class struggle 116 autumn 2016

8/19/2019 Class Struggle 116 Autumn 2016

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Syria: From Guernica to Aleppo If anyone wanted conclusive proof that Syria has become the battlegroundbetween the two main imperialist blocs collaborating to smash the Syrianrevolution all they have to do is look at the fate of Aleppo. A native of

Aleppo recently wrote of his terrible decision to finally leave that citybecause of the Russian blitzkrieg.

A letter from underRussian bombs in Aleppo

"I didn’t ever expect this time would come, but Ihave to give up. I am leaving for a place I am notsure even exists.”

Dear Rabi,You askaboutAleppo, letme tell youabout thecity wherewe grew uptogether.

We haven’tseen a good

day in years.The shellingnever stops,even for anhour or two.Life haschanged, allthe placesyou remember are gone: forget them, it is toopainful. The bombs dropped by the regime areindiscriminate, destroying everything in their path.Everything is changed, destroyed or deserted,

without life.

Even in our dreams we no longer know what“safety” means. Every time you open your eyes youdon’t know if it the last time you will see your kids.The people you used to know are not here anymore.People from the surrounding towns and villageshave moved to the city in the past few years,hoping to find safety. Aleppo was always seen as asafe place. But many of them had to move on.People keep trying to find safer places, so they keepcoming and going. We are happy to help, but it is

hard and we get tired.

Aleppo is not fully besieged yet. But moving aroundour city has become very difficult. People are livingday by day; their hope has died along with their cityand, many times, their loved ones. The simplest

things in life have become very hard. To buy food,bread or water for your family you have to wait in along, long line–and then keep waiting. You spend allthe time looking around, paying attention to everynoise, as if you could hear whether you are the nextone that will be hit by a strike. The remaining time,you think about your family: will they be still alivewhen you get home? Will your home still be there?

In the end youmay get whatyou came for. Ifyou are luckyyou get homesafely, withoutbeing killed by abomb from aplane. It is notjust fighting onthe front lines,it’s not just the

continuousbombing. Thereare snipershidden in everycorner on theway out of thecity. We are

constantly adapting our lives. Schools have had tomove underground, and medical centers have tomanage with limited supplies. We tried to buildnew democratic institutions: we elected new

leaders. Everything has been a struggle.We tried to go north to different neighborhoods, butbombs were falling there. We could see the planesflying above us, they sometimes display Syrian flags,sometimes Russian, sometimes we don’t even know.It feels like they are following us everywhere we go.

The surrounding communities of Anadan, Marah, TalRefat, Hretan, Bynoon, Azaz are also suffering.These towns and villages started a peacefulrevolution. They stood with Aleppo when Syriangovernment forces attacked civilians in the city.

They took in people fleeing the bombs and theshelling. But what happened to them? They werebombed, every single day. People do not know whothe planes are aiming for and whether they will benext to die. Tens of air strikes per day, for the last120 days.

http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/from-guernica-to-aleppo.htmlhttps://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/from-guernica-to-aleppo.html


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Class Struggle 116 Autumn 2016

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And now it is time to leave. I didn’t ever expect thistime would come, but I have to give up. I amleaving for a place I am not sure even exists. Manyfriends of mine are already waiting along theTurkish border. It is an open, cold space, crowdedwith 70,000 people, where the temperature isfreezing. But my

heart will alwaysremain here.

Aleppo stands infront of a big warmachine armedonly with smallweapons. It is notjust a geographicaltarget. Aleppo iskarama, it isdignity, it is the

revolution againstinjustice. GoodbyeAleppo; myhometown, theplace where I spentmy childhood,where all mymemories are. Ihope to see youthere again oneday, my friend.

Your childhood companion, S

Editor’s note: This letter was sent to and translated by Rabi Bana, a human rights activist born in Aleppo in 1984, who left Syria in late 2012. Heworks in Beirut and Turkey for an internationalNGO that supports Syrian civil society. Born in Aleppo in 1980, S. has been involved in peaceful protest demanding freedom and democracy fromthe beginning of the uprising in 2011. He is a founder of the Aleppo Media Center and works ineducation for the city government.

The battle for Aleppo

This Russian blitzkrieg is worse than Guernica theSpanish city destroyed by fascist bombers duringthe civil war. In Spain the Republic was attackedby Franco’s fascists with the support of theWestern imperialist powers. Around the world thelabor movement and the Stalinist CommunistParties rallied to the Republican side in the civilwar and many travelled to Spain to form

international brigades.Today, in Syria most of the Western left deny thata civil war exists. They are by default on the side

of the fascist regime. Trotsky said that Stalinismwithout workers property would be a kind offascism. With the end of workers property Putininherited Stalin's mantle. So the crypto-Staliniststoday claim there is no popular insurrection inSyria.

They buy Assad’slies that the UScreated militias tobring about ‘regimechange’ and thatmost of thosemilitias have beenoverrun by the ISitself a US proxy.There is norevolution and noside to support in

Syria for thesecrypto-Stalinists

except Russia asthe only forcecapable of wipingout IS.

Others prefer toback peace talks inthe hope that the

war can be stopped. Neither will talk to theSyrian people about their struggle for survival.

The Syrian people may as well not exist.There is a third alternative that has beendeliberately suppressed by the Western ‘R ussiaToday’ (RT) left and that is the reality of thepopular uprising against Assad. Aleppo shows it isa lie to reduce this to a CIA project or to Saudiarms when both (and Turkey) have conspired tostop the arming of the opposition.

That is why for all the talk of the US and itsproxies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, arming therebels, none have provided the only weapons

capable of decisively defeating Assad’s planes,Surface to Air Missiles (SAMS).

Aleppo (the largest commercial city) shows it is alie to claim that Assad is the legitimate ruler withmajority support. Until Russia began its bombingof the opposition militias 4 months ago, Assad waslosing. Not to the IS but to the many local popularmilitias such as that which held Aleppo for years.

How can anyone claim Assad has legitimacy afterhis gas attacks and barrel bombing of civilians?After half a million deaths and 4 million in exile?Why if Assad has legitimacy does he now needRussia to blast Aleppo into the European darkages?

https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttps://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/


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The socialist and anarchist left that buys thisruling class shit is no better than the bourgeoisfilth who unleash genocide on the Syrians. Why?Because they have turned their backs on theirduty to mobilise worker support for the Syrian(and any other) revolution despite and because ofthe apparently unwinnable prospect of defeating

the class enemy on 4 fronts –

(1) The imperialist US and its NATO partners plusthe Russia/China bloc who will kill millions for thelast drop of oil.

(2) Assad and hismercenaries whowill complete thegenocide of thepeople and razingof the cities beforethey surrender to'terrorism'.

(3) The IS and other jihadis who areopportunistsattempting to insertthemselves into thevacuum caused bythe unresolved civilwar and who areuseful as armed thugs against the revolution.

(4) The Western crypto Stalinist left which sits onthe sidelines indulging in geopolitical handwashing as the counter-revolutionary armiescompete on bodycount and oilwells, tut tuttingabout how it is all so gruesome and uncivilised.

Fortunately for the fate of humanity, when thepeople rise up they see clearly that there isn’t ahell of a lot of difference between Russian bombs,Hezbollah and RT 'socialist' lies when you countthe dead children.

While the Syrian revolutionaries fight on the first

three fronts, it’s up to us in the rest of the worldto expose and defeat the crypto-Stalinist left thatacts as a ‘fifth column’ in the workers movementsand campaign for material aid to therevolutionary militias.

No more Guernicas!

No more Aleppos!

For the workers of the world to

live, capitalism must die!

Postscript on the PY

Russia alliance

The crypto-Stalinists who support the KurdDemocratic Union Party (PYD) alliance with Russiaas the “progressive” forces capable of smashing

the IS and al Nusra should be proud of their sell-out politics. Because now it is no secret that thePYD is collaborating with Assad and Russia tosmash the Syrian opposition.

What an irony whenthe fake socialistand anarchist leftholds up the PYD as

exemplaryrevolutionaries

singing the praises

of the PYD who callfor a free

democraticfederation of Kurds,Turks and Arabs inthe north of Syria.

It turns out that‘freedom’ for thePYD leadership isgrabbing territory

from the Syrian opposition by working in collusion

with the Assad dictatorship and Russianimperialism to fight the real revolutionary Syrianopposition in Aleppo.

We are for a free Kurdistan! Not one which is atthe expense of Syrian Arabs and the unity of themasses, but one without national or sectariandivisions and which allies with the ArabRevolution to kick out all the imperialists andtheir dictators in the MENA (Middle East/NorthAfrica)!

https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloo

dy-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttps://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-

sector-to-russiahttps://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttps://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttps://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttps://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttps://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttps://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttps://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttps://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russiahttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/why-is-russia-in-syria.htmlhttps://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/https://eternispring.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/from-iraq-to-syria-labour-should-stop-pretending-to-represent-british-muslims/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/a-letter-from-aleppo-everyone-should-read/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/bloody-counterrevolution-in-aleppo-on-russian-blitzkrieg-and-us-betrayal/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/2/15/assad-preparing-to-handover-syrias-energy-sector-to-russia


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TPPA against socialist expropriation

What the TPPA Treaty is doing is a continuation ofthe original Treaty, this time not to establishcapitalist property, but to prevent the socialising ofcapitalist property. The US monopoly corporatesknow that their wealth can be expropriated if mass

movements rise up and challenge the capitaliststates. They seek to put up international laws andinstitutions to legitimize the rights of capitalistproperty and impose draconian sanctions onattempts by populist governments to nationalise orcollectivise private assets.

Just as British imperialism submitted Maori to the'sovereign' property rights of capitalist ownershipagainst collective ownership, US imperialism via theTPPA will attempt to submit NZ citizens to the'sovereign' rights of monopoly corporates backed byUS state power to prevent the socialisation ofcapitalist property.

We have seen thatno Treaty with thecapitalist rulingclass can 'honour' itspromises toguarantee equalityon the basis ofcapitalist property.Every capitaliststate exists to

legitimize capitalistproperty. Nationalsovereignty isnothing more thanexercising statepower to defendprivate property.

Capitalist Treaties from 1840 to 2016 are fraudsimplemented by a colonial nation state to meetthe demands of the imperialist states of the day.The 'sovereignty' of the NZ state was always to

administer the sovereignty of the imperialistmaster, Britain or the US. Therefore, oppositionto the ruling class 'Treaties' designed tosubordinate the masses to imperialism can onlysucceed by resisting and defeating imperialism.

As the protests against the TPPA show, a broadworking class (in the sense of those who work for aliving) is uniting into a mass movement in the nameof defending NZ's 'sovereignty' from US imperialismand its NZ client regime, the NACTs. The majorityof this movement still believes that the NZ state can

act in the 'national' interest of all NZ people, richand poor and legislate to reject or renegotiate theTPPA. A minority of anti-capitalists who know that

this cannot work and the only answer to the TPPAhas to be a revolution against capitalism and itsstate, and the creation of a socialist republic withina Pacific federation of socialist republics.

A Socialist Aotearoa in a Socialist Pacific-Asia

While the majority are not yet ready for revolution,

events can bring about rapid change in politics.Political struggle is about knowing the enemy. As amass movement seeks to raise political demandsagainst the fraudulent TPPA, the parliamentaryprocess will become increasingly diversionary.

A Labour/Green/NZ First/Mana opposition will bepowerless to reject or even amend the TPPAgiven the massive pressure exerted by the USEmpire on its path to destruction.

The blind alley of parliament will encourage moreto engage in direct action against the destructiveeffects of the TPPA and demand to break from all

imperialist controlover NZ.

This will lead toorganising andcoordinating localaction committeeswhich agree on a

TransitionalProgram ofdemands that goes

from a living wagetoday to the fightfor a Workers '

Governmenttomorrow tonationalise theland; socialise the

property of the imperialist corporates and the bigcapitalist cronies in NZ under workers control;create a socialist plan based on production tomeet need not greed, and to fight catastrophic

climate change and nuclear meltdown.The only true honour is the mana of theunited working people of the Pacific!For a Socialist Republic of Aotearoa aspart of a Socialist United States of thePacific!

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/186

7-c1/ch33.htmhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.html

http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttp://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htmhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htmhttp://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/08/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-there-is-no-honour-in-any-capitalist-treaty/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/smash-tpp-for-workers-government.html


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The Truth about Libya

Martyn Bradbury editor of The Daily Blog finds that Hilary Clinton’s emails reveal the‘truth’ about Libya. It was always a US/NATO ‘regime change’ mission to get rid ofGaddafi and grab Libya’s oil. That means there never was a revolution, the rebels

were no more than paid stooges of the US and the result is a failed state, worse thanwhen Gaddafi was in charge.

Was Libya just another ‘proxy war’?

First, these so-called revelations are hardly new. Itwas obvious at the time that the US and EU powerscoveted the oil that Gaddafi was promising toChina. That is what you expect from imperialistpowers when they are competing for a vitalresource such as oil.

Does that mean that imperialism determined the

fate of the Libyan revolution? No! The Libyanrevolution won despite imperialist intervention. Itgot rid of Gaddafi's pro-imperialist dictatorialregime. There were excesses including the summaryexecution of black mercenaries by the rebels, andthe summary execution of Gaddafi himself. Thesewere known at the time and opposed by thosesupporting the revolution who called for such actsto be subject to a revolutionary court.

Semi-colonial revolutions don’t follow the blueprintsof Western revolutionaries. Democratic revolutions

against military dictatorships are not ‘pure’. Suchrevolutions in the West were bloody and werefought over decades. Revolutions are messy and donot mean that suddenly the future is rosy. So talk ofchaos and anarchy is stupid when killings are afraction of downtown Chicago.

Revolutions are always bloody because they areconfronted by bloody counter-revolutions. Rulingclasses rule by force unleashing anarchy and chaosto destroy revolutions. Revolution can only prevailby destroying the military dictatorship of thecounter-revolution.

In Libya today it is clear is that the popular massesare still in control. The militias will not agree todisarm until a national army exists that representsall their interests. They control the oil productionand negotiate shares. The US/NATO bloc andRussia/China bloc have failed to create a new clientregime to pump the oil for them. The machinationsof Clinton and her US power brokers are largelyirrelevant to this situation because they failed inLibya and they will ultimately fail in Syria.

The imperialist ‘left’ conspiracyThe so called Clinton ‘revelations’ are merely fuelfor the social imperialist left that is desperate to

find 'facts' to prove that Arab and other MENApeople are incapable of determining their ownfuture because they are dupes of the CIA or Muslim'extremists'. This is the left that has benefited fromgenerations of 'democracy' paid for by the blood ofcolonial peoples and suppressed by dictators likeGaddafi, Assad and Sisi. These people would notrecognise a democratic revolution if they ran into itin a pub.

The imperial ‘left’ are liberals bought off bycolonial super-profits decades ago to support to‘progressive’ leaders (Gaddafi and Assad!) or bigpowers (Russia!) to create a better world withouthaving to get off their backsides. When ‘reality’ social media shows up their conspiracies they haveto look for new conspiracies to plug the gaps.Clinton's emails don't tell us anything we don'talready know and nothing about real revolutions.Let’s look at how these ‘imperialist conspiracies’ tomake revolutions have worked out in practice.

Western ‘Leftists’ who write off the Arab masses asno more than the pawns of Big Power spies or proxyfighters, claim that revolutions are the result ofimperialist conspiracies. Classic anti-communistconspiracy theory holds that workers cannot makerevolutions unless organised to do so by theirimperialist masters. So those revolutions then mustserve the interests of the imperialists.

Favourite conspiracies include that the Bolshevikrevolution where the Kaiser supposedly allowedLenin to travel in a sealed train back to Russia and

contributed gold to back the Bolsheviks in return fora ceasefire. On the contrary, proving they were notpuppets of the Kaiser, the Bolsheviks delayedsigning a peace treaty to foment revolution inGermany. French and British spies also tried toinfluence the Bolsheviks into continuing the waragainst Germany. But the Bolsheviks served theinterests of none of the big powers.

Bolsheviks were no imperialist puppets...

The Bolsheviks delayed signing a peace treaty withGermany in support of the German masses fed upwith the war and primed for mutiny. This forcedGermany to invade the Ukraine and destroy Russia’sagricultural and industrial heartland to force the

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/01/11/the-truth-about-libya-why-hillary-shouldnt-be-president-and-why-you-should-protest-obama-when-he-visits/http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/01/11/the-truth-about-libya-why-hillary-shouldnt-be-president-and-why-you-should-protest-obama-when-he-visits/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/libya-imperialist-hands-off.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/advance-libyan-revolution.htmlhttp://claysbeach.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/why-i-consider-libya-revolutionary.htmlhttp://claysbeach.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/why-i-consider-libya-revolutionary.htmlhttp://claysbeach.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/why-i-consider-libya-revolutionary.htmlhttp://claysbeach.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/why-i-consider-libya-revolutionary.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/advance-libyan-revolution.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/libya-imperialist-hands-off.htmlhttp://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/01/11/the-truth-about-libya-why-hillary-shouldnt-be-president-and-why-you-should-protest-obama-when-he-visits/


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Bolsheviks to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.Within months the German soldiers had mutiniedand the Bolsheviks had expropriated the assets ofall the imperialist powers.

The real conspiracy then became obvious. Thewarring powers hastened to sign the Armistice so

they could unleash an invasion of 7 armiesagainst the ultimate enemy, Bolshevism, only tobe defeated in the Civil War by the Red Army,establishing the Soviet Union as a thorn in theside of imperialism for 70 years!

The Russian revolution was handicapped by itsisolation as a result of the failure of the Germanrevolution. That had nothing to do with the Ententewhose greed impoverished German workers andhelped drive them to insurrection, but rather toGerman social democracy which was bought off bythe German ruling class to form a bourgeois“Socialist Republic” and to kill Luxemburg andLiebknecht the leaders of the Spartacists whodemanded a socialist insurrection. This momentousepisode in history proves that it was not imperialistspies manipulating revolutions, but rather organisingcounter-revolutions to divide-and-rule theproletariat and defeat revolutionary insurrections.

A second example is the Chinese revolution of 1949.No imperialist power, especially the US and Japan,expected the Chinese revolution to kick them andthe national bourgeoisie out of China. The Chinese

Communist Party (CPC) as ordered by Stalin to makean alliance with the ‘progressive’ nationalbourgeoisie. But it fled the country so that the CPChad to go further than it intended and nationaliseimperialist and capitalist property.

Far from being the dupes of imperialism the Chinesebureaucracy was forced to expel it and to baseitself on the ‘state property’ of poor peasants andworkers. However, the bureaucracy feared thepower of workers and poor peasants to rise,overthrow it and take state power into their own

hands. So they plotted a return to the “capitalistroad”. However, even then they were no dupes ofimperialism.

While the Chinese bureaucracy painted themselvesas “communists” they were actually moving to buildstate capitalism in China strong enough to resist anyreturn to Western colonial domination. Thus in1989-92 the US imperialist bloc celebrated therestoration of capitalism in Russia and China only toface the shock of these two countries emergingfrom ignominious defeat in the Cold War as born

again rivals to US hegemony. Now both Russia andChina led a block of “emerging nations” thatthreatened to rival the declining US imperialistbloc.

Revolution vs counter-revolution

The class war is a constant battle between labourand capital. Revolutionary forces are constantlyconfronted and attacked by counter-revolutionaryforces. As war and repression expose the attemptsto use democratic forms to contain the revolution,

the imperialist ruling classes are forced to resort tonaked state power. They can only hold onto theirpower by hiring spies, mercenaries and agents todivide and conquer the working masses. But thesemeasures too are insufficient.

That is what Libya and Syria show us. Attempts tointervene and manipulate popular resistance havecome to nothing. There is only so much that theimperialist spies and mercenaries can do beforethey are powerless in the face of the armed masses.For all its “interventions” the US bloc has lost everywar it fought since Vietnam because it could notdestroy revolutionary workers and poor peasantswho defended democracy against imperialism andits lackey client regimes.

That is why the weapon of last resort that theimperialists have is the imperialist ‘left’ thatcynically bemoans the manipulation of themasses by the US imperialist bloc. For themthe popular revolution is actually animperialist counter-revolution. That is whythey side with reactionary, genocidal regimes

as “progressive” allies in the ‘war on terror’.

The revolutionary masses in Libya and Syriarefuse to bought off or subordinated toimperialism and its servants and will alwaysovershoot the plans of their ‘masters’ whenthey have nothing to lose but their chains.One of those chains is the imperialist ‘left’ bought off by the comforts of civilisation towrite off the masses as history’s losers. Thatis why the Libyan and Syrian revolutions will

win only if based upon armed militias that areindependent of imperialism and its lackeynational regimes.

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http://claysbeach.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/why-i-consider-libya-revolutionary.html

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Marx and the MediaThere is a big debate, including on The Daily Blog , on the bias of the corporate media,and the need for an independent media to correct this bias. Marxists have longdebated the role of media in capitalist society, so what do they add to the argument?

If you Google the internet there is plenty ofcommentary from all of these perspectives. Butthere is a singular lack of critical analysis of whatthe Marxists offer over the radical standpoint. Thisis not made easier when most Marxist commentatorsmiss what is essential to Marxism and end up as nodifferent from radicals. To get to the root of thingsradicals have to find the roots, right?

So inevitably it comes down to what one claims arethe 'roots' of Marxism. It’s easy to see differencesbetween say Hayek, Chomsky and Gramsci. Hayekleaves everything to the market. Individuals win orlose. Chomsky wants citizens to rise up and replacethe corporate media with a popular press to realisedemocracy. Gramsci says the ruling class uses itsintellectuals to create a culture of 'common sense'to gain hegemony over the masses. Hayek was a(neo) liberal, Chomsky is a liberal anarchist, andGramsci was a Marxist. Or was he?

Gramsci was very influential in Marxist mediastudies because he saw media as the product ofclass struggle. Yet that struggle was not in theworkplace but in the sphere of 'culture'. Academic

Marxism took its cue from this and turned MediaStudies into the analysis of the 'cultural classstruggle' over ideas. In his favour Gramsci held thatthe battle would be won by worker intellectualsorganised in a communist party. In that he was atleast a revolutionary. There were other 'Marxists'who watered down Marxism further like theFrankfurt School of Adorno and Marcuse and whoclaimed that the working class was no longer arevolutionary class and the battle for ideas hadbeen won by a hegemonic bourgeois intelligentsia.

To that extent these Frankfurters were not evenradical.

My point is that if Gramsci who was true to Marx inmuch of his writing yet failed to get to the root ofthe class struggle, then there is much lost that hasto be made up. We have to start at the roots andMarx's point that "being determines consciousness."By "being" Marx means working to produce what isneeded to reproduce human life. Under capitalismthat "being" is alienated since labor it isexpropriated by the class that owns the means ofproduction. Instead of labor being seen as thecreator of value commodities appear as therepository of value. As Marx says production

relations are appear as exchange relations which hecalls "commodity fetishism".

This inverted representation of "being" is the basisof "consciousness" under capitalism and isspontaneously created at work each day without theintervention of bourgeois cultural agents or a"cultural class struggle". Since workers do not seethat their labor is alienated, they are alienatedfrom themselves as bourgeois individuals definedonly by their capacity to buy and sell in the market.I buy therefore I am!

Now if we load Marx into Gramsci we get a betteranalysis of the media. The media is premised oncapitalist alienation unless it penetrates the causesof alienation. The media mediates capitalisthegemony. Of course the corporate media revels inthis hegemony so long as even the most radical,independent media does not challenge capitalistsocial relations. We need to turn Gramsci back onhis roots and promote him from the theoretician of'cultural class struggle' to the theoretician ofalienation and commodity fetishism.

So how would we turn this Gramsci loose on themedia today? We rip into the corporate media notmerely as owned by bosses and serviced by tameintellectuals as if we were Chomsky calling for an'independent' media. We critique the fakeindependence of all media under capitalism thatdoes not start with investigating "being" and"consciousness". We don't go in for fancy analyses ofthe new media as the new weapon of organicintellectuals, we promote the street level mediarepresentation of "being' in the workplace and in thepublic squares where our alienated labor is

reproduced by the bosses thugs and mercenaries.Live streaming and video uploading mediates thetrue reality of the ruling class as destructive andfatal to human existence.

This representation of "being" brings with it anescalation of "consciousness" that explodes theideological subterfuges of capitalism hiding being"democracy", "human rights" and individual"freedom". We rescue from the academicMarxists the Gramsci who from prison spoke ofthe 'Prince' as the Communist Party of worker-

intellectuals that had the power to overthrowcapitalism. http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/01/19/guest-blog-comrade-dave-brownz-mediating-marx/

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China and the Socialist Future

China’s current role as the world’s leading industrial nation is the result of its unique history as an

empire, a British colony, a ‘socialist’ republic and new imperialist power. It is the most dynamic

capitalist society today having emerged out of a centralised bureaucratic state ‘socialism’. This

makes China’s role in the world unique but not exceptional. While China is recognised as being a

‘leader’ in growth, in consumption, and in new technology, to keep this leadership it cannot jumpover the capitalist laws of history. China’s slowdown proves that it not immune to these laws. It is nopanacea for global capitalism’s decline. China is now facing its own capitalist crisis of overproduction which it cannot resolve without attacking the 1 billion Chinese workers. And despite and because oftheir past defeats those workers cannot survive without fighting for a genuine socialist revolution.That is why China is more than any other the country where capitalism’s past and future collides as afundamental clash between the proletariat and the capitalist imperialist ruling class today.

We can dispense with those pseudo theories thatexplain China’s rise as something to do with ‘marketsocialism’. This is a futile attempt to both recognisethe truth that the capitalist market exists in China,

yet somehow claim it serves the goals of ‘socialism.The reality is that the restoration of the capitalistmarket could not coexist with ‘socialism’ in itsbastardised bureaucratic form of state ownership ofproperty in China. It had to destroy those aspects ofChinese society that owe anything to ‘socialism’.First, it had to defeat the working class as the classthat grew up under bureaucratic ‘socialism’. Farfrom advancing under ‘market socialism’ theworkers met with an historic defeat.

The restoration of capitalism was a huge defeat for

the millions of workers. Hao Qi says:“During the country’s transition to capitalism, asthe bonus-centered incentive system could notsustain itself, enterprises needed the existence of areserve army to discipline workers and a segregatedlabor market to divide and conquer the workingclass. A continuous influx of migrant workers andthe 30 million laid-off workers from the state-owned sector jointly expanded the reserve army oflabor within a few years in the 1990s. The reservearmy significantly depressed the power of the

working class as a whole, and the segregation of thelabor market also weakened the solidarity of theworking class. This is why we have witnessed themajor decline of labor’s share since the early1990s.”

However according to the same writer the GlobalFinancial Crisis of 2008 reversed that decline:

“There is a new turning point for the Chineseworking class. After the outbreak of the globalcapitalist crisis, labor’s share in China began torecover. Along with this fact, one can also observe

that the nominal wage level has grown faster thannominal GDP since 2008, and in 2012 China’sworking-age population decreased for the first timein the reform era, which implies that the reserve

army of labor will shrink in the near future. Moreimportantly, there is a developing workers’ strugglefor a decent living wage that is sufficient to affordthe cost of living in the urban areas. The new

generation of migrant workers who were mostlyborn in the 1980s and ‘90s insists on living in theurban areas. This has led to struggles for higherwages. Workers’ struggle for a larger share of thenational income will eventually end the high-profitera for capitalists and thus open up a new era forthe Chinese economy.” ibid

In sum, this ‘optimistic’ view of the labormovement in China is that it has recovered from itsearly defeats of the 1990s and has emerged‘empowered’ and capable of increasing the share of

labor. It argues that rising numbers of strikes andsuccesses in improving wages and conditions willlead to higher consumption and overcome China’seconomic problems. How realistic is this view?

Critics have argued that the ‘empowerment’ thesisis ‘false optimism’ and not backed by the reality.Strikes have in fact declined since the massive labormilitancy in the early days of capitalist restorationin the 1990s. They question the claim that thereserve army of migrant workers flooding to thecities is slowing significantly and reducing

downward pressure on wages. The rural reservearmy is still 300 million strong. More important isthe crisis which forces capital to increase the rateof exploitation of wage labor. There is a trendtowards precarization of work, with shorter hours,atomization of the workforce, worsening conditions,employer corruption of unions etc. Even thepurported ‘victory’ of rising wages reflects centralgovernment policy of boosting consumption ratherthan union power.

Whatever the evidence that the record number ofstrikes is linked to growing class conscious labormovement can we draw the conclusion that Chineseworkers are any better or worse prepared than inother capitalist countries to fight back against theeffects of a major economic crash on their lives?

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That would be to ignore the historical differencesbetween the West and the East.

Just as the recent rapid rise of China as a majorimperialist power is unprecedented (the last majorpower to emerge as imperialist was the USA beforethe First World War!) relative to the rest of thecapitalist world, so we have to look at the

developing class struggle in China in the same light.Class struggle in China is conditioned by its historyas an historic empire, a capitalist colony for over acentury (from the Opium war of 1840) then by anational revolution that broke from globalcapitalism from 1949 to the 1990s, followed by therestoration of capitalism and the rise of Chineseimperialism. This unique history has powerfulimplications for our understanding of China andglobal capitalism today.

What makes China different?

To explain the impact of the past on the present inChina today we have to explore what makes China’sroad to capitalism different from the West. SinceChina today is clearly capitalist the class strugglebetween the working class, poor peasants and thecapitalist ruling class is like that of all capitaliststates. However, there are important differences inthe development of capitalism in China.

The First Chinese Revolution in 1911 led by the newbourgeois class overthrew the Qing dynasty. But

because Chinese development was retarded byimperialism, no powerful national bourgeoisie hademerged capable of leading the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution in China. It was a classcaught between the massive peasantry and therising industrial proletariat and the occupyingimperialist powers.

It feared the peasants and workers more than theimperialist exploiters and sided with the latter. Thisfear was well founded as it was the workers andpoor peasants who defeated Japan and theKuomintang army in 1949, proving once again afterRussia in 1917 that ‘backward’ countries in theepoch of imperialism can only become independentof imperialism through socialist revolution.

This unique history is the big difference betweenChina and the West. In the West capitalistdevelopment in the 19th and 20th centuries occurredover centuries on the basis of the plunder of thecolonial world including the plunder of the ancientChinese empire. Modern imperialism allowed thesenations to accumulate huge wealth and bribe largesections of the working class with colonial super-

profits to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie aspoliticians in the reformist parties and bureaucratsin the labor unions.

Trotsky pointed out that this accounted for thesuccess of the revolution in Russia and its failure inEurope. The strength of reformism in Europe tiedworkers to the parliamentary system whereas inRussia, a backward capitalist country under aTsarist dictatorship, bourgeois democracy was yetto be born. The socialist revolution incorporated thetasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution as the‘permanent revolution’.

For the Bolsheviks, however, a successful workersrevolution in a backward country could not lead tosocialism in one country. Russia’s isolation andeconomic backwardness created the conditions forthe emergence of a bureaucracy under Stalin after1924. The Stalinist bureaucracy reverted to aMenshevik “two-stage” theory that backward(colonial or semi-colonial) countries had to followthe example of the Western countries and gothrough a bourgeois democratic stage to prepare

the conditions for socialism. In the absence of aRussian bourgeoisie Stalin reverted to the“democratic dictatorship of the workers and thepeasants” in which the workers and all the peasantswould complete the bourgeois revolution in theabsence of a revolutionary bourgeoisie.

According to his unreconstructed Menshevikcynicism that the proletarian revolution waspremature, Stalin turned this theory into the “blocof four classes” i.e. a national front of theproletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeois

intelligentsia, and national bourgeoisie, to bringabout the ‘bourgeois democratic’ revolution. Thiswould allow the Soviet Union to form alliances withcapitalist countries to buy the time necessary tobuild ‘socialism in one country’.

Against this Menshevik theory, the Bolshevikconcept of Permanent Revolution was defended bythe Left Opposition between 1923 and 1928 whichtry to win the leadership of the Communist Party ofChina (CPC) to lead the poor peasants against thenational bourgeoisies (including the rich peasants

(kulaks) and the imperialist bourgeoisies.

So the ‘permanent revolution’ must start off as abourgeois democratic revolution againstimperialism but immediately pass over to thesocialist revolution against the bourgeoisie.

Theory/program of ‘permanent revolution’

Karl Marx originated this theory after the failure ofthe bourgeois revolutions in Europe in 1848.Henceforth the bourgeoisie was incapable ofcompleting its own revolution to extend bourgeois

rights to the masses (as we saw when Napoleonrevoked the freedom of the slaves in Haiti) and thathistoric task was now that of the proletariat as partof the world socialist revolution.

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Marx foresaw that the colonial world would notneed to follow the mechanical path of retracing thestages of growth of capitalism in the West. Once theWest extended is rule over the whole world (comingto its full force as imperialism in the late 19th century) the colonies could complete their nationaldemocratic struggle for independence only bymeans of socialist revolution.

In 1850 Marx talking about ‘backward’ China wrote:

“Chinese socialism may, of course, bear the samerelation to European socialism as Chinese toHegelian philosophy. But it is still amusing to notethat the oldest and most unshakeable empire onearth has, within eight years, been brought to thebrink of a social revolution by the cotton bales ofthe English bourgeoisie; in any event, such arevolution cannot help but have the most importantconsequences for the civilized world. When our

European reactionaries, in the course of theirimminent flight through Asia, finally arrive at theGreat Wall of China, at the gates which lead to thehome of primal reaction and primal conservatism,who knows if they will not find written thereon thelegend: “République chinoise Liberté, Egalité,Fraternité” Review: January-February, 1850

Just as in Europe where the reactionary bourgeoisiewas suppressing ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ forfear of the working class, in China the Taipinguprising in 1850 against the British invaders proved

to Marx that that the working class had thepotential lead the peasants to overthrow not onlyimperialism but also its own weak pro-imperialistbourgeoisie and complete the bourgeois revolutionas the socialist revolution. Thus Marx anticipatedthe prospect of ‘socialist revolution’ (even if‘bourgeois’ at the start) led by workers andpeasants completing the bourgeois revolution as‘permanent revolution’ in backward capitalistcountries.

Such a possibility was first proven correct in SovietRussia. The Bolsheviks moved quickly to completethe bourgeois revolution avoiding the death trap ofthe bourgeois Provisional Government betweenFebruary and October 1917. They took over theprogram of the party of poor peasants, the SocialRevolutionaries, for ‘land to the tiller’, to win themto the revolution. They expropriated foreigncapitalists, repudiated the foreign debt, and formedthe Red Army to defeat the military invasions of theimperialists. Even when widespread starvationcaused by the Civil War forced the Bolsheviks toallow the rich peasant Kulaks and capitalists to

profit from agriculture and trade, these enterpriseswere under the control of the workers state.

However, just as in Russia where permanentrevolution was aborted by global capitalism and the

Stalinist bureaucracy after 1924, in ‘backward’ China the CPC, as part of the Comintern dominatedby Stalin, also adopted the Menshevik program ofthe Bloc of Four Classes and the two-stagerevolution. The first ‘democratic’ stage of therevolution required a bloc of workers, peasants,intellectuals and ‘progressive’ bourgeoisie. This blocwould require the CPC to subordinate itself toChiang Kai Shek’s nationalist army and expose it torepression.

Trotsky and the Left Opposition from 1923 onwardsopposed Stalin’s Menshevik theory as part of hisbetrayal of Bolshevism and his program for“socialism in one country” and fought against thispolicy in the CPC in China. They condemnedStalin’s treacherous role in the smashing of theSecond Chinese revolution in 1927 when thebourgeois general Chiang Kai Chek unleashed hisarmy to massacre the CPC leaders and the militant

rank and file in Shanghai and Canton.

After the betrayal of the Second Chinese Revolutionthe CPC was led by Mensheviks like Mao whoretreated from the cities to a peasant war ofnational liberation against Japan and the nationalistKuomintang. Following its military victory in 1949the CPC tried to negotiate with the ‘progressive’bourgeoisie only to find it had fled into theimperialists’ camp. The CPC had to amend Stalin’sbloc of Four Classes to a bloc of Three Classes lednot by the workers but by the Menshevik CPC

leadership. The result was the formation of abureaucratic centralised state apparatus run by theCPC to complete the ‘bourgeois democratic’revolution and taking state power in the name ofworkers, peasants and intellectuals!

Capitalist property was expropriated and the marketreplaced by the plan administered by abureaucratically deformed workers’ state. The CPCintelligentsia promoted itself as the state managerof ‘socialist’ property but in reality the workers andpeasants had no say in how the state was run or the

planning process itself. There was no workersdemocracy that could replace the bureaucracy andmove China towards a genuine socialism. China as abureaucratically deformed ‘workers’ state was stuckin limbo between its capitalist past and its socialistfuture. Its fate would be decided either by apolitical revolution in which workers overthrew thebureaucracy and took power directly to implementgenuine socialism, or the defeat of the workers bythe parasitic bureaucracy to restore capitalismunder the ideology of “market socialism”.

Was the Chinese revolution ‘socialist’?Was this the socialist revolution Marx spoke of? No,because the workers did not lead the poor peasantsto the seizure of power. The struggle for national

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independence was led by a bureaucratic Stalinistparty forced by the desertion of the bourgeoisie tobase itself on the workers and poor peasants as aparasitic body feeding on their labor.

After the revolution the bureaucracy had toindustrialise to develop the forces of production tomeets the needs of both the rural and industrial

workforce as well as provide a surplus for theparasitic elite. The poor peasants who had formedthe ranks of the national army were rapidlysubordinated by the growth of industry and the riseof the urban working class.

The peasantry had no future as an independentclass. The peasantry’s aspirations are limited to thehorizon of petty capitalism or to private capitalistland ownership. The state blocked these aspirationsby collectivising the land. So the fate of thepeasantry was to become a rural labor force and a

reserve army of labor to serve the needs ofindustry.

This follows from the need to develop agriculturalproductivity to cheapen the wage goods ofindustrial workers and to create a surplus army oflandless peasants who could migrate to the cities asa reserve of cheap labor. Thus wages in industrywere driven down by migrant labor whose lowwages were supplemented by subsistence goods inthe countryside.

While this bureaucratically deformed workers state

appears to bourgeois intellectuals as no more than anew ‘socialist’ elite administering the oldcentralised state of the ‘middle empire’, it was inreality now under the overall determining influenceof the global capitalist economy. Rebuffed by thebourgeoisie, the bureaucracy was forced tocollectivise the agricultural labor of the old peasantfamily farmers to meet the needs of the industrialworking class and generate a surplus.

But the bureaucracy could not claim the surplusas private property without stoking a political

revolution of peasants and workers challenging itsrule. It was necessary to resort to corruption andabuse of the norms of ‘socialism’ to maintain itsprivileges.

The bureaucratic plan led to the Chinese economystagnating and a declining surplus. Because thisthreatened the material basis of the bureaucraciesprivileges by 1978 the party embarked on the firstmarket reforms to increase output. The CPC hadincreasing difficulty justifying its reforms in termsof ‘socialist’ norms of freedom and equality to the

masses which had the power to resist them. Itstretched the concept of ‘socialism’ and inventing“market socialism” to sell the restoration of‘capitalism’ to the masses.

However, increasing opposition to ‘marketsocialism’ these market reforms threatened the ruleof the bureaucracy. The defeat of the 1989 uprisingof Tiananmen Square that arose as a protest againstgrowing corruption and enrichment of the partyleadership at the expense of freedom and equalitywas an historic defeat for the working class andmarked the turning point in the restoration process.The CPC Congress in 1992 for the first timerecognised that the economy was now based on themarket (law of value) rather than state planning.

Thus the inherent contradiction of Chinese‘socialism’ was resolved with the historic defeatof workers by the bureaucracy determined toconvert itself into a capitalist class. Theconcessions to workers under the bureaucraticstate – labor protection in the nationalised SOEs,peasant property, labor rights etc - were removedor subordinated to demands of capitalist profit.

All the old ‘socialist’ protections of workers andpeasants rights are being eliminated.

Facing the global crisis of capitalism which is nowenveloping China, the Chinese working class isfacing millions of redundancies as inefficient firmsare closed down. They have to fight for the mostbasic demands, for the ‘iron rice bowl’ for jobs anda living wage etc for their survival. These strugglesare leading to more strikes and occupations whichwill pose the necessity of taking control of industry.At the same time the struggle of rural collectives in

the villages exposed to corruption and exploitationfor decades remains the basis for the survival of the300 million rural reserve army of labor.

Industrial workers and rural workers can onlyresolve China’s capitalist crisis in their own classinterests by seizing power, overthrowing theChinese bourgeoisie and replacing the capitaliststate with a Workers and Peasants’ State able toimplement a socialist plan. The only ‘new era’ inthe age of global capitalist decline and terminalcrisis where workers can win a living income will

be the new socialist era. So how do we get there?And what would it look like?

A Transitional Program for China

Immediate demands

>Return to the Rice Bowl! Jobs for all and a livingwage! Free, universal health, education and socialwelfare!>Defend the collective land rights of villages! For astate rural bank to fund cooperatives! >Build fighting, democratic unions! Form strike

committees and defence committees! For workersoccupation of industry, and workers and farmers’councils!

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>For a mass independent workers and workingfarmers political party to put up candidates againstthe CPC!>For a world party of socialist revolution based onthe revolutionary program of the communistinternationals including the 1938 TransitionalProgram!

Democratic demands >Reject all historic oppression today! Full equalityto all without discrimination by nationality, race,ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, disabilityetc!>China is not returning to its “middle kingdom”, it isa modern, capitalist empire! No to Chinese greatpower chauvinism!>Against Chinese imperialism! In any war with otherimperialist powers we are for workers turning theirguns on their own ruling class

>Reject colonial oppression! For self-determinationfor oppressed peoples and nations!No to false Stalinist and Maoist national fronts withthe national bourgeoisies against imperialism!

Socialist Demands

>Reject capitalist restoration under the guise of‘market socialism’. Down with the CPC and its newRed Capitalist class! Down with the billionaires!

>For the political general strike and workersinsurrection! For workers’ and peasants’ soviets andmilitias!>For a Workers’ Government based on armed sovietseverywhere! For the immediate expropriation of theproperty of Chinese and foreign capitalists!>For a workers plan based on soviets to planproduction for need! From each according to theability, to each according to their need!>For a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Asia-Pacific!

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Class Struggles in India India is undergoing a crisis of semi-colonial oppression facing the deepening world crisis ofimperialism. Today this is evident in the student struggles at JNU; the Honda strike and the ongoingwar in Kashmir. But what is the history behind this crisis? India is economically backward as itbecame capitalist belatedly and continues to be a semi-colony. ‘Independence’ from Britain was afraud, based as it was on a reactionary settlement that broke up the sub-continent and createdhostile client regimes based on casteism and communalism, trapping the sub-continental workingclass behind colonial borders. Imperialist Britain left this legacy of ‘divide and rule’ as time bombs

that would blow up as crises forced the capitalist contradictions to break the surface.

Reactionary Hindutva and Caste System

The big time bombs are the reactionary nationalistregimes founded on religion and caste which eachruling class uses to legitimate its rule. In India, theancient Hindu caste system, a hangover from pre-capitalist tributary society, was used to maintainclass rule. In Pakistan appeals to the authority ofIslam also a living relic of a pre-capitalist societywas used for the same purpose. Such communal‘bombs’ created by the departing colonial powerdrove East and West Pakistan to war and createdthe war in Kashmir as a running sore.

But while pre-capitalist Hindutva and radical Islam

are the main ruling class ideologies contested inthese bloody wars, they face opposition bybourgeois ideology that opposes these reactionaryideologies as ‘fascist’ aberrations which must be

defeated and replaced by the completed bourgeoisnational democratic revolution. The main

proponents of ‘bourgeois democracy’ today are notthe bourgeoisie but the petty bourgeoisie led by theStalinist and Maoist currents in the sub-continent.

Reactionary Stalinism/Maoism

So when radical secular youth are attacked byHindutva such as at JNU, the Stalinist and Maoistsdelude the youth into believing that Hindutva as anancient cultural hangover can be replaced bycompleting the bourgeois national revolution. Tothem, this requires a minimum/maximum programto fight for bourgeois demands such as national

independence, land reform, labour reform,electoral reform, the abolition of the caste system,nationalisation of large foreign and national firms,etc, (as minimum demands) to prepare the

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conditions for socialism in the future (maximumdemand).

For example the Stalinists India’s occupation ofKashmir is defending the unity and integrity ofcapitalist India which the Maoists/Naxalitesadvocate secession to create an independentcapitalist Kashmir. And when Honda workers strike

against the bosses to defend their jobs andconditions both Stalinists and Maoists mobilise theirsupporters to fight for fair wages based on fairbourgeois labor laws. The realisation of such abourgeois democratic revolution creates the pre-conditions for future socialism.

The problem with this Stalinist/Maoist ‘two stage’theory is that in the epoch of imperialism, monopolystate capital relies upon an increasinglyauthoritarian nation state to regulate and repressthe working class and the poor peasantry. The

national bourgeoisie, in turn, is clearly subservientto the various imperialist powers that are majorinvestors in the economy. In order to extract theirsuper profits, imperialist powers use their clientstates to suppress all such demands for democraticrights and freedoms making bourgeois parliamentsincapable of implementing minimal demands.

Nationalism is Counter-revolutionary

Tying the hands of workers who are fighting forbasic democratic and economic demands to themachinery of the capitalist nation state is in

essence counter-revolutionary. Historically,concessions won from the national bourgeoisie as aresult of mass mobilisations are granted only untilthe movement is contained or suppressed and suchconcessions can be conveniently withdrawn. That iswhy to sow illusions that the nation state can makeeven minimal political and economic concessions inthe epoch of imperialism when periodic crises ofcapital can only be resolved by the defeat of allworking class resistance, dooms that class todefeat.

To understand this, we need only look at thestruggles in the sub-continent, betrayed by the falsenotion of the two-stage bourgeois revolution asadvocated by the Stalinists and Maoists, which ledto crushing defeats of revolutionary armedstruggles. The clearest example of such a defeat asthe result of the betrayal of the rank and filemembership at the hands of the Stalinist and Maoistleaders is Nepal where the Prachanda regime helpedthe bourgeoisie to suppress the revolution. Onlywhere workers rapidly overcome those illusions andresort to independent and armed organisations of

proletarian revolution can there be any prospect ofthe winning of bourgeois democratic right as part ofa victorious socialist revolution.

Trotsky and Permanent Revolution

Against the Stalinist/Maoist minimum/maximumstageist sellout to the bourgeoisie, there is theBolshevik program kept alive by Trotsky in theTransitional Program of 1938. The BolshevikLeninist Party of India (BLPI) program for the Indiansub-continent was based on that program. Capitalist

semi-colonies like India must fight to complete thebourgeois democratic revolution as part of thePermanent Revolution. Imperialism and theirreactionary national bourgeois clients are counter-revolutionary enemies of workers’ democracy. Thenations of the sub-continent must be re-united butas a Federation of Socialist Republics. This cannothappen unless the workers and poor peasants of thesub-continent are united behind an internationalistparty with a revolutionary transitional program thatfights to turn the incomplete national revolutioninto the Permanent Revolution.

So what must be done in the Student movement?The Hindutva can be defeated only if the studentsreject the Stalinist line of a bureaucratic bloc withthe non-existent ‘democratic’ bourgeoisie or theMaoist petty bourgeois substituting itself for thebourgeoisie. Students can only defend their basicrights by building a class alliance with industrialworkers and poor farmers across all castes, gendersand national/ethnic identities.

The example of the Honda strike proves that the

industrial proletariat is ready and willing to fight.What it needs is the unity and leadership to breakfrom the Stalinist/Maoist labor bureaucracy whichserves the interests of the bourgeois state. Studentsmust take up the fight of industrial workers andbuild strikes and occupations as the basis forworkers councils and militias capable of bringing aWorkers’ and Farmers’ Government to power.

Students must take up the fight for self-determination for all the sub-continental nationsand peoples by means of permanent revolution.Self-Determination in Kashmir and in all the otherregions like Nepal and the Punjab oppressed byIndia can be realised only under a socialistfederation where all nations and people are freeand retain the right to self-determination.

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What We Fight For Overthrow Capitalism

Historically, capitalism expanded world-wide to freemuch of humanity from the bonds of feudal or tribalsociety, and developed the economy, society andculture to a new higher level. But it could only dothis by exploiting the labour of the productiveclasses to make its profits. To survive, capitalismbecame increasingly destructive of "nature" andhumanity. In the early 20th century it entered theepoch of imperialism in which successive crisesunleashed wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions. Today we fight to end capitalism’swars, famine, oppression and injustice, bymobilising workers to overthrow their own rulingclasses and bring to an end the rotten, exploitativeand oppressive society that has exceeded its use-by

date.

Fight for Socialism

By the 20th century, capitalism had created thepre-conditions for socialism –a world-wide workingclass and modern industry capable of meeting allour basic needs. The potential to eliminate poverty,starvation, disease and war has long existed. TheOctober Revolution proved this to be true, bringingpeace, bread and land to millions. But it becamethe victim of the combined assault of imperialismand Stalinism. After 1924 the USSR, along with itsdeformed offspring in Europe, degenerated backtowards capitalism. In the absence of a workerspolitical revolution, capitalism was restoredbetween 1990 and 1992. Vietnam and China thenfollowed. In the 21sst century only Cuba and NorthKorea survive as degenerate workers states. Weunconditionally defend these states againstcapitalism and fight for political revolution tooverthrow the bureaucracy as part of worldsocialism.

Defend Marxism

While the economic conditions for socialism existtoday, standing between the working class andsocialism are political, social and cultural barriers.They are the capitalist state and bourgeois ideologyand its agents. These agents claim that Marxism isdead and capitalism need not be exploitative. Wesay that Marxism is a living science that explainsboth capitalism’s continued exploitation and itsattempts to hide class exploitation behind the

appearance of individual "freedom" and "equality". Itreveals how and why the reformist, Stalinist andcentrist misleaders of the working class tie workersto bourgeois ideas of nationalism, racism, sexismand equality. Such false beliefs will be exploded

when the struggle against the inequality, injustice,anarchy and barbarism of capitalism in crisis, led bya revolutionary Marxist party, produces arevolutionary class-consciousness.

For a Revolutionary Party

The bourgeois and its agents condemn the Marxistparty as totalitarian. We say that without ademocratic and a centrally organised party therecan be no revolution. We base our beliefs on therevolutionary tradition of Bolshevism andTrotskyism. Such a party, armed with a transitional

program, forms a bridge that joins the daily fight todefend all the past and present gains won fromcapitalism, to the victorious socialist revolution.Defensive struggles for bourgeois rights andfreedoms, for decent wages and conditions, will linkup the struggles of workers of all nationalities,genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations,bringing about movements for workers control,political strikes and the arming of the working class,as necessary steps to workers' power and thesmashing of the bourgeois state. Along the way,

workers will learn that each new step is one ofmany in a long march to revolutionise every barrierput in the path to the victorious revolution.

Fight for Communism

Communism stands for the creation of a classless,stateless society beyond socialism that is capable ofmeeting all human needs. Against the ruling classlies that capitalism can be made "fair" for all; thatnature can be "conserved"; that socialism andcommunism are "dead"; we raise the red flag ofcommunism to keep alive the revolutionary

tradition of the' Communist Manifesto of 1848, theBolshevik-led October Revolution; the ThirdCommunist International until 1924, therevolutionary Fourth International up to 1940 beforeits collapse into centrism. We fight to build a new,Fifth, Communist International, as a world party ofsocialism capable of leading workers to a victoriousstruggle for socialism.

For a New World Party of Socialism!

Class Struggle is the bi-Monthly paper of the Communist Workers’ Group of New Zealand/Aotearoa, in a LiaisonCommittee with Communist Workers’ Group (USA) and Revolutionary Workers’ Group (Zimbabwe)Class Struggle and most articles are online at http://redrave.blogspot.com Phone [email protected] Archive of publications before 2006 http://communistworker.blogspot.com/
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class struggle 116 autumn 2016

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