RevLeft - Blogs http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php A place for leftist discussion en Wed, 22 May 2013 18:14:11 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/misc/rss.jpg RevLeft - Blogs http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php <![CDATA[Down with the Assad dictatorship; Israel & imperialism, out of Syria]]> http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18905 Wed, 22 May 2013 08:27:10 GMT [From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – Unofficial translation]

Down with the Assad dictatorship
Israel and imperialism, out of Syria

By Claudia Cinatti
Saturday, May 11, 2013

In less than 48 hours, the State of Israel launched two rounds of aerial bombardments against military targets on the outskirts of Damascus, allegedly to prevent a quantity of more sophisticated missiles, of Iranian manufacture, from reaching Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that defeated Israel in the last Lebanon war, in 2006. Although Israel had already bombed Syrian territory in January of this year, the scope of these bombardments was much greater, just like their repercussions.

Although Netanyahu’s government did not openly take responsibility for this real act of war, US President Barack Obama quickly vindicated the State of Israel’s right to defend itself, given its proximity to Syria and Lebanon, and he implied that the United States approved of this “preventive attack” against Syria.

The opposition to the Assad regime was divided, in view of the attacks. While the Military Council of Damascus called for taking advantage of the Israeli strike, others used them to charge that Assad’s regime was strong in internal repression, but powerless in front of the Zionist attack. The response of the pro-imperialist opposition, that has been asking for US military intervention, was utilized by Assad to try to justify his repressive policy, by using the theory that it is not a matter of a legitimate popular democratic uprising, but a Western conspiracy to overthrow him and weaken the resistance against the Zionist state. Given the historical importance that the Ba’ath Party regime has had, for supporting the stability and security of the State of Israel, despite being technically at war with the Zionist state, which keeps the Golan Heights occupied, the regional extension of the Syrian civil war to neighboring countries like Lebanon threatens to create a regional conflict of maximum significance; in the context resulting from the failure of the United States in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from the changes that occurred with the Arab Spring, the regional order, that serves the interests of imperialism, is in question.

The contradictions of imperialist policy

In light of the results of NATO’s intervention in Libya, that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi, but not to the emergence of a stable regime related to US interests, Obama has been categorically refusing to intervene in Syria. To this is added the fact that, after the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and amidst the economic crisis, 62% of the US population is opposed to intervention in Syria, that, moreover, would not even have the cover of the United Nations, because of the permanent veto of China and Russia, Assad’s allies.

Up to now, the United States has been trying to provide an essentially political and diplomatic solution, that combines the imposition of economic sanctions on Syria with the propping up of moderate groups of the opposition, that could possibly negotiate a transition with the Ba’ath Party, preventing the absolute hegemony of the Muslim Brotherhood. On the military level, it has been limited to assistance and training, by agents of the CIA, of related militias, especially the Free Syrian Army, directly sponsored by Turkey. Obama’s greatest fear is that a policy, whether of direct intervention or of arming the “rebels” in a generalized fashion, will end up strengthening the Islamist variants, extremely hostile to the United States and to Israel, taking into account the influence that the Al Nusra Front, an Islamist organization that several analysts are connecting to Al Qaeda, has been acquiring.

The US political establishment is divided over what policy to have. Republican and Democratic groups have been pressuring Obama to intervene militarily in Syria, alleging that the lack of a response, in view of a crisis that has already lasted for more than two years, is read by the enemies of the United States, particularly Iran, as a sign of weakness. The partisans of intervention, that range from John McCain up to the “progressive” Nancy Pelosi, have returned to the charge, demanding, at least, a limited operation, like the establishment of a no-fly zone, assuming that the impunity with which Israel attacked, would show the weakness of Assad’s anti-aircraft defenses, for which reason, intervention would cost the United States practically nothing. The final pretext that the US hawks have put forward is the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, that Obama had put as a “red line” for intervening in Syria, which recalls the lie about the weapons of mass destruction controlled by Saddam Hussein, with which the United States justified the 2003 war with Iraq.

The gravity of the situation hastened the Obama administration’s decision to reach an agreement directly with Russia, Assad’s main international supporter, a solution negotiated between the Syrian regime and the opposition recognized by imperialism, and overcome the impasse created by the permanent veto of Russia and China in the United Nations’ Security Council. As part of this policy, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, met with Putin and agreed in principle to call an international conference, to be held presumably at the end of May, in which the opposition and representatives of the Assad regime would participate, on the basis of what was decided at the Geneva conference in June, last year. This would entail the formation of a “transitional government” without Assad, but keeping the structure of the army and other repressive forces intact, so as to ensure governmental continuity and stability, and defeating any attempt at a popular uprising. However, given the scope of the conflict and those involved, it could hardly be resolved by means of negotiation.

The risk of a regional crisis

The Assad regime’s alliances with Iran, Hezbollah and with the government of Iraq are based on the solidarity of the Shiite branch of Islamism, that is a minority in the Muslim world, but a majority in Iran and Iraq, facing its Sunni rivals, and on the commonality of geopolitical interests (the confrontation with the United States and the State of Israel in the case of Iran and Hezbollah). Although it has not yet acquired the character of an inter-religious civil war, the Syrian crisis could take this dynamic and lead to confrontation, not only between Sunnis and Alawites, but also to the persecution of Kurds, Christians and the Druze. Both the Iranian regime and the Prime Minister of Iraq are afraid that if the majority Sunni opposition gets hold of power in Syria, with the support of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that could lead to an attempt to restore Sunni control in Iraq.

The defense of the Alawite minority in Syria, to which the Assad family and his intimate circle in power since the end of the 1960’s, belong, could cause the interreligious conflict in Lebanon (which lived through a 15-year civil war, in which Syria played a central role) to reappear. This, in the context of the fact that, after the United States withdrew from Iraq, a civil war, that is becoming ever more intense, erupted again between Shiites and Sunnis (a war joined by the Kurds, who took northern Iraq, where there are important oil wells). According to humanitarian organizations, in the last month, the number that died in these confrontations is similar to that recorded at the peak of the civil war in 2006. The uprising in Syria encouraged the wave of protests by the Sunnis in Iraq against the persecution of one of their leaders (accused of being a terrorist by the Maliki government and sentenced to death). Even al Qaeda announced the foundation of the Iraqi branch of the Al Nusra Front.

This perspective is a nightmare for the interests of the United States in the region, in the context of the fact that the US has not yet found a viable solution to the occupation of Afghanistan, and of the fact that the US is seeking to reorient its foreign policy to the region of Pacific Asia, with the strategic aim of containing China’s advance. Hence the need to put an end to the crisis in Syria, without involving the United States in another military adventure.

Syria and the “Arab Spring”

Against those who claim the Assad regime is progressive and anti-imperialist and state that it is not crushing a popular struggle, but defending itself against the United States’ and Israel’s attempt to topple it, we maintain that in Syria there is a legitimate struggle underway against a dictatorial regime, a struggle that erupted in March, 2011, as part of the more general process of the “Arab Spring.” This popular uprising has profound democratic and social driving forces. Tens of thousands of Syrians have mobilized in the streets against this dictatorial regime that uses control of the state to guarantee the enrichment of a minority, to which the Assad family belongs, while the great majority of the working and peasant population sees how their own living conditions are worsening. Facing Assad’s brutal repression, this popular uprising militarized itself, and, although elements of the rebellion that shook the regime persist, especially in the local councils that are organizing daily life in cities under the control of the opposition or the Organization of Local Committees, which emerged at the beginning of the uprising, those who are occupying the center of the stage, on the military level, are organizations like the Free Syrian Army, which acts with the sponsorship of Turkey, and, ultimately, has the support of US imperialism. Meanwhile, on the political level, the leadership of the pro-imperialist opposition of the National Coalition for the Forces of the Opposition and the Revolution in Syria (founded in November, 2012, as a successor of the Syrian National Council, and supported by all of imperialism and the Gulf Cooperation Council), and radical Islamist variants, like the Al Nusra Front, and other religious organizations, armed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are fighting for leadership.

On the Syrian battlefield, various conflicts are converging, that threaten to ignite the entire region, conflicts exacerbated by the intervention of imperialism and different regional powers and actors that seek to manipulate some of the factions in struggle, in order to pursue their own reactionary interests, even at the risk of unleashing an inter-religious civil war.

While a minority of the left sides with Assad, justifying support for this brutal dictatorship because of its contradictions with the United States and now, with the State of Israel, tendencies like the LIT (the main party of which is the PSTU of Brazil) or the comrades of the UIT, repeating the same error that in Libya led them to capitulating, in fact, in front of the NATO intervention, are adapting themselves to the “rebel” camp in the struggle against the dictatorship.

In the face of these two positions, we revolutionaries support the uprising and the struggle for the downfall of the Assad regime, at the same time that we fight against every interference and intervention by imperialism or its allies, and we fight for a workers’ strategy, independent of the pro-imperialist opposition leaderships.

May 11, 2013 ]]> sixdollarchampagne http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18905 On Councilism, and Potentially Bourgeois Binaries http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18889 Sun, 19 May 2013 21:54:40 GMT Comrades, I have done some thinking recently, and I think that it is time that I write another revleft blog for me to organize my thoughts. Over... Comrades, I have done some thinking recently, and I think that it is time that I write another revleft blog for me to organize my thoughts.

Over the past several months, I have become increasingly interested in Left communism, and the sort of ultra-Left critiques that it has given the Soviet Union, China, Marxist-Leninist and Leninist theory, etc. At the risk of sounding sectarian (indeed, sectarianism really bothers me, and I'd consider myself a pan-Leftist of sorts), I think that the sort of "left" and "libertarian" communism holdes truer to the revolutionary spirit of Marxism.

I do identify with the left communist tradition, because the ultra-left critiques and proposals that it offers seem more "libertarian" to me. Despite the fact that I've now used the world "libertarian" twice, I think that the libertarian-authoritarian dichotomy is horribly flawed. Absolutist binaries are something that get under my skin very easily and seem crudely reductionist. I also identify with the post-structuralist movement (at least, more so than I do with the post-modernist movement, but I'd consider myself a companion to both), and one of the key concepts of post-structuralism is its unequivocal opposition to binary systems.

The "libertarian-authoritarian" dichotomy is as terrible as the "male-female" binary. They both structurally presuppose the existence of a particular subject as either black and white; the problem with this is that it has a radically a priori supposition: that one thing exists only in its relation to the other; that is, black is only capable of actualizing itself when it is compared to the existence (or non-existence) of white. A fundamental problem that presents itself after this realization is that, if black only exists because white does, that white only exists because of the relation that it has to black. Thus we are caught in a cyclical argument over which appeared first in order to give definition to the second, and we cannot answer this because this would negate the entire binary by canceling out its definition by positing that one could come into being without the prior existence of the other.

I think a proper understanding of binary structure allows one to understand that a legitimate, pure binary itself is impossible, and that one cannot have a subject and its polar opposite exist simultaneously.

The gender binary (with male standing opposed to female, and with other individuals - intersex, hermaphroditic, transgender, transsexual, agendered, post-gendered, etc - that fall "outside" the bourgeois notion of "gender") is something that I find exceptionally disturbing. As an evolutionary biologist, the idea of "gender" as it is posited in bourgeois society is not something that is found in other biotic subjects. Numerous birds display lesbianism and merge nests after being their male counterpart has; frogs (and other amphibians and reptiles, but frogs serve as the most illustrative example) can rapidly "switch" their biotic sex depending upon the male-to-female ratio in the ambient population in order to facilitate mass reproduction; and a large number of plants (both non-flowering gymnosperms and flowering angiosperms) are capable of being bi-gendered, with their own physiology containing both male and female components, and are able to shift that ratio depending upon environmental conditions.

I think that the gender binary, as it exists under capitalism, serves as effective means through which to facilitate production because it allows a strict, unwavering (at least, somewhat - its rigidity is being challenged by the LGB't movement; and I place the "t" in "LGBT" as lowercase to illustrate how exclusionary and gender-normative the "equality" movement is, and how it poorly treats it transgendered comrades from time to time) categorization of people. By categorizing them and inserting people into socially-constructed demographics, bourgeois society is able to perpetuate its existence by using those categories to facilitate production and reinforce property relations. The gender "binary" is only but a bourgeois facet to the division of labor. Looking at gender, and its relation to production throughout time, confirms this; any anthropologist can explain how gender relations and gender roles differ dramatically across cultures - which, in turn, if we are vulgar materialists, are simply the outgrowth of particular material conditions at specific historical moments.

I will put aside this musing of gender for now; I've gone rather off-topic, considering that the purpose of this blog post was to talk about the relationship between structuralist binaries and councilism. As I mentioned earlier, I do identify with the left communist tradition, although I have admit that I'm much more inclined to identify with the German-Dutch wing than the Italian Bordigist wing. I am a fan of socialist councils - perhaps, for the sake of intellectual honesty, I will admit that I might fetishize them somewhat. What strikes me as interesting is the way that these decentralized, community-based peoples' assemblies are glorified; I expect (global; regional vis-à-vis the "in one country" idea is flawed) socialism to be organized along the lines of council-run communes that are federated and confederated together at regional, national, and international levels.

That is one reason why I like the German-Dutch wing more so than the Italian one; it focuses more so on councilism, while the latter is more "Leninist than Lenin", as Bordiga has been described as. I'm not necessarily anti-partyist or anti-vanguardism, but I don't think that there's a need to have a hyper-partyist fetish, either. But let me skip this side note and explain what the purpose of this whole blog post is - that decentralized socialist councils, despite the fact that they are often portrayed as more "libertarian" than the statist, party-run "authoritarianism", are yet another illustration of a faulty binary.

What I dislike about the "libertarian" councilism is that it does not stand in opposition to the "authoritarian" party-State; it has just as much a chance of being another form of a capitalism, a re-structuring of the commodity-production system if one council-commune is isolated from the rest of the (con)federation. If a commune is not part of the collective, then it there is the possibility that it will engage in "trade" with the collective; and the moment that material difference exists between the two, an economically classist division has been created that proves that councilism has the potential to be another bourgeois structure.

The reason that the "libertarian-authoritarian" dichotomy is flawed is not simply because the proletarian revolution is relative; it is "libertarian" to the working class that it frees, and "authoritarian" to the bourgeois class that it asserts its hegemony over. No, the libertarian-authoritarian dichotomy is inherently flawed because the presupposition that decentralized councilism is more "libertarian" than a vanguard-run State does not take into consideration a particular organization that the council system can take. One should not say that councilism is "more libertarian" than another system because it the system itself that should be analyzed in accordance with the material and political conditions around it, not simply be granted the label of "libertarian" for the sake of it being council-based.

As someone who supports a council-based system after the revolution, it is important that I be intellectually honest with myself about the economic implications of (con)federated socialist councils. If the entire world is council-ized (for lack of a better word) after the revolution, that is one thing; if there are regions (either small or large) that are not integrated into the system then we will end up with a "councilism in one country" problem. Socialism must be global - it cannot be regional. ]]> JPSartre12 http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18889 Dutch CWI meeting: Rebooting the section? http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18894 Sat, 18 May 2013 21:27:31 GMT Today I went to a "Socialism Day", organised by Socialist Alternative, the Dutch branch of the Committee for a Workers' International. "Socialism" is a name regularly used by several CWI sections for open meetings that feature discussion, mostly introduced by CWI members.

The observant reader might note that I also went to a meeting organised by the SP branch in Breda recently with the same name. There is a simple reason for this: Once upon a time, back in the early 2000's, most of the SP branch in Breda was either a CWI member or a sympathiser. The CWI then pioneered to establish these "Socialism Days" here and the rest is history.

Anyway, this was the first major activity of the Dutch section in well over a year. The last issue of our paper was in September 2011 and a national meeting was not much later. The section went to "sleep" so to speak, although activity on the website continued.

Apparently some comrades thought time was ripe for a reboot and this Socialism Day acted as a (pre-)recruiting moment for that to happen.

Of the 15 people present there were 7 non-members (why yes, we're marginally bigger than 8, why do you ask?), so this was an OK turnout.

One of these was Willem de Vroomen, one of the original Maoists that splitted from the CPN in 1965 to form what eventually became the SP. Today, he's utterly disgusted with what the party has become, a "regents party" in his words, and he was looking towards a group that wants to start something new again. Certainly interesting, although Willem is not very young anymore, he could contribute a wealth of experience.

The subjects discussed were: "Marx is back!", the situation in South-Africa and our work regarding WASP and a report from a comrade about the happenings in Tunesia. In content there was little new for me, but it was an ok introduction for new people.

Afterwards a new meeting was planned next month on the 15th. Again an open meeting and all present were invited. No direct effort was made for recruiting (or maybe that was done in more one-on-one discussions afterwards), but seemingly more time was given to prepare minds for recruitment.

My input today was minimal. At one point I did mention the need for a European Democratic Republic, the centrality of the fight for democracy and the need for political education. This was, as I expected, sidestepped by other comrades and I didn't pursue the issue further as more explanation would require much more time as it would leave the context of the discussion.

But for a next time, when we'll be discussing "Dutch perspectives", I can build further on it.

Patience, a virtue :) ]]> Q http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18894 Miniature-based wargaming on the cheap http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18888 Thu, 09 May 2013 13:09:53 GMT So I wanted to take up miniature-based wargaming as a hobby again, but what with having next to no disposable income, what was I to do?

I don't exactly remember where I got the idea from, but I was recently struck with the notion of using those little plastic toy soldiers, you know the ones I mean, the guys that come in tubs or bags of 100-200 individuals.

So I today I went down to the high street and bought two different tubs of cut-price commandos, as well two plastic battle tanks and two die-cast hovercraft for good measure, which came to a total of about £14 for 350 soldiers and four vehicles. Since that's the price one would typically pay for merely one squad or model in more up-market wargames, that is an absolute bargain! The next time I go shopping, I will already have enough soldiers for a decent army, and can thus concentrate my wargaming funds entirely on buying vehicles.

The toy soldiers usually come in one of two different colours, and the tubs I bought were no exception. The first tub contained 200 green and reddish-brown plastic warriors, each soldier being in one of six different poses and armaments. The second tub was the same, except it contained 150 squaddies in a slightly different moulding, and they came in different colours, khaki and blueish-green.

I don't have an army. I have four. Eat your fucking heart out, Games Workshop!

Since I have no plans to do any painting, my forces are ready for battle. But how should they fight?

By far the most promising I've come across so far are the One Brain Cell toy soldier rules (PDF link), which at first glance appear to strike the right balance between simplicity and complexity for my purposes. None of my small soldiers appear to be armed with Heavy Machine Guns, Bazookas, Flamethrowers, Mortars or Sniper Rifles, which means improvisation will be necessary until such a time that I can find appropriately armed miniatures, but that shouldn't be too difficult.

The fact that I have four different colours presents the intriguing possibility for multi-sided battles, and also providing the potential for different coloured armies to make and break alliances mid-game.

The ultimate apotheosis of this little experiment of mine would be a map-based campaign, with separate battle being linked together in a wider narrative. If test plays go well, then that will be my next move.

Input and commentary is definitely welcome, especially if you have any interest at all in miniature wargames. ]]> http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18888 For the Democratic Republic http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18887 Mon, 06 May 2013 11:02:36 GMT Below is a translation of my introduction to the SP discussion meeting. I'm making a new post because it was too long for a comment.

The SP and the demand for the republic

Republican discussion: A non-discussion

There is no republican tradition anymore in the Netherlands. The most advanced that we now seem to have is the New Republican Society. I’ll quote from their website what they’re all about:

Quote:
The Dutch come to the insight more and more that that the monarchy is, in its essense, a negation of free, democratic society. The NRS wants to combine this realisation and channel it by putting forward the elected, accountable head of state against the absurdity of the inviolable, only because of birth crown monarch.

[...] The NRS points its critique on the monarchic form of government in all its appearances: Absolute, constitutional or ceremonial; although different in intensity of the exercise of power, is the undemocratic aspect of the hereditary succession not less objectionable for it.

[...] The role of the head of state in the republic can be implemented in different ways. In Europe one can point to the French, German and Swiss models. It’s to the electorate to choose what model is selected for our country. The preference of the NRS as an organisation is not relevant in this.
The discussion degenerates then in the non-contrast between monarchists on the one side and “republicans” on the other. The latter wants to have an elected president, while the former then asks what this is going to change. And here the monarchists have a rather major point that the “republicans” have no real answer to, so the awareness around republicanism remains a marginal factor in the Netherlands.

But is the monarchy only ceremonial, as is often claimed? Surely not! Firstly, the monarch remains the chair of government and the prime-minister visits the king on a weekly basis so the newly inaugurated Willem-Alexander is assured of some influence on policy. Also, it is interesting to quote Willem-Alexander from the nationally broadcasted interview he gave on 17 April: “As long as the legislative process is done democratically and according to the rules of the constitution, I will sign everything”. Hmm ... And what if a leftwing SP government comes to power? Is he still going to be willing to sign everything?

An example from how things could go: In November 1975 Australia had a leftwing Labor government. This government had a small parliamentarian majority, but a minority in the senate which was controlled by the conservatives. When the senate at a certain point was blocking Labor polcy, the prime-minister went to governor (representative of the British queen!) to get permission to have new elections for the senate. The governor agreed with new elections, but instead of dissolving the senate, he dissolved parliament and Labor then lost these.

Why wouldn’t our monarchy put up such barriers?

But that immediately begs another question: Why wouldn’t the entire state apparatus, from the bureaucrats to the army (Chili 1973 anyone?), to our own senate block SP policies? And would a, by the NRS so desired, president be so different here? And this of course is assuming that the SP could enforce its policies in parliament, more likely we’ll see a watered down version of it in a coalition government.

SP position: A non-demand

What is the SP position regarding the republic again? I’ll quote from the website:

Quote:
The SP thinks that it’s better to elect a head of state. Many Dutch however value the monarchy. This is why politicians have to make sure that the monarchy fits in our democracy. The head of state should mostly have a ceremonial function, as a symbol and representative of the Netherlands. Political functions do not fit in this role. The future king doesn’t have to be a part of the government. And play no role in the formation of a government. Parliament can do that better on itself. Members of the royal family can still claim all kinds of private expenses, like private flights, this has to stop. Like everyone else, they also need to pay taxes in the future.
So, a bit of polishing, but because the monarchy is so valued by so many Dutch, it’s a non-issue to wage propaganda for a republic. Let’s just forget about it...

The SP position isthen in the same spectrum as the NRS, be it that it is a lot more mild about the monarchy. I would like to characterise this type of discussion as monarchy versus anti-monarchy, or “king versus president”. And in my view this is a non-discussion that doesn’t do justice to the republican traditions of the French revolution, the Paris Commune or the ideas of Marx and Engels.

What is republicanism?

So, what is this republican tradition? The central question that we have to ask ourselves is “how are we ruled?” or “how is our country governed?”. Posed like that the issue goes much further than the non-contrast between king and president. It’s about how our society looks like, in whose interests it is organised. It’s for this reason that socialists have always been republicans and where the SP position is still a watered down echo comes from.

Why is the “king versus president” contrast a non-contrast? Is the monarchy actually still a relic from the feudal past, something fundamentally not in the political interests of the bourgeoisie? The answer to that seems obvious, but is important to make: No, of course not. Our monarchy, like other European monarchies, is part of the system and that’s why there is, de facto, no difference between a king and a president. From a bourgeois point of view is a king, who has been prepared for this task all his life and therefore forms a stable factor, to be preferred above a party-bound and possibly unstable president.

Even stronger: The monarchy has an essential task in our political configuration: It stands “above politics” and “above the classes”, the king is the monarch of all Dutch and we are all his subjects. The symbol for national unity and a useful symbol for state visits, where always a whole carnival of companies follow these visits to do business.

Anti-monarchy can then be a powerful counter-symbol: We are not your subjects! But that in itself isn’t enough. Even if we could abolish the monarchy relatively quickly, that in itself would only be the start, not the end. A republic is a concrete result of the class struggle; not of the liberal bourgeoisie against de feudal ruling class, like happened until the 19th century, but of the working class against the ruling bourgeoisie.

We, and then I mean the workers movement and concretely the SP, have to pose ourselves as the most consistent fighters for more democracy. Friedrich Engels put it like this: “If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Paris Commune has already shown.”

So, we need a party that is more than an election machine, a party that has a different kind of society as a goal: Socialism, where human needs and the human measure is central, not the needs of capital. A party also that has as its goal to organise the entire working class for this political struggle: The struggle for a Democratic Republic. A mass party-movement that carries the germs of a new society within itself.

We then have to be concrete in our demands: Not a socialist workers republic tomorrow but a Democratic Republic today. On the basis of abstract demands nothing much can be achieved, but on concrete target much can be done.

This implies, by the way, a party that is principally in the opposition because a coalition with any other party, that is part of the status quo, will submit us to this status quo. Membership of a coalition will always lead to a corruption of the democratic programme and in this waywe’ll be sucked into the system. This would in my view lead to the direct doom of the party. We can only offer our solutions from the opposition.

How will this Democratic Republic look like? I’m not proposing to draw out blueprints for the society we wish to have. The republic is going to be a result of the balance between the power of our class and our party and the counter-power of the conservative forces. Peacefully if we can, with force if we have to. It is, after all, about the self-liberation and the self-emancipation of our class from the rule of capital and how that will exactly look like is crystall ball politics.

But we can state some basic principles, to which I return in a moment.

Europe

First I want to make a stepping stone to the discussion that we have later today, regarding “democratisation of the economy”: The Netherlands is not an island where the working class could conquer power in isolation. We’re heavily integrated in Europe. If we go then for republicanist politics, this would directly need to be a demand for a European Democratic Republic. This implies a radical shift regarding our current position on Europe. Not “less Brussels”, but towards working class unity across the continent, working towards a European Socialist Party with our political allies in Europe and using the EU as political context to work towards a different society.

Immediate demands

I want to finish with some immediate demands to give a picture about the sort of positions that can put us on track towards a mass party-movement that call itself socialist as it has at its goal that our class conquers political power.
  • Abolish the monarchy and the senate, for a one-chamber parliament with proportional elections, annual elections with permanent recallability and wages on the level of an educated worker.
  • Elections of all government officials.
  • No presidential prime-minister. An end to the appointment of ministers by the prime-minister and all ministerial privileges.
  • Abolish the secret state apparatus: Dissolve the AIVD, MIVD, etc.
  • Abolish the professional army. Universal education in the use of weaponry. The right to keep weapons and self-defense. For the formation of workers-militias.
  • For local democracy. Services, planning, taxes, law enforcement and allocation of financial resources should all be dealt with on a local level, where applicable and desirable: On the borough- and neighbourhood level, city level and provincial level.
  • For a European Democratic Republic where all these demands are implemented on a continental level.

The Democratic Republic is necessary for defend these and more demands. We can’t simply take over the existing state or work step-by-step towards a democratic society within a coalition. Because real democracy means an end to capitalism, an end to the dictatorship of the market.

The question then is: Is our party going to submit itself as a subject to the constitutional monarchy and manage capitalism or are we fighting for a mass movement where our class is preparing for a human society? ]]> Q http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18887 A Defense of Leninism http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18886 Mon, 06 May 2013 02:06:59 GMT This is a response I made to a thread/post about the question of socialist organization and the role of Leninism. I was writing in response to an... This is a response I made to a thread/post about the question of socialist organization and the role of Leninism. I was writing in response to an article from the Socialist Standard, the entirety of which can be found here.

I wanted to respond with my own rejection of what the authors of this article outlined regarding Lenin and the revolutionary party, but my response ended being much longer than I anticipated.
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The Socialist Standard posits a familiar denunciation of the 'Leninist model' in “How Should Socialists Organize?” - firstly as an elitist formation that reduces the historical importance of the working-class, and secondly as a substitutionist entity built upon 'undemocratic activities'. I will begin with the first of this article's points, that Leninism's origins lie in the distortion of Marx and Engels' original message. I will seek later to highlight and disprove some of the assumptions inherent in the myth of Luxemburg's 'rejection' of Leninism as well. I was going to conclude on what the Leninist model means for revolutionaries organizing in the 21st century, but I’ve since run out of time to do so. Other comrade’s comments on the matter will have to suffice.

Lenin's understanding of the relationship between the class and party was anything but original. Far from distorting Marx, Lenin shared his belief that the 'necessary interconnection of socialist theory and practice with the working-class and labor' necessitated the subordination of theoretical and programmatic clarity to, in Marx's words, "every step of real movement." The question of organization, central to Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? occurs at a time when figures like Luxemburg and Kautsky, among others, were asking similar questions (1902-08). Thus one finds the notion of the revolutionary workers party as “the vanguard of the proletariat” to be not at all peculiar to Lenin; in fact it can be argued that he, among other major theorists of the period, drew inspiration from Marx and Engels themselves:

"The Communists...are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."

Herein we find not Marxism with an attached hyphen, but the simple undistorted Marx many of us are familiar with. The idea pertaining to the role of communists within the broader working-class movement isn’t simply traceable to Lenin alone, but further back to Marx and Engels. Revolutionary socialists, it is understood, must be inseparable from and responsive to the real shifts, struggles and movements of the working-class.

This is something which the authors of the above article either fail or choose not to understand, the consequences of which are evident throughout the piece. This mistake leads them to, in their words, see the organizational structure as proposed by Lenin as the “seedbed for the later authoritarianism and dictatorship in the Bolshevik regime in Russia.” Here it seems worthwhile to delve a little into the subject of democratic centralism and what Lenin (who drew on and accepted the Menshevik definition of the term as early as 1905), understood it to mean.

According to their November 1905 resolution, the Mensheviks introduced the term to mean "decisions of the guiding collectives are binding on the members of those organizations of which the collective is the organ. Actions affecting the organization as a whole...must be decided upon by all members of the organization. Decisions of lower-level organizations must not be implemented if they contradict decisions of higher organizations."

The Bolsheviks accepted this, and sought in many instances to apply it - when applicable - to their situation. Lenin explained it further in 1906, commenting that "The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy for local Party organizations implies universal and full freedom to criticize so long as this does not disturb the unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided by the Party." We find very little in terms of what might contradict the original definition of the term in Lenin’s writings. Indeed, both the original 1905 resolution and Lenin’s understanding of it a year later stress two key points: 1) universal and full freedom of discussion for all members concerning decisions affecting the organization as a whole; 2) Decisions disrupting or otherwise contradicting the unity of a definite action as decided by the party are, on the whole, impermissible.

We may easily condense these two points into something most are familiar with: freedom of discussion, unity in action.

There would appear to be little disagreement on this matter of democratic centralism between the Mensheviks as they introduced it, and the Bolsheviks as they adopted it. Where Lenin does break with his Menshevik counterparts however, is on the question of “limits within which decisions of Party congresses may be criticized.” Lenin resists the idea as posited by the Mensheviks that such limitations are necessary, stressing the fundamental characteristics of the democratic centralist model:

“In a revolutionary epoch like the present, all theoretical errors and tactical deviations of the Party are most ruthlessly criticized by experience itself, which enlightens and educates the working class with unprecedented rapidity. At such a time, the duty of every Social Democrat is to strive to ensure that the ideological struggle within the Party on questions of theory and tactics is conducted as openly, widely and freely as possible, but that on no account does it disturb or hamper the unity of revolutionary action of the Social-Democratic proletariat. . .

We are profoundly convinced that the workers' Social-Democratic organizations must be united, but in these united organizations, there must be wide and free discussion of Party questions, free comradely criticism and assessment of events in Party life.”

In 1921 Lenin, among others, touched on the concept of democratic centralism further in an organizational resolution regarding the organization of communist parties. Rather than contradict his earlier writings on the subject, Lenin instead reaffirms the guiding principles of the democratic centralist model. The resolution in question actually warns the leaderships of communist parties not to ‘go too far in the direction of centralization’:

“Centralization in the Communist Party does not mean formal, mechanical centralization, but the centralization of Communist activity, i.e., the creation of a leadership that is strong and effective and at the same time flexible. . .Formal or mechanical centralization would mean the centralization of 'power' in the hands of the Party bureaucracy, allowing it to dominate the other members of the Party or the revolutionary proletarian masses outside the Party."

Lenin was far from an organizational fetishist; his conception of these models and methods were heavily dependent on the conditions of whatever period the party developed in. Thus clandestine methods of organization were given priority in times of severe repression and illegality, but by and large abandoned as inapplicable during revolutionary periods. Sometimes it became necessary to "open the gates" during periods of mass activity and revolutionary sentiment in order for newly radicalized workers to join. A party's membership, asserted Lenin, must be active participants both inside and outside its boundaries, rooting themselves in the Marxist tradition while simultaneously learning to link up and apply theory through practice.

The vanguard is not some monolithic, omniscient entity, subordinating its members (indeed, the working-class itself) to its “leadership.” The party plays the role of a guiding organization in relation to the self-emancipatory activity of the masses. As Trotsky noted: "Without a guiding organization, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston box. But nevertheless, what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam."

I feel that I have sufficiently explained Lenin’s understanding of democratic centralism here, including how it doesn’t quite begin to explain the degenerative, bureaucratic elements of the revolution, and would like to turn to other related matters - namely the supposition that Leninism perceives the working-class not as agents of change, but as passive vessels in need of revolutionary leadership (i.e. Blanquism). The authors of this article make this case, but demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of both Leninism and its connection to working-class movements in doing so. Continuing in the tradition built upon by Marx and Engels, Lenin demonstrates a serious commitment to the centrality of the revolutionary party in relation to what I highlighted earlier: the necessary interconnection of socialist theory and practice with the working-class and labor.

The working-class cannot adequately begin to struggle for its own actual interests and overcome adversity without embracing the eventual goal of socialism. Lenin's conception of the party took into account the unevenness of working-class consciousness, and was dialectical in its analysis of the party's relationship with the broader class. The vanguard in this instance refers only to the 'most advanced' sections of the class, concentrated politically and organizationally in a manner that best utilizes and advances their collective perspective. (Of course, Stalinism would later redefine this notion along substitutionist lines, rendering it a topdown, undemocratically centralized entity.)

Lenin referred to the role of the party as an entity seeking to raise the consciousness of the masses, so as to - as Chris Harman puts it in "Party and Class" - "enable them to act truly independently." The organization works to "be a party of the masses not only in name," to "get ever wider masses to share in all party affairs, steadily to elevate them from political indifference to protest and struggle..." (Lenin). Lenin argued that the point of the party wasn't to win power on behalf of the workers, but to provide political and organizational clarity, to make the case for revolutionary socialism via active engagement with working-class organizations and communities.

Lenin often referred to the self-emancipative activities of the working-class, stating that in such times the party is to provide a guiding leadership. This isn't an elitist, or substitutionist, notion, but an acknowledgement of the party's importance in relation to mass movements. The party doesn't come in and take over, it instead puts forward the theoretical and tactical basis upon which the movement can be built and strengthened.

Having written far too much about Lenin’s approach to the organizational question, I’m going to transition toward what others had to say about Leninism and the revolutionary party. I want to focus on the myth surrounding Luxemburg and her own critique of Lenin’s and the Bolshevik’s model, specifically her supposed rejection of their contribution(s) to the party question (which this article’s authors touch on). While the disagreements between Lenin and Luxemburg shouldn’t be understated (see, for example, the question of how socialists should relate to struggles for national liberation), opponents of Leninism tend to conflate Luxemburg’s criticism of the Leninist model with a total rejection of this perspective. This simply isn’t true. Helen Scott, in a talk about Lenin and Luxemburg (2008), partially refutes this idea:

“. . .they were the figureheads of social democracy’s international Left, sharing an enduring faith in working-class self-emancipation, a commitment to revolution, an understanding of socialists as the tribune of the oppressed, and were principled opponents to imperialism and war. They were frequently allied in the struggle against reformism; they collaborated in Finland after the defeat of the 1905 revolution; they co-authored the antiwar amendment at the Stuttgart congress of 1907; and they famously denounced the Second International’s betrayal in 1914, when the vast majority of parties abandoned international working-class solidarity to support the war efforts of their respective nations.”

Lenin and Luxemburg devoted much of their lives to building socialist organizations. This isn’t to say she had her disagreements with Lenin over the organization question; in fact, the article’s authors cite some of Luxemburg’s criticisms in her “Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy” (which was, it should be noted, changed to “Leninism or Marxism?” long after her death). Needless to say, Luxemburg misrepresents much of what Lenin himself wrote about and advocated. It also bears mentioning that many of the targets of Luxemburg’s criticism are not merely those in the Bolshevik party, but those unique to Germany, including evidences of bureaucratic centralism amongst trade unions and parliamentarians, and in the leadership(s) of the SPD itself. Curiously enough, Luxemburg identified similar needs confronting the party in regards to organization, stating that “the revolutionary party had to be the vanguard of the working class, that it had to be centralistically organized, and that the will of its majority could be carried out by means of strict discipline in its activities” (“Organizational Questions”).

I also find it pertinent, in light of the authors’ depiction of these two revolutionaries as stubborn opponents, to wrap up with a quote from Luxemburg made shortly before her death in one of her final works:

“Whatever a party could offer of courage, revolutionary far-sightedness and consistency in an historic hour, Lenin, Trotsky and the other comrades have given in good measure. All the revolutionary honour and capacity which Western Social Democracy lacked was represented by the Bolsheviks. Their October uprising was not only the actual salvation of the Russian Revolution; it was also the salvation of the honour of international socialism.”

There are many reasons to criticize some of what emerged from Lenin and other theorists of the period, but these criticisms shouldn't hide behind false representations of what these figures said and did. The authors of "How Should Socialists Organize?" fall into this trap more than once. If we're to generate a solid understanding of Leninism today, we must be willing to do so through critical engagement of both the material and the historical circumstances of its development. I do not think Leninism is a dead-end, nor do I think it has lost any of its relevancy for socialists in the 21st century. There's still a lot ahead of us, and Leninism still has a role to play - despite all the assertions to the contrary. ]]> Le Socialiste http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18886 I abandoned my family today http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18885 Sun, 05 May 2013 16:51:44 GMT
This morning, I told my fiancée of 2 1/2 years that I'm packing my bag & leaving her & our son. She has been such an incredibly positive influence in my life since we met, but I just can't stand to have the responsibilities of being a parent & spouse hanging over my head anymore. My son will be a year & a half old in just a few days, but I just can't take it anymore. They'll be better off without me.
Crystal, the woman who has stood by me, loved me despite everything I've done to her, someone who has always been patient, ( which I am not ) kind, ( again, not me ) forgiving & completely loving & supportive. The woman who gave birth to my only child. I told this woman that I did not love her anymore & I don't want to keep pretending. She started crying, which was really annoying. I just can't bring myself to give a shit about anyone, even the woman who has shown me nothing but love, or my kid, who just gets on my nerves most of the time.
I walked out of our apartment, which she can't afford on her own, she's severely disabled & can't work. She only gets a disability check every month, which isn't nearly enough to pay all the bills & buy everything our son needs. Well, I guess they can move in with her mother.
I know I'm being selfish, but am I a bad guy for doing any of this to my family? I just really don't understand empathy, compassion, etc. I'm kind of a sociopath. What should I do? ]]> homegrown terror http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18885 SP discussion day in Breda: Republicanism http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18884 Sat, 04 May 2013 22:50:34 GMT So, today was a so called "Socialism Day", organised by the SP branch in Breda for the 13th time as an annual event. The theme this year was "the SP and the monarchy" which had two discussions and a third discussion which was about the running party discussion on "democratisation of the economy" (see my blog here). This year's event had some 20 people, which is not bad for a branch meeting, although about half of the people were not from the branch or even the SP.

I was asked to do one of the intro's, the one that dealt with the SP relation regarding the republic. I'll post my introduction below in Dutch, I'll translate it tomorrow. This was actually the second discussion of the day. The first was about an historical overview of "republicanism" in the left.

My contribution was done in a provocative manner, as to entice some debate on the theme. This had not the desired effect however and I guess I could blame that on being a little too abstract.

My goals with this intro was to be educational (as "republicanism" is always featured in the false dichotomy of "king vs president") and to have a longer view, to have a debate on the strategic/programmatical level. However, the following discussion then quickly collapsed again into the more concrete tactical level with questions like "but the queen is popular, should we resist that?".

Other comrades however made similar points that I did, but explained differently. So, during the discussion the discussion was resolving around some basic questions:
- What is republicanism? While at the start I was afraid that the audience completely missed my point, I think later on it was grasped that republicanism, for communists, resolved around the question of how we are ruled. Especially when another comrade made the point of "why do we have mayors anyway?" it was quickly grasped that our society is filled with these top-down structures and the republic is basically society running itself.
- What role for the party? One member remarked that "if we propagate this, we will lose elections. Should we not follow the people in what is popular?". This raised the question of what role the party should have being an educational force.
- We need more than an election machine One of those things that was never completely grasped by the whole audience during the debate, which is only logical I suppose as being an SP member you only know that context of parliamentarist work and activist work in service of parliamentarism. But useful insights were gained: We need a counter-culture remarked one, another spoke of cooperatives. Very good indeed and something which went beyond the scope of what I discussed (and what I probably should have deepened).

All in all a useful discussion. It's a pity that these events only happen once a year. This is just too low of a frequency to do some proper political education. But the potential is there!

Then the discussion on the "democratisation of the economy" is worth mentioning. What was interesting here is that most emphasis in this discussion was put on the democracy of the party, or rather, lack of it.

The introducer remained vague in my view on this topic. On the one hand he declared that we need to "claim a space" to make our points, but urged that this shouldn't be an opposition. Seems rather contradictory to me.

I made the point here that if we want more democracy in the party, then we need to start from the bottom-up, build cross-links between branches, have alternative publications. Seemingly ABC, but not that normal for the SP, which has a long and strong tradition of being organised in a top-down manner.

I made the link again to republicanism: What kind of party do we want? In the SP too we see a "monarchical" structure and if we want to achieve a socialist society, we need to overthrow this monarchy as well.

But that of course was a bridge too far, for now :)


Discussing the Democratic Republic

Quote:
De SP en de eis van de Republiek

Republikeinse discussie: Een non-discussie

In Nederland is er geen traditie van republikeinse politiek meer. Of die er in het verleden was, is meer een onderwerp voor de volgende discussie. Het beste wat we nu lijken te hebben is het Nieuw Republikeins Genootschap. Ik citeer van hun website:

Quote:
Nederlanders komen in steeds groter getale tot het inzicht dat de monarchie in haar diepste wezen een ontkenning is van de vrije, democratische samenleving. Republikeinen.nl wil dit besef bundelen en kanaliseren door de aantoonbare voordelen van het gekozen, controleerbare staatshoofd te stellen tegenover de ongerijmdheid van de onschendbare, enkel en alleen vanwege geboorte gekroonde vorst.

[…] Republikeinen.nl richt haar kritiek op het monarchistische regeringssysteem in al haar verschijningsvormen: absoluut, constitutioneel of ceremonieel; ofschoon verschillend in gradatie van machtsuitoefening is het ondemocratische aspect van de erfopvolging er niet minder verwerpelijk om.

[…] De rol van het staatshoofd in de republiek kan op verschillende wijzen worden ingevuld. Zo zijn in Europa als hoofdstromingen het Franse, het Duitse en het Zwitserse model aan te wijzen. Het is aan de kiezer om te bepalen welk model voor ons land wordt gekozen. De voorkeur van Republikeinen.nl als organisatie is hierbij niet relevant.
De discussie vervalt zo in de schijntegenstelling tussen de monarchisten enerzijds en de “republikeinen” anderzijds. De laatste groep roept dat we een gekozen president nodig hebben, terwijl de eerste groep dan in het verweer brengt wat dat dan zoveel verandert. En daar hebben de monarchisten een belangrijk punt. En omdat de “republikeinen” hiertegen geen verweer hebben, blijft het besef van republikeinse politiek een marginale factor in Nederland.

Maar is de monarchie louter ceremonieel, zoals ook vaak wordt beweerd? Zeker niet! In de eerste plaats blijft de monarch de voorzitter van de Staten-Generaal en komt de premier er wekelijks bij op bezoek zodat de net ingehuldigde Willem-Alexander verzekert is van enige indirecte invloed. Ook is een uitspraak van Willem-Alexander in het interview van 17 april interessant om te citeren: “Als het wetgevingsproces democratisch en volgens de regels van de Grondwet gaat, accepteer ik alles”. Hmm, en wat als er een linkse SP regering komt? Is Willem-Alexander dan nog steeds bereid om alles te ondertekenen?

Een voorbeeld om aan te geven hoe het kán gaan: In november 1975 had Australië een Labor regering. Deze regering had een kleine meerderheid in het parlement, maar een minderheid in de senaat, dat werd beheerst door de conservatieven. Toen de senaat op een gegeven ogenblik het beleid van de Labor regering blokkeerde, ging de premier naar de representant van de koningin (het Australisch staatshoofd is nog steeds de Britse vorst!) om nieuwe verkiezingen uit te schrijven voor de senaat, maar in plaats daarvan zette de gouverneur de premier af en stelde de conservatieve oppositie-leider aan als tijdelijk premier in afwachting van nieuwe verkiezingen voor het parlement, die Labor vervolgens verloor... (bron: “1975 Australian constitutional crisis” wikipedia).

Waarom zou een dergelijke tegenwerking niet verwacht kunnen worden door óns vorstenhuis?
Maar dat roept meteen een andere vraag op: Waarom zou het gehele staatsapparaat, van de ambtenaren-bureaucraten tot het leger (Chili 1973 anyone?) tot onze eigen senaat niet SP-beleid blokkeren? En zou een door de NRG zo vurig gewenste president nu werkelijk zo anders zijn hierin? En dat natuurlijk op de vooronderstelling dat de SP überhaupt haar beleid zou kunnen uitvoeren aangezien een regering met de SP erin toch waarschijnlijk een coalitie zal zijn.

SP standpunt: Een non-eis

Wat is ook weer het SP standpunt mbt de republiek? Ik citeer::

Quote:
De SP vindt dat het beter is om het staatshoofd te kiezen. Veel Nederlanders hechten echter veel waarde aan het Koninklijk Huis. Daarom moeten politici zorgen dat de monarchie past in onze democratie. Het staatshoofd moet vooral een ceremoniële functie hebben, als symbool en vertegenwoordiger van Nederland. Daar passen geen politieke functies bij. De toekomstige koning hoeft geen lid te zijn van de regering. En hoeft bij de vorming van een regering ook niet de (in)formateur te kiezen. Dat kan de Tweede Kamer beter zelf doen. De leden van het Koninklijk Huis kunnen nu nog allerlei privékosten declareren, bijvoorbeeld voor privévluchten, dat moeten we stoppen. Zij moeten voortaan ook gewoon belasting betalen, net als iedereen.
Beetje bijschaven dus, maar aangezien de monarchie door zoveel Nederlanders gewaardeerd wordt, is het een non-issue om voor de republiek te propaganda te voeren. Laat maar zitten zo...
Het SP standpunt ligt daarmee op hetzelfde vlak als de NRG, hoewel het een stuk milder is over de monarchie. Deze discussie zou ik zo willen typeren als monarchie versus anti-monarchie, oftewel “koning versus president”. En in mijn optiek is dat een non-discussie die geen recht doet aan de rijke republikeinse tradities van bijvoorbeeld de Franse revolutie, de Parijse Commune en bijvoorbeeld de politieke opvattingen van Marx en Engels.

Wat is republikeinse politiek?

Wat is dus die republikeinse traditie? Dé centrale vraag die we ons daarbij moeten stellen is die van “hoe worden wij geregeerd?” of “hoe wordt ons land bestuurd?”. Een dergelijke vraag gaat veel verder dan de schijntegenstelling “koning versus president”, het gaat over hoe onze samenleving eruit ziet, in wiens belangen deze is georganiseerd. Het is om deze reden dat socialisten van oudsher republikeinen zijn en waar het SP standpunt nog een wat verwaterde echo van is.

Waarom is de “koning versus president” tegenstelling een schijntegenstelling? Is de monarchie eigenlijk nog wel een overblijfsel uit feodale tijden, iets wat in het fundament niet in de politieke belangen zou zijn van de burgerij? Het antwoord daarop lijkt een open deur, maar is toch belangrijk om te maken: Nee, natuurlijk niet. Onze monarchie, net als alle andere monarchieën in Europa, zijn verburgerlijkt en dus is er de facto geen onderscheid tussen een koning en een president. Vanuit een burgerlijk perspectief is een koning, iemand die z'n hele leven op die taak is voorbereid en dus een stabiele factor vormt, te prefereren boven een partij-gebonden en wellicht onstabiele president.

Sterker, de monarchie voert een essentiële taak uit binnen ons politiek bestel: Hij staat “boven de politiek” en “boven de klassentegenstellingen”, hij is de monarch van alle Nederlanders en wij zijn allen zijn onderdanen. Hét symbool voor nationale eenheid en een nuttig symbool voor bijvoorbeeld staatsbezoeken, waarbij altijd een hele horde bedrijven achter de monarch aanlopen.

Anti-monarchisme kán daarmee een krachtig symbool zijn: Wij zijn niet je onderdanen! Maar dat alleen is niet genoeg. Ook al zouden we vrij snel de monarchie kunnen afschaffen, dat alléén zou slechts het begin van de strijd zijn, niet het einde. Een republiek is daarmee dus ook een product van klassenstrijd; niet meer van de progressieve burgerij tegen feodale heersende klasse, zoals tot in de 19e eeuw, maar van de werkende klasse tegen de heersende burgerij.

We, en dan heb ik het over de arbeidersbeweging en concreet nu de SP, moeten ons daarin opwerpen als de meest consequente strijders van méér democratie. Friedrich Engels stelde al dat “als een ding zeker is, dan is het dat onze partij en de werkende klasse alleen aan de macht kan komen in de vorm van de democratische republiek. Dit is zelfs de specifieke vorm van de dictatuur van het proletariaat, zoals de Parijse Commune al heeft aangetoond”.

We hebben dus een partij nodig die méér is dan een verkiezingsmachine, een partij die zich tot doel stelt om tot een ander soort samenleving te komen: Het socialisme, waar menselijke behoeften en de menselijke maat centraal staan, niet de behoeften van kapitaal. Een partij ook die zich tot doel stelt om de gehele werkende klasse te organiseren voor deze politieke strijd: De strijd voor de Democratische Republiek. Een massa partij-beweging dus die de kiemen voor een andere samenleving in zich draagt.

We moeten dan ook concreet zijn in onze eisen: Geen socialistische arbeidersrepubliek morgen, maar een Democratische Republiek vandaag. Op basis van abstracte eisen is niemand te porren, maar op basis van concrete doelen is veel te bereiken.

Dit impliceert overigens een partij die principieel in de oppositie zit, aangezien elke coalitie met andere partij, die zich hebben vereenzelvigd met de status quo, ons onderdanig maakt aan deze status quo. Het strijden voor méér democratie zet ons overigens sowieso in oppositie tegen het bestaande staatsapparaat. Lidmaatschap aan een coalitie leidt altijd tot een corruptie van het democratisch programma en zo worden we meegezogen in dit spel. Iets wat in mijn optiek zou leiden tot de directe ondergang van de partij. We kunnen alleen vanuit de oppositie onze oplossingen aanbieden.

Hoe ziet die Democratische Republiek er dan uit? Ik stel niet voor dat nu al beginnen met bouwplannen voor de samenleving die we wensen, het concrete resultaat zal het gevolg zijn van de kracht van onze klasse en onze partij tegenover de de kracht van de conservatieve elementen. Vreedzaam als het kan, met kracht als het moet. Het gaat immers om de zélf-bevrijding en zélf-emancipatie van onze klasse ten opzichte van de heerschappij van het Kapitaal en hoe dat er concreet uit gaat zien is kristallen bollen politiek.

Maar wat wel wél kunnen aangeven zijn wat basisprincipes, daar kom ik zo op terug.

Europa

Eerst nog even een voorzetje naar de discussie straks, over de “democratisering van de economie”: Nederland is geen eiland waar de werkende klasse geïsoleerd aan de macht zou kunnen komen, maar zwaar geïntegreerd in Europa. Als we dus gaan voor republikeinse politiek, zal dit onmiddellijk een eis moeten gaan zijn voor een Europese Democratische Republiek. Dit impliceert dus een radicale ommezwaai wat betreft onze huidige politiek mbt Europa: Niet achter de Nederlandse dijken blijven, maar vooruitstrevend werken naar eenheid van de werkende klasse over het hele continent, op termijn een Europese Socialistische Partij vormen met onze politieke kameraden elders in Europa en de EU als concreet politieke context gebruiken om te streven naar een andere samenleving.

Onmiddellijke eisen

Ik wil afsluiten met wat onmiddellijke eisen om een beeld te geven over het soort standpunten wat ons verder kan brengen en ons op de rails zet voor een massa partij-beweging die zichzelf écht socialistisch kan noemen aangezien ze tot doel heeft dat onze klasse de politieke macht verovert en als basisprincipes kunnen gelden voor verdere ontwikkeling.
  • Afschaffing van de monarchie en de senaat, een één-kamer parlement met proportionele verkiezing, jaarlijkse verkiezingen met permanente afzetbaarheid en de lonen van de parlementariërs gesteld op het niveau van een geschoolde arbeider.
  • Verkiezing van álle overheidsfunctionarissen.
  • Geen presidentiële premier. Een einde aan de aanstelling van ministers door de premier en alle privileges van de ministers posities.
  • Schaf het geheime staatsapparaat af: Ontbind de AIVD, MIVD en dergelijke.
  • Schaf het professionele leger af. Universele scholing in het gebruik van wapens. Iedereen heeft het recht wapens te hebben en zich te verdedigen. Voor de vorming van arbeidersmilities.
  • Voor lokale democratie. Dienstverlening, planning, belastingen, handhaving en de toewijzing van financiële middelen dienen allemaal zoveel mogelijk lokaal geregeld te worden, waar toepasbaar en wenselijk: Op buurt en wijk-niveau, gemeenteniveau en provinciaal.
  • Voor een Europese Democratische Republiek waarin voorgaande eisen op Europees niveau worden doorgevoerd.

De Democratische Republiek is noodzakelijk om deze en meer eisen te waarborgen. We kunnen de bestaande staat niet simpelweg overnemen of binnen de context van coalities stapje voor stapje werken naar een democratische samenleving. Want échte democratie betekent het einde van het kapitalisme, een einde aan de dictatuur van de vrije markt.

De vraag is dan ook: Gaan we als partij blijven werken als onderdaan van de constitutionele monarchie dat het kapitalisme beheert óf bouwen we aan een massa beweging waarin onze klasse zich opmaakt voor een menselijke samenleving?
]]> Q http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18884 Study guide for Capital (Vol.1) http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18881 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:11:43 GMT I have begun work on a study guide to the first volume of Karl Marx's Capital. As such I will be in need of proof-readers to catch mistakes, correct incorrect segments, and suggest additions. If you are interested in offering your services (in any of the above mentioned categories) please contact me. ]]> TheGodlessUtopian http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18881 Hunger strike in the Guantánamo prison http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18879 Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:42:45 GMT [From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – Uncorrected translation]

A long and massive protest against the most aberrant results of imperialist domination
Hunger strike in the Guantánamo prison

By Diego Dalai
Thursday, April 25, 2013

Since February 6, 2013, several prisoners of the emblematic US prison declared themselves on a hunger strike against the abuses by the authorities and the guards. The act that led to such a decision of the prisoners was an inspection in which the soldiers damaged several copies of the Muslim sacred book, the Quran. Humiliating actions like that are common on that site where tortures and mistreatment are common occurrences and had already triggered protests and hunger strikes on previous occasions. But on this occasion, to the prisoners’ outrage because of the inhuman conditions of detention was added desperation because of their situation, that some call “legal limbo.”

According to some of their lawyers, the prisoners were “pushed to the limit,” and, this time, a large majority is part of the protest. The situation worsened on April 13, when the guards repressed them with anti-riot weaponry and isolated individuals in cells to force them to yield. Other methods of repression and torture, like force-feeding the strikers, are not working either, and the strike is more widespread than ever. The military authorities admit there are more than 60 strikers, but the lawyers say they believe that the number is 100 or 120 (out of a total of 160 prisoners).

Obama’s policy

Most of the prisoners have not been formally charged; they were not subjected to a trial (they subjected some prisoners to a summary judgment by the soldiers themselves), nor have they been sentenced. They have been in that situation for more than eleven years, and, at the beginning of 2013, they suffered a new legal blow, that, as their lawyers state, “leaves them without hope.” In January, US President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, that prevents the transfer of prisoners from Guantanámo to other prisons, even through a request from the US federal judiciary.

With this, any illusion that, on this matter, the “progressive” talk of the first months of the first US African-American President’s administration could have awakened, is finally shattered; among other false promises, he said he would shut down that macabre detention center, and he even issued an order in that sense for 2009. According to the lawyers for those detained, under that order, all these prisoners could have been released immediately, but he never put it into practice. Susan Hu, one of the lawyers of those detained, says, “I think there is widespread misconception that Congress is the obstacle to releasing the prisoners in Guantanamo, when in fact President Obama needs to be taken to task for not using his power,” (Inter Press Service, April 17).

A symbol of imperialist domination

Beginning with the year 2002, the Guantánamo military base, with which the US has kept sovereign territory of Cuba occupied, illegally and illegitimately, was transformed into one of the detention centers (beside others like Abu Ghraib in Iraq) in the service of the “War on Terror” that George W. Bush unleashed after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, at the end of 2001. The invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, with a big deployment of the gigantic US military machine, had one of their most barbaric facets in these “prisons of horror” that have the purpose of terrorizing and humiliating the oppressed peoples. Prisoners at Guantánamo are victims of those failed military adventures (that did not accomplish their political or military objectives) and of the policy of Obama, who, during his first administration, did not go beyond speeches or gestures to differentiate himself from Bush and the most right-wing conservatives, but, without changing what was essential, and who has, now, in his second term, been making a turn to the right, as his declared and open support for the Zionist State of Israel and its policies against the Palestinians, shows. We should not expect that an imperialist government like Obama’s will put an end to these savage, warlike methods, like the development, during his Presidency, of military operations based on drone aircraft, that end in massacres of civilians. The broadest mobilization of working people and the poor, not only in the oppressed countries, but in the very heart of imperialism, is the condition for curbing the imperialist war machine and its barbaric methods. ]]> sixdollarchampagne http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18879 Paraguay: The victory of the right-winger Cartés http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18878 Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:02:15 GMT [From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org - Unofficial complete translation]

Paraguay: The victory of the right-winger Cartés

By Eduardo Molina
Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The election of the businessman Cartés as the new President of Paraguay in some elections that legitimize the parliamentary coup that removed Lugo from office on June 22, represents a political victory for the most concentrated groups of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. After Maduro’s weak victory in Venezuela, Cartés’ success gives a certain encouragement to the political right wing of the Southern Cone. However, it must not be interpreted as a restoration without rifts of the traditional control of the Colorado Party, an historic tool of the large landowner oligarchy and a support of the Stroessner dictatorship. Rather, Cartés takes office without a “blank check,” but having to face a complex situation, marked by strong contradictions of every type, despite economic growth.

Paraguay on the South American chess board

The Paraguayan ruling class has been considered for decades as a “soldier in the struggle against communism” and an ally of the United States, in part, so that the brutal oppression of the workers and peasants would be guaranteed, in part, in order to compensate for the dependence of its big neighbors, Brazil and Argentina. The immovable opposition of the Senate to Venezuela’s entering Mercosur could only be overcome by suspension of Paraguay’s membership as a result of the parliamentary coup that removed Lugo. Together with that, initiatives like the approach to the Pacific bloc promoted by Mexico, Colombia and Chile, or the negotiation in process of a Free Trade Agreement with Mexico, as well as the military agreements with the Pentagon for the use of airports, are changing Paraguay’s position into a thorn in the side of the South American projects of Brazil and Argentina. But, at the same time, Paraguay is carrying out the biggest part of its foreign trade with these countries, including the sale of energy from Itaipú and Yaciretá. Paraguay’s illicit sales, that is, smuggling, add more than 5,000,000,000 dollars annually, equalling legal exports. The Paraguayan economy has been recovering from a fall of -1.2% of GDP in 2012, and, although this year 10% growth was anticipated [1], its extreme dependence on many small products (soy, meat) and scarce markets, makes it very vulnerable and exposed to big fluctuations. The bourgeoisie is seeking diversification by handing over the natural resources to the transnational corporations, like the Canadian mining company Río Tinto (to produce aluminum), US oil companies and others (interests that played their part in the coup against Lugo).

All the weighty reasons for trying to overcome the impasse of its inclusion in MERCOSUR are turning up. Cartés, crossing spokesmen of his very own party, has announced his willingness to rejoin, stating that “It is too important, “ and that “Here we have only two roads. EIther we remain looking backwards, and we stay anchored in the war of the Triple Alliance, or we put all our ability into correcting the mistakes.” [2] For their part, not only did the imperialist governments, beginning with Washington and Madrid, immediately congratulate Cartés, but the progressives did also. Cristina Kirchner stood out with her incredible “Congratulations to the Paraguayan people for the exemplary civic day” (that put the final bow on the coup-plotters’ operation that displaced her progressive ally). Even Maduro, declared persona non grata in Asunción, when diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Paraguay were suspended, communicated his greetings. For its part, the Brazilian government is discretely pushing for that return, which it imagines will be facilitated because Chávez’ death would reduce Paraguay’s reservations about Venezuela’s inclusion. [3] Despite the opposition of groups within the Colorado Party itself, it is likely that Asunción’s reinstatement will be negotiated by the Mercosur meeting that will take place in Caracas within a few months.

The Guaraní “Berlusconi”

That is the way some press media have presented the brand new President, a multi-millionaire, anti-union, homophobic and anti-political coup plotter. Cartés heads an empire of 26 firms, with tobacco companies, textile companies, service-sector companies, the Amambay bank, etc., among which, union organizing is blocked. Cartés having been arrested in 2008, for maneuvers with currency, his fortune has multiplied by obscure means. According to Wikileaks, the United States connects him with smuggling and drug trafficking. He won popularity as President of the Libertad soccer club, and, recently, in 2009, he joined the ANR (Alianza Nacional Republicana, the Colorado Party). He was an active manager of the parliamentary coup against Lugo. One of his recent sayings was, that if he had a gay son, he “would shoot one shot in the testicles,” which gives an idea of his ideological values.

Cartés, who is trying to look like a “renovator” of the Colorado Party, has the widespread political machine of the ANR, but his relationships with the traditional leadership have been very rough. Although he will have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies (47 of the 80 seats), that is not so in the decisive Senate (only 19 out of 45), because of which he will have to negotiate with the Liberal Party (PRLA) of ex-President Franco, a former ally of Lugo, and Cartés' partner/rival in the coup, who came in second in the elections.

The vote for Cartés was broader than the traditional Colorado Party vote. Cartés managed to win votes from young people and groups of the poor, with his promises of opening up “new directions” for the country and creating jobs, in the context of a big abstention (by 30% of the electorate).

Lugo’s reformism, the big loser

In a distant third place, divided, with hardly 10% of the votes and having meager parliamentary representation, the setback of Lugo’s reformism is explained, in the first place, by the dreadful (for the people) governmental management of the former Bishop, who, far from fulfilling his campaign promises, kept the regime practically untouched; he approved the anti-terrorist law, the anti-worker MIPYMES law of labor insecurity; he endorsed the criminalization of social protest and of peasants’ protest, the massacre at Kupirenda (which opened up the crisis used as a pretext for his downfall) etc. And, in the second place, because of his shameful capitulation in front of the parliamentary coup, by disarming the incipient resistance, and then subordinating himself to the process of electoral legitimization of the coup that had thrown him out.

Thus, the center-left appeared in the elections, divided into three pieces: the Avanza País Front (that presented Mario Ferreiro as a candidate), the Guasú Front (made up of, among others, the Communist Party), with Lugo as a Senator Elect and whose candidate was Aníbal Carrillo; and Kuñá Pyrenda, a reformist-feminist pole, headed by Lilian Soto, a former Civil Service minister of Lugo himself.

Preparing the resistance against the government of Cartés

The workers and peasants of Paraguay will have to confront the new government and its plans of surrender and repression, by relying solely on their own organizations and methods of struggle. While the “friendly governments” are embracing and reconciling with Cartés, we workers of Argentina, Brazil and Latin America have to extend the hand to our Paraguayan class brothers, since we share one and the same struggle, which, in the case of Argentina, begins with welding the unity between native-born and immigrant workers, by rejecting the xenophobia that the employers make use of, to divide us and weaken us. Facing the limited “South Americanism” of the nationalist and progressive governments, that, at every step, display their powerlessness and capitulations to foreign capital and to reaction, as in front of the coups in Honduras and Paraguay, the alternative is to put the Latin American working class at the front of the continental struggle against imperialism and its domestic agents, with the strategic goal of forging the real economic and political unity of the region in a Federation of Socialist Republics of Latin America.

The agrarian time bomb and emigration

These two big problems are key for understanding the depth of the Paraguayan social crisis and the contradictions that Cartés will confront. Decades of expropriations of peasants and indigenous people have resulted in a huge concentration of land, resisted by the peasants’ mobilization, despite the brutal police and military repression and the landowners’ bands of hired thugs, that, in two decades, have claimed more than 260 victims, in an intermittent war for land. In Paraguay, more than 85% of the lands suitable for agriculture and forestry production (27,807,215 hectares) is monopolized by 2.5% of the property owners with more than 500 hectares (7,478 large properties), while the medium-sized farms are decreasing, year after year; only 4.12% of the area is in the hands of the small farmers with less than 20 hectares (260,000 families). With almost 40% of the population living in the countryside, the expulsion of the population is fostering an enormous emigration to Argentina, Brazil, and other countries, where hundreds of thousands of Paraguayans are exploited and discriminated against, as part of the most oppressed strata of the working class. Of course, none of these structural problems can be solved with the promises from a government at the service of the oligarchy and foreign capital, like the government that Cartés will head.

[1] Data from CEPAL.
[2] La Nación, Buenos Aires, April 23, 2013.
[3] Folha de São Paulo, April 22, 2013. ]]> sixdollarchampagne http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18878 We must not allow imperialism to capitalize on the crisis of chavismo http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18877 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:44:17 GMT (From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – unofficial translation) Venezuela: In view of Maduro’s close victory *We must not allow imperialism to... (From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – unofficial translation)

Venezuela: In view of Maduro’s close victory
We must not allow imperialism to capitalize on the crisis of chavismo

By the LTS, Venezuela

An unexpected and closed election result shook the country and has put the national situation in suspense. Nicolás Maduro hardly exceeded the candidate of the rightwing opposition, Capriles Radonski, by 272,865 votes, a very narrow margin, compared with the more than 1.5 million vote difference with which Chávez defeated Capriles in the presidential elections six months ago.

For that reason, the victory of Chávez’ chosen candidate, Nicolás Maduro, tastes of defeat, with 7,575,506 (50.78%), compared to Capriles’ 7,302,641 (48,95%), which is scarcely a 1.83% difference, the lowest in the history of chavismo. This time, it was not an election abstention phenomenon, since, in historic terms, it had high participation; rather Capriles Radonski practically pulled some 700,000 votes out of chavismo, compared to the October 2012 elections.... The outcome then fell like ice water on the chavistas themselves, who were thinking that the votes for Chávez would be automatically repeated for Maduro, but they made the political calculations badly, and they brought the surprise of the decade. For their part, Capriles and the MUD are now encouraged.

Political tension 


The political shock became a crisis, that opened up with the disregard of the election result by Capriles Radonski, who demanded the counting of all the ballot boxes, with the argument that there were abnormalities in the voting and even arguing that they won the elections. In this, he has the backing of US imperialism. But Nicolás Maduro has already been proclaimed as President by the National Election Council (CNE).

Capriles, who had called a march in repudiation of Maduro’s Inauguration for Wednesday, and, facing which, the government decided not to permit it, backed down on the call and decided to suspend the march, fearing that it would get out of control, in view of the real possibility that confrontations would be triggered that could get out of control, facing the government’s toughness. The situation has begun to become tense, but, for the time being, they are sizing up their forces, in order to reposition themselves politically in front of possible negotiations or agreements.

In the mobilizations that occurred in the afternoon and evening of Monday, April 15, called by Capriles to reject the proclamation of Maduro by the CNE and to demand the recount of the votes, attacks on some Barrio Adentro units took place, harassing or even damaging facilities of the health care centers. From the Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo (LTS), we categorically reject these reactionary and completely antipopular attacks, that even had hints of xenophobia towards the Cuban doctors that work there. We must confront that! The people, organized in the neighborhoods, calling assemblies, through open public discussions, must determine the ways to stop these attacks cold. The Barrio Adentro units, and the rest of the sports or educational facilities, if that were the case, are a social conquest of all the workers and poor people, and, as such, they must be defended! The defense of the public health centers does not, in any way, mean political support for the national government; we do not have to be with Maduro, to confront these attacks; it is a matter of a clear position of defending that which constitutes social conquests by working people and the poor, because of which, we are calling, in these specific cases, for a working-class and poor people’s united front, in order to stop these attacks, with the methods of the workers and the people, based on workers’ and popular democracy, in order to determine the political orientation and the actions to be taken, without necessarily implying subordination to the plan of mobilizations ordered by Maduro’s government.

Just like that, in actions with an obviously fascist style, there were groups that violently attacked chavista militants. The official organizations are talking about four or six people murdered by attacks of opposition groups. We emphatically reject these acts, and we repudiate the criminal activity of groups of the bourgeois opposition. Even when we know that chavismo in the government also encourages shock troops, for example, against some workers’ struggles or strikes, and it also makes use of young thugs, in order to intimidate, in no way can we endorse the murderous violence practiced by groups from the bourgeois opposition against militants of the government party, or against people who are defending the health care centers, created by the government. It would be different if we were talking about workers’, peasants’ or popular organizations, that are organized for self-defence and are confronting the government’s shock troops! If that were the case, we would undoubtedly be on the side of the workers’ and people’s fighting organizations, that want to restrain the young thugs or shock troops of the chavistas, but this is not the case; they are groups from a bourgeois opposition, that oppose the government from the right, that have made deadly attacks on chavista militants, and that same state of mind that encourages these right-wing hordes, can also be released tomorrow against the workers’ and popular struggles. For that reason, we totally reject these attacks and despicable murders.

Up to now, the armed forces have been defending the election result, and, in this sense, the high command recognizes Maduro as the country’s President-elect. During the Chávez period, basically after the defeat of the 2002 coup, the entire armed forces were a basic pillar in the regime and in the government, reaching a high politicization and even participating in key sectors of the government, through retired soldiers along with active soldiers, working in important positions and leading commands. But, in this post-chavista stage, nothing insures that, if the situation tends to become more tense, from the counting, divisions in the armed forces will not find expression, deepening the crisis. It is not accidental that some daily paper headlines are writing that the “FANB [Venezuelan armed forces] is the power that supports the election results,” not only because of the backing given to the National Election Council (CNE) and to the President-elect himself, but also because they are the ones who have the ballot boxes in their custody. Maduro does not have Chávez’ authority, in case of a possible division of the Armed Forces.

In the election, the right wing capitalized on the crisis of chavismo

The MUD opposition, with Capriles at its head, got a big portion of the population to change a political choice, in a framework of big polarization, at the same pace with which Maduro was losing voters.... Obviously, Maduro is not Chávez. Moreover, the critical situation of the economy led the government to take anti-popular and anti-worker measures right in the election period: in less than one hundred days in charge of the interim government, Maduro imposed two strong devaluations of the currency, which became quickly felt with the direct increase of prices of mass consumption goods.

Although chavismo won in the big popular districts of the main cities, as, for instance, in populous Catia and in the poorest parts of Petare of Greater Caracas, the fall in votes in these regions became noticed, and the same phenomenon was observed in big concentrations of workers, as in the states of Aragua and Carabobo, and cities like Guayana, a center of the big basic industries, but not exactly because of abstention; rather, almost to the same extent that votes for Maduro fell, those for Capriles were increasing.

Internal tensions in chavismo and the opposition

Although initially chavismo had closed ranks behind Maduro’s candidacy, the unfavorable election result will open up a crisis among the different factions of chavismo. The sentence of Diosdado Cabello himself, calling “on the chavista leadership to seek the faults, even under the rocks, and a profound self-criticism which these results require,” was not directed solely at reviewing their political “errors,” but also at settling internal scores, that would indicate increasing the internal division, although for the moment, and because of the new situation that has opened up, unity will be maintained, because of the onslaughts by the rightists.

... But the internal tensions that could develop inside the PSUV will not only come between the different existing factions, but also from the very grassroots of chavismo, that, tired of following the senior bureaucrats like a caboose, will be able to go out more forcefully, to protest because of what has been denied them, and they will demand that left-wing measures be taken, in the face of the new economic and political situation.

Among the rightists, for their part, although now they are emboldened by the election outcome, and Capriles has turned into a leading figure of the opposition, not everything is “unity.” Capriles is established on some foundations and a political alliance that he does not control to his liking, and he has to struggle among its different components.... The most violent actions that were expressed in the first two days after Sunday’s elections and after Capriles’ appeals that “the members of the opposition should go home,” can express these internal differences. But it is indeed obvious that the opposition that had experienced two consecutive political defeats in the elections for President and the gubernatorial elections, has gotten back on its feet, even in order to arrive at the level of challenging the national government with not recognizing the elections.

A weak government

Events show that the transition to a post-chavista stage will be traumatic.

(…) Maduro will have to wrestle not only with an emboldened opposition, but also with the fights inside chavismo itself. But basically he will be subjected, undoubtedly, to resistance from groups of the working class that will go out more strongly to fight for their demands and for better living conditions....

On the international level, Maduro’s government, at the moment, also confronts the post-chavista stage with difficulty. Most of the governments of Latin America have come out to back the election result and Maduro’s victory; some did it quickly, like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, and even more distant countries, like China and Russia, based on their national interests. The United States is trying to use the crisis to its advantage, echoing the policy of its friend Capriles, and, together with other imperialist countries like France and England, has, up to now, refused to recognize Maduro’s government.

The policy of the United States will be to pressure Maduro’s government to adopt a position more open to negotiation, in the framework of which, even when Chávez was alive, the Venezuelan regime had to begun to make moves towards a better understanding with the United States (like recognition of the post-coup regime in Honduras and close collaboration with Santos in Colombia), and, more recently, members of Maduro’s interim government met with representatives from Washington, seeking to improve relationships with the incoming real government. For their part, countries like Brazil and Argentina will surely be the ones that will have a policy of giving more stability to Maduro’s government, taking into account not only their own economic and geopolitical interests, but also because destabilization in Venezuela would have negative repercussions for all of Latin America.

At the present political moment, a national emergency meeting of workers is necessary

In view of the crisis that has opened up, the working class and the groups of the poor must actively repudiate the imperialist interference of the United States, that is refusing to recognize Maduro’s government and encouraging the bosses’ opposition of Capriles. But this does not mean giving any political support to Maduro.

The working class cannot get stuck in choosing between the options that the bourgeois leadership of the country is fighting over, nor can it get paralyzed in waiting for what one or another gang is doing: the government with the devaluations, the refusal to discuss collective contracts, and the criminalization of the workers’ struggles, and the pro-imperialist opposition that is hawking a capitalism “without restrictions,” and bigger “freedoms” for the exploiters. Far from following one or another band, from waiting for what one or another group will decide, we must work hard by joining together, getting coordinated and discussing, as a social class, our problems and those of the country.

... This perspective is not flourishing now, among other reasons, because of the influence of the bureaucratic union leaderships, that, far from proposing a line of political independence of the working class, are part of the main bourgeois political projects in conflict, for which they lead the workers behind one or another faction of the current order, or simply condemn the workers to passivity in front of a crisis of dimensions like the current one. For that reason, it is important to open up this discussion in all the workplaces and to make demands on the union leaderships, that possess the resources and the possibilities of promoting a policy in this sense.

A national emergency meeting of workers, that will bring up the struggle against all imperialist interference and will give a response as a class, in view of the current crisis and the economic and social reality of the country, that is being unloaded on the wages and rights of workers .... A meeting with men and women delegates that can be removed, voted on in assemblies in each workplace .... and open to the entire rank and file of the workers, without any type of previous requirement, other than that of being a worker, without any precondition of having or not having a certain political eligibility, based on the clearest workers’ democracy, with freedom of opinion and discussion.

The union leaderships have the main responsibility for promoting or preventing a meeting with these characteristics. Especially those that now proclaim themselves to be autonomous, in relation to the employers’ factions in conflict; we are referring to the groups of the National Union of Workers (UNT), led by Marcela Máspero and Eduardo Sánchez, and the C-CURA tendency, within the FADESS, whose political leaders are Orlando Chirino and José Bodas, who recently signed a statement calling for a united front of the workers, to fight for our demands, independently of the opposition and the government. If these statements of intentions are real, these leaderships have to take the lead in calling an emergency workers’ meeting, like the one that is proposed here. Where there are even conditions for setting regional meetings, by city, or by branch of production, we must encourage them, in order to take real steps on the road to this national meeting.

... It is a discussion that we are suggesting to the men and women worker comrades, that we will open up in the workplaces, that we will discuss with this perspective, in order to advance to a policy of class independence, with a perspective that belongs to the workers, that, by trusting in our own methods of struggle, in our own forces, in our own leaders in struggle, will give us much better prospects than those which the government and the opposition, that want us thinking only about the prospects that each one of them offers us, are currently leading us to.

For the political independence of the workers, we must construct a political instrument of the workers

The dissatisfaction of groups of the working people with the reality that we have been living through for almost a decade and a half of alleged “revolution,” shows the failure of bourgeois nationalism, that Nicolás Maduro now says he will continue.

But this dissatisfaction cannot be progressively channeled through the project that Capriles Radonski represents, but rather by turning towards a class political alternative, belonging to the workers. In these elections we have seen how some groups of workers and of poor people, facing dissatisfaction with chavismo, cast their vote for another version from the bosses, like that of Capriles, precisely because the workers at this point have not forged their own political instrument that will fight for class independence. We consider that, facing this phenomenon of dissatisfaction and the processes of a breakup that are beginning to occur in chavismo, and that will surely accelerate with Maduro’s government, the task of revolutionaries, now more than ever, is to fight with all their strength, for the construction of their own political instrument, a party that belongs to the workers, with a clear program of a workers’ solution to the crisis and for class independence.

The working men and women of the country, that we constitute, with some 7,000,000 male and female wage earners, the biggest social class of the country and, potentially, the most powerful, that, daily and constantly, carries on its shoulders the production of the immense majority of the wealth, the class that makes the wheels of the country turn, must create its own spaces for meeting, discussion and decisions about politics and struggle. The working class will have to conquer its own political independence, both in facing the right wing, and in front of the different versions of chavismo, now with Maduro and his milieu, in order to become a political factor, that will be able to respond to the current situation, by avoiding being a caboose of one of the bourgeois projects that the country’s leadership is now fighting over. A political instrument belonging to the workers would provide the way to the construction of a revolutionary and internationalist workers’ party, that will lead the struggle to the end, since there will be no solution to the fundamental demands, unless it is in the resolute fight, with the perspective of a struggle for a government that belongs to the workers and the poor, on the basis of the destruction of the bourgeois state and the abolition of capitalist private property, both national and imperialist, putting the social wealth at the service of the majorities, of those who produce it, as part of the struggle for the defeat of capitalism, on an international, world scale. ]]> sixdollarchampagne http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18877 A decade of political activity: A succinct overview http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18875 Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:09:13 GMT Original post here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/your-political-evolutioni-t180316/index.html?p=2609993#post2609993). When I became politically... Original post here.

When I became politically active in early 2003 I was a loyal Dutch SP follower.

The SP is a left-wing parliamentarian formation that started out as a Maoist grouplet in the 1960's but by 1991 formally renounced Marxism-Leninism and afterwards shifted rightwards towards coalitionism. Dutch politics consists of a complex parliamentary formation, given that our electoral system is fully proportionally representative where parliament has 150 seats and you only need the votes of 1 seat (0.67% of the tally) to get in. After campaigning for years, the SP got in at the 1994 elections with two seats and initially stood on a platform of principled opposition.

Besides this the party traditionally had a strong activist core in the membership that stands on the streets, wages agitation, held public meetings, organises in neighbourhoods against all kinds of social injustice.

These two factors - principled opposition and an active party - are what attracted me initially to the SP and for a time, from 2003 to 2006 I was pretty active for the party, holding a seat in the local branch leadership, active for ROOD (the youthwing of the party) and was regularly seen at national party events and decisionmaking places.

But at around 2005 I started asking questions, quite possibly due to the party's continuing shift to the right and, not wanting to leave the party just yet, I started looking explicitly for a Marxist current inside the party on the web. This is how I quite quickly stumbled across the Dutch CWI section. I joined after visiting an initial meeting in late 2005.

From that point on I was getting into more and more conflict with the party. Just half a year later, at the summercamp of ROOD, I was taken apart by the chairperson of ROOD (now MP Renske Leijten) and was told in no uncertain terms that I would be expelled from the summercamp if I was caught selling a paper of the CWI. Of course, such a bland attack on democratic freedoms was ignored but I and another comrade made the mistake of not openly attacking this and so we so we sold them a little more covertly.

Of course this was found out, we were portrayed as being "sneaky" to the rest of the summercamp (who had no knowledge of Renske's ban) and were then banned from the site.

This is just to give one example of many of these clashes, but it is perhaps noteworthy because it had quite a few longer lasting repercussions and at least played a role in my expulsion from the party in 2009.

In any case, from 2006 to 2009 I gradually identified myself more and more with the CWI and, therefore, with Trotskyist politics. Here too I took up quite some leading roles: joining the national leadership (such as it was, it was only a small section) in 2008 and in 2009 representing the Dutch section on the International Executive Committee and the European Bureau (a subset of the IEC of the European sections) and being the site admin since 2009.

Since early 2009 I started drifting again however. Two events were of most impact to this: In April there was a short lived CWI webforum I setup with a few other Revlefters. The IMT had something similar, so why not the CWI? However, after a few days we announced it on Facebook and within hours I got mails from the International Secretariat, Belgian chairperson and a Dutch member of the national leadership to put it down immediately. I was told by one of these how "hyenas" were already waiting to "tear apart" the CWI because of this forum.

Another event was actually more of a process that lasted a year and revolved around the question: "What is actually a programme?". The CWI doesn't really have much of a programme in the sense of a document around which the party is built. Instead there is a method that is built on all kinds of documents, ranging from the Communist Manifesto via the first four congresses of the Comintern to the Transitional Programme and much in between. From these result various lists with demands for various situations.

I came to the view that this approach was rather sectarian and elitist as you don't simply walk to the masses and say "hey, please read this small library to see what we're all about!". No, you go to the masses and present them with this or that "wishlist" and hope it radicalises them. To understand the method though takes years of training, a process more commonly referred to as "consolidating". It results in a stratified organisation were the leadership, the most "consolidated" after all, dishes out the line, commonly without a critical view by the membership. In fact, membership is often hostile to dissenting views and dissenters often just end up leaving the organisation.

Around the same time DNZ referred me to the CPGB and since I started reading the Weekly Worker my political views broadened, went deeper, became fuller. Here was not a publication that just dished out "yet another line" but was actually debating, had different views that were allowed to clash with one another. When I started out this was somewhat confusing for me: Who was "right" after all? All the sides made quite good points most of the time!

Since then I deepened my understanding of Marxist theory, history and political practice. I'm still a CWI member, although not a very active one anymore (note: the section too is pretty lifeless) and I recently rejoined the SP, but no longer as an entryist (something I described as a "raiding party" recently), but as someone who seeks to convince the existing workers movement of Marxism, let them embrace their revolutionary self-emancipation through the struggle for communism :)

It took some time, but I'd say I'm pretty solid in my views now and don't really see another "thought revolution" coming soon.

TL;DR
Democratic socialist -> Trotskyist -> Orthodox Marxist ]]> Q http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18875 Agriculture in the 22nd century http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18873 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:52:30 GMT (if you want to see a version without the stupid and pointless 15-image limit, click HERE)

INTRODUCTION

The state of the art in agriculture in the 22nd century is bound up in the hurricane of innovation that characterised late 21st-century technological and industrial development, which depending on who you ask is variously known as the Industrial Revolution 2.0, the First Singularity, the End of the Old World, the Great Market Shrink or the Big Mistake. Rapidly increasing populations during these eventful times demanded more compact, more efficient methods of producing high-quality foodstuffs. Extraterrestrial colonisation also began taking off in a big way during the late 21st century, providing a further source of innovation which fed into and benefited from Earth-based developments.

So how do the 30 billion-plus people of the Solar system get food on the table?


Robotic labour (robofarms)



As the Earth's population became increasingly urbanised throughout the 21st century, thus did agriculture correspondingly become increasingly mechanised. This process of automation was also driven by the radical and fast-moving social and political revolutions that were unfolding across the face of most of the Earth at the time. The nascent forms of social and economic organisation demanded a new approach to food production which liberated the masses from drudgery as well as providing food security at a low environmental cost. To this end, advances in the fields of robotics, systems control and artificial intelligence were appropriated by the increasingly confident NeoSocialists as well as the proto-Extropians to create new agricultural technologies to produce maximal quantities of high-quality crops with minimal amounts of unskilled labour. Robofarming technologies have also proven to be an invaluable asset in the colonisation of the Solar system and beyond.


Vertical farms (verticulture)



As the densities of urban populations massively increased during the 21st century, securing a reliable food supply became an increasingly pressing point of issue for the teeming megapolis-dwelling masses, and vertical farming had long been touted as a solution for just such a kind of eventuality. In other parts of the world, vertical farming was part and parcel of the de-gentrification of cities as well as efforts to reduce the length and complexity of the supply chains for foods eaten by urban residents.


Urban polyculture



With the proportion of the world's population becoming more urban overall than rural as soon as the early 21st century, urban polyculture has grown from a cheap way of producing extra goodies for an urban dinner plate to a respected and sophisticated branch of applied agriculture. While vertical farms stand out on the landscape as great green towers, the signs of urban polyculture are more subtle, such as small angular transparent domes here and there, like the ones illustrated above. These urban polyculture domes represent in miniature a different approach to agriculture than the vast monocultural fields characteristic of 20th century farming practices. Different crops in urban polyculture are placed so as to complement and support each other, providing a natural barrier against pests, diseases and weeds, in addition to any domes or glass coverings.


Comprehensive aquaculture



The pressure on the land over the past century or so has stimulated much advancement in the field of aquaculture, which attempts to do for watery environments what agriculture already does for land environments. Perhaps the most visible impact of the rise of comprehensive aquaculture are the vast waterborne fields of seaweed that have become a common sight in many coastal areas and shallower seas. But over the course of the 21st century, what comprehensive aquaculture really became well-known-for is its role in opening up the ocean depths to more in-depth exploration and even colonisation, providing food for the ocean floor miners and their fellow undersea inhabitants. The seaweed is also used to provide food for the fish hives containing spawn, which supply hatcheries with eggs which are fertilised before piped into corrals consisting of steel meshing, bubbles of gas rising up from a network of pipes on the seabed, or a combination of the two. In these corrals the fish are fed with seaweed fodder until they reach full size or maturity, after which they are then harvested or fed to carnivorous seafood organisms reared elsewhere on the underwater farm. Aquaculture was further enriched by the development of pumping arrays that bring nutrient-rich waters to fertilise barren areas By the end of the 21st century, it was possible to provide for the complete nutrition of an undersea settlement of human beings without relying on supplies from dry land.


Hydroponics



Growing crops in an aqueous medium has been a principle method for growing food in space, being suggested as a solution as far back as the 1950s. In the 22nd century, a hydroponics bay or greenhouse compartment is considered a standard feature for spacecraft rated for long-duration interplanetary travel, although smaller vessels may make do with a set of algae tubes instead (see Algaculture below).


Orbital farms



Lifting stuff into orbit has always been an energy-intensive affair, and efforts to reduce the per-kilogram energy cost of doing so has consequently been a primary feature of space habitation engineering. One of the fruits of these efforts is the orbital farm, a descendent of early experiments in the mid 21st century into extraterrestrial agriculture. Developments in orbital farms were also pursued as part of the first waves of settlement on the Moon and in the Asteroid Belt, as their greater distances from the Earth demanded that agricultural production take place closer to the point of use.


Orbital mirrors



While the combustion of fossil hydrocarbons as an energy source was phased out for economical and environmental reasons throughout the 21st century, the effects of the resulting greenhouse gases on the global climate took longer to recover from, with the effect that changes seasonal crop growth patterns and distribution were still being across the world. In order to help ease agricultural transitions by controlling temperature and light levels, nanometre-thick aluminium foil mirrors were placed in orbit and positioned to reflect additional sunlight onto a specific area. Each orbital mirror is comprised of an array of nanometre-thick aluminium foil cells which can be tilted and adjusted to ensure exacting precision in the placement and intensity of the light. Experiments and pilot projects further proved that the humidity in the area could be controlled, generally dependent on whether the extra light fell largely on solid ground or on open water.


Cloudherding



While orbital mirrors can grant control over the light conditions, temperature, and even humidity of an area of the Earth's surface, cloudherding satellites manipulate local weather and climate conditions using powerful and focused beams of pulsed microwaves in the S band. Through careful aiming of the microwave beams various meteorological effects can be achieved. Powerful, frequent pulses aimed at the top decks of low-lying cloud over a particular region can shift it elsewhere, clearing the skies, while beams aimed at high-altitude cirrus clouds or ice crystals can induce an artificial rainstorm.


Fungiculture

Fungi of all kinds are relatively simple organisms, with minimal growth requirements, no need for artificial lighting, and are a rich and quickly grown source of dietary protein. As a result, the science of fungiculture has granted a myriad of ways of using fungus in the mass production of protein-rich processed foods that can be eaten by vegetarians and vegans and which are prohibited by no widely-held religious dietary laws. In addition to mushrooms and yeasts which are already established fungal crops, fungiculture also includes the development of genetically modified fungus strains, which are typically designed to mimic traditional meats such as beef, pork and chicken, but a common departure from this pedestrian and conservative approach involves unique fungal strains designed to produce entirely novel textures and flavours, such as the blend of fungi used to produce ProtoPuddings, a brand of creamy desserts popular with older spacers and potheads.


Algaculture



As well as providing the basis for modern comprehensive aquaculture through seaweed farming, the cultivation of algae provides a flexible and energy-efficient method for producing fodder for livestock, as well as a compact and simple method for supplementing the food stocks of smaller spacecraft undertaking long journeys.


Plankticulture



The cultivation and harvesting of plankton for the purposes of food production. There are two main approaches - closed and open. Closed plankticulture generally consists of vertical tubes of briny water containing a controlled or otherwise specified mixture of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and bacterioplankton. The tops of the tubes are supplied with (typically artificially generated) source of sunlight, while the water is kept oxygenated and rich in the right nutrients in the right amounts via a system at the bottom of the tube that forces oxygen through layers of sand and sediment. Open plankticulture takes place on the ocean, and typically involves the encouragement of plankton growth through the "seeding" of certain areas of ocean with minerals and nutrients. The resulting blooms are then harvested by fine-netted trawlers before being processed into various snacks, savoury spreads (goes well with seaweed biscuits), or animal feed.


Synthesised foods

Food synthesis is the art and science of producing entirely artificial yet tasty and nutritious foods, derived not from biological sources but from organic chemicals such as methane and ammonia, compounds which are very commonly found as ices in space, especially in the outer reaches of planetary systems. While bioforges can be readily adapted for the production of synthesised food, most of it is produced through purpose built production plants, which can range from small footlocker-sized units as part of a spacecraft's survival gear, all the way up to industrial-estate sized complexes helping to support an extraterrestrial colony. Typical sub-components include a crusher-grinder, a digester capable of breaking down lignin, cellulose, chitin, cartilage and bone, a combination brewer/fermenter, multi-function distillation equipment, and engineered microbial cultures for each.


Forced-growth tubes & vatmeat



Also used for medical/reproductive purposes, the use of forced-growth tubes to grow livestock like fleshy plants in a liquid suspension has experienced a degree of initial resistence despite its better record than conventionally reared meat in terms of consumer health and safety, its lower material and energy consumption, quicker growth rates and arguably its ethical superiority. This last comes from the development, made early on in the use of forced-growth tubes in meat production, of growing animals without significant cerebral tissue, in other words, without brains. While the ethical arguments in its favour (and the economics) have won over many fans, some people still experience an instinctive revulsion to the idea. Curiously this resistence has not been as greatly felt for forced-growth techniques in which relatively undifferentiated volumes of muscle tissue are grown in large vats or tanks. Due to its evenly controlled taste, texture and quality, this kind of grown meat is typically minced to make hot dogs, burgers, meatballs and other similar meats.


Stratoculture



Stratoculture involves the cultivation/harvesting of crops and the rearing of livestock inside the volume of massive specially designed dirigibles. Containing a semi-closed ecosystem and environmental cycles, these "Zeppelin farms" generate lift through the production of hydrogen gas by genetically-engineered strains of seaweed which are harvested and processed into animal feed. These free-floating structures have proven especially popular with colonists inhabiting the cloud decks of a planet, having no requirement to stay in a fixed location.


Compact macronutrients AKA "food pills"



for at least a century now the facility for compressing all the nutrition necessary for healthy living down into an easily-swallowed pill form has long been the dream of food engineers, dieters and killjoys as well as featuring in the nightmares of chefs, food critics and epicureans. The spartan and joyless nature of taking everything out of the process of eating except taste and nutrition meant that the concept languished in obscurity until the advent of widespread interplanetary travel, when compact macronutrients finally found their place as part of the emergency survival rations that every sensible spacer has stashed on board ship and/or in their spacesuit pocket. Food pills are noticeably more dense than their medicinal equivalents, and they never seem to get the savoury flavours quite right.


Ghellhonian crops & livestock


Left: breadvine
Right: a gameglider

Since the arrival in 2144 of the first cargo vessel to return from extrasolar space, the people of the Solar system were able to start growing Tolimani crops from the Earth-like extrasolar planet of Ghellhonus, inhabited by the first intelligent extraterrestrial life to be discovered by Terran civilisation. The cargo vessel also contained embryonic livestock which CSA scientists have been diligently working on in order that they can be reproduced on an industrial scale. Popular crops from that alien world include breadvine, a lightly-flavoured carbohydrate rich fruit-bearing cultivar which grows readily around trees and forms the staple crop for many Ghellhonian societies. The gameglider is already proving to be a popular Ghellhonian livestock species, with new aviary-like enclosed farms full of trees springing up across north America. ]]> http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18873 Goodbye, Thatcher; the workers and the oppressed are not going to miss you http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18869 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:43:07 GMT [From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – unofficial translation]

In view of the death of the “Iron Lady” of British imperialism
Goodbye, Thatcher; the working class and the oppressed of the world are not going to miss you

By Diego Sacchi
Thursday, April 11, 2013

When the news item became known, in Brixton (a neighborhood in South London), in Glasgow (Scotland), and certainly in more than one miners’ town, many people went out to the street by way of celebration. In contrast, most of the representatives of the British bosses’ parties and of the imperialist governments were lamenting her death and praising her as a great political figure.

In this counterpoint, on the one hand, the hatred that she elicited among the working class and the oppressed of Great Britain and the world, and, on the other hand, the admiration and the salutes that the employers and imperialist politicians are giving, mark the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. As her years of governing in England were marked by a series of social and economic counter-reforms with the aim of reversing the conquests obtained by the workers’ movement during the years of the postwar boom, and, under the banners of the free market, profoundly transforming the British (and world) economy, beginning with economic deregulation, by favoring the advance of financial capital and by imposing greater exploitation of the workers’ movement, in order to guarantee capitalist profits.

The arrival of Thatcher in government occurred in the context of a Great Britain shaken by the economic and social crisis, marked by workers’ dissatisfaction with the Labour government. As a response to this situation, a series of austerity policies and cuts in public spending was launched (as a precedent, Thatcher herself, when she occupied the post of Education Minister, had eliminated the glass of milk for the children in the schools, with which she gained the nickname “milk snatcher” [“Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher”] for herself). The first years of the Conservative government were not exempt from workers’ and popular struggles; the growing recession, because of the austerity policies, added to the rise in taxes, was the fuel for the riots (revolts) in 1981, which were centered on the neighborhood of Brixton (in south London), one of the neighborhoods most punished by unemployment and poverty, added to police violence against most of the Black population. The revolt was harshly repressed, and, in view of this, Thatcher’s response was a failure to recognize unemployment and racism as causes of dissatisfaction, and that there was nothing that justified “violence in the streets” by the demonstrators.

After the first years, Thatcher found herself in a situation of instability, a result of the growth of unemployment and the economic recession, intensified by the austerity measures. During that period, two big events took place that would strengthen her government.

The first was the hunger strike by the IRA political prisoners in Northern Ireland, at a time when Thatcher had headed the repression against the independence movement. The demand that political prisoner status be recognized for the militants for Irish independence was refused by the British government. After 66 days on a hunger strike, Bobby Sands, an lRA leader, a prisoner that had been elected as a Member of Parliament during his hunger strike, passed away. This triggered a wave of protests, to which the Prime Minister responded by hardening her position. Finally, after the death of 9 more prisoners, the hunger strike was lifted. The British press praised the handling of the strike as a victory for Thatcher, saying that she “had overcome the hunger strikes by showing a resolute determination not to be pushed around.”

The second event was the victory in the war over the Malvinas Islands and the advance in defense of British interests (a colonialist outpost), disguised behind talk in many cases about war between the imperial British democracy and the Argentine military dictatorship. The imperial military advance, that had the invaluable support of the United States and of the Pinochet dictatorship, confronted an Argentine government that refused to attack imperial interests, being more concerned by the anti-imperialist process that could open up in the region than by being defeated by the British.

With the victory in the Malvinas, the Thatcher government achieved new support that permitted her to move forward with economic reforms, the privatizations of state-owned companies, financial deregulation and the attack on the workers’ conquests. The 1984-1985 miners’ strikes signified the acid test in the Thatcherite effort. The closing of 20 mines triggered a wave of workers’ strikes in the mining sector throughout Great Britain. It was necessary for the government to send military detachments from other cities to repress the miners, because the police from the miners’ cities refused to repress the workers. After months of heroic workers’ resistance, the strikes were defeated, a result of the policy of the union bureaucracy, that was incapable of confronting the breadth of the employers’ attack. This opened the way for Thatcher’s reforms, with new privatizations (the selling off at will of the treasures of the empire) and new attacks on workers’ rights (for example, the impossibility of solidarity strikes, the obligation to approve strikes or measures of struggle by mail and not in an assembly, etc.), reforms that were kept by the Labour governments that followed her.

The attack on the workers and their organizations (during her election campaign, Thatcher stressed that she had to put an end to the power of the unions, that were trying to run the country) was not accidental; in order to change the pattern that had ruled England during the post-war years, when the bourgeoisie managed to keep the social peace in exchange for giving concessions to the workers’ movement, it was necessary to defeat and weaken the unions.

The final years of government were marked by the attempt to impose the poll tax (a tax on every individual), the refusal by a part of the population to pay it and the attempt by the government to keep it; it aroused a process of struggle against the imposition of the tax (in Scotland, a broad process of massive mobilization took place; the celebrations these days in Glasgow are from that). On the other hand, the English bourgeoisie began to reorient to a more open policy towards Europe, and Thatcher’s intransigence turned her into an obstacle for those plans. By then, the task of the “Iron Lady” was accomplished, and it would be kept by the governments that would follow her.

Thatcher’s legacy should be measured by the transformation that occurred during her government in England, and also by how, next to Reagan, they represented the advance party that was known as the “conservative revolution” against the workers’ movement and the conquests achieved by it. The change introduced meant abandoning the policies of the postwar period with government investment and encouraging consumption (known as Keynesian policies) for those of a neoliberal style (following von Hayek, whom Thatcher admired), the imposition of the rules of the free market, monetary deregulation, financial speculation, the purchase of state-owned enterprises at a low price, and the downsizing of government investment, that allowed the imperialist bourgeoisie to get out of the crisis at the end of the 1970’s. The England of industrial splendor changed into the queen of speculation, with the London Stock Exchange as a bulwark.

With Thatcher, the strategic alliance between England and the United States (that Tony Blair and his successors would continue, up to the present) was consolidated, that, with an economic policy of attacking the workers’ conquests (Reagan managed to advance after the defeat of the air traffic controllers’ strike, Thatcher, against the miners’ strike), they alike laid the foundations of what, after the fall of the former workers’ states in the USSR and Eastern Europe, was, during the 1990’s, the general lines of the bourgeois restoration, commonly known as neoliberalism.

The salutes by several of the imperialist governments and the international establishment, on learning of her death, are not an accident. It is worth highlighting the salute from Obama (presented so many times as a progressive President), who described Thatcher as “one of the great champions of freedom” and a “true friend” of the United States, or the words of the new Pope, Francis I , who also stressed the virtues of the “Iron Lady,” because of “the Christian values that underpinned her commitment to public service and to the promotion of freedom among the family of nations.” One would have to ask the people of Ireland or of Argentina if Thatcher represents a champion of freedom; one would have to ask the British workers what Thatcher was as a “public servant.”

The workers and the oppressed peoples are surely not going to miss this “Iron Lady,” who used her toughness against the interests of the working class. ]]> sixdollarchampagne http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18869