As to the African Union, it adopts an attitude that’s just as wretched as the UN. In fact, given all its links with the respective butchers involved in the dispute for Ivorian power, it leaves it to its members to support and arm one bloody clique or the other (like South Africa and Angola for Gbagbo, Burkina Faso and others for Ouattara). In order to mask this reality, it is making out there is a 'reconciliation' of the belligerents by creating commission after commission, the latest of which (meeting in Addis-Ababa 10/3/11) found nothing better to do than nominate yet another “high representative responsible for enacting forceful solutions linking up with a close committee of the representatives of the Economic Community of the States of Western Africa and the United Nations”.

Behind this diplomatic jargon, lies the cynicism of all these imperialist gangsters! All these 'reconciliators' are none other than the real executioners of the Ivorian population.   

Amina 17/3/11

There has been no shade of bourgeois opinion that has hesitated to use the term 'Arab Revolution' to describe what's currently going on in the Middle East. Subtle commentators can make out an 'Arab spring', but 'revolution' is the word of the moment.

All sorts of social forces are involved, as well as a range of contradictory ideas, but this use of 'revolution' to describe very disparate phenomena is not new. Modelled on examples such as the 'Velvet Revolution' of 1989 in Czechoslovakia, here are ten from the 21st century.

2000 Serbia, Bulldozer Revolution.

Post-election protests that started with miners led to the removal of Slobodan Milošević. He was replaced by Vojislav Koštunica, a firm nationalist chosen to lead the parties of the opposition. A leader of this coalition said "We could make a revolution but it wouldn't be good. It would create too much instability." The vehicle that was used to charge Serbian state TV station was not a bulldozer, or an excavator, but a wheel loader.

2003 Georgia, Rose Revolution.

Protests following elections led to the replacement of Eduard Shevardnadze by Mikheil Saakashvili (who had once been Shevardnadze's Minister of Justice). Under Saakashvili troops were sent to Iraq, only the US and Britain having more there than Georgia, and Georgian troops were maintained in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Protests against Saakashvili in 2007 were met with the declaration of a state or emergency and police violence against protesters.

2004-5 Ukraine, Orange Revolution.

Demonstrations and other protests after presidential elections resulted in the victory of Viktor Yushchenko over Viktor Yanukovych. Yuschenko was just as concerned to get the crowds off the streets as his rival.Yanukovych served as Prime Minister for 18 months under Yuschenko in 2006-7, before becoming president of Ukraine in 2010.

2005 Lebanon, Cedar Revolution.

After the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister in February there were massive demonstrations about the Syrian military presence in the country. Syria ultimately yielded to international pressure and withdrew its final troops in April. Life in Lebanon continues to be marked by violence and conflict.

2005 Kyrgyzstan, Tulip Revolution.

President Askar Akayev fled the country after post-election demonstrations. Under his successor, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, there have been murders of political opponents, corruption and economic decline. In 2010 protests over unemployment, electricity blackouts and other shortages, which were met with police repression and dozens of deaths, led to Bakiyev fleeing the country. Capitalism,corruption and a US military base continue.

2007 Burma, Saffron Revolution.

Protests over fuel price rises, including a significant role for thousands of Buddhist monks. Met with violent repression. Regime supported by China, opposition by the West. The majority of monks in Burma wear maroon not saffron robes. So, neither saffron nor a revolution.

2009-10 Thailand, Red Shirt Revolution.

Against the backdrop of protests by the poor and dispossessed the demands of the Red Shirts are for improved democracy, fresh elections and the reinstatement of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. A social movement has become entangled in a battle between different factions of the ruling class.

2009-10 Iran, Green Revolution.

Following the 2009 presidential elections there were maybe 2 million on the streets in protests at some moments. Workers have been involved as individuals but not as a class. There are enormous illusions in democracy. In the past the working class in Iran has shown itself a force to be reckoned with.

2011 Tunisian Revolution.

Non-Tunisian media have tried to christen recent events as the Jasmine Revolution, but this has not caught on. A wave of protest on basic questions of living conditions led to the departure of President Ben Ali. Protests continue and have inspired others in the Middle East.

2011 Egyptian Revolution.

Known by a number of names, including the Lotus Revolution. People from all parts of society were involved in the events that led to the removal of Mubarak. Two essential elements were the strikes of workers and the behind the scenes manoeuvrings of the US. Mubarak has gone but the capitalist state retains its dominant position in society.

None of these situations warrant being described as revolutions: capitalism, the exploitation of the working class and the oppression of non-exploiting social strata continue. But they do have things in common. For example, genuine material suffering has affected people in all the countries touched. The conditions in which we live continue to worsen, sometimes with rapid lurches. At the same time a focus on elections, nationalism, or the particular personnel in the ruling capitalist team has detracted from the importance of the struggle against material deprivation. Also, these focuses take away from an understanding of what are the real forces in capitalist society. The bourgeoisie can only defend the decaying status quo, and the working class is the only force with the potential to challenge and overthrow capitalism. While there has yet to be a revolution in the twenty first century, the proliferation of workers' struggles, expressions of self-organisation and the development of class consciousness mean that a revolutionary perspective is still realistic. 

Barrow 1/4/11

Humour's a funny thing. Some people love Charlie Chaplin, others prefer Buster Keaton. For some slapstick's the thing, for others witty wordplay.

Eddie Izzard is a divisive figure: some acclaiming him as one of the greatest ever standups, with references to the Cat Drilling Behind The Sofa or the Cake Or Death routine, while others sit blank faced at a guy who just seems to ramble on about stuff. Some of his latest material might just convince the doubters.

As the campaign around the AV Referendum fails to interest anyone, with even hardened politicians openly confessing that it's a really boring subject, both sides have started saying just about anything to generate some interest. Enter, stage left, Mr Izzard on behalf of the Yes to AV campaign.

He claims that the AV system of voting “will mean MPs will have to work harder to get your vote.” The AV system will “put power in the hands of the people." Ultimately the Yes to AV campaign was "pushing for civilisation".

Against this typical product of Izzard's whimsical comedy stylings there are some snappy come-backs. The Tories have warned that AV is crazy, undemocratic, unBritish and favours extremists (although the right-wing extremists of the BNP are actually campaigning against AV.) On the left you can read that “A vote for AV is a vote for cuts” and see opposition from Trotskyists, many unions, and the Socialist Party that says that AV will “entrench the power of the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.” Meanwhile the Weekly Worker is campaigning for Yes because it will help parties that are marginalised by the existing system. Alan Thornett of Socialist Resistance says “A yes vote should be seen as a small step in the direction of further reform.” The PCS and CWU unions recommend a Yes vote.

No one is talking about the distinctions between the D'Hondt and Sainte-Laguë [21] methods or CPO-STV against Schulze STV; it's all very crude stuff. David Cameron says that First-Past-The-Past is used by half the world, without mentioning that Britain's system is unique in Europe. Everyone is devoted to fairness and democracy, and how individuals can best get to express their preferences.

Have you heard the one about class society?

For or against electoral reform, they all talk about power. And in capitalist society the ruling class, the class that exercises power, the class that holds state power, is the bourgeoisie, the class that is dependent on the exploitation of the labour power of the working class. In different countries there are many ways that the bourgeoisie has evolved for its domination over all aspects of social life, but all are concentrated in the dictatorship of the capitalist state.

Dictatorship? The ideologues of democracy will throw their hands up in horror. Dictatorship is the word they use for the regimes of North Korea, Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia. In Europe we have democracy.

But democracy has always been a form of class rule. In Ancient Athens democracy meant the rule of a (male) slave owning class to the exclusion of the majority, that is women, slaves (even when freed), and resident foreigners. In modern democracy all the important decisions that affect our lives are made behind closed doors by a class that uses elections as just one of the spectacles that conceal the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The sanctity of the individual's right to express themselves and participate in the democratic circus goes along with a decision-making process which is only concerned with the interests of the bourgeoisie, in response to the economic crisis, its imperialist interests and against the threat posed by the working class. The bourgeoisie takes nothing else into account, not in parliament, nor in the corridors of real power.

The central division in capitalist society is not between AV and FPTP, not between constitutional monarchies, republics and parliamentary democracies, not even between democracies and various 'authoritarian' regimes.

The big split in contemporary society is between the working class and the ruling capitalist class. The working class can not take over the state apparatus that exists for its repression and continuing exploitation, it needs to destroy the capitalist state, democratic or otherwise, and establish its own domination. Instead of democracy what is needed is the open and frank domination of the working class, a class with no new relations of exploitation to introduce. Where democracy depends on individual alienation, separation from each other and with no control over our lives, a future classless society can only be based on a fundamental human solidarity in all relations.

To conclude on a banal note: when even politicians think the AV referendum is boring, who are we to disagree? Capitalism will continue until the development of the collective struggles of the working class make it a force that can confront the capitalist class, rather than voting for its figureheads.  

Car 3/4/11

Transport workers all over India are severely exploited. Whether drivers, conductors or workshop workers, all suffer the same conditions: low wages, long and irregular working hours, tough conditions of work, relentless oppression and persecution by bosses. This is daily grind of their daily life. This is true of workers of state road transport corporations as well, of Delhi Transport Corporation workers in the capital where the bourgeoisie has no qualms in spending any sums for exhibition of its ‘prestige’ in spectacles like Commonwealth games. The conditions of Uttar Pradesh road transport workers are no different from others.

Capitalist crises and policies of austerity of the bourgeoisie

Capitalist crisis is further worsening living and working conditions of workers. This crisis has shaken up the whole world since 2008. Tens of millions of workers have lost jobs in different parts of the world under the lashes of the crises. USA, leader of world capitalism, is ahead of all in this. The jolts of crises have pulled down economies of a whole series of countries like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Everywhere the bourgeoisie is imposing austerity and poverty on the working class.

This is the context in which working class and young exploited populations have been developing their struggles against policies of austerity of the ruling class.

In 2010 alone workers and students have waged struggles against policies of austerity in Greece, Turkey, France, Britain and Italy. Although efforts are being made to derail popular revolts and workers struggles in Tunisia and Egypt by democratic mystifications, there is no doubt that these struggles express explosions of anger of the exploited populations against worsening living conditions.

In India the effects of the crises are expressed in intensification of a series of attacks by bourgeoisie and its state:

-          Firing huge number of workers from every part of the economy. Stoppage of recruitment.

-          Offensive of state and private sector bourgeoisie against permanent jobs and their substitution everywhere by temporary and contract work;

-          The objective of these steps is to lower wages and living conditions of workers. Bourgeoisie is using all tricks, including privatizations, to fulfill its objectives.

Another tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie to worsen living conditions of workers is price rises. By statistics of the government itself, the food inflation has been 18% since several years. This is in fact an average which hides even higher inflation of some of the basic necessities of life. The impact of all the steps is that despite so-called boom in the economy, conditions of living of the working class has gone from bad to worse.

Development of class struggle

Different sections of the working class have tried to fight against these attacks. There are many examples of this: in Gurgaon workers of Hero Honda, Honda Motor Cycles and Scooters and of many other factories. In Chennai, struggles of workers of Hyundai and other companies. Elsewhere, struggles of banks, airlines and airport workers. Strikes of road transport workers in different states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu etc are also expressions of this. In this, strikes of road transport workers in Kashmir between 2008 and 2010 have special importance. Here workers not only went on strikes several times in the middle of violent fights between separatist and Indian state, their movement also impulsed a ten days strike by all state workers in Kashmir in 2010.

Struggles of Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) workers against attacks by the management are part of this general developing trend. In July 2006, permanent and temporary workers of UPSRTC in Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Kanpur went on strikes for better wages and regularization of temporary workers. Government of UP suppressed this strike by imposing ESMA (Essential Services Maintenance Act) and by repression. Hundreds of permanent and temporary workers were fired from their jobs as part of this campaign of repression. In 2009 UPSRTC workers of Allahabad region went on strike. In April 2010, 15000 temporary workers of UPSRTC throughout UP went on strike for regularization of their jobs and for better wages and working conditions. This was suppressed by repressive steps by the state government.

One of the more militant struggles of UPSRTC workers was in 2008. 25,000 workers participated in it. The government suppressed this by violence. On 5 February 2008, state police attacked UPSRTC workers with batons, tear gas and by bullets. In these attacks one worker was fatally wounded and 20 others were seriously injured. Hundreds of workers were arrested.

Workers' struggles defeated by union sabotage

But one thing needs to be remembered is that unions played as big a role as the state government in beating down these workers’ struggles.

All the struggles were controlled by the unions and were initiated by them in the face of anger by workers and under their pressure. Before these struggles, unions fanned all types of divisions among workers: divisions between drivers and conductors, between bus workers and workshop workers, between permanent and temporary workers and divisions on the name of castes and on the name of affiliations to competing bourgeoisie political factions (BSP versus SP, Congress versus BJP etc). Thus before the start of workers struggles, instead of strengthening workers unity, unions did everything to wreck it. If the unions still called for strikes under workers pressure, they tried to maintain them at the level of ritual actions of one or two day strikes. Before these strikes could develop, unions put an end to them on the name of fake agreements. These maneuvers by the unions not only sabotaged these struggles, they did everything to weaken workers will to fight.

But this is not a particular character of unions active among UPSRTC workers. Today unions have the same character and role everywhere. This is the character of all the unions, whether they are controlled by Congress, BJP and BSP or unions controlled by CPI, CPM and Maoists or ‘independent’ unions. Not only in India but everywhere in the worlds unions play the same role: to divide the workers, to stop their struggles from developing and, if these struggles cannot be stopped, to turn them into ritual struggles and thus ensure the smooth working of capitalist exploitation.

Way forward for workers' struggle – struggles outside union controls

That is why when we look at workers struggle in different parts of the world today, we note certain things. Workers struggles have been able to advance only where workers have been able to make efforts to get out of unions control and take struggles in their hands. Workers have tried to do this by organising general assemblies. General assemblies are places for workers to discuss and decide about their struggles, its path and their demands. In addition to setting up general assemblies, another step important for their development is to extend the struggles. For transport workers and other sectors of workers to extend a hand toward others sectors of workers. This is a lesson of recent workers struggles throughout the world.

The latest effort of UPSTRC unions to derail workers anger and demoralize them was displayed recently. A strike was declared for 7 Feb 2011. Before the strike took place, on 5 Feb 2011 unions declared – the government has promised to look into their demands.

With this they took back the strike. It was natural for workers to get angry against this. In Kanpur depots, workers assembled to oppose this sabotage by the unions. The meeting called for this discussed how to develop the struggle by taking it out of union control. It proposed to work for calling general assemblies of depots and others workers and instead of fighting separately, workers of UPSTRC should fight along with other workers of Kanpur. This was effort of a small minority and about 200 workers took part in these discussion. But this is an expression of a developing questioning. Only strengthening of this tendency of questioning the unions and taking struggles in their own hands can open the door for the development of workers struggles.

Alok/RB, 14/2/11