Atomic Energy: for Barbarism

or Socialism? A Socialist
Manifesto From the Dawn of the
Nuclear Age
Submitted by dalcassian on 16 October, 2013 - 8:26

A comprehensive Trotskyist response to the new age which opened with the
American atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. It was
published in Labor Action, New York, at the end of 1945.

"The impact of the bomb was so terrific that practically all living things, human
and animal, were literally seared to death by the tremendous heat and
pressure engendered by the blast." - From a Tokyo broadcast describing the
result of the atomic bomb dropped by a Superfortress on Hiroshima.
The explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki of the missiles that were produced
by the United States for the "democratic" camp and dropped on what we were
told was an "ape-like, bestial and inhuman" people are still reverberating
throughout the entire capitalist world and shaking the very foundations of the
system that produced them. The development of the atomic bomb has posed
in a new and dramatic fashion the question; Capitalist barbarism or socialism?
The use of the first atomic bomb - and we are told that this one was a "baby"
(!) and the weakest that could be devised - has given humanity a preview of
the Third World War. It will be a war in which no one will be immune, in which
everyone might perish and which could be concluded in minutes. Read the
tragi-comic attempt at consolation by Lord Cherwell of the British Parliament:
"There is no fear of the world blowing up, but civilization as we know it may be
destroyed." - -United Press dispatch.
And that of William L. Laurence, writer of the New York Times' series on
atomic power:
"Atomic energy is here to stay; the question is whether we are."
Or if you think that these lay spokesmen are alarmists, listen to Albert
Einstein, whose mathematical theories were turned to practical use in the
control of atomic energy. Einstein writes in an essay in the November, 1945,
Atlantic Monthly, also with that air of absurd consolation :
"Atomic power is no more unnatural than when I sail my boat on Saranac
Lake.... I do not believe civilization would be wiped out in a war fought with the
atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth might be killed,
but enough men capable of thinking and enough books would be left to start
again and civilization could be restored."
The Chicago group of scientists who worked on the production of the bomb
are not so complacent as Einstein. They say in a resolution of their body:
"The development and use of the atomic bomb has radically changed world
politics, and has created a situation fraught with grave danger for our nation
and for-the world. Only a full realization of the new situation will enable the
citizens of this country to solve intelligently the problems created by the
unleashing off atomic power. If a wrong course is taken, it may mean the
destruction of our cities, death for millions of our people, and the possible end
of our nation.
It is not melodrama to say that today humanity truly stands at a crossroads:
one sign pointing to the destruction of mankind and civilization and the other
to everlasting peace, freedom and security.
The bombs dropped in Japan struck a blow against capitalism and a blow for
socialism. This may seem paradoxical, since they helped to establish the
victory of one capitalist nation over another. But the very magnitude of the
death-dealing weapons that capitalism spawned brought a revulsion against
war and against the system which breeds war to millions of people. The very
weapon which wrought such tremendous destruction is of and in itself an
argument against the system which produced it and an argument for a new
social system which will put an end to war for all time - socialism.
In order to examine how the release of atomic energy is an argument for the
new society of socialism and an argument against the old society of
capitalism, let us first of all summarize the facts about atomic energy.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOMB
The development of the atom bomb was not the result of a single scientific
discovery. It represented the totality of knowledge of nuclear physics derived
from decades of study, experimentation and the fusion of ideas of scientists
from all over the world. The trail of atomic energy leads from the French
Becquerrel's discovery of uranium radioactivity, through the German
Roentgen's discovery of the relation between rays and chemical salts, through
the Curies' isolation of radium, to the English Chadwick's theory of neutrons
and the Jewish Einstein's mathematical calculations which gave science a
theory later proved experimentally in the fission of uranium.
In addition to using the theories of many scientists from many nations and
many periods of history the U. S. project picked the scientific brains of the
world and employed them on this job. Thus the "American" atomic bomb was
the product of the labor of Italian, Danish, English and American scientists,
who had for many years engaged in "atom-smashing," i.e., at efforts to control
and use the enormous energy in the atom.
Obviously the United States can lay no special claim to the discovery of how
to use atomic energy in its present explosive and disintegrative form. The
government, for the purpose of creating the greatest destructive instrument
known to man, spent $2,000,0000,000 on what Dr. Lewis Balamuth, writing in
"Ammunition," educational organ of the United Automobile Workers - CIO,
calls "the greatest single planned scientific and engineering project in the
history of the world."
But if the United States can lay no special claim to the discovery of how to use
atomic energy, neither can she claim any special knowledge on how to
produce the bomb, since it was only her immediate financial and technological
superiority, plus peculiar circumstances created by the war, i.e., time and the
reservoir of scientific knowledge of her allies, which gave her a head start
over her competitors. The other powers were already at work on the same
project. Great Britain and Canada, for example, worked jointly with this
country on the plan. Germany was very close to developing the bomb before
her defeat. The decisive scientific fact in the production of the bomb, the
fission of uranium, was discovered first in that country late in 1938. (It is one
of the ironies of history that the Jewish scientist who made this discovery fled
Hitler's realm to Sweden and reported her findings to the Swedish scientist
Nils Bohrs, who then communicated this information, to the U. S. and Great
Britain.)
"Private initiative" and "private enterprise" contributed little or nothing to the
discovery and production of the atom bomb. The various projects which were
created in the hope of making the bomb were government organized, planned
and financed. This fact is important to remember in relation to our later
discussions on the social, political and economic consequences of the
epochal discovery.
WHAT ABOUT THE "SECRET"?
While the politicians in Washington and the professional military men prattle
nonsensically about "keeping the atomic bomb secret," the scientists who
worked on the bomb are all agreed that the secret atom bomb ceased to be a
secret once it had been used in Japan. The universality of scientific
knowledge makes secrecy impossible. The Oak Ridge group, for example,
declares:
"We can claim no enduring monopoly in the possession of the atomic bomb.
Other scientists can apply , the fundamental principles, perhaps even more
successfully than we have done."
In testifying before the Kilgore sub-committee of the Senate Military Affairs
Committee, Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer, referred to as the leading atomic scientist
in the country, corroborated this opinion by saying:
"Discussion of the secret of the bomb is academic. It is only possible to keep
our policy (foreign policy) secret.... There never will be a counter-measure
against the atomic bomb, although there may be a way to intercept the bomb
carriers."
The Chicago group writes in Life, October 29, 1945:
"Let us realize the fact, however disagreeable, that in the near future -
perhaps two to five years - several nations will be able to produce atomic
bombs."
Even the great productive strength of a country like the United States does
not make her secure. The power of the bomb is so great - and recall that the
present power may be magnified a thousand times - that it takes only a few,
strategically planted, for a small country to wipe out a large country.
As a matter of fact, what it took the United States six years to produce, will
take any other country much less. Whatever "kinks" the scientists of other
countries have to overcome are relatively simple now, since it has been
demonstrated that the experiments in nuclear fission can be translated from
the laboratory to the factory.
The attainment of leadership in the development of the atomic bomb also
means little or nothing. All nations have the secret. All nations are capable of
producing the atom bomb. A nation does not have to produce atomic bombs in
abundance to match, let us say, the great productive capacity of the United
States. It needs only to produce enough atom bombs, even if the enemy has
many more bombs and even if they are capable of superior destruction. And,
atomic bomb destruction is on so vast a scale that it becomes a little ludicrous
to match the degree of destructibility of various atom bombs.
PART II
The magnitude of destruction caused by the new bomb will usher in
tremendous changes in the "science of warfare." Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were only a preview of the next world war. The disintegration of these two
cities merely indicated the destructive possibilities of the bomb. We have the
opinions of the scientists to support this view.
Dr. Arthur H. Compton, Nobel Prize physicist and one of those who worked on
the bomb, wrote in the New York Mirror that "science sees no reason to doubt
atomic weapons will be made that, related to the present atomic bomb, will be
as the blockbuster to the blunderbuss." In an interview printed in the New York
Times of October 13, 400 Los Alamos scientists who worked on the bomb
project declared:
"Before many years they (other countries than the U. S., Britain and Canada)
may also be manufacturing bombs - bombs which may be tens, hundreds or
even thousands of times more powerful than those which caused such
devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
What would such bombs mean concretely? The scientists have testified
before the U. S. Senate that with robot atomic bombing, forty cities the size of
New York and tens of millions of lives can be wiped out in a few minutes!
Some scientists put it this way: if another war takes place, atomic warfare will
mean the death of one out of every four persons in the country.
THE NEW TYPE OF WARFARE
This type of warfare will not even require pilots. All the new devices in the
technique of mass slaughter developed in this war - rocket planes, rocket
bombs, radar, radio-directed weapons - can be applied to the queen of them
all, the atomic bomb. The "science of warfare" has become so elevated that
every city in the world can be razed. Capitalist civilization has at last produced
a weapon that can truly destroy itself.
The bomb has antiquated the present concepts off warfare by mass armies,
air fleets and navies. It has revolutionised warfare in a more fundamental way
than did the invention of gunpowder. The mass army in the next war, if it
miraculously succeeded in surviving an atomic war, could only be used to
occupy wastelands, devastated areas with millions of dead, so great is the
disintegrating force of the atom bomb.
Even more significant than this is the fact that there is no defense to the atom
bomb. The new weapon has destroyed the military cliche, "To every offense a
corresponding defense."
"We might surpass by far the defensive achievements of this war," writes the
Oak Ridge group of atomic scientists, "but even if we could keep nine of these
missiles from their goal, dare we hope that we could stop the tenth as "well ?"
IS THERE A DEFENSE AGAINST IT?
Only the House of Representatives' Naval Affairs Committee insinuated that
"an effective counter-measure to atomic bombs had been developed." What
that might be, they have not indicated. The atomic scientists of Chicago.
however, stated October 13 that:
"...Expert scientific opinion contradicted a report issued Thursday by the
House Naval Affairs Committee." They-called the report "highly misleading"
and said that its "attempt to minimize its (the atom bomb's) importance and
convey the impression that the armed forces will soon bring the situation
under control can do incalculable harm."
Another direct refutation came from Dr. H. J. Curtis, one of the leading
scientists on the Oak Ridge project:
"We scientists can offer no hope of a specific defense against the atomic
bomb. Counter-offensive warfare will not restore the ruins of our cities nor
revive the millions of our dead."
This opinion is supported by Drs. David L. Hill, Eugene Rabinowitch and John
A. Simpson, Jr., of the Chicago group, who say:
"No specific defense against the bomb itself - i.e., a device which would
explode them before they reach their targets - is in sight. Irresponsible claims
that such a device has been invented only stimulate wishful thinking. ...The
conclusion cannot be avoided that in the atomic age it will be difficult if not
impossible for any one nation, big or small, to make itself secure against a
crippling attack."
The Chicago group was even more graphic in its description of a future atomic
war. It stated: "In the not too distant future, many nations might possess the
several hundred atomic bombs which would be sufficient to annihilate in a few
minutes sixty per cent of our industrial resources, paralyze ninety per cent of
our productive capacity and destroy one-third of our entire population. (These
figures represent the part of our population and national economy
concentrated in thirty metropolitan centers.)"
Just think, the present atomic bomb devastates an area of four square miles
and damages a surrounding area of a hundred. No city of a population of
100,000 would remain an effective operating center after the first hour of an
atomic war. Twenty-five per cent or more of a nation's population could be
wiped out in an initial blow.
What, then, should one think of a scientist like Einstein, who writes that "no
new problem has been created" by the atomic bomb?
INDUSTRIAL POTENTIALITIES
Up to now we have dealt solely with the military consequences of the creation
of the atom bomb. The question naturally arises: What are the industrial, or
non-military, potentialities in the control of atomic energy?
In answer to this question, the opinions of the scientists are not uniform nor so
sure as on the other aspects. The reason for their equivocation may be found
in the fact that our capitalist government developed the bomb at great
expense for destructive purposes, but has never contemplated any peacetime
industrial project similar in scope or expenditure which might compete with
existing private enterprise. However, there is much evidence and testimony
available to indicate that atomic energy has just as great significance for the
revolutionizing of industrial production as for the "science of warfare."
According to Professor Compton, there is no indication as yet that atomic
energy may be used in automobiles or airplanes, because the radioactive
waves produced by nuclear fission make it impossible to use safely in such
relatively small machines. However, he says with certainty that "at this
moment the obviously great field open to atomic energy is that of the
production of useful heat and power"
Dr. Enrico Fermi, one of the foremost of the atomic scientists, communicated
his opinion to the Kilgore Sub Committee that "The industrial potentialities can
be exploited.”
In his testimony before the Senate Military Affairs Committee, reported in PM
on October 15, Dr. Oppenheimer asserted that "... a million kilowatts of
electric energy is not far off, possible five years or less. But to fit this into our
economy may take a long time.”
Other than military use of atomic power also concerned the Chicago group. In
its Life (October 29) report, it states:
"The scientists are often asked: What about the peacetime applications of
atomic power? These, too, will depend on how successfully the specter of
atomic warfare is banished from the earth. We may look confidently to
benefits which the production of new radioactive elements will bring to
science, industry and medicine, since small-scale atomic plants will be
sufficient to provide an abundance of these invaluable tools for scientists,
doctors and engineers. On the other hand, only in a world free from fear of
war will it be possible to give full freedom to the development of large-scale
atomic-power prospects"
Thus we see that the future and complete answer to this question lies in the
field of economics and politics.
PART III The atomic bomb has frightened the entire world, the little people
and statesmen; every nation, whatever its strength; military men whose
business is war, and the very scientists who created the Frankenstein
weapon. What greater testimony to the awful power of the atomic bomb than
that it blasted the scientists from the seclusion of their laboratories into the
political arena in a manner without precedent in history? No one knows better
than the men who produced the bomb what its powers are! Men of science
accustomed to the precise, exact formulae of mathematics, chemistry and
physics, are not inclined to exaggerate or romanticize. But their realization of
what lies in store for the world if it engages in an atomic war impels them to
the halls of Congress, the public platform, the radio and the newspaper
columns to admonish the world about the crisis which faces it.
What is the message of the scientists?
Dr. Arthur H. Compton wrote in the New York Post October 25:
'"World government is now inevitable. The choice we have is whether this
government will be one agreed on by the peoples of the world, or whether the
great nations will elect to fight the catastrophic third war that will settle who is
master" (Or, that could make nobody master of nothing!) This theme of "world
government" runs through all the statements of all the scientific bodies.
THE SCIENTISTS SPEAK OUT
The Oak Ridge project scientists dismiss the unrealizable alternative of the
"abandonment of our cities and a reconstruction of our industries in small
units widely dispersed, or, perhaps placed deeply underground," and then
propose their serious solution:
"We believe that there is only one way open to us. Every attempt must be
made immediately to arrange for the control of this weapon by a world
authority. This means an effective international control of the production of the
vital materials and of their use in all countries. Only the world authority may
manufacture atomic weapons and, by the fact that they alone are in
possession of these weapons, enforce_ international law and peace. To be
able to use this weapon the world authority must have a military establishment
of its own, responsible to it and not to the individual nations.... These steps...
involve the loss of a large degree of sovereignty on the part of all nations,
including our own."
The Chicago group of atomic scientists echoes the opinion of the other
scientific groups:
"Since the world government is unlikely to be achieved within the short time
available before the atomic armament race will lead to an acute danger of
armed conflict, the establishment of international controls must be considered
as a problem of immediate urgency."
Some legislators and most of the liberal journalists reflect the sentiments of
the scientists. Senator Glen H. Taylor (Democrat from Idaho) urged President
Truman to request the United Nations Organization to form a "world republic,"
or, he predicted in the solemn tones of a preacher, we would experience "a
ghastly orgy of death and destruction as a result of the atomic bomb.'*' (New
York Times, October 24.)
Or listen to the PM liberal, Alexander H. Uhl:
"As a weapon, the atom bomb must be controlled by a world state with
sovereignty to do the job."
And ponder the conservative Life editorial of October 29, which states the
dilemma of society:
“A world in which atomic weapons will be owned by sovereign nations and
security against aggression will rest on fear of retaliation, will be a world of
fear, suspicion and almost inevitable catastrophe"
ALTERNATIVES BEFORE US
A world government or inevitable final catastrophe! That is the sum of the
sober opinions on the fate that lies ahead for mankind. We socialists say the
alternatives are world socialism or inevitable, final catastrophe. We believe
that the sentiments for world government will come to naught and that world
barbarism will prevail unless a socialist reorganization of society takes place.
In an age of the highest technology - now the Atomic Age - half the world has
already been barbarized - first by fascism and totalitarianism, and now by
subjugation to the victorious imperialist powers. The imperialist world has
learned how to harness the energy of the atom, but not how to eliminate war.
It knows how to destroy mankind, but not how to live in peace. Therefore,
there can be no world government without a socialist reorganization of
society, and no socialist reorganization without a world goal.
The truth of our contention is borne out in the behavior of the world's rulers
toward the atomic bomb. Let us take first the United States, sole possessor
(for the time being) of the production "know-how" of the atomic bomb. After
every scientist has told Congress and the President of the country whose
proud product the atomic bomb is, that there are no undiscoverable secrets in
its manufacture and that world government and world peace are made
mandatory by the bomb, what do these political representatives of capitalism
do? They propose that the United States shall keep the secret-that-is-no-
secret! When President Truman stated that the United States considered the
bomb a "sacred trust" and asked other nations to place faith in our promise to
"outlaw” the bomb, he was announcing to the world that the atomic
armaments race is on!
Vyacheslav Molotov, Russia's Foreign Minister, understood what Truman
meant. Speaking for the country whose secret police have already moved in
on Czech uranium deposits, he replied: "Russia will have the atomic bomb
and more, too"
Prime Minister of England, Clement Attlee, was quick to rush into the. breach.
He proposed giving the formula to Russia "if she defines her territorial
interests". This from the leader of the Labor Government, whose troops are
presently engaged in shooting down Indo-Chinese in French Indo-China and
Indonesians in Java in the name of - "territorial interests." One can come to no
other conclusion than that the atomic bomb formula is being used as a
bludgeon in the peace negotiations. And if nothing else proved the fact that
the war was not fought between "peace-loving democracies" and "totalitarian
aggressors" it is precisely the peace negotiations, where the former Allies, the
Big Three, are fighting nakedly for the spoils of war - the markets of Europe,
Africa and the Far East - over the bodies of the sixty million dead and half-
living, the casualties of the war. This is the finale of the Second World War,
which they told us was fought to free the world of the sources of war and
aggression, which was to culminate in "one world," and "the century of the
common man" and which was to bring freedom and security to all the peoples
of the globe.
THERE IS NO REAL PEACE
We socialists said that this was an imperialist war, fought between rival
nations for a new re-division of the world, a new re-division of the sources of
wealth and profits. We are witnessing that new re-division of the spoils today.
We also predicted that unless the working class set up its own government
and eliminated the system of profits and plunder, the capitalist world would go
to war a third time. We are witnessing those preparations. We could not
predict the horrendousness of the weapons that would be devised for the new
war. But even that does not stop the pell-mell rush of world imperialism toward
the third and perhaps final - slaughter.
But suppose, you say, the United Nations Organizations formed at San
Francisco decided to outlaw or share the atomic bomb after the big powers
had composed their differences? Is it not possible that all disagreements
might be settled peaceably? This, of course, was what the predecessor of the
UNO, the League of Nations, was supposed to do. If the UNO were what it
purports to be, the United States would have rushed the bomb secret to this
body immediately, so that the bomb could be outlawed peacefully, as all world
disputes are supposed to be settled under the United Nations charter of the
"peace-loving" victors. But the U. S. disdained its own child. That the United
States was trying to use atomic discoveries for industrial monopoly was
charged by Raymond Blackburn, Laborite, in the House of Commons, who
said, according to a UP dispatch October 16, that American interests rejected
suggestions of British scientists in 1943 that Anglo-American progress on the
atom bomb be made known to Russia. He complained that even at present
British scientists are not informed on what has happened at U. S. factories in
Washington where plutonium, a new element used in fission, is being
produced.
RULERS THINK IN TERMS OF WAR
The formal outlawing of the atomic bomb by the big powers could have no
more significance than previous international agreements to outlaw mustard
gas or the attempts at limitation of fleets. These agreements were broken.
Prime Minister Attlee has said that the only reason mustard gas was not used
was that each nation was prepared to use it. In addition, it is doubtful if
mustard gas would have been as effective as many newer weapons. But any
nation was prepared to use it at any time. Given capitalism, the fate of atomic
armaments can be no different.
If the ruling classes of the victor countries expected a world without war to
issue from the second war fought to end all wars, they would not be
embarking upon peacetime military training of their young men. Peacetime
training already exists in England and Russia. President Truman, certain
segments of Congress and the military above all are now urging the adoption
of peacetime military training legislation in the United States. It surely looks as
though the UNO is outlawing war! (But let us pluck the flower of hope from the
thistles of despair. Perhaps the UNO will arrive at a gentlemen's agreement
among themselves to outlaw the bomb so that our youth will murder each
other only with the old-fashioned V-2's - currently being demonstrated to U. S.
military authorities by their defeated German counterparts - and super-
bombers and improved Sherman tanks.) While the big powers may arrive at
some other agreement, a look at the May-Johnson bill, a product of our own
august Senate, is instructive as to the type of "international thinking"
characteristic of capitalist legislators. The bill provides for (a) the control of
atomic energy "secrets"; (b) control of the scientists and (c) a general
totalitarianization of human thought and progress. Violations of the secrecy
demanded in the bill would bring thirty years in jail and a $300,000 fine as
penalties. The Senate, with an alert eye to the fitness of things, provided the
proper committee on atomic power to handle its legislation, a committee
which, although headed by a liberal, is composed of reactionaries,
isolationists and poll-taxers.
PART IV
The Administration has outraged the entire scientific world. Dr. Harold C. Urey
said that passage of the bill, which so far has the support of the Truman
Administration, "will lead to an atomic armament race."
Referring to the section of the bill forbidding the teaching of nuclear energy
theories, Oppenheimer said: "It could stop science in its tracks."
Lowell Mellett, writing in the New York Post of October 23 said that "Many of
the scientists who worked on the development of the atom bomb feel that
science, as far as America is concerned, will be placed in a straitjacket if the
present Administration bill for control of atomic energy becomes law. They
think, further, that passage of the bill will start other nations off in a mad,
secret race with us that can end only in some nation putting the bomb to use."
Dr. T. R. Hogness, of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago, called for defeat of the
May-Johnson bill, stating that there was a "clear-cut and strongly-backed
effort in Washington'' to prevent them from "fully presenting to the public their
ideas on the implications and future control of the terrible weapon they have
placed in the hands of mankind." This statement was signed also by Dr.
Harlow Shapley, Harvard astronomer, and Dr. Karl T. Compton, MIT president.
The Chicago group stated further: "A danger of a policy of secrecy is that
while we would be spurring on other nations to develop atomic bombs, we
might sterilize our further development of nuclear physics and chemistry in our
own country by withholding information from the majority of our own
scientists----"The maintenance of secrecy in the field of atomic developments
will mean that vital political decisions also will have to be made in secret
without consultation with the people!”
The scientists, whatever their illusions about an international agreement by
the nations of the world today; have no illusions about the May-Johnson bill
produced in the Senate of the country whose "sacred trust" the atomic bomb
is!
THE MILITARY MINDS AT WORK
And what of our military leaders - what effect does the atomic weapon create
on their thinking? They don't, naturally, advocate the outlawing of war, That
would be asking them to commit hara-kiri. They don't call for the outlawing of
the bomb, either. The stepped-up destruction of the atomic bomb leaves little
impress on these specialists in destruction. Some say, like Major de Seversky:
"I don't believe the bomb is any more destructive than twenty thousand tons of
ordinary incendiary bombs" (!) Otherwise, besides recognizing a very slight
difference in magnitude of destruction, the military goes about with a war-as-
usual attitude. The former U. S. Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall,
stated this viewpoint in his report to the nation;
"So far as they can see world conditions a decade from now, War Department
planners, who have taken every conceivable factor into consideration, believe
that our position will be sound if we set up machinery which will permit the
mobilization of an army of 4,000,000 men within a period of one year following
any international crisis resulting in a national emergency for the United
States." What an atomic-powered rival nation could do to the United Slates,
given a year following an international emergency, the general does not
indicate. He must conceive that we, too, would have our atomic weapons
ready at a moment's notice.
Nor does the cataclysmic explosion that wipes out over 100,000 people at one
stroke seem to have produced much of a dent in the thinking of the New York
Times' military specialist, Hanson W. Baldwin. He readily admits the
“possibility of an atomic Pearl Harbor," but advocates as preventatives the
development of air power, pilotless planes, rockets and an enlarged and
highly skilled intelligence service! Our spies would keep us informed of atomic
developments abroad; other agents would keep other countries informed on
us.
As a novel response to meet a novel situation the Navy advocates more
ships. The Army, with true brass hat courage, argues you still need an army,
the infantry, to seize, occupy and hold territory in order to clinch the atomic
victory. They do not say that with atomic warfare the action of an infantry,
which may be the last patrol of the last nation left on the globe, may be a
macabre job of seizing, occupying and holding a no man's land - all that will
be left of civilization.
WHAT WILL CAPITALISM DO WITH IT?
Given the continued existence of capitalism, the prospects for the use of
atomic energy in peacetime productive channels are no happier than its
military use. This is true whether capitalism develops atomic energy on a wide
scale to revolutionize the power sources of industry or whether capitalism
doesn't develop atomic power for peace at all... In his testimony before the
Senate Military Affairs Committee, reported in PM, October 15, Dr.
Oppenheimer asserted that "...a million kilowatts of electric energy is not far
off, possibly five years or less. But to fit this into our economy may take a long
time." Why? Because whether atomic energy has industrial application and
when "is a matter pf economic policy." Atomic energy could be manipulated so
that "industrial development would never occur."
What Dr. Oppenheimer fears is that the fate of atomic energy will be identical
with that of technological improvements under capitalism. Because production
for profit is the mainspring of our capitalist society, and as a tendency to
increasing monopolization continues, the determining factor in the use of any
new discovery is: is it profitable? While the industrial use of atomic energy
might be of enormous benefit to society as a whole, its use by present-day
society might be unprofitable to the industrialists and financial overlords; the
two per cent who own seventy-five per cent of the wealth of the United States.
Many inventors today, whose discoveries, if put to use, would aid mankind,
play the role of blackmailers of the trusts, because to put their inventions to
use would entail the scrapping of already existing machinery, increased costs
to the owners of industry and reduced profits.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN
Suppose capitalism did find it profitable to use atomic energy industrially?
Willem de Voorter, writing in The New International, September, 1945,
expresses what would likely happen if atomic energy were developed under
private ownership:
"Let us assume, however, that U-235 can be made cheaply enough so as to
become a serious threat to present power sources. While as yet the stuff
cannot have any useful part in our technical processes and is no immediate
threat to coal and oil interests, it then might be. Then we would see an
immediate change in imperialist policies, directed toward uranium deposits as
well as to oil lands. The entire imperialist game will have to be reshuffled and
again the people wilt have to pay for the game with blood and life.
"If we assume that U-235 or another new element or isotope is tamed and
becomes the power source we are being promised, the consequences will be,
as far as the workers are concerned, disastrous under a capitalist system. A
single airplane could serve for fuel transportation over the entire world,
delivering an ounce here, an ounce there. One has only to visualize the
unemployment resulting from its use in power plants. Truly, the burden of
labor would be lifted from the shoulders of mankind, to make place for the
burdens of unemployment and hunger on an ever-increasing scale.
Technological unemployment would reach staggering figures; and the
capitalist would invent the slogan: a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, when
dictating conditions to those he will employ. This might be interesting for the
membership of the AFL: Capitalism will feel perfectly healthy again: there will
be a well supplied pool of unemployed, and a college degree may be
necessary to become an atomic spittoon cleaner, as in the good old days
such a degree was demanded from gas station attendants."
Atomic energy, like every other labor-saving device under the "free enterprise"
capitalist system, is a potentiality for the good or evil of society. Under
capitalism, profitability in the long and short term sense, determines the use or
lack of use of any technological, scientific or inventive advances. The present
stage of capitalist monopoly results in stagnation. The big monopolists
dominate economic life and determine, in a general way, the progress or
stagnation of economic development. This is what Oppenheimer means when
he says industrial use of atomic energy "is a matter of economic policy."
As de Voorter indicates, the result of a huge saving of human labor by the
capitalist application of atomic energy would result in a huge army pf
unemployed. For when capitalism cannot make profits, it shuts down. Of,
worse still, it goes to war against competitor capitalist nations suffering from
the same disease of production for profit - not for human needs.
The fact that we live under a social order which periodically goes to war, and
the relation of this to the peacetime use of atomic energy, greatly concerned
the Chicago group of atomic scientists. In the questions and answers it wrote
up for Life on October 29, it stated: "The scientists are often asked: What
about the peacetime application of atomic power? These, too, will depend on
how successfully the spectre of atomic warfare is banished from the earth. We
may look confidently to benefits which the production of new radioactive
elements will bring to science, industry and medicine, since small-scale plants
will be sufficient to provide an abundance of these invaluable tools for
scientists, doctors and engineers. On the other hand, only in a world free from
fear of war wivill it be possible to give full freedom to the development of
large-scale atomic-power prospects"
British Prime Minister Attlee stated, on the occasion of his visit with President
Truman to discuss the bomb, that ninety per cent of United States efforts on
atomic energy were now concerned with the production of atomic bombs, not
its peacetime use. Under capitalism, whether atomic energy is controlled by
the government or handed over to a monopoly (du Pont has already been
suggested) we are certain that the bomb will not be abolished and that
industrial application, if it takes place, will benefit only capital and lead to
bigger depressions.
Part V
"Modern bourgeois [capitalist, Ed] society, with its relations of production, of
exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means
of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to
control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."
-- Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1848. Socialism was
a necessity long before the creation of the atomic bomb and the promise of a
vast improvement in technology that is inherent in atomic energy. In the
Atomic Age, socialism is incalculably more necessary because the only
alternative under capitalism is death or barbarism for the entire population of
our planet.
While capitalism has provided the trained workers and the technology, i.e., the
machines, plants and techniques which are necessary for a socialist
reorganization of society, it long ago ceased to provide for the simple wants
and needs of the plain people.
We want peace, instead of bloodshed and destruction. We want security and
jobs, instead of insecurity and joblessness. We want decent homes for our
families and good and plentiful schools for our children. We want comfort and
prosperity, instead of slums, child labor, low wages, unemployment and
starvation. We want democracy and freedom instead of totalitarianism,
bureaucracy and racial and religious conflict.
But in our modern civilization, with its huge industries, intricate machines and
abundant natural resources, capitalism is unable to provide us with these
elementary wants. It is unable to avoid periodic world wars. It is unable to give
independence and freedom to the colonial areas of the world, but dooms them
to serfdom and poverty.
Under this system of capitalism, or "free enterprise," a handful of monopolists
control the wealth and power of the country. They own industry, banking,
mining, transportation. They own our jobs. They own the Congress and the
President because they finance the big business parties which put these men
into office. They send our young men to war to protect their vested interests.
They have the power of life and death over all of us.
THE INSANITY OP CAPITALISM
The insanity of this system of monopoly capitalism is that it creates inequality,
poverty and unemployment and all the crises of society because it produces
too much! Not, to be sure, in relation to human needs, but in relation to the
market. While the monopoly capitalists are united against the workers and
their political and economic organizations, they are in competition against
each other and against their capitalist counterparts abroad. They all try to
outproduce and outsell each other on the market because the mainspring of
capitalist production is profit, not human needs.
Consequently, a clothing manufacturer, instead of taking a poll of the number
of people who need clothes, produces as much as he thinks he can sell at a
profit. So does his rival. The market becomes glutted, because there are more
clothes produced than the consumers can buy - not, of course, more than
they need.
In addition, the producer takes his profit on his clothes out of the hides of his
employees; the workers are not able to buy back what they have produced in
the clothing factories. This is one of the important aspects of the capitalist
crises of over-production. The clothing manufacturers also compete with each
other. Their motives are not the needs of the harassed housewife or the
struggling worker but: how much profit can we make?
What happened in 1929 is the direct result of this capitalist method of
production. The "free enterprise" system broke down. The "enterprisers" sat
back and rested on their accumulated profits since they were unable to make
any more and the majority of the population was left "free" to starve or sell
apples to each other.
Under Roosevelt's New Deal, the government stepped in to bail out the
capitalists who could not get industry going. Industrialists were paid by the
government for not producing. People were hungry while big and little farmers
were paid to plow under wheat and corn, and to destroy steers, hogs, sheep,
etc. People needed clothing while manufacturers were paid to destroy cotton
and wool. Yet in January, 1939, there were still 12 million unemployed workers
in the United States.
INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM AND WAR
In our present-day United States capitalism, monopoly in finance, industry and
agriculture controls economic life. The bigger, stronger and richer enterprises
have swallowed up the weaker and smaller. The monopolists decide on
production, profits, prices and wages, just as they dominate the economy of
the country and decide the fate of tens of millions. While this monopolization
of economy reduces competition at home,, it intensifies competition on an
international scale where giant trusts and combines engage in fierce struggle
on the world market. Since all of the world is divided up into national states
with national barriers or colonial countries subject to their imperialist masters,
the inevitable result of this great competitive struggle among the nations is
war. It was this competition among nations which led to both world wars with a
couple dozen minor wars between them. This fact alone indicts capitalism as
the great obstacle to human progress.
After the second world war began, capitalism performed a "miracle."
Unemployment came to an end. Everybody was put to work. Every factory
was going full blast. The government spent twenty billion dollars in four years
to enlarge old plants and build new ones. But all of this was done not for
homes for the people to live in, decent clothes to wear, schools for our
children or medical facilities. It was done to produce bullets, bombs, tanks,
planes, battleships, artillery, and finally the atomic bomb. And what are the
results of this war we were told was fought for freedom from want, freedom
from fear, freedom of speech and freedom of religion; for the Atlantic Charter
with its declaration of self-government for every country; for the "One World"
envisaged by Wendell Willkie, and for the "Century of the Common Man"
promised by Henry Wallace?
There are 60 million military casualties, a figure equal to the combined
populations of Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, The
Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden! There are over
$1,000,000,000,000 (yes, one trillion dollars) in war costs, that is, an
expenditure of resources, machinery and human science used to maim, kill,
torture and destroy - which equals a $5,000 home for almost every family on
the entire globe, including the multi-million populations of the Orient which
have not yet in their majority risen to the level of city slum-dwellers.
These bald figures do not take into account the cost of the war in terms of the
destruction of formerly existing wealth and living standards which has taken
place in Europe because these costs cannot be reckoned. You cannot chart
the physical and spiritual waste of Europeans living in latter-day barbarism.
They dwell in caves, dugouts or without shelter. They starve or they pillage.
They are wracked by disease. They have exchanged the concentration camp
for the slave labor camp. This is the end of World War II.
TOWARD A COMPLETE CHAOS
All this was done without the atomic bomb. That is why we say socialism was
a necessity long before the development of atomic energy. Now that we are in
the Atomic Age, as long as capitalism endures, the crises of capitalism will
only be accentuated. There will be bigger and "better" weapons of destruction.
During the decline of capitalism, with every new discovery which improved the
productive technique of capitalism and made possible a saving of human
labor and a refinement of the product, the benefits have not been distributed
to mankind. The more advanced become the tools of our society, the more
wealth becomes polarized at one end, and poverty at the other. We see the
phenomenon of poverty in the midst of plenty. It is a little more difficult for
American workers to understand this than workers in other countries, because
we live in the capitalist colossus of the world. But on a world scale capitalism
has reduced the standard of living and decreased the freedom of mankind. It
has produced privation and totalitarianism in most of the world. The industrial
application of atomic energy can only accelerate this worldwide process of
decline. It will continue to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. It will
continue to divert more and more production into armaments production, to
protect the monopoly of wealth by the few. How can we trust this system of
capitalism which has produced two world wars in a single generation and
which has been unable to solve the simple problem of security for the masses
of the people, to develop atomic industrial power for the benefit of mankind? It
has been suggested that the formulae be turned over to the Du Ponts in this
country for industrial application. - To the Du Ponts, monopolists who
determined the corporation's policy in the current General Motors' strike, who
have avowed they can't afford to pay 300,000 workers a living wage! But,
then, say some, the United Nations Organization may take over atomic power,
since it is so destructive of even capitalist interests, and "outlaw" or "control"
atomic energy. The UNO, however, is composed merely of the governmental
representatives of the capitalist nations, plus the equally exploitive, although
not capitalist, representatives of Russia. The UNO is not even a democratic
organization of the nations represented. It is dominated by the Big Three -
England, the United States and Russia - who are themselves locked in fierce
struggle on who shall dominate the world. These victor powers are now
engaged in the enslavement of the defeated and small powers. Witness the
British in Indonesia and Indo-China. (It is not merely the Czechs who had their
Lidice at the hands of German conquerors.) Witness the Russians in Iran and
most of eastern Europe. Witness the United States in Germany in concert with
her allies, or the way she blinks at the atrocities of her partners.
Capitalism produces more and more for destruction. It has not been able to
use its vast technical and material resources for constructive purposes. It is
truly the sorcerer in our quotation from Marx and Engels at the beginning of
this section, unable to control the powers it has conjured up. If Marx and
Engels saw this in 1848, it is all the more true in a period of the production of
atomic energy. It is too much for capitalism to handle. Socialism only becomes
doubly necessary as we observe how capitalism may destroy the whole of
civilization in its efforts to control and utilize atomic energy.
The way in which the atomic project was developed gives us a clue as to how
socialism can organize atomic and all other production for the benefit of
humanity. The government furnished two billion dollars for its secret project. It
corralled scientists born all over the world. With this "internationalized"
science, cooperative labor, unlimited resources, and without the object of
profits as the central aim of the project, it produced the atomic bomb. This
was done through government planning.
Even prior to the bomb development, the government stepped in to organize
production for war. It told business what to produce and how much. It
furnished the orders. It guaranteed the profits. It made the labor available. It
afforded a priority system to make materials available. War production was
government-planned.
The capitalist government did all of this planning for bloody and violent war,
for the taking of human lives, for destruction.
If planning of production and full employment is possible in war, why is it not
possible in peace?
It is, but only by socialist planning. We have seen how the capitalist
government has already released its wartime plans and controls with the end
of the war. We know it was unwilling to organize and plan production to
assure full employment during the depression.
The scientists recommended a world society as an alternative to world
destruction by atomic weapons. In proposing this, they recognized, although
incompletely, the socialist solution to capitalist insecurity and barbarism.
Part VI
Socialism, and only socialism, will create a true world state, a world without
national barriers, without international rivalries, without master and slave
nations and, hence, a world without war.
This world government will not be a government of a dominant economic
class but will be a government of all the peoples that inhabit the globe. Its
primary duty will be to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of
eliminating poverty, joblessness, hunger and general insecurity. Its sole
criterion would be the needs of the people.
This development is imperative because the world [aces: socialism or death!
But why will socialism guarantee peace, security and freedom and prevent the
destruction of mankind?
Socialism will destroy the root evil of modern society, i.e., the private
ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery
and land, which, produce the necessities of life.
Under socialism, these instruments of production will become the property of
society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the
people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of
life and with it the factor of profit as the prime mover of production, the sharp
divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and
only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance
and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation
and collaboration between the peoples of the earth.
In abolishing classes in society, socialism will change the form and type of
governments which exist today. Governments will become administrative
bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the
instruments of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main
reason for existence is to guarantee the political as well as the economic rule
of big business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of
production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of
this class.
FOR THE INTERESTS OF MANKIND
The preoccupation of government under socialism will be to assist in the
elevation of society, to improve continually the living standards of the people,
to extend their leisure time and thus make it possible to heighten the cultural
level of the whole world.
In abolishing classes, class government and war, social ism will at the same
time destroy all forms of dictatorship, political as well as economic. The
socialist world state will be the freest, most democratic society the world has
ever known, with the world government truly representing the majority of the
population and subject to its recall. A citizen of a socialist society will look
back upon the capitalist era with its wars, destruction and bloody and cruel
dictatorships as we now look back upon the dawn of written history.
The socialist world state will assess the industrial potential of the world,
determine its resources, the needs of the people and plan production with the
aim of increasing the standards of living of a free people, creating' abundance,
increasing leisure and opportunity for cultural enjoyment. Socialism will not
concern itself with profits and war, but with providing decent housing for all the
people.
Socialism will provide for a multitude of schools for all the people. Socialism
will eliminate illiteracy, which is one of the hallmarks of capitalism, and cease
to regard schools primarily as institutions to produce skilled labor to help
operate the profit economy.
Socialism will create a system of health preservation and insurance in which
the needs of the people and the improvement of the human race would be the
paramount consideration
Above all, socialism will provide jobs for all. But this will be work without
exploitation, for the aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and
intensification of labor, but the utilization of machinery, technology, science
and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to
enjoy the benefits of social progress.
TOWARD THE NEW FREEDOM
The modern world contains all the pre-conditions necessary for socialism. All
about us we observe gigantic industrial establishments containing machinery
which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Man has developed a
marvelous technology. The discovery and control of atomic energy has not
only made it more possible for man to control his natural and social
environment to create a fruitful life of abundance, but has made it imperative.
Socialism will place at the disposal of science and the scientists all the
material means to help create an ever-improving social life for mankind.
Under capitalism, scientists are mere wage workers hiring out their skills to
private industry. The fruits of their intelligence, learning and research become
the exclusive property of the capitalists who profit from the labors of these
scientists. Thus, science has become subordinated to profits rather than to
the common good of all mankind. Yet the future society depends in large
measure on changing this relation of science to society.
Only socialism can place science where it properly belongs: in the service of
the people
Man is at a crossroads. He can travel the road of capitalism, i.e., he can travel
the road of chaos, war, poverty and barbarism, or he can take the socialist
road toward true freedom, peace and security, the road toward a society of
plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.
As Leon Trotsky, the great socialist leader of the international working class,
once wrote:
"It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the
future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique..... The
forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will
rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe or a Marx. And above this ridge
new peaks will rise.”
Socialism or death!
[Articles published in the last six weeks of 1945, beginning on November 26
and ending on December 31.]

Japan, 1945-52 When US

imperialism forced
democracy
Submitted by Anon on 8 November, 2007 - 7:24 Author: Dan Katz

Parts of the left back any opposition to US imperialism around the world
dogmatically, without qualification, and with little attempt to examine what the effects
and actions of the imperialist power are. Or what the political character of the local
alternatives to imperialism are. These leftists might be suprised by the story of the US
imperialist intervention in Japan, contradicting as it does, some preconceived notions
of how an imperialist power behaves.
Japan’s Second World War had the most brutal end. On 6 August 1945 a US
Superfortress bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped an atom bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima. By the end of 1945 140,000 people had died from the immediate blast, or
from disease and radiation poisoning in the aftermath.
Two days later the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, using battle-hardened
troops to rapidly over-run the million-strong Japanese army in China.
And on 9 August the US used a second atom bomb on Nagasaki, killing around
80,000.
Finally, nine days after Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender.
Hirohito told the nation by radio that the Total War, a “holy war” in which the
Japanese had been encouraged to “give themselves courageously to the state”, had
“not turn[ed] in Japan’s favor” and that the people must “endure the unendurable and
bear the unbearable.”
On the eve of the Emperor’s announcement military officers from the War Ministry
and Army General staff broke into the palace and attempted to find and destroy the
recording of the declaration; others set fire to the Prime Minister’s house. When all
failed and Japan had surrendered around 500 officers and the War Minister, Anami
Korechika, committed suicide.
The “unendurable and unbearable” was Allied military occupation — in reality
American occupation. Large numbers of US troops began arriving in late August 1945
and the occupation continued until April 1952.
Ruling through Japanese governments, using the existing bureaucracy and
maintaining the Emperor, the US achieved a “democratic revolution from above” in
Japan.
US imperial power was used to break the power of the fascistic military caste that had
dominated Japanese politics in the 1930s to create a stable bourgeois democracy.
The period of the American intervention had three distinct phases: from the 1945 to
1947-8 (when the US turned against the workers, and the Cold War began); from 1948
up until the start of the Korean war in 1950; and the final phase leading up to US
withdrawal in 1952. Following a period of reforming zeal at the start of the
occupation, the US shifted more and more towards backing and shoring up
conservative organisations and parties, including reliance on members of the former
regime and those opposed to previous US-directed reforms, while increasingly
repressing the left and the pseudo-left Communist Party.
Japan on its knees
Between 1939 and 1945 Japan suffered two million military and 580,000 war-related
civilian deaths, or 3.7 % of the population of 71 million (1939).
Most of what was left of Japan’s fleet had been sunk at the battle of Leyte Gulf in
October 1944, and by 1945 three quarters of commercial shipping had also been
destroyed. A quarter of all rolling-stock and motor vehicles had gone. Nine million
people were homeless. Four and a half million servicemen were declared ill or
disabled.
At the war’s end one-quarter of the country’s wealth had been wiped-out. Sixty-six
major cities had been heavily bombed and 40% of these cities had been destroyed.
Rural living standards stood at 65% of their pre-war levels; non-rural were down to
35%.
The defeat left 6.5 million Japanese stranded across Asia. In the winter of 1945 nearly
a quarter of a million Japanese died in Manchuria alone.
When the Emperor declared the end of the war it was the first time most Japanese had
heard his voice. The declaration punctured his status. Post-war most Japanese still
believed in keeping the institution of Emperor, but they did so with little enthusiasm.
The Emperor had presided over an enormous disaster, leading to the shock and
humiliation of foreign occupation.
The Americans decided to keep the Emperor in place because they were concerned to
maintain political stability, but the Emperor’s role was now set within the framework
of a constitutional monarchy.
War crimes trials followed. The trial that attracted world attention was the Tokyo
Tribunal. Twenty five senior Japanese leaders, including former prime minister
General Tojo Hidecki, faced charges including “conspiracy against peace” and counts
of permitting atrocities. Seven were sentenced to death and hung.
Across Asia the British, Dutch, US and others put Japanese accused of war crimes on
trial. Excluding the USSR, the Allies executed about 920 prisoners. The Russians may
have killed up to 3000 more following short, secret tribunals. Most of those convicted
were relatively low-level figures in the military and almost nond of the leading
civilian bureaucrats, journalists or politicians were brought to trial. And although
there was some popular support for bringing the Japanese war leadership to justice —
especially amongst leftists — American justice seemed somewhat arbitrary.
There was a big hole in the US’s case. There was no comparable organisation to the
Nazi party in Japan, and the only ever-present leading figure throughout the wars of
Japanese expansion was the Emperor. If a “conspiracy against peace” did exist
amongst the Japanese leadership, then the Emperor was at the centre of it. However
the Americans had decided they needed Hirohito — and the US went to extraordinary
lengths to protect him, re-inventing the Emperor as a pacifist and democrat.
The Americans bring workers’ and women’s rights
The first raft of US-directed reforms included the release of political prisoners, the
legalisation of the Communist Party, and pro-union legislation (the Trade Union Law,
passed December 1945). The Peace Preservation Law (1925) under which thousands
of leftist critics of the government had been arrested, was scrapped. The Special
Higher Police force — or “thought police” — was abolished.
The vote was granted to women, and the US began a drive to break up the huge
zaibatsu corporations and an agrarian reform which would smash the landlord class in
the countryside. The state-sponsored cult of Shinto, a buttress of right-wing
nationalism, was abolished in December 1945, and the rising-sun flag was prohibited.
Over the next two years the US would abolish laws which discriminated against
women, reform the law and purge education, decentralise the police and impose a
constitution that committed Japan to democracy and explicitly forbade Japan from
resorting to war to solve international disputes.
And the US began to purge members of the old regime and elites. They would
eventually prohibit 200 000 individuals from holding public office.
Among many ordinary Japanese there was real enthusiasm for the US
democratisation. 2,700 candidates belonging to 363 political parties contested the Diet
elections of April 1946. 95% of the candidates had never held office before. Women
got the vote for the first time and 39 women were elected.
Encouraged by the changes imposed on Japan, workers, women and students began to
organise. A few weeks after the Diet elections on 1 May, two million marched to
celebrate May Day – an event that had been banned since 1936.
By the end of 1945 the unions claimed 380,000 members; a year later that figure
stood at 5.6 million, peaking at 6.7 million in mid-1948.
Between the beginning of 1946 and the end of 1950 6,432 disputes involving 19
million workers were recorded.
And workers began to occupy workplaces as a mechanism of forcing management to
concede to their demands – at first mainly wage increases. At the end of 1945 workers
took possession of railways, mines and newspapers, running them briefly under
workers’ control. Later, workers took over factories belonging to owners who were
believed to be sabotaging production as a method of undermining the US’s
democratisation plans. Incidents of “production control” increased in the first months
of 1946, concentrated in the Tokyo area and in particular in the machine tools sector.
Social Democratic and Communist parties expand
Communist Party leader Nosaka Sanzo claimed he wanted to see a “loveable
Communist Party”, and spoke of the need for a “democratic people’s front”. He
explained that this did not mean “that we are trying to realise socialism by
overthrowing capitalism today.” The Communists, he said, “are the true patriots and
the true service brigade for democracy.” Communists and Socialists were elected to
the Diet in April 1946. In future years the left would be the staunchest defenders of
the changes the US had forced on Japan.
The Socialist-led Sodomei and CP-led Sanbetsu were both founded in August 1946.
In October a major industrial offensive was mounted by the CP unions against the
threat of job losses on the railways and in the public sector. A general strike, initially
backed by all wings of the labour movement, was set for 1 February 1947. Despite
assurances from the strike leaders that the movement would not directly affect the
occupation forces, and that the railways would continue to run, the US stepped in and
banned the strike.
The US opposition to the strike shocked many of the left and union leaders and
delighted members of the old ruling class. Ii Yashiro, a central member of the strike’s
organising committee, said later that this was the point that it became clear that the
Americans were “deceiving the Japanese people with democracy only at the tip of
their tongues.”
In the summer of 1948 US Supreme Commander in Japan, General Douglas
MacArthur, banned strikes in the public sector and began helping the formation of
anti-Communist organisations within the unions — leading to the formation of a new
anti-Communist union federation in 1950.
Beginning in 1949 purges were directed against the left and the Communists. Close
collaboration began between occupation officials, managers, and conservative
politicians in a drive to break the unions. Eleven thousand union activists were purged
from the public sector between the end of 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean war on
25 June 1950.
After the war started the witch-hunt was extended to the private sector.
Alongside the “Red purge” came the return to public life of many reactionaries who
had previously been purged “for all time” for association with the old regime.
The Communist Party changed line, ending their “loveable JCP” period and taking up
a more militant attitude to the occupation. Following a small confrontation between
CPers and US troops, MacArthur ordered the Japanese government to “remove and
exclude from public service” the 24 members of the CP’s central committee and 17
editors of communist newspapers. Although the CP and its paper were not banned,
most of the CP’s leaders went underground for the remainder of the occupation.
Land reform and industry
Following obstruction in the Diet from the representatives of the landlord class,
MacArthur forced one of the most radical land reforms in world history on the
Japanese government. Legislation went through a reluctant lower House in October
1946.
The new law saw the compulsory purchase by the state of all land held by absentee
landlords. “Owner-farmers and resident landlords were allowed to retain from 12 cho
(about 12 hectares) in Hokkaido, to 3 cho elsewhere, not more than a third of which
was to be let to tenants. Everything above those limits was to be sold to the
government [… at 1945 rates], which were artificially low and had long since been
overtaken by inflation in order to be offered to existing tenants on easy terms… more
than a million cho of rice paddy and 800,000 cho of upland was bought from 2.3
million landlords by August 1950 and sold to 4.7 million tenants. Land under tenancy
agreements, amounting to over 40% in 1946, dropped to a mere 10%… land
committees, each consisting of five tenants, three landlords and two owner-farmers
were set up in every village to oversee the operation… the reform made Japan
substantially a country of peasant proprietors. Their natural conservatism was to be a
key factor in sustaining a succession of right-wing governments, while their improved
economic status helped to create a wider domestic market.” (WG Beasley, The Rise of
Modern Japan).
Over hald Japan’s population then lived on the land and in 1945-7 many depended on
families in the countryside to get food. The US carried out land reform because it
believed a large small-farmer class to be the best bulwark against “communism” and
resurgent oligarchic militarism; but it had a huge economic and social impact.
Initially the US’s policy was not to “assume responsibility for the economic
rehabilitation of Japan.” Up until 1948 the US intended that Japan would “stew in its
own juices.” America did provide $2bn in economic aid, but that was mainly food aid
donated for political reasons, designed to head off serious social unrest.
In the first three years or occupation the US confined itself to identifying targets for
potential reparations, drawing up lists of capitalists to be purged and identifying
“excessive concentrations of economic power” to be broken up.
The big Japanese capitalists were — generally — pleased to see the war end and glad
the Americans had removed the “national socialist” militarists who had attempted to
impose total control over the economy.
At the end of the war Japanese capitalism was highly concentrated. Ten corporations
controlled nearly 50% of capital in mining, machinery, shipbuilding, chemicals,
banking and 60% of insurance and shipping.
At first the US intended to radically break up these corporations in the name of
“economic democracy”. In the end the reforms were mild as the US turned towards
re-floating the Japanese economy as a strategic political response to the beginnings of
the Cold War.
In December 1948 Washington sent Detroit banker Joseph Dodge to Tokyo with the
task of creating a functioning market economy. The “Dodge Line” cut the welfare and
education budgets, curbed inflation and promoted exports. Dodge’s policy seemed in
danger of creating a depression in Japan, which was averted by the start of the Korean
war, which led to a war boom in Japan.
The treaty that led to US withdrawal in 1952 confirmed the loss of all territories
seized by Japan in the 20th century. The US maintained bases in Japan, and Japan
began being re-armed as a Cold War ally of America.
In the final years of occupation America had shifted from reform to reconstruction.
But, despite the qualifications, Japan had been substantially re-molded by the US —
and for the better.

Social media, politics, and

the "Schweitzer model"
Submitted by martin on 1 August, 2019 - 12:21 Author: Rhodri Evans

The decade-and-a-bit since the 2008 crash has been a distinct period of capitalism in
economic and in political terms. It has also been a distinct period in the technology of
political communications.
Twitter "took off" around 2007, Facebook "took off" around 2009, mass use of
smartphones "took off" about the same time. For a few years now, more web
browsing has been done via smartphones than via computers. Tablets and e-readers,
once said to be the wave of the future, have lagged.
Many young people today get their news of the world via social media, rather than via
newspapers or TV news shows or even directly from news websites.
This technological development has facilitated the emergence of new forms of old
political patterns.
J B von Schweitzer was the leader of the "Lassallean" workers' movement in
Germany from Lassalle's death in 1864 through to 1871, and is known to Marxists
today mostly for some letters which Marx wrote to him.
August Bebel became in those years, with Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the leaders of a
strand in the German workers' movement closer to Marx and Engels. In 1910, writing
an autobiography, he looked back on Schweitzer's record.
Schweitzer, he said, had been energetic, intelligent, studious, and a good speaker. But:
"He had a knack of flattering the masses, whom he really despised, which I have
never seen in greater perfection in any man. He spoke of himself as their instrument,
bound to do the sovereign will of the people, the 'sovereign people' who read nothing
but his own paper and on whom he imposed his will by suggestion.
"Whosoever dared to kick against the pricks was taxed with the lowest motives,
branded as an idiot, or as an 'intellectual' who despised the brave, honest workers
and wanted to exploit them in his own interests".
Bebel himself was accused by Schweitzer, ludicrously, of receiving secret payments
from the King of Hanover.
Schweitzer was a demagogue. His political line was erratic, but always presented as
reflecting the instinctive sound good sense of the plebeian masses. His political
movement was built not as a structured democracy (with recognised, experienced,
reasonably stable leaders), but as a rallying around himself as a personality.
He marked out the boundaries of the movement, and defended it against critics, not by
political arguments, but by a whirl of emotion-laden personal accusations against the
critics.
In the era since 2008 the same methods have been used in mainstream bourgeois
politics by Trump and Bolsonaro and Farage on the right. In the "centre", Macron and
Grillo have adapted similar methods, building "parties" without memberships. On the
"left", George Galloway and Jean-Luc Mélenchon have used similar techniques.
Some of those techniques are used, on a smaller scale, by grouplets around the left
such as Red London which act as outriders for more "standard" Stalinistic currents
like the Morning Star.
Schweitzer had his success because working-class politics then in Germany was very
loose-knit and atomised. The main "technology" of political communication must
have been face-to-face chat. Bebel records that when Schweitzer's ADAV had a
membership of 12,000 or so, its newspaper had a circulation of only 500, rising to
1200. Literacy was already almost universal in Germany, but there must have been
many workers unready for the cost and trouble of newspapers.
The increase of political communication mediated through short, skim-read messages,
which gain circulation by being emotive rather than being evidenced or reasoned,
recreates similar conditions, and greater potential speeds of expansion.
Schweitzer's success was short-lived because the movement quickly developed new
technologies of communication which increased the weight of reason and evidence
and critical discussion - big political meetings, then much wider readership of
newspapers, to be followed by the rise of large workplaces and workplace-based
union organisation. Schweitzer resigned as ADAV leader in 1871, was formally
expelled by ADAV in 1872, and died, isolated, in 1875.
The technologies do not automatically shape the politics. Some demagogic leaders
today and many in the past use or have used more-or-less structured political parties,
newspapers, etc.: Johnson, Salvini, Erdogan, Modi, etc.
The new technologies create other possibilities. They allow demonstrations and
meetings to be publicised more quickly. They also allow the more studious to fact-
check and to compare reports more quickly and more easily than in eras dominated by
printed-paper communication. They probably mean that the thinking of the "not-very-
political" is shaped more by self-chosen groups of friends and "friends" than (as it
would have been in times dominated by "real-life" chat as political communication)
by family and religious leaders.
Given, however, a relatively low level of strikes and such since 2008, and thus a
relatively atomised, labile state of political life, the new technologies have facilitated
the rise of new and quick-growing political "bubbles". Those have become weighty
realities in their own right, significant factors to be combatted in the struggle for
politics based on reason and evidence.

1868: a worker-socialist
reviews Capital
Submitted by SJW on 8 May, 2018 - 3:01 Author: Josef Dietzgen
Published in the ‘Demokratisches Wochenblatt’ 1st, 22nd, 29th August and 5th
September 1868
If I remember rightly, it was Goethe, who, on his death bed, called for “Light, more
light”. Whether a lack of earthly light moved him to this, or, as the pious would
perhaps have it, the prospect of heavenly light in the hereafter, the light of knowledge,
which the present work has in abundance, has the same effect on me.
“Light, light! That is clear, that is illuminated”, I rejoiced, when I was able to
penetrate with my intellect one chapter after another. Mental labour is certainly
necessary for this. But a worker, who is used, not only to acquiring his own pleasures
by “the sweat of his brow”, but also to making possible the ten times greater pleasures
of others, will not shrink from the task.
For my part – if I might be permitted to introduce myself as a tanner – when at the
start I could not understand the work of our philosopher, I kept saying to myself: what
others can do, you can do too. Thinking is not a privilege of the professors.
Just like any other job, it just needs the usual practice. The great mass of workers is
finally beginning to understand: that there is no salvation without practising thinking
for oneself. In our class, we are generally now starting to realise that if we still let
others tell us what they wish to let us know, they will know how to make material
booty out of that intellectual advantage. The first necessity for a worker who wishes
to work for the self-emancipation of his class is not to allow himself to be told, but
instead to know himself. The particular, the individual, the special we can leave to
experts. But a knowledge of capital, our powerful common enemy in the social
struggle, is a general class interest that each of us has to take on.
Here it is time to use the slogan which the spokesmen and advocates of capital drum
into us: here belongs “self help”.
If humans do not put on sackcloth, go barefoot, become hermits and live off roots and
herbs, then they cannot practice self help in the field of economics. I hope Schulze-
Delitsch does not wish to turn workers into monks – and Lassalle certainly doesn’t –
so that like sanctimonious people they expect the help of god and compassionate
people. For us, self help does not belong in our practice, but in our understanding of
practice, in our scientific teaching. Here the individual can and must help himself.
Socrates’ saying applies here: “Know thyself”, especially for the worker whom the
shoe pinches worst.
The author gives us the mirror and light for this – not so that we have faith, but rather
that we see and know.
We are presented with a massive work. Not an industrial product, designed for passing
interest, for the market and its speculators. It is also not a phoney work, which plays
with its object out of vanity and lets its appearance dazzle us. It is a piece of work. A
work which one regards as the result of a life dedicated to it in unwavering love. And
further, love alone would not have made it possible to dig out these treasures of
science from the jumbled material of the previous literature and of contemporary life,
to express them and to put them into shape. Alongside a passionate heart for the
cause, belongs an eminent brain, the irresistible sharpness of a logical mind, the rare
talent of an inspired thinker, the untiring industry of an educated and well-schooled
researcher.
And the object of the study is worthy of the talent that took it on. Of course, the
smallest thing is worthy of becoming the object of science. And yet we wish to
subordinate one thing to another according to whether it is more or less necessary or
more or less general. And what is closer to humans in general, particularly in our time,
and again above all the worker, than the present process of production of the material
necessities of life? Knowledge of this process and enquiry into its laws have been
chosen by the author as his goal and, if I may say so, as his life’s work. It is not
concerned with the individual, with the question of how you, I or he acquires food but
is about us, the nation, or better, the international organisation of labour.
But do not take this to mean that the book is concerned with some project, with
personal ideas of the order of things that can come about. The work is the product of
science in the highest sense of the word. Science is only concerned with what is, with
the actually given, not with projects – or if also with projects, then only insofar as
they are given in reality and have a disruptive influence on science.
The international organisation of labour does not first have to come about, but already
exists. From the fact that we only live indirectly from the products of our own labour
but live directly from the international products of labour, that we consume Russian
corn, Dutch herrings and American cotton, we can prove that we produce not with
individual labour but with common, social labour. Now everyone knows that this
labour does not appear as common labour but as private labour. Yet it is a normal task
of science to show that appearance deceives, that the sun doesn’t go around the earth.
It was the scientific task of political economy to discern the social essence of our
privately formed labour. Karl Marx has presented us with the solution of this task in
this critique.
In its historical development political economy has fared very similarly to speculative
philosophy. It was neither clearly aware of its object nor of the method with which it
wished to deal with it. It still lacked what Kant called the distinguishing mark of
science – “a unanimous and sure course”. Liebig says: “Inductive method, which the
ancient world neither knew nor practised, has since its appearance transformed the
world. The conclusions which one comes to through this method are nothing more
than the mental expression of experiences and facts. A glance in the journals of
chemistry and physics makes one astonished. Every day brings new progress and all
without conflict; one knows what a fact, a conclusion, a law an opinion and an
explanation is. For all of these, we have touchstones that anyone uses before putting
the fruits of his labour into circulation. Convincing people of a view by advocacy or
with the intention of making someone believe something unproven fails in an instant
because of the scientific moral code.”
Such a code was totally lacking in the economists. Today they are still as divided over
the nature, boundaries and shape of their discipline as lawyers, philosophers and
theologians. One minute they seek truth inductively by means of real appearances; the
next they think that they can create the sought-after knowledge speculatively without
experience from the depths of the human mind.
Now that is the first merit of our author; that he clearly and openly exposes the
sensuous object of his research, the object of political economy. Who among present
day economists can say whether the economy is a single organism, a single organised
whole or just the sum total of private economic activities just as a pile of sand is made
up of many grains? Who knows where the national economy, national wealth and
national labour start and private economy, private wealth and private labour cease?
That there exists a difference between them – and indeed an essential one – has
certainly not been totally unrecognised by economic science but it is still less
understood by it. It certainly has a dim view of the difference, but it has not become
conscious for political economy. It has, as Kant describes such behaviour, just been
“groping around”.
This fog recedes into concentrated clouds in the face of the author’s mind. We learn
that private activity in production is only the form that conceals the social, collective
essence of production. The more generally the product of labour becomes a
commodity in the course of time, the more generally labour has ceased to be private
labour. A commodity is intended for the market, the storehouse of society. Labour
which is private, not merely in its form but in its essence, produces no exchange
value. In modern production, which aims completely and utterly to transform the
products of labour into commodities, there appears the tendency to transform the
labour of individuals into a social labour process. This tendency appears in the first
place from the nature of things quite without the knowledge and the will of humans.
It is an affair of people which hides mystically behind things, behind products.
Products are exchanged, bought and sold, transformed into values, prices, money,
articles of trade, capital etc. All these economic relationships can only be grasped if
we see bourgeois society as a kind of productive cooperative which permits the well-
endowed to become producers, treats the impoverished labour force as commodities,
as raw materials, and distributes the product of their labours among the independent
producers, not on a cooperative basis but according to the mass of labour delivered to
society.
As this society is purely a historical growth and not consciously constituted, it is ruled
not by purpose but by blind necessity. What, how many and how things should be
produced is left to individual whim, which is regulated unconsciously through the
market. The producer has the ‘freedom’ to do what he wants, which means society
does not prescribe but teaches after the event by means of prizes or boxed ears.
If our subject had a head and could talk, it would explain its nature roughly like this:
“I, the process of production in general, along with good Mother Nature, the source of
all objects of human need, am as old and lasting as the human race itself. Yet I, like
everything on earth, am subject to change. I appear in many forms as the economy of
a single individual, as family economy, as the labour of the local community, as slave
labour, as guild or ‘free’ bourgeois economy etc. But I have never yet been political
economy [the people’s economy] because the people have never yet run me but rather
are still being managed. If I look back on my historic course, I see surely that I have
to thank my modern power and productivity to the development of solidaristic social
labour out of isolated labours. Yet at the moment when I revel in the enjoyment of my
power, I become aware at the same time that the human race begins to have power
over me. Up to now, I have more and more used and used up people in serving me.
First, I organised labour on under the whip of the slave owner. Then, when the owner
of the products produced in this way by these peoples could no longer consume them
all and this threatened to disrupt my further development, I gathered together the
ruling powers of humanity and explained that it was possible to expand consumption
if they took their different surplus products to market and there looked on the total
product as the product of a communal or collective labour which would be distributed
according to the mass of labour time used up in them.
So, for example, the wine that a Roman slave produced in a certain time – a day, a
week, a year – should be the equivalent of the currants, which a slave of the Greeks
produced in the same time. In order to spur economic interest still further, I made the
stipulation that it was not the real time that was taken on one or other occasion but
rather the value is defined by the average time that the product would necessarily cost
society.
“With regard to the contradiction that one labour and another labour are two different
things; that more skilled labour commands a greater value more cheaply than ordinary
labour, that it is accordingly unreasonable to define value solely in terms of time, I
made it clear that they as people of intelligence can easily level out this difference if
different types of labour – like fractions in arithmetic – are previously reduced to a
common denominator. If one were to give all labour, even the most complex, the
common denominator of ‘simple average labour’, then a day’s work by Abel would,
for example, be worth twice a day’s work by Cain, without thereby disproving the
idea of calculating the value of things by the average duration of time which their
production costs society. And if a community rashly produces too much or too little of
one or another commodity, then for the individual the labour time used is calculated to
be equal to that which society needs for the production of the given quantity. In brief,
I discovered exchange value, that is, the accounting of individual labour in terms of
social average labour.
“It was a decisive step forward but still I could not be satisfied with it. I wanted and
still want to be bigger and richer. For this reason I created a second essential means
for my extension: money. In this way I solved the contradictory task of letting
independent private economy function as one organised social economy with a special
material, which, in a contradictory manner, has a general value and serves as money.
“Once the economy had been politically organised to this point, I could leave its
detailed maintenance to humans. Private interests were skilfully linked to the interests
of society. Thus one learnt to protect my fundamental interest too. For my sake, slaves
were given first half and then finally all their freedom. They were transformed first
into bondsmen and then finally also into ‘free’ labourers. The economy took different
forms: ancient, feudal, small and large scale merchant, guild and capitalist. It took up
protectionism and free trade – all of that just as my purpose, profitability, demanded.
For me, men have gone to war and on voyages of discovery; invented subjugation and
freedom; studied and toiled; provided the means of life and saved and gathered capital
together; at one moment, made more production more specialised and divided up, at
the next more concentrated and large scale. Yet every change was a step forward.
“I, the process of production, became continuously more powerful, larger, richer and
more profitable. I have so dominated that one might say that the history of my
development was identical with the historical development of humanity. And the
closer I come to the present, the more evident is the truth of this statement. Yes, it has
become so evident that humanity stops short and begins to ask: ‘Am I, humanity, here
for the process of production or isn’t it the other way round: the process of production
is here for me?’”
The author is the first to clearly formulate the social question in this way. First, he
recognised that production of the material necessities of life has long been the
business of society and the henceforth is destined to be made so consciously. Political
economy is not for him a fixed substance, a sum of ‘eternal truths’ but a fluid
development. It is the basis of the history of culture. Up to now, culture has consisted
of progress in the productive power of human labour. The forces of production were
the motive force and humans and their historic transformations only moments of its
development.
In recent times, this power has succeeded in developing to the point where it produces
national wealth which, instead of letting the nation live in so much greater abundance,
threatens it with starvation and ruin. Everyone knows that our national wealth is in the
hands of a few individuals. Economic development demanded that it be concentrated
in this way. Where every peasant has his own individual piece of land and every
weaver weaves on his own loom, then modern methods of working – which might
produce fifty times as much in the same time – are impossible. In order that humanity
no longer toils, as the nature of things demands, plots of land and weaving looms – in
short, the means of labour – must be brought together. The physical law according to
which one uses a longer lever to move a greater weight has its counterpart in political
economy where we only increase the capacity to produce much more in a given time
if we enlarge the instruments, the means of labour. Capitalist production came about
as a consequence of this law.
Capital is means of labour that have become so free, large and powerful in the course
of their development that, not the worker, but the material [objectified] means make
up the dominant element in labour. Capital, a thing, is alive, produces independently,
“it brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs” , as the author aptly
says. Not labour but capital receives the surplus value, the gain, the profit, the interest,
the wealth. The present form of economy has cultivated only the labour process
without consideration of human beings. This civilisation has reached its highest point
in that the expanded and extended part of production fails to find consumers.
The fundamental tendency of the capitalist economy consists of producing as much as
possible with the least effort. Part of that consists now of the freedom of ‘free
competition’ that takes care of the rest. It forced and forces small scale instruments of
labour out of production in favour of larger ones. It decreases the number of
capitalists and increases the number of workers. At the same time, production would
base itself on buying the worker – or rather his labour power – for the cheapest
possible price; on not paying the worker according to the measure of what is produced
but only the minimal quantity for which they can be had, for which they can be kept
alive, so that, as of necessity, an overfull warehouse arises from customers who are
unable to pay. For decades industry has wavered between crisis and prosperity. Barely
has one branch of industry now and again succeeded in pulling itself up to a full
expansion of its forces than its pride is followed by a steep fall. The labour process
stagnates, society lives in distress and hunger because it is not in a position to
consume.
Yet “mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since
closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the
material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of
formation.” The author has particularly concerned himself with demonstrating
through a detailed exposition using authentic sources of the factory legislation of
England – the classic country of capitalism –how the consequences of capitalism
force us to this conclusion: namely, that the economy can no longer be left to its own
blind working but rather be made subject to the instructions of the human
understanding. Labour must first be freed in order to become capable of working well,
while the capacities of the economy must be organised if it is to serve us.
For sure, our small-minded world, with its inherited dogma of freedom, will only
come to agree with this against its will and slowly. “The creation of a normal legal
working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less
dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class.” Our author has
painted a wonderful picture of this war as presented in the archives. “As the contest
takes place in the arena of modern industry, it first breaks out in the home of that
industry — England… Hence, the philosopher of the Factory, Ure, considers it a mark
of ineffable disgrace to the English working-class that they wrote ‘the slavery of the
Factory Acts’ on their banners, as opposed to capital, which was striving manfully for
‘perfect freedom of labour.’” “The English factory workers were the champions, not
only of the English, but of the modern working-class generally.” “France limps slowly
behind England… [In the USA] the eight hours' agitation, that ran with the seven-
leagued boots of the locomotive from the Atlantic to the Pacific”. The General
Workers’ Congress in Baltimore (16th August 1866) and the international Workers’
Congress in Geneva (Spetember 1866) agree with the English Factory Inspector, R. J.
Saunders that "Further steps towards a reformation of society can never be carried out
with any hope of success, unless the hours of labour be limited, and the prescribed
limit strictly enforced."
"What is a working-day?”, the author asks. Capital replies: “The working-day
contains the full 24 hours, with the deduction of the few hours of repose without
which labour-power absolutely refuses its services again... time for education, for
intellectual development, for the fulfilling of social functions and for social
intercourse, for the free-play of his bodily and mental activity, even the rest time of
Sunday (and that in a country of Sabbatarians!) — moonshine! But in its blind
unrestrainable passion, its were-wolf hunger for surplus-labour, capital oversteps not
only the moral, but even the merely physical maximum bounds of the working-day. It
usurps the time for growth, development, and healthy maintenance of the body. It
steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight. It haggles over a
meal-time, incorporating it where possible with the process of production itself, so
that food is given to the labourer as to a mere means of production, as coal is supplied
to the boiler, grease and oil to the machinery.”
“Capital further developed into a coercive relation, which compels the working class
to do more work than the narrow round of its own life-wants prescribes. As a producer
of the activity of others, as a pumper-out of surplus labour and exploiter of labour-
power, it surpasses in energy, disregard of bounds, recklessness and efficiency, all
earlier systems of production based on directly compulsory labour. ” With reference to
Liebig’s writings on the despoiling character of modern agriculture, the author writes:
“Capitalist production only develops technology and the coming together of the social
labour process insofar as it simultaneously undermines the original sources of all
wealth: the earth and the worker.”
And finally, how rich and striking are the pieces of evidence, how unsurpassed is the
form by which the author illustrated his propositions. No unprejudiced reader, nobody
for whom the prejudices of self-interest do not make understanding impossible, can
with this account escape the conviction that the social question is not just a question
for the working class but a life and death question facing society as a whole.
Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch (1808-83) German liberal politician instrumental in the
foundation of the German cooperative movement and of credit banks to support small
producers. Schulze-Delitzsch supported the “harmony of interests” between labor
and capital.
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-64) was the founder of the first significant workers’
organisation in Germany the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein ("General German
Workers' Association" ) in1863. It advocated the winning of equal, universal, and
direct suffrage by peaceful and legal means which drew him into an alliance with
Bismarck against the liberal bourgeoisie. He was also a supporter of ‘the Iron Law of
Wages’ and the idea of the state as ‘night watchman.’ All of these positions brought
him into conflict with Marx.
Justus von Liebig (1803 – 73) was a German chemist who made major contributions
to agricultural and biological chemistry, and was considered the founder of organic
chemistry. He was concerned with the degradation of the soil and provided the basis
of the ‘metabolic rift’ theory adopted by Marx.
Capital, Vol1. p255 (Penguin)
Preface to Introduction to a critique of political economy
Capital, Vol1. p412-3 (Penguin) The quote is taken directly from Dietzgen’s article
and does not correspond exactly to Marx’s text.
Capital, Vol1. p375-6 (Penguin)
Capital, Vol1. p424-5 (Penguin)

Socialist Feminism: Engels

and the origin of female
subjection
Submitted by cathy n on 26 February, 2007 - 11:46

By Ella Downing
The two largest economically deprived groups in the world today are the working-
class and women. This is not unrelated. Often states and religious institutions present
this as an innate feature of human society. But we must reject this. The origins of
inequalities must be understood instead.
When studying the progress of human society it becomes apparent that the emergence
of a class society and the origins of female subjugation go hand in hand. Engels’
Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State explains that class society arose
when, out of the conditions of primitive communism (all equal, but equally
impoverished), a surplus of resources became available and fell under the control of a
few members of society. It is at this point where private property acquisition,
inheritance of property and control of the means of production by a few become
evident.
According to Engels this provided for the newly emerging ruling class, where as the
rest of society had to work for handouts.
Those who controlled the resources in this freshly emerging class system would have
almost certainly been men. This, so the theory goes, is because they were more
physically able to deter thieves. However, for these men to satisfy themselves that the
profits which they had worked for, were going to be passed on to their children alone,
it was not only necessary to be in command of the means of production, but also the
means of reproduction.
Engels based his work on that of Henry Lewis Morgan. Morgan said talked about
“primitive communism” and the important role women played in it. In the history that
we are familiar with the blood line is traced through the father’s side; however pre-
historically Morgan argued family ties and kinship bonds would have been traced
through the mother’s side. This was because paternity of any given individual was not
always evident, but you always know who your mother is! With men assuming
control this situation was changed.
The repression of female sexuality and control of reproduction by males over females
was effected by marriage.
Religion seems historically to always have has a sexist bent and been a source of this
repression. The Christian story of creation in which Eve tempts Adam to enjoy the
fruit and therefore brings “original sin” into the world demonstrates this point
perfectly. The snake represents sexuality (as defined by men who cannot imagine sex
without a penis), and it is Eve’s insatiability and rebellious attitude which messes
everything up; from now on both must be repressed.
Moreover “God” is always a man, reflecting a patriarchal society led by a man. In
philosophical/theological traditions only men can demonstrate what the perfect human
is; women are always “the other”.
Engels glorified primitive communism, arguing more or less that the Marxist
prescribed communism should be an updated version of primitive communism. This
raises an interesting point given the leading role women had in primitive communism.
Females generally raise the next generation and therefore instil in them ideology and
identity. It could be argued that revolutionary change is most successfully built up and
effected by strong female networks, and the emerging society can be most effectively
protected by this same mechanism. It is vital that feminism is not seen as an aspect of
socialism, but instead an understanding and appreciation that philosophically both are
nearly identical.

Showdown in Portland:
The Cops Side With the
Fascists (As Usual)
Post on: August 19, 2019
Maria Aurelio
Over the weekend, neo-fascist groups marched in Portland under
police protection. Meanwhile, Trump tweeted against Anti-fa. This
kind of support from the police is no anomaly.

ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP/Getty Images

Over the weekend a pitiful neo-fascist mobilization took to the streets
of Portland, including members of the Proud Boys, the Patriot Prayer
and the Three Percenters. Their own website describes them as
“Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern
world”—a mix of misogynistic, white supremacist and imperialist
ideology.
On Saturday, a few dozen members congregated at Tom McCall
Waterfront Park, where they chanted “U-S-A.” On social media, many
Proud Boys talked about the desire to “exterminate” Antifa in
preparation for Saturday’s march.

Separated by police barricades, hundreds of counter-protesters spoke

out against the fascists.

After only thirty minutes, at the request of the neo-fascist groups, the
police closed the Hawthorne Bridge, a key exit and entrance to
Portland, allowing the fascist groups to march across the bridge to
make an exit.

“It was a striking scene: the same group of out-of-town fascists that
have terrorized people here for years, given free rein over a city
bridge, on their way back from an unpermitted rally in a public park,
after weeks of threatening to harm and kill local anti-fascists” said
Christopher Mathias and Andy Campbell in the Huffington Post.

Donald Trump Supports the

Fascists
This march was specifically billed as an “anti-Antifa” march, a response
to the milkshake and punch thrown at far right blogger Andy Ngo. The
groups believe their short and poorly-attended march was successful
in advancing their crusade against Antifa and raising their profile on a
national scale.

“Go look at President Trump’s Twitter. He talked about Portland, said

he’s watching Antifa. That’s all we wanted. We wanted national
attention, and we got it. Mission success,” said Proud Boys protest
organizer Joe Biggs to The Oregonian.

It’s true—Donald Trump refused to put out a single tweet or

statement against the fascist groups that converaged in Portland.
Rather, he used his twitter to echo the messaging of those groups.
On one side, there were known white supremacist groups, making
Nazi signs. On the other were Antifa groups, led by people of color
and folks in wheelchairs. On one side, neo-fascists. On the other,
people who oppose neo-fascism. Antifa isn’t an organization, unlike
the Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer. It’s a movement that is attempting to
build power by taking the streets to confront the rise of a militant and
violent right. And yet, this movement is maligned in the media and,
particularly, by Donald Trump.

For the past few weeks, Trump has been attacking Antifa, supporting
the Senate resolution proposed by Ted Cruz, insisting that it should be
categorized as a “domestic terror organization.” He has continued to
argue this even in the wake of the El Paso mass shooting by a white
nationalist who killed over 20 people. He has refused even to
moderate the anti-immigrant language that has served as inspiration
for white nationalists across the country, from the Proud Boys to the
El Paso shooter.

This should come as no surprise, of course. Donald Trump has shown

over and over again that he is a white supremacist President:
Mexicans are rapists, immigrants come from shithole countries,
members of the Squad should be “sent back,” and particularly
absurdly, that there were “decent people” on both sides in
Charlottsevile. And after the most recent shootings in Dayton and El
Paso, Trump said that he was “concerned about the rise of any group
of hate … whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of
supremacy, whether it’s Antifa, whether it’s any group of hate,”
creating a moral equivalency between fascists and anti-fascists.

No such moral equivalency exists. We should all be anti-fascists. This

should not be controversial.

But it hasn’t been only Donald Trump who has taken sides against
Antifa. After Andy Ngo was allegedly punched, Donald Trump, Sen.
Ted Cruz, and even Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden
unequivocally condemned the attack. Biden said that he “believes
violence directed at anyone because of their political opinions is never
acceptable, regardless of what those beliefs might be,” and that “He
believes freedom of expression is fundamental to who we are as
Americans, and that Andy Ngo’s attackers should be identified and
investigated.”

It would almost be funny if it weren’t for the fact that some of the
most important political players in the country are wringing their
hands over a milkshake and a punch while people are dying in
concentration camps. But that is exactly the situation we are in.

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in late July, Ted Cruz

compared Antifa to the KKK, saying, “I am concerned that these are
not isolated instances but rather this is a pattern, an organization that
is engaged in masked, anonymous, violent terrorism.”

The Cops and the Klan Go Hand in Hand.

The Antifa movement made up of several groups with differing ideas

which has been consistently criminalized by the police and politicians
and maligned in the media. If Ted Cruz wants to talk about a group
that resembles the KKK, he shouldn’t point to the Antifa movement .
He should point to the police.

For years, the police protected the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer as
they held “free speech” gatherings, that the Huffington Post argues
“served as nothing more than thinly veiled excuses to fight leftists in
the city’s streets.” Just last year, the police attacked the people who
organized a counter-protest against white nationalists, throwing flash-
bang granades as the neo-fascists cheered. Communication logs from
earlier this year revealed that police willfully overlook the actions of
the armed and violent Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys, while
criminalizing and explicitly targeting counter-protesters. A clear
example is an incident in which a member of Patriot Prayer was
stationed above a parking garage with a rifle and binoculars. No
actions were taken by the police. Counter-protestors with shields
made out of plastic garbage can lids were “taken care of.”

A report has detailed friendly text messages between the Portland

police and Patriot Prayer ring-leader Joey Gibson, including messages
in which the police tell the alt-right leader where leftist protests will
be held. In fact, Portland Police Lt. Jeff Niiya even congratulates
Gibson on a possible Congressional run, and Gibson apologizes in
advance for any trouble at future protests.

In Portland, there have been deaths at the hands of white

supremacists. Ricky Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche were
allegedly killed by white supremacist Jeremy Christian in Portland in
2017 when they tried to stop Christian from threatening two black
teenage girls. Christian had attended a Patriot Prayer event and had
been active in several alt-right events.

In cities across the country, the police repeatedly attack and arrest
Antifa participants. We’ve seen over and over how the police attack
and arrest folks who are protesting for the basic right of children not
to be separated from their families. And over and over, we’ve seen
how the police argue that they can’t manage to detain a Black person
with a broken tail light without shooting them, even while they are
able to detain a mass shooter without incident.

These new groups like Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, despite some
differences with white nationalist groups like the KKK, have similar
connections with the police. This is part of a broader history, one in
which “the cops and the klan go hand in hand,” where white
supremacists are part of the police force and the police in general
support their actions. We’re all familiar with the stories of what this
looked like in the South: police detaining Black folks only to release
them into the hands of a lynch mob.

But this connection between white supremacists and the police exists
all over the country. Even the FBI, an organization that is far from
progressive or anti-racist, wrote a 2006 report showing concern about
the possibility of a concerted infiltration of white nationalists into the
police. Of course, the same FBI has targeted “Black identity
extremists” more often than white nationalists, demonstrating the way
in which all law enforcement agencies of the capitalist state are tinged
with the same right-wing and racist ideas.

Only a few days ago, when thousands of racist facebook messages

emerged, a St. Louis police sergeant answered in the affirmative when
asked if there were white supremacists on the police force. There
were also the vile and racist messages in the border patrol facebook
group.

The police force is the armed, legalized, and state-sanctioned wing of

the white supremacist movement. The police can and do kill and
harass Black people with impunity, with or without body cameras and
video evidence, and the police have been given free rein to terrorize
the Black community.

As the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants—as well as

violence by mass shooters—increase, we cannot afford to look at
these as isolated phenomena. This isn’t disconnected from neo-
fascists who hold rallies under police protection. The Trump
administration is fueling white nationalism. The police only play at
being unbiased while they actively build friendly relations with neo-
fascists. And so, we will need much more than direct confrontations
with neo-fascists to confront this attack: we will need a mass
movement in the streets and in our workplaces to fight all facets of
white nationalists—from the policies of the Trump administration to
the rallies by the Proud Boys. We all have a responsibility to be anti-
fascists as we organize against the rise of the right and the Trump
administration, the concentration camps, and police brutality.

ete Buttigieg: A Fresh

Face for a Rotten Party
Post on: August 17, 2019
Renato Flores
Eli Valdo
Pete Buttigieg is a child of privilege fully committed to the U.S. legacy
of systemic racism and imperialism.
Charlie Neibergall AP
Pete Buttigieg has gone from mayor of a small Indiana town to one of
the top contenders for 2020’s Democratic presidential nomination.
“Mayor Pete” styles himself as a simple Christian from the Midwest.
He can win in rural America, a common selling point this primary
season. After the Rust Belt fiasco of 2016, the Democratic Party has
to confront its image as the party of coastal elites. Mayor Pete,
alongside Tim Ryan and Steve Bullock, are here to return the party to
its blue-collar roots and take back the White House.

But how has this small-town mayor risen to such prominence above
other contenders who have much more prestigious offices? The simple
answer is that Buttigieg is a unique combination: a mayor, a veteran
and a gay Christian. His academic bona fides are impressive:
undergraduate studies at Harvard and graduate work at Oxford with a
Rhodes Scholarship. He supposedly speaks seven languages, having
taught himself Norwegian. He gave up a high-paying job in a
consultancy firm to work as a simple public servant in his hometown
and to serve in the navy. He’s also the youngest candidate: just 37
years old. He ticks all the boxes for a high-grossing Hollywood flick.

But like all Hollywood stories, the truth is distorted. Buttigieg’s story is
just another version of the American dream, repackaged to
indoctrinate working-class people. Buttigieg is a product of American
elite society, even if his being an academic overachiever contrasts
with the anti-intellectualism of President Trump. If you want to know
“all about Pete,” Current Affairs magazine has already published a
comprehensive takedown. But as with Kamala Harris, we will examine
his life history to learn about U.S. politics and society—particularly
white heteronormativity, scientific racism and outsourced imperialism.

A Stellar Academic Career

Buttigieg was born in 1982, in South Bend, Indiana, the same town
that he’s mayor of. South Bend is a post industrial town in the Rust
Belt. After massive manufacturing plant closures, the town’s
population dropped from 132,000 inhabitants in 1960 to the current
100,000. But there’s something else to this small town. South Bend
was recently named the “best city in America for a young adult to get
rich.” And one of its main employers is Notre Dame University, a top
research university with a $13 billion endowment. Pete’s late father,
Joseph Buttigieg, was an English professor at the university, and
happens to be a Gramsci scholar. The Buttigieg family was thus
shielded from the hardships caused by deindustrialization. Buttigieg
was educated in the private St. Joseph’s High School, close to the
university, whose tuition for the 2010-21 school year is $8,000.
Buttigieg was an exceptional student, graduating as his class
valedictorian and honored by Kennedy family members for an essay
he wrote. At Harvard, he was president of the Institute of Politics
Student Advisory Committee and in 2004 earned his BA in literature
and history.

Buttigieg took full advantage of his privileges. He won the extremely

prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and attended Oxford for postgraduate
studies. In 2007 he earned a first-class honors degree in philosophy,
politics and economics, or PPE—one of the traditional degrees taken
by people who intend to pursue a career in politics. There is a long list
of alumni with this degree, including current and former heads of
countries, as well as British members of parliament. Degrees like PPE
provide a meeting place where the future ruling class intermingles.
Buttigieg’s choices clearly indicate that he was planning for something
big later on.

Working as Capital’s Willful

Executioner
After finishing at Oxford in 2007, Buttigieg worked for three years at
the worldwide consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. This might
seem like a diversion, but McKinsey is a common option for talented
graduates. The firm is not a household name, but this is by design.
Such firms hiding in plain sight are crucial to how U.S. imperialism runs
the world: through obscure agencies and subcontracts. Companies like
Blackwater, for example, provide private armies when the U.S.
government is in no position to deploy its regular forces without
public opposition. In this context, McKinsey is a key player. McKinsey
is a U.S.-based international management consulting firm, which
provides advice and expertise to help organizations which contract
their services. According to a former worker, the firm is “capital’s
willful executioners,” reinforcing the capitalist status quo for 90 of the
top 100 corporations worldwide, as well as for many heads of state.

McKinsey differs from other enforcers of imperialism in the sense that

it provides only advice, and thus operates in a gray zone. But “only
advice” is a misleading way to put it, especially if that advice includes
advising the producers of OxyContin to hook more people on opioids
or insurance companies to shortchange policy holders. McKinsey
helped turn around Enron into the fraudulent energy marketplace that
would collapse; it helped precipitate the 2008 economic crisis by
advising banks to promote the securitisation of mortgage assets; it
had a $20 million contract with Immigration Customs Enforcement
(ICE); and it advised the Saudi government on how to control their
public image and the conversation on Twitter, something that
eventually led to the murder of Jamal Khashoogi. McKinsey’s
whitepapers seem to be behind some of the most loathsome practices
of U.S. corporations. Their “fingerprints can be found at the scene of
some of the most spectacular corporate and financial debacles of
recent decades.”

McKinsey’s main commodity is information, so Buttigieg’s duties at

the company will forever remain unclear given its high confidentiality
standards. He tries to frame his tasks at the company as research in
“energy efficiency and grocery pricing.” Details on his international
activities are extremely scarce. McKinsey employees are a crucial
engine in running the American Empire, often providing the link
between the military invasion and the capital invasion. Buttigieg’s
tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan, which concerned “war zone economic
development to help grow private sector employment,” were funded
by the Department of Defense. Rather than being appalled at what he
saw, Buttigieg has called McKinsey “a place to learn.” After leaving the
company, he used what he learned there about “the nature of data”
when pursuing his political career.

“Data-Driven” Racism
Buttigieg first ran for Indiana state treasurer in 2010, losing the
election to the Republican incumbent. Then in 2011 he went on to
win the South Bend mayoral race, in which he employed “data-driven
decision-making” techniques. His agenda included “renovating” poor
neighborhoods through an aggressive plan of 1,000 houses in 1,000
days. Poor residents, generally of color, were pushed out to make
space for wealthier residents, leaving many open wounds. Developers
poised to take advantage of the project made significant campaign
contributions to Buttigieg. In this case, “data-driven” politics was
simply gentrification by another name.

Buttigieg wants to bring data-driven methods to the White House.

But these methods are hardly objective, and they usually end up
reinforcing the status quo. Nate Silver’s evolution from statistician to
centrist pundit is an illustrative example. By using the word “data,”
pundits create an aura of neutrality, but data scientists often cannot
transcend the world they operate in. As Marxist philosophers of
science have repeatedly shown, data can be easily twisted to confirm
our cultural prejudices. The Los Angeles Police Department’s
predictive policing builds on racist biases and criminalizes
communities of color. Buttigieg’s technocratic approach is dangerous
because it legitimizes inequality through the use of biased statistics.

Buttigieg has been described as the usual “ambitious white leader

plowing ahead before addressing the concerns of communities of
color”. Indeed, he has a substantial electoral weakness with people of
color, one that will cost him dearly. He polls at 0% with Black voters.
Instead of taking this sign seriously, he blamed the Black voters for
not understanding his plans. This is not new. Buttigieg has a history of
not addressing his serious missteps on the race front. His first days in
office were marked by his dismissal of Darryl Boykins, South Bend’s
first black police chief. Boykins was fired for recording white police
officers making racist remarks. As of today, the city has paid over $2
million in out-of-court settlements to the police chief, the recorded
officers and other actors.

During the 2020 primary campaign, Buttigieg was forced to return to

South Bend after a white police officer shot and killed Eric Logan, a
black man. The police officer had deactivated his body camera.
Buttigieg was confronted by Black Lives Matter protesters and chose
to give a canned speech, even if there was evidence of previous racist
remarks by the killer cop. A protester said Buttigieg has failed to
“address the dire issues of race, lack of diversity, and poverty.” On the
race front, Buttigieg is not that different from many other mayors. This
just shows that “data-driven” neutral approaches are not a magic
bullet for systemic change. Racism can never be “solved” with data
generated in a structurally racist system.
Homosexuality and
Heteronormativity
During Mike Pence’s tenure as governor of Indiana, he tried to pass a
“religious freedom” act that viciously attacked the LGBTQ community.
Buttigieg, as mayor of South Bend, came to be one of the leaders of
the opposition to this bill. During the fight, he came out as gay in an
article in the South Bend Tribune. That someone who is openly gay
can be a viable presidential candidate for the first time in U.S. history
is an expression of the on-the-ground struggles of LGBT people. It
certainly shows how far we have come, but Buttigieg also shows us
the fissures of race, class and gender identity. Experts in LGBTQ
media studies pointed out that Buttigieg’s candidacy “will expose the
major faultiness between white gay men and the rest of the LGBTQ
community.” Buttigieg couldn’t be further from the sexually liberatory
ideas of the Stonewall-era movement. He’s been called “Mayor
Normal”, or the most palatable gay man in America. He is a poster
child of how much of the gay liberation has been co-opted.

This domestication was best displayed during the corporate spectacle

that was the 50th anniversary of Pride. A black trans woman disrupted
a show in the Stonewall Inn to ask the LGBTQ community to advocate
for murdered black trans women. She was heckled and almost had the
police called on her by the white male gay patrons. While many white
gay men have been able to ascend the corporate ladder by
assimilating into heteronormativity, people of color and transgender
and gender-nonconforming people still suffer overwhelming violence.
Buttigieg has been repeatedly scrutinized or confronted by queer
people of color. After committing to stand up for Black trans women,
he did not show up at the Trans Day of Action march. He has even
criticized the LGBTQ boycott against the arch-conservative owners of
Chick-Fil-A as a form of “virtue signaling”. Buttigieg is a “one
dimensional queer,” for whom the concept of “gay” is divorced from
race and class. He believes Chelsea Manning should remain
imprisoned. He is a devout Christian and frequently meets leaders of
the religious right on their own terms. With so much at stake, it is no
wonder that intersectional queer folks are unmoved by him.
An Uncertain Path to the
Presidency
In almost every aspect Buttigieg’s campaign there is nothing new. His
campaign’s website is simply “PeteForAmerica.com,” which promises “a
fresh start for America.” He is running a conventional campaign in a
saturated political space in which there is no need for more of these
as long as Joe Biden is running. Policies like “Medicare for all … those
who want it,” “affordable higher education” and “compassionate
borders” are too mild to attract significant attention from voters
looking for something different. His stance on Israel/Palestine is
conventional Democratic support for Israel. Buttigieg could bank on
being the youngest candidate to appeal to young voters in the
Democratic primary, but his platform is insufficiently radical to address
working-class concerns. His lack of appeal to voters of color is a
terrible disadvantage in the primaries. As his record surfaces, more
voices are saying that “he isn’t a progressive.” His appeal is reduced to
those better-off millennials.

With an impressive CV that includes Harvard, Oxford, the army and

McKinsey, Buttigieg has clear alliances. He is working hard and
courting Obama’s donors, but it doesn’t look like he can significantly
challenge Biden’s advantage. He has rarely broken 10% in a poll, and
lags behind Harris, Warren, Sanders and Biden. His delegates could
play a role in resolving the next Democratic National Convention, but
it seems like Buttigieg will have to wait for a new election cycle to
take his chances again. He can afford it, since he’s so young.

This is a Guest Post. Guest Posts do not necessarily reflect the views of the Left
Voice editorial board. If you would like to submit a contribution, please contact us.

Palestinians and Critics

Need Not Apply: Israel
Denying Entry Is Nothing
New
Post on: August 16, 2019
Tatum Regan
On Thursday, with Trump’s support, Israel denied entry to U.S.
congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. This is not an anomaly
but a state practice that reflects both Israel’s repression of criticism as
well as its settler-colonial policies that target Palestinians and the
Palestinian diaspora.

Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call file

Thursday morning, U.S. congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar
were denied entry to Israel. Both politicians have been vocal critics of
the Israeli state and its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as well as of
the political and economic support it receives from the United States.
The congresswomen were set to visit the occupied West Bank and
East Jerusalem next week; Tlaib intended to stay an additional two
days to visit her grandmother, who lives in a Palestinian village.
With media backlash occurring across the political spectrum, Israel
granted conditional humanitarian entry to Tlaib to see her 90-year-old
grandmother. In order to obtain the “privilege” of accessing her
family’s home, the congresswoman had to ask for special permission
from the Israeli minister, “request[ing] admittance to Israel in order to
visit [her] relatives” and promising to “respect any restrictions and…
not promote boycotts against Israel during [her] visit.” It is both
ridiculous that Tlaib had to undergo such a process and self-evident
that, if she were not a member of Congress with a national profile,
Israel would have continued to deny her entry. Under pressure from a
pro-BDS group, Tlaib ultimately decided not to travel, despite having
been granted the visa: “Visiting my grandmother under these
oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in.”
Navigating the repressive character of the Israeli state is a brutal lose-
lose scenario; Tlaib should not have to choose between her principles
and seeing her family.

Most instances of entry denial are met with little to no fanfare, but
both Tlaib and Omar have a national profile due to their membership
in the body and party that has unequivocally backed Israel. Congress
has a legacy of bipartisan support for Israel and in July overwhelmingly
passed an anti-BDS resolution. Obama, in one of his final acts as
President, bequeathed to Israel $38 billion in military assistance over
ten years, the largest aid package of its kind in U.S. history. It was in
deference to this close relationship with the U.S. government that
Israel was going to make an exception to its anti-BDS law, which gives
legal cover for Israel to deny entry to anyone in support of the pro-
Palestine movement. Last month, the Israeli Ambassador said the two
democrats would be granted entry “out of respect to the U.S.
Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America.” But
Israel reversed its decision in the wake of a Thursday-morning tweet
from Trump:

Both Muslim women of color, Tlaib and Omar have been frequent and
favorite targets of Trump’s racist attacks. Trump recently tweeted that
the members of the Squad should be sent back to their families’
countries of origin; “Send her back” was quickly adopted by Trump’s
racist base. A cruel irony is that Tlaib literally cannot “go back”—it
would prove nearly impossible for her to move to her family’s
homeland, and she is effectively being barred from even visiting.

While Israel’s latest move is certainly Trump-sanctioned, the idea that

this is of Trump’s making distracts from the reality: Israel’s
discrimination against Palestinians, Muslims, and activists is systemic.
Much of the hand-wringing in the media and in the government is
explicitly in response to the idea that Israel would “disrespect”
members of the U.S. government, as well as in response to Trump’s
role; the bulk of the criticism is not of Israel’s general state policies,
but of their specific application in this case. Israel’s human rights
violations have never been met with more than finger-wagging by the
U.S. government—more often than not, they are met with outright
praise.

Though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “deeply saddened” by the

entry denial and feels it is “beneath the dignity of the great State of
Israel,” the treatment that Tlaib and Omar are facing is not an anomaly.
Israel denied entry to 19,000 travelers in 2018 alone. So who gets
denied entry? Anyone who is known to be “hostile” to Israel—in other
words, anyone who is known to support the humanity, let alone the
right to self-determination of Palestinians—is denied a visa. This
includes anyone known or found to be active in BDS organizing or in
any group sympathetic to Palestine. Anyone who has been “profiled”
by the pro-Israel website Canary Mission is guaranteed to have their
entry denied. Journalists, too, are frequently barred from visiting.
Many are targeted for denial not based on their occupation or
activism, but simply on their identity. Muslims, POC, and those of
Arab descent face heightened scrutiny and are habitually selected for
the intentionally humiliating process of increased interrogation and
entry denial.

For those granted entry by Israeli customs enforcement, the

experience is frequently still harrowing. The process can involve strip
searches and poring over email and social media accounts. At the
infamous jisr, the entrypoint between Jordan and the West Bank,
Israel’s military occupation is on full display. Tourists are discouraged
from using this entry, where hostile and aggressive treatment from the
IDF is commonplace and especially targets Palestinians, Muslims, and
Arabs. Whether granted entry or not, the customs experience is
particularly painful for those in the Palestinian diaspora: while
Palestinians are denied access to their own homeland, Israel grants
citizenship to anyone within the Jewish faith. While tourists flood to
Tel Aviv, thousands in the Palestinian diaspora are unable to see their
families.

The systematic abuse to which Israel subjects its perceived enemies

points to the character of the Israeli state. As Netanyahu has openly
stated, it is clearly “not a state of all its citizens,” nor do all people—
regardless of their family ties to the land—have the same access.
Supposedly “the only democracy in the Middle East,” Israel’s settler-
colonial foundations and aims cannot abide the existence of
Palestinians nor of those who stand with them. These two members
of Congress have a right to travel freely to the Occupied Territories,
and all Palestinians have the right to return. The U.S. empire and both
its parties prop up a brutal settler-colonial state.

DSA Convention 2019:

This is Not What
Democracy Looks Like
Post on: August 13, 2019
Tatiana Cozzarelli
The Democratic Socialists of America held their biannual convention
in Atlanta last weekend. It should have been a tour de force. Some
important resolutions were voted, but most of the weekend was spent
engaging in procedural bickering.
PHOTO: CHRISTINA MATACOTTA/THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Last weekend’s convention should have been the DSA’s tour de force.
1,056 delegates gathered in Atlanta to discuss resolutions and
constitutional amendments to the bylaws of the largest socialist
organization the U.S. has seen in almost a century. The DSA has
elected officials at various levels of government, and socialism (or at
least a vague idea of it) has never been so popular. Bernie Sanders is
polling in second place in the Democratic Party primaries and DSA
member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become one of the most well-
known figures in the Democratic Party.

A new generation is awakening to political activity, and many of them

are joining the DSA. The convention should have a way to organize
thousands of socialists to use their strength to make a concrete plan
to fight for immigrant rights, against climate change and against the
rise of the right. `

But that wasn’t what happened. “This is a shitshow,” a New York DSA
member wrote to me during the convention.
Several different reports from convention participants—Dan La Botz in
New Politics, Eric Blanc in The Nation and Nathan J. Robinson in
Current Affairs—offered positive reviews. In fact, the only critical
report was revealed as a ridiculous hoax. But even DSA enthusiast
Blanc had to admit, “More than a few frustrated delegates on Friday
evening wondered aloud whether the convention might implode from
procedural disputes.”

The DSA convention offered hours and hours of internal

disagreements obfuscated by procedural and organizational
discussions. Hours were taken up by appeals to the nearly
incomprehensible Robert’s Rules of Order: points of order, points of
information, points of personal privilege, over and over and over.
Numerous resolutions were left unaddressed, including one calling for
a mass strike for reproductive justice and another preventing police
from being part of the DSA. On Twitter, delegates talked about panic
attacks, tears, and anger coming from the convention floor.

In a previous article, I wrote about the “tyranny of the procedural.”

This concept was very much on display throughout the weekend’s
proceedings. Debates on the resolutions were rushed and incomplete.
How could they not be? Resolutions were proposed in a vacuum,
without a discussion of the broader political context. As Dan LaBotz
writes,

The general organization of the convention unfortunately made it difficult to

hold extended political discussion and debate such important issues as the
American political scene, DSA’s relationship to the Democratic Party, U.S.
foreign policy, or the question of oppressed groups in the United States. The
convention was not organized around major political issues but rather around a
series of short summary reports, resolutions, and constitutional amendments.
This way of organizing a convention is a disservice to the socialists
who put their heart into organizing for socialialist feminism, against
imperialism and against climate change. There were some important
resolutions addressing these issues, but even those were discussed so
quickly that the convention left the DSA unarmed for the fierce
battles that are to come, and without a vision of how those battles are
part of a broader fight for socialism. I don’t think the DSA is any more
prepared to collectively fight against concentration camps or combat
white nationalism after the convention than it was before. The
convention did not serve as an opportunity for socialists to “sharpen
our knives” —as the anthem of the Puerto Rican protests puts it––
against our capitalist enemies.

The Internal Politics

Why so much tension and anger? One DSA member told me: “If you
didn’t know the internal politics, the convention was illegible.” The
convention was defined by fighting between different caucuses, which
I described at length in my previous article. This convention
demonstrated the strength of Bread and Roses, known for their
reformist, pro-Sanders politics as published in Jacobin and The Call.
They are the caucus with the most sophisticated (reformist) political
vision.

Bread and Roses and Socialist Majority are the two caucuses who are
most enthusiastic about electoral politics inside the Democratic Party,
with Bread and Roses committed to a “dirty break” sometime in the
distant future and members of Socialist Majority are opposed even to
this. Both want a more centralized organization with a stronger focus
on national priorities—such as campaigning for Bernie Sanders. Bread
and Roses was able to get nearly all of their proposals passed and the
people favoring a more centralized DSA won a majority on the
National Political Committee.

You may be interested: DSA

Convention 2019: Sanderism and
the Tyranny of the Procedural
At the convention, the central fissure was between these two
caucuses and Build, the “non-caucus caucus” which claims that it
doesn’t have an ideological stand. Build, alongside the Libertarian
Socialist Caucus (LSC), clearly favored a more decentralized
organization with a focus on mutual aid and “base-building”—although
they do not oppose doing electoral work for Demcratic Party
candidates.

On Twitter and in person, one caucus blamed the other for purposely
“filibustering” the convention, delaying and preventing some
resolutions from being brought to a vote. At the convention,
organizational questions served as proxies for political questions. The
caucuses’ different political visions for the DSA were never clearly
discussed.

Supporters of Build and LSC favor decentralization for ideological

reasons, but I don’t think that is the only issue for folks in the
decentralization camp. Many people in Build and the LSC are
uncomfortable with the electoral orientation of the DSA, but rather
than exploring this vision more openly, the discussion became one of
centralization versus decentralization. In part because Build hasn’t put
forward an alternative political and ideological vision, they cannot
offer a comprehensive alternative orientation for the whole DSA.
Instead, they propose decentralization in order to be able to pursue
their politics on a local level. However, most decentralization
proposals failed at the convention and an opportunity was missed to
discuss real differences in political vision and orientation.

What Was Voted

The convention voted for several resolutions that were quite left. For
instance, delegates voted overwhelmingly to support open borders,
with almost 80 percent in favor of the proposal in preliminary voting.
They voted in favor of resolutions for the decriminalization of sex
work, to create an anti-fascist working group and in support of anti-
imperialism and decolonization. The DSA also passed a number of
resolutions about orienting towards the unionized and non-unionized
working class (although with a glaring lack of discussion of the union
bureaucracy).
Not a single speaker at the convention questioned the strategy of
working within the Democratic Party. However, there were various
attempts to rectify and contain the contradictions of this orientation.
The “Bernie or Bust” resolution committed the DSA to refrain from
endorsing any Democratic Party candidate other than Sanders—not
even Elizabeth Warren who has taken up much of Bernie’s platform.
They voted to endorse candidates who engage in “class struggle
elections” and that the national DSA will only endorse “open
socialists”—i.e. only people who call themselves socialists. (As New
York City’s millionaire “democratic socialist” Cynthia Nixon
demonstrates, that can be a pretty low bar.) Numerous resolutions
voted on at the convention were to the left of Bernie Sanders,
including ones on sex work, foreign policy, and immigration. Some
resolutions explicitly called on the DSA to appeal to Sanders to
reconsider his positions.

One of the most contentious resolutions—and the one which most

highlighted the differences between the caucuses—was called “Pass
the Hat.” This proposal would have committed $100 to each chapter
every month, and it was heavily supported by Build and the LSC.
Whether or not one agrees with Build’s vision of decentralization, the
testimonials from comrades in small chapters were shocking. They
spoke of paying dues while seeing none of that money, nor any
support from the national organization. One comrade from Mississippi
spoke about white nationalists showing up to a reading group with
guns, and how even $100 from the National could mean a safer
meeting space. But with many arguing that these $100 payments
could bankrupt the organization, the measure failed to pass. Indeed,
none of the decentralizing measures proposed by Build and the LSC
passed.

On the other hand, the campaign to support Sanders is quite well-

organized and funded: in fact the DSA is hiring a full time staff person
to oversee the Sanders work and two more to oversee electoral work.
No other aspect of the DSA’s outward facing political orientation has a
dedicated paid position.

If comrades attended the convention in hopes of organizing a national

mass movement around issues like closing the concentration camps or
reproductive justice, the convention failed to serve that purpose.
Indeed, given the way the convention was organized I’m not sure
there was ever a chance of this, even without all the procedural
maneuvering. There wasn’t even a discussion of the proposal to
organize a mass strike for reproductive justice, for instance, because
it was too far down on the agenda.

While some very important and very left resolutions were voted, in
order to make those resolutions a reality, the 1,036 delegates who
attended would need to feel ownership of the resolution, and clarity
about how they could bring those ideas to coworkers, neighbors and
friends. In order to make resolutions a reality, we need more than to
vote for them.

We need a plan for how to build a movement that will be an

unstoppable force in the national political situation.

The Democrats and Bernie

The resolutions demonstrate that the DSA is, to some degree, aware
of the dangers of working within the Democratic Party. But the
resolutions that attempt to counteract these problems are quite tepid
considering the imperialist bohmouth that is the Democratic Party.

While a few resolutions politely ask Sanders to change his positions,

their support for his campaign is already guaranteed. At the same
time, the DSA knows that this a losing battle: Sanders isn’t going to
take up the program of the DSA. One delegate spoke frankly about
this on the floor of convention. He said that it was unrealistic to ask
Sanders to take up support for Palestine, but the DSA could work to
move Sanders away from being actively against BDS. The underlying
message is that these issues are not important enough to withdraw
support.

Eric Blanc of Bread and Roses stated this message explicitly:

Some leftists believe that we should not support Bernie because he is running
on the Democratic Party ballot line and/or because of his political limitations
(e.g. on foreign policy issues or his definition of socialism). This criticism is
hardly a serious reason to withhold endorsement. (our emphasis)
I do think it’s a serious reason.

Canvassing for a candidate running for a capitalist party is not

engaging in “class struggle elections.” To call it that does a disservice
to the thousands of young people who want to advance the class
struggle. Fostering the illusion that a party representing the most
powerful capitalist class in the world can be a vehicle for change is not
a form of “class struggle election.” It is class collaboration.

Where was Sanders when the US was attempting to overthrow

Maduro in Venezuela? Tweeting support for the “humanitarian aid”
planned by Trump and John Bolton. Where was Sanders when
hundreds of people, many of them Jewish, got arrested protesting
against the concentration camps? Certainly not at their side. Instead,
he called for “strong borders” at the Democratic primary debate in
Detroit.

I know what “class struggle elections” look like: they are when socialist
candidates are in the front lines of workers’ protests getting shot with
rubber bullets. It looks like socialist candidates who never vote for the
national budget and never vote for the military (“not one man and not
one penny”) because those are tools to oppress the global working
class. I’ve seen class struggle socialist candidates take the same salary
as a teacher and donate the rest to workers’ struggles. Most
importantly, a socialist candidate in a pitched battle against the
capitalist class should run on a socialist ticket, denouncing the parties
of capital with slogans like, “worker, vote for a worker.” A “class
struggle election” means using an electoral campaign to organize the
working class, to call for mass mobilization, and to link those efforts to
actually existing struggles. These are the politics of the congress
members of the Workers Left Front in Argentina. It isn’t anywhere
close to Sanders’ politics.

The DSA didn’t discuss their previous experience of endorsing

Democrats. Is the DSA really advancing socialism if its members vote
for the military budget as Ocasio-Cortez did? Is it advancing socialism
if Bernie Sanders supports border security and voted for the border
wall?

Not a single person among the over one thousand delegates stood up
to even express discomfort with this situation. A DSA member who
edited this piece told me that perhaps this was because the
convention moved so quickly and there wasn’t much space for
discussion.

The Big Tent is Teetering

The problems demonstrated at the convention are deeply ingrained in
the political project of the DSA. As a big-tent organization, it
welcomes anyone — anyone, that is, except for members of
democratic centralist organizations. To join, you just sign up and pay
online. The DSA does not require its members to buy into any
foundational political agreement, to demonstrate any shared, baseline
understanding of “socialism”, or to agree upon any unified strategy for
achieving it. And there are no collective spaces within the national
organization for democratic discussion on this topic.

How can a group fight together for socialism if they don’t have clarity
about what “socialism” even means? This lack of clarity is particularly
pernicious given that there is an ongoing national conversation about
the definition of socialism, in which the public figures of the DSA are
participating. Ocasio-Cortez claims that one can be both a socialist
and a capitalist. Bernie Sanders defines socialism as New Deal
liberalism. Should the DSA push back against these visions of
socialism, or embrace them? In some ways, thanks to their
endorsement of Sanders for president, that decision has already been
made.

Yet, under the big tent, the question of which “socialism” to work
towards is far from settled. While the DSA stubbornly avoided
addressing this crucial ideological question directly at its own
convention, it is the underlying tension beneath all of the bitter
disputes over procedure and structure. Disagreement about
fundamental goals and visions will not disappear just because DSA
leaders avoid open political debate at their conventions.

Organizational questions around centralization or decentralization

should derive from political strategy and priorities. No socialist
organization should see membership numbers as an end in
themselves. Both our membership and our organizational structures
must serve the critical task of pushing for socialism. Therefore,
socialist organizations need time and space to openly discuss what
socialism is and how we best think we can get there.

Under the guise of “democracy”, bureaucratic mechanisms consolidate

organizational power in the hands of people who are “in the know”:
those who know political theory and have previous experience within
the socialist left; those who know Robert’s Rules and who know how
to write and pass resolutions. Paper membership, the influx of new
socialists, and confusing internal mechanisms leads to power being
centralized in the hands of a bloc who have a clear political strategy
which they pursue with discipline: in this case, Bread and Roses /
Jacobin.

On the other hand, there are thousands of new socialists who do the
(often thankless) work of booking rooms, running meetings, organizing
and attending countless rallies and indeed, carry the entire DSA on
their backs. Some are uneasy with Bread and Roses’ strategy for
socialism, but they lack open discussion spaces to explore alternatives.
And instead of fighting Bread and Roses’ reformist vision, opposition
sectors in the DSA fight Bread and Roses about procedure.

We cannot form a national movement of the working class, for

immigrant rights and against the rise of the right, much less crush the
brutal capitalist system like this. It doesn’t matter how many
passengers the DSA can fit into its boat; if they can’t get them all
rowing in the same direction, they are going to get swept away by the
political currents- especially the Democratic Party.
This is Not What Democracy
Looks Like
Some say that this kind of convention is inevitable when there are so
many people together in one room. Eric Blanc writes: “Democracy is
always messy, and this convention was no exception.”

Is this just what democracy looks like?

No.

These endless procedural battles, filibusters, and abuse of the rules to

control and limit the scope of debate … these are not democracy.

Democracy means more than voting. It means time, space, and access
to discussion and decision-making. Democracy in the DSA would
mean real opportunities to discuss the political visions advanced by
rank-and-file members, regional sectors, and internal caucuses. It
would mean discussing these competing visions in branch meetings
and working groups focusing on politics, not personalities. The most
glaring example of the lack of democracy in the DSA is the fact that
the Sanders endorsement was the product of an online vote with
almost no organized political discussion. There was no way for the
whole organization to hear members’ opinions for and against the
endorsement.

And for socialists, democracy must be a central concern. The

orientation of a socialist organization cannot and should not be
dictated by a small group of people who are in the know. The whole
organization should be in the know about a common political goal and
strategy: an organization of thousands of socialist leaders who can
bring left ideas and activism to their places of work and study.

This internal democracy should be at the service of advancing class

struggle and the fight for socialism. Socialists have an enemy: the
capitalist class and the capitalist state. AOC is wrong, you can’t be a
socialist and capitalist at the same time. A socialist group should be a
weapon against the capitalist class: to organize like-minded people to
fight together, with all the strength we have, against the bourgeoisie.
In moments of high class struggle, there is reason for centralization, as
Luigi Morris argues. At the same time, to be effective in struggle and
forming strong socialist fighters, we need strong democracy.

Space for democratic discussion is important in order to help the

entire group come to a collective political understanding of reality: to
listen to, discuss, and understand the diverse political realities and
organizing challenges facing the South and the Midwest as much as
the West Coast and the Northeast, the big chapters as well as the
small chapters. And in that context, an organization must discuss
political priorities. In that way, members become the agents of a
collective struggle against the capitalist class.

That kind of democracy is the opposite of what we witnessed at the

DSA convention.

The Urgent Tasks

While the DSA convention played out in Atlanta, a white nationalist
went on a shooting rampage in El Paso. Only a few days later, without
warning, ICE carried out one of the largest immigrant raids in U.S.
history in Mississippi. Climate catastrophe is an existential threat for
us all, and in the short term, it will be most felt by those least
responsible for it: poor folks of color. I don’t think anyone can
seriously claim that capitalism can reform its way out of this mess. The
only realistic way forward is revolution. And we need an organization
to help us organize in that direction.

There are reasons to be hopeful. Around the world, there have been
moments of radicalized class struggle in the past few months: mass
protests in Sudan, Algeria, Hong Kong and Puerto Rico, as well as the
Yellow Vest movement in France. Some of these struggles even
pointed to the possibility of a pre-revolutionary situation. These
events show how in moments of struggle, class consciousness grows
in leaps and bounds; it’s not built by opportunistically adapting leftist
ideas to what is most popular.
We need a space to conspire against the capitalist state and a tool to
organize thousands to strike hard against our enemies; this tool would
be a revolutionary socialist party. We need a party who can make a
difference in the class struggle: in supporting strikes, in abolishing
concentration camps, and in demanding drastic action on climate
change. A party who understands every struggle as a school of war,
building experiences that will serve us in moments of higher class
struggle. We need a revolutionary party who is non-sectarian and who
fights alongside working-class people for every reform that we can
get, but who also connects these smaller battles to the greater
struggle for a workers’ government. We do not need a party more
concerned with whether a motion was properly seconded than it is
with whether that motion represents an authentically democratic
decision about how to promote the interests of the working class and
oppressed.

All the procedural problems of the DSA convention was an expression

of its reformist orientation. Many members of the DSA were unhappy
with the process and some of the outcome. But an alternative
organization will require an alternative—revolutionary—orientation. I
think there are certainly a number of DSA members in favor of
organizing for revolution, but we need to start the process
immediately of building for it immediately rather than wait for DSA
leadership’s blessing. The state of the world demands it.

Capitalism Cannot Stop

Mass Shootings
Post on: August 13, 2019
Julia Wallace
Mass shootings are directly linked to capitalist alienation, misogyny
and racism. Only socialism can bring people together to reject the lies
of capitalism and the many ills that it creates.
Mother Jones illustration
As this article was being written, the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas
took place. As it was being edited, another mass shooting happened in
Ohio. Another angry white man with right-wing politics murdered
dozens of innocent people. Neither liberals nor conservatives,
Democrats nor Republicans, have or can offer any solutions because
this problem is systemic. It is ingrained in a history and reality of
violent imperialism and patriarchy. It is ingrained in the alienation of
modern capitalism and the isolation and lack of social services—
programs that both Democrats and Republicans have cut. And it is
part and parcel of Trump’s mysoginst and xenophobic rhetoric.
Republicans: If the Killer Is
White, He Is Labeled “Crazy”
The recent mass shootings by white supremacists are the direct
responsibility of the rhetoric and policies coming out of Donald
Trump’s white house. They are a direct response to the claims that
immigration constitutes a national emergency. But, it’s easy for the
Trump administration to blame individual mental illness to shift the
blame away from himself.

Whenever these shootings occur, Trump and his ilk condemn the
tragedy, but although there have already been 251 mass shootings in
2019, they refuse to do anything that will alienate the NRA.
Republicans will not talk about their cuts to mental health funding or
their attacks on education and social services. Instead, they blame the
individual, claiming that mental illness is the sole cause of these mass
shootings. This is a dangerous way of thinking. Already Trump is calling
for “involuntary confinement” of mentally-ill people, and New York
Governor Cuomo has proposed a database of mentally-ill people. Yet,
experts say that those with a diagnosed mental illness are not the
ones committing mass shootings; in fact mentally-ill people are all too
often the victims of shootings—often at the hands of the police.
Meanwhile, these proposals are never accompanied by any more
funding to improve mental health care services.

And of course the mental illness trope is exclusively used to describe

white mass shooters, while Black and brown people are presented as
criminals,malcontents or terrorists.

Liberals: Blame the Guns But

Also Cut Social Services
In contrast, most liberals, including many in the Democratic Party,
have responded to these shootings by focusing almost exclusively on
gun control, with little to no understanding of the long-term impact
such laws would have on marginalized communities—specifically
communities of color and the mentally ill. Indeed, some of the very
first gun control measures in the U.S. were passed as an attempt to
disarm and criminalize the Black Panthers, who had armed themselves
against precisely the kind of White-Supremacist terror we are
witnessing now on an almost weekly basis. Furthermore, regardless of
whether gun control laws intentionally target minorities and people of
color, they are nonetheless disproportionately harmed by increasing
police surveillance and mandatory minimum laws that make it
impossible for judges to consider the circumstances of a given case
when deciding on a sentence. And unfortunately, the recent
popularity for “Red Flag” laws, designed to prohibit gun ownership by
those deemed to be mentall-ill, will do little to actually stop violent
gun use (those diagnosed with mental illness commit only about 3% of
crimes in the U.S.) but would bring mentally-ill people into contact
with police more frequently, which too often leads to death, arrest, or
injury.

Like conservatives, liberals also defend the right of the police—armed

to the teeth—to carry weapons and to murder unarmed people of
color and people with disabilities. According to a report by the
Ruderman Foundation, between 27% and 81% of people killed by
police had a disability. Liberals call for “gun control” applicable to
everyone except the police and the military—the largest mass
shooters of the world and in the US.

Theories of Alienation
Marx argued that capitalism separates working-class people from the
objects they create and forces them to form relationships based on
money, a phenomenon he termed “alienation.” Capitalist society’s
emphasis on “productivity” means your value as a person is based on
how much profit you can generate for a capitalist. In this way,
capitalism creates divisiveness and isolation. Racism, sexism,
heterosexism, and ableism further increase this sense of
estrangement. As the Trump administration has emboldened a wide
range of bigoted views, it is clear that such alienation is
increasing,especially among the youth.

This trend is not surprising; after all, in today’s society, what are the
options for young people? Republican and Democratic politicians
support privatizing education, making it more difficult to get an
education. Although AOC proposed a “Green New Deal,” there is no
real challenge to the corporations who ravage the world and
disproportionately pollute low-income, working-class, and POC
neighborhoods. As climate projections offer more and more bad news,
a feeling that the end of the world is near has taken hold of many—
further increasing alienation.

Who Are the Victims of

Capitalism?
If capitalist alienation is the root cause of much of this violence, why
then do we not see, for example, Black trans women—who are being
murdered at an alarming rate—committing acts of violence like this.
Quite simply, this is because the isolation that right-wing mass
shooters suffer is too often combined with a sense of entitlement and
sometimes outright bigotry. Many of these killers have been taught
that they should be revered and prioritized because of their skin color,
their gender, or their class.

In U.S. society, there are increasing numbers of people of color, trans

voices and social movements challenging the “great white man view”
of history. Rather than building solidarity with these groups to
improve their own lives and reduce alienation, however, the Trump
administration and the right-wing media have encouraged disaffected
white people to project their frustrations and to place the cause of
their ills on immigrant communities, people of color and women.

In the U.S., the majority of gun owners are right-wing white men.
Liberals who claim to represent oppressed people discourage gun
ownership and self-defense. No one questions that fascists should be
disarmed—but we cannot rely on the parties of U.S. imperialism, the
main source of violence in the world, to stop gun violence in the U.S.
Furthermore, police departments and military units are filled with
white supremacists; while the right wing has been arming itself, Black
communities are being paid to turn in their guns.

The US government, built on the toil and suffering of Black people,

has no plans to protect Black people. When Black people were armed
in organizations such as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense the
FBI and CIA worked tirelessly to destroy those groups. There has been
no such attack on white supremacist groups because the police, FBI,
CIA and US military are filled with active members and sympathizers
of these groups.

Misogyny: The Common Thread

of Mass Shooters
A common thread of the mass shooters is also misogyny. All three of
the mass shooters in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas and Dayton
Ohio has previously expressed misogynist views. The mass shooter in
Daytona had a “rape list” of female classmates he wanted to sexually
abuse. And according to a gun safety website, the majority of mass
shootings from 2009-2017 were related to domestic violence.

In certain cases of mass shooters women were targeted specifically.

Opposing sexism and misogyny is a political fight. Sexism and violence
against women are acts against the working class and oppressed
people.

The Opioid Crisis

In addition to the increase in mass shootings by self-proclaimed Trump
supporters there has also been an increase in opioid use, overdose
and death. At the same time that mass shootings have grown in
frequency, executed almost exclusively by right-wingers and Trump
supporters, areas that voted for Trump in 2016 are being plagued by
an opioid crisis. Opioid overdoses are six times more frequent than
they were in 1999. The victims are disproportionately more white and
more affluent than the rest of the country, which may be a reason why
there is a more clinical and compassionate response to the situation
than there was during the crack epidemic, which affected more Black
people. Like the epidemic of alienation and mass shootings, the opioid
crisis is also a product of capitalism. It is the response to the increased
poverty of middle-class and working-class people, enhanced by the
pharmaceutical companies’ massive push of opioids onto millions of
people.

Whether it is mass shootings or overdoses and suicide: there are no

answers to mass death under capitalism.

Solidarity Fights Alienation

Capitalism cannot solve the problems of alienation, exploitation,
misery, and impoverishment. What can? Solidarity and the fight for a
more communal society—In a word: socialism. Socialism brings people
together to reject the lies of capitalism, misogyny, and white
supremacy. A socialist society, created through revolutionary struggle
where the international working class and oppressed people must be
born in a democratic and united fight. It would foster unity rather
than contempt for women, trans people, Black people, and immigrants
because they would be leaders, creators of that revolution—this is
how to fight alienation. We need a world where the health of the
planet and all the people on it are a real priority, something even the
most left of “social democrats” do not support.

As long as a minority controls the wealth and social resources, there

will be misery for the majority of the world. As long as there is profit
to be made, people will continue dying of overdose. As long as society
is based on the subjugation and ownership of women and superiority
of whiteness, there will be more femicides and mass shootings. There
is no hope for ending mass shootings under capitalism. The hope for
humanity is the hope of a socialist revolution.
iroshima and Nagasaki expose the
myth of the Good War
Submitted by World Revolution on 3 July, 2005 - 13:18

This article was written 10 years ago, for the 50th anniversary of the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is no less relevant today, even if the
number of wars has increased since then, above all with the gigantic US and
British military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. The article was
published in International Review 85. The ICC is a political descendant of
the small number of left communist organisations who, between 1939 and
1945, denounced the Second World War for what it really was: an
imperialist war, just like the first, a war in the interests of the capitalist
classes of Britain, the USA, Germany, Japan, Russia… They therefore took
the same position as revolutionaries had taken during the First World War:
no support for either side, no let up in the class struggle, no concession to
patriotism and ‘defending my country’. No concession either to the idea of
anti-fascism, which argued that the workers of the world should forget their
own interests and ally with exploiters and imperialists like Churchill and
Stalin against the ‘greater evil’ of Nazism. Hiroshima and Nagasaki – not to
mention the slaughter and starvation of the German population at the end
of the war – proved that there was indeed no lesser evil in these six years of
horrible massacre. To this day, the idea that the Second World War was a
‘good war’ has been used to justify virtually every war since, to keep alive
the lie that capitalist democracy is worth fighting and dying for. To oppose
war today, it is essential to break with the whole mythology of the Second
World War as a war against evil. There are no good or holy wars in this dying
society except the class war of the exploited in all countries, the war
against exploitation, the war against war.

With the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
bourgeoisie has plumbed new depths of cynicism and mendacity. For this
high point of barbarity was executed, not by some dictator or blood crazed
madman, but by the very ‘virtuous’ American democracy. To justify the
monstrous crime, the whole world bourgeoisie has shamelessly repeated the
lie peddled at the time that the atomic bomb was only used to shorten and
limit the suffering caused by the continuation of the war with Japan. The
American bourgeoisie even proposed to issue an anniversary stamp,
inscribed: “Atomic bombs accelerated the end of the war. August 1945”.
Even if this anniversary was a further opportunity to mark the growing
opposition in Japan towards the US ex-godfather, the Japanese Prime
Minister nonetheless made his own precious contribution to the lie about the
necessity of the bomb, by presenting for the first time Japan’s apologies for
its crimes committed during World War II. Victors and vanquished thus came
together to develop this disgusting campaign aimed at justifying one of
history’s greatest crimes.
The justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki: a gross
falsehood
In total, the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945 claimed
522,000 victims. Many cancers of the lung and thyroid only became apparent
during the 50s and 60s, and even today the effects of radiation still claim
victims: cases of leukaemia are ten times more frequent in Hiroshima than
in the rest of Japan.

To justify such a crime, and to answer the legitimate shock provoked by the
bomb’s awful effects, Truman - the US president who ordered the nuclear
holocaust - and his accomplice Winston Churchill put about a cynical lie:
that the use of the atomic bomb had saved about a million lives, which
would have been lost had American troops been forced to invade Japan. In
short, and despite appearances, the bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and which are still killing fifty years later, were pacifist bombs!
But this peculiarly revolting tale is given the lie by numerous historical
studies published by the bourgeoisie itself.
If we examine Japan’s military situation when Germany capitulated, it is
clear that the country was already completely defeated. Its air force, that
vital weapon of World War II, had been reduced to a handful of aircraft,
generally piloted by adolescents whose fanaticism was only matched by
their inexperience. Both the navy and the merchant marine had been
virtually wiped out. The anti-aircraft defences were so full of holes that the
US B29s were able to carry out thousands of raids throughout the spring of
1945, almost without losses. Churchill himself points this out in Volume 12
of his war memoirs.
A 1945 study by the US secret service, published by the New York Times in
1989, revealed that: “Realising that the country was defeated, the
Japanese emperor had decided by 20th June 1945, to end all hostilities and
to start negotiations from 11th July onwards, with a view to bringing
hostilities to an end” (Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1990).
Truman was perfectly well aware of the situation. Nonetheless, once he was
told of the success of the first experimental atomic test in the New Mexico
desert in July 1945 [1], he decided, in the middle of the Potsdam
Conference between himself, Churchill, and Stalin[2], to use the atomic
weapon against Japanese towns. This decision had nothing to do with a
desire to hasten the end of the war with Japan, as is testified by a
conversation between Leo Szilard, one of the fathers of the bomb, and the
US Secretary of State for War, J. Byrnes. When Szilard expressed concern at
the dangers of using the atomic weapon, Byrnes replied that “he did not
claim that it was necessary to use the bomb to win the war. His idea was
that the possession and use of the bomb would make Russia more
controllable” (ibid).
And if any further argument were necessary, let us leave some of the most
important US military leaders to speak for themselves. For Chief of General
Staff Admiral Leahy, “The Japanese were already beaten and ready to
capitulate. The use of this barbaric weapon made no material contribution
to our fight against Japan” (ibid). This opinion was also shared by
Eisenhower.
The idea that the atomic bomb was used to force Japan to capitulate, and
to stop the slaughter, has nothing to do with reality. It is a lie which has
been constructed to meet the needs of the bourgeoisie’s war propaganda,
one of the greatest achievements of the massive brain-washing campaign
needed to justify the greatest massacre in world history: the 1939/45 war.
We should emphasize that, whatever the hesitations or short-term view of
certain members of the ruling class, faced with this terrifying weapon,
Truman’s decision was anything but that of a madman, or an isolated
individual. On the contrary, it expressed the implacable logic of all
imperialisms: death and destruction for humanity, so that one class, the
bourgeoisie, should survive confronted with the historic crisis of its system
of exploitation, and its own irreversible decadence.
The real objective of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs
Contrary to all the lies that have been peddled since 1945, about the
supposed victory of a democracy synonymous with peace, World War II was
barely over than the new front line of imperialist confrontation was being
drawn. Just as the Treaty of Versailles contained inevitably within it the
seeds of another war, so Yalta already contained the split between the main
victor of 1945, the USA, and its Russian challenger. Thanks to World War II,
Russia had risen from being a minor economic power to world ranking
imperialism, which could not but threaten the American superpower. In
spring 1945, the USSR was already using its military strength to carve out a
bloc in Eastern Europe. Yalta did nothing but caution the existing balance of
forces between the main imperialist sharks. What one balance of forces
could set up, another could undo. In the summer of 1945, the real problem
facing the American state was thus not, as the schoolbooks tell us, how to
make Japan capitulate as soon as possible, but how to confront and contain
the imperialist drive of its ‘great Russian ally.

Winston Churchill, the real leader on the Allied side of World War II, was
quick to understand that a new front was opening, and constantly to exhort
the Americans to face up to it. He wrote in his memoirs: “The closer a war
conducted by a coalition comes to its end, the more importance is taken by
the political aspects. Above all, in Washington they should have seen
further and wider (...) The destruction of Germany’s military power had
provoked a radical transformation of the relationship between Communist
Russia and the Western democracies. They had lost that common enemy
which was practically the only thing uniting them”. He concluded that
“Soviet Russia had become a mortal danger for the free world, that it was
necessary without delay to create a new front to stop its forward march,
and that this front should be as far East as possible” (Memoirs, Vol. 12, May
1945). Nothing could be clearer. Churchill analysed, very lucidly, the fact
that a new war was already beginning while World War II had not yet come
to an end.

In the spring of 1945, Churchill was already doing everything he could to

oppose the advance of Russian armies into Eastern Europe (Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc). Doggedly, he sought to bring the new
American president Truman around to his own opinion. The latter, after
some hesitations[3], completely accepted Churchill’s thesis that “the Soviet
threat had already replaced the Nazi enemy” (ibid).

It is not difficult to understand the complete and unanimous support that

the Churchill government gave to Truman’s decision to begin the atomic
bombardment of Japanese cities. On 22nd July, 1945, Churchill wrote:
“[with the bomb] we now have something in hand which will re-establish
the equilibrium with the Russians. The secret of this explosive and the
ability to use it will completely transform the diplomatic equilibrium,
which had been adrift since the defeat of Germany”. That this should cause
the deaths, in atrocious suffering, of hundreds of thousands of human
beings, left this ‘defender of the free world’ and ‘saviour of democracy’
cold. When he heard the news of the Hiroshima explosion, he jumped for
joy, and Lord Allenbrooke, one of Churchill’s advisers, even wrote:
“Churchill was enthusiastic, and already saw himself with the ability to
eliminate all Russia’s major industrial population centres” (Le Monde
Diplomatique, August 1990). This is what was in the mind of this great
defender of civilisation and irreplaceable humanitarian values, at the end of
five years of carnage that had left 50 million dead!

The nuclear holocaust which broke over Japan in August 1945, this terrifying
expression of war’s absolute barbarity in capitalist decadence, was thus not
designed by the ‘clean’ American democracy to limit the suffering caused by
a continuation of the war with Japan, any more than it met a direct military
need. Its real aim was to send a message of terror to the USSR, to force the
latter to restrain its imperialist ambitions, and accept the conditions of the
pax americana. To give the message greater strength, the American state
dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, a town of minor importance at the
military level, which wiped out the main working class district. This was also
why Truman refused the suggestion of some of his advisers that the
explosion of a nuclear weapon over a sparsely populated region would be
largely sufficient to force Japan to capitulate. No, in the murderous logic of
imperialism, two cities had to be vaporised to intimidate Stalin, and to
restrain the one-time Soviet ally’s imperialist ambitions.

The lessons of these terrible events

What lessons should the working class draw from this terrible tragedy and its
revolting use by the bourgeoisie?

In the first place, there is nothing inevitable about the unleashing of

capitalist barbarism. The scientific organisation of such carnage was only
possible because the proletariat had been beaten worldwide by the most
terrible and implacable counter-revolution of its entire history. Broken by
the Stalinist and fascist terror, completely confused by the enormous lie
identifying Stalinism with communism, the working class allowed itself to be
caught in the deadly trap of the defence of democracy, with the Stalinists’
active and indispensable complicity. This reduced it to a great mass of
cannon-fodder completely at the mercy of the bourgeoisie. Today, whatever
the proletariat’s difficulty in deepening its struggle, the situation is quite
different. In the great proletarian concentrations, this is not a time of union
with the exploiters, but of the expansion and deepening of the class
struggle.

Contrary to the bourgeoisie’s endlessly repeated lie, which presents the

1939-45 imperialist war as one between the fascist and democratic
‘systems’, the war’s 50 million dead were victims of the capitalist system as
a whole. Barbarity and crimes against humanity were not the acts of fascism
alone. Our famous ‘Allies’, those self-proclaimed ‘defenders of civilisation’
gathered under the banner of democracy, have hands as red with blood as
do the Axis powers. The nuclear storm unleashed in August 1945 was
particularly atrocious, but it was only one of many crimes perpetrated
throughout the war by these ‘white knights’ of democracy[4].
The horror of Hiroshima also opened a new period in capitalism’s plunge
into decadence. Henceforth, permanent war became capitalism’s daily way
of life. The Treaty of Versailles heralded the next World War; the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima marked the real beginning of the ‘Cold War’ between
the USA and USSR, which was to spread bloodshed over the four corners of
the earth for more than forty years. This is why, unlike the years after 1918,
those that followed 1945 saw no disarmament but, on the contrary, a huge
growth in arms spending amongst all the victors of the conflict (the USSR
already had the atomic bomb by 1949). Within this framework, the entire
economy, under the direction of state capitalism in its various forms, was
run in the service of war. Also unlike the period at the end of World War I,
state capitalism everywhere strengthened its totalitarian grip on the whole
of society. Only the state could mobilise the gigantic resources necessary, in
particular for the development of a nuclear arsenal. The Manhattan Project
was thus only the first in a long and sinister series, leading to the most
gigantic and insane arms race in history.
Far from heralding an era of peace, 1945 opened a period of barbarity,
made still worse by the constant threat of nuclear destruction of the entire
planet. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki still haunt humanity’s memory today, it is
because they are such tragic symbols of how directly decadent capitalism
threatens the very survival of the human species.
This terrible Damoclean sword, hanging over humanity’s head, thus confers
an enormous responsibility on the proletariat, the only force capable of real
opposition to capitalism’s military barbarity. Although the threat has
temporarily retreated with the collapse of the Russian and American blocs,
the responsibility is still there, and the proletariat cannot let its guard drop
for an instant. Indeed, war has never been so evident as it is today, from
Africa, to the territories of the ex-USSR, to the bloody conflict in ex-
Yugoslavia, which has brought war to Europe for the first time since
1945[5]. And we need only look at the bourgeoisie’s determination to justify
the bombs of August 45, to understand that when Clinton declares “if we
had to do it again, we would” (Liberation, 11th April 1995), he is only
expressing the opinion of all his class. Behind the hypocritical speeches
about the dangers of nuclear proliferation, each state is doing everything it
can either to obtain just such an arsenal, or to perfect its existing one. The
research aimed at miniaturising nuclear weapons, and so making their use
easier and more commonplace, is accelerating. As Liberation put it: “The
studies by Western general staffs based on the response ‘of the strong man
to the madman’ are reviving the idea of a limited, tactical use of nuclear
weapons. After Hiroshima, their use became taboo. After the Cold War,
the taboo has become uncertain” (5th August, 1995).
The horror of nuclear warfare is not something that belongs to a distant
past. Quite the contrary: it is the future that decomposing capitalism has in
store for humanity if the proletariat lets it happen. Decomposition does not
stop or diminish the omnipresence of war. The chaos and the law of “every
man for himself” only make its danger still more uncontrollable. The great
imperialist powers are already stirring chaos to defend their own sordid
interests, and we can be certain that if the working class fails to halt their
criminal activity, they will not hesitate to use all the weapons at their
disposal, from the fragmentation bombs used so extensively in the Gulf War,
to nuclear and chemical weapons. Capitalist decomposition has only one
perspective to offer: the destruction, bit by bit, of the planet and its
inhabitants. The proletariat must not give an inch, either to the siren calls
of pacifism, or to the defence of the democracy, in whose name the towns
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated. On the contrary, it must
remain firmly on its class terrain: the struggle against this system of death
and destruction, capitalism.
Julien, 24/8/95

[1] To develop the atomic bomb, the US state mobilised all the resources of
science and put them at the military’s disposal. Two billion dollars were
devoted to the Manhattan Project, set up by that great humanitarian
Roosevelt. Every university in the country joined in. Directly or indirectly,
all the greatest physicists from Einstein to Oppenheimer took part. Six Nobel
prize-winners took part in the bomb’s creation. This gigantic mobilisation of
every scientific resource for war expresses a general characteristic of
decadent capitalism. State capitalism, whether openly totalitarian or
draped in the democratic flag, colonizes and militarises the whole of
science. Under the reign of capitalism, science lives and develops through
and for war. This reality has not ceased to get worse since 1945.

[2] The essential aim of this conference, especially for Churchill who was its
main instigator, was to make it clear to Stalin’s USSR that it should restrain
its imperialist ambitions, and that there were limits which should not be
passed.

[3] Throughout the spring of 1945, Churchill raged at the Americans’

softness in letting the Russian army absorb the whole of Eastern Europe.
This hesitation on the part of the US government in confronting the Russian
state’s imperialist appetite head-on expressed the American bourgeoisie’s
relative inexperience in the role of world superpower - an experience which
the British bourgeoisie possessed in abundance. But it was also the
expression of not particularly friendly feelings towards its British ally. The
fact that Britain emerged seriously weakened from the war, and that its
positions in Europe should be threatened by the Russian bear, could only
make her more docile in the face of the diktats which Uncle Sam was going
to impose, without delay, even on its closest ‘friends’. It is another example
of the ‘frank and harmonious’ relationships that reign among the imperialist
sharks.

[4] See International Review no.66, “Crimes of the great democracies”.

[5] Immediately after 1945, the bourgeoisie presented the Cold War as a
war between two different systems: democracy against communist
totalitarianism. With this lie, it continued to confuse the working class, at
the same time hiding the classical and sordid imperialist nature of the one-
time ‘Allies’. In a sense, they managed to pull off the same coup in 1989,
proclaiming that peace would reign at last with the fall of “communism”.
From the Gulf to Yugoslavia, we have seen since then just what the
promises of Bush, Gorbachev and Co were worth.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Lies of

the Bourgeoisie
Submitted by International Review on 24 March, 2010 - 02:24

With the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
bourgeoisie has plumbed new depths of cynicism and mendacity. For this
high point of barbarity was executed, not by some dictator or
bloodcrazed madman, but by the very "virtuous" American democracy.
To justify the monstrous crime, the whole world bourgeoisie has
shamelessly repeated the lie peddled at the time that the atomic bomb
was only used to shorten and limit the suffering caused by the
continuation of the war with Japan. The American bourgeoisie even
proposed to issue an anniversary stamp, inscribed: "atomic bombs
accelerated the end of the war. August 1945". Even if this anniversary
was a further opportunity to mark the growing opposition in Japan
towards the US ex-godfather, the Japanese Prime Minister nonetheless
made his own precious contribution to the lie about the necessity of the
bomb, by presenting for the first time Japan's apologies for its crimes
committed during World War II. Victors and vanquished thus came
together to develop this disgusting campaign aimed at justifying one of
history's greatest crimes.

The justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki: a gross falsehood

In total, the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945 claimed
522,000 victims. Many cancers of the lung and thyroid only became apparent
during the 50s and 60s, and even today the effects of radiation still claim
victims: cases of leukemia are ten times more frequent in Hiroshima than in
the rest of Japan.

To justify such a crime, and to answer the legitimate shock provoked by the
bomb's awful effects, Truman - the US president who ordered the nuclear
holocaust - and his accomplice Winston Churchill put about a cynical lie:
that the use of the atomic bomb had saved about a million lives, which
would have been lost had American troops been forced to invade Japan. In
short, and despite appearances, the bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and which are still killing fifty years later, were pacifist bombs!
But this peculiarly revolting tale is given the lie by numerous historical
studies published by the bourgeoisie itself.
If we examine Japan's military situation when Germany capitulated, it is
clear that the country was already completely defeated. Its air force, that
vital weapon of World War II, had been reduced to a handful of aircraft,
generally piloted by adolescents whose fanaticism was only matched by
their inexperience. Both the navy and the merchant marine had been
virtually wiped out. The anti-aircraft defences were so full of holes, that
the US B29s were able to carry out thousands of raids throughout the spring
of 1945, almost without losses. Churchill himself points this out in Volume
12 of his war memoirs.

A 1945 study by the US secret service, published by the New York Times in
1989, revealed that: "Realizing that the country was defeated, the
Japanese emperor had decided by 20th June 1945, to end all hostilities and
to start negotiations from 11th July onwards, with a view to bringing
hostilities to an end" (Le Monde Diplomatique August 1990).

Truman was perfectly well aware of the situation. Nonetheless, once he was
told of the success of the first experimental atomic test in the New Mexico
desert in July 1945[1], he decided in the middle of the Potsdam Conference
between himself, Churchill, and Stalin[2], to use the atomic weapon against
Japanese towns. This decision had nothing to do with a desire to hasten the
end of the war with Japan, as is testified by a conversation between Leo
Szilard, one of the fathers of the bomb, and the US Secretary of State for
War, J. Byrnes. When Szilard expressed concern at the dangers of using the
atomic weapon, Byrnes replied that "he did not claim that it was necessary
to use the bomb to win the war. His idea was that the possession and use of
the bomb would make Russia more controllable" (Le Monde Diplomatique,
August 1990).

And if any further argument were necessary, let us leave some of the most
important US military leaders to speak for themselves. For Chief of General
Staff Admiral Leahy, "The Japanese were already beaten and ready to
capitulate. The use of this barbaric weapon made no material contribution
to our fight against Japan" (Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1990). This
opinion was also shared by Eisenhower.
The idea that the atomic bomb was used to force Japan to capitulate, and
to stop the slaughter, has nothing to do with reality. It is a lie which has
been constructed to meet the needs of the bourgeoisie's war propaganda,
one of the greatest achievements of the massive brain-washing campaign
needed to justify the greatest massacre in world history: the 1939/45 war.

We should emphasize that, whatever the hesitations or short-term view of

certain members of the ruling class, faced with this terrifying weapon,
Truman's decision was anything but that of a madman, or an isolated
individual. On the contrary, it expressed the implacable logic of all
imperialisms: death and destruction for humanity, so that one class, the
bourgeoisie, should survive despite the historic crisis of its system of
exploitation, and its own irreversible decadence.

The real objective of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs

Contrary to all the lies that have been peddled since 1945, about the
supposed victory of a democracy synonymous with peace, World War II was
barely over when the new front line of imperialist confrontation was being
drawn. Just as the Treaty of Versailles contained inevitably within itself the
seeds of another war, so Yalta already contained the split between the main
victor of 1945, the USA, and its Russian challenger. Thanks to World War II,
Russia had risen from being a minor economic power to a world ranking
imperialism, which could not but threaten the American superpower. In
spring 1945, the USSR was already using its military strength to carve out a
bloc in Eastern Europe. Yalta did nothing but sanction the existing balance
of forces between the main imperialist sharks. What one balance of forces
could set up, another could undo. In the summer of 1945, the real problem
facing the American state was thus not, as the schoolbooks tell us, how to
make Japan capitulate as soon as possible, but how to confront and contain
the imperialist drive of its "great Russian ally".

Winston Churchill, the real leader on the Allied side of World War II, was
quick to understand that a new front was opening, and constantly to exhort
the Americans to face up to it. He wrote in his memoirs: "The closer a war
conducted by a coalition comes to its end, the more importance is taken by
the political aspects. Above all, in Washington they should have seen
further and wider (...) The destruction of Germany's military power had
provoked a radical transformation of the relationship between Communist
Russia and the Western democracies. They had lost that common enemy
which was practically the only thing uniting them". He concluded that
"Soviet Russia had become a mortal danger for the free world, that it was
necessary without delay to create a new front to stop its forward march,
and that this front should be as far East as possible" (Memoirs, Vol 12, May
1945). Nothing could be clearer. Churchill analyzed, very lucidly, the fact
that a new war was already beginning while World War II had not yet come
to an end.
In the spring of 1945, Churchill was already doing everything he could to
oppose the advance of Russian armies into Eastern Europe (Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc). Doggedly, he sought to bring the new
American president Truman around to his own opinion. The latter, after
some hesitations[3] completely accepted Churchill's thesis that "the Soviet
threat had already replaced the Nazi enemy" (Memoirs, Vol 12, May 1945).

It is not difficult to understand the complete and unanimous support that

the Churchill government gave to Truman's decision to begin the atomic
bombardment of Japanese cities. On 22nd July, 1945, Churchill wrote:
"[with the bomb] we now have something in hand which will re-establish
the equilibrium with the Russians. The secret of this explosive and the
ability to use it will completely transform the diplomatic equilibrium,
which had been adrift since the defeat of Germany". That this should cause
the deaths, in atrocious suffering, of hundreds of thousands of human
beings, left this "defender of the free world" and "savior of democracy" cold.
When he heard the news of the Hiroshima explosion, he jumped for joy, and
Lord Allenbrooke, one of Churchill's advisers, even wrote: "Churchill was
enthusiastic, and already saw himself with the ability to eliminate all
Russia's industrial major population centers" (Le Monde Diplomatique,
August 1990). This is what was in the mind of this great defender of
civilization and irreplaceable humanist values, at the end of five years of
carnage that had left 50 million dead!

The nuclear holocaust which broke over Japan in August 1945, this terrifying
expression of war's absolute barbarity in capitalist decadence, was thus not
designed by the "clean" American democracy to limit the suffering caused by
a continuation of the war with Japan, any more than it met a direct military
need. Its real aim was to send a message of terror to the USSR, to force the
latter to restrain its imperialist ambitions, and accept the conditions of the
pax americana. To give the message greater strength, the American state
dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, a town of minor importance at the
military level, which wiped out the main working class district. This was also
why Truman refused the suggestion of some of his advisers, that the
explosion of a nuclear weapon over a sparsely populated region would be
amply sufficient to force Japan to capitulate. No, in the murderous logic of
imperialism, two cities had to be vitrified to intimidate Stalin, and to
restrain the one-time Soviet ally's imperialist ambitions.

The lessons of these terrible events

What lessons should the working class draw from this terrible tragedy, and
its revolting use by the bourgeoisie?

In the first place, there is nothing inevitable about the unleashing of

capitalist barbarism. The scientific organization of such carnage was only
possible because the proletariat had been beaten worldwide by the most
terrible and implacable counter-revolution of its entire history. Broken by
the stalinist and fascist terror, completely confused by the enormous lie
identifying stalinism with communism, the working class allowed itself to be
caught in the deadly trap of the defense of democracy, with the stalinists'
active and indispensable complicity. This reduced it to a great mass of
cannon-fodder completely at the mercy of the bourgeoisie. Today, whatever
the proletariat's difficulty in deepening its struggle, the situation is quite
different. In the great proletarian concentrations, this is not a time of union
with the exploiters, but of the expansion and deepening of the class
struggle.

Contrary to the bourgeoisie's endlessly repeated lie, which presents the

1939-45 imperialist war as one between the fascist and democratic
"systems", the war's 50 million dead were victims of the capitalist system as
a whole. Barbarity, crimes against humanity, were not the acts of fascism
alone. Our famous "Allies", those self-proclaimed "defenders of civilization"
gathered under the banner of "democracy", have hands as red with blood as
do the Axis powers. The nuclear storm unleashed in August 1945 was
particularly atrocious, but it was only one of many crimes perpetrated
throughout the war by these "white knights of democracy"[4].

The horror of Hiroshima also opened a new period in capitalism's plunge into
decadence. Henceforth, permanent war became capitalism's daily way of
life. The Treaty of Versailles heralded the next world war; the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima marked the real beginning of the "Cold War" between
the USA and USSR, which was to spread bloodshed over the four comers of
the earth for more than forty years. This is why, unlike the years after 1918,
those that followed, 1945 saw no disarmament, but on the contrary a huge
growth in arms spending amongst all the victors of the conflict (the USSR
already had the atomic bomb in 1949). Within this framework, the entire
economy, under the direction of state capitalism in its various forms, was
run in the service of war. Also unlike the period at the end of World War I,
state capitalism everywhere strengthened its totalitarian grip on the whole
of society. Only the state could mobilize the gigantic resources necessary, in
particular for the development of a nuclear arsenal. The Manhattan Project
was thus only the first in a long and sinister series, leading to the most
gigantic and insane arms race in history.

Far from heralding an era of peace, 1945 opened a period of barbarity,

made still worse by the constant threat of nuclear vitrification of the entire
planet. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki still haunt humanity's memory today, it is
because they are such tragic symbols of how directly decadent capitalism
threatens the very survival of the human species.

This terrible Damoclean sword, hanging over humanity's head, thus confers
an enormous responsibility on the proletariat, the only force capable of real
opposition to capitalism's military barbarity. Although the threat has
temporarily retreated with the collapse of the Russian and American blocs,
the responsibility is still there, and the proletariat cannot let its guard drop
for an instant. Indeed, war has never been so evident as it is today, from
Africa, to the territories of the ex-USSR, to the bloody conflict in ex-
Yugoslavia, which has brought war to Europe for the first time since
1945[5].

And we need only look at the bourgeoisie's determination to justify the

bombs of August 45, to understand that when Clinton declares" if we had to
do it again, we would" (Liberation, 11th April1995), he is only expressing
the opinion of all his class. Behind the hypocritical speeches about the
dangers of nuclear proliferation, each state is doing everything it can either
to obtain just such an arsenal, or to perfect its existing one. The research
aimed at miniaturizing nuclear weapons, and so making their use easier and
more commonplace, is accelerating. As Liberation put it: "The studies by
Western general staffs based on the response "of the strong man to the
madman" are reviving the idea of a limited, tactical use of nuclear
weapons. After Hiroshima, their use became taboo. After the Cold War,
the taboo has become uncertain" (5th August, 1995).

The horror of nuclear warfare is not something that belongs to a distant

past. Quite the contrary: it is the future that decomposing capitalism has in
store for humanity. If the proletariat lets it happens. Decomposition does
not stop or diminish the omnipresence of war. The chaos and the law of
"every man for himself" only makes its danger still more uncontrollable. The
great imperialist powers are already stirring chaos to defend their own
sordid interests, and we can be certain that if the working class fails to halt
their criminal activity, they will not hesitate to use all the weapons at their
disposal, from the fuel-air bombs used so extensively in the Gulf War, to
nuclear and chemical weapons. Capitalist decomposition has only one
perspective to offer: the destruction, bit by bit, of the planet and its
inhabitants. The proletariat must not give an inch, either to the siren calls
of pacifism, or to the defense of the democracy, in whose name the towns
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated. On the contrary, it must
remain firmly on its class terrain: the struggle against this system of death
and destruction, capitalism.

Julien, 24/8/95

[1] To develop the atomic bomb, the US state mobilized all the resources of
science and put them at the military's disposal. Two billion dollars were
devoted to the Manhattan Project, set up by that great humanist Roosevelt.
Every university in the country joined in. Directly or indirectly, all the
greatest physicists from Einstein to Oppenheimer were involved, including
six Nobel prizewinners. This gigantic mobilization of every scientific
resource for war expresses a general characteristic of decadent capitalism.
State capitalism, whether openly totalitarian or draped in the democratic
flag, colonizes and militarizes the whole of science. Under the reign of
capitalism, science lives and develops through and for war. This reality has
not ceased to get worse since 1945.

[2] The essential aim of this conference, especially for Churchill who was its
main instigator, was to make it clear to Stalin's USSR that it should restrain
its imperialist ambitions, and that there were limits which should not be
passed.

[3] Throughout the spring of 1945, Churchill raged at the Americans' softness
in letting the Russian army absorb the whole of Eastern Europe. This
hesitation on the part of the US government in confronting the Russian
state's imperialist appetite head-on expressed the American bourgeoisie's
relative inexperience in the role of world superpower:
- an experience which the British bourgeoisie possessed in abundance. But it
was also the expression of not particularly friendly feelings towards its
British ally. The fact that Britain emerged seriously weakened from the war,
and that its positions in Europe were threatened by the Russian bear, could
only make her more docile in the face of the diktats which Uncle Sam was
going to impose, without delay, even on its closest "friends". It is another
example of the "frank and harmonious" relationships that reign among the
imperialist sharks.

[4] See International Review no. 66, "Crimes of the great democracies".

[5] Immediately after 1945, the bourgeoisie presented the "Cold War" as a
war between two different systems: democracy against communist
totalitarianism. With this lie, it continued to confuse the working class, at
the same time hiding the classical and sordid imperialist nature of the one-
time "allies". a sense, they managed to pull off the same coup in 1989,
proclaiming that peace would reign at last with the fall of "communism",
From the Gulf to Yugoslavia, we have seen since then just what the
promises of Bush, Gorbachev and Co were worth.

70 years after Hiroshima and

Nagasaki
Submitted by ICConline on 29 July, 2015 - 08:30
Seventy years ago in Hiorshima,on August 6 1945, more than a hundred
thousand of its inhabitants were atrociously pulverised, being used as a
target in a grand demonstration of the new US nuclear force. According to
official figures, close to 70,000 perished in the initial explosion and
thousands of others suffered the same fate in the days that followed[1].
Three days later on August 9, a second bomb exploded above Nagasaki
killing a similarly terrifying number of victims. The barbarity and suffering
inflicted on so many people is hardly conceivable.

Thus, as we wrote in 2005, on the 50th anniversary of this event: “In order
to justify such a crime, and to answer the legitimate shock provoked by the
bomb’s awful effects, Truman - the US president who ordered the nuclear
holocaust - and his accomplice Winston Churchill put about a cynical lie:
that the use of the atomic bomb had saved about a million lives, which
would have been lost had American troops been forced to invade Japan. In
short, and despite appearances, the bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and which are still killing fifty years later, were pacifist bombs!
But this peculiarly revolting tale is given the lie by numerous historical
studies published by the bourgeoisie itself”.
When one looks at the military situation of Japan at the time when Germany
capitulated, we can see that the former was already virtually beaten. Its
aviation, an essential arm of the Second World War, was almost finished,
reduced to a small number of machines generally piloted by a handful of
adolescents who were as fanatical as they were inexperienced. The navy,
merchant as well as military, was practically destroyed. Anti-aircraft
defences covered only a small area of the sky, which explains why the B29’s
were able to carry out thousands of attacks throughout spring 1945 with
practically no losses. And Churchill himself admitted as much in volume 12
of his memoirs!
A study by the American secret services of 1945, published by the New York
Times in 1989, revealed that: “Conscious of defeat, the Emperor of Japan
decided on June 20 1945 to cease all hostilities and open up talks on July
11 with a view to the cessation of hostilities”[2]. And since in capitalist
society cynicism and contempt have neither limits nor frontiers, we can only
recall that the survivors of these explosions, the “hibakusha”, have only
been recognised as victims by the state from the year 2000[3].
Concerning the real objective of these bombardments, here’s what we
wrote in 2005:
“Contrary to all the lies that have been peddled since 1945, about the
supposed victory of a democracy synonymous with peace, World War II was
barely over than the new front line of imperialist confrontation was being
drawn. Just as the Treaty of Versailles contained inevitably within it the
seeds of another war, so Yalta already contained the split between the
main victor of 1945, the USA, and its Russian challenger. Thanks to World
War II, Russia had risen from being a minor economic power to world
ranking imperialism, which could not but threaten the American
superpower. In spring 1945, the USSR was already using its military
strength to carve out a bloc in Eastern Europe. Yalta did nothing but
caution the existing balance of forces between the main imperialist sharks.
What one balance of forces could set up, another could undo. In the
summer of 1945, the real problem facing the American state was thus not,
as the schoolbooks tell us, how to make Japan capitulate as soon as
possible, but how to confront and contain the imperialist drive of its ‘great
Russian ally’”.

In reality it was on the basis of aggravated imperialist tensions that the

nuclear arms race began before 1945. A great capitalist power worthy of the
name could only maintain its ranking on the imperialist scene and be taken
seriously by its rivals by showing them that it possessed, or better still
showed that it could make use of nuclear arms. This is particularly true for
countries that were “bloc leaders” which by then were made up of the
United States and the USSR. Ranged behind one or the other, the other
great powers could only fall into line. From 1949, the Russians started tests
for their own bomb. In 1952, it was the turn of the British. In 1960, the very
French “Gerboise bleue” showed in its turn its nuclear power at Reggane, in
the Algerian Sahara. During this whole time one could say without
exaggeration that there were hundreds of nuclear tests with consequences
on the environment (and sometimes on surrounding populations) that the
states have kept quiet about. Beyond this crazy race between the USA and
the USSR to deploy a still-greater quantity of these types of arms,
unrelenting research was undertaken in order to maximise their power of
destruction. If the bombs of 1945 were a moment of intense cruelty in the
history of capitalist barbarism, they are far from the culminating point of
the destructive potential of existing arms.
Capitalist barbarism has no limits! As if the hundreds of thousands of deaths
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn’t just a foretaste of what decadent
capitalism is capable of producing, the Americans went to another level in
1952 with the explosion of “Ivy Mike”, the famous H-Bomb with a power of
10.4 megatons, six times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb! And who can
forget the “Tsar Bomba” that the Russians exploded over the archipelago of
Novaya Zemlya (Arctic Russia) in 1961. With a power of more than 50
megatons it literally vitrified the soil over a radius of 25 km and destroyed
wooden buildings hundreds of kilometres away. The army was satisfied with
the idea that the heat of the radiation produced caused third degree burns
over a radius of more than 100km. From a formal point of view the big
nuclear powers of the United States, Russia, the UK and France, signed a
non-proliferation pact (NPT) in 1968. This agreement, which was supposed
to halt the proliferation of nuclear arms, had only a very limited impact. It
is just as hypocritical as the Kyoto Accords against global warming! Since the
NPT came into effect in 1970 several countries have to be added to the list:
India, China, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Further there’s a list of
countries whose possession of nuclear weapons is a matter of discussion
between bourgeois factions: Iran of course, but also Brazil which is
suspected of developing a nuclear programme[4], Saudi Arabia and Syria
whose nuclear reactor in Damascus was much talked about. In short, it is
clear that “non-proliferation” is only a pious wish essentially aimed at
masking the sordid reality of the trafficking of nuclear materials. In a
system based on competition and relations of force, the idea of a return to
reason can only be a pure mystification. Since the end of the Cold War and
the break-up of the blocs in 1990, military instability has progressively
gained ground in all zones of the planet. The international situation shows
us this on a daily basis. It’s a real process of decomposition which generates
still more barbarity and irrationality. It is within this framework that we
should put the announcement by Putin on June 16, according to which:
“Russia is going to strengthen its nuclear arsenal with the deployment of
more than forty new inter-continental missiles from here to the end of the
year (...). This announcement was made on the basis of the aggravation of
tensions between Russia and the United States, whose plans to deploy
heavy weapons in Europe revealed by the New York Times have provoked
anger in Moscow”[5]. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the nuclear
holocaust, such a declaration is a significant marker of the putrefaction into
which capitalist society is sinking[6].
The working class, the sole class bearing a perspective for the future of
humanity, is thus also the only class capable of putting an end to the
barbaric wars of the imperialist powers. The proletariat cannot let itself be
panicked by the horror of which the capitalist class is capable and it cannot
remain paralysed faced with the attacks from the latter. It’s true that the
atrocity of August 1945 and of war in general generates fear. And for good
reason! In the troubled game of capitalist competition, the bourgeoisie
always wants to wipe out its rivals. The only real brake on this barbarity is
the level of consciousness of the revolutionary class and its capacity for
outrage at the horror of a decomposing society.
Finally, let’s remember that summer 2015 is also the 110th anniversary
(June 27 1905) of the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin, though the media
is much more discreet about this. Here the Russian sailors, scandalised by
the contempt shown to them by their officers and worn out by the war with
Japan, turned their guns against them and stood up in one of the heroic
moments of the history of the workers’ movement[7]. It’s not tears of
despair, but rather outrage and the will to fight which bear the promise of
the construction of a communist society.
Tim, July 2 2015

[1] In Japan, the “peace memorial” gives the number of victims of

Hiroshima as 140,000.
[2] Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1990. For more ample developments of
the denunciation of this cynical fable, we invite our readers to look at the
article “50 years after: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the lies of the bourgeoisie”
in International Review no. 83.

[3] Previously these victims benefited from no help by the state. “In May
2005, there were 266,598 hibakusha recognised by the Japanese
government” (according to an article of the Japan Times, March 15 2006,
reprinted on Wikipedia).

[4] Lula signed an agreement in 2008 with Argentina for the joint
development of a nuclear programme which could not be devoid of a
military aspect.

[5] Le Monde, 16.06.2015.

[6] In a recent “breakthrough”, amid rising Sino-US tensions, China has

announced that it has developed a multiple nuclear warhead delivery
system capable of breaching US defences.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-developed-multiple-warhead-
missiles-...

[7] It’s also important to remember that it was the workers’ movement,
with the revolutionary wave of 1917, that put an end to the First World War
at the beginning of the 20th century.

“Capitalism is Dead” (George Monbiot) but

Only the World Working Class Can Bury It
It did not take the fatal consequences of recent record temperatures in
Western Europe, or the recent wildfires in California, monsoon floods in
Nepal, India and Bangladesh or the Mozambique cyclones, to tell us that
something has radically shifted in the world’s climate. The existential threat of
human-created climate change to life on the planet has been understood for
decades. NASA, among others, first sounded the alarm about global carbon
emissions in 1988 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) was formed the same year.

Since then we have had a series of warnings from the most distinguished
climate scientists in the world that unless emissions are reduced global
warming will radically transform the Earth’s environment for ever, possibly
leading ultimately to yet another “great extinction” of life. The latest warning
from the UN’s IPCC states that there are only a dozen years before it will be
too late for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5°C. After that,
even half a degree increase will significantly worsen the risks of drought,
floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. More
than that (and we are heading in that direction) life on the planet as a whole
will be endangered. It will be the sixth mass life extinction in the history of
the planet. Four of the previous five were due to climate change produced by
greenhouse gases. The difference in the next “great extinction” is that one
animal species, humanity, the “Lords of Creation” for the biblically-minded,
will actually be responsible for this destruction.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, over thirty years of international

discussion has achieved almost nothing in the way of carbon and other
greenhouse gas emission reduction [1] and the planet continues to warm up,
leading to knock on factors such as the release of more greenhouse gas
(methane) from the Arctic tundra [2] and the desertification of the Sahel and
elsewhere. The melting of the Arctic, and of glaciers everywhere, is already
leading to rising sea levels and the warming of the seas is leading to the
growth of green sulphur bacteria in the sea, out of which another greenhouse
gas, stinky hydrogen sulphide, bubbles. 2018 turned out to be the worst year
for emissions in history.
With the crisis now so acute there should be no surprise at the emergence of
more and more radical green protests such as that of Greta Thunberg or
Extinction Rebellion. Like all such environmental groupings they are very
good at identifying the problem. However like Green groups in the past they
are less good at identifying the only way to a real solution. In fact they are a
positive menace in this respect. For Greta Thunberg and her many followers
the problem has been the older generation who don’t care about the future
which young people will be left with. This is even worse than the usual Green
individualistic moralist argument that “we are all responsible” for pollution as
if “we” or indeed the “old” have had any say in the rules of the game our
capitalist overlords are playing. The idea that by only consuming certain
things or avoiding plastic straws or bags will save the planet is not only an
illusion but flies in the face of the facts. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch of
floating plastic the size of France is not just from the plastic bottles we use
but 46% is discarded fishing nets (the Green response to this is once again
for individual “consumers” to stop eating fish). [3] Whilst it is great to see
young people motivated about the really big issues (and they don’t come any
bigger than the future of humanity), the false “solutions” that are being fed to
them are such massive diversions that they will actually play into the hands
of the real polluters. Thunberg playing the generation game is actually
divisive. Older generations have been generally kept in the dark and
systematically lied to by governments and multinationals alike. The oil
industry today is playing the same role of disinformation as the tobacco
industry did in the 1970s. Those who have raised the spectre of
environmental disaster in all its forms have lacked the power to defeat the
entrenched interests of those who run the global capitalist system.

And followers of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion [4] have no greater
idea than to confine their direct action to putting pressure on the existing
political and social system to take climate change seriously, and bring about
zero emissions, without taking account of the underlying drive of capitalism to
increase profits. It's a bit like asking a pack of wolves to look after a flock of
sheep. It is no accident that the new “radical” green movements have their
origins in the most affluent of the democratic states. They are essentially
democratic protests appealing to the “comfortably off”. Asking people to court
arrest in carefully organised publicity stunts might seem “fun” in good old
democratic Britain when the police know they are in the public eye, but try
doing that in Moscow, or Beijing, or anywhere where the forces of the state
operate with greater impunity. Little wonder that the leaders of Extinction
Rebellion proclaim their faith in the democratic system they hope to
pressurise by acts of civil disobedience.

George Monbiot and Opposing the System

Some of the Greens protestors will agree that to save the planet we have to
“change the system” and they will carry banners to this effect in their
demonstrations. However they don’t actually define what “system” they are
talking about. Is it just the political system? This would be a logical conclusion
from their frequently announced actions as a pressure group. In doing so they
largely ignore the question of what is the real threat to humanity and this is
the system of production that we live under. Thus the declaration by the
long-time environmental campaigner and journalist, George Monbiot on
Frankie Boyle’s show New World Order in April that “We can’t do it by just
pissing around at the margins of the problem. We’ve gotta go straight to the
heart of capitalism; and overthrow it” came as a welcome step forward. [5]

Monbiot followed up his TV declaration in his column in the Guardian with a

piece with the promising title of Dare to Declare Capitalism Dead – Before it
Takes us all Down with it. [6] It begins with a confession:

"For most of my adult life I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”,

“consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see
that the problem is not the adjective but the noun."

Bravo. His take on capitalism as a system is not bad either. He now

understands that the system is driven by the drive for “perpetual growth”
because "Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate
capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual
growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity."

Consciously or unconsciously he was echoing Karl Marx (or if we were going

in for self-flattery we would claim he must have read our articles too!). Marx’s
writings not only agree with Monbiot that capitalism has to chase growth or
die, he also explained the laws behind this process. In Capital Volume 1 he
wrote

“…competition subordinates every individual capitalist to the immanent laws

of capitalist production, as external and coercive laws. It compels him to keep
extending his capital, so as to preserve it, and he can only extend it by
means of progressive accumulation.” [7]

By Capital Volume 3 Marx understood that what constantly drove capitalist

growth was the law of value as expressed in "the rate of profit, [which is the]
goad of capitalist production (just as self-expansion of capital is its only
purpose)." [8]

The secret of capitalist competition for more and more growth lies in the fall
in the rate of profit connected with accumulation, this

"necessarily calls forth a competitive struggle. Compensation of a fall in the

rate of profit by a rise in the mass of profit applies only to the total social
capital and to the big, firmly placed capitalists. The new additional capital
operating independently does not enjoy any such compensating conditions. It
must still win them, and so it is that a fall in the rate of profit calls forth a
competitive struggle among capitalists, not vice versa.” [9]

Monbiot’s second charge against capitalism is that it rests on

"the bizarre assumption that a person is entitled to as great a share of the

world’s natural wealth as their money can buy. This seizure of common goods
causes three further dislocations. First, the scramble for exclusive control of
non-reproducible assets, which implies either violence or legislative
truncations of other people’s rights. Second, the immiseration of other people
by an economy based on looting across both space and time. Third, the
translation of economic power into political power, as control over essential
resources leads to control over the social relations that surround them."

Marx could not have agreed more. He not only spent his entire life pointing to
how capital accumulation at one pole was dependent on the “immiseration” of
those who created the wealth through their labour at the other, but also
concluded towards the end of Capital Volume 3 that,

"From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private

property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as the
private property of one man in other men." [10]

And then he adds

"Even an entire society, a nation or all simultaneously existing societies taken

together are not owners of the earth, they are simply its possessors, its
beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding
generations, as boni patres familias [good heads of households]."

“Communism” and the Environment

And real revolutionary Marxists and communists would even agree with the
substance of Monbiot’s remark that

“Soviet communism had more in common with capitalism than the advocates
of either system would care to admit. Both systems are (or were) obsessed
with generating economic growth."

Except that what he is describing is neither “soviet” nor “communist”. By the

time that Stalin came to power the soviets or workers’ councils had long lost
their power and become arms of the “Communist” Party dictatorship. What
the Stalinist model had “in common” with the West was that it was a form of
state capitalism which had long broken with a society run by workers in their
soviets (or councils), and was certainly not en route to “communism”. The
key aspect the USSR had in common with the West was that labour was
exploited for the benefit of an alien class which disposed of the new value the
workers created over and above the value of their wages. In the case of
Stalin the purpose of accumulation was unashamedly militaristic. In 1931 he
told a conference of industrial managers that the pace of industrialisation
could not be slackened but on the contrary had to be speeded up because

"We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must
make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall be
crushed."

This is, of course, a well-known quotation but it does explain why the
concentration was on building up heavy industry at the expense of providing
for the basic needs of its citizens. Less often quoted is the sentence before,
which contains a blatant lie.

"That is why Lenin said on the eve of the October Revolution: Either perish,
or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries." [11]
Lenin said, and thought, nothing of the sort. He said that the Russian
Revolution could only be victorious as part of a world-wide working class
revolution! “Socialism in one country” arose out of the failure of that world
revolution to arrive, and put the USSR on the road to a regimented and highly
centralised form of state capitalism built on ruthless exploitation of the
working class. This was about as far from communism as it was possible to
get. Communism is a society based on satisfying the human needs of all. It is
not about massive industrialisation without care of the social and
environmental costs. The Stalinist drive to accumulate was not “really existing
socialism” but a total rupture with both Marx and the October Revolution.

The record of the early days of soviet power on the environment are actually
very different. Despite an acute economic crisis (which ended in famine in
1921) the first state-funded nature reserve (zapovednik) in the world
dedicated only to scientific research, the Il’menskii, was established in 1920.
Three more were in place by 1924. Many new research institutes were set up
and Moscow University offered courses in ecology. Vladimir Vernadsky
became world famous for the concept of ‘noosphere’: “a new state of
biosphere in which humans play an active role in change that is based on man
and woman’s recognition of the interconnectedness of nature”. An All-Russian
Society for the Protection of Nature was founded with thousands of members
and many leading Bolsheviks including Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya,
discussed how to improve the environment in cities and towns, leading to
more parks and green areas in cities. [12] This is a totally different picture
from the industrialisation and total devastation of some parts of the USSR in
pursuit of “growth” at any price. Many such policies carried on after Stalin.
You need only think of the disastrous diversion of water from the Aral Sea to
irrigate the Uzbekistan cotton crop from the 1960s on. This led to one of the
world’s greatest man-made ecological disasters in which the sea has lost 80%
of its volume and continues to dry up (now partially due to global warming).
This was not the result of Marxist thinking but of Stalinist “production at all
costs” policies.

Those who still want to insist that Marx was a precursor of Stalin (including
Stalinists) direct their attention to Marx’ apparent praise of capitalism’s
capacity to revolutionise the forces of production. To support this they quote
passages like the following from the Communist Manifesto.

"The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created
more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding
generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery,
application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation,
railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation,
canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what
earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces
slumbered in the lap of social labour?"

But this is simply a description of the historical fact of existence under

capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century. It is a fact of history not a paean to
a new mode of production. Far from it. On the same page Marx wrote

"Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and

of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production
and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the
powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."

He has not yet worked out why this was so (that would come in the 1850s
and 1860s) but he could already see that this system's inner drive is to
expand whatever the consequences. Indeed, Marx notes that capitalism's
economic crises are not like those of the past since in place of the shortages
(famines) of the past crises now involve the contradiction that the system
tends to produce “too much” even amidst a general impoverishment of the
working population.

In fact Marx makes clear that

"The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living
human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical
organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of
nature." [13]

And

"The history of nature and the history of men are dependent on each other so
long as men exist." [14]

The character of this relationship cannot be understated:

"Man lives on nature — means that nature is his body, with which he must
remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die. That man’s physical and
spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for
man is a part of nature." [15]

Some of course have dismissed this concern as just being “the early Marx”
whose view would be changed by his later economic analyses. Or else it is
often asserted that Engels never shared this vision and his more mechanical
interpretation of Marx’s ideas led straight to Stalinism. Both are untrue. In
the Critique of the Gotha Programme (written in 1875, but not published until
the 1890s) Marx took the German social democrats to task over their
formulation that “labour was the source of all wealth”.

"Labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of
use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labour,
which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labour
power."

In his earlier notes in preparation for the writing of Capital Marx underlines
just how the fundamental relationship in the capitalist mode of production
(capital-wage labour) is a process of breaking with nature and with the
human relationship to it.

"It is not the unity of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic
conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their
appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a
historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions
of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is
completely posited only in the relation of wage labour and capital." [16]

Even in Capital Volume 1 he was well aware of the destructive nature of

capitalist agriculture:

"…all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of

robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the
fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting
sources of that fertility."

As for Engels, his analysis of how capitalism was destroying the planet puts
him way ahead of his time. In his unfinished essay on The Role of Labour in
the Transition from Ape to Man (1876) he chides the arrogance of a humanity
that thinks its actions have no consequences for the future of the earth.

"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human

victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.
Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected,
but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects
which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia,
Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable
land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting
centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present
forlorn state of those countries." [17]

And he makes it quite clear that it is the capitalist pursuit of profit which is
the menace. This is not only destroying the environment but is doing so to
concentrate more and more power in the hands of those who control capital.

"Classical political economy, the social science of the bourgeoisie, in the main
examines only social effects of human actions in the fields of production and
exchange that are actually intended. This fully corresponds to the social
organisation of which it is the theoretical expression. As individual capitalists
are engaged in production and exchange for the sake of the immediate profit,
only the nearest, most immediate results must first be taken into account. As
long as the individual manufacturer or merchant sells a manufactured or
purchased commodity with the usual coveted profit, he is satisfied and does
not concern himself with what afterwards becomes of the commodity and its
purchasers. The same thing applies to the natural effects of the same actions.
What cared the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down forests on the
slopes of the mountains and obtained from the ashes sufficient fertiliser for
one generation of very highly profitable coffee trees — what cared they that
the heavy tropical rainfall afterwards washed away the unprotected upper
stratum of the soil, leaving behind only bare rock! In relation to nature, as to
society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only
about the immediate, the most tangible result; and then surprise is
expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn
out to be quite different, are mostly quite the opposite in character; that the
harmony of supply and demand is transformed into the very reverse
opposite, as shown by the course of each ten years’ industrial cycle — even
Germany has had a little preliminary experience of it in the “crash”; that
private ownership based on one’s own labour must of necessity develop into
the expropriation of the workers, while all wealth becomes more and more
concentrated in the hands of non-workers; that [... the manuscript breaks off
here.]"

Indeed the only thing that has changed is that the tendencies for the
enrichment and empowering of a capitalist minority over those who create
the world’s wealth, but who have it alienated from them, has increased
enormously. It would come as no surprise to Marx or Engels to learn that
today 26 individuals control as much wealth as half of the rest of humanity.
[18] It is an inevitable consequence of the concentration and centralisation of
capital which they pointed out was essential to the functioning of the system.
Marx explains this cogently in Chapter 25 of Capital Volume 1:

"But all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the same time
methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes
again a means for the development of those methods. It follows therefore
that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his
payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always
equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to the
extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital
more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It
establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of
capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time
accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental
degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces
its own product in the form of capital." [19]

This is, of course, reflected in political terms in the domination of those who
control this enormous wealth over both the means of production of ideas
(media) and the political process. Research by the Carbon Disclosure Project
shows that 71% of all greenhouse gas emissions can be put down to 100
firms or state bodies since 1988. [20] By far the biggest polluter is the
Chinese state through its coal companies (accounting for 14% of emissions)
and we should not forget that it has been China’s economy which has been
the backbone of world growth over the last three decades.

The Real Solution

There are numerous capitalist projects which claim to have a capitalist

solution to the pollution it creates. None of them have been effective. Kyoto
came up with the idea of climate credits in which firms which wanted to emit
1 tonne of carbon dioxide bought the carbon credit of another entity (say a
reforestation project). These carbon credits, the most frequently traded item
on the London Stock Exchange, seem to have enriched the financial sector in
the City of London without making the slightest impact on emissions. They
have been actually a rich source of carbon cheating in which firms exaggerate
what they have done to improve their “carbon footprint” whilst some sellers
of carbon credits have been utterly fraudulent but as few understand how this
dubious category is calculated the few cases that do reach court are thrown
out on technicalities. [21]

With many leading polluters, like the US and Canada, pulling out of Kyoto to
avoid the impact of carbon credits on their fossil fuel extractions their impact
has been at best minimal and certainly not enough to keep up with the
increased emissions since the policy was dreamed up. It is utterly utopian to
believe that a system that is based on increasing output and profits can also
produce something that will benefit humanity as a whole.

We can see this in the current Ebola outbreak in the Congo. After the first
wave of Ebola in West Africa the World Bank issued “pandemic bonds”.
Investors would buy these insurance-type bonds which were intended to pay
out whenever a virulent disease occurred. Over 1600 people have already
died in Congo and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared it an
“international emergency” so how have these bonds performed?

"One relatively small slice — the so-called “cash” element — has delivered
$31.4m to help with the crisis. But the larger “insurance” element of the
Ebola bonds is yet to pay out a penny, instead continuing to deliver a coupon
of 11.1 per cent over the Libor rate to investors." [22]

So whilst private investors hold onto their dividends the WHO has been
wringing its hands in “disappointment that some sources of funding has not
been forthcoming”, and the World Bank has been forced to give/loan $200
million to the Congolese Government to face the emergency.

The fact is that, in capitalist terms, to actually implement Green policies

would, as the old cliché has it, “cost the Earth”. In the past, Green Parties
around the world have been fairly insouciant about the impact of their policies
on the majority of the world’s population. Middle class Green Parties have
even joined with parties on the capitalist right (e.g. in Germany) to impose
austerity to which carbon taxes have been added thus only further
impoverishing the working class who pay disproportionally for them. The
yellow vests (gilets jaunes) movement in France was a revolt of people of
various classes in rural areas against just such taxes which, as we have
shown above, would not significantly solve the emissions problem.

Elements of the capitalist left have realised this and come up with a policy
which links a guaranteed job or income to the creation of new jobs in green
technology. This is the so-called Green New Deal, espoused by the likes of
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez etc. Some have criticised the Green New Deal as
simply “greenwashing capital” but, given its costs, it will not even do this
because it will never be implemented by a system that is already in crisis.

To actually carry out a real environmental policy which does not make the
working class worse off we must first undermine the very law that is the basis
of capitalism — the law of value. Capitalism does not produce things to satisfy
human needs. It produces “commodities”, things that can be sold. Indeed
capitalism’s whole history has been about inventing needs which it turns into
commodities. Some of this has sick consequences. Today more people have
access to mobile phones around the world than they have to flush toilets.
[23] If it can be monetised then it becomes a priority for the system, but if it
meets a basic need that is not monetised it can be neglected. This, and the
linked drive to increase profit, is the source of all waste production and
planned obsolescence of machinery and tools. The only solution is to rip the
heart out of the problem by abandoning the law of value. And this means
ushering in a moneyless system. This is at the heart of the capitalist system
which George Monbiot now recognises is the root of the climate problem.

The spontaneous applause for his anti-capitalist message from the studio
audience on the Frankie Boyle Show confirms what we have found when
distributing our broadsheet Aurora with the headline “Capitalism is the
Problem” in the climate change demos around the UK. It seems that “anti-
capitalism” is now in vogue. But what “anti-capitalism” are we talking about,
and how will it become a programme of action?

The climate crisis is not the only threat capitalism poses for humanity. The
consequences of the economic collapse of 2007-8 are still with us yet all the
indications are that the next collapse is not far away. In this context trade
wars and currency wars are just the forerunners of full-blown imperialist war
which could arise from any number of flash points from the Middle East to the
South China Sea. And the crises are becoming increasingly interlinked.
Climate change drove people into the cities to demonstrate for the fall of the
Assad regime in 2011 and climate change is driving the wars across the
Southern Sahara from Sudan to Burkina Faso today. Climate change is also
driving migrants to risk their lives in escaping failed and collapsing states in
Central America, Africa and the Middle East.

However, a new world will not come about simply through demonstrations,
civil disobedience or other actions trying to pressurise the rulers of the planet
to act against their own interests. It will only come about through the
destruction of the economic and social structures which support capitalist
society.

And this includes the capitalist state. For many, “anti-capitalism” means
simply placing the entire or even just parts of the existing economy in the
hands of the state. But this is the solution that failed under Stalinism and
Keynesianism. They do not do away with the fact that the surplus value
created by the working class is put at the disposal of an alien body. Socialism
will not simply be a different way of running an economy. It will also be a
society in which the participation of all will be essential to ensure that basic
needs are met first, that decisions which are taken do not harm any one
group, or that such decisions are not made by faceless politicians thousands
of miles away. Of course there will have to be some global coordination
agreed by delegates (not representatives!) from around the world because,
as the more visionary of the greens understand, saving the planet demands
some kind of world cooperation. Nevertheless, securing the well-being of all
starts in the actual communities we live in.

The only people to carry this out are the world working class. They are the
vast majority in the world and they produce the world’s wealth. Today they
are very far from uniting to oppose a system which has the potential to
liberate them but everywhere subjects them to exploitation in various kinds
of stressful conditions.

The world still has huge resources. It still can give a decent life to all but it
can only do this once its contradictory social relations have been overturned.
We have a long way to go and time is running out, but the task of
revolutionaries today is to unite their scattered forces around a clear
programme, to increase their size and effectiveness and to reach the wider
working class. It will not be easy against a powerful enemy which enjoys a
monopoly of power and privilege and it seems we have less time than we
once thought but there is no other viable alternative. We call on all those
revolutionaries to join us, at least initially in debate, to build a new
International around a programme which stands for

"A society where the free development of each will be the condition for the
free development of all. Such a society will differentiate itself from capitalist
in a myriad of ways, but the principal differences will be that it is a society
without state, without money, where the mass of humanity participate in the
planning and running of society. It will be a society without wage labour and
commodity production and without classes.

For the first time in human history it will be possible to collectively plan the
future of the human species. Humanity will have a common interest and will
be able to work towards achieving it. Working time will be reduced and the
mass of the population will be drawn into the running of that new society. All
will have a common interest in solving the ecological problems inherited from
capitalism. With the abolition of capitalist society, all its waste, its cruelty, its
wars, together with the “misery, agony of toil, ignorance, brutality and
mental degradation” it inflicts on the working class, will be ended. Communist
society will draw on the abilities of all and produce for the needs of all. It will
be able to balance these needs with sustainability. It will then be possible to
roll back and repair the dreadful damage capitalism has inflicted on the planet
in the few centuries during which it has been the dominant system of
production.

The choice facing the world on the environmental front, as on the social front,
is one of the ruin of civilisation or the construction of a communist world."
[24]

As George Monbiot concluded

"Our choice comes down to this. Do we stop life to allow capitalism to

continue, or stop capitalism to allow life to continue?"

Only the world working class can answer the question.

Jock

30 July 2019

Notes

[1] For our previous articles see leftcom.org , leftcom.org , leftcom.org and
many more plus the pamphlet Capitalism and the Environment by Mauro
Stefanini (£1 plus postage from our address).

[2] theguardian.com
[3] metro.co.uk

[4] And XR itself apparently has links to multinational capital. See

winteroak.org.uk

[5] The video is on several platforms including facebook.com

[6] theguardian.com

[7] Capital Volume One Chapter 24 (Penguin Classics, p.739) [8] marxists.org

[9] loc cit.

[10] marxists.org

[11] academic.shu.edu

[12] The Environmental History of Russia, Paul Josephson et al (Cambridge

2013)

[13] The German Ideology

[14] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts 1844

[15] op. cit.

[16] Grundrisse 1861

[17] marxists.org

[18] theguardian.com

[19] marxists.org

[20] sciencealert.com

[21] energylivenews.com

[22] ft.com

[23] forbes.com

[24] leftcom.org

Monday, August 12, 2019

The 1919 Platform of the Communist
International: A Milestone in Revolutionary
History

In March 2019 we commented on the 100th anniversary of the founding

Congress of the Third International (leftcom.org). This meeting took place as
the working class carried out a battle against capitalism on a scale not seen
before or since. [1] As that article notes, this initial conference was attended
by delegates who predominantly represented forces that were still in the
process of politically defining themselves while assimilating and developing
revolutionary praxis. Despite such limitations, the Congress adopted a
Platform that was, and remains, rich in sharp formulations regarding the
nature of the imperialist epoch and the potential for working class revolution.

A century ago a working class world revolution was a real possibility. 1919
also saw soviet republics established in Hungary, Slovakia and Bavaria whilst
intense class war raged not just in old Europe but across the planet. That
revolutionary wave eventually subsided and we have experienced counter-
revolution and the retreat of the working class since. However, the
contradictions of capitalism never go away. These reproduce crisis and class
struggle even if they are separated by long periods in which the class seems
almost absent from the fight. Today, the possibility of our class achieving its
revolutionary potential seems far less imminent than in 1919 but it still exists
as the one global antithesis to a mode of production that is dragging
humanity down the road to war and environmental catastrophe. If today’s
communists are to play a role in recovering our class’s consciousness as “a
class for itself” then reflecting on the 1919 Platform is no mere exercise in
historical nostalgia. It is a significant contribution to our ability to understand
and carry out our revolutionary responsibilities. This commentary is a
contribution to that task. It will focus both on the Platform itself, and on the
related discussion on the significance of that first conference.

The Presentation of the Platform

The Platform was drafted and presented by Nikolai Bukharin of the Russian
Communist Party (Bolshevik) and Max Albert [2], who, with his
Spartakusbund comrades was a founding member of the German Communist
Party. Both in the initial presentations, made on the second day of the
proceedings (3rd March 1919) and in the Platform itself, adopted on the fifth
day (6th March) there are a number of key themes that merit revisiting.

Significantly, between those two sessions the Congress had resolved that the
gathering would constitute the Founding Congress of the Third International.
This was a decision which had to be won in debate against the position of
Albert who argued that the meeting should only be considered as a
“preparatory conference”. This position was made clear at the start of Albert’s
presentation on the Platform.

KPD Indecisiveness

We have dealt more than once with the tardiness which marred
revolutionaries in Germany organising towards a clear political break with
Social Democracy and the Second International. That same hesitation is
clearly reflected in Albert’s opening comments, “... the German comrades [i.e.
the recently formed KPD] declared that we do not want to proceed to
founding the International just yet. Instead, want to hold a preparatory
conference ...”. [3]

Albert justified that approach with a number of intertwined arguments. To

avoid misrepresenting his approach we will use direct quotes. He started off
with a criticism of the Second International with which all the delegates would
have agreed. He referred to “the conferences, where resounding resolutions
were drawn up and plans were hatched for great actions”. He continued with
a concise description of the abject collapse that happened at the outbreak of
the First World War when

“... all those resolutions were ignominously abandoned and all the
international’s work was wrecked. All the resolutions were trampled
underfoot, and the actions taken were in direct contradiction to what had
been resolved”.

In response to that political collapse, Albert correctly asserted “That is why

workers are mistrustful”. To be more accurate, the most class conscious
workers were mistrustful of the social patriots but were enthusiastically
supportive of the possibility of proletarian revolution.

His observation about mistrust (and worse!) of the social patriots felt by
politically advanced layers of workers flowed into a different argument which
echoed the prevarication which had already been displayed by Spartakusbund
towards the SPD and USPD in Germany. Arguing for an indeterminate delay
to founding the International, Albert claimed support from an undefined set of
“workers”. Based on an assumed empathy with that group, Albert argued for
a delay in the raising of the banner of a new and revolutionary International.
His approach was that “we must first state what we want and what basis
there is for further struggle; then they [workers] will say whether they are
ready to found the new International and join it”.
 Albert also argued another reason why it was premature to found the
International. That argument is paraphrased in two paragraphs in our article
on the founding of the Comintern.

"Attendance was also unavoidably restricted to those who were able to be

present in Moscow while the wars waged by the White armies and their
imperialist backers still raged and the area controlled by the Soviets endured
a blockade imposed by the imperialist powers. This partly accounts for the
absence of delegates from areas where significant class struggles were taking
place such as Italy or Spain.

It is also indisputable that the selection of those attending the Conference

reflected the state of flux amongst revolutionaries. In many of the national
territories, both those present at the Congress and those that were not, the
process of organisational definition was far from complete. Many Communists
who supported the revolutionary wave were still organising as fractions and
tendencies within a range of organisations. For example, the US SLP
(Socialist Labor Party) that Reinstein was notionally delegated from would
split, with only part of its left wing joining the Third International. In contrast,
the two representatives from Switzerland represented different fractions.
Platten was listed as representing the opposition within the Swiss Social
Democratic Party while Leonie Kascher was delegated from the Swiss
Communist Group." [4]

Even if other delegates understood Albert’s objections, it was clear from the
debate that the meeting as a whole saw the declaration of the new
International as a necessary part of the existing situation of the sharpest
proletarian struggle in the history of capitalism. Here we turn to the
discussion leading to the decision to found the International.

Revolutionaries as the Vanguard of the Proletarian Revolution: Why

the International?

The decisive decision to overcome the KPD’s prevarications was taken the day
after the initial presentations of the platform. It resulted from a motion
moved by four delegates. Christian Rakovsky was a member of the Russian
Communist Party but was recognised as the delegate of the Balkan
Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation. J. Gruber moved on behalf of the
Communist Party of German Austria [5], Otto Grimlund on behalf of the Left
Social Democratic Party of Sweden, whilst the fourth delegate was Endre
Rudnyánszky of the Hungarian Communist Party.

The motion consisted of four short points:

1. The necessary struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat requires a

homogeneous and united international organisation of all Communist forces
that stand on this platform.
2. Founding it is all the more necessary because an attempt is now being
made in Bern, which may be repeated elsewhere in the future, to revive the
old, opportunist International and to bring together all the confused,
undecided forces among the proletariat. A sharp break is therefore required
between the revolutionary proletarian forces and the social traitors.
3. If the Conference meeting in Moscow were not to found the Third
International, the impression would arise that the Communist parties were
divided. That would weaken our position and increase the confusion in the
undecided forces among the proletariat of all countries.
4. Therefore, constituting the Third International is an absolute historical
necessity and the International Communist Conference meeting in Moscow
must make it a reality. [6]

Albert responded to the debate, putting forward and expanding the points
that he had made when presenting the Platform. To summarise his
objections, in the order they were made, Albert argued the following:

1. A shared understanding had been established around support for

councils/soviets as opposed to bourgeois democracy; however
2. The Communist forces were insufficiently organised or defined.
3. The reorganisation of the reformists at the Bern Conference would not
be stopped by the declaration in Moscow. Forces gravitating to the re-founded
Yellow International had acted according to their political positions and would
not be attracted to the Third International.
4. There was insufficient clarity about the basis for unity – “about each
party’s methods and goals”.
5. Communist Parties, in any meaningful sense, only existed in very few
areas. Elsewhere the process was at a much earlier stage which was reflected
in the nature of organisations represented at the Congress.
6. Many of the territories with a powerful proletariat were not even
represented at this initial meeting.

The debate that followed was one sided with all the other speakers arguing in
favour of the “historical necessity” of founding the International there and
then. In addition to the four signatories of the motion, other speakers
included Zinoviev for the Russian Communist Party, Angelica Balabanoff
representing the ongoing Zimmerwald Committee together with
representatives of Communist forces in Poland, France and Finland. The final
speaker was Joseph Fineberg, a member of the British Socialist Party who had
been granted credentials as the representative of the “British Communist
Group”.

The thrust of the arguments against Albert and the KPD was that further
delay was unwise and unnecessary given the material reality of the unfolding
revolutionary situation. It was also argued that the work of a preliminary
conference had started and had been continuing since the Zimmerwald
conference. Jukka Rahja, of the Finnish Communist Party made the point that
“Founding the Third International is also vital because it would have
tremendous importance now as the centre of the worldwide revolutionary
labour movement”. Rakovsky argued that “Failure to [found the International]
would arouse the suspicion in the rest of the world that the Communists
cannot agree among themselves”. Rudnyánszky put the need to found the
International precisely in the context of the living revolutionary process. he
expressed an understanding that,

"... the Third International ...has already existed for a long time. The
International was born in the struggle of the Russian proletariat against the
Russian bourgeoisie ...The German Communist proletariat has begun the
same kind of fight, and the revolutionary Communist proletariat of Hungary is
in the midst of one today..." [7]

At the end of the debate a vote was taken and the motion was carried
unanimously with the exception of five votes for abstention by the German
Party. The session ended with two short but significant developments. The
representatives of the Zimmerwald Left declared the dissolution of the
Zimmerwald Association, the structure bequeathed from the 1915
Conference. [8]

Albert made a short statement which gives a valuable example of the

workings of “democratic centralism” in a healthy organisation. Again, we
make no apologies for quoting it in full:

"Comrades, as requested by my party and in accord with my personal

convictions I have done my utmost to postpone the founding of the Third
International. It has now been founded nevertheless. I cannot conceal my
grave doubts and deep concerns that the International does not yet have the
strength and power we want it to have. But I assure you that when I return
to Germany I will do all in my power to convince my comrades to declare as
soon as possible that they too belong to the Third International." [9]

Essential Insights Plainly Expressed: Imperialism

Revolutionaries reading the Platform will discover a series of sharply written

formulations. This is no accident. They were developed at the height of the
class struggle. The circumstances provided fertile ground for those steeped in
Marxism to reflect on the material reality of that struggle and generate
shared understandings of lasting value.

Building on works such as Bukharin’s Imperialism and World Economy and

Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, the Platform
summarised imperialism’s essential dynamics. The Congress adopted the
analysis which highlighted the unbridgeable gulf between Communists and all
those who, then and now, spread reformist illusions about a fictional non-
predatory capitalism. The Platform adopted by the Congress took an
understanding of Imperialism as its starting point. It is worth quoting at some
length to show a rich and vital understanding expressed so accessibly.

"Capitalism sought to overcome its own anarchy by organising production.

mighty capitalist associations formed, such as syndicates, cartels, and trusts,
replacing the numerous, competing entrepreneurs. Bank capital merged with
industrial capital. The finance capitalist oligarchy came to dominate all of
economic life; _it used its organisation, based on this power, to achieve
exclusive supremacy. Monopoly took the place of free competition. Capitalists
in association replaced the individual capitalist; organisation replaced insane
anarchy._

However, the more that capitalist organisation replaces anarchy within each
country, the more acute become the contradictions, competition, and anarchy
in the world economy. The struggle among the largest, best-organised
predator nations led with iron necessity to the monstrous imperialist World
War. Greed for profits drove world capital to fight over new markets, new
spheres for capital investment, new sources of raw materials, and the cheap
labour power of colonial slaves." [10]

The Nature and Tasks of the Proletarian Revolution

While revolutionary “praxis” was developing as layers of the proletariat

struggled to build a new order, the Congress analysed and summarised the
unfolding process. Contemporary Communists are familiar with the tangled
web that “strivers after truth”, weave around the “Period of Transition” [PoT]
(some well-intentioned others not so.) The time spanning the process
between political power being snatched from the bourgeoisie and the future
situation where all the filth of class society will have been eliminated clearly
becomes more than a theoretical issue once there has been a successful
breach in capital’s political and economic power. For the Congress, seeing the
first moments of the process unfold allowed them to comment on both
specific aspects and also the underlying features.

Regarding the overall PoT, the formulation in the Platform is neat and precise.

"The proletarian state is an apparatus of repression like every other, but it is

wielded against the enemies of the working class. Its purpose is to break and
eliminate the resistance of the exploiters, who use every means in a
desperate struggle to drown the revolution in blood. The dictatorship of the
proletariat, which openly gives the working class the favoured position in
society, is at the same time a provisional institution. As the bourgeoisie’s
resistance is broken, and it is expropriated and gradually transformed into
part of the work force, the proletarian dictatorship wanes, the state withers
away, and with it, social classes themselves." [11]

In the Russian territory, and tragically briefly in other areas, such as Bavaria
and Hungary, that generation of Communists were confronting unprecedented
questions about production and distribution under the control of the Workers'
Councils (Soviets). Grappling with the complexities of the challenge the
Platform commented on both the generality and specifics.

“The proletarian dictatorship will be able to accomplish its economic task only
to the degree that the proletariat can establish centralised agencies to
administer production and introduce workers management. To that end it will
have to use the mass organisations that are most closely linked to the
production process." [12]

"In the sphere of distribution, the proletarian dictatorship must replace the
market with the equitable distribution of products. To accomplish this the
following measures are in order: socialisation of wholesale firms; takeover by
the proletariat of all distribution agencies of the bourgeois state and the
municipalities; supervision of the large consumer cooperatives, which will
continue to play a major economic role during the transitional period; and the
gradual centralisation of all these institutions and their transformation into a
single system distributing goods in a rational manner." [13]
In contrast to the distortions of both democratic and anarchist critics, the
Platform had workers’ self-activity at the centre of its vision. The section
including the two paragraphs immediately above concluded, “During this time
of great upheaval the council power will have to steadily centralise the entire
administrative apparatus, while also involving ever broader layers of the
working population in direct participation in government.” [our
emphasis] [14]

The Congress and its Platform was entirely unambiguous about the necessary
separation between the new revolutionary International and the remnants of
the Second Internationalist parties that had just met, as the Platform
described “... to unify their forces by founding the Yellow 'International' in
Bern, the better to serve Wilson’s League of Nations.”

The Platform clearly differentiated the new International from all the strands
in the Second Internationalist framework.

"... it will not be enough to split with the outright lackeys of capital and the
hangmen of the communist revolution, the role played by the right wing
Social-Democrats. It is also necessary to break with the centre (the
Kautskyites), who abandon the proletariat in its hour of greatest need and
flirt with its sworn enemies."

The Platform also recognised that new forces were being attracted to the
Communist programme from beyond the former Second International. For
example, in the USA we have already commented that a fraction of the
Socialist Labour Party would join the Third International. Prominent IWWer
Bill Haywood also solidarised with the revolutionary wave but sadly moved to
Russia in 1921 when the first signs of counter-revolution were already visible.
Similarly in many European countries including Germany, Netherlands and
Britain various organisations and fractions from beyond the main Second
Internationalist background worked towards founding Communist Parties in
their national territories. [15]

Reflecting such developments, in the section headed “The Road to Victory”,

the Platform noted that,

"a bloc is needed with the forces in the revolutionary workers’ movement
who, although not previously part of the Socialist party, now for the most
part support the proletarian dictatorship in the form of council power. Certain
forces in the syndicalist movement are an example of this." [16]

The final declaration of the Platform resounds with the revolutionary optimism
that ran throughout the Congress as the proletarian movement directly
struggled for power in Bavaria and Hungary as well as Russia. The comrades
at the Congress declared the Communist vision for a future world in a form
that is a total negation of the counter-revolutionary slogans around “socialism
in one country”. The Platform’s closing proclamation epitomises the
Communist vision “Long live the international republic of proletarian
councils!” [17]

Questions Unanswered
It was inevitable that, given the circumstances of the Congress, including the
weaknesses highlighted by Albert, not all issues could be fully analysed or a
communist approach to this new epoch of capitalism could be worked out.
There are at least three examples where clarity was not achieved. These were
around the Communist approach to the national question, the role of trade
unions and what the Platform referred to as “revolutionary utilisation of
bourgeois parliament”. On that last point it is useful to quote the relevant
section of the Platform.

"The revolutionary epoch requires the proletariat to use methods of struggle

that bring all of its strength to bear. That means mass action and its logical
consequence, direct confrontations with the bourgeois state machinery in
open battle. All other methods, such as revolutionary utilisation of bourgeois
parliament, must be subordinated to this goal." [our emphasis] [18]

In all cases, these issues were to return at later congresses of the

International. This would be either at the Second Congress in 1920 [19],
where the Communist forces had achieved better organisation and political
definition, or at later Congresses which were increasingly politically derailed
as the counter-revolution strengthened its grip.

The 1919 Platform: Understanding our Legacy

The platform was approved by the Congress at a session on the fifth and final
day, 6th March 1919. A century later the Platform’s concise description of the
continuing historic phase remains an accurate summary. As the struggle
between the two great classes within capitalism raged across the globe the
Congress understood that “A new epoch is born: The epoch of capitalism’s
decay, its internal disintegration; the epoch of the proletarian, communist
revolution.” [20]

With the benefit of hindsight we know that, despite its vigour and
commitment from many millions of workers, the revolutionary wave would be
defeated and the capitalist class would reassert its worldwide power. The
whole of humanity has paid a massive price as the depravities of the
imperialist order now clearly offer not only wars and preventable disasters but
the real prospect of the total collapse of human society or even the complete
destruction of the conditions for humanity’s survival. The intensity of the
crisis that capitalism has imposed has sharpened exponentially since the
revolutionary minority met in 1919. Nevertheless, their declaration is still a
fully appropriate appeal for those who want to work with us to help build the
next International – an essential tool in the proletariat’s unavoidable struggle
for a sustainable future. [21] As the Congress proclaimed:

"... humanity itself faces the danger of complete destruction. Only one force
can save it, and that is the proletariat... The end result of the capitalist mode
of production is chaos, which only the largest productive class, the working
class, can overcome. This class must establish a real order, the communist
order. It must break the domination of capital, make wars impossible,
destroy all national borders, transform the whole world into a community that
produces for itself, and make the brotherhood [22] and liberation of the
peoples a reality." [23]
KT

Notes

[1] References to the Platform and the Congress proceedings are from
Founding The Communist International: Proceedings and Documents of the
First Congress: March 1919 (Anchor Foundation, 1987). The abbreviation
FTCI has been used in references in the text.

[2] Max Albert was the party name used by Hugo Eberlein during the
Congress.

[3] FTCI p. 113 All subsequent quotes in this section are taken from p.113 or
p. 114

[4] leftcom.org.

[5] Gruber was the party name used by Karl Steinhardt. German Austria was
a shortlived geo-political entity following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire during the revolutionary wave. It roughly equates to contemporary
Austria.

[6] FTCI, p.167

[7] All quotes in this paragraph from FTCI, pp. 176-7

[8] For more on the Zimmerwald Left see leftcom.org

[9] FTCI, pp. 181-2

[10] FTCI, pp. 241-2

[11] FTCI, pp. 243-4

[12] The reference to mass organisations appears to flow from the conditions
at that time in Russia. The comment apparently links to the approach to the
trade unions, which we refer to in the next section on “Questions
Unanswered”. It might also refer to local peasants’ organisations.

[13] FTCI, p. 246

[14] This and the following two quotes come from FTCI, p. 247

[15] In Britain the Socialist Labour Party and the Workers’ Socialist
Federation were two significant contributors. In Germany the International
Socialists who had formed from various groups that had split from Social
Democracy before the war had joined with the Spartakusbund to form the
German Communist Party and in Holland the Tribune group of Gorter and
Wijnkoop set up the SDP which later formed the main part of the Communist
Party of the Netherlands.
[16] FTCI, p. 247

[17] FTCI, p. 248

[18] FTCI, p. 247

[19] The Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT) will publish reflections

on the Second Congress during the centenary year, 2020.

[20] FTCI, p. 242

[21] For our vision of how this can be carried out see On the Future
International at leftcom.org

[22] The use of the word “brotherhood” at this point is part of the
terminology which also involved the customary use of “man or man-kind” for
“humanity” in the language used at the Congress. That use of language
inherited from capitalism should not over-shadow the work carried out by
prominent early Communists such as Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai to
support the twin tasks of involving masses of proletarian women in the new
Communist movement and also ensuring that the needs of women were
central to the agenda of revolution. A brief summary of that struggle is
reflected in the Congress’s Resolution, moved by Kollontai, on the Need to
Draw Women Workers into the Struggle for Socialism (FTCI, p. 250).

[23] FTCI, p. 242

Argentina: Election
primaries defeat for
President Macri and the
effects across Latin
America
ARGENTINA
19 AUGUST 2019
Celso Calfullan, Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI Chile)


The decisive defeat of President Mauricio Macri in election primaries
(PASO) in Argentina, something that virtually nobody anticipated, was a
massive blow against the ruling elite. The right-wing neo-liberal, Macri,
representing “Cambiemos”, was defeated by his Peronist rival, Alberto
Fernandez standing for the Frente de Todo coalition.

Fernandez took 48% of the vote – 15.5% ahead of Macri. The pollsters
once more made one huge blunder. None of them anticipated the
debacle which ‘Macrismo’ has suffered. Both candidates will now face
each other in elections in October.

Alberto Fernandez and his vice-Presidential candidate, the former

President, Cristina Kirchner, gave a harsh poll beating to President
Mauricio Macri, the most right-wing and retrogressive of the candidates
in the country.

The background to what has happened in the country explains why this
resounding defeat has taken place. Macri promised to reduce inflation
and poverty to zero. Nothing could be further from the reality. Both
have increased under his government. The images of the Argentine
poor, lined up row by row, in the streets to receive food, are the best
example of this.

In the year 2018, alone, the Argentine peso has lost more than the half
its value against the dollar. Inflation has shot up, to one of the highest in
the world at 47.6 %.

This has been an enormous increase in poverty. Two million seven

hundred thousand people fell below the poverty line in one year. This
means that one third of the country today is poor. The majority of
Argentineans today run out of money before the end of the month when
they receive their salary.

The government of Macri has mortgaged the future of Argentina with

the IMF for several decades. It is only necessary to declare the non-
payment of this illegitimate debt for a future government to gain some
space for maneuver in the budget.

All this point to a likely defeat for Macri in the general elections, to be
held in October. Macri and his coalition of right-wing will have to leave
the government or spend two long months to pray for a miracle to
improve the economic situation, as the Chilean Minister of Finance has
asked for.

Inevitable effects in Latin America

The defeat suffered by Macri is a defeat of the policies of the IMF and
one of the main lackeys of Trump in Latin America.
This result is the beginning of the throwing out the hackneyed idea that
the triumph of Macri, Piñera and Bolsonaro were a strong and stable
"turn to the right” on the continent.

The defeat of Macri has added the enormous problems that already
confront the government of Piñera and Bolsonaro in Chile and Brazil.
Macri was one reference point for President Piñera in Chile.

It is clear that the defeat of Macri clearly represents one defeat for the
right but not only in Argentina, but on the continent.

To understand this, just look at the hysterical reaction of Jair Bolsonaro,

in Brazil, following Marci’s defeat. The Brazilian minister of economy,
Paulo Guedes, threatened to pull out of Mercosur as a consequence of
this result. This reaction is understood to be linked to the fact that
Argentina represents the third largest trade.

On the other hand, we cannot also forget that Macri, Piñera and
Bolsonaro arrived in government with strong opposition the
government in Venezuela. They all argued that if people did not vote for
them then a Venezuelan-style crisis lay in store. Yet all of these right-
wing governments today are in crisis and bankruptcy. This is without a
boycott such as the United States and its satellites in Europe have
imposed on Venezuela.

We are seeing the beginning of the decline of the triumphalist air of the
right-wing in Latin America and they are now beginning to panic
throughout the continent.

The working class rallied to vote against the Macri government, as a

result of the mass poverty that it has imposed on the people. In this
situation, the Trotskyist alliance, FIT, vote fell from previous results
despite the social situation. However the seven hundred thousand votes
for socialist and anti- capitalist ideas illustrate the resolute will of a
significant layer of workers to struggle to defend the interests of the
working class.
What is next for Argentina is being repeated in the rest of the continent.
The workers in Argentina are rejecting the government of Macri and his
“adjustment” anti –worker policies. Future governments will continue
with these attacks on the working class. Fernandez has campaigned on a
radical populist basis but without advocating a break with capitalism
and socialist policies.

Fernandez and Kirchner, remaining within the confines of capitalism,

will undoubtedly mean attacks on the working class; even should their
government initially adopt some limited radical measures, as was seen
under previous Kirchner governments.

The Argentinean working class will need to prepare for future struggles
and build a mass party that represents their interests. This means
adopting a revolutionary socialist programme to break with capitalism,
linking up with the working class throughout Latin America.

Northern Ireland, August

'69: 'Battle of the Bogside'
and British troops on the
streets
IRELAND REPUBLIC
14 AUGUST 2019
Niall Mulholland, Committee for a Workers' International

Fifty years ago this month, troops were deployed on the streets of Derry
and Belfast by the British Labour government of Prime Minister Harold
Wilson.The capitalist establishment described it at the time as a
temporary measure to stop widespread riots and pogroms. Yet troops
would patrol the streets of Northern Ireland for the next 28 years.
Establishment commentators will mark the half-century by wringing
their hands over the impossible situation facing the army trying to keep
apart two 'warring tribes' - the Catholic pro-Irish unity nationalists and
republicans, and the Protestant pro-UK unionists and loyalists. But the
road to August 1969 shows that the possibility existed of successful
united working-class struggle.

Following the bloody partition of Ireland by British imperialism in the

early 1920s - carried out primarily to cut across national and social
revolutionary movements - the minority Catholics in the new Northern
Ireland state found themselves second-class citizens. They suffered
systematic discrimination in jobs and housing, the repressive 'Special
Power Act', and were partly disenfranchised by Unionist
gerrymandering of electoral constituencies.

By the late 1960s, Catholics were no longer prepared to accept the half-
century of Unionist misrule. The youth were inspired by the black civil
rights struggles in the United States, as well as the global anti-Vietnam
War movement and revolutionary events in France in May 1968. At
first, a few hundred took to the streets of Northern Ireland, demanding
an end to discrimination, and jobs and housing for all.

In Derry, on 5 October 1968, a protest - mainly made up of left-wing

organisations, including the Derry Labour Party, and its youth wing, the
Derry Young Socialists - ignored a Stormont government ban on
demonstrations. It was brutally attacked by the Royal Ulster
Constabulary (RUC).

The baton-wielding police were caught by TV cameras, igniting fury

among Catholics across the North. Overnight, the civil rights struggle
became a mass movement.

Left and socialist ideas were strong in the Derry Labour Party and
Young Socialists. They not only opposed Unionist misrule, but also the
conservative Nationalist Party that had failed to win any meaningful
reforms for mistreated Catholics.

The Derry Labour Party and Young Socialists recognised that while
Catholics suffered from institutionalised discrimination, the Protestant
working class also faced widespread poverty and joblessness, and also
suffered from the extreme shortage of public housing.

In the months leading up to August 1968, the labour and trade union
movement had the opportunity to lead the civil rights struggle on a clear
class basis, uniting Catholic and Protestant workers. But the timid,
conservative leadership - including that of the Northern Ireland Labour
Party, which attracted Protestants and Catholics - stood aside from the
gathering maelstrom of mass protests and riots.

They merely called for calm and welcomed the too little, too late
'reforms' by the rotten Unionist government. This handed the initiative
to middle-class nationalist forces in the civil rights movement, who
opposed socialist and working-class ideas and slogans.

Allowing the civil rights struggle to be cast largely in terms of rights only
for Catholics was a boon for bigoted demagogues like Ian Paisley.
Diehard loyalists would always oppose the granting of any civil rights,
but Paisley and his cohorts were given room to whip up wider sectarian
hatreds by depicting the civil rights movement as against the interests of
Protestants.

The potential for developing the left wing within the civil rights
movement was exemplified by the courageous figure of the young
Bernadette Devlin. She defeated a Unionist in 1969 to win the Mid
Ulster Westminster MP seat.

Her People's Democracy party, formed by left-wing students at Queens

University Belfast, attracted thousands of young Catholics including
working-class youth, and a layer of middle-class Protestant students.

However, many of the left civil rights leaders were beset with ultra-left
and confused ideas. They tended to adapt to rival leaders' policies and
vacillate under pressure, rather than consistently put forward a clear
class position and tactics.

Some agitated for the capitalist-dominated UN to send 'peace forces' to

the North. But like the British Army, UN troops would primarily be
there to protect big business, private property and capitalist law and
order.

Supporters and future supporters of Militant - the then name for

Committee for a Workers' International groups in Ireland and Britain -
played an important role in the Derry Young Socialists, but our forces
were too small to influence events.

A recently declassified police file, published in the Derry Journal of 2

July 2019, shows the RUC was quite accurate in its assessment of the
political balance of forces in the civil rights movement.
British forces remained for decades, photo Jeanne Boleyn (Click to
enlarge)

In a 4 July 1969 intelligence memo requested by Northern Ireland's

home affairs minister, Robert Porter, RUC county inspector David
Johnston surmised that three elements vied for control of the
movement: "the Nationalists; the Derry moderates of the Action
Committee; and the People's Democracy Trotskyites."

Notably, Johnston found "Betty Sinclair & Co" - Sinclair was a leading
member of the reformist Communist Party of Northern Ireland - a
"reckonable force."

Although the IRA hardly existed at the time, following the failure of its
armed 'border campaign' in the 1950s, Johnston added that the "official
Republican Movement... IRA, Sinn Féin and the Republican Clubs,"
were playing an "active role."

Albeit disparaging, the RUC officer showed the class potential of the
civil rights' struggle: "In composition the Movement was and is Catholic,
but in the beginning a Protestant sprinkling of idealists and do-gooders
presented a broader facade. This has now largely been shed, however,
apart from an element of radical Socialists and Communists.

"At grass roots the Movement has now crystallised into the familiar
'green' composed of Republicans and Nationalists, but still, as I have
said, containing a vociferous minority grouping of Trotskyites or
Revolutionary Socialists."

As 1969 wore on, especially in the lead-up to the Protestant Orange

'marching season', a backlash against the civil rights struggle led to
sectarian tensions. The prospect of the annual 15,000-strong Protestant
'Apprentice Boys' parade marching past the Catholic Bogside in Derry
raised the spectre of a pogrom and sectarian fighting spreading across
the North.

In Derry, a citizens' defence committee was established. In areas of

Belfast, local 'vigilante' and 'defence' groups sprung up, often involving
both Catholics and Protestants in 'mixed areas' aiming to keep bigots
out of their communities.
The right-wing trade union and labour leaders failed to capitalise on
these grassroots initiatives. They made no effort to bring together
genuine defence groups with organised labour, community groups and
tenants' associations into a powerful anti-sectarian force.

On 12 August, Derry Labour Party and Young Socialists attempted to

restrain Bogside youth, but inevitably stones were thrown at Apprentice
Boys marchers. Fighting ensued, and the RUC launched a full-scale
attack against the Bogside.

What became known as the "Battle of the Bogside" was a two-day

uprising by the working class and youth of the area. They erected
barricades and rained down a hail of stones and petrol bombs on the
RUC's repeated attempts to invade. Catholics in other parts of the North
took to the streets to stretch the police.

Under pressure from mass anger in the South, the taoiseach (Irish
prime minister), Jack Lynch, said his government would not "stand idly
by." Irish military field hospitals were to be set up across the border
from Derry in Donegal. Although a token act, this was enough to enrage
Protestant feelings in the North.

With the ill-trained and ill-equipped RUC facing defeat, the Unionist
Northern Ireland government called up the notorious B-Specials, an
armed, bigoted Protestant police reserve. This posed the prospect of a
bloodbath in the Bogside leading to civil war.

Britain's Wilson government decided to act to stop this possibility,

deploying troops onto the streets of Derry. Given the historic crimes
visited upon Ireland by British imperialist rule, it is clear this was not
done on humanitarian grounds.

Civil war would have destroyed trade, private property and the economy
in Ireland - and with it, bosses' profits. Conflict would have spread to
British cities with sizeable Irish populations. Anger among the large
Irish-American population would have led to demands for a damaging
economic boycott of Britain.

As it became clear that troops were not going to invade the Bogside, a
temporary uneasy calm descended on Derry. In Belfast it was a different
matter, with fierce sectarian rioting erupting.

The RUC fired machine gun rounds indiscriminately in the Catholic

Falls Road. Seven people were killed in the fighting and over 700
injured. Entire streets were burnt out and residents forced to flee their
homes. British troops were also then stationed in Belfast.

Many civil rights leaders welcomed the deployment of troops. Many on

the Left, in Ireland and Britain, gave way partially or fully to the mood
of support for the army's presence. In contrast, Militant gave a clear
class position and took a principled stand.

The headline of the September issue of the monthly Militant newspaper

demanded the withdrawal of the troops. Militant warned: "The call
made for the entry of the British troops will turn to vinegar in the
mouths of some of the civil rights leaders. The troops have been sent to
impose a solution in the interests of British and Ulster big business."

It was not the army but the actions of working-class people taking to the
streets across the North that stemmed conflict and stopped a descent
into full-scale civil war. Shop stewards in the large factories and
workplaces followed the lead of shipyard shop stewards, who called a
mass meeting which voted for a brief strike opposing conflict. In this
context, Militant advocated armed trade union-based defence forces.

Rather than support these initiatives and coordinate them, the labour
and trade union leaders applauded the Unionist regime's measly
reforms and called for the street barricades to be taken down. This
abdication of leadership helped provide space for other emerging forces.

The Provisional IRA ('Provos') split from the Official IRA a few months
later, citing the failure of the leadership to offer any widespread defence
of Catholic areas in August. Loyalist paramilitary organisations like the
UDA and UVF soon set about their murderous sectarian campaigns.

The failure of Northern Ireland Labour Party leaders to offer a socialist

alternative, instead taking a one-sided, pro-Unionist position, saw the
effective demise of that party in the 1970s. New sectarian-based parties
came to prominence.

A British army curfew of the Lower Falls in the summer of 1970 marked
the end of any lingering Catholic honeymoon with the troops. Many on
the Left who previously supported British troops being deployed became
cheerleaders for the Provos' armed campaign.

From the start, Militant warned that the Provos' divisive campaign of
individual terror, based on a minority within a minority of the
population, would alienate Protestant workers, deepen sectarian
divisions, and fail to achieve republican aims.
August 1969 was a serious setback for the working class. Half a century
on, the 'peace process' sees society still divided along sectarian lines,
and the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly suspended for over
two years. Brexit, the 'backstop', and a possible future 'border poll', all
indicate how overcoming sectarian divisions remains insoluble under
capitalism.

As in 1969, only by building a mass party of the working class with

socialist policies can workers defeat the Green and Orange bosses,
overcome sectarianism, and lead the fight for a socialist transformation
of society.

Hong Kong: Conflict

heightens
HONG KONG
11 AUGUST 2019
Clare Doyle, CWI

The mass movement in Hong Kong against the local stooges of the
Beijing regime appears to be an unstoppable force coming up against an
immovable object. Over the past nine weeks, around 600 people have
been arrested, over forty of them on charges of riot that can carry a ten
year prison sentence.

On Saturday (10 August) more rallies took place across the city and
battles with police continued into the night. The occupation of Hong
Kong international airport's arrivals hall by thousands of protesters was
going into its third day. The Chinese government has demanded that
Cathay Pacitic suspends any workers and pilots who have been involved
in taking protest action.

On Sunday (11 August) a massive crowd sat under umbrellas at a

sanctioned rally in Victoria Park. Two protests went ahead in the city’s
working class district of Sham Shui Po in Kowloon and at North Point,
Hong Kong Island, in spite of the authorities refusing permission.
Protests and clashes with police across 'Asia's financial hub' are now an
accepted part of life. But tension mounts by the day, rather than
decreasing.

The original demands of the protesters were for the scrapping of a draft
law allowing extradition to China for imprisonment and trial. Now, after
more than two months, the demands have multiplied and an
independent inquiry is being demanded. Other demands include far-
reaching reforms to the constitution which they hope will establish a
more democratic system establishing universal suffrage for elections to
the local authority (LegCo), without special reserved seats for
appointees etc..

Troops at the border

As July came to an end, there had been no easing of the confrontation. A

senior Trump official said the United States was monitoring an apparent
build-up of Chinese forces on the border. A press conference was held
by the office in Beijing that deals with Macau and Hong Kong for the
first time since the 1997 handover from British rule. A spokesman, Yang
Guang, talked of a “dangerous situation” in which “violent crimes have
not been effectively stopped”. On August 7th, the same office’s No. 1,
Zhang Xiaoming, spoke of the 60 day crisis “getting worse and
worse”…“Hong Kong is now facing the most severe situation since its
handover”.

The People’s Liberation Army has 6,000 personnel garrisoned in Hong

Kong and their commander, Major General Chen Daoxiang, has voiced
full support for what the Hong Kong police are doing. He has released a
video showing the PLA inside China carrying out training ‘exercises’ on
how to ‘quell’ violent protests or uprisings. Chen says it is the US and
Taiwan who are orchestrating violent demonstrations.

But some of the more far-sighted (and fearful) representatives of Hong

Kong’s capitalist elite , such as Charles Li at the head of Hong Kong’s
stock exchange, are firmly against PLA intervention. After two months
of mass protests, they fear an escalation of the movement that could
endanger their relatively comfortable position operating between “two
systems”. An unpredictable situation is definitely bad for business!

How the conflict has developed

For more than nine weeks now, there have been mass protests - at week-
ends, after work and increasingly during the day - which have involved
more than two million people or over a quarter of Hong Kong’s
population. A pattern has developed. Brutal police action and
intransigence from the authorities engender yet more protests.

Sunday 21 July saw a shocking assault on commuters in Yuen Long,

near Hong Kong’s border, by white-clad triad goons with open police
collusion. The following Saturday – 27 July – no less than 300,000
protesters and residents defied a police ban to march in that area to
show solidarity with the local people who had come under attack. They
remained for several hours in the area, throwing teargas canisters back
at the police and shielding themselves with large pieces of wood and
surfboards.

Elsewhere, all kinds of objects have been used as defensive ‘weapons’

against the forces of the state - eggs, umbrellas and broken crowd
control barriers - to frustrate the efforts of the police. The police have
fired on demonstrators with pepper spray, rubber bullets and tear gas
and used rifles that some believe fire live ammunition while police claim
they use only sponges and bean bags!

On the night of Thursday, 2 August, police raided a building in Sha Tin

in Hong Kong’s New Territories which housed demonstrators’ protective
gear and what were described as “offensive weapons”. Eight people were
arrested, including Andy Chan, founder of the banned Hong Kong
National Party. Immediately, dozens of protesters appeared at the local
police stations, surrounding them and shouting through the night, “Free
the martyrs!”.

On the evening of Sunday, 4th August, demonstrators appeared and

disappeared in seven different districts of Hong Kong in what have been
described as “flash mob” demonstrations. This was a new tactic to divert
protests away from where most of the police were gathered to protect
the Chinese Liaison Office that had been the target of previous occasions
by demonstrators. On the same evening, Hong Kong’s cross-harbour
tunnel was blocked and a police station in Kwun Tong was targeted with
laser beams (and rocks!).

Workers

Last week, the movement reached a new level, with the organised
participation of workers in a series of different strikes or 'stay-aways'
culminating in a one-day city-wide stoppage on Monday, 5 August.

It is not clear how far the trade unions in Hong Kong have been involved
in this development. The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions
claims over 60 affiliated branches and is described as ‘pro-democracy’
but it seems to have failed to use the reserved seats it has on the
legislative body, LegCo, to shout about injustices either at work or in
society. The pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions would
obviously not encourage participation in the present angry movement
against direct rule from China!

Nevertheless, a whole array of Hong Kong’s working population has

‘downed tools’ on different days of the week. It appears like a roll call of
different sections of workers all wanting their voice added to the
protests. On Friday of last week (2 August), tens of thousands of civil
servants defied a general ban on ‘industrial action’ and a government
order to remain “totally loyal” to the regime of Chief Minister, Carrie
Lam (who had again been missing from public view, this time for two
weeks).

The Monday general strike saw workers from many different walks of
life taking industrial action - striking or phoning in 'sick' for the day.
Bank employees, advertising workers, building workers and shop-
workers all participated. “I’ve never seen protests on this scale, nor
people so angry at the government,” said a theatre administrator.

One of the leading 'pro-democracy' activists, Joshua Wong, commented

to reporters: “In the past it was assumed that Hong Kong people were
economic animals, but this (strike) proves people can choose not to go
to work…We are willing to pay the price, whatever it takes”.

Carrie Lam, who had been attending PLA celebrations in Beijing, came
out to address a press conference, echoing the words of her bosses in
Beijing that the protests 'threatened China’s sovereignty' and had to
stop!

Two days later hundreds of lawyers dressed in their black work-clothes

came onto the streets, protesting in silence, angry at the political nature
of the prosecutions being doled out to protesters. They were demanding
that Hong Kong’s Legco government safeguards the independence (at
least from Beijing) of the justice department.

Confrontation

Anger has been fuelled by the apparent collusion of Hong Kong police
amongst the 'Blue Ribbon Volunteers' with the white-shirted triad gang
members when they viciously attacked the commuters in Yuen Long.
Carrie Lam has refused to categorise what happened there as a 'riot'
because that would mean that those who caused it (friends, if not
members of state forces) could carry a ten year prison sentence.
Similarly, the earlier vicious crackdown in Sha Tin New Town Plaza on
Sunday 14th, in which serious injuries were inflicted on the public, sees
no prosecutions against the state forces. Police officers aimed guns at
crowds who gathered on a protest outside Kwai Chung police station.
Tear gas and rubber bullets fired at demonstrators have caused serious
injuries and hospitalisations.

In the present atmosphere, the death of a democracy fighter would

almost certainly leas to a real explosion of anger. The need for a more
organised approach to strikes and demonstrations would be keenly felt.
Only after nine weeks has there been a ‘citizens’ press conference’ with
masked protesters “bringing the people’s unheard voice to the public”.
They angrily condemned the empty rhetoric of the Hong Kong
government, but offered no perspective or programme for taking the
movement forward.

A party that can express the feelings of the demonstrators in a worked-

out programme for an alternative to capitalism and oppression - in the
whole of China - is woefully absent. Some news of ‘riots’ in Hong Kong
has been filtered through the censors into the media in China. The
appetite of workers and young people for more news will be whetted.
The voice of rebellion will grow and the tasks of socialists will grow
greater.

Cross-community movement

“Revolution of our time!” is being chanted by demonstrators outside

court-rooms in Hong Kong when protesters are on trial. They also shout
“Liberate Hong Kong!”. What kind of revolution do they want?
Liberation from the iron grip of the Chinese regime but for a society
dominated by the banks and big business? Some may have illusions in
the period of British colonial rule but these are false because, as the
Chinese regime hypocritically points out, there was never any
democratic regime during the colonial period.

The present movement spans all kinds of political outlooks and involves
people from all walks of life. Among those arrested have been an
electrician, a teacher, a Cathay Pacific pilot, a nurse, two gym owners, a
chef, a building worker and several teenage students, one as young as
13.

Some of the most determined fighters are the youth – without decent
education or job opportunities, without a place to live independently
and without adequate social and welfare provision. For them, this is
more than resistance against dictatorial rule. They are fighting for a
future that will be provided neither by billionaire bosses and
multinationals in Hong Kong nor by massive privately owned or elite
run state banks and industries in China, under the rule of the so-called
“Communist” party.

China and socialism

The regime of Xi Jin-peng occasionally pays lip-service to the idea of

socialism in theory, discrediting it in practice - establishing a type of
state capitalism with not even basic democratic rights. Over decades,
since the 1949 end of capitalist and imperialist rule, different cliques at
the top of society have exploited the labour of hundreds of millions of
workers - in the fields, in the sweatshops, in vast modern factories, on
building sites, in banks and government offices as well as in the hard-
pressed public service sector at national and local level. Mao Zedong’s
original approach of copying Stalin’s autocratic and bureaucratic
planning of state-owned ‘enterprises’ has, over the years, given way to
the setting of capitalist style profit targets and schemes enriching
'leading' members of the 'Communist' Party, some of whom now rank
amongst the richest billionaires in the world.

Resistance to the demands of the bosses in China is sometimes

expressed through the state-sponsored union federation, but more often
than not invites vicious repression. Sometimes successful resistance -
even strikes - can be organised clandestinely and ingeniously through
social media. This is in spite of, and in defiance of, very heavy
censorship and laws that forbid action in opposition to the state or
private bosses. Just verbal criticism of the authorities voiced on social
media can end in arrest and imprisonment.

Numerous incidents of 'unrest' are reported each year. Anger and

resentment is bound to grow with every new clamp-down by the state.

On top of this internal situation, the increasingly turbulent international

relations and shaky world economy mean that news of the tremendous
resistance in Hong Kong to the dictates of Beijing is extremely
dangerous for the Chinese regime. Because of the stored up
resentments, it can spread like wildfire and lead to an explosion of pent-
up anger across what is the biggest nation in the world.

A lot is at stake for the Chinese regime. More troops could be moved up
to the border, ready for deployment in what would become the most
violent and bloody clampdown on protest since Tiananmen Square 30
years ago.
Perspective

Many (including US President Trump) rule out the likelihood of such a

direct intervention. Wei Wei, the dissident Chinese artist, has pointed to
the unwillingness (and incapacity) of a Johnson government to put up a
fight.

If PLA troops went in, it would be vital to make clear class appeals for
solidarity to the drivers of the tanks - the workers or peasants in
uniform. This is what happened when tanks were first sent in by the
Stalinist-led Soviet Union against the revolution in Hungary in 1956.
But this begs the question of the working class becoming the leading
force in the struggle, electing leaders and linking up with
neighbourhood representatives and the most combative youth.

One commentator has described the situation in Hong Kong as a

“Political crisis that has deepened as the authorities have tried to
repress it”. The duration and impact of the movement is impressive.
However, a long, drawn-out battle without a clear programme and
perspective for the struggle can result in the exhaustion of the forces
involved. What is needed now is a clear strategy with tactics and aims
that go beyond the immediate demands for democracy.

The longer the struggle goes on, the more urgent becomes the need to
organise the defence of protesters and of residential neighbourhoods
against police and other state forces. Urgent also is the task of
organising and coordinating further strike action. The leaders of the
unions must be put under pressure to prepare and organise general
strike action to paralyse the territory. Workplace assemblies and votes
on policy and action are needed, regardless of the wishes of the
compliant union leaderships if they resist.

The ruling layer even within Hong Kong is weak and divided on how to
proceed. Over the past nine weeks splits have developed in the ruling
layer on how to proceed. There have been reports of “disaffection”
within the police and a certain degree of fraternisation or, at least,
passivity. Sections of the middle class and youth, and now the working
class have shown a tremendous will to fight without even having a clear
end in sight. They know what they don’t want, but not what they want.

It is the task of socialists to channel these unconscious strivings into a

struggle against the very class nature of society – in Hong Kong and in
China as a whole.
he Peterloo Massacre 1819: When a fearful
ruling class tried to crush working-class
political aspirations

The Peterloo massacre, photo (public domain) (Click to enlarge)

Kevin Parslow
Friday 16 August will mark the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre, perhaps the
most significant atrocity carried out by the British authorities against their own
people.
Thousands of words will be published which will talk about the lack of democratic
rights as the motivating factor for the 60,000 or more people who assembled on
St Peter's Field, Manchester on that fateful day in 1819.
While the struggle for genuine representation was indeed the theme of the
meeting, for most of the participants, who were mainly textile workers, life or
death issues were prominent in their motivations. Few had any awareness that
their lives would be imperilled for wanting a better world.
British society, contrary to what many capitalist commentators would assert, has
never developed in a peaceful and gradual way. There are many instances of
volatile upheavals in its history, the period following the end of the French wars
being one of them.
British capitalism had been at war with France almost continuously from 1793
until the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. With the war over, hundreds of
thousands of men returned from the fighting to find a scarcity of jobs.
Manufacturing industry faced a downturn with reduced needs for armaments,
uniforms and other materials.
The Tory government refused to assist the poor; in the wars it had accumulated
debt of £1 billion (approximately worth £88 billion today - roughly the figure
reduced from government spending by the Con-Dem government of 2010-15).
This was a government representing wealthy landowners, financiers and a section
of the big manufacturers incorporated into the ruling class.
To make matters even worse, the government introduced the Corn Laws, which
kept the price of grain artificially high. This, of course, pleased the Tories' landed
friends but raised the cost of bread, the most staple of foodstuffs. This added to
the hardships already faced by workers and the poor.
Protests erupted after the war. Two demonstrations in Spa Fields, London, at the
end of 1816 were put down by the government. In March 1817, weavers in the
Manchester district organised a march to London to present a petition to the
Prince Regent on their distress.
Most of the 'Blanketeers', as they were nicknamed, were arrested or prevented
from marching past Stockport. In June the same year, workers in Pentrich
Nottinghamshire, although incited by a provocateur, rose against the government
(see 'The Pentrich Uprising - revolution and counter-revolution in
19th century Britain').
The following year saw an upturn in the economy, which emboldened workers to
struggle for pay rises. Workers then had not recovered their living standards of
many years previous but attempted in 1818 to recoup some of their losses. This
was at a time when trade unions were banned by the Combination Acts of 1799
and 1800.
Nevertheless, organisations sprung up and mushroomed as the anger built.
Weavers and spinners in Manchester, Stockport and the Lancashire districts were
part of a strike wave.
Some groups of workers won increases but most returned to work with very little
to show for their sacrifice as employers linked with the government to suppress
the actions.
Thwarted on the industrial plane, workers often turn to the political field against
their enemies. This they did in early 1819 with mass meetings in Manchester and
Stockport, addressed by radical leader Henry Hunt.
At Stockport, the assembled crowd beat back the attempts of the authorities to
break up the meeting. Further meetings were held in the north west and
throughout Britain to discuss the plight of working people. At some, so extreme
was their situation, that government-sponsored mass emigration to the Americas
or Australia was considered.
By this time, petitioning the Prince Regent - the aim of the Blanketeers - was
seen as pointless. But at most of these meetings, each of which was attended by
thousands, the demand for political reform was raised and endorsed.
In 1819, only about 5% of the adult population, all male, owned or rented
enough land to vote.
Most parliamentary seats were in the gift of the aristocracy and their allies. Many
seats were 'rotten boroughs': Old Sarum, an empty hilltop in Wiltshire, and
Dunwich in Suffolk, which was falling into the sea, both elected two MPs.
Manchester, even then a sizeable town, had no designated MP of its own.
So, parliamentary reform became a symbol for the struggle for a better life. If
workers could elect better MPs, they thought, their lot might improve. But
whereas the mass of workers needed food, shelter and jobs, for many of the
middle-class radicals, property owners themselves, their standpoint was that they
had been deprived of the spoils accruing to the richest sections of society.
The English Revolution of the mid-17th century, led by Oliver Cromwell, was
admired by many but the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 had led to a
government based on a coalition between a restored monarchy and the ruling
class. It formed the Bank of England and regulated the Stock Exchange, forced
the union of England and Scotland, and accelerated the pace of enclosures, which
robbed many peasants of their land, forcing them to become agricultural
labourers or even move to the towns. This was the foundation of capitalist society
in Britain, and its ruling forces in 1819.
For the middle class, they wanted a bigger share of an expanding cake. But even
a sniff of reform was anathema to the Tories. Echoes of the most radical phase of
the French Revolution (1789-94) and the threat of 'Jacobinism', the most radical
government of that phase, still reverberated through British society. Even if they
could, the ruling class would be loath to offer a crumb to those protesting if it
meant opening the floodgates to further change.

Repression
So when the Manchester radicals called a meeting for 9 August 1819, to elect a
peoples' representative, the magistrates of the town banned the demonstration
on the grounds that an election was illegal.
Lord Sidmouth, the Tory Home Secretary, wrote to the magistrates urging them
to suppress the movement, not excluding the use of force. The government also
used spies to report on the political movements, and intercepted post between
radicals. The government was fully aware of the potential danger to its rule of a
mass movement demanding reform.
The radicals rearranged the meeting for 16 August, with a less provocative title to
which the authorities found it difficult to object. Nevertheless, a military
intervention was prepared. The Manchester and Salford, and Cheshire
Yeomanries, part-time forces, were mobilised to be used alongside regular
Hussars and special constables.
Tens of thousands, the largest proportion being handloom weavers, outworkers in
their own homes, came to St Peter's Field from Manchester and the surrounding
towns. Some had been 'drilling' outside of their towns, but this was not to protect
the participants but to learn to march in a disciplined way!
Hardly any were prepared for a possible attack by the armed forces. Many women
attended, and women's political unions had been formed in some towns, mainly
to back up the demand for universal male suffrage, although some called for
votes for women almost 100 years before this was won. Children had been
brought along; a semi-festive spirit prevailed.
Hunt was the main speaker at St Peter's Field beginning at 1.15pm. Barely had
he said two sentences when the special constables began to clear a path. The Riot
Act had allegedly been read, though nobody heard it, and a warrant issued for
the arrest of Hunt and other radical leaders.
The Yeomanry charged in, emboldened by alcohol, and proceeded to attack the
crowd. They were followed by the Hussars. In less than 30 minutes, the vast
majority of the 18 dead and almost 700 injured were mown down on the field.
There had been no provocation other than support for political ideas hostile to
Toryism.
The people were defenceless. The authorities had made a brutal political point.
They feared a revolution so they made the people fear them. That evening, the
Ancoats district rose up and the last fatality, `Joseph Whitworth, was shot dead.
The authorities in London and Manchester congratulated each other, and pursued
the radicals. The government brought in the 'Six Acts' which limited still further
the already restricted ability to organise politically and attacked the few existing
liberties of the press.
Radicals responded to the massacre with open meetings of tens of thousands in
London and other cities in protest at Peterloo. There were uprisings in some
towns in the north, which were put down.
 In early 1820, radicals led by Arthur Thistlewood planned to assassinate the
cabinet. The 'Cato Street Conspiracy' was thwarted by a police spy.
In the first week of April the same year, central Scotland saw the 'Radical War', a
series of strikes and protests against the authorities. However, the ruling class
had bought some time in preserving its rule.

Lessons
What lessons should socialists today glean from the events of Peterloo? Firstly,
that no ruling class will give up its power without a struggle.
The authorities were massively armed and the working class was unprepared for
its brutality. Any workers activity - demonstrations, picket lines, meetings - has
to consider the level of risk posed and the appropriate response.
Secondly, that the working class has to have its own organisations, programme
and leaders. After Peterloo, many middle-class radicals fled for cover. They feared
the government's power but also the potential strength of the working class.
Eventually, government political concessions through the 1832 Reform Act and
the fear of revolution broke sections of the middle class away from the working
class.
This was largely due to workers beginning to organise, through larger and more
stable trade unions, even despite severe limitations on their activity.
The formation of workers' political groups, culminating with the Chartists in 1838,
who linked democratic political demands to a social and economic programme for
workers, further challenging capitalism in Britain.
Today, when capitalist governments, both in Britain and internationally, are
curtailing democratic rights and extending their rule by semi-authoritarian
methods, extending democracy might appear popular.
But such reforms in and of themselves are not enough; a socialist programme for
change, including taking the economy into working-class hands, has to be
inscribed on our banners in the 21st century if we are to end the conditions which
forced the workers of Peterloo to protest.

19 Αυγούστου 1936: η
δολοφονία του Φεντερίκο
Γκαρθία Λόρκα
19/08/2019
Καθημερινά, Θεωρία / Ιστορία, Βασικό Άρθρο Ημέρας
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Νατάσσα Αργυράκη
«Μαύρα τ’ άλογά τους είναι.
Και τα πέταλά τους μαύρα
Πάνω στις κάπες τους γυαλίζουν
κεριού και μελανιού λεκέδες.
Έχουν και για αυτό δεν κλαίνε,
τα κρανία από μολύβι.
Με ψυχή από βερνίκι έρχονται
απ’ το δρόμο πέρα.
Όλο νύχτα και γερμένοι,
όπου θέλουν διατάζουν
μαύρου λάστιχου σιωπές
και του φόβου ψιλή άμμο.
Αν το θέλουνε, περνάνε,
κρύβοντας μες στο κεφάλι
μια θολήν αστρονομία
από αόριστα μπιστόλια…»
Ρομάντσα της ισπανικής πολιτιφυλακής, Φ. Γκ. Λόρκα
Το πρωί της 19 Αυγούστου (κάποιες πηγές αναφέρουν και την 18 Αυγούστου
ης η

σαν πιθανή ημερομηνία) ο Λόρκα, ο ποιητής των καταπιεσμένων,

δολοφονείται στα 38 του χρόνια από τους φαλαγγίτες «με τα μαύρα άλογα»
του Φράνκο, λόγω της αντιφασιστικής του δράσης αλλά και της
ομοφυλοφιλίας του. Ο ίδιος είχε πει πως είναι ο ποιητής που «πάντα θα
είναι στο πλευρό αυτών που δεν έχουν τίποτα».

Επανάσταση και φασισμός

Ένα μήνα πριν είχαν ξεκινήσει η επανάσταση και η αντεπανάσταση στην
Ισπανία. Οι εργάτες και οι αγρότες είχαν ξεσηκωθεί για να σταματήσουν
τον στρατηγό Φρανθίσκο Φράνκο, ο οποίος στις 17 Ιουλίου του 1936
ηγήθηκε του στρατιωτικού πραξικοπήματος που ξεκίνησε στο Μαρόκο
ενάντια στο μαζικό επαναστατικό κίνημα που είχε ξεσπάσει στην Ισπανία.
Πίσω από τον Φράνκο είχαν οχυρωθεί τα συμφέροντα των τρομοκρατημένων
αρχουσών τάξεων, των καπιταλιστών, των γαιοκτημόνων, της Εκκλησίας…

Νωρίτερα, το Φλεβάρη του 1936, ο συνασπισμός του Λαϊκού Μετώπου

ανέβηκε στην εξουσία μετά από εκλογές, ύστερα από χρόνια αγώνων της
εργατικής τάξης και των φτωχών αγροτικών στρωμάτων της Ισπανίας. Το
Λαϊκό Μέτωπο ήταν η συμμαχία του «Ισπανικού Σοσιαλιστικού Εργατικού
Κόμματος» (PSOE) του «Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος Ισπανίας» και των
αποκαλούμενων «προοδευτικών», «φιλελεύθερων» και δημοκρατικών
κομμάτων: τη «Δημοκρατική Αριστερά», τη «Δημοκρατική Ένωση», τη
«Δημοκρατική Αριστερά της Καταλονίας» (καταλανική αδελφή οργάνωση της
«Δημοκρατικής Αριστεράς») άλλα μικρότερα κόμματα της Καταλονίας και
της Γαλικίας, ενώ σύντομα θα συμμετείχαν και οι Βάσκοι Εθνικιστές.

Η ηγεσία των αναρχικών της CNT, της πιο μεγάλης συνδικαλιστικής

οργάνωσης, της Εθνικής Συνομοσπονδίας Εργασίας στην οποία συμμετείχαν
τα πιο ριζοσπαστικά στρώματα της εργατικής τάξης, με εκατομμύρια μέλη,
αρνήθηκε να προχωρήσει στη δημιουργία εργατικής κυβέρνησης πάνω στη
βάση των επιτροπών, των συμβουλίων και των πολιτοφυλακών των εργατών
και των αγροτών που εξαπλώνονταν με ταχείς ρυθμούς. Αυτό πήγαζε από τη
διαφωνία των Αναρχικών με την έννοια του κράτους γενικά, χωρίς να
κατανοούν τη διαφορά ανάμεσα σε ένα εργατικό και ένα καπιταλιστικό
κράτος.
Σαν αποτέλεσμα όλης αυτής της σύγχυσης τους, τελικά κατέληξαν σύντομα
να συμμετάσχουν στην αστική κυβέρνηση του Λαϊκού Μετώπου, μαζί με
καπιταλιστικά κόμματα, προδίδοντας τη λαϊκή της βάση, τόσο στην
Καταλονία όσο και στην κεντρική κυβέρνηση της Μαδρίτης με 3 υπουργούς
(περισσότερα εδώ).

Παρόλο που η κυβέρνηση του Λαϊκού Μετώπου και η συμμαχία της Αριστεράς
με τις υποτιθέμενες προοδευτικές καπιταλιστικές δυνάμεις δεν είχε σκοπό να
εκπληρώσει τα αιτήματα των εργατών (γιατί αυτό θα σήμαινε μετωπική
σύγκρουση με τους καπιταλιστές, τους φεουδάρχες και τα συμφέροντα τους),
αποτέλεσε το έναυσμα για να ενταθούν οι αγώνες, να ξεχυθούν εργάτες και
αγρότες αυθόρμητα στους δρόμους, χωρίς να περιμένουν διατάγματα και να
διεκδικήσουν γη, εργατικά δικαιώματα, ελευθερία. Ο λόγος ήταν ότι τα
εργατικά και λαϊκά στρώματα έβλεπαν πως τα κόμματα της Αριστεράς ήταν
στην κυβέρνηση κι έτσι ελπίζανε πως θα ικανοποιούσαν τις ανάγκες και τα
αιτήματά τους.

Η δολοφονία του αντιφασίστα ποιητή

Ο Λόρκα υποστήριζε ανοιχτά το Λαϊκό Μέτωπο κατά τη διάρκεια της
προεκλογικής εκστρατείας και υπέγραψε πολυάριθμα αντιφασιστικά
μανιφέστα. Συνέταξε τη διακήρυξη συγγραφέων κατά του φασισμού την ίδια
χρόνια που ξέσπασε ο εμφύλιος με αποτέλεσμα να στοχοποιηθεί πολύ
γρήγορα.

Λίγο μετά το στρατιωτικό πραξικόπημα αναζήτησε καταφύγιο στο σπίτι του

φίλου του Λουις Ροσάλες (Luis Rosales), ο οποίος όμως είχε δυο αδελφούς
Φαλαγγίτες. Εκεί ήταν που συνελήφθη σαν «σοσιαλιστής», κατηγορήθηκε για
τη φιλία του με τον δάσκαλο Φερνάντο Ντε Λος Ρίος (Fernando de los Ríos),
για την ομοφυλοφιλία του αλλά και για «μασονία», όπως αναφέρεται σε
επίσημο έγγραφο που βγήκε στη δημοσιότητα πολλά χρόνια μετά τη
δολοφονία του.

Ογδόντα τρία χρόνια έχουν περάσει από τη δολοφονία του μεγάλου Ισπανού
ποιητή και ο τάφος του παραμένει ακόμα άγνωστος. Το Σεπτέμβρη του 2017,
στον δήμο Αλφάκαρ, η αναζήτηση συνεχίστηκε για να βρεθεί ο μαζικός τάφος
όπου πιστεύεται ότι πετάχτηκε το άψυχο σώμα του Λόρκα μαζί με τον
δάσκαλο Ντιόσκορο Γκαλίντο (Dióscoro Galindo) και τους αναρχικούς
 Φρανθίσκο Γκαλαντί Μελγάρ (Francisco Galadí Melgar) και Χοακίν Αρκόλας
Γκαμπέζας (Joaquín Arcollas Cabezas), χωρίς όμως αποτέλεσμα.

Υπολογίζεται ότι μισό εκατομμύριο άνθρωποι σκοτώθηκαν κατά τη διάρκεια

του ισπανικού εμφυλίου και στη διάρκεια των χρόνων που ακολούθησαν και
άλλοι 200.000 εκτοπίστηκαν. Ο Λόρκα ήταν από τα πρώτα θύματα του
φασισμού στην Ισπανία, που πήρε τη μορφή μιας σκληρής στρατιωτικής
δικτατορίας που έμεινε στην εξουσία μέχρι το 1975, με το θάνατο του
Φράνκο. Έγινε έτσι σύμβολο του αγώνα κατά του φασισμού αλλά και
υπενθύμιση του ηρωικού αγώνα των ισπανικών μαζών για μια νέα κοινωνία
και της προδοσίας των ηγεσιών τους που οδήγησαν σε τραγικά
αποτελέσματα για τον ισπανικό λαό.

Ο Λόρκα ήταν ένας επαναστάτης ποιητής «γιατί δεν υπάρχει αληθινός

ποιητής που να μην είναι επαναστάτης». Οι στίχοι του μας εμπνέουν στους
αγώνες του σήμερα, για έναν καλύτερο κόσμο όπου οι εργαζόμενοι και τα
λαϊκά στρώματα, η συντριπτική πλειοψηφία της κοινωνίας, θα ζει καλύτερα
έχοντας τον έλεγχο όσων παράγει.

«Γιατί θέλουμε το καθημερινό ψωμί μας,

ανθό του σκλήθρου και διαρκή συγκομιδή από τρυφερότητα,
γιατί θέλουμε να εκπληρωθεί η θέληση της γης
που δίνει τους καρπούς της για όλους…»
Κραυγή ως τη Ρώμη, Φ. Γκ. Λόρκα

Πορτλαντ: φασίστες απειλούν

να «ρίξουν τους κομμουνιστές
από ελικόπτερα»
18/08/2019
Καθημερινά, Φασισμός / Ρατσισμός
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Γιώργος Λυγουριώτης
Το Σάββατο 17/8 πραγματοποιήθηκε πορεία ακροδεξιών οργανώσεων στο
Πορτλαντ των ΗΠΑ, στη μεγαλύτερη πόλη της Πολιτείας του Όρεγκον, με
βασικό αίτημα να θεωρηθούν οι αντιφασιστικές οργανώσεις τρομοκρατικές
και να αντιμετωπίζονται ανάλογα από τις αρχές.

Προωθώντας την ακροδεξιά πορεία στα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης, ο Joe

Biggs, μέλος της διοργανώτριας ακροδεξιάς οργάνωσης «Proud Boys», βγήκε
σε βίντεο φορώντας ένα μπλουζάκι με το σύνθημα «Εκπαίδευση για την
εκτόπιση κομμουνιστών από ελικόπτερα» – μια αναφορά στις μεθόδους του
καθεστώτος του Πινοσέτ στη Χιλή, όπως και άλλων δικτατοριών της
Λατινικής Αμερικής, με την οποία δολοφονούνταν αντιφρονούντες (τους
πετούσαν από ελικόπτερα σε θάλασσες, προκειμένου να «εξαφανιστούν»). Σε
άλλες αναρτήσεις του απειλεί τους αντιφασίστες λέγοντας «Δεν θα νιώθετε
ασφαλείς όταν θα βγαίνετε έξω».
Τελικά το Σάββατο μαζεύτηκαν γύρω στα 500 άτομα από οργανώσεις όπως
οι «Proud Boys», οι «Δυτικοί Σοβινιστές» όπως αυτοαποκαλούνται, οι «Three
Percenters», ομάδα κρούσης «πατριωτών» και η «American Guard», που έχει
χαρακτηριστεί σαν ομάδα «σκληροπυρηνικών λευκών σεξιστών». Μεγάλος
αριθμός όσων συμμετείχαν είχε ταξιδέψει από άλλες πόλεις και η
κινητοποίηση προετοιμαζόταν καιρό. Παρότι ο αριθμός δεν είναι μεγάλος με
βάση το χρόνο προετοιμασίας, πρόκειται για μια από τις μεγαλύτερες
κινητοποιήσεις ακροδεξιών στην πόλη τα τελευταία χρόνια.

Οι αντιφασιστικές οργανώσεις του Πορτλαντ κάλεσαν σε αντισυγκέντρωση

την ίδια μέρα, η οποία είχε πάνω από 700 διαδηλωτές, με βασικό σύνθημα το
«Έξω οι Ναζί». «Πρέπει να τους δείξουμε ότι δεν συμφωνούμε με αυτό που
αντιπροσωπεύουν», δήλωσε η Deanna Flores, 62 ετών, η οποία συμμετείχε
στην αντισυγκέντρωση. «Το Πόρτλαντ είναι για όλους».

Δηλώσεις Τραμπ, τροφή για την ακροδεξιά

 «Γίνονται σοβαρές σκέψεις σχετικά με το ενδεχόμενο να χαρακτηρισθούν οι
αντιφασιστικές οργανώσεις “τρομοκρατικές οργανώσεις”», έγραψε ο
Ρεπουμπλικανός πρόεδρος στο Twitter σχολιάζοντας την κατάσταση στο
Πορτλαντ. «Το Πόρτλαντ παρακολουθείται πολύ στενά. Ας ελπίσουμε ότι ο
δήμαρχος θα είναι σε θέση να κάνει σωστά τη δουλειά του!»

Οι ακροδεξιές ομάδες στις ΗΠΑ, πατάνε πάνω στη ρατσιστική, σεξιστική

ρητορική του Τραμπ, προκειμένου να «νομιμοποιηθούν» οι ίδιες στα μάτια
της κοινωνίας. Μετά και τις δηλώσεις αυτές του Τραμπ μάλιστα, οι «Proud
Boys» δήλωσαν ότι θα κάνουν πορεία κάθε μήνα στο Πορτλαντ, εκτός αν η
πόλη πάρει σκληρότερα μέτρα εναντίον των αντιφασιστών.

Η Effie Baum, μία από τις διοργανώτριες της αντισυγκέντρωσης, απάντησε

ότι το αντιφασιστικό κίνημα θα είναι έτοιμο να τους αντιμετωπίσει. Στην
πραγματικότητα είναι οι μόνοι που μπορούν να βάλουν φρένο στη φασιστική
απειλή στις γειτονιές τους.

7 Αυγούστου 1944: Το μπλόκο

της Κοκκινιάς και οι
θηριωδίες των Ναζί
17/08/2019
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Βαγγέλης Κολτσίδης
Στις 17 Αυγούστου 1944, Γερμανικές στρατιωτικές μονάδες μαζί
με τους Έλληνες συνεργάτες τους (τάγματα ασφαλείας, χωροφυλακή,
δωσίλογους – κουκουλοφόρους), περικυκλώνουν την περιοχή της
Κοκκινιάς, γύρω από την περιοχή στην οποία βρίσκεται η σημερινή Νίκαια.

Η Ελλάδα βρίσκεται υπό την κατοχή των Γερμανικών Ναζιστικών δυνάμεων,

οι οποίες μετράνε αντίστροφα, καθώς οι συμμαχικές δυνάμεις σε παγκόσμιο
επίπεδο έχουν ξεκινήσει τη νικηφόρα αντεπίθεσή τους.

Στη χώρα μας το ίδιο διάστημα το Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο (ΕΑΜ) και
οι αντάρτες στην επαρχία υπό την καθοδήγηση του
Ελληνικού Λαϊκού Απελευθερωτικού Στρατού (ΕΛΑΣ), εδραιώνουν τις
δυνάμεις τους και απελευθερώνουν την μία περιοχή μετά την άλλη.

Μέσα σε αυτό το αρνητικό κλίμα για τον Χίτλερ, δίνεται η εντολή να

υπάρξουν τρομοκρατικά αντίποινα στις περιοχές που αντιστέκονται στους
κατακτητές διεκδικώντας την ελευθερία τους.

Η στρατηγική των μπλόκων

Τα μπλόκα ήταν σχεδιασμένες στρατιωτικές επιχειρήσεις με σκοπό τον
μαζικό εκφοβισμό του πληθυσμού.[1] Κατά βάση οργανώνονταν σε περιοχές
που είχαν ανεπτυγμένη αντιστασιακή δράση.

Στα μπλόκα συλλαμβάνονταν κυρίως όσοι είχαν ενεργό συμμετοχή στην

αντίσταση, μέλη του ΕΑΜ – ΕΛΑΣ, αλλά όχι μόνο. Πολλά θύματα δεν είχαν
ανάμειξη με την οργανωμένη αντίσταση. Οι δυνάμεις των
SS (παραστρατιωτική ναζιστική οργάνωση) θέλανε να δημιουργήσουν
συνολική ευθύνη σε όλο τον ελληνικό πληθυσμό με σκοπό την απομάκρυνση
του από το ΕΑΜ και τον ΕΛΑΣ.

Τα μπλόκα όμως εξυπηρετούσαν τους Γερμανούς Ναζί (και τους

κεφαλαιοκράτες της εποχής BMW, Deutsche Bank, Siemens, Hugo Boss)
[2] και σε κάτι άλλο. Ήταν ένας βίαιος τρόπος εύρεσης απλήρωτης
εργατικής δύναμης για την στρατιωτική και οικονομική ανάπτυξη της
Γερμανίας. Όσοι δεν εκτελούνταν επί τόπου, μεταφέρονταν στα στρατόπεδα
συγκέντρωσης για καταναγκαστική εργασία κάτω από απάνθρωπες
συνθήκες.

Γιατί επιλέχτηκε η Κοκκινιά

Το μπλόκο της Κοκκινιάς δεν ήταν δυστυχώς το μοναδικό. Περιοχές όπως η
Καισαριανή, η Καλλιθέα, το Δουργούτι, η Καλογρέζα[3] αλλά και επαρχιακές
πόλεις και χωριά, είχαν υποστεί παρόμοιες ομαδικές εκτελέσεις και
λεηλασίες.

Η Κοκκινιά αποκαλούνταν «Μικρή Μόσχα». Εργάτες και πρόσφυγες από την

Μικρά Ασία αποτελούσαν τον κύριο πληθυσμό της συνοικίας. Η οργάνωση του
ΕΑΜ Κοκκινιάς ήταν από τις μεγαλύτερες στην Αθήνα και αποτελούσε πυρήνα
αντίστασης απέναντι στους κατακτητές αλλά και τους ντόπιους
οικονομικούς εκμεταλλευτές και μαυραγορίτες της εποχής.

Τον Μάρτιο του 1944 είχε προηγηθεί στην Κοκκινιά η πρώτη μάχη στην
Αττική ανάμεσα σε αντάρτες και κατακτητές. Ο ηρωισμός των κατοίκων της
Κοκκινιάς μαζί με την οργανωμένη αντίσταση των ΕΑΜιτών συνέβαλε
καθοριστικά στην ήττα των Γερμανικών κατοχικών δυνάμεων, γεγονός το
οποίο οι Ναζί εγκληματίες δεν θα το άφηναν στην τύχη του.

Τα γεγονότα της 17 Αυγούστου

ης

Στις 3 τα ξημερώματα οι Ναζί κατακτητές μαζί με το μηχανοκίνητο τμήμα

της ελληνικής αστυνομίας, περικυκλώνουν την περιοχή. Τρεις χιλιάδες
Γερμανοί και Έλληνες οπλισμένοι με πολυβόλα, όλμους και
αυτόματα, δέχονται τις εντολές του συνταγματάρχη Πλυντζανόπουλου και
του ταγματάρχη Σγουρού, αρχηγών της κτηνωδίας που πρόκειται να
ακολουθήσει.
Στις 6 το πρωί ακούγονται τα χωνιά, όχι ως συνήθως του ΕΛΑΣ που
καλούσε τον λαό να αντισταθεί, αλλά των Ελλήνων συνεργατών των Ναζί:

«Προσοχή-προσοχή! Σας μιλάνε τα τάγματα ασφαλείας. Όλοι οι άνδρες από

14-60 ετών να πάνε στην πλατεία της Οσίας Ξένης για έλεγχο ταυτοτήτων.
Όσοι πιαστούν στα σπίτια τους θα τουφεκίζονται επί τόπου».

Επικρατεί πανικός στους δρόμους της πόλης. Οι πόρτες των φτωχικών

σπιτιών γκρεμίζονται και οι κάτοικοι σέρνονται κυριολεκτικά στην κεντρική
πλατεία. Όσοι δεν υπακούν στις εντολές εκτελούνται επί τόπου μέσα στα
σπίτια τους.

Στην πλατεία εμφανίζονται Κοκκινιώτες που φορούν μαύρες

κουκούλες. Αρχίζουν να υποδεικνύουν ποιοι πρέπει να εκτελεστούν από τους
συγκεντρωμένους συμπολίτες τους.

Ο γνωστός χαφιές της Κοκκινιάς Μπατράνης, διακρίνει μέσα στο πλήθος

τον λοχαγό του ΕΛΑΣ Αποστόλη Χατζηβασιλείου, του οποίου βγάζουν το μάτι
και του σχίζουν τα μάγουλα με την ξιφολόγχη. Στη συνέχεια τον περιφέρουν
ανάμεσα στο πλήθος ζητώντας του να προδώσει τους συντρόφους του. Η
απάντηση του ΕΛΑΣίτη λοχαγού (σε αντίθεση με τους χρυσαυγίτες πολιτικούς
απόγονους των Ναζί σήμερα) ήταν:

«Πατριώτες, σηκώστε το κεφάλι, μη φοβάστε. Δεν πρόκειται να προδώσω

κανέναν».

Τον σέρνουν σχεδόν αναίσθητο λόγω βασανιστηρίων και τον κρεμάνε σε

δημόσια θέα. Πριν εκτελεστούν, όλοι οι κάτοικοι βασανίζονται με σκοπό να
προδώσουν κάποιον από τους συναγωνιστές τους.

Όμως, ακόμη και με αντάλλαγμα την ίδια τους τη ζωή, κανείς δεν πρόδωσε
άλλο συναγωνιστή του. Πολλοί ήταν αυτοί που αφήνοντας την τελευταία
τους πνοή έδιναν θάρρος στους υπόλοιπους προτρέποντάς τους να
αγωνιστούν ενάντια στο φασισμό.

Ηρωισμός και αντίσταση από γυναίκες

Στις 11 π.μ., ενώ οι εκτελέσεις συνεχίζονται, ανακαλύπτεται το κρησφύγετο
μιας ομάδας του εφεδρικού ΕΛΑΣ, στην οποία συμμετείχαν οι
ηρωικές ΕΑΜίτισσες Διαμάντω Κουμπάκη και Αθηνά Μαύρου. Καθώς
τις χτυπούσαν στο δρόμο προς τη Μάντρα, η Διαμάντω τους έβριζε και τους
απαντούσε:

«Σαν και εσάς προδότες εγώ έφαγα 65!».

Με βάση στοιχεία από έρευνες που έχουν γίνει, από τις εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες
των οργανωμένων μελών της εθνικής αντίστασης, η πλειοψηφία ήταν
γυναίκες, όπως γυναίκες και κορίτσια ήταν τα περισσότερα μέλη της
Ενιαίας Πανελλαδικής Οργάνωσης Νέων (ΕΠΟΝ) και του παιδικού της
τμήματος.

Οι γυναίκες της αντίστασης μπήκαν μπροστά στην ίδρυση 679

λαϊκών ιατρείων, 169 λαϊκών νοσοκομείων και 1.253 λαϊκών φαρμακείων σε
όλη τη χώρα.

Η δράση και ο ηρωισμός που επέδειξαν μέσα σε αντίξοες συνθήκες και

κακουχίες, ξεπερνούσε πολλές φορές και έδινε κουράγιο ακόμη και στους πιο
σκληραγωγημένους συναγωνιστές τους στον απελευθερωτικό αγώνα.

Η επόμενη μέρα
Αφήνουμε τον απολογισμό και τα συμπεράσματα σε κάποιους που επέζησαν
από το μπλόκο όπως η Δέσποινα Κρομμυδάκη, μέλος της Πανελλήνιας
Ένωσης Αγωνιστών Εθνικής Αντίστασης, η οποία αναφέρει[4]:

«Οι εκτελεσμένοι ήταν γύρω στα 200 άτομα. Είχανε στοιβάσει όλα τα άτομα
το ένα πάνω στο άλλο και βγήκε το χωνί και είπε να έρθουν οι οικογένειες να
πάρουν τους νεκρούς τους για να τους θάψουνε. Όμως δεν υπήρχανε τότε τα
κατάλληλα μέσα, εμένα προσωπικά μου έκανε εντύπωση του Μπογδάνου η
περίπτωση, που ήρθε στη μάντρα στα Αρμένικα και πήρε το παιδί του σαν
σφαγμένο πρόβατο, το έβαλε στον ώμο του και το κατέβασε σπίτι του,
βάφοντας όλο τον δρόμο με αίμα».

Άλλοι 8.000 άνδρες μεταφέρθηκαν στο στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης του

Χαϊδαρίου και από εκεί στα Ναζιστικά στρατόπεδα της Γερμανίας και της
Πολωνίας.

Ο Δημήτρης Μαυράκης, επίσης αυτόπτης μάρτυρας και μέλος της

ΠΕΑΕΑ, λέει σε συνέντευξη του:

«Παρά τα θύματα που είχε ο Κοκκινιώτικος λαός, συνέχισε τον αγώνα με

διαμαρτυρίες, με συγκεντρώσεις και ξαναβρήκε το ηθικό του, μέσα σε ένα
τέτοιο κακό. Ο αντίκτυπος του μπλόκου ήταν να δυναμώσει το αντιστασιακό
κίνημα».

Και συνεχίζει παρακάτω αναφερόμενος στην σημερινή δράση της

Χρυσής Αυγής στις ιστορικές γειτονιές της Νίκαιας και του Πειραιά αλλά και
την σχέση που έχει με τα μεγάλα επιχειρηματικά συμφέροντα:

«Για το σήμερα, για τις ομάδες των νοσταλγών του φασισμού που
εμφανίζονται αμελητέες, έχω να πω ότι το μικρό γίνεται μεγάλο. Ξεκινάει
κάτι με 5-6 άτομα, γίνονται 10-20 και ανεβαίνει. Το κακό πρέπει να το
χτυπάς στη ρίζα του. Βλέπω ότι ορισμένοι μεγαλοκαρχαρίες και κυβερνήσεις,
υποστηρίζουν έμμεσα τους νεοναζί. Εάν θέλουνε μπορούσαν να τους είχαν
εξαφανίσει μόλις είχαν εμφανιστεί, όμως τους άφησαν και μεγαλώνουν και
τους βοηθάνε».

Οι επικεφαλής του μπλόκου της Κοκκινιάς αντί στη συνέχεια να

τιμωρηθούν από την Ελληνική δικαιοσύνη, επιβραβεύτηκαν για την προσφορά
τους.
Ο Πλυντζανόπουλος έγινε υποστράτηγος του κυβερνητικού στρατού και ο
Σγουρός διοικητής του 3 τάγματος Μακρονήσου.
ου

Ενώ της περίοδο της χούντας των συνταγματαρχών ο ανιψιός

του Πλυντζανόπουλου διορίστηκε δήμαρχος στην Κοκκινιά, ο οποίος
φρόντισε, βέβαια, να διαστρεβλώσει την ιστορική αλήθεια τοποθετώντας
επιγραφή στο σημείο του μπλόκου που έγραφε:

«Προδόται και μασκοφόροι κομμουνισταί, και εαμίται, ελασίται, παρέδωσαν

εις τους βαρβάρους κατακτητάς την 17ην Αυγούστου 1944,
αγνούς πατριώτας αγωνιστάς της Εθνικής Αντίστασης. Τέκνα ηρωικά της
Νίκαιας, οι οποίοι και εξετελέσθησαν εις τον χώρον τούτον.»[5]

Χρυσή Αυγή και αντιφασιστικό κίνημα

Ο ναζισμός, ο φασισμός και όλες οι μορφές του εθνικισμού δεν οδηγούν σε
λύση των προβλημάτων που αντιμετωπίζουν οι λαοί, αλλά αντιθέτως
συνεχίζουν να εξυπηρετούν, με τον πιο βάναυσο τρόπο τα μεγάλα οικονομικά
συμφέροντα. Ακόμη περισσότερο οδηγούν σε δολοφονίες αμάχων,
στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης και στέρηση στοιχειωδών ελευθεριών.

Καθήκον του αντιφασιστικού κινήματος, αλλά και κάθε απλού δημοκρατικού

πολίτη, είναι να θυμίζουμε τα δεινά που έχει υποφέρει η ανθρωπότητα από το
φασισμό, να αποκαλύπτουμε την αλήθεια η οποία αποκρύπτεται από το
οικονομικό και πολιτικό κατεστημένο και να αγωνιζόμαστε καθημερινά
ενάντια στις αιτίες που γεννάνε τις ναζιστικές ιδέες.

Η εγκληματική ναζιστική συμμορία της Χρυσής Αυγής έφτασε στο σημείο να

δολοφονεί συμπολίτες μας, αφαιρώντας την ζωή του Παύλου Φύσσα στην
περιοχή που βίωσε το μπλόκο της Κοκκινιάς, ώστε να αναγκαστεί η αστική
δικαιοσύνη να ασχοληθεί μαζί της.
 Παρότι αυτή τη στιγμή βρίσκεται σε δεινή θέση, λόγω της εκλογικής της
αποτυχίας και των ατράνταχτων στοιχείων που παρουσιάζονται εναντίον της
στη δίκη, δεν πρέπει ούτε στιγμή να σταματήσουμε να παλεύουμε για την
οριστική διάλυση του μορφώματος αυτού και την παραδειγματική καταδίκη
όλων των εμπλεκομένων μελών της με πρώτο
και καλύτερο τον φίρερ Μιχαλολιάκο.

[1] https://www.dmko.gr/martyrikes-polis-2/martyrikes-polis/nikea/
[2] https://www.news247.gr/afieromata/oi-10-etairies-poy-ploytisan-apo-ta-stratopeda-
sygkentrosis.6313604.html
[3] https://ethniki-antistasi-dse.gr/mploko-kokkinias.html
[4] http://www.ertopen.com/news/ellada/item/48666-74-chronia-apo-to-mploko-ths-
kokkinias-%E2%80%93-17-aygoystoy-1944
[5] https://www.alfavita.gr/koinonia/229138_mploko-tis-kokkinias-i-thiriodia-ton-nazi-
kataktiton-kai-ton-ntopion-synergaton

Άλλο ένα καλοκαίρι τεράστιων

καταστροφών για τα ελληνικά
δάση
16/08/2019
Καθημερινά, Περιβάλλον, Βασικό Άρθρο Ημέρας
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Βαγγέλης Στογιάννης
Η αποπνικτική ατμόσφαιρα στο λεκανοπέδιο της Αττικής τις τελευταίες
μέρες ήταν διαρκώς παρούσα για να θυμίζει την τεράστια οικολογική
καταστροφή που συντελείται για ένα ακόμη καλοκαίρι στα ελληνικά δάση.
Εκατοντάδες δασικές πυρκαγιές εκδηλώθηκαν μέσα σε λίγα εικοσιτετράωρα
που χαρακτηρίστηκαν από πολύ υψηλές θερμοκρασίες, ισχυρούς ανέμους και
πολύ χαμηλά ποσοστά υγρασίας. Για πρώτη φορά εδώ και πολλά χρόνια, η
Γενική Γραμματεία Πολιτικής Προστασίας εξέδωσε δελτίο κινδύνου
εκδήλωσης δασικών πυρκαγιών επιπέδου 5 (κατάσταση συναγερμού) για
αρκετές περιοχές της χώρας, για τις 10 και τις 11 Αυγούστου.

Κάποιες από τις φωτιές που εκδηλώθηκαν δεν πήραν μεγάλες διαστάσεις,
ενώ κάποιες άλλες εξακολουθούν να καταβροχθίζουν τεράστιες εκτάσεις
δασικού πλούτου. Τα μέσα ενημέρωσης εκφράζουν την ανακούφισή τους για
το γεγονός ότι τουλάχιστον φέτος δεν είχαμε ανθρώπινες απώλειες. Έχουμε
όμως για άλλη μια φορά μια περιβαλλοντική καταστροφή ανυπολόγιστης
σημασίας.

Τεράστιες καταστροφές
Η φωτιά στην Ελαφόνησο κατέστρεψε τουλάχιστον το ένα τέταρτο του
νησιού μέχρι να τεθεί υπό έλεγχο. Πάνω από 5.000 στρέμματα δασικών και
αγροτικών εκτάσεων έγιναν κάρβουνο. Μεγάλες δασικές εκτάσεις χάθηκαν
και στο Νομό Βοιωτίας, με τη φωτιά να ξεκινάει από το χωριό Πρόδρομος και
να πλησιάζει μέσα σε λίγες ώρες τον Κορινθιακό Κόλπο. Στη Σαμοθράκη, ένα
νησί γνωστό για τη σπάνια φυσική ομορφιά του, τα δάση και τα
νερά του, εκδηλώθηκε πυρκαγιά που κατέστρεψε μεγάλες χορτολιβαδικές και
δασικές εκτάσεις, μακριά ευτυχώς από τον καταπράσινο πυρήνα του στο
όρος Σάος.
Στην χιλιοκαμένη ανατολική πλευρά του Υμηττού, μέσα σε περίπου μισή ώρα
η φωτιά που ξεκίνησε από τους πρόποδες του βουνού στην Παιανία, έφτασε
στην κορυφογραμμή καταστρέφοντας αυτοφυές δάσος. Το μόνο ευτύχημα
στη συγκεκριμένη περίπτωση ήταν ότι η διεύθυνση του ανέμου και η άμεση
κινητοποίηση ισχυρών πυροσβεστικών δυνάμεων δεν επέτρεψαν στη φωτιά να
περάσει στη δυτική πλευρά του βουνού, όπου βρίσκονται δασικές εκτάσεις
μεγάλης οικολογικής σημασίας.

Φωτιές εκδηλώθηκαν επίσης στα Καλάβρυτα, τα Ιωάννινα, την Άρτα, τη

Ζάκυνθο και πολλές ακόμη περιοχές της χώρας. Τίποτα όμως δε μπορεί να
συγκριθεί με την τεράστια οικολογική καταστροφή που συνεχίζει να
συντελείται στην Εύβοια. Τουλάχιστον 28.000 στρέμματα δάσους, αμέτρητα
νεκρά ζώα, ενώ η φωτιά πλησίασε επικίνδυνα σε προστατευόμενες περιοχές
και καταφύγια άγριας ζωής, και απείλησε χωριά της περιοχής. Για την
καταπολέμηση της φωτιάς στην κεντρική Εύβοια κινητοποιήθηκαν
εκατοντάδες πυροσβέστες με δεκάδες οχήματα και παρόλα αυτά συνεχίζει να
καίει για τέταρτη μέρα, αν και τείνει πλέον να περιοριστεί.

Αμέλεια, ή «ανάπτυξη»;
Σε αρκετές περιπτώσεις δασικών πυρκαγιών τον τελευταίο μήνα, έχουν
γίνει συλλήψεις υπόπτων για εμπρησμό. Σε ορισμένες από αυτές, υπάρχουν
στοιχεία που δείχνουν ότι επρόκειτο για οργανωμένο σχέδιο και όχι για απλές
περιπτώσεις αμέλειας. Ταυτόχρονα είναι ανοιχτή η συζήτηση για το κατά
πόσο οι φωτιές στην Εύβοια και στη Θήβα σχετίζονται με τα σχέδια
δημιουργίας νέων αιολικών πάρκων στις περιοχές που καίγονται, με δεδομένο
ότι οι πυρκαγιές συμπίπτουν χωρικά με τις περιοχές που προορίζονται για
αιολικά. Αν αποδειχτεί κάτι τέτοιο, δεν πρόκειται απλά για μια ακόμη
καταστροφική επέλαση της «ανάπτυξης», αλλά για έγκλημα τεραστίων
διαστάσεων. Ένα έγκλημα για χάρη οικονομικών συμφερόντων, με πρόσχημα
μάλιστα την καταπολέμηση της κλιματικής αλλαγής, ένα έγκλημα που σε
τελική ανάλυση καταστρέφει το ισχυρότερο όπλο που έχουμε στα χέρια μας
για την αντιμετώπισή της: τα ίδια τα δάση.

Χρόνια αποψίλωση της Πυροσβεστικής Υπηρεσίας

Οι πυροσβεστικές δυνάμεις που αντιμετωπίζουν τις δασικές πυρκαγιές των
τελευταίων ημερών είναι ισχυρές. Είναι όμως αυτό αρκετό; Με τις
συγκεκριμένες καιρικές συνθήκες, το στοίχημα δεν είναι αν έχουμε
διαθέσιμους μεγάλους αριθμούς πυροσβεστών, οχημάτων, εναέριων
μέσων, κλπ, που θα μετακινηθούν από μακρινές περιοχές (έτσι κι αλλιώς δεν
έχουμε επάρκεια σε τέτοιες δυνάμεις) αφού η φωτιά έχει πάρει ήδη μεγάλες
διαστάσεις. Με τα 6-7 μποφόρ, με τους 35 βαθμούς Κελσίου και με τα πολύ
χαμηλά ποσοστά υγρασίας που επικρατούσαν τις τελευταίες μέρες σε πολλές
περιοχές της χώρας, το στοίχημα είναι να προλάβουμε τις πυρκαγιές στην
αρχή τους.

Για να συμβεί αυτό απαιτείται ουσιαστική επιτήρηση των

δασών, στελεχωμένα παρατηρητήρια για τον έγκαιρο εντοπισμό δασικών
πυρκαγιών και διαθέσιμα πυροσβεστικά οχήματα και προσωπικό, που θα είναι
σε θέση σε πολύ σύντομο χρόνο να αντιμετωπίσουν μια δασική φωτιά, να την
προλάβουν κατά την έναρξή της. Αυτό δεν είναι δυνατό να συμβεί με τα
σημερινά δεδομένα διαρκούς αποψίλωσης της Πυροσβεστικής Υπηρεσίας από
προσωπικό, οχήματα και εξοπλισμό και της πλήρους διάλυσης της Δασικής
Υπηρεσίας.

Διαχείριση δασών
Εξίσου σημαντικό στοιχείο στον τομέα τόσο της πρόληψης όσο και της
αντιμετώπισης των δασικών πυρκαγιών αφού εκδηλωθούν, είναι η διαχείριση
των δασικών εκτάσεων. Ένα δάσος το οποίο έχει μετατραπεί σε «ζούγκλα»,
με τεράστιο όγκο τόσο ζωντανής, όσο και νεκρής βιομάζας, μπορεί
αισθητικά να είναι ελκυστικό, στην πραγματικότητα όμως αποτελεί
ωρολογιακή βόμβα. Εξηγώντας τη συμπεριφορά της φωτιάς στην Εύβοια, ο
ειδικός στις δασικές πυρκαγιές περιβαλλοντολόγος Μιλτιάδης Αθανασίου,
εξηγεί:

«Η συγκεκριμένη φωτιά δημιούργησε ισχυρή κατακόρυφη επαγωγική στήλη,

διότι βρήκε μεγάλες ποσότητες βιομάζας και κατά χρονικές περιόδους η
καύση κατάφερνε να κερδίσει τον άνεμο και να ορθώσει αυτή τη στήλη
καπνού που έφτασε πάρα πολλά χιλιόμετρα ψηλά. Μια τέτοια πυρκαγιά δεν
πλησιάζεται ούτε από επίγειες, ούτε από εναέριες δυνάμεις. Αυτό μας δείχνει
το πόσο σημαντικό είναι να έχουμε περιοχές που δεν θα είναι
τελείως αποψιλωμένες με την μορφή αντιπυρικών ζωνών αλλά περιοχές που
να διαχειρίζονται έτσι ώστε η πυρκαγιά να βρίσκει όλο και λιγότερη “τροφή”
να αδυνατίζει σταδιακά και να χτυπιέται παράλληλα από τις πυροσβεστικές
δυνάμεις. Αυτές οι περιοχές είναι οι λεγόμενες στεγασμένες ζώνες. Είναι
περιοχές με αραιωμένη επιφανειακή βλάστηση, και
αρκετά αποκλαδωμένα δέντρα σε αρκετά μεγάλο ύψος…»

Αυτού του επιπέδου η διαχείριση βέβαια, όπως και η επαρκής στελέχωση και
εξοπλισμός των αρμόδιων υπηρεσιών, η ουσιαστική εκπαίδευση της
κοινωνίας ώστε να μπορεί να προστατεύεται η ίδια, αλλά και να προστατεύει
 το φυσικό πλούτο, αποτελούν «ψιλά γράμματα» για τις κυβερνήσεις των
τελευταίων δεκαετιών και κυρίως για αυτές της εποχής των μνημονίων. Οι
πολιτικές που επιμένουν στη θυσία του φυσικού περιβάλλοντος στο όνομα της
εξυπηρέτησης των δανείων και της καταστροφικής «ανάπτυξης» οδηγούν
γρήγορα και σταθερά στον αφανισμό των δασών, των
θαλασσών, των υδατικών πόρων, του αέρα που αναπνέουμε, απειλούν την
ίδια μας την ύπαρξη.

διαβάστε ακόμα:

Κύπρος: Όταν η ΕΟΚΑ Β

δολοφονούσε άμαχους
Τουρκοκύπριους
14/08/2019
Καθημερινά, Θεωρία / Ιστορία, Βασικό Άρθρο Ημέρας, Διεθνή, teuxos 455 - 22 Jun - 6 Jul
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Νίκος Κοκκάλης
Στις 14 Αυγούστου του 1974, μέλη της ΕΟΚΑ Β δολοφόνησαν δεκάδες
αιχμάλωτους Τουρκοκύπριους που έφευγαν από το χωριό Τόχνη. Με αφορμή την
επέτειο, αναδημοσιεύουμε σχετικό άρθρο του Νίκου Κοκκάλη.

«Μας έβαλαν να καθίσουμε κάτω, μας είπαν να μην φοβόμαστε, κάντε ένα
τσιγάρο, αν έχετε και κάτι να φάτε, φάτε. Αυτοί κάθονταν όρθιοι μπροστά
μας μαζί με τον οδηγό του λεωφορείου, που είχε επίσης όπλο, αλλά όχι όπως
το δικό τους…

»…πριν περάσουν λίγα λεπτά ακούσαμε μια σφαίρα στον αέρα. Με το που
ακούστηκε ο κρότος της σφαίρας οι άλλοι που είχαν μείνει πίσω με τα όπλα
άρχισαν να μας γαζώνουν. Για 10 λεπτά πυροβολούσαν, άδειαζαν τα όπλα και
τα ξαναγέμιζαν. Δεν είδα ποιοι πυροβολούσαν. Μας είχαν βάλει να καθίσουμε
σε σχήμα μισοφέγγαρου και μας πυροβολούσαν. Δεν μπόρεσα να δω τα
πρόσωπά τους. Ήμασταν 45 άτομα. Τι να πρωτοδείς, τις σφαίρες, τα σώματα
που έπεφταν από δω και από κει; Ακούω κάποιον να ζητά σφαίρες. Τα όπλα
σίγησαν…»

(Συνέντευξη στην κυπριακή εφημερίδα «Πολίτης», 15 Ιούνη 2017: Ο

μοναδικός επιβιώσας της Τόχνης: Δεν τρέφω μίσος για τους Ε/κ).

Αυτή είναι η μαρτυρία του μοναδικού ανθρώπου που επιβίωσε από τη σφαγή
της Τόχνης, τον Αύγουστο του 1974, του 62χρονου σήμερα Σουάτ Καφαντάρ.
Ενός ανθρώπου που είδε την οικογένειά του να δολοφονείται μπροστά στα
μάτια του, ενώ ο ίδιος γλίτωσε την τελευταία στιγμή από τους
Ελληνοκύπριους ακροδεξιούς, χάρη στην ψυχραιμία και την τύχη του, αφού
σοβαρά τραυματισμένος, προσποιήθηκε το νεκρό και στη συνέχεια διέφυγε.

Τα γεγονότα
Ήταν 14 Αυγούστου 1974, πρωί, όταν δύο λεωφορεία που είχαν «επιταχθεί»
από άνδρες της ΕΟΚΑ Β με δεκάδες αιχμάλωτους Τουρκοκύπριους έφευγαν
από το χωριό Τόχνη στην επαρχία της Λάρνακας. Αφού πέρασαν το
οδόφραγμα της Γερομασόγειας και έφτασαν σε μία τοποθεσία κοντά στο
χωριό Παλλώδια, οι ένοπλοι της ΕΟΚΑ Β αποβίβασαν τους Τουρκοκύπριους
και τους είπαν ότι έπρεπε να περιμένουν για να μεταφερθούν σε στρατόπεδο
αιχμαλώτων. Λίγα λεπτά αργότερα άρχισαν να πυροβολούν, σκοτώνοντας 87
αιχμαλώτους, κάποιοι από τους οποίους ήταν δωδεκάχρονα παιδιά. Την ίδια
μέρα άντρες της ΕΟΚΑ Β εκτέλεσαν με παρόμοιο τρόπο 127 γυναικόπαιδα
στα χωριά Αλλόα, Μάραθα και Σανταλάρης, στην επαρχία Αμμοχώστου.
Ο Σουάτ Καφαντάρ, συνεχίζοντας την περιγραφή της σφαγής των
Τουρκοκυπρίων αμάχων από Ελληνοκύπριους ακροδεξιούς στην Τόχνη,
αναφέρει:

«Ακούω έναν και λέει ‘’αν υπάρχει κάποιος που κουνιέται να τον
πυροβολήσεις στο κεφάλι’’. Έμεινα εκεί, κρατούσα την αναπνοή μου. Ακούω
ήχο σφαίρας, μάλλον κάποιους πυροβόλησαν. Ακούω τον έναν να λέει “έλα να
πάρουμε τα ρολόγια απ’ τα χέρια των πεθαμένων” και ο άλλος απαντά “άστα,
να φύγουμε, να μην μας δει κανείς”. Αυτό σημαίνει ίσως ότι δεν είχαν εντολή
να το κάνουν αυτό. “Να φύγουμε, να πάμε να φέρουμε έναν εκσκαφέα να τους
θάψουμε”».

Η ΕΟΚΑ Β
Οι σφαγές στα τέσσερα χωριά ήταν επιχειρήσεις σχεδιασμένες και
υλοποιημένες από τα μέλη της ΕΟΚΑ Β, της ακροδεξιάς τρομοκρατικής
οργάνωσης που δρούσε στην Κύπρο από το 1971 υπό την ηγεσία του
Γεώργιου Γρίβα σε συνεργασία με Έλληνες αξιωματικούς της ΕΛΔΥΚ και των
κυπριακών ειδικών δυνάμεων (καταδρομείς, ΟΥΚ) και λειτουργώντας ως
ενεργούμενο της ελληνικής στρατιωτικής δικτατορίας.

Από το 1971 μέχρι το 1974, η ΕΟΚΑ Β επιδόθηκε σε μια σειρά τρομοκρατικών

επιθέσεων κατά κυβερνητικών στόχων και προσπάθησε να δολοφονήσει τον
εκλεγμένο πρόεδρο της Κύπρου, Αρχιεπίσκοπο Μακάριο, τον οποίο έβλεπε
(όπως και η Χούντα) ως το μοναδικό εμπόδιο στην «Ένωση» της Κύπρου με
την Ελλάδα.

Όταν αυτές οι απόπειρες απέτυχαν, μπήκε σε λειτουργία το σχέδιο

πραξικοπήματος ενάντια στον Μακάριο, το οποίο έγινε τελικά στις 15
Ιουλίου.

Στις 20 Ιουλίου ο τουρκικός στρατός, χρησιμοποιώντας το πραξικόπημα σαν

δικαιολογία καθώς η Τουρκία ήταν με βάση το Σύνταγμα της Κύπρου
εγγυήτρια δύναμη, αποβιβάστηκε στην Κερύνεια.

Με την αρχή της εισβολής, και με απλούς Ελληνοκύπριους

στρατιώτες και τους φαντάρους της ΕΛΔΥΚ να αμύνονται
απελπισμένα απέναντι στον τούρκικο στρατό, το μεγαλύτερο μέρος
της ΕΟΚΑ Β, έκανε «εκκαθαριστικές επιχειρήσεις» στα μετόπισθεν,
ενάντια σε αντιφρονούντες-δημοκρατικούς και Τουρκοκύπριους.
Μάλιστα, μερικά μέλη της ΕΟΚΑ Β, είχαν το θράσος να καυχιούνται, όπως
έκανε κάποιος από αυτούς στον τότε φαντάρο Νίκο Γενιά, που υποχωρώντας
είχε περάσει από την Μαράθα, την Αλόα και τον Σανταλάρη. Όπως θυμόταν,
σε συνέντευξη που είχε δώσει στην εφημερίδα Χαραυγή το 1998:

«ΕΟΚΑΒητατζήδες με εκσκαφείς άνοιγαν λάκκους και έθαβαν τους γέρους

και τα παιδιά που σκότωσαν σε αυτά τα χωριά. Μάλιστα ένας από αυτούς
κομπάζοντας μας είπε “Εμείς εκάμαμεν τη δουλειά μας”…».

Η αποκάλυψη των δύο σφαγών συγκλόνισε την κυπριακή κοινωνία,

αλλά την ίδια στιγμή προκάλεσε κύματα οργής στην Τουρκία.
Εκατοντάδες Ελληνοκύπριοι αιχμάλωτοι πολέμου βασανίστηκαν
άγρια σε αντίποινα για τις δύο σφαγές και πολλοί εκτελέστηκαν. Και
αυτό, την ίδια στιγμή που οι ΕΟΚΑΒητατζήδες που έκαναν αυτά τα
εγκλήματα κυκλοφορούσαν ελεύθεροι, ατιμώρητοι και πάνοπλοι,
στην Νότια Κύπρο, φυλάγοντας τα μετόπισθεν από φόβο μήπως οι
δημοκρατικοί ανασυνταχθούν και επιβάλουν την επιστροφή της
εκλεγμένης κυβέρνησης.

Η ΕΟΚΑ Β συνέχισε την τρομοκρατική της δράση μέχρι και το 1978, οπότε
και διαλύθηκε επισήμως. Στην πράξη όμως οι υποστηρικτές της εισχώρησαν
στο παραδοσιακό κόμμα της κυπριακής Δεξιάς, τον ΔΗΣΥ, του οποίου σήμερα
ηγείται ο Νίκος Αναστασιάδης.

Ο Σουάτ Καφαντάρ δε μισεί τους Ελληνοκύπριους, αλλά

μόνο τους δολοφόνους
Παρά την αποστροφή που λογικά νιώθει κάθε άνθρωπος για αυτούς που
σκοτώσανε την οικογένειά του και παραλίγο να σκοτώσουν και τον ίδιο, ο
Σουάτ Καφαντάρ εξηγεί ότι το μίσος δεν μπορεί να επεκτείνεται σε έναν
ολόκληρο λαό:

«Δεν έχω μίσος για κανέναν ε/κ. Αλλά για εκείνους που το έκαναν αυτό, το
μίσος δεν θα σταματήσει να υπάρχει ποτέ. Δεν τους ξέρω, ίσως να τους δω
και να μην τους γνωρίσω, αλλά αν μου πει κάποιος αυτοί είναι, μπορεί – δεν
ξέρω – μπορεί να τους πιάσω από το λαιμό».

Ομερτά
Τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες, έχει επιβληθεί ένα είδος ομερτά όσον αφορά
την δράση της ΕΟΚΑ Β από τις κυπριακές κυβερνήσεις.

Στην επίσημη ελληνοκυπριακή και ελληνική ιστοριογραφία, αναφέρεται,

πάντα επιγραμματικά ο ρόλος της ΕΟΚΑ Β στα γεγονότα που οδήγησαν στην
τουρκική εισβολή. Και ενώ οι αγριότητες που έγιναν από τα τουρκικά
στρατεύματα κατά την εισβολή αναφέρονται με κάθε λεπτομέρεια, οι σφαγές
που έκανε η ΕΟΚΑ Β, δεν αναφέρονται ποτέ. Το σχολείο, το πανεπιστήμιο, τα
ΜΜΕ, μας μαθαίνουν να μισούμε τους «βάρβαρους Τούρκους και
Τουρκοκύπριους».

Είναι όμως χρέος μας να θυμόμαστε την εγκληματική δράση της

ελληνικής και της ελληνοκυπριακής ακροδεξιάς. Και είναι ευθύνη της
Αριστεράς να το θυμίζει, γιατί τα κόμματα της άρχουσας τάξης δεν
πρόκειται ποτέ να το κάνουν. Είναι αναγκαιότητα για τον κυπριακό
λαό (ε/κ και τ/κ) να παλέψει ενάντια στον εθνικισμό, και ενωμένος να
κλείσει τους ανοιχτούς λογαριασμούς που έχει με την ακροδεξιά και
τις προνομιούχες τάξεις που την εκτρέφουν.

οια οικογένεια βγάζει 4 εκ.

δολάρια την ώρα;
12/08/2019
Καθημερινά, Προτεινόμενα, Βασικό Άρθρο Ημέρας, Διεθνή
Σχόλιο του “Ξ”

Εκατό εκατομμύρια δολάρια τη μέρα.

Ή τέσσερα εκατομμύρια δολάρια την ώρα.

Ή 70.000 δολάρια το λεπτό.

Και μόνο η αναφορά σε αυτά τα νούμερα είναι ικανή να προκαλέσει ζαλάδα
στον αναγνώστη με το μηνιάτικο μισθό των 500 ευρώ. Κι όμως, αυτοί είναι οι
ρυθμοί με τους οποίους αυξάνεται η περιουσία της οικογένειας Γουόλτον,
στην οποία ανήκουν τα πολυκαταστήματα Walmart στις ΗΠΑ, σύμφωνα με
το Bloomberg! Από τον Ιούνη του 2018 μέχρι σήμερα, η περιουσία των
Γουόλτον έχει εκτοξευθεί από τα 39 στα 191 δις δολάρια! Σύμφωνα με το ίδιο
δημοσίευμα, τα αφεντικά των Walmart, βγάζουν 23.000 δολάρια μέσα στον
ίδιο χρόνο που ένας από τους υπαλλήλους των πολυκαταστημάτων βγάζει 6
σεντς!

Ψίχουλα και τρομοκρατία για τους υπαλλήλους

Η αλυσίδα των Γουόλτον, απασχολεί σε ολόκληρο τον κόσμο περίπου 2,2
εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους. Στις ΗΠΑ, οι εργαζόμενοι των Walmart βγάζουν
περίπου 11 δολάρια την ώρα. Την ίδια στιγμή το εργατικό κίνημα στις ΗΠΑ
παλεύει και σε πολλές περιπτώσεις έχει καταφέρει να κερδίσει το αίτημα των
15 δολαρίων την ώρα βασικό μισθό. Το τεράστιο οικονομικό χάσμα
όμως, ανάμεσα στους ιδιοκτήτες και τους υπαλλήλους των Walmart, δεν
είναι ο μόνος λόγος που προκαλεί αγωνία και οργή στους τελευταίους.

Πριν από περίπου ένα μήνα, ένας εργαζόμενος της αλυσίδας στις ΗΠΑ
απολύθηκε, επειδή δημοσίευσε ανώνυμα, εμπιστευτικά έγγραφα της
εταιρείας. Το γεγονός ότι η εργοδοσία κατάφερε να τον εντοπίσει και να τον
απολύσει, έχει προκαλέσει μαζική ανησυχία στους εργαζόμενους, που
φοβούνται πλέον ότι όλες τους οι κινήσεις στα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης
παρακολουθούνται από τους εργοδότες τους!

Μάχη για τους μισθούς και όχι μόνο…

Μέσα σε αυτές τις συνθήκες της τρομοκρατίας και των μισθών πείνας, οι
εργαζόμενοι της Walmart αντιστέκονται. Την περασμένη άνοιξη, οι υπάλληλοι
της αλυσίδας καταστημάτων στη Μασαχουσέτη κατέβηκαν σε απεργία
διεκδικώντας καλύτερες συνθήκες δουλειάς και αξιοπρεπείς μισθούς. Στα
μέσα Ιούλη, εργαζόμενοι της Walmart στη Χιλή απεργούσαν επί μία
εβδομάδα, καταφέρνοντας στο τέλος να κερδίσουν σημαντικές αυξήσεις
στους μισθούς τους.

Η Walmart όμως, δεν είναι μισητή μόνο για τις άθλιες εργασιακές συνθήκες
και τα ψίχουλα που δίνει για μεροκάματα. Μετά τη μαζική δολοφονία μίσους
στο Ελ Πάσο του Τέξας, ένας από τους υπαλλήλους της εταιρείας έστειλε
μαζικά στους συναδέλφους του επιστολή με την οποία τους καλούσε να
οργανώσουν απεργίες και διαμαρτυρίες, για να αναγκάσουν τους Γουόλτον
να σταματήσουν να πουλάνε όπλα στα καταστήματα τους.

Ένας κόσμος φτιαγμένος για τους Γουόλτον και τους φίλους

τους
Αν επανέλθουμε όμως στα στοιχεία του Bloomberg, θα διαπιστώσουμε ότι οι
Γουόλτον δεν είναι οι μόνοι. Το πλουσιότερο 0,1% των Αμερικανών
ελέγχει σήμερα μεγαλύτερο πλούτο από οποιαδήποτε άλλη στιγμή από το
1929 και έπειτα. Το ότι σήμερα ο καπιταλισμός περνάει την μεγαλύτερη του
κρίση από το ’29, μόνο τυχαίο με το παραπάνω στοιχείο δεν μπορεί να
θεωρηθεί.

Μέσα στον τελευταίο χρόνο, ο πλούτος των 25 πιο

ευκατάστατων οικογενειών του πλανήτη αυξήθηκε κατά 24% και πλέον
αγγίζει το 1,4 τρισεκατομμύριο δολάρια. Την ίδια ώρα, σύμφωνα με στοιχεία
του FAO (Παγκόσμιος Οργανισμός Τροφίμων και Αγροτικής Παραγωγής) πάνω
από 820 εκατομμύρια άνθρωποι στον πλανήτη υποσιτίζονται, ενώ 2,5
δισεκατομμύρια άνθρωποι δεν έχουν πρόσβαση σε επαρκείς ποσότητες νερού
και συνθήκες υγιεινής.

Δε χρειάζονται περισσότερα στοιχεία για να αντιληφθεί κανείς ότι αυτός ο

κόσμος είναι φτιαγμένος για τους Γουόλτον και τους υπερπλούσιους φίλους
τους. Αυτοί κάθονται πάνω στις τεράστιες περιουσίες τους χωρίς να κάνουν
τίποτα, και ο πλούτος τους αυγαταίνει, την ώρα που εκατομμύρια άνθρωποι
ζουν με την ψυχή στο στόμα.

Αυτός ο κόσμος όμως δεν τους ανήκει. Τον έχουν κλέψει από τα εκατομμύρια
των φτωχών που δουλεύουν για να απολαμβάνουν οι Γουόλτον και οι όμοιοί
τους, τα τεράστια κέρδη τους. Αυτό τον κόσμο, πρέπει να τον πάρουμε πίσω!

Karl Marx’s Ecological

Socialism is a Guide for
Today’s Struggle
By
Arne Johansson
-
August 15, 2019
354

By Arne Johansson. First published July 18 in Offensiv, weekly paper of

Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden). Reposted from
socialistparty.ie.

Too many socialists, even among those who like to see themselves as
revolutionary Marxists, have been sadly late in discovering and
understanding the ecological analysis of capitalism’s irreparable
metabolic rift with the planet and nature that Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels began working on during the 1800s.

With his book, “Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature and the
Unfinished Critique of Political Economy” (Monthly Review 2017),
Japanese Marx researcher, Kohei Saito, has made a new and important
contribution to correcting this shortcoming at a time when capitalism’s
predatory attitude towards people and nature is approaching tipping
points that threaten to make large parts of the planet uninhabitable.

Saito, an associate professor of political economy at Osaka University,

largely builds upon the significant amount of unpublished notes by
Marx that he is working on as one of the editors of the Marx-Engels-
Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), an incomplete project compiling the collected
works of these two pioneers.

A new addition to this material is a detailed account of how Marx

developed his immense interest in the most recent research in the
natural sciences and in subjects such as biology, chemistry, geology
and mineralogy. His starting point was the crisis created by
capitalism’s industrialisation of agriculture and the rift that he
described in the metabolism between man and nature that is today
known as the ecological cycle. Saito shows how these were issues that
engaged Marx to great extent during his unfinished work on Capital
after the publication of its first part in 1867.
Even if Friedrich Engels is, to date, the more well known of the Marx-
Engels duo when it comes to scientific writings like “Anti-Dühring” and
his unfinished, but posthumously published, “Dialectics of Nature”,
Saito points out that Marx was at least equally interested in these
issues – the whole time in close contact with Engels.

No less than one-third of Marx’s notebooks – packed with fragments,

excerpts and commentaries – were written during the last 15 years of
his life and of these, almost half deal with scientific subjects. This
refutes the position of the so-called “Western Marxists” (in the
Frankfurt School, among others), who have long criticised Engels’
deriving of the dialectical laws of motion from nature as an unmarxist
distortion and who have argued that Marx’s historical materialism can
only be applied to human society.

Saito, in the preface, praises the important efforts to rediscover Marx’s

analysis of capitalism’s irreparable metabolic rift which socialist
professors, Paul Burkett and John Bellamy Foster, have paved the way
for since Burkett’s “Marx and Nature” (1999), and Foster’s Marx’s
Ecology (2000).

With the help of the journal Monthly Review, of which Foster is the
editor, these two have, in an effective way, combated the delusional
views of Marx as an ecologically naive supporter of industrial growth
(“prometheanism”) that have long flourished among both green
theorists and “the first-wave eco-socialists” such as Ted Benton, André
Gorz, Michael Löwy, James O’Connor and Alain Lipietz.

The fact that Marx today inspires ecological research around the world
is an important victory for this theoretical struggle, as are the echoes
of this which are increasingly appearing among the works of both
environmental researchers and debaters such as Naomi Klein in “This
changes everything – capitalism versus the climate”.
In “Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism”, Saito shows how Marx gradually
developed his analysis of capitalism’s “metabolic rift”. Saito admits that
the young Marx’s fascination with capitalism’s enormous development
of the productive forces can sometimes be perceived as “productivist”,
even though in his “Paris Notebooks” and the “Economic and
Philosophic Manuscripts” from 1844, he describes capitalism’s growing
divide (alienation) between workers and the fruits of production as well
as between man and man and between man and nature, when the
workers, during industrialism, were separated from the land.

Marx had already at this stage formulated communism’s task of

restoring a complete and rationally regulated unity between
humankind and nature at a higher level. But it was only after Marx,
with “The Poverty of Philosophy” in 1847, for example, turned his back
on the abstract philosophy of the Young Hegellians and experienced
the defeat of the revolutions of 1848 that he seriously began to deepen
his materialist studies of the way that capitalism operates.

A central part of Marx’s critique of some classical bourgeois

economists’ value theories was that these regarded labour as the
source of all value, while Marx carefully pointed out that they then
stared blindly at the market’s exchange values that were supplied by
labour power. One of the conclusions of this that Marx would arrive at
during his economic studies was that they then forget about nature’s
use values which they regarded as “a free gift to capital”. This means
that capital, with its competitive accumulation, undermines both the
workers and the land, “the original sources of all wealth.”

It seems to have been through his contact with the socialist physicist
and good friend Roland Daniel’s interest in the ecocycle between
animals and plants that Marx first noted the concept of metabolism.
Man exists, as Marx would explain, within “the universal metabolism of
nature”, where he can, from nature, extract utility values as part of the
“social metabolism”. But it was a few years later, during his
preliminary studies for Capital and in the context of the growing crisis
in British agriculture that Marx began to seriously take an interest in
the criticisms of the industrial plundering of the earth developed by
German agrochemist, Justus von Liebig. Here, Marx also found support
for his criticisms of the unhistoric method of analysing rent put forward
by the economist David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus’ population
question. Humankind’s relationship with nature has changed during the
development of new methods of production. But it is under capitalism
that the radically strengthened rifts in the relationship between man
and nature occur.

And it was particularly under the influence of Liebig that Marx in 1865-
66 began to revise his earlier, more optimistic belief in contemporary
technological advances and to understand how the short-term
approaches of capitalism to counteract the declining fertility of the
earth only tended to create new and “irreparable metabolic rifts” on a
higher and higher level, and even on a global level.

Saito outlines how Liebig in his pioneering book, “Agricultural

Chemistry”, had described how the strong urban growth of the British
cities during industrialisation dramatically increased demand for the
agricultural goods of the depopulated countryside, while at the same
time, the minerals of food were not returned to the earth as fertiliser
but instead, through London and other city’s new water toilets, were
flushed out in the polluted rivers and sea as sewage.

Thus, not only the fertility of the British fields was depleted, but also
the countries whose guano (faeces from South American seabirds) and
bones were imported as fertiliser: “Great Britain robs all countries of
the conditions of their fertility; she has already ransacked the battle-
fields of Leipzig, Waterloo, and the Crimea for bones, and consumed
the accumulated skeletons of many generations in the Sicilian
catacombs…. We may say to the world that she hangs like a vampire
on the neck of Europe”, as Liebig described it.
In Capital, Marx summed up the message that, “all progress in
capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the
worker, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of
the soil for a given time is a progress toward ruining the more long-
lasting sources of that fertility” and that, “Capitalist production,
therefore, only develops the techniques and the degree of combination
of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the
original sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker.”

The desperate commodity hunt by England and the United States’ for
guano and saltpetre for their depleted soil drove the United States to
annex dozens of guano-rich islands in 1856. It led also, as Saito points
out, to the violent repression of the indigenous peoples of South
America’s west coast, as well as to the Guano War of 1865-66 and War
of the Pacific of 1879-84 for saltpetre.

In Capital, Marx also describes how the social necessity of trying to

control and tame a natural resource while at the same time trying to
protect it from exploitation has played a crucial role in history. The
irrigation works in Egypt, Lombardy and Holland and artificial canals
such as in India and Persia not only watered the soil, but also fertilised
it with minerals carried as sediment from the hills. “The secret of the
flourishing state of industry in Spain and Sicily under the dominion of
the Arabs lay in their irrigation works”.

If Marx had previously been able to occasionally talk about the

civilizing role of capitalism during colonialism, he now saw, without
idealizing pre-capitalist societies, mainly suffering and misery in the
traces of the dissolution of traditional local communities that broke the
intimate relationship between people and nature. When the British
regime during the colonial era in India, according to Marx, “introduced
a caricature of English large-scale landed property” and abandoned the
system of dams and drains previously controlled by the state in 1856,
this resulted in drought and a terrible famine that caused one million
deaths.
According to Marx, in all societies and modes of production, man must
contend with nature in order to satisfy his needs: “Freedom in this field
can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally
regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their
common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of
Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and
under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human
nature.

In his “Economic Manuscript of 1864-65”, Marx warns that with

capitalism, “instead of a conscious and rational treatment of the land
as permanent communal property, as the inalienable condition for the
existence and reproduction of the chain of human generations, we
have the exploitation and squandering of the powers of the earth”.

In a chapter about Marx’s ecology after 1868, Saito highlights Marx´s

great interest in the debates between various agricultural experts of,
for example, the “physical” and “chemical” schools about which
substances are most important to add to increase the soil’s fertility,
minerals or nitrates. He notes, for example, the significant impression
that seems to have been made on Marx by chemist, James Johnston,
and, in particular, the German agronomist Karl Fraas, who, partly in a
polemic with Liebig, emphasised the great role that climate change
plays when deforestation reduces soil moisture and the natural
nutrient supply of the soil.

In a letter to Engels in 1868, Marx describes Fraas as having “an

unconscious socialist tendency”. According to Marx, in his book
“Climate and the Vegetable World throughout the Ages, a History of
Both”, Fraas showed how “cultivation when it progresses in a primitive
way and is not consciously controlled (as a bourgeois of course he does
not arrive at this), leaves deserts behind it, Persia, Mesopotamia, etc.,
Greece.”
Fraas was alerted to the consequences of rapid deforestation in
countries such as England, France and Italy, even high up in previously
inaccessible mountain areas – which he believed raised the need for
regulation. Through his reading of Fraas and a number of other
researchers such as John Tuckett and Friedrich Krichhof, Marx had also
noted in his manuscripts for volume three of Capital (the second and
third volumes were published after Marx’s death by Engels on the basis
of Marx’s incomplete manuscripts) that neither capitalist agriculture
nor forestry was sustainable and that capitalism’s irreparable metabolic
rift between society and nature was therefore not limited to depletion
of the soil.

“The development of culture and of industry in general has evinced

itself in such energetic destruction of forest that everything done by it
conversely for their preservation and restoration appears infinitesimal”,
Marx also noted in the manuscript for volume two of Capital.

The same capitalist tendency to violently exploit nature to its limits

that he saw in unsustainable forestry, he also saw in a way that he
found “abominable” in animal keeping. In a comment on an extract
from Wilhelm Hamm’s praise of intensive meat farming, Marx also
questioned whether this “system of cell prison” and the grotesque
breeding of abnormal animals could ultimately result in “a serious
weakening of the life force”.

Saito explains how Marx’s great interest in the polemics between Liebig
and Fraas and the rapid development of science and technology led
him to the conclusion that in-depth studies were needed to see how
long capitalism could stave off its ecological crisis and that these were
issues he found necessary to develop, which, according to Saito’s
opinion, delayed Marx’s work with the incomplete second and third
volumes of Capital.

Also in the studies of historian, Georg Ludwig von Maurer, about equal
pre-capitalist societies and their insights about the necessity of trying
to regulate the metabolism between humans and nature, Marx saw in
his later “Ethnological Notebooks”, “an unconscious socialist tendency”.
Marx was impressed by the “natural vitality” and ecological
sustainability of self-sufficient German Mark villages, which in his
opinion, were the Middle Ages “only focus on freedom and public life”.

In a letter to Russian Narodnik, Vera Zasulich, Marx did not rule out
that a socialist revolution in Russia could be based on similar village
communes and explained that the capitalist system in Western Europe
and the United States is “in conflict with the working masses, with
science, and with the very productive forces which it generates – in
short, in a crisis that will end through its own elimination, through the
return of modern societies to a higher form of an ‘archaic’ type of
collective ownership and production.”

Saito emphasizes that it is not possible to fully understand Marx’s

incomplete criticism of political economy if one ignores its ecological
dimension. According to Saito, Marx’s original manuscript for Capital’s
Volume Three shows some differences compared to those published by
Engels after Marx’s death, with examples in a footnote relating to the
analysis of the credit system. Apart from (small) clarifications of what
Marx expressed compared to what Engels published by his writings,
Saito claims that the fourth part of the new collected works will include
notebooks that are all the more important since Capital is incomplete.

Reading these original sources in parallel with what has so far been
published in Capital will, according to Saito, convince researchers that
Marx’s ecology is a fundamental part of his critique of political
economy. He even believes “that Marx would have more strongly
emphasised the problem of ecological crisis as the central contradiction
of the capitalist mode of production had he been able to complete
Capital 2 and 3 volumes”.

Saito’s “Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism” describes very little of the important

contributions that Engels provided in order to generalise their common
conclusions. In his ingenious little pamphlet, “The Part Played by Labor
in the Transition From Ape to Man”, Engels explains that the animal
merely uses its surrounding nature while man controls it, but adds with
a long list of striking examples:

“Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our

human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its
revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about
the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite
different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first.

[….] “Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule

over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone
standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain,
belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it
consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures
of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.”

What is required in order to restore this metabolic rift, which has been
pushed to its breaking point under capitalism, and establish what is
today called a sustainable society, is, according to what Marx says in
Capital, a higher society, that is, socialism:

“From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private

property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd
as private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a
nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not
owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries,
and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding
generations as boni patres familias [good heads of the household].”

It is certain that if Marx and Engels were alive today – when

capitalism’s irreparable metabolic rift has evolved into an existential
threat to all civilised life – they would pay decisive attention to
following and understanding the very latest in today’s climate and
Earth System research.

A central task for Marxists today is to recreate the red thread between
the ecological studies of the pioneers’ and, like them, to understand
socialism as the vital key to a rational regulation of the metabolism
between people and nature.

August 1969 – When British troops

went into Northern Ireland
Posted by: Socialist Party Aug 13, 2019

By Peter Hadden (first published in August 2009)

August 1969 was a turning point in the history of Northern Ireland. It was then that the
Labour Government of Harold Wilson took the decision to send troops onto the streets, first
of Derry, then of Belfast.
The measure was presented as temporary – troops were needed, they said, because, with
riots sweeping the streets, with huge parts of Derry and Belfast sealed off behind barricades
and with pogroms starting to develop, it was clear that the Unionist government at Stormont
had lost control. It was to be a ‘stop gap’. The troops would be withdrawn ‘as soon as law
and order is restored’.
As in Iraq and Afghanistan, the British ruling class were to discover that it is one thing to
send their army into a conflict, it is a different matter entirely to get them out. In the case of
Northern Ireland the ‘temporary’ deployment turned into twenty five years of bloody conflict,
with the troops in the front line, followed by a decade and a half of uneasy peace, with the
troops in barracks, only a brief mobilisation away from a return to the streets.
August ’69 was a turning point because it drew a line under the opening, civil rights phase of
the Troubles and laid the basis for the emergence of new political and paramilitary forces that
would dominate for decades to come.
The Troubles had begun in earnest ten months earlier with an explosion of anger in Catholic
working class communities at the injustices meted out to them by the then Unionist State.
For almost fifty years, since the founding of the state, Catholics had suffered systematic
discrimination in housing and in jobs. Catholics were also partly disenfranchised by the
blatant gerrymandering of electoral boundaries.
On 5 October a small demonstration in Derry made up mainly of members of left wing
organisations, notably members of Derry Labour Party and Derry Young Socialists,
demanding an end to discrimination and jobs and houses for all, was banned and then met
with the full fury of baton waving members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The
images of police savagely beating peaceful demonstrators ignited anger in working class
communities and the Civil Rights Movement was instantly transformed from a quite small
scale affair into a mass movement of the Catholic working class.
Among the youth who poured onto the streets, rage at the Unionist establishment was
coupled with contempt for the nationalist politicians who had delivered nothing for the
Catholic community. In opposing and confronting unionist misrule, this movement, in the
process, shook off the fossilised ideas of right wing nationalism. Socialist ideas began to
develop a real echo, especially in Derry where the radicalised local Labour Party was able to
articulate the anger of young people at slum housing and mass unemployment.
Housing conditions in Protestant working class areas were no different from those in Catholic
areas. The problem was not just discrimination but the almost complete absence of a public
authority house building programme.
Similarly in relation to jobs. Although discrimination put Protestants first in line for some jobs,
poverty and unemployment likewise blighted Protestant working class areas.

A missed chance for unity

Had 5 October ignited, as was possible, a struggle not just against discrimination – including
the discrimination by Nationalist councils against Protestants – but also for decent houses and
jobs for all, a powerful and united movement of the working class could have emerged.
Forty years of the Troubles later it hardly needs to be said that this did not happen. It did not
happen because of the absence of any leadership equipped with the will, the ideas and also
the authority to bring it about. The trade union leadership, heading a 210,000 strong
movement, sat aloof from the turmoil that followed 5 October. They sat aloof through the
months of demonstrations, counter demonstrations, riots and mounting tension, restricting
themselves to praising the Unionist government for the partial reforms that were forced on
them and to issuing sanctimonious pleas for calm.
In Derry the recently established Labour Party branch shifted rapidly to the left during these
events. While perhaps not to the same extent, a similar process was underway in other
sections of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) which, at this time had a growing base
in working class communities, Catholic and Protestant.
A motion to the NILP Conference in May 1969 called on the party to attempt to take a
leadership role in the Civil Rights struggle. The right wing leadership, cautious about
opposing it openly, tried to get it remitted – but the Conference overruled them and the
motion was passed. It made little difference as the leadership simply ignored it and imitated
their union counterparts in doing nothing.
The failure of the labour movement to intervene assisted the so-called civil rights ‘moderates’
– people like future Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader, John Hume – to
stamp their authority on the Civil Rights Movement. Hume, who was a voice for the
conservative Catholic middle class, argued vehemently against class or socialist ideas that
might “split” the all class unity that was being built.
There would have been a reaction from die hard unionists and from the most backward
sections of the Protestant population to the civil rights struggle no matter what. But limiting
the programme of the Civil Rights movement only to rights for Catholics allowed the
government – as well as demagogic figures like Ian Paisley – to paint this as a movement
against Protestants and to gain a wider base for their poisonous and reactionary ideas.
There was a strong left within the civil rights movement. Influential figures like Eamonn
McCann, then of Derry Labour Party, and Bernadette Devlin, who defeated a Unionist to take
the Mid Ulster Westminster seat, sprang to prominence. The radicalisation that swept Catholic
areas allowed Peoples Democracy – a loose formation formed by Queens University students
– to gain a certain base of support among Catholic working class youth.
But mass revolutionary upheaval is a stern test for socialists – especially in a complex
situation like that in Northern Ireland. The groups that did develop were handicapped by
confusion, ultra leftism and a fatal tendency to buckle politically under pressure. Eamonn
McCann, for example, at first went along with John Hume’s call for a ban on placards,
banners, slogans or any alternative message from civil rights platforms.

Escalating sectarian tensions

By 1969, as a backlash to the marches set in, events had begun to take on a sharper edge.
In the months leading up to August there was serious rioting in Derry, Dungiven, Armagh,
Lurgan and other area. Ominously by July the trouble had spread to parts of Belfast with riots
and bitter sectarian clashes. In the tense atmosphere that was developing the initial civil
rights demands receded and it was the issue of defence – defence against attack by
sectarians and by the police – that was now to the fore.
The paramilitary organisations that were soon to put themselves forward as the “defenders”
of working class communities to all intents and purposes did not exist at this time.
A Shankill Defence Association that had been formed out of rioting in the area was a
forerunner of the organisations that two years on would come together as the UDA, but it
was the only one of its kind. The UVF had tried to reform in the mid 1960s but had more or
less fallen to pieces as a result of a combination of state repression and disinterest on the
part of the Protestant community. A section of the unionist establishment – people from
within the Cabinet and not so much from the Paisleyite fringe as is commonly assumed –
were trying to encourage its reformation but this amounted to very little at this time.
The IRA was a spent force, not recovered from the failure of its ‘border campaign’ of the
1950s and virtually disarmed. According to one account (Bishop/Mallie, The Provisional
IRA), at a meeting of the IRA command in Dublin in May 1969 when future Provisional
leader, Ruairi O’Bradaigh raised the issue of defence he was told by the then OC and future
Official IRA leader, Cathal Goulding that ‘it was up to the official forces of the British Army
and RUC to defend the people’. When asked what weapons might be available Goulding’s
response was: ‘a pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.’ This is almost certainly a
Provisional embellishment of the truth but it is not that far from an accurate assessment of
the IRA’s capacity at the time.
As the clock ticked down to the annual Apprentice Boys parade which would see 15,000
Protestants march past the Bogside in Derry the atmosphere in the North became ever more
tense. The threat of serious sectarian clashes that could spread to other towns and to Belfast
was obvious. In Derry the timid Citizens Action Committee was defunct. A few republicans,
along with some other individuals, had responded to earlier attacks on the Bogside by setting
up a Derry Citizens Defence Association. In parts of Belfast local vigilante and defence groups
were springing up. In the main these were not the sectarian bodies that were later to
develop. In many mixed communities local defence groups involving Catholics and
Protestants were set up to keep the trouble out of their area.
The trade union leaders, rather than take an initiative to co-ordinate these groups into a
force that could resist sectarianism in all its forms, continued with their heads in the sand
approach. Their only intervention was a statement issued on 4 August – just over a week
before the Apprentice Boys march – asking trade unionists to ‘avoid street meetings and
gatherings likely to lead to community troubles’.
There was confusion too among the prominent left leaders who had emerged from the civil
rights struggle. Lacking the steadying influence of a revolutionary party, even the best
leaders – Bernadette Devlin and Eamonn McCann included – vacillated under the pressure.
Rather than maintain an independent class position, Bernadette Devlin flew to America where
she pleaded with UN Secretary General U Thant for UN troops to be sent in. When fighting
started in the Bogside she and Eamonn McCann issued a joint statement headed
‘Westminster must act’ calling for the suspension of the northern constitution and a
constitutional conference of the Westminster, Stormont and Dublin governments to work out
a solution.

Battle of the Bogside

The Apprentice Boys parade on 12 August started peacefully enough but that didn’t last long.
Derry Labour Party and Young Socialist members were on the streets trying to stop young
people from the Bogside from attacking the marchers. It worked for a while but eventually
the inevitable happened. Stones were thrown at the parade, fighting followed and the RUC
responded by launching a full scale assault on the Bogside.
As soon as that happened the Labour Party and Young Socialist members who had been
advocating restraint joined with the rest of the people of the area who responded almost to a
person by raising barricades and resisting the RUC with stones and then with petrol bombs.
The Battle of the Bogside raged for more than two days. The RUC repeatedly charged the
crowds defending the area but were just as repeatedly driven back by a fusillade of stones
and petrol bombs, some rained down on their heads from the people who had taken up a
position on top of the high rise Rossville Flats. People in other Catholic communities took to
the streets in a deliberate attempt to stretch the RUC.
One day into the battle a statement issued by the Irish government raised the sectarian
temperature. People in the south, horrified at the scenes they were witnessing on their TV
screens, were demanding that something be done. Irish Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, said that his
government “would not stand idly by”. Irish military field hospitals were to be set up across
the border from Derry in Donegal. Lynch’s bluster was no more than a cover for the fact that
the Irish government were ‘going to stand idly by’ – but that’s not how Protestants in the
north saw it and the effect was to stir the already aroused sectarian tensions.
The RUC, the force the Unionist Government was relying on to maintain its grip, was 3,200
strong. After months of rioting 600 RUC officers were out injured even before the Bogside
erupted. Two days into the August battle and this ill equipped, ill trained force was all but
defeated. The Unionist’s answer was to issue an order calling up the 8,500 strong police
reserve, the notorious B Specials.

The troops go in
Had this armed and bigoted Protestant militia been sent against the Bogside there almost
certainly have been a bloodbath. The violence would have spread and a civil war that would
have engulfed Ireland, north and south, would have been the most likely outcome. It was to
avert this possibility that the Wilson Government decided to deploy troops.
It was not that the British ruling class had any particular concern for the beleaguered Catholic
population of the Bogside. But a civil war in Ireland would spark upheaval in major British
cities. It would engulf their property in Ireland and would leave the trade and other economic
relations they were carefully nurturing with Dublin in shreds. Moreover it would lead to a
wave of anti British sentiment in the US and in other key countries.
As soon as it was clear that the troops were not going to force their way into the Bogside
there was a sense of massive relief that expressed itself in a warm welcome for the soldiers.
But no sooner had an uneasy calm returned to Derry when parts of Belfast erupted into much
more bloody and sectarian upheaval. Intense fighting took place in the streets linking the
Lower Falls and Shankill and between the Shankill and Ardoyne.
Streets were invaded by huge crowds, some of them armed.The RUC blazed their way into
the Falls firing machine guns mounted on Shoreland armoured cars. By the morning seven
people were dead, five Catholic and two Protestant, 750 were injured, whole streets were
ablaze, and refugees were picking their way through the barricades and rubble to flee.
That afternoon 600 steel helmeted troops arrived, bayonets fixed, and nervously took up
positions in the area. They had little or no idea of the local geography and even less idea of
which way they should point their rifles if fighting re-erupted. Riots continued that night in
other areas but, by the weekend, an even more uneasy calm than existed in Derry was
restored.
At this point 150,000 people were living behind barricades in Catholic areas where the writ of
the State no longer ran. The attitude of these people to the troops was generally welcoming
at first. They saw the troops as having lifted the siege of their areas. Politicians across the
board, including the main Civil Rights leaders all joined the welcome.
So did most of the left in Britain and Ireland. The very individuals and groups who a few
years later were to be the most vociferous in demanding ‘troops out now’ supported the
decision to send them in.
Just hours before the soldiers arrived in Derry, Bernadette Devlin had been on the phone
from behind the barricades pleading with Home Secretary, James Callaghan, that they be
sent.
The Socialist Workers Party criticised those who called for the troops to be withdrawn. This is
what they said at the time:
‘The breathing space provided by the presence of British troops is short but vital. Those who
call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops before the men behind the barricades can
defend themselves are inviting a pogrom which will hit first and hardest at socialists.’
(Socialist Worker, No. 137, 11 September 1969)
Militant – the forerunner of the Socialist Party – was alone on the left in taking a clear class
position. Then a four page black and white monthly, the headline of the September 1969
issue of Militant demanded the withdrawal of the troops. It called instead for an armed
trade union defence force. An article analysing the situation warned: ‘The call made for the
entry of British troops will turn to vinegar in the mouths of some of the civil rights leaders.
The troops have been sent to impose a solution in the interests of British and Ulster big
business.’
This was no abstract position conjured from the safety of distance. The few members and
supporters of Militant in Northern Ireland at the time were behind the Derry barricades,
involved in the defence of the area and facing the consequences of any pogrom. Unlike the
SWP and others, Militant did not bend to what was a temporary mood of support for the
troops but explained the real reasons they had been sent and warned what their role would
be. This position has been absolutely vindicated by what followed.

The basis for working class defence forces

Nor was the call for a trade union defence force an abstract slogan, removed from the reality
of the time. The truth is the troops did not and could not have prevented widespread
pogroms. Their presence had a psychological rather than a physical impact and, in this sense,
it did help produce a temporary calm.
But the army presence was only in Derry and a small part of Belfast. Elsewhere it was the
actions of working class people that prevented the trouble spreading. In the Docks,
Grosvenor Road, East Belfast, Alliance Avenue and many other areas people took to the
streets and physically stopped the violence and intimidation. In the Carlisle flats, close to the
Shankill, Catholic residents who had fled were returned to their homes by local residents.
Shop stewards in the big factories and workplaces meanwhile acted to halt sectarian
intimidation. Shipyard shop stewards called a mass meeting attended by virtually the entire
workforce and called a brief token strike opposing conflict. Shop stewards followed this by
visiting the homes of Catholic shipyard workers who had stayed away from work and assured
them of their safety if they returned.
Had these initiatives not been taken, and had the violence spread, the army would have been
powerless to prevent widespread pogroms and even civil war. All they could have done – as
was subsequently admitted – would have been to set up secure corridors to evacuate people
to safer areas. It was the instinctive actions of working class people that prevented a slide to
civil war.
The outlines of a workers’ defence force already existed. Had the trade union leadership been
prepared to give a lead – or had their been a revolutionary organisation with sufficient
support in workplaces and working class communities – it would have been possible to bring
together shop stewards committees and the various anti sectarian defence organisations that
had sprung up. Links could have been established with the expanded Defence Committees
that now controlled the barricaded areas of West Belfast and Derry.
Rather than any such initiative the union leadership went into an even closer huddle with the
Unionist Government. They met with Stormont Ministers in early September and issued a
joint statement applauding the paltry reforms that had been announced, appealing for people
to stay off the streets and for the barricades to come down. It was a kick in the teeth for the
thousands of trade union members who had taken to the streets to defend their areas and to
stop sectarian intimidation.

The rise of sectarian militias

Not for the first time – or the last – the failure of the labour movement cleared the way for
other forces to emerge. The seeds of the Provisional IRA were sown by the inability of the old
guard leadership of the IRA to offer any defence of Catholic communities in August. While
Bombay Street and other parts of the Lower Falls burned, the total strength that the IRA
could muster was a few veteran republicans who took up positions in a local school armed
with a Thompson sub machine gun, a 303 rifle and four pistols and who opened fire on the
approaching Protestant crowds.
As ‘IRA – I Ran Away’ graffiti went up in the area, disgruntled republicans met and began to
organise the split that a few months later would lead to the formation of the Provisional IRA.
It was not long either before the true role of the troops began to be seen. Ironically it was
Protestants on the Shankill Road who were given the first taste of the brutal methods that
would soon become commonplace. An announcement made in October that the B Specials
were to be disbanded and replaced by a new force – the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) –
was warmly greeted by civil rights leaders – and by both the NILP and the unions – but
provoked outrage among Shankill Road Protestants.
Shots were fired during subsequent rioting in the area killing a policeman, the first RUC
officer to be killed, again ironically at the hands of Protestants. The response of the State was
to send in troops who dealt with the riots with particular ferocity. The army admitted to firing
66 rounds, killing one person. The next day they conducted an arms search, moving street by
street through the area, ransacking homes as they went. One of the officers in charge, a
Major Hitchcock, confessed to the press: ‘We are searching everything. I’m afraid we’re not
being very polite about it.’
Civil Rights leaders – and some republicans and others prominent in the Central Citizens
Defence Committee that had been set up linking the barricaded Catholic areas – applauded
the army action. A few months later, in the summer of 1970, the shoe was on the other foot.
Troops imposed a 34-hour curfew on the Lower Falls and began an arms search, using the
same methods as they had on the Shankill. They met armed resistance from both wings of
the IRA, the Officials as well as the Provisionals. At the end of it all five people were dead and
sixty injured – but the biggest casualty, as far as the State was concerned, was the change in
attitude towards the troops. The honeymoon they had enjoyed in Catholic areas since the
previous August was over in that area at least.
Paddy Devlin, still an NILP MP for the area, recorded the change: “Overnight the population
turned from neutral or even sympathetic support for the military to outright hatred of
everything related to the security forces. As the self styled generals and godfathers took over
in the face of this regime, Gerry Fitt and I witnessed voters and workers … turn against us to
join the Provisionals.” Much worse was to come.
Those socialists who supported the decision to send in the troops should remember that the
‘armed bodies of men’ of any capitalist State represent ultimately the interests of the ruling
class, not of the working class. In Northern Ireland the troops provided repression, not
security and their presence vastly complicated the situation. Forty years on we are left with a
more divided society and a sectarian impasse that passes itself off as a ‘peace process’.
There is nothing inevitable about history. The forty years of conflict only became ‘inevitable’
because of the absence of a leadership able to offer a socialist way out.
Today the key task is to build such a leadership so that the mistakes of the past are not
repeated and that the new opportunity that is now opening for socialist ideas is not let slip.

Chernobyl: A warning from history

Posted by: Socialist Party Aug 14, 2019

With growing calls, including from some on the left, for nuclear fission to be widely harnessed
as a means to shift away from fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions, HBO’s mini-series
Chernobyl comes as a timely reminder of the colossal dangers associated with this
technology. The series – currently the highest rated ever on IMDb – follows the events which
led to the explosion of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power station in Ukraine on 26 April 1986,
the response to the disaster and subsequent investigation, through the eyes of a number of
central characters.
The radiation released by the explosion was equivalent to 400 of the bombs dropped on
Hiroshima. The nearby town of Pripyat had to be evacuated and a 30km exclusion zone exists
around the site to this day. Only in February this year did discussions about decreasing the
size of the area begin. The death toll connected to the long-term effects of the radiation
released is difficult to estimate but likely to be in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.
As horrific as this is, things could have been much worse. When a meltdown began at reactor
4, had workers – knowingly putting themselves at grave risk – not worked tirelessly to empty
huge water tanks beneath it, a chain reaction could have begun, causing the other reactors
also to explode and unleashing so much radiation that much of Europe could have become
uninhabitable in a matter of years.
The series illustrates the role which the weaknesses of the then Soviet Union – declining
economically under the dead weight of the Stalinist bureaucracy – played in shaping the
catastrophe and, at least initially, hindering the response to it. However, similar disasters
have also taken place in the capitalist world – the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island
in the US and the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011. All were rooted in cost-cutting and
poor, top-down planning. While nuclear disasters are rare and Chernobyl was by far the
worst, the risks can never fully be eliminated and, when things do go wrong, it can have
catastrophic consequences, not just locally but globally.
Nuclear fission is not renewable or sustainable. It produces waste which can remain toxic for
centuries, which must be contained and stored, posing further risks. Most importantly, it is
not a quick fix solution. Due the complexities of the technology and the dangers associated
with the fuel, it takes years for nuclear power plants to come online. We simply don’t have
that time if we’re to rapidly slash carbon emissions and avoid devastating climate change.
Instead of looking for false solutions within the limits of what capitalism has to offer, we need
to fight for a socialist future where society’s huge wealth can be invested in rapidly
transitioning to genuinely renewable energy sources on a planned and democratic basis.

Review: Leon Trotsky’s “In Defence of

Marxism”
Posted by: Socialist Party Aug 15, 2019

Leon Trotsky’s In Defense of Marxism is a book every Marxist needs to study. It’s a collection
of letters and key documents from a sharp debate within the Socialist Workers Party in the
US in 1939-40.
It’s a very rich book, on application of Marxist theory in a rapidly changing world – Stalinism
in the Soviet Union, fascism in power in Italy and Germany, and World War II. In parallel, it
concretely deals with building a revolutionary party – orientation to the working class, party
democracy and internationalism. One thing is evident all through the book, Trotsky was not a
“Marxist” who just repeated old formulas and he was not afraid of admitting mistakes.
World War II of course was a test for every organization and individual. Bourgeois politicians
internationally had already in big numbers capitulated to fascism as their only way to crush
the working class and achieve revenge against the Russian Revolution.
In August 1939, just before the outbreak of the war, workers and most others were stunned
by the announcement of the Hitler-Stalin pact. It was a desperate move by Stalin, who had
failed to get the alliance with France and Britain that he wanted, to avoid an immediate
attack by Nazi-Germany. When that inevitable military assault came, in June 1941, Stalin
initially did not believe the news.
The pact changed the propaganda of the Communist International, focusing on criticism of
British and French imperialism instead of Nazi Germany. Militarily, the pact meant that Poland
was invaded from West by the German army on September 1, followed by an invasion from
the East by the Soviet Union in mid-September. Soviet troops also attacked the Baltic states
and Finland.
Following these events, part of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in the United States,
including part of the leadership, changed their positions on the character of the Soviet Union.
They capitulated to a strong pressure of bourgeois democratic opinion in media and “left
circles” to equate the Stalinist dictatorship in Soviet Union with that of Hitler in Germany.
Taking these steps, the opposition that developed in the SWP rapidly also abandoned Marxist
theory and the need for a revolutionary party. In Defense of Marxism should be studied
carefully, not just glimpsed at, to understand the need to combine a strong theoretical
ground with concrete analysis.

What was Stalinism?

Lenin and Trotsky were the leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1917, securing that the
working class, with the support of the peasants, took power for the first time in history. They
were also the first to recognize the weaknesses and dangers for the new state, especially
when it became isolated following the defeat of revolutions in Germany and other countries.
A bureaucracy developed, with Stalin as its leader, with defending status quo and achieving
“stability” as its first priority, gradually adding its own desire for privileges and power. Stalin,
who had played no leading role in 1917, was incapable of giving advice to the German
revolution in 1923 and the Chinese in 1925-27, which both were defeated.
In the 1920s, the bureaucracy was an unconscious brake on revolutions, but later it became
a conscious brake to stop workers revolutions and struggles, particularly in Spain in 1936-39.
In the Soviet Union, they conducted an actual civil war against all remnants of Bolshevism
that led the workers to power in 1917. The Stalinist regime used purges, prison camps, show
trials and executions against any opposition, particularly the real Marxists.
During the living process of Stalinism coming to power, Trotsky many times posed the
question of “Thermidor”, referring to counter-revolution in France in 1794. At first, Trotsky
believed Thermidor in Russia would mean the destruction of the workers’ state. In the early
1930s, however, he realised that view was a mistake. Thermidor was a political, not a social,
counter-revolution. In France, Thermidor meant a counter-revolutionary regime change, but
the new regime kept the new capitalist-bourgeois economic system that the revolution had
established.
A capitalist economy can have different regimes – from fascism to bourgeois democracy. In
Russia, Stalin’s rule was a political counter-revolution. Capitalism was not restored, the
planned economy survived. But a bureaucratic dictatorship replaced workers’ rule in the
course of a prolonged bloody battle. This was made possible by Russia’s backwardness and
isolation, plus the aggressive imperialist environment.
Trotsky’s conclusion was that Russia had become a degenerated workers’ state. It had a
planned economy based on state property, with capitalism abolished.
On this basis, the Fourth International, founded by Trotsky, stood for unconditional defense
of the Soviet Union against imperialist wars, without giving any support to Stalin’s regime.
The program of the FI and its parties was for a political revolution to establish workers’ rule
in the planned economy, establish a socialist society that would follow and develop the
democratic decisions of the revolution in 1917, all of which were abolished by Stalinism. In a
letter to Max Shachtman, Trotsky pointed to “the fact that the ideas of the bureaucracy are
now almost the opposite of the ideas of the October Revolution“.
Vacillation and debate
The minority opposition that emerged within the SWP changed their position, arguing the
attack on Finland and the pact with Hitler had fundamentally altered the character of the
Soviet Union.
Trotsky, who had been given asylum in Mexico and was not allowed to enter the US, began
his writings in this debate by asking them how Marxists should describe the Soviet Union, if
not a workers’ state.
Some of them answered that the bureaucracy was a new class, others said the Soviet Union
had become state capitalist. Others again argued that fascism in Europe, the New Deal in the
US and Stalinism were part of the same process towards bureaucratic state dictatorships. In
that, they did not differentiate between revolution and counter-revolution. Fascism, as a tool
of finance capital, of course did not expropriate capitalists.
Trotsky showed that the Stalinist bureaucracy was a temporary phenomena lacking a historic
mission, while a new ruling class would be indispensable. The strong economic growth in the
Soviet Union was not because of the bureaucracy, but a result of the planned economy and
import of new technique. The bureaucracy was a brake on the development of the planned
economy.
Stalinism was a totalitarian dictatorship, but not a stable regime. 50 years in advance – the
process was delayed because of the outcome of the war – Trotsky predicted the negative
consequences of the collapse of Stalinism and restoration of capitalism: weakening the world
proletariat and strengthening of imperialism.
On this basis, Trotsky stood for the defence of the Soviet Union, despite the politics of
Moscow which “completely retains its reactionary character” and were a “chief obstacle to
world revolution” (he made comparisons to the fact that socialists still support trade unions
who support their governments, seeing them as reactionary but necessary to defend against
the class enemy).
The opposition in the SWP proposed instead that the party adopt the position “revolution
against both Hitler and Stalin”, since their respective armies had divided Poland.
In replying, Trotsky showed the real situation in Poland. In the West, revolutionaries, jews
and democrats were fleeing from the German army. In the East, it was landlords and
capitalists trying to escape. Trotsky predicted that the invasion of the Red Army would be
followed by expropriation of land and factories. This was confirmed by capitalist media, and
even Menshevik newspapers in exile reporting of a “revolutionary wave” in Eastern Poland.
Trotsky warned that Hitler would turn his guns against the Soviet Union, to establish a fascist
regime and restore capitalist property. When Hitler attacks, the most urgent task would be to
defeat his troops.
What should Marxists say about the Red Army’s advance? The “primary concern for us”,
Trotsky wrote, is not the change in property relations although progressive, but the
consciousness of the world proletariat. The Fourth International was against seizure of new
territories, against “missionaries with bayonets”. A revolution must have a firm basis in the
working class and the poor to be successful. Where the invasion has already taken place,
Trotsky argued for independent working class expropriation of capitalists and landlords.

How Trotsky approached the debate

In this debate, Trotsky combined sharp political polemics with always stressing the need for
unity. He underlined how SWP members and leaders up till then had agreed on the crucial
issues of the character of the Soviet Union.
The debate was necessary, but it would be “monstrous nonsense to split with comrades”,
Trotsky wrote, “it would be prejudical if not fatal to connect the ideological fight with the
perspective of a split, of a purge, of expulsion”.
He was in favour of “censure or severe warning if someone from the majority” made such
threats. If not, “the authority of the leadership would be compromised”.
Trotsky proposed how the debate should be conducted. Both sides refuse to make any
threats against their opponents, and if there were any, there should be an investigation by
the National Committee or a special commission. There should be loyal collaboration from
both sides. James P Cannon, who was close to Trotsky, agreed and put that position in the
party leadership.
Trotsky of course had long experience of debates, from Russian Social Democracy and the
Bolsheviks: “Even if there have been two irreconcilable positions, it would signify not a
‘disaster’ but a necessity to fight out the political struggle to an end.”
Advising Max Shachtman, a leading member who changed his position, Trotsky proposed
fresh studies, to raise the issue in leadership but not immediately strive for a new fixed
position.

A petty-bourgeois opposition
Trotsky and the majority of the SWP characterised the new minority grouping as a petty-
bourgeois opposition. What does it mean?
Instead of developing their positions and analysis, the opposition was spreading “episodes
and anecdotes which can be counted by the hundred and the thousand in every party”,
attempting to find mistakes and faults. Inside the party, they had “almost the character of a
family” or a clique.
Trotsky underlined some traits of this minority. They had disrespect for traditions of their own
organisation and a disdainful attitude towards theory. This was particularly the case with
James Burnham, a philosophy professor (34 years old) who had joined the party in 1935 and
been given the post as editor of the party’s theoretical magazine New International.
Burnham was opposed to dialectical materialism, the philosophy of Marxism, comparing it to
a religion. This position was neglected by other leaders of the minority. Already before the
debate, in January 1939, Trotsky had criticised Schachtman for an article he wrote together
with Burnham in New International, declaring “one of us for dialectics, one against”. The
content of the article was good criticism of ex-Marxists who had already turned against
socialism because they could not stand the pressure in society, such as Max Eastman.
Trotsky warned that not debating out dialectics with Burnham was a big mistake. The
defence of dialectical materialism in this book explains the philosophy better than in most
other Marxist works. Dialectics explains that everything in society and nature continuously
change, in processes that develop through contradictions, with changes from quantity to
quality and sudden leaps. Politically, dialectics are general laws for development of society
and the class struggle, Trotsky summarized.
Instead, the opposition, under the strong influence of Burnham, used fixed abstractions. They
had concluded that the Soviet Union was no longer a worker’s state, but could not answer
what had changed in quantity or quality. Where from to where – what processes were there?
The opposition lacked both theory and concrete analysis.
Burnham also stressed his “personal independence”, not being prepared to become a party
fulltimer, in a situation when the full-timers were absolutely necessary in building the party.
That also pointed to a lack of understanding of revolutionary centralism.
Other traits of the petty bourgeois opposition were political nervousness, and a habit of
jumping from one position to another, including a light-minded choice of allies in the faction
fight.

Unity and factions

As an overall description of how the debate developed, Trotsky wrote: “The opposition
opened up a severe factional fight which is now paralyzing the party at a very critical
moment. That such a fight could be justified and not pitilessly condemned, very serious and
deep foundations would be necessary. For Marxists such foundations can only have a class
character.”
It was clear that the minority started a vicious faction fight without a serious political basis.
The majority stood firm behind the program and perspectives of the Fourth International. It
was a working class position, compared to the opposition’s increasingly distancing themselves
from revolutionary socialism, a petty-bourgeois trait. Trotsky did not discover this petty-
bourgeois tendency for the first time in 1939, but gave many examples where he had raised
warnings in the previous years.
For example, when Shachtman three years earlier believed that the Socialist Party in the US
(a broader party the Trotskyists worked in and were expelled from in 1937) was developing
into a revolutionary party.
Despite this analysis, Trotsky advocated unity. This in contrast to Martin Abern, an opposition
leader, who used the threat of split to frighten members. Other opposition leaders wanted to
go public with the debate.
Only weeks before the minority split, in April 1940, Trotsky stressed the necessity of internal
democratic rights. “But if the unity is preserved, you can’t have a Secretariat composed only
of Majority representatives. You should possibly have a Secretariat even of five members —
three Majorityites and two Minorityites.”
When Trotsky pointed to the inner contradictions of the minority faction, Shachtman replied
by giving historical examples of “blocs” involving Trotsky and the Bolsheviks. Trotsky replied
by showing how, for example, the bloc with Kamenev and Zinoviev against Stalinism in 1926
was correct. But such a bloc did not hide the political differences between its members
behind common programmes. And it was clear that Trotsky’s supporters were the strongest
force in the bloc.
In the US in 1939-40, Shachtman formed a faction, but in fact it was a bloc of differering
forces, directed at the working class majority of the SWP. And within the faction, the
dominant forces were Burnham and Abern. Shachtman was only their short term political alibi
for leaving Marxism.
Even at this stage, Trotsky took a patient attitude, writing that events can change individuals,
who can then re-establish themselves in the revolutionary party. He even gives himself as an
example. Trotsky did not join the Bolsheviks until 1917, where he immediately played a
decisive role.
Five years earlier, in 1912, he attempted to unite all different tendencies of the Russian Social
Democracy: “I had not freed myself at that period especially in the organizational sphere
from the traits of a petty-bourgeois revolutionist. I was sick with the disease of
conciliationism toward Menshevism…”

Political clarity
Politically, the debate expanded to more issues. Trotsky of course understood that not every
article or text needed to draw all conclusions, but stressed the need for members writing
such material to understand the full program and analysis.
The minority moved in the other direction. They wanted to reduce the party’s program to
“concrete issues”, which led Trotsky to make comparisons to debates in Russia, against the
economists and the narodniks, who both avoided broader political issues. In 1939-40, the
SWP minority thought the war was concrete, but the worker’s state wasn’t.
Shachtman quoted Lenin who in a debate with Trotsky in 1920 said, “workers state is an
abstraction”, and that Russia was not a workers’ state, but workers and peasants state.
However, Shachtman had missed that Lenin some weeks later concluded that he had been
wrong, Russia was a “workers state with peculiar features” , those features being a peasant
majority population and bureaucratic defects.
Shachtman used the expression “a degree” of degeneration in Russia, yet he was in alliance
with Burnham who, despite not believing in dialectics, had concluded there was a qualitative
change of the Soviet Union, equating it with Nazi Germany. The minority was not united, and
soon after the minority split and formed the new “Workers Party”, Burnham left and
developed into a leading reactionary.
There are many other concrete events analysed in this book: the events in Finland in the
beginning of the war, how Marxists should act in the Spanish civil war, Marx’s position on
bourgeois wars.
Trotsky’s general advice to members of the Fourth International was to orientate to and
assist the working class, to strikes and trade unions, at the same time warning that there are
always “opportunist deviations” in the unions.
80 years ago, Trotsky showed how the crisis in revolutionary leadership that broke out with
the Social Democratic capitulation for World War in 1914 had not yet been solved. Some
socialists blamed the proletariat for this, as some socialists did in Russia following the defeat
of the revolution in 1905.
The reply to that came in 1917, when the Bolsheviks were able to create such leadership.
Marxists today are struggling with a much different objective situation than 80 years ago. On
one hand, the working class has grown a lot in size and thereby sets limits on reaction, on
the other the labour movement in most places has to be rebuilt. This has led to explosive
movements from below in many countries.
The need to build revolutionary Marxist parties and an international are as urgent as in
Trotsky’s time, if not more, with the deepening climate, economic, social and political crisis.
To study and use In Defense of Marxism’s lessons on the need for a solid theoretical basis,
concrete analyses, correct methods in party building and debates will be crucial in the stormy
period ahead.

Climate Catastrophe
and the Case for a
Planned Economy
By
Keely Mullen
-
August 8, 2019
823

The 20-warmest years on record occurred in the past 22 years and

rising temperatures are just one symptom of the climate catastrophe
we are now staring down. Eight percent of species are threatened with
extinction. The state of Louisiana loses a football-field worth of land
every 45 minutes due to rising sea levels. Wildfires are ravaging the
Western U.S. and hurricanes have pummeled the Southeastern coast.

Humanity is at a crossroads. Report after report warns that unless

decisive action is taken to reduce carbon emissions, we risk triggering
a series of “tipping points” after which the effects on the environment
cannot be reversed. A report from Columbia Engineering projects that
the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide could begin to decline in
2060. Our built-in safety net against excessive carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere is eroding, dramatically accelerating the worst effects of
climate change.

Another of these “tipping points” is melting polar ice. The ice at the
poles acts as a reflector that sends some of the sun’s rays back into
space and cools the planet. When this ice melts, the darker water
beneath it is revealed which absorbs substantially more heat, setting
off a feedback loop of greater and greater warming. Another danger
with melting ice is that it will eventually uncover the existing layers of
permafrost which currently contain huge amounts of methane. If the
permafrost melts, that methane — which has a far more serious
warming effect than carbon dioxide — will be released into the
atmosphere.

At risk with the worsening climate crisis is not just our comfort, but
access to the earth’s collective resources, water, land, and clean air, as
well as the mass displacement of millions of people who will become
known as climate refugees.
The effect of climate change on earth’s water cycle has been of
particular concern to climate scientists. Rising temperatures have led
to more water vapor being held in the atmosphere which has in turn
made water availability very difficult to predict. This can lead to both
more intense rainstorms and more severe droughts.

While tropical storms, hurricanes, and monsoonal rain storms are part
of normal weather patterns in the U.S., the increased frequency and
severity of these events means more intense flooding which poses a
threat to our overall water quality. This is because flood water picks up
sewage, pesticides, motor oil, industrial wastewater, and all sorts of
contaminants and delivers them straight into our waterways. In 2014,
Hurricane Sandy flooded 10 out of New York City’s 14 wastewater
treatment plants causing them to release partially treated or untreated
sewage into local waterways!

Responsibility Lies with Corporations

When Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 it was

groundbreaking, explaining in simple language the science behind
global warming and the danger it posed to humanity. This movie
opened up a real conversation given that for decades major
corporations engaged in a determined campaign to hide the facts
about climate change in order to prevent any disruption to their
enormously profitable business. This sickening campaign of theirs has
no doubt already led to the deaths of thousands.

Al Gore’s conclusion was that the key to slowing or reversing the

effects of climate change rested on the shoulders of individuals and
their consumer choices. Change your light bulbs, take shorter showers,
get a hybrid car, don’t use plastic straws. While some of these changes
to our daily consumption could have an impact, even if everyone in the
U.S. followed every suggestion in An Inconvenient Truth, U.S. carbon
emissions would only fall by 22%! Scientific consensus is that it needs
to be reduced by 75% globally. This poses the question, who are the
real drivers of the climate crisis and how do we take them on?

Reports have found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71%
of global emissions since 1988, most of those being coal and oil-
producing companies like Exxon, Shell, and BP.

It is not a coincidence or an accident that these corporations are the

major drivers of global warming. It is inherent in the logic of capitalism
that, in order to remain viable, companies have to maximize profit.
This means looking for any corners that can be cut, any expenses that
can be avoided, and any safety measures that can be bypassed.

The horrific Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 emptied 4.9 million
barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was confirmed by a White
House commission, that in the lead up to the explosion, BP,
Transocean, and Halliburton made a series of decisions in an effort to
cut costs that ultimately caused the blow-out and the death of 11
workers. This White House commission itself confirmed that this was
likely to happen again due to “industry complacency.” In other words,
this will likely happen again because the cost of cleaning up a disaster
is nothing compared to the profits made by creating the disaster to
begin with.

A variety of different policy initiatives have been proposed to address

this crisis, most of which have fallen laughably short of what is needed.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal (GND) goes the furthest,
calling for a rapid transition to 100% renewable energy, an overhaul of
transportation systems, and for progressive taxation. Winning the GND
would represent a huge step forward in moving toward a sustainable
society, but where it falls short is in actually dealing with the structural
power of the energy sector. If the energy sector remains in private
hands they will work overtime to undermine the GND which would
effectively bring the value of their unexploited reserves, worth
hundreds of billions, to zero. The conflicting goals of business leaders
whose objective is to make a profit and the forces trying to implement
the GND will make a rapid transition to renewable energy nearly
impossible.

The Case for Public Ownership

It is certainly not ruled out that mass pressure could lead to steps that
begin the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy even under
capitalism. However, without bringing important sectors of the
economy, beginning with the energy sector, into public ownership, that
transition would be slow moving and largely disorganized. In order to
do what is needed to radically change course and avoid the worst
effects of climate change, we need to move onto war footing. This
means a rapid and organized approach to take the energy sector into
public ownership and re-tool it on a sustainable basis.

Carrying out a rapid transition away from fossil fuels – even with a
publicly owned energy sector – would also require bringing other
sectors of the economy into public ownership. Taking over important
parts of the manufacturing sector would allow for rapid expansion of
electric cars and public transport. Beyond that, we need the banks in
public hands in order to assist ordinary people and small businesses in
making the transition to energy efficient homes and shops. Such
profound change points toward a complete reorganization of
production on a socialist basis with a democratically planned economy.

Historically, capitalism unleashed human productivity on a massive

scale. However, the defining features of capitalism – private ownership
and the nation state – have now become a fetter to the further
development of our economy and society. This is evident with the
series of international agreements on the climate which have had very
little effect because of the unwillingness of competing nation states to
make concessions that would benefit their rivals.
Right now, all the major decisions about how to deploy society’s
resources are made by a select few extremely wealthy business
leaders. The decisions are made on the basis of whatever will bring in
the most money. This often means using completely inefficient
methods to produce things. For example, when a car is being
assembled, almost every single component part will travel to Mexico,
Canada, and the U.S. over and over before the parts come together to
form a car. The metal base of a steering wheel that’s produced in the
U.S. is sent to Mexico to get covered and stitched up before being sent
back to the U.S. This is entirely so the company can find the cheapest
supplies and labor to make their final product.

Another example of inefficient and wasteful production under

capitalism comes from the so called “fast fashion” industry. The
fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world. Creating
trends that change so quickly that no one can keep up ensures that
people will continue to buy cheap, disposable clothing — dump those
clothes — and then buy more. Eighty billion garments are mass
produced each year, almost exclusively using water-guzzling but cheap
textiles like cotton. In order to get the right color for a pair of jeans,
2,866 gallons of water are used!

While these may be shocking examples of waste and complete

innovation-starvation, this is typical of the way society is organized
under capitalism. So the question is, what’s the alternative? How can
we organize society more efficiently and in the interests of people and
the planet rather than profit?

Planned System Needed

We need a democratically planned economy where the top 500

companies are brought into public ownership and decisions about how
a given industry is run are made by elected bodies of workers and
consumers. The climate crisis may be the most existential crisis
humanity faces but capitalism inevitably produces massive inequality,
poverty and structural racism. To address all these questions requires
a society where key economic decisions are democratically made by
the masses of people.

Bringing a company into public ownership means taking both their

material resources – factories, tools, distribution networks,
technologies, infrastructure – and their existing financial reserves out
of the hands of wealthy investors and into the hands of society as a
whole. Once that critical step is taken, democratic councils can replace
the capitalist bosses and facilitate the operation of that company or
industry. These councils would need to reflect the expertise of the
workers in that industry who are intimately familiar with how it
operates, what it produces, and what can be improved. In order to
prevent the development of a bureaucracy, anyone elected to a
workers’ council would make no more money than the average worker
in that industry and would be subject to immediate recall.

These councils would not aim to maximize the profitability of their

given industry, but rather to maximize the ability of that industry to
meet the needs of society. This would lead to a substantial increase in
the general standard of living of the vast majority of people because
there would be no reason to keep wages down, workweeks
unnecessarily long, or social services starved.

The transition to a planned economy may well start in one country, but
in order for it to succeed it will need to spread internationally. We live
in a world economy created by capitalism but to take full advantage of
this requires global socialist planning. Under a democratically planned
economy, international structures would need to be established to
facilitate the maximum coordination of workers councils in different
industries across borders.

As was detailed earlier, most major industries under capitalism are

completely held back by the constant need to cut costs. Bosses will
look for shortcuts in order to ensure they’re getting the cheapest goods
and labor. The task of democratically elected councils in overseeing
workplaces and industries would be to identify where things can be
made more efficient and more environmentally sustainable. For
example, right now, the vast logistics and supply chain networks that
exist at Amazon and Walmart are completely divorced from one
another because they are in direct competition. When this competition
is eliminated, these incredibly useful networks can be combined and
re-tooled. The just-in-time model adopted by Amazon and other major
retailers where a product can be ordered and delivered in a matter of
days could be of tremendous use to society if separated from the profit
motive. Walmart’s vast enterprise is itself planned – with coordination
at all levels of the supply chain. This lays the basis for a relatively
painless transition to a cooperative, democratically planned
enterprise.

So, how does all of this connect to the existential threat of climate
change and how could a planned economy help?

Planning a Green Future

Capitalism produces significant innovations – however these are

subordinated to what is profitable, not necessarily what is needed.

On the basis of a democratically-planned economy, innovation can be

unleashed in the interests of ordinary people and the climate. We can
invest in a genuine transformation of major industries on a sustainable
basis. We can invest in the retraining of millions of workers in currently
polluting industries and create millions of good-paying union jobs
harnessing renewable energy through solar, wind, and wave
technology. There will no doubt be new forms of renewable energy that
will be discovered, and perfecting the technology to harness this
energy will require the training of more scientists and engineers as well
as moving scientists currently working on weapons development to far
more useful work.
In order to reverse some of the worst effects of the climate crisis, a
global reforestation project would need to be taken up. Restocking
forests by planting millions of native trees would dramatically reduce
pollution in the air and would rebuild natural habitats and ecosystems
that have been lost to deforestation. Alongside this there will need to
be a significant reorganization of global agriculture to reduce the land
given to cattle as well as the development of healthy meat
alternatives.

Public transportation in most major cities is completely eroding.

Meanwhile, Americans spend 19 full days a year stuck in traffic on their
way to work. While people should have the choice to own and use their
own vehicles, massively expanding public transit and making it entirely
electric would allow many more people to travel faster and more easily
than driving. Beyond local public transit, long-distance trains need to
be expanded as well. High-speed electric trains could provide a
cheaper and far less environmentally damaging alternative to air
travel.

Expanding sustainable public transportation would not only improve

the standard of living for many people, it would also be a leap forward
in transforming society on a green basis.

A society freed from the constraints of profit could take up a number of

ground-breaking projects to change society: creating energy efficient
housing designs with more effective insulation, researching direct air
capture stations to clean and re-emit currently polluted air, and
developing electrified roads to charge electric vehicles as they drive.

The solution to this crisis will not be handed down from on high, it will
not be innovated by Elon Musk, it will not come as a result of simply
voting every four years. Retooling society on a truly sustainable basis
and ensuring a future for humanity rests on ending the anarchic and
chaotic rule of capitalism and replacing it with a truly democratic
planned economy.
What Next?

Winning revolutionary change and transforming our society on a

socialist basis will require mounting a historic challenge against the
super rich who currently dominate our society. There are very exciting
signs in the U.S. and internationally of the potential to develop that
challenge. From the historic teachers strikes that have taken place in
the past year and a half which could spread into other sectors, to the
growing youth climate movement that now has plans for an
international day of action on September 20.

It is the united and organized strength of working and young people

that can usher in socialist change. A critical step in this process will be
the building of our own mass political party with a clear socialist
program and determined leadership. Since 2015 we’ve emphasized the
role Bernie Sanders – and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – could play
in that process by using their huge base of support for progressive,
working-class politics and launching a new mass organization.

We need to continue building and strengthening the organizations of

the working class in preparation for the decisive struggles ahead. This
means building fighting unions in our workplaces that are well
organized, truly democratic, have the active participation of all
workers, and are willing to do whatever it takes to defend against
attacks from our bosses. The unions need to link up with the vibrant
social movements currently taking place against climate change,
sexism and racism, and point the way forward on a working-class
basis.

In order to take the leaps necessary to save the planet from the ruin of
profit we need to fundamentally break with capitalism and fight for the
socialist transformation of society on the basis of true innovation,
cooperation, and equality.
Hong Kong: mass protests in
the rain
By
Colin Sparks
-
19 August 2019

In his latest dispatch from Hong Kong, Colin Sparks reflects

on the significance of yesterday’s (Sunday 18 August) illegal
mass demonstration.

Mass protests in Hong Kong, Sunday 18 August. Photo: Kevin

Cheng via twitter.
A huge and illegal march in the middle of a thunderstorm
demonstrates that the people of Hong Kong are still
determined to fight to preserve their freedoms. The
organizers claim 1.7 million people turned out, but it is
impossible to give an accurate figure because transport
chaos meant that people joined the march at different points
and many never even managed to reach it. Unlike in
previous weeks, there were no confrontations with the
police, despite the fact that they had banned the march.
Faced with a tidal wave of people they made no attempt to
stop or divert the marchers, who took over the roads at will.
This week, there was no teargas, no baton charges, no
arrests.

The march, called in solidarity with the young woman whose

right eye was very seriously injured in last week’s battles,
came at the end of dramatic protests and ideological
struggle. A five-day occupation of the airport ended on
Tuesday with some clashes between police and protesters.
The occupation began with a simple demonstration in the
Arrivals Hall, with protestors leafletting passengers about
the situation in the city, but they then moved to the
Departure Hall, stopping people catching their flights. The
pro-Beijing media jumped on the chance to interview angry
businessmen and tearful tourists whose travel plans had
been disrupted. On Tuesday, some militants seized two
mainland men, whom they thought were spies, and ill-
treated them. It turned out that neither were spies and one
was a journalist for the Global Times (a rabidly nationalist
rag and Beijing’s answer to the Daily Mail). These events
gave the police an excuse to intervene and provided
ammunition for the propaganda war against the movement.

At the same time Beijing has stepped up its pressure. There

has been extensive TV coverage of the mainland People’s
Armed Police practicing anti-riot drills just across the
boundary in Shenzhen and senior government figures
frequently threaten intervention. Pressure on Hong Kong
businesses to back the government has increased. Two
senior Cathay Pacific executives ‘resigned’, allegedly
because of their initial failure to condemn the movement. On
19 August, Finnair, for whom China is their second largest
long-haul market, threatened its Hong Kong staff with
disciplinary action if they supported the movement and de-
recognized the flight attendants’ trade union. Online retailer
Amazon apologized for selling a ‘Free Hong Kong’ t-shirt
even though it has no operation in China. Local oligarchs,
like Li Ka-Shing, have become increasingly vocal in their
support for the government. The media have been full of
events at the airport and condemnation of what Beijing is
now describing as ‘near terrorism’ by demonstrators. What
is more, they loudly proclaim that foreign ‘black hands’ –
meaning CIA agents, or possibly James Bond – are behind
the movement.

For its part, after weeks of silence and inaction, the Hong
Kong government has at last done something. On Thursday
they announced $HK19.1 billion (about £2 billion or $US4.27
billion) in tax cuts and subsidies. According to the Financial
Secretary: ‘the measures are definitely not related to the
political difficulties we are facing’ but are a response to
economic problems. People are happy to get a small
handout, but hardly anyone sees these steps as anything
other than a pathetic attempt to bribe people into passivity.
As a leading Democratic Party politician told the Financial
Secretary: ‘This is a political issue, not an economic issue,
stupid.’

Beijing and their local allies have two objectives in this

propaganda war. The first is aimed at the mainland
population. They want to brand the unrest as a foreign-
inspired attack on Chinese national unity, echoing the
imperialist seizure of Hong Kong by the British back in 1842.
They want people to believe that the movement’s aim is
independence because that will make them bitterly hostile.
Nationalism is one of the main ideological props on the
Communist Party and even mainlanders who agree on the
need for radical democratic changes invariably baulk at the
prospect of national self-determination for Tibet or Xinjiang,
let alone Hong Kong. A population that is hostile to the
struggle is unlikely to see it as an inspiration and a model to
be emulated in Shanghai or Beijing.

The other aim in the propaganda war is to try to separate

the most militant protesters, who have battled the police
over the last few weeks, from their mass of supporters who
have supplied the infrastructure of assistance that has
allowed the struggle to go on for so long. Painting a
movement that contains many currents of opinion as
dominated by mindless thugs who want either anarchy or
independence is a crude attempt to manufacture a split that
will weaken and demoralize all sections of the opposition.

At the same time, this propaganda serves to unite and

mobilize Beijing’s own supporters inside Hong Kong. They
do have supporters. On Saturday the ‘Safeguard Hong Kong
Alliance’ held a rally outside the government offices in
support of the police. Although dwarfed by Sunday’s turnout,
the rally was still very large. The crowd sang the Chinese
national anthem, waved the national flag and was addressed
by a succession of business leaders and pro-Beijing
politicians condemning violence and supporting the police.
Even more worrying, the South China Morning Post reported
on Sunday that groups of men wearing white had been
crossing the border into Hong Kong the day before.
According to their source: ‘I don’t rule out the possibility that
they came to Hong Kong to throw their weight behind
somebody.’ Given that on two previous occasions, in Yuen
Long last month and in North Point a couple of weeks ago,
organized groups of men in white shirts attacked
demonstrators, the danger is that local reactionaries are
being supplemented by mainlanders in order to expand such
attacks.

It is nonsense to suggest that the movement is organized

and inspired by the US or the UK. The idea that Donald
Trump (elected President by less than 50% of US voters) or
Boris Johnson (elected Prime Minister by less than 1% of
British voters) would lift a finger to help the people of Hong
Kong is laughable. More seriously, movements that can put
hundreds of thousands of people on the streets week after
week, and are able to mobilize up to a quarter of the local
population for big events, are not produced by the
machinations of secret agents. They are produced by very
real economic, social and political conditions that drive
people to demonstrate despite the heat and the rain
because they are no longer prepared to suffer in silence.
True, there is one elderly woman who is on every
demonstration waving a large Union Jack. True, there are a
few people who carry US flags. True, some of the leaders of
the democratic parties are only too happy to hob-nob with
reactionary US politicians. True, and more seriously, a large
student rally on Friday evening called for support from the
USA and the UK governments. But there is no evidence at
all that any of these people are pawns of foreign forces or
anything other than Hong Kongers who want the promise of
steady progress towards democracy, made to them by both
Britain and China before the handover, to be realized in their
lifetimes.

Last weekend there were four demonstrations and marches

in support of the movement, all of them peaceful. At the
end of the huge demonstration on Sunday there was an
online debate amongst the militants as to whether to march
on and besiege the Chinese government’s Liaison Office in
Sheung Wan, a tactic that would unquestionably have led to
a bitter battle with the cops. The overwhelming vote was
against the suggestion. In the current circumstances this
was unquestionably the correct decision. The importance of
the Sunday march was that it demonstrated that there is still
massive popular support for the complete withdrawal of the
extradition bill, for a public enquiry into the policing of the
protests, the resignation of the chief executive, the dropping
of charges against those arrested and the government
ceasing to call demonstrations ‘riots.’ It was of central
importance to demonstrate on a massive scale that the
propaganda campaign of the last two or three weeks has not
split the movement or cowed people into passivity.

There is little doubt that Hong Kongers will continue to resist,

but there is mood of doubt as to whether they can win. One
commentator drew a parallel with the 1943 uprising in the
Warsaw Ghetto. Her thinking is that Hong Kongers, like
Poland’s Jewish population, are trapped with no prospect of
escape and that resistance, however doomed, is the only
recourse in such a situation. That is both overdramatic and
over-pessimistic. The Beijing government may be prepared
to shed blood to restore order but it will not launch a war of
extermination against the people of Hong Kong and there
are signs that the movement can still find ways of spreading
and increasing the pressure for change. Some civil servants
are calling for strike action in support of the movement.
Students are discussing a plan for a boycott of schools and
universities every Monday once the term starts. On
Saturday, 20,000 teachers responded to a call by the
Professional Teachers’ Union and marched in support of the
demonstrators. Sunday demonstrated that the anger and
determination of Hong Kongers is as widespread as ever.
Over the last weeks, the innovation and resourcefulness of
the mass movement has been as prominent as the courage
and determination of the militant vanguard. Those qualities
can ensure that the protests take new forms that are
capable of putting yet more pressure on the government to
make concessions.

‘Dear Sisters of the Earth’:

Peterloo bicentenary
By
Mary Fildes
-
16 August 2019

On 16 August 1819, a mass meeting on St Peter’s Field in

Manchester calling for democratic reforms was attacked in
cold blood by the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. At least
18 people were killed, and nearly 700 injured.

The women taking part in the meeting were a particular

target of the violence. To mark the bicentenary of the
massacre, here we publish an extract from an address by
the Manchester Female Reform Society delivered on 20 July
1819. The President of the Society, Mary Fildes, addressed
the crowd at St Peter’s Field on 16 August. Fildes was later
involved in the campaign for birth control and active in the
Chartist movement.

Among the events planned to mark the bicentenary is the

Peterloo March For Democracy, which will converge on a
rally in the city centre from ten assembly points on Sunday
18 August.
‘Much wanted: A Reform among females!!!’ The women
reformers were mocked in satirical prints such as this one
from 1819 (cc) British Museum
Dear Sisters of the Earth,

It is with a spirit of peaceful consideration and due respect

that we are induced to address you, upon the causes that
have compelled us to associate together in aid of our
suffering children, our dying parents, and the miserable
partners of our woes.

[…]
From very mature and deliberate consideration, we are
thoroughly convinced, that under the present system, the
day is near at hand, when nothing will be found in our
unhappy country but luxury, idleness, dissipation, and
tyranny, on the one hand; and abject poverty, slavery,
wretchedness, misery, and death, on the other. To avert
these dreaded evils, it is your duty therefore to unite with us
as speedily as possible; and to exert your influence with your
fathers, your husbands, your sons, your relatives, and your
friends, to join the Male Union for constitutionally demanding
a Reform in their own House, viz. The Commons’ House of
Parliament[1]; for we are now thoroughly convinced that for
want of such timely Reform, the useful class of society has
been reduced to its present degraded state – and that with
such a reform, the English nation would not have been
stamped with the indelible disgrace, of having been engaged
in the late unjust, unnecessary, and destructive war, against
the liberties of France, that closed its dreadful career on the
crimson plains of Waterloo[2]; where the blood of our fellow-
creatures flowed in such mighty profusion, that the fertile
earth seemed to blush at the outrage offered to the choicest
works of heaven; and for a space of time was glutted with
the polluted draught, till the Almighty, with a frown upon the
aggressors, drew a veil over the dismal scene!

Let us now ask the cause of this dreadful carnage? Was it to

gain immortal happiness for all mankind? Or, if possible,
‘was it for a nobler purpose?’ Alas, no! The simple story is
this, that all this dreadful slaughter was, in cold blood,
committed for the purpose of placing upon the Throne of
France, contrary to the people’s interest and inclination, the
present contemptible Louis[3], a man who had been living
for years in this country in idleness, and wandering from one
corner of the island to the other in cowardly and vagabond
slothfulness and contempt. Let it be remembered at the
same time, that this war, to reinstate this man, has tended
to raise landed property threefold above its value, and to
load our beloved country with such an insurmountable
burden of Taxation, that is too intolerable to endure longer; it
has nearly annihilated our once flourishing trade and
commerce, and is now driving our merchants and
manufacturers to poverty and degradation.[4]

We call upon you therefore to join us with heart and hand, to

exterminate tyranny and foul oppression from the face of our
native country. It affords us pleasure to inform you, that
numbers of your ranks have voluntarily mixed with us, who
are fully determined, in defiance of the threats of the
Borough mongers[5], to aid us in our just and constitutional
career.

[…]

We can no longer bear to see numbers of our parents

immured in workshops – our fathers separated from our
mothers, in direct contradiction to the laws of God and the
laws of man; our sons degraded below human nature, our
husbands and little ones clothed in rags, and pining on the
face of the earth! Dear Sisters, how could you bear to see
the infant at the breast, drawing from you the remnant of
your last blood, instead of the nourishment which nature
requires; the only subsistence for yourselves being a draught
of cold water? It would be criminal in us to disguise any
longer the dreadful truth; for, in the midst of all these
privations, if we were to hold our peace, the very trees of the
forest, and stones of the valley, would justly cry out! […]

Source: The National Archives

Notes
[1] Manchester had a rapidly growing population at the time,
but not a single MP to represent it. Following the end of the
Napoleonic Wars in 1815, textile workers in Manchester
were suffering the consequences of a major economic
depression. They were further impoverished by the Corn
Laws, tariffs on the import of foreign grain, which were
driving up the price of food. The campaign for parliamentary
reform was tied to a struggle against the government’s
economic policies.

[2] The massacre on Peter’s Field would be referred in the

press to as Peterloo in reference to the Battle of Waterloo
(18 June 1815). The British victory at Waterloo was
celebrated by the establishment, but for many working class
people and radicals, it merely represented the culmination
of a bloody war fought to stop the spread of the French
revolutionary ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity. Many
of the ordinary soldiers who fought at Waterloo returned to
find themselves in poverty. This part of the address makes a
powerful link between an anti-war message and the
campaign for democracy.

[3] Louis XVIII (1814-24). The restoration of the Bourbon

monarchy in France heralded a period of conservative
reaction across Europe.

[4] The Napeolonic Wars left Britain with a huge national

debt. The struggle for representation was also a struggle
over who should pay for a crisis the ruling class had made.

[5] ‘Borough mongers’ were those who bought or sold

‘rotten’ boroughs: seats with tiny electorates that were
controlled as the private property, to be given, bought or
sold, by the landowning class.
200 years after Peterloo, do
we face a new wave of
repression?
By
Ian Allinson
-
11 August 2019

Over a hundred events are taking place around Manchester

to mark the 200 anniversary of the Peterloo massacre,
th

when the yeomanry cut down a peaceful crowd demanding

democracy. Ian Allinson argues that the right are pressing
Boris Johnson to ramp up surveillance and repression of the
left under the guise of counter-terrorism, just when the
Prevent strategy is being reviewed.
Photo: Caroline Lucas, Twitter. XR rebellion, London, April
2019
The left and labour movement has always been the subject
of state repression. The failure of the Peterloo massacre to
silence working class dissent led to the foundation of the
modern police force, intended to deliver non-lethal violence
against unrest (Farrell, 1992). While perhaps their murder
rate is lower than the yeomanry or the parachute regiment,
the police have not kept their violence below lethal levels, as
witnessed by hundreds of black people from Joy Gardner to
Jean Charles de Menezes and protesters from Blair Peach to
Ian Tomlinson. Mass police violence was essential to
Thatcher’s victories over miners, print workers and more.
The police have been involved in illegal blacklisting of trade
unionists and the left, and undercover cops have spied on
victims of police violence and anyone who challenged the
establishment. It is a result of the weakness of working class
resistance in recent years that so many people think the
police are there to deal with crime against ordinary people –
a task which is a low priority and for which they are almost
useless. Labour’s pandering to this foolishness with
demands for extra police have played into the hands of Boris
Johnson, who has now pledged to increase numbers by
20,000. That will be more police to prevent working class
people securing what we need. Johnson is so keen on
repression that he wasted over £300,000 on unusable water
cannon when London Mayor. He will be delighted to have
more cops at his disposal as the struggle unfolds over
whether the social collapse from climate breakdown means
changes to tackle it, or repression by the rich to protect
themselves from its consequences and from the majority.

In July, right wing think-tank the Policy Exchange published a

report titled Extremism Rebellion, urging new legislation to
counter mass civil disobedience and a more robust police
and court crack down on Extinction Rebellion (XR), not
satisfied with 1200 arrests. August saw the publication of a
report commissioned by the UK Commission for Countering
Extremism which sought to portray the far left as extremist
and a potential terrorist threat, and calling for more
monitoring. When the government has been forced into a
review of its racist and counterproductive Prevent strategy,
this looks suspiciously like the right trying to ensure it is
widened rather than dropped.

Anti-terror legislation has been used to persecute Muslims

and there has been no shortage of academics prepared to
concoct half-baked theories to justify government policies.
The failure of the labour movement to provide enough
solidarity with Muslims to resist these policies is now coming
home to roost as the state security ideologues turn their
attention to the left. Having abused the language of
“safeguarding” to justify Islamophobia, they now want to use
counter terrorism and anti-extremism against left opinions
held by millions of people. We should not underestimate how
exposed we are. The Terrorism Act 2010 introduced a
definition of terrorism so wide that Gandhi, let alone
Mandela, would today be branded a terrorist, and anyone in
Britain who supported them would be criminalised.

So far, the application of the repressive legislation has

affected few white British people. But it has now been
normalised to the point where right wingers want to go
further. So what are the arguments being made for a new
wave of repression?

Walton and Wilson, who wrote the attack on XR, both come
from an anti-terrorism background. They label XR an
“extremist organisation” because “those who accept
planned mass law-breaking in a liberal democracy to further
a political cause, are effectively condoning the breakdown of
the rule of law”. So the word “extremist”, which has been
loaded with violent connotations from anti-terrorism, is now
applied to mass, peaceful, direct action. They call for
prosecutions to deter others from illegal protests, and
demand that
“The Commission for Countering Extremism should ensure
that far left, anarchist and environmentalist extremism are
sufficiently recognised and challenged within a wider
national strategy on extremism”.

Having labelled XR’s objectives as extreme, they then argue

that it is “not inconceivable that some on the fringes of the
movement might at some point break with organisational
discipline and engage in violence”. The report works itself
into a frenzy about the connections between
environmentalism and anti-capitalism. They worry that XR
leaders are unlikely to “settle for any accommodation that
proposed to address environmental damage while keeping
the present economic and political system in place” (as if
such a solution is plausible). Their view of “extremism” isn’t
about protecting the population from violence, but about
protecting the system from opposition. When it comes to
justifying Islamophobia we are used to hearing people
disapprove of what is said, but expressing the willingness to
defend to the death the right to say it. It appears this applies
to racist ideas, but not to environmentalism or socialism.
The authors work themselves up into a lather about the
Labour leadership’s positive response to XR. Ironically, the
hostile report’s detailed analysis of XR funding should lay to
rest many of the scare stories which circulate online. Walton
and Wilson call for firmer policing, harsher prosecutions and
sentencing, and for the use of incitement and conspiracy
charges (infamously used to frame the Shrewsbury 24 and
murder Des Warren).

The report into the far left is even more extraordinary. It uses
YouGov polling on the general population, just 3% of which
self-defined as “very left-wing”. Most of these were Guardian
or Observer readers, NRS social grade ABC1 and voted
Remain, and only 16% were union members. Allington,
McAndrew and Hirsh, by a confused reading of Socialist
Worker, Weekly Worker and Counterfire, come up with fifteen
statements which they believe represent the views of the
“sectarian” (by which they mean sect-like) far left, which
they also characterise as revolutionary workerist. They pick
five of these to measure people’s alignment with the ideas
of far-left groups:

 Capitalism is essentially bad and must be destroyed

 Industry should produce for need and not for profit

 This country needs revolutionary change

 The wealthy make life worse for the rest of us

 I would like to see workers rise up against their

bosses

They are horrified to discover that only 41% of the whole

population disagreed with all these, but instead of
concluding that these are widely held views, they adopt the
conspiracy theory that the population is “open to the
ideology which the sectarian far left disseminates”, while
treating as conspiracy theories the concept of “the 1%” and
the idea that the media reflects the interests of the rich. The
widespread support for these views doesn’t stop the authors
arguing that this ideology “may from a certain point of view
be considered extremist in and of itself”. The “certain point
of view” would appear to be that of 21 century
st

McCarthyites. Similarly, they believe attempts by the far left

to gain influence by participation in campaigns and unions
“may cause certain forms of social harm in their own right:
for example, by interfering in the normal functioning of
institutions created for another purpose”. Allington,
McAndrew and Hirsh take it upon themselves to decide what
the purpose of institutions of the labour movement and left
is, rather than purposes being contested by those who take
part. For the authors, democracy is a bit like a Vietnamese
village was to the US military – to protect it they have to
destroy it.

The report also bases its understanding of the far left on an

odd understanding of imperialism (which it smears with
antisemitism along the way). People were asked to choose
the three of the US, UK, Israel, Russia, China, North Korea
and Iran which they see as the greatest threats to world
peace. The authors assume that people’s answers to this
question will be based on ideological views rather than
anything as irrelevant as say, involvement in wars or
breaking treaties. Apparently, most of the far left only sees
the first three as great capitalist powers. This is an odd
reading of Socialist Worker and Counterfire, upon which the
majority of their view of the far left was allegedly based. Just
as with Muslims, the test is whether you support the UK and
its allies, and failing to do so is a sign of extremism.

Having concocted these half-cocked measures of alignment

with the sectarian far-left, Allington, McAndrew and Hirsh
proceed to look for correlations with a modified version of
the SyFoR “sympathy for radicalism” scale (Bhui, Warfa and
Jones, 2014). People were asked to rate six statements
about violence on a seven-point scale, showing the extent to
which they sympathise or condemn them when carried out
in this country. Four were about terrorism or using bombs,
but two were “violence as part of political protests” and
“street violence against anti-democratic groups”. The
questions gave no other context, so will have been
interpreted in radically different ways by different people.
Some may have considered the questions in the context of
planned violence in otherwise peaceful situations. Others
may have been thinking about situations when under attack
from the police or fascist gangs. Others again could be
imagining a future where the rich are hoarding scarce food
after climate breakdown causes crop failures. It is far more
likely that working-class people, migrants from conflict
zones, ethnic minorities and others with experience of
violence from the state or the far right would express
sympathy in response to these questions – this is no
indication whatsoever that they are planning terrorist
attacks. Yet this is precisely how the authors interpret the
answers. To make matters worse, the threshold they use for
their analysis is sympathy for one or more of the
statements, so those with slight sympathy for defensive
violence against fascist gangs are lumped in with those
committing terrorist acts. They assume, without evidence,
that left wingers who exceed this modified SyFoR threshold
are more likely to behave violently.

It is through this series of ideologically motivated leaps of

logic and analysis that Allington, McAndrew and Hirsh
manage to acknowledge that the far left in Britain has “no
history of using terrorist tactics”, find no evidence that is
likely to change, and yet conclude that “it would be prudent
to monitor all developments carefully” because the findings
“give no reason to assume that left-wing ideas would be
incapable of” encouraging terrorist violence. Predictably,
they give no consideration to the strong political objections
that most of the British far left have to terrorism.

The reports are a threadbare attempt to justify surveillance

and repression against the left by linking it to terrorism.
Naturally, they take for granted highly subjective definitions
of terrorism and violence. Support for the Iraq war crime,
imposing benefit sanctions on terminally ill people, or
deporting people to countries they left decades ago don’t
count as extremism. British military adventures overseas
don’t count as violence. A foreign policy based on
threatening nuclear annihilation doesn’t count as terrorism.
At most, the authors deserve to graduate from the University
of No Shit Sherlock, having shown that people who are
satisfied with the status quo are less likely to sympathise
with violence not carried out by the establishment.

The left, however, shouldn’t be complacent because these

reports are so ludicrous. They are intended to provide an
intellectual gloss to cover for an extension of the application
of anti-terror surveillance and repression against the left. We
know there are storms coming as a result of climate chaos,
an expected recession, years of austerity, and Brexit – and
so do the Tories. Johnson has announced more prison places
and police powers. The Tories are preparing – so must we.
That must include robust opposition to new state powers and
the wider application of old ones. We can’t rely on the state
to stop the rise of the far right. And we can’t afford to
neglect solidarity with the Muslims and migrants upon whom
repression is tested out and normalised.

For information about Peterloo and events marking the

bicentenary, see peterloo1819.co.uk. The Peterloo March For
Democracy will converge on a rally in the city centre from
ten assembly points on Sunday 18 August.

Bhui, K., Warfa, N. and Jones, E., 2014. Is Violent

Radicalisation Associated with Poverty, Migration, Poor Self-
Reported Health and Common Mental Disorders? PLoS ONE,
9(3).

eventy years after Hiroshima

By
Amy Gilligan
-
6 August 2015
On 6 August 1945 the first nuclear weapon destroyed
Hiroshima. Amy Gilligan recalls travelling to Japan ten
years ago to mark sixty years since the horror of the atomic
bombs.

Photo – Sherrl Yanowitz

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the devastation of
the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. In
1945 two atomic bombs were dropped, three days apart on
the 6 and 9 August. Some people died instantly –
vapourised, leaving only shadows. Others died in the
following hours and days. Some survived the immediate
aftermath but in the years that have followed have died
from the effects of the radiation.
Peace campaigners, 2006 Photo – Sherrl Yanowitz
Ten years ago, on the 60th anniversary of the bombings, I
was fortunate enough to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki as
part of the CND delegation to the the World Conference
Against A and H bombs. While both cities have been rebuilt
since 1945 it is impossible to visit them without coming
across something that marks the bombings – be it the shells
of buildings, memorials or meeting some of the Hibakusha,
the people who survived the attacks.
One thing that made my visit to Japan especially memorable
was staying with Junko, one of the Hibakusha. She was a
wonderfully friendly and welcoming host. She was also an
inspiring antinuclear campaigner. She was only 6 years old
when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and nearly all of
her family were killed. She recounted how she had to use
chopsticks to pick maggots out of the burns on her sister’s
back. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to retell her story
again and again, let alone have experienced it in the first
place, but she felt she had to so as to make sure that the
world knew the full horror of nuclear weapons. This was the
case with all of the survivors we had the privilege of
meeting.

Photo – Sherrl
Yanowitz
There are many monuments that stand testament to the
bombings in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and other cities in Japan.
The Atomic Bomb Dome, the only building in central
Hiroshima left standing after the blast, is one of the most
iconic. Brightly coloured cranes, inspired by the story of
Sadako Sasaki, adorn the memorial to the children that were
killed. Each year lanterns are floated along the river in
memory of those who jumped in after being burnt. It is a
beautiful and moving sight. Growing up, along with other
members of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group, we’d
also floated lanterns every year on Hollingworth Lake, and so
to be able to take part in this commemoration in Hiroshima
was quite special.

I don’t think it would be possible to visit the Hiroshima Peace

Memorial Museum without being deeply moved. There are
informative exhibits about the effect of radiation on the
human body. There are scale models showing what
Hiroshima looked like before and after the nuclear bomb was
dropped. For me the most memorable piece was a lunch
box. In it were the charred remains of rice that someone had
prepared to eat on 6 August 1945. They never got to eat
lunch that day.

For the 60th anniversary of the bombings the conference

organisers had tried particularly to bring together young
anti-nuclear activists from around the world. There were
people from the US, Norway, Germany, Aotearoa/New
Zealand, South Korea and a large group from Movement de
la Paix in France. We met with school students and joined
with Japanese young people in large rallies – over 3000 in
Hiroshima and 1500 in Nagasaki – to call for a world without
nuclear weapons.
In the UK at the moment the anti-nuclear movement is not
one of the biggest, however in the anti-austerity movement
CND have had a vibrant presence calling for Job, Homes,
Climate, NHS not Trident. There are also many activists who
continue to blockade the nuclear base at Faslane in Scotland
and nuclear weapons factories at Aldermaston and
Burghfield – their efforts should be supported. The success
so far in the Labour leadership contest of Jeremy Corbyn, the
vice-chair of CND, and the SNP’s strong anti-Trident stance
mean that anti-nuclear politics have received more attention
in recent months. Hopefully this will increase in the run-up to
the debate about the renewal of Trident, Britain’s nuclear
weapons system, and see a growth in the movement of
those fighting for a nuclear-free world.

Thrown into another world –

experiencing Hiroshima
By
Colin Wilson
-
9 August 2014

69 years ago today the US dropped a nuclear bomb on the

Japanese city of Nagasaki. 40,000 people were killed
instantly, and many others died soon after. Three days
earlier they had also bombed Hiroshima. Colin Wilson
remembers meeting a survivor of that bombing.
The Atomic Bomb Dome, originally an industrial exhibition
hall, was one of the few buildings left standing after the
bombing
When I visited Hiroshima in 2003 what initially struck me
was the apparent normality of the place – it seemed a busy
Japanese city almost like any other. It is, and it isn’t. A tram
took me from the rail station to the Peace Park – just over
the river from the ruined dome you see in so many
photographs. As I sat under the trees, Japanese school
students gathered my views about atomic weapons for a
survey. Walking through the park you pass a grass-covered
mound, two or three metres high – containing the
unidentifiable ashes of some seventy thousand human
beings. And to get to the park, I had walked across the
unusual T-shaped bridge by the tramline from the railway
station, the bridge which was the aiming point for the first
atomic bomb, Little Boy, dropped on that hot summer
morning in 1945.

Hiromu Morishta was 73 when I interviewed him, and

fourteen on the day of the bombing, a patriotic student in
junior high school. He and his classmates believed the
statements from the military high command that Japan was
winning the war, even though no one had enough to eat. His
mother, starving herself to feed her children, was more
sceptical. The high school students no longer attended
lessons but worked in a factory making guns and aeroplane
parts.

Hiromu and his friends were mystified that Hiroshima had

never been bombed, since it was an important military
centre. Japanese cities at this time were built mainly of
wood, which made them vulnerable to fire. In two days in
March 1945 the Americans had dropped 2,000 tons of
incendiary bombs on Tokyo – some 125,000 people had died
in the worst firestorm in recorded history.

All too aware of this risk in Hiroshima, the authorities

mobilised young people to tear down buildings, creating
empty spaces which would have stopped the spread of fire.
By 8.15 on the morning of 6 August, some of them were
already at work, and had stripped down to vest and shorts in
the summer heat. Hiromu and seventy of his classmates
were still receiving instructions from their teachers when, he
told me, “suddenly we felt – light, a flash. I felt like I had
been thrown into a big furnace of fire. We fell down on the
ground, but already our bodies were burned on our faces,
hands, legs. The clothes were burned too.” They later
realised that they had only survived because they were still
fully dressed – sixty percent of the six or seven hundred
students in the area had died.

Hiromu Morishta now entered a world as vivid, fragmented

and incomprehensible as a nightmare. “I jumped in the river
because of the pain from the burns. In the river I met a
classmate. He asked me to tell him what his face was like. I
told him his face was burnt, the skin had peeled down like
melted wax. I was too scared to ask what had happened to
my own face, but my face had become just like his.” The
whole city had somehow been destroyed, and was now
beginning to burn, but he could not understand how this was
possible. He felt completely detached from what he was
seeing – “I didn’t feel anything – I saw the state of the city,
the houses, only my eye had become like the lens of a
camera, with no feelings. We were thrown into another
world.”
 Hiromu Morishta
It was a world of horrors. “I met many young men, soldiers.
They wore their uniforms, but all their skin had peeled down,
they were like ghosts. I wanted to get back to my house. I
walked down to Hiroshima station. I saw many people who
had died: many people had jumped in the river, their bodies
were burnt and they were swollen up, twice the usual size. I
saw so many. It was like Hell.” People did not know that only
one bomb would be dropped: they thought that there might
be more to come.

Hiromu Morishta set off to find the home he shared with his
parents and sister. He walked slowly along a railway track,
his burnt skin hanging from him, his face so swollen that he
could only see through one eye. In the evening he arrived
where his house had been, but could not find it. He later
learned that it had burned and collapsed, and that his
mother had died inside, while his father and sister were safe.
Remembering that some of his father’s friends lived on the
north outskirts of the city, he set off to walk there. Around
midnight he collapsed in a field, but neighbours found him
and took him to his destination. Seriously ill, he now entered
another nightmare, the uncharted world of radiation
sickness. “That night I lost consciousness. I had a very high
fever. I was ill in bed for about a month. Every day pus
flowed from my wounds. I cried every day and every night.
The radiation had not affected me badly. But my aunt visited
me while I was in bed. She looked healthy, not wounded or
burnt. But about ten days after, she died with black foam
coming from her mouth. She was near to the bomb when it
exploded.”

After a month, his wounds were almost healed, though like

many survivors he had keloid scars – rubbery, itchy and
disfiguring red growths which formed over the bad burns
they had suffered. Japanese doctors were unsure how to
treat the keloids: if removed, they often recurred. “I had
surgery twice for the keloids: once next spring and once next
summer. They cut off the keloid and grafted skin from my
thigh onto my face near my mouth. The next time they cut
on my neck, but they didn’t cut away enough, so the skin
was still a different colour and itchy.” He was a teenager,
and felt anxious that girls wouldn’t find him attractive
because of how his face looked.

Hiromu stayed in the countryside for six months or so with

friends of his grandmother’s – there were still food shortages
in the towns. Next spring he returned to Hiroshima to
continue school, and discovered that around half of his
classmates had died in the bombing. There were tensions
with the American occupiers: “the American Army came to
Hiroshima and the country areas in jeeps – a lot of soldiers.
Some friends, when the atomic bomb was dropped, they
wanted to attack the American bombers.” One point of
contention was the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission or
ABCC, established by the Americans in 1946 to research the
effects of the bomb on survivors – but not to treat them. “We
felt that they must treat survivors. We hated them.” The
Americans also censored the Japanese press. “Generally you
couldn’t write about the bomb, though some people tried to.
The Americans wanted to make another atomic bomb, a
hydrogen bomb. So they needed to keep the information
secret about survivors and the atomic bomb’s destructive
effects.”

Over time, Hiromu came to feel that research into the

bomb’s effects could be useful, and that the most important
thing was to prevent war in future. “I felt that so many
people had been killed and so much destroyed and burnt,
everything had come to an end. I believed that maybe all
people in the world will not fight again.” Yet only five years
after the bombing, the US and Soviet Union began a proxy
war in Korea. “When the Korean War happened, there were
many tanks and bombs brought here to Japan for the war.
Every day you saw them on the railroads. We felt very near
to Korea. We were students, we organised protest meetings
against it.”

Hiromu Morishta became a teacher of the traditional

Japanese art of calligraphy, a trade unionist and an anti-war
campaigner. “We thought – we were teachers, we must
teach the next generation of young people the facts about
the atomic bomb. I’ve been to many countries – as a
survivor, part of the peace movement, or with other
members of the trade unions. I’ve been invited to India and
China with the teachers’ union to talk about my experiences.
Now China, Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons, and
Iraq and North Korea want to have them. But the Americans
have the most nuclear weapons: they should abandon them
first. I will protest against nuclear weapons until I die.”

You have only to raise the demand that America gives up its
atom bombs to see how far platitudes about democracy and
justice are from the reality of American military power. That
reality, in 1945, meant terrible injuries for a fourteen-year-
old Japanese boy and many more like him, just as in the last
three weeks it has meant the deaths of children in Gaza. Our
rulers, with America at their head, will continue to maintain
themselves in power by torturing and killing children, unless
and until we stop them.

A Morning Poem

I wish to welcome a reincarnated morning

For that day only
I would not regret dying
 Text by Hanji Tsusboi
Calligraphy by Hiromu Morishta

Rise Like Lions: the politics

of Shelley's Mask of Anarchy
 August 14, 2019

 Written by Jacqueline Mulhallen

 Published in History

Jeremy Corbyn reciting Shelley at Glastonbury, 2017. Photo: YouTube/Official Jeremy Corbyn Channel

200 years after it was penned,

Jacqueline Mulhallen explores the
politics of Shelley's great poem
Many poems were written in response to the Peterloo Massacre and were
published in the radical press (see Alison Morgan, Ballads and Songs of
Peterloo, Manchester University Press, 2019), but the poem which has lasted
until our own day and which has been described as the greatest political
poem in the English language is The Mask of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe
Shelley. It was not published in 1819 but in 1832, 10 years after Shelley
himself had drowned in a sailing accident in Italy. Leigh Hunt, the editor to
whom Shelley originally sent the poem, was afraid to publish it in 1819
because of the repressive laws against ‘sedition’, but the poem was still
appropriate in 1832 when once again there was agitation for reform of
Parliament and he published it then.

It became immediately popular, and remained so among the Chartists and,

later, among the suffragettes. In 1911, the striking garment workers of New
York (the Rising of the 20,000) chanted it on the demonstrations and so did
the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The phrase ‘Ye are many -
they are few’ has been used by poll tax campaigners, the Occupy movement
and now by the Labour Party with Jeremy Corbyn reciting the lines beginning
‘Rise like lions after slumber’ at Glastonbury, 2017. Its popularity and longevity
was perhaps because it was not just a personal response to Peterloo but a
political commentary on the politics and politicians of the day and so put the
event into context. And also because it is a beautiful, striking and dramatic
poem and one which used a style and imagery immediately familiar and
popular with working people.

Shelley selected a ballad form, one which is extremely easy to follow and to
remember, and which has been popular since the Middle Ages in English,
Irish and Scottish literature and later in American and Australian literature. It
was the traditional form used to tell of great events from the Ballad of
Otterburn to 18th century themes of adventure or injustice and was used by
Bob Dylan in the 1960s. Shelley does not use the form slavishly, but varies it.
He sometimes adds extra lines to a verse and also varies the rhyme scheme
and the rhythm. It is full of imagination and political thought and - despite its
ghastly theme - wit and humour. Gallows humour is something the working
class have always appreciated. The Mask (or Masque) of Anarchy draws on
other forms of popular 19th century culture, such as the prints displayed in
print shop windows - people would crowd outside to see the latest - carnival,
and pantomime with its Harlequinade and fairy story characters and magic
transformation scenes.

Like other ballads, the poem is told as a vision seen by Shelley as he ‘lay
asleep in Italy’, (p. 87) which includes the visionary ideal, the historical, the
commentary on current events. The opening lines describe a huge carnival
procession, the Prime Minister, Sidmouth, the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, and the
Foreign Secretary, Castlereagh, riding in triumph, richly clad. The masks they
wear reveal their true nature: Hypocrisy, emphasised by the crocodile
Sidmouth rides, Fraud and Murder. The figures would have reminded 19th
century readers of the scene in pantomime when the figures of fairy tale lost
the huge papier maché heads which portrayed their roles and were
transformed into abstractions. The characteristics are interchangeable - all of
them can be Fraud, Hypocrisy and Murder - and they would have been easily
identifiable at the time. We may supply modern equivalents since the
politicians of our own day have different names but have not changed their
nature.

Riding across Britain suggests the way in which the ruling class destroy both
the environment by constructing their mills and mines, and the working people
by imposing their laws, waging war, and, by arbitrarily closing works, cause
unemployment and starvation. They all worship Anarchy, ‘GOD AND KING
AND LAW’ characterised by a Skeleton that looks like ‘Death in the
Apocalypse’ (p. 88) - familiar to workers from prints of Thomas Rowlandson or
Benjamin West. Anarchy is wearing a ‘kingly crown’ and Anarchy ‘bowed and
grinned to every one/As well as if his education/Had cost ten millions to the
nation’ (p. 89) in a royal gesture - royal ‘education’ is indeed very expensive!
The image is comical, but Anarchy symbolises religion, law and monarchy, all
that the ruling class claim as their justification for what they do, which cloaks
the chaotic system of capitalism. This allows Anarchy to proceed to the Tower
of London and the Bank of England to seize the nation’s wealth and then to
the Parliament where he has all the MPs in his pocket (‘pensioned’ as Shelley
says). The whole parade rouses our horror and at the same time we laugh in
contempt – a very healthy reaction when looking at the ruling class as it
counteracts fear.

This is interrupted by a startling event. A ‘maniac maid’, Hope (who looks

‘more like Despair’), ‘fled past’. Hope’s wonderful lines

My father Time is weak and gray

From waiting on a better day;

Look how idiot like he stands,

Fumbling with his palsied hands! (p. 90)

evoke for us protest after protest, demonstration after demonstration, broken

promises, and indeed, poor and frail elderly people who have spent their lives
working and bringing up children and whose hopes of a better life for them
have been disappointed. Those at Peterloo were hoping for ‘a better day’. We
are still waiting.

In a dramatic gesture, Hope lies down to stop Anarchy reaching his goal and
we believe she will be trampled. The willingness of the ‘maid’ to die rather
than see Anarchy succeed is the first sacrifice in the poem, reminding us that
revolution involves sacrifice and bloodshed. It suggests the maidens
sacrificed in mythology and fairy tale, but she is also a symbolic figure.
Shelley, who had studied the French Revolution for his poem Laon and
Cythna, was aware of how committed women can be to a revolutionary cause.
Through Hope, he invokes his mother in law, Mary Wollstonecraft, and
inspired the Chartist women, suffragettes and the New York garment workers
who would all love this poem. Hope’s sacrifice produces ‘a vapour’ which
grows into another allegorical figure, a kind of medieval armour-clad warrior, a
fighting spirit which grows and passes over the heads of men. This spirit kills
all the monsters on parade, and Anarchy and his murderers are dead. Hope –
no longer like Despair but ‘serene’ – is walking ‘ankle deep in blood’. She is
strong again and has inspired everyone else. The spirit of the class has been
strengthened by the unity which inspires us, just as it was after the Peterloo
Massacre.

Something has destroyed the anarchic rule – a revolution. Yet this is not the
end of the poem. Shelley knew that it is not as simple as that, although
courage and defiance and a willingness to risk your own life is necessary if a
revolution is to happen. Hope’s action has been repeated down to our own
day – but united action and a plan is also necessary. People need to know
what they are fighting for and why. Shelley wants to set out why such a
revolution is worth fighting for, what the condition of workers is under
‘Anarchy’ and what it could be like. The vivid and dramatic imagery does not
continue into the next section. Some words follow which come from no one
knows where, but ‘As if their own indignant Earth/which gives the sons of
England birth’ (p. 91) had spoken from each drop of blood with which she had
been ‘bedewed’. It is clear that this is the blood of the sons of England, whose
blood she had ‘felt upon her brow’ and in a later verse she is evidently thinking
of Peterloo when she says:

Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew

Ride over your wives and you –

Blood is on the grass like dew. (p. 93)

Dew renews and refreshes the grass. The blood that was shed at Peterloo will
renew the struggle because of the anger and inspiration it causes. But it
should be clear why and what workers are fighting for.

In this second section, Shelley sets out a beautiful and accurate description of
what the opposite of freedom is:

Tis to work and have such pay

As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell

For the tyrants’ use to dwell. (p. 92)

Shelley knew the condition of the workers of his own day, and ours, where
pay just covers the barest essentials to get by. Hunger, homelessness, rising
costs due to financial crises and depressions (as in our own day, post-
Waterloo Britain was suffering depression) and the Peterloo Massacre are
what freedom is not. In an image familiar to his audience from the Bible he
compares the English worker to Christ – ‘All things have a home but one –
/Thou, oh Englishman, hast none!’ (p. 93)

Freedom on the other hand ensures enough food, shelter, education, justice,
freedom of thought and peace. This is worth fighting for, and a very concrete
form of freedom, not just an empty abstract word but grounded in everyday
experience of the way the Industrial Revolution had destroyed the lives of
working people and how the system was kept in place by GOD AND KING
AND LAW, the rhetoric of religion, royalty and the laws made by the ruling
class, duty. At this time the ruling class were identifying ‘patriotism’ with these
things whereas the working class identified it with a common good.

But ‘blood is on the grass like dew’. Shelley suggests another demonstration
is necessary, ‘a great assembly’, and another sacrifice. There should be a
declaration of freedom from the ruling class ideas. It is to be held on some
outdoor place in England and everyone who is sympathetic should attend,
from ‘every hut, village and town’, from ‘workhouses and prisons and even
some ‘from the palaces’ (those ‘prison houses of wealth and fashion’) p. 96.
Then ‘if the tyrants dare’ to attack this demonstration:

Stand ye calm and resolute…

With folded arms and looks which are

Weapons of unvanquished war.

The demonstrators are to remain like this while the military attack not just
them but also their wives and children. This section is seriously problematic
since it is impossible. No one could stand calm and resolute while a child is
being slaughtered, and ironically the last person to have done so would have
been Shelley. So – did he mean this?
In A Philosphical View of Reform Shelley does say that the ‘true patriot’ would
‘exhort’ ‘a more considerable number’ to ‘expect without resistance the onset
of the cavalry, with folded arms’. He did think that the attackers would be
overawed by this behaviour into holding back. Shelley had learnt politically
from the Quakers with whom he campaigned as a young man against the
slave trade – meetings, petitions, letters to the press. Quakers believe in non-
violence and they had practised facing hostility with calm in Ireland in the
1798 Rising. However, their success may well have owed more to the respect
in which they were held than to the tactics themselves. Shelley also probably
knew of instances during the French Revolution when soldiers refused to fire
on the crowd and believed English soldiers would also refuse. The
Manchester Yeomanry, however, was not drawn from the class they were
attacking, and they were not sympathetic, as an ordinary soldier might have
been. Furthermore, although Shelley admired the ideal of non-violent
resistance, there are signs that he was ambivalent about it because he
believed that the ruling class will resist violently or, as in his poem Laon and
Cythna, make a violent counter-revolution. In A Philosophical View he
frequently puts forward objections to non-violent revolution. Although he
believed civil war to be ‘a calamity’, he states that ‘it will be necessary to
appeal to an exertion of physical strength’ (p. 83) and that ‘we possess a right
of resistance’ (p. 81). And, more vividly, ‘so dear is power that the tyrants
themselves neither then, nor now, nor ever, left or leave a path to freedom but
through their own blood’ (p. 32).

Just as his ambivalence pervades the prose essay, so it also exists in the
Mask, which Shelley presents as a vision. The sections on the demonstration
and the resistance to attack are just as visionary as the earlier part. The lines
about the gathering of people all opposed to the regime from all over the
country to ‘some (unidentified) spot of English ground’ (p. 95) describe an
imagined but hardly possible event. All those people would not be able to
come together simultaneously, and the ‘spot’ would have to be massive to
hold them all. We realise this and when we go on to read or hear about the
attack on the demonstration and the resistance we do not take him literally.
What is carried away from the poem is the sense that resistance and rising
are necessary, whether peaceful or not. The most famous verse beginning
‘Rise like lions after slumber’, is repeated and it ends the poem (pp. 92,99).

The gathering at St Peter’s Field had been peaceful – those who attended
were asked to leave their walking sticks at houses along the way to show that
they did not intend violence. Ironically, some of those attacked ended by
defending themselves with posts and stones they found outside the Quaker
Meeting House. And the attackers had been, as Shelley suggests in the
poem, universally condemned and shamed. He is commemorating what
actually happened, Peterloo itself. The Peterloo Massacre has come down to
us in history ‘Eloquent, oracular’, (p. 98) in part because of Shelley’s words.

The phrase ‘Ye are many – they are few’, was one which Henry Hunt used in
his speeches. This may appear an impudent borrowing, but Shelley himself
 used the phrase in his earlier poem, Queen Mab, and it is possible that Henry
Hunt knew Queen Mab. By repeating it in the Mask, Shelley emphasised its
importance in the movement for reform which Hunt led. Despite massive
protests by the working class and partly because of the confused response of
Hunt and others, the Reform movement collapsed in the years following
Peterloo, although it was to revive in the late 1820s.

Nowadays, Hunt himself is largely forgotten but in Shelley’s poem the words
have continued to inspire generations of activists – and at least one activist
poet, William Alderson, whose highly praised poem, May Days, was intended
as a modern equivalent to The Mask of Anarchy, and was published by
Counterfire in 2017.

Page numbers taken from Shelley’s Revolutionary Year edited by Paul Foot
(London: Bookmarks 1989)

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Tagged under: Labour Manchester Jeremy Corbyn Radicalism Shelley

Jacqueline Mulhallen

Jacqueline Mulhallen, actor and playwright, has co-ordinated King’s Lynn Stop
the War since 2003 and initiated and organised 14 Women for Change talks
for King’s Lynn & District Trades Council (2012/2013). She has written a
number of plays, including 'Sylvia' and 'Rebels and Friends' (Lynx Theatre and
Poetry), and books, including The Theatre of Shelley (Openbooks, 2010), and
a Shelley biography (Pluto Press, 2015).

(From the Oldham Chronicle, November 29th, 1884)

A NIGHT WITH PETERLOO VETERANS
(FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT)

If there is one class of people whose company I enjoy more than another it is
that of the old and sturdy Reformers who, in dark, bygone days have figured
in history and have helped to make it by the part they have played in the noble
struggle for the charter of human rights and liberty. There is something
strangely fascinating in old age when it has ripened in historic events and
associations of nearly a century. It seems as if you were holding converse
with the very germ, or the makers of history itself. The present reform
agitation suggested to a political friend of mine the idea of entertaining at tea
all the Peterloo Veterans now living in the district of Failsworth.

A few days since this suggestion was carried out, and by special invitation I
was present at the interesting gathering. Eleven of these old veteran
Reformers met at my Failsworth friend's house. They were mostly residents of
Failsworth, and their ages averaged 82. On meeting the assembled guests I
was pleased to find that a prominent member of parliament was also with
them as a special guest. He seemed quite at home amongst them, and sat
relating incidents he had heard of in connection with the Peterloo massacre.
Of these eleven old veterans seven were men and four women. As I sat and
gazed at their hoary heads, and wrinkled faces, and trembling forms, and
listened to their weak and quivering voices, I could not help but feel moved.
The tear of gratitude flowed as I thought of the liberties we now enjoy, and
how they had been fought and struggled, aye, and suffered for by these
political heroes. The reminiscences of the veterans will perhaps be of interest
to many in the present crisis.

It was after the hearty singing of the song, "Henry Hunt and Liberty" by one of
the aged Reformers, that the patriotic veterans opened their hearts and
became communicative by giving vent to their feelings in reference to their
persecution in bygone times. The chorus of the song was :-

O, God bless Hunt and Wollesley,

With them we'll take a part;
To gain our rights and liberty
We'll join both hand and heart.

Addressing the singer when he had done, I asked him if he had a good
recollection of the Peterloo event, "Remember it!" he should think he did. He
nearly got killed that day. When the yeomanry rushed upon them he made his
escape, and took refuge in a cellar, where a lot of his fellow Reformers
followed. In the bustle he was thrown down, and trampled on, and badly hurt.
It was with great difficulty he got home. "Forget that day! Nay, never while life
lasted. There were many horrible things done then that never appeared in the
newspapers. There were no free press then." There were more butchers
together that day nor he had ever seen since. A few of the Yeomanry were
from the district, but they were ever after ashamed of the part they had
played. The regular soldiers behaved themselves nobly in comparison to the
Yeomanry, and if it had not been for them there there would have been more
killed than there were. "Eh! It was a barbarous thing." Here the old man burst
out singing a song descriptive of the massacre.

The song finished, another veteran commenced to narrate his experience. He

lost his hat and shoe in the struggle, and was glad to get away so well.
Coming home through Newton Heath some time after the massacre he met a
man carrying a bundle of shoes and hats. These he had picked up after the
field had been cleared, and with them he was supplying everyone he met who
had lost such things. Our narrator said, he tried shoes and hats until he was
fitted, and on leaving the hat and shoe distributor he was told by him to tell all
who had lost such head and foot gear that they might have any he had that
would fit them. That kindhearted soul came from Copster Hill, Oldham, we
were informed.

The question was asked, "Were there a great many at Peterloo from
Failsworth?" an old man answered in the affirmative. Continuing he said,
"Amongst the Failsworth contingent there were twenty four young women
dressed in white garments." With a touch of deep emotion our informant said
he was sorry to say that some of these fair damsels were hurt in the struggle.
One of the young women, Mrs. Dunkerley, carried a banner, and had the
stave cut out of her hands three times by the Yeomanry. Each time she picked
up the banner and cried, "Hunt and Liberty for Ever!" some of those wild and
mad Yeomanry were drunken upon their horses. He was told they met in St.
James's Square and were made drunken there before they could do their dirty
work. He had watched the Tories from 1816, and could remember a time
when they kept grain in store at Liverpool until it was spoiled, and the people
were nearly starved to death at the time. This was done to get up the prices of
the grain. Large quantities were spoiled, and had to be destroyed. Flour was
up at 6s. a dozen, and he remembered fetching sixpennyworth in a basin.
Wages were low then, and provisions high. What with the press being gagged
it was difficult, nay almost impossible, to get any redress. They would not let
the nation become wealthy when it might have done. Everything you touched
was taxed. They could scarcely stir without being taxed. If they washed their
faces the soap was taxed. When they went to the looking glass that was
taxed, too. If they even put a clean collar on the very starch that had stiffened
it was taxed. In those days they used to fetch thin starch, ready made, from a
house , where it was retailed out in a custard form at so much a lump.

On being asked how they spent their leisure time then he replied he could
hardly tell. He had a distinct recollection of fourteen of them one Christmas
day, for want of something better to do, arranging to join at making treacle
toffy. But when they came to put their money together they found, to their
dismay, that they had not sufficient to purchase a pound of treacle, the price
being so high. These were the "good old times" that the Tories were so fond of
talking about.

At this stage of the proceedings an old dame of 83 promised to sing a song if

someone would try to keep her pipe in. The song was commenced, and it was
of the usual old fashioned length, about 15 verses. As the singer was finishing
her song she observed that the person who had volunteered to keep her pipe
lit had become so fascinated with her vocal powers that he had failed in his
promise. This drew forth the remark, "Come, John, fire up, fire up, or that pipe
will go out." A recitation was next given by a hale old dame of 88 summers, in
which a very remarkable feat of memory was shown. Afterwards the old topic
of conversation was again resumed. It was asked if any of them had ever
suffered imprisonment for their opinions. "Aye, aye." replied a veteran Radical.
"I was put in, and was shaved, powd(hair cut), and robbed whilst there." It
transpired that the old man had been robbed of the oakum he had picked by a
fellow prisoner during a short absence from his work.

Another of the veterans said he had a brother arrested and tried for a capital
offence. The chief witness against him was a local spy, and if the mean
scoundrel had had his own way his brother Ben would have been hung dead.
But his brother proved beyond a shadow of doubt that he was in Quebec at
the very time he was said to be committing the offence. He was immediately
dismissed on the production of this evidence. "Eh, those were hard and trying
times," continued the old man. "They could hardly tell who were friends and
who were foes and spies." He could mention spies who hid pikes and other
arms, and then went with the law officials in search of the arms, and found
what they themselves had secreted. There were spies that would have sworn
anyone's life away for a sum of money - "blood money" they called it in those
days. If they had the newspapers then that they have now such things would
not have been tolerated, but the press they had was gagged, and durst not
speak out.

The old lady singer here chimed in - She could remember going to the White
Moss before four o'clock one morning to drill. They had sticks instead of guns.
This was only done to frighten Parliament to give them their rights. They never
intended fighting. Henry Hunt urged them, before going to Peterloo, to take
nothing with them, not even sticks, except they were lame. But she should
never forget the scene at Peterloo that day. They never gave them a chance
to get away. The drunken Yeomanry came rushing upon them without even
waiting until the riot Act was read. They meant to take Hunt with them, come
what might. It were both cruel and barbarous to do as they did that day. the
regular soldiers behaved themselves like gentlemen compared with the
Yeomanry. She believed the attack was arranged days before it was made, as
there was not a stone to be found anywhere about.

We were informed by another old man that four of his brothers were present
at Peterloo. His father, on hearing what had taken place, went to meet his
sons. On his way he met several Reformers returning with their faces
sprinkled with blood, and amongst the number one man had a tall silk hat cut
in two. There was one poor fellow coming through Failsworth bleeding freely
from the wounds he had received. He could name three or four Tories, if he
liked, who actually came out of their houses and laughed in the face of this
wounded and almost fainting Reformer, and told him it served him right. With
them party politics were stronger than human sympathy. Fortunately, however,
none of his brothers were hurt.

This old man also narrated a very interesting incident -. He remembered,

shortly after the Peterloo Massacre, standing with his father and a Radical
Reformer, best known by the name of 'Billy Quick'. They were near Quick's
house, in the old road near Wrigley Head, Failsworth, and were talking about
reform, when Billy saw in the distance a number of mounted soldiers
approaching. "Those are after me," Billy said. No sooner had he thus spoken
than he took off his clogs, and darted quickly across a field, down the valley
leading to Moston, and through a culvert. The soldiers joined in the pursuit,
but Billy was too 'quick' for them. By dodging and twisting, in the manner
stated, he got clear away, and never was captured. The soldiers returned,
remarking that they did not call this bold and daring Radical 'Billy Quick' for
nothing; he was quick by name and quick by nature. "What had Quick done?"
was asked. "Done? Nothing. His crime was daring to be a Radical"

Such are a few of the simple and unvarnished incidents related by the
Reformers of 1819. What a wonderful change has taken place since those
times. Many of the reforms advocated by these hunted down and presecuted
veterans have now been secured, They laboured, and we are enjoying the
fruits of their labours. We honour and bless them now for having fearlessly
done their duty, and for having been, 'persecuted for righteousness sake'.

The women of Peterloo

 August 13, 2019

 Written by Katherine Connelly

 Published in History

The Peterloo Massacre. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

We can learn from the inspirational

struggle of working-class women
against a violent and corrupt Tory
government 200 years ago in our fight
against the Tories today, argues
Katherine Connelly
The famous contemporary image of the Peterloo Massacre shows a crowd of
working men, women and children being trampled and sabred by soldiers on
horseback. On the platform, alongside the star speaker Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt, is
a woman dressed in white. She is holding fast to a banner pole, crowned with
a red Cap of Liberty, with a banner depicting Justice triumphant with
Corruption underfoot. The woman’s name was Mary Fildes, she was twenty-
seven years old, the president of the Manchester Female Reform Union and
mother of five children. She would soon become a target of the violence. The
special constables, who arrived to arrest the speakers, beat her with their
truncheons. When she tried to escape from the platform her dress caught on
a nail and, whilst trapped, suspended above the ground, she was slashed with
a sabre by a soldier who seized her banner as a trophy.

Mary Fildes’ prominence on the platform, and the way she was targeted by
the authorities, testified to the vital role that women played in this struggle for
democracy.

The women organise

Six weeks before the massacre, on 5 July 1819, tens of thousands of workers
gathered for an open-air meeting in Blackburn to demand political reform. The
Manchester Observer, a radical newspaper, understood that the Blackburn
meeting was a signal to the authorities:

“They now begin to see that the people have more weight than themselves,
and if we mistake not, they will soon begin to feel the scale preponderate on
the side of those, they have hitherto been treating with such insolence and
contempt.”

What had been seen – that the workers were many and the wealthy elites
were few – would soon be felt because workers were now experiencing the
power of collective organisation. Mass working-class meetings were hardly
unusual in Lancashire in the summer of 1819. But something unusual did
happen at this meeting because half-way through a group of women turned
up. They explained that they were the Committee of the Blackburn Female
Reform Society and they wanted to be on the platform. The Chairman of the
meeting asked the huge crowd to make a pathway for the women to get
through – a request that was ‘instantly complied with’.

The women had come prepared. According to the Manchester Observer, they
presented the Chairman with ‘a most beautiful Cap of Liberty, made of scarlet
silk or satin, lined with green, with a serpentined gold lace, terminating with a
rich gold tassel.’

The crowd erupted, shouting “Liberty or Death” and “God bless the
women”. Then one of the women, a Mrs Alice Kitchen gave a ‘short emphatic
speech’ asking for the Cap to be placed on the top of the banner. The banner
was lowered, and the Cap placed on the flagpole, to the acclamation of the
mass meeting. The women had also written an address which they asked the
Chairman to read – and the crowd shouted “read, read! read! the women for
ever!” The address bore the evidence of intense political discussions.

A whole class of people,‘the best artizans, manufacturers, and labourers of

this vast community’, found themselves reduced to ‘a state of wretchedness
and misery, and driven [. . .] to the very verge of beggary and ruin’. In an
economic recession, with soaring levels of unemployment in the local textile
industry, the Tory government introduced the Corn Laws to allow wealthy
landowners to profit from the high price of bread – whilst working people
starved because they couldn’t afford to buy food. As working women, they
shared with ‘our fathers, our husbands, our brothers, our relatives and our
friends, in the overwhelming misery of our country’ and they knew the
situation was getting worse.

Revolutionary ideas
The solution they proposed was political reform. If we think about the political
system the workers of Lancashire lived under, we can appreciate how radical
their ideas were. In 1819, the parliamentary system was openly corrupt. The
large, industrial city of Manchester did not have its own MP, whilst Old Sarum,
a hill in Wiltshire, had two MPs and no residents! Dunwich in Suffolk had an
MP – but most of the constituency itself had actually fallen into the sea. These
were called ‘rotten boroughs’. On top of all this, only the richest people in
society were allowed to vote. Voting took place in public, so the most powerful
could control how everyone else with the privilege used their votes – resulting
in ‘pocket boroughs’: boroughs that were in the pocket of the landowner.

By contrast, the women in Blackburn proposed making parliament subject to

the power of the people through ‘annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and
election by ballot’. Historians generally assume that ‘universal suffrage’ in this
period meant universal male suffrage. Perhaps so, but this did not mean that
women did not see themselves as political participants in the present. The
Blackburn Female Reform Society warned that

“had it not been for the golden prize of reform held out to us, that weak and
impotent as might be our strength, we should long ere thus have sallied forth
to demand our rights, and in the acquirement of those rights to have obtained
that food and raiment for our children, which God and nature hvae [sic]
ordained for every living creature; but which our oppressors and tyrannical
rulers have withheld from us.”[i]

The women activists, it seemed, saw their role as spurring on the men to fight
for political reform, whilst reserving the right to take revolutionary, direct action
themselves if that reform was denied. The red Cap of Liberty the Blackburn
Female Reform Society presented was an indication of their political
inspiration: it had been worn by the revolutionaries in France.

The Blackburn Female Reform Society was the first of many women’s clubs
that sprang up in the weeks before Peterloo and appeared to adopt similarly
radical politics. On 20 July 1819, Susannah Saxton, the Secretary of
Manchester Female Reformers published their address which denounced
England’s ‘unjust, unnecessary, and destructive war, against the liberties of
France, that closed its dreadful career on the crimson plains of Waterloo’.
[ii] The female reformers’ calls for liberty and attack on the tyranny of the
British government was language drawn from the French Revolutionaries –
the enemies of the British state.

Women at Peterloo
Women played an important role in mobilising for the demonstration on 16
August in Manchester. A fascinating article by M.L. Bush records one woman
‘visiting north-west towns in early July in order to stress the need for political
change and offer precise instructions on how to make pikes.’[iii] Other women
probably played a similar role to suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst’s great
grandmother, a fustian cutter in Manchester, who ‘sent her husband’ to the
demonstration.[iv]

But many women attended the demonstration in person, often marching with
their female reformers’ club as a group. The famous radical Samuel Bamford,
who marched with the Middleton contingent to the demonstration,
remembered:

“At our head were a hundred or two of women, mostly young wives, and mine
own was amongst them. – A hundred or two of our handsomest girls, -
sweethearts to the lads who were with us, - danced to the music, or sung
snatches of popular songs.”[v]

The banners the women carried were declarations of their political

commitment. ‘Annual Parliaments and Death to those in Authority who
Oppose their Adoption’ read the Rochdale women’s flag; ‘Let Us Die Like Men
and Not Be Sold Like Slaves’ – the women of Royton.[vi]

The ruling elites understood that the demand for political reform was a threat
to their power and they were determined the movement should be
crushed. Soldiers in the British army, as well as the local volunteer yeomanry
forces – who had their sabres sharpened in advance, and police constables
stormed the demonstration, slashing, beating and shooting at the
protestors. Hundreds were injured, around 18 are thought to have been killed,
of whom four were women. Bush shows that women were disproportionately
targeted – at most they comprised an 8 of the crowd, but they made up a 3
th rd

of those recorded as wounded.[vii] Their presence on the day was probably

seen as an especial affront to the established ‘order’.

After Peterloo
Bush’s work shows that immediately after the massacre women were in the
forefront of the protests, attacking businesses where owners were supportive
of the yeomanry.[viii]

Beyond the immediate response, women’s political activism in 1819 had an

enduring legacy. In the early 1830s, there was a renewed revolutionary
movement for political change. Parliamentarians, terrified once more of losing
their power, began to calculate how much change they could accommodate
without handing power to the masses. In the 1832 Reform Bill they agreed
upon a small extension of the franchise and reform to remove the old pocket
and rotten boroughs.

One of the MPs who felt this was inadequate was Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt – the
star speaker at Peterloo. Now MP for Preston, he not only called for universal
male suffrage but introduced the first petition for women’s civil rights into the
House of Commons. Sir Frederick Trench, the Tory MP for Cambridge,
mocked the proposal, saying ‘it would be rather awkward if a jury half males
and half females were locked up together for a night, as now often happened
with juries’ as it ‘might lead to rather queer predicaments.’ Sensing hypocrisy,
Henry Hunt responded that he ‘well knew that the hon. and gallant Member
was frequently in the company of ladies for whole nights, but he did not know
that any mischief resulted from that circumstance.’[ix] The petition, however,
was contemptuously laughed out by the MPs. The 1832 ‘Great’ Reform Act
would in fact be the first to explicitly exclude women from the vote.

The demands that working men and women developed in 1819, for secret
ballots, annual parliaments and universal suffrage, were central demands of
the Chartist movement in the 1830s and 1840s in which women played active
political roles. Some of the survivors of Peterloo are known to have followed
the struggle for democratic rights throughout the nineteenth century well into
their old age. In 1884, a group of 11 Peterloo veterans – 4 women and 7 men
– from Failsworth attended a demonstration in support of the Third Reform
Act. A reporter from the Oldham Chronicle spent time with these ‘old and
sturdy Reformers’ who told their stories of Peterloo in song, one of the elderly
women promising to sing a 15 verse song as long as someone would
volunteer to ‘keep her pipe lit’.[x] (In the event, the song proved so engaging
the volunteer let the pipe go out.)

In the militant women’s suffrage struggle in the early twentieth century, it was
the socialist suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst who championed the memory of
Peterloo. In the summer of 1912, she challenged the suffragette leadership,
who were increasingly dismissive of working-class activists, by organising a
series of mass demonstrations around the country where Caps of Liberty
were added to suffragette banners – in tribute to the working-class activists
who began the struggle for democratic change.[xi] When Pankhurst and her
working-class supporters in East London were expelled from the campaign in
1914, they kept the Cap of Liberty as their emblem.

The struggle that working men and women began at Peterloo is unfinished. It
was a struggle for democratic power for working people which could end
poverty, inequality and unjust wars. Today we have a Tory government almost
as contemptuous of democracy as they are of working-class people. In
September the Tories will meet for their party conference in Manchester – a
short walk from the site of Peterloo. At that point, we need to make them see
and feel that they are few and we are many by joining the protest outside and
participating in the struggle for democracy today.

[i] All quotations from Manchester Observer, 10 July 1819, p.636.

[ii]Manchester Observer, 31 July 1819, p.664.

[iii] M.L. Bush, ‘The Women at Peterloo: The Impact of Female Reform on the
Manchester Meeting of 16 August 1819’, History, vol.89 (04/2004), p.222.

[iv] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement: An Intimate Account of

Persons and Ideals (London: Virago Limited, 1977), p.53.

[v] Samuel Bamford, Passages in the Life of a Radical: The Autobiography of

Samuel Bamford Vol. II,edited by W.H. Chaloner (London: Frank Cass and
Co. Ltd, 1967), p.200.

[vi] Bush, ‘The Women at Peterloo’, pp.220-1.

[vii]Ibid, pp.224-5.

[viii]Ibid, pp.222-3.

[ix]https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1832/aug/03/rights-of-
women
 [x]http://www.pixnet.co.uk/Oldham-hrg/members/sheila/peterloo/pages-
other/veterans.html

[xi] Katherine Connelly, Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge

of Empire (London: Pluto Press, 2013), p.48.

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Tagged under: Movement Working Class Democracy Suffragettes Tories

Katherine Connelly

Kate Connelly is a writer and historian. She led school student strikes in the
British anti-war movement in 2003, co-ordinated the Emily Wilding Davison
Memorial Campaign in 2013 and is a leading member of Counterfire. Her
book, ‘Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire‘ was
published by Pluto Press last year.

The Battle of the Bogside

 August 14, 2019

 Written by Vincent Doherty

 Published in History


August '69, sisters are doing it for themselves

Marking its 50th anniversary, Vincent

Doherty looks at one of the most
significant episodes in modern Irish
history
“The Derry Citizens Action Committee declares that after 50 years of Unionist
tyranny we have finally come to the crunch. Either we smash Unionism now
or we go back to sleep for another 50 years.” Irish Times, 14 August 1969

This week marks the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bogside, an event
which is recognised as an indelible moment in modern Irish history. It
fundamentally altered the relationship between the oppressed Catholic
minority and the Orange State that had existed in the 6 north eastern counties
of Ireland since the British imposed partition of the island in 1921. It also
happened to be the summer I’d left the ancien regime that was the Christian
Brothers School, Brow of the Hill, a school that was located at the bottom of a
winding street known as Hoggs Folly, at the junction of the Bogside and the
Brandywell.
My class was made up of 15 and 16-year-old boys, many of whom would later
spend long years in prison cells, on the blanket protest , on hunger strikes,
prisoners of a conflict which grew out of the events in Derry in August 1969.
We were the teenage rioters who took on the Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC) and later the British Army. There had been rumblings of discontent and
resistance to the Stormont regime across the North since the Civil Rights
March in Derry on 5 October 1968. The march gained worldwide attention
when it was brutally attacked by the RUC, a heavily armed, overwhelmingly
loyalist militia, which included the infamous ‘B’ Specials, an auxiliary
paramilitary force created out of the wartime UVF at the time of partition. Like
much else in the Orange State the police force was a representation of the
local Stormont regime, famously described by one Northern Ireland Prime
Minister as “a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people.” In this case, a
Protestant police force for a Protestant people.

You are now entering Free Derry

The Bogside had become a particular thorn in the side of the Orange State
with ongoing engagement between locals and the RUC often supported by far
right loyalist gangs. Following sustained and bloodied assaults on a People’s
Democracy-led student march from Belfast to Derry in the early days of 1969,
a march inspired by the Selma to Montgomery march in the US, the RUC had
invaded the Bogside and terrorised the local community, breaking into homes
and beating people indiscriminately. By August '69, in anticipation of further
RUC attacks, the local community were better prepared to defend the area.
Following the annual highly provocative Orange Order parade through the
predominantly nationalist city, the RUC and loyalist mobs charged into the
Bogside to disperse protesters who had gathered at the edge of the area.
What awaited them was unforeseen. They were met by ferocious resistance
by local people inspired by youthful radicals including Bernadette McAliskey
and Eamon McCann. A contemporary report from the Irish Times captured the
moment:

“For the second night in a row Derry is in flames and chaos reigns . . . . . .
About 5,000 men, women and children hurl petrol bombs and stones at the
RUC and B Specials. A new station - Radio Free Derry - is broadcasting and
urging people to man the barricades. Fires are burning at several points
across the city and there is widespread street fighting. The heavy blanket of
CS gas has taken its toll, particularly the old, the sick and the very young.”

The same paper also reported widespread solidarity protests across the 6
counties, in Coalisland, Enniskillen, Dungannon, Strabane, Armagh and in
Dungiven, “where police are besieged in the local RUC station.” This was
mass action on a scale not seen before, people power at its most vivid and
dramatic. A petrol station on the edge of the Bogside had been “liberated” and
the production of petrol bombs - Molotov cocktails was on an industrial scale.
The Bogsiders effectively drove the RUC, the B Specials and the loyalist
mobs out of the area and a famous slogan was born, which to this day adores
a wall at the site of the battle - “You are now entering Free Derry.”

The Falls Road Pogrom

I recall as a 15 year old making my way home from the Bogside past heavily
armed B Specials, gathered in small groups on every street corner, to find my
father and other men from our area, who had never engaged in any form of
protest before, preparing to go on patrol to defend the local Catholic Chapel,
amidst threats that it might be burned down by loyalists. Even the normally
hesitant leadership of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association warned: “A
war of genocide is about to flare across the North.”

The loyalist onslaught aided and abetted by the RUC and the B Specials had
already begun across the north. But it was to be in Belfast, where many
protests in solidarity with the Bogside had taken place, that it was to be at its
most vicious. Determined to subdue the risen people the Stormont regime
give carte blanche to the police and the loyalist gangs to terrorise the local
Catholic areas. Firing from heavy machine guns mounted on armoured cars
the RUC overran areas of the Lower Falls in West Belfast killing a nine year
old boy in his home in the Divis Flats, whilst creating cover for loyalist mobs
who burned down whole streets of Catholic houses. Over the 3 days of
disturbances in Belfast 7 people would die and 750 would be injured.
Thousands of Catholic families and businesses were burned out with many
fleeing over the border to special camps set up by the Dublin Government to
provide basic foodstuffs and accommodation for what were effectively
refugees from what generally became known as “The Falls Road Pogrom.”

No going back
The events of August 1969 saw the effective alienation of the vast majority of
the Catholic nationalist population from the institutions of the Orange State.
The introduction by a British Labour Government of British troops “To aid the
Civil Power” demonstrated to many that the British Government, when all was
said and done, would side with the Unionists despite all the injustices that
were the hallmark of the Stormont regime. Despite military occupation and
repressive policing the resistance to injustice would never again be totally
tamed or contained. Hard-won reforms on housing and voting rights were
achieved but they were seen by many in the nationalist community,
particularly amongst the youth, as “too little, too late.” There was to be no
going back. A new dynamic was now in place, which questioned the very
notion that the Orange State could be reformed from within, or whether it
needed to be effectively overthrown. That was the real message that
emanated from The Battle of the Bogside and subsequent events.

The genie was out of the bottle; there was to be no going back.
 Defending the Indefensible:
the British Army in Northern
Ireland, 1969
 August 14, 2019

 Written by Chris Bambery

 Published in History

Bogsiders run for cover, 1969. Photo: CAIN

In deploying troops to Derry, Downing

Street was propping up the Unionist
government to shield itself from
blame, argues Chris Bambery
Fifty years ago a Labour government in London took a crucial decision, to
commit the British Army onto the streets of Northern Ireland. The story spun
by ministers was that troops were being sent in to keep the peace and to stop
sectarian conflict between the Catholic and Protestant populations. Both were
lies and those same ministers knew that full well.

British troops were being sent to Belfast and Derry because the Unionist
government, which had ruled the one party state of Northern Ireland since its
creation in 1921, had requested them. They required them because their own
heavily armed police had not just failed to put down an urban insurrection of
the Catholic people of Derry but were on the verge of defeat. That was
unthinkable.

British ministers had also been warned that given the long history of Ireland’s
fight for independence, involving guerilla war against the British Army, there
was a strong likelihood that if troops were sent to police Northern Ireland they
would become involved in repression aimed at the Catholic population and
that would lead to retaliation.

Those documents released in 2000 on discussions in the British Cabinet and

Whitehall are fascinating because they reveal how aware the administration of
Harold Wilson was of what could unfold (other documents remain secret until
2050).

So Whitehall officials privately warned ministers that "history demonstrates the

failure of English intervention in Irish affairs".

What became the Northern Ireland Troubles began in Derry in October 1968
when the Royal Ulster Constabulary batoned a peaceful Civil Rights March off
the streets. TV viewers were shocked to watch scenes which were so similar
to those they’d seen in the Southern States of the USA a few years ago. The
Northern Ireland civil rights movement was inspired by that fight and used its
anthem, We Shall Overcome.

Many of those same TV viewers were shocked to discover that Derry, a city
with a Catholic majority, had its local government boundaries gerrymandered
to give the Unionists permanent control, that businessmen (this gender use is
deliberate) got extra votes and the police were permanently armed backed up
by a Unionist militia, also armed.

Northern Ireland was one big gerrymander. Sometimes called Ulster it

excluded three counties historically part of the province of Ulster. It did so
because when Ireland was partitioned in 1921-22 the aim was to create a
large area within the UK but also one with a two thirds Protestant or Unionist
population to one thirds Catholic or Nationalist.
The new state instutionalised discrimination against Catholics, who were
branded disloyal, and used repression against its opponents - internment
without trial was introduced in every decade of Unionist rule.

Yet in 1968 and 1969, years of global revolt young Catholics would not lie
down. When the police tried to force a march of Protestant bigots through
Derry’s Bogside it exploded. The police were driven back with stones then
petrol bombs until they were on the verge of collapse.

The Unionist government requested the British Home Secretary for troops to
be sent to Derry to maintain “order”. The Wilson government agreed. On 14
August they were deployed, too late to stop Protestant mobs burning out
Catholic streets in West Belfast and the RUC murderously using heavy
machine guns fired from armoured cars on the Catholic population.

The decision to send in the troops flew in the face of previous opinion in
London.

In April 1969 Wilson had warned his Cabinet:

"If it became necessary for the troops to intervene, they would be thought to
be doing so in order to maintain the Orange faction in power. The
constitutional consequences might be very grave, and once we were involved
it would be difficult to secure our withdrawal."

In that same meeting Callaghan states:

"There was a good deal of corroboration for the view that the Catholics had
acted largely in self-defence, and there was little evidence to support the view
of the Northern Ireland government that the I[Irish] R [Republican] A [Army]
were mainly responsible."

Home Office officials openly stated that the Unionist government had
restricted local government votes to “their” People, had gerrymandered
electoral boundaries and blocked Catholics from getting council homes.

As early as October 1968 Home Office officials wrote a report which argued:

"There are legitimate grievances in Northern Ireland and it is entirely

legitimate that they should be ventilated by demonstration."
And:

"History demonstrates the failure of English intervention in Irish affairs ... The
situation is explosive; civil war is not impossible."

The then Defence Minister Denis Healey, warned prophetically that

"troops were likely to be required in Northern Ireland for a considerable time;

little confidence would be placed in the local forces by Catholics until they
were seen to be working efficiently and fairly."

In 2000 he recalled:

"All the violence was coming from the Protestants at the time."

The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Burke Trend, warned Wilson:

"If we cannot ensure that Ulster will be able to put their own house in order
without involving us, should we not try to escape from ... an involvement from
which we would find it difficult and expensive to withdraw?"

So why did the Wilson government agree to the Unionist government’s

request that troops be sent in?

They knew reforms were needed and, faced with urban insurrection had to be
granted, but shied away from taking the obvious step: abolishing the Unionist
regime and taken direct control over Northern Ireland state. Instead they kept
the Unionist government in place as a buffer so Downing Street was,
hopefully, out of the blame. In reality they gave the Unionists control over the
pace of reform, a pace which was painfully slow. The Labour government had
chosen to prop up a Unionist government which ran Northern Ireland as a
sectarian, one party state.

In 1972 the Tory government did end Unionist rule but by then it was too little
too late. Over the years we were told Britain aimed to remove the gun from
Irish politics. Yet in 1969 the only guns were in the hands of the RUC, and
they used them readily. The IRA was tiny and sidelined and split in 1969. But
British actions would create the Provisional IRA and ensure it had popular
support in the Catholic population.

In July 1970 the British imposed an illegal curfew on the Lower Falls Catholic
area of Belfast. They sealed the area off, saturated it with riot gas and shot
four unarmed civilians dead. Unionist MPs were toured round the streets in
army Land Rovers. It wasn’t until February 1971 that the IRA killed its first
British soldier.

On 9 August 1971 the army swooped into Catholic areas at dawn dragging off
346 men to be interned without trial, often for years. Few were IRA activists.
No Loyalists were taken. Nine civilians were shot dead as rioting spread in
response. By now the IRA was recruiting widely.

In its own analysis of operations in Northern Ireland the British army stresses
it opposed internment and only acted under orders. This did not stop the army
secretly taking 12 men away and subjecting them to a grotesque experiment
in “sensory deprivation techniques”.

Repression peaked with the Bloody Sunday killings of 30 January 1972 in

Derry. A month before, General Harry Tuzo, the army commander in Northern
Ireland, told the then Tory government that,

"A choice had to be made between accepting that Creggan and Bogside were
areas where the army was not able to go, or to mount a major operation
which would involve, at some stage, shooting at unarmed civilians."

The government raised no objections.

On 7 January 1972 General Robert Ford declared in a memo to Tuzo,

“I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary is to shoot

selected ringleaders among the Derry young hooligans after clear warnings
have been issued.

I am convinced that our duty to restore law and order requires us to consider
this step.”

At Downing Street four days later prime minister Ted Heath told his cabinet,

“As to Londonderry [Derry], a military operation to reimpose law and order

would be a major operation necessarily involving numerous civilian
casualties.”
 Accordingly, the paratroop regiment was sent to the city on the eve of a
protest march against internment. The paratroops were sent into the Bogside
following a minor riot. They shot 14 unarmed protesters dead. This was a
massacre similar to ones British troops had committed around the world.
Killings by the army would continue. In response, the IRA became the most
effective guerilla movement of its day.

For much of the 1970s and 1980s the British policy was to use force to
contain the Northern Ireland problem. Over time they became convinced they
could not defeat the IRA. Its leaders came to a similar conclusion, leading the
way to the subsequent peace deal. Having once labelled the IRA as
“murderers” who they could never talk to, the British government was finally
forced to negotiate.

How socialists should

commemorate Peterloo
 August 15, 2019

 Written by John Westmoreland

 Published in History


'Britons Strike Home'. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Peterloo presents us with unfinished

business, argues John Westmoreland
Question: How should socialists commemorate the Peterloo Massacre?

Answer: In exactly the opposite way to how the BBC and the liberal media will
remember it.

The story of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre is becoming known across the trade
union and Labour movement thanks in no small part to Mike Leigh’s excellent
recent film Peterloo. One thread of Peterloo follows ‘Joe’, who left the
battlefield of Waterloo to make his way back to Manchester, and who lost his
life from the injuries sustained at the mass demonstration in St Peter’s Field.
Joe’s character is based on John Lees, an Oldham spinner. Lees died after
three weeks of agony. Before dying he compared his three days at the battle
of Waterloo to the few hours he spent on that fateful August day. He said he
was “never in such danger at Waterloo as he was at the meeting. For at
Waterloo it was man to man but in Manchester it was downright murder”.
Lees was cut down by fellow Macunians in the Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry,
and his former comrades at Waterloo the 15 Hussars.
th

Constitutional reform was urgent and a political movement had been inspired
by America winning its independence and founding their new country on a Bill
of Rights (though not for slaves); republican revolution in France; the radical
literature of Tom Paine and the French Enlightenment; and the economic
misery inflicted on the working poor after the end of the wars against France
in 1815.

The government used spies and imprisonment to check their critics. 1819 was
the year when events came to a head. In December 1816 mass riots occurred
at Spa Fields in London. In March 1817 Manchester radicals marching on
London were arrested. Carrying only a blanket they became known as the
‘Blanketeers’. In June 1817 there was a rising at Pentrich in Nottinghamshire.
A Pentrich leader, Jeremiah Brandreth, urged his followers:

Every man his skill must try

He must turn out and not deny;
No bloody soldier must he dread,
He must turn out and fight for bread.
The time is come you plainly see
The government opposed must be.

The government was aghast. All their security was aimed at preventing
revolution in London. Now Manchester was a hotbed of radicalism.
Methodists, trade unionists and members of radical clubs were working
together to articulate the need for change. The oligarchy in London
maintained contacts with the Manchester magistrates and advised caution
while at the same time committing troops to the north.

The result, after the famous radical Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt accepted the invitation
to speak in Manchester, was the massive gathering of a social movement for
constitutional reform. All the affected parts that make a mass movement were
there. The demonstration is often described as ‘a family day out’: the carefully
sewn banners and the joyous families who participated have encouraged
historians to play down their political convictions. This is an error. Young
workers and women don’t figure much as speakers or leaders, but they were
active participants because they were right at the cutting edge, as we shall
see.

Mary Fildes of the Manchester Female Reform Group was on the Hustings on
the day of Peterloo. Within the fifteen acknowledged casualties, 4 were
women and of the 654 people injured, 168 were women. This has led some
historians to conclude that the high percentage of casualties suffered by
women in comparison to the numbers in the crowd suggests they were
deliberately targeted. As the Manchester Observer reported on 21 August:
st

“These women seemed to be the special objects of the rage of these bastard
soldiers”.

The men on horseback felt challenged by women who had stepped beyond
their traditionally defined role. “[H]ow painful to behold [them] assembled at
the ale house or club room, neglecting those sacred duties their situation as
daughters, wives, or as mothers, impose upon them”, mourned the
Manchester Gazette.

The magistrates who were in charge of policing the demonstration that day
were from Manchester’s Church, industrial and landed elites. They were allies
of the political oligarchy in London. Whether they acted through panic is
beside the point. They seethed at mill operatives, who to them, were worth far
less than the machines they tended, daring to make demands about things
they were not supposed to understand. The demonstration (it was actually
called as a meeting) could simply not be allowed to succeed. If it did more
demonstrations and strikes would follow.

The order to arrest Hunt was given after he had barely begun to speak.

When the magistrates ordered the field to be cleared they brought the sabre-
wielding petty capitalists of Manchester into direct conflict with the mass. The
Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry were drunk and full of hatred. “Clear the square”
was really a code to chop them down. John Edward Taylor, a reporter at the
scene noted that “there were individuals in the yeomanry whose political
rancour approached absolute insanity”.

The result was some eighteen dead and over five hundred injured. State
troops using deadly force with malicious intent most decidedly makes this a
“massacre”–especially when the 60,000 in the crowd were entirely unarmed.
As Sam Bamford from Middleton, one of the organisers of the demonstration,
later testified: “Cleanliness, sobriety and order were the first injunctions issued
by the committee. Order in our movements was obtained by … a prohibition of
all weapons of offence or defence.”

Bamford described the aftermath of the massacre as follows:

In ten minutes from the commencement of the havoc the field was an open
and almost deserted space. The sun looked down through a sultry and
motionless air. The curtains and blinds of the windows within view were all
closed.

The hustings remained, with a few broken and hewed flag-staves erect, and a
torn and gashed banner or two dropping; whilst over the whole field were
strewed caps, bonnets, hats, shawls, and shoes, and other parts of male and
female dress, trampled, torn, and bloody.

Several mounds of human being still remained where they had fallen, crushed
down and smothered. Some of these still groaning, others with staring eyes,
were gasping for breath, and others would never breathe more.

Mike Leigh’s Peterloo ends with Joe’s parents at his graveside. We need to
make sure he didn’t die in vain.

Historical battleground
Socialists have no truck with sanctimony, liberal hand-wringing and the
compartmentalised study of history that isolates events from their economic
and political causes.

Liberal historians have actually been accounting for Peterloo since it

happened, and it was long ago incorporated into the narrative that still
dominates history classes at school and university. It goes something like this.

Of course the bloody massacre in St Peter’s Field Manchester has to be

acknowledged as a grim chapter in British history. The violence inflicted on the
demonstrators cannot be expunged. But the explanation of why it happened
will focus on the difficulty that the magistrates and the primitive security forces
at their disposal had in dealing with a massive demonstration of some 60,000
people. The magistrates were fearful of revolution after the upheavals in
France - and they panicked. The government cannot be blamed because in
their correspondence with the Manchester magistrates they had advised
caution, and the troops despatched to Manchester were only to be deployed if
and when protest turned ugly.

Regrettable as the events on that August day in 1819 were, it was not all in
vain. British governments thereafter were increasingly prepared to listen to the
voice of the people in order to avoid another Peterloo. The demand of
universal suffrage, central to the demonstration that day, has been met
through a series of increasingly progressive reform acts. The right to protest is
now defended in law, and we have a professional police force which works to
preserve public safety without bloodshed when demonstrators take to the
streets.

All’s well that ends well!

But the contempt of middle class academics for those working class and
common people who force their way onto the historical page is never far off.
See, for instance, S.G. Checkland’s The Rise of Industrial Society in England
1815-1885:

Protests were organised [by working class radicals] in an attempt to make

vocal their sufferings, apparently in the pathetic hope that if a sufficient
demonstration was made it would be followed by effective [government]
action.

The thoughts of responsible men were simplified by demagogues and

agitators, increasing the concern of the government for civil peace. The mass
of workers, though prepared to protest, could not be persuaded from their
almost pathetic legality. For they had no real wish to bring in a revolution.

The working class, who are too ‘pathetic’ to be taken seriously, should listen to
respectable men and eschew professional agitators who invariably lead them
into danger!

This fairy tale account of British history has to be rejected in total. Peterloo,
and the events leading up to it, was about raw class conflict. Britain was run
by an oligarchy of the rich and powerful. The battle-lines were drawn up over
whether the working class should be condemned to live as little more than
slaves, or have their humanity acknowledged through the acquisition of
political rights.

Manchester – “From this filthy sewer pure gold flows”

Alexis de Tocqueville coined this description of Manchester after he visited in
1835. The “filthy sewer” was where the working class existed. The “pure gold”
was the profits rung from their toil.

Manchester was the centre of cotton cloth production. It was the largest
industrial city in the world, and the working class had plenty to protest about.
For free-market apologists the low wages and unemployment suffered in the
aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars were little more than the hard facts of life
which everyone had to swallow. Much is made of the fact that the protests in
1819 came after two poor harvests which had forced up the price of bread.
And while they wring their hands at the suffering of the working poor, they
positively salivate at the exponential economic growth that Manchester
delivered. Then as now profit made poverty a price worth paying.

However, all this begs the question of why demonstrators on that August day
carried banners demanding:
LIBERTY AND FRATERNITY, PARLIAMENTS ANNUAL, SUFFRAGE
UNIVERSAL.

In other words why did workers suffering from hunger and privation confront
the issue with political idealism and the demand for electoral reform?

The answer lies in the workers’ accurate perception of their grievances as

being the result of a deliberate policy concocted by their bosses and their
government.

For example, the Corn Act passed in 1815 prevented the importation of corn
and protected the market for English farmers. The price of flour was bound to
rise in the event of a poor harvest. Hunger and privation for the working poor
was inevitable as more of their meagre income went on bread. This was to the
benefit of employers, not a regrettable accident.

Poverty had long been seen as a good thing by the ruling class – the basis of
a sound economic policy. The enclosure of common lands where the rural
poor might otherwise raise pigs and geese, or shoot rabbits and gather fire
wood, would prevent ‘idleness’. Economic independence might also link to
another sin - intemperance.

John Bellers, a Quaker and economic thinker, wrote: “Our Forests and great
Commons (make the Poor that are upon them too much like the Indians)
being a hindrance to Industry, and are Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence.”
The Reverend Joseph Townsend, meanwhile, advocated hunger as a means
of social control:

[Direct] legal constraint [of workers] . . . is attended with too much trouble,
violence, and noise . . . whereas hunger is not only a peaceable, silent,
unremitted pressure, but as the most natural motive to industry, it calls forth
the most powerful exertions. . . . Hunger will tame the fiercest animals, it will
teach decency and civility, obedience and subjugation to the most brutish, the
most obstinate, and the most perverse.

As well as the deliberate creation of poverty, child labour and systematic child
abuse were constant methods used to maximise profits during the industrial
revolution, too. John Fielden, who later campaigned for factory reform, wrote
about how the mill owners preyed upon the most vulnerable:

The small and nimble fingers of little children being by far the most in request,
the custom instantly sprang up of procuring “apprentices” from the different
parish workhouses of London, Birmingham and elsewhere … being from the
age of seven to the age of thirteen or fourteen years old.
A House of Commons Select Committee in 1816 likewise heard from a
seventeen year old factory girl from Manchester who testified: “I never worked
for a master yet but what he beat me. One master used to beat me of all
colours if I was two minutes late. I’ve gone off from home half-dressed he
used to be so very savage”.

Is it any wonder that so many women and children took part in the
demonstration that day?

Poverty, violence and contempt was part of everyday life for Manchester’s
working class. The Peterloo demonstrators were not “pathetic”. They were not
crying and begging for help. They were demanding to have their humanity
recognised in law, by gaining constitutional rights. The magistrates who
ordered the massacre were no doubt infuriated that the ‘mob’ they expected
were well ordered and disciplined.

The government in 1819 - ‘Old Corruption’

Old Corruption was the name given to the way Britain was governed, a
political system where government offices were sold and sinecures (jobs
which paid a salary for little or no work) were offered to favourites along with
pensions. Elections were held every seven years, but only a tiny and wealthy
elite had the vote. Bribery was used openly at elections to secure the choice
of wealthy patrons. Parliament was dominated by wealth and privilege, then
as now. As Trevor Fisher wrote in History Today:

Exploiting power for financial gain was accepted practice. The concept of
disinterested professionalism was weak and the idea of the public interest
virtually non-existent. Parliament, court circles and the embryonic civil service
saw the gaining of public office as a means to private wealth.

The two parties, the Tories and the Whigs, existed as loose parliamentary
formations and at local level as little more than election labels. MPs were the
lynchpin of the parliamentary system, but parliamentary contests were not
about the manifestoes of the candidates; for all parties concerned, it was
about the pursuit of crude, immediate gain.

The House of Commons was a talking shop full of toffs, religious cranks and
egotists. MPs often slept on the benches, ate oranges or cracked nuts during
“debates”. The government may have presided over the people, but it was in
no sense a government of the people.

In the aftermath of Peterloo there was no apology. The government

congratulated the Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry on their resolute action. The
entire establishment was in agreement that the carnage in Manchester had
prevented “anarchy” and “lawlessness”. The government immediately
introduced legislation to weaken their opponents.

Prosecutions were brought against the victims such as Hunt and Bamford
rather than the Magistrates or the Yeomanry. In fact the perpetrators of the
violence were richly rewarded. Reverend Hay, one of the magistrates, was
given the sinecure of vicar of Rochdale with a salary of £2,400 per year.
While William Hulton, chairman of the magistrates grew rich from the 7 coal
seams beneath his land whilst paying his workers the lowest wages in
Lancashire. He continued to insist that only two people were killed on the day
of Peterloo.

The notorious Six Acts increased the powers of local magistrates to prevent
“drilling” (marching), search houses for weapons, and also silenced the radical
press with further laws to clamp down on “blasphemous and Seditious libel”.
This latter power prevented meetings that might criticise the government at
local or national level.

Established historical opinion, that depicts workers’ struggle as a “knife and

fork” issue, where hungry and uneducated masses rise up only to settle down
when their diet improves, cannot explain the fantastic idealism workers
display when they fight back. Nor is it concerned with the obvious role
reversal they see as the norm – workers leading the march to progress and
the elites seeking to crush it.

The vision of a better future, and the clarity of political thought that could bring
it about, was more evident on the streets of Manchester than in Westminster.
The ideals of the philosophers of the Enlightenment were in the hearts of the
workers, and the hard-hearted determination to crush those ideals was in the
government.

The crushing of human hope on the altar of profit and power in 1819 gives us
a clue about how we should commemorate Peterloo today.

Unfinished business
There is a very strong parallel between the government today and that of
1819. The current Prime Minister has just been chosen by his own rotten
borough of 160,000 people!

Free-market liberal economic policy is the orthodoxy today just as it was then,
and capital enjoys rights and government support while the working class are
told to fend for themselves. The contempt for working people, concealed by
the welfare state after the Second World War, is now exposed by the
privatisation of public services. The main working class organisations to
defend pay, rights and conditions – trade unions – are legally constrained and
marginalised, then as now. The deliberate creation of poverty through low pay,
precarious work and slashing benefits is once again a central feature of
economic policy, with the Tories using the same perverse language of
“incentivisation”.

We have a government, a state and indeed a constitution which once again

presides over and against us. In fact the situation is much worse now than
then. Our economy is often dominated by unaccountable corporations, banks
and governments. Our defence and foreign policy are not in our name but
virtually dictated by the US.

The leadership we need is much more likely to be found on the streets

protesting against war, racism and poverty than it is in Westminster. And in
that sense Peterloo is our unfinished business. The demonstration at the Tory
Party conference in Manchester this year has to be driven by the same
political idealism and commitment as was seen in 1819.

200 years since the Peterloo Massacre

By Paul Bond
16 August 2019

Commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre has revealed that the
social tensions that gave rise to that critical event of British history remain unresolved.

On August 16, 1819 a crowd of 60,000 to 100,000 protestors gathered peacefully on

Manchester’s St Peter’s Field. The rally had been called to hear Henry “Orator” Hunt, a
landowner from the southwest of England, appeal for adult suffrage and reform of
parliamentary representation. This democratic demand, however, was only part of the
reason for the large turnout.

Manchester, then England’s second largest city, had no parliamentary representation

whatsoever, like many new industrial centres. For liberal bourgeois reform figures, even
sympathetic ones like Hunt, who remained genuinely committed to working class
suffrage, parliamentary representation was about ensuring the effective administration
ofcapitalism through their inclusion. In a speech four years after Peterloo Hunt argued
that "There must be high and low, rich and poor; but the honest working man ought to
have all the conveniences of life,and some of its comforts".

The disenfranchised working class—cotton workers, many of them women, with a large
contingent of Irish workers—who made up the crowd were struggling with the
increasingly dire economic conditions following the end of the Napoleonic Wars four
years earlier.

Wages were falling, a situation exacerbated by rapid industrialisation and technological

advances, and the country was wracked by a series of poor harvests. To protect the
profits of the landowners, the notorious 1815 Corn Laws restricted importation of foreign
corn until home-grown wheat reached a certain price. This made bread unaffordable.
Famine was widespread.
The industrialisation that was impoverishing the population was also rapidly forming a
working class that was beginning to identify itself as a class and to respond politically to
these conditions. In dread of the memory of the French revolution and the revolutionary
wave it had triggered across the world, the British ruling class responded brutally.

An
engraving showing the forcible dispersal of a reform meeting in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, 16
August 1819

With arrest warrants issued against Hunt and other speakers, the Riot Act was read out
by magistrates from the window of a house overlooking the assembly. It is certain that
hardly anyone in the massed crowd would have heard this and, in any event, the
magistrates did not allow an hour for the crowd to disperse as the law required. Instead,
the protestors were immediately and brutally attacked by cavalry, sabres drawn.
Alongside professional soldiers, the corrupt officials sent in the part-time local yeomanry,
many of them drunk.

Men and women were attacked with sabres and cudgels and trampled underfoot by
horses where they fell. The day’s first fatality was two-year-old William Fildes, knocked
from his mother’s arms near St Peter’s Field by a galloping trooper and trampled by the
yeomanry’s horses. Contemporary publisher Richard Carlile said women were targeted in
particular.
The yeomen deliberately destroyed banners and symbols of liberty in their wanton
rampage. The pursuit of protestors continued for days, even after the hussars reined in
the yeomanry’s excesses. The London Times noted in its report on August 23 that
Manchester “now wears the appearance of a garrison, or of a town conquered in war.”

Henry Hobhouse, the then permanent undersecretary of the Home Office backed the
request of the stipendiary magistrate of Manchester, James Norris, for a permanent
infantry barracks to be constructed in the city.
Casualty figures are difficult to determine. It is known that 18 people were killed, including
in the resulting riots and those who died subsequently of injuries sustained on the day.
John Lees, a military veteran who died of his injuries three weeks after the massacre,
said, “At [the Battle of] Waterloo it was man to man, but there it was downright murder.”

Some 400 to 700 people were estimated to have been injured, many seriously. The real
figure is probably much higher, however, as the continued persecution by yeomanry
deterred many from seeking help. The ruling class waged a determined campaign to
dismiss the impact of the massacre, and the fear in the population of retribution was real.

Hugh Hornby Birley

Three of William Marsh’s children were dismissed from jobs at a local mill owned by the
leader of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, because
their father had attended the meeting. Birley was one of four yeomen acquitted in a civil
case brought by an injured weaver. The judge concluded that their actions had been
justified in dispersing an illegal gathering.

James Lees went to Manchester Infirmary with two sabre wounds on his head. He
refused to accept the surgeon’s demand that he says “he had had enough of Manchester
meetings,” so was denied treatment.

John Rhodes suffered a sabre wound to the head and died three months after the
massacre. Local magistrates ordered the dissection of his body in order to prove his
death was not a result of Peterloo: the coroner duly recorded death by natural causes.

Margaret Goodwin, a 60-year-old widow, was struck down with a sabre by yeoman
Thomas Shelmerdine, her own neighbour. Wounded on the back and head, she was
trampled by horses, suffering damage to her eyes. Unable to continue working by taking
in laundry, she took out a civil case against Shelmerdine. Magistrates threw the case out.
 Henry Hunt by J. Wiche watercolour, engraved 1822 NPG 957
© National Portrait Gallery, London

James Wroe, editor of the radical Manchester Observer, coined the name “Peterloo”
shortly after the massacre—in an ironical echo of the Battle of Waterloo, where a British-
led allied army commanded by the Duke of Wellington, along with Prussian, Dutch and
other forces, defeated Napoleon in June 1815. The comparison was explicit, bitter and
sarcastic. An anonymous “officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy” wrote satirically in the
Manchester Observer:
Sing no more of Wellington
And of his warlike conquering crew
How dim the glory of their sun
Before the blaze of Peterloo.
The repression continued with even greater effort in the aftermath of the massacre. Hunt
and four other speakers were convicted of sedition and jailed. Wroe was found guilty of
publishing a seditious publication, and the Manchester Observer was subject to a series
of raids and court cases that resulted in its closure.

Friedrich Engels in his mid-20s

Writing to the Chartist Northern Star in 1845, Friedrich Engels placed the savagery at
Peterloo in its international context: “The putting down of the French Revolution was
celebrated by the massacres of Republicans in the south of France; by the blaze of the
inquisitorial pile and the restoration of native despotism in Spain and Italy, and by the
gagging-bills and ‘Peterloo’ in England.” (Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 6, p.23,
Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1976).

The government declared its support for the actions of the magistrates and the army, with
Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth reporting the thanks of the Prince Regent to the local
magistrates. Such repression was long planned. Replying to a Lancashire magistrate six
months before Peterloo, who informed him of the rising tide of disaffection in the working
class, Hobhouse said he and Sidmouth feared that “your country will not be tranquillized,
until Blood shall have been shed either by the Law or the sword.”

As militancy and anger at Peterloo rose in the working class, the government introduced
the Six Acts to suppress any gatherings for the purpose of reform and to crush all
dissent. Also known as the "Gagging Acts" they included laws aimed at silencing what
was termed the “blasphemous and Seditious libel” of the radical press. The measures
were described by historian Élie Halévy as “counter-revolutionary terror.” Mass arrests
and imprisonment followed. The immediate result was an even greater decline in civil
liberties.

The memory of Peterloo burned, and continues to burn, in the memory of the working
class. It was a vicious and bloody step along the road to the self-identification of the
working class and its fight for political and social emancipation. Official commemorations,
however, do not celebrate this essential aspect of Peterloo. Instead, we are being treated
in great measure to a celebration of the liberal and reformist defenders of capitalism.

Lord Sidmouth

The Guardian newspaper, for example, boasts that it is a direct product of Peterloo. It
was founded in 1821, after the closure of the Manchester Observer, as the Manchester
Guardian. Its founder, John Edward Taylor, was a local cotton manufacturer and later,
merchant, who had witnessed the massacre. He was backed by other reform-minded
businessmen, who seized on the closing down of the radical press to assert their own
political agenda. Taylor himself had hitherto expressed open hostility to radical reform,
denouncing its advocates for having “ appealed not to the reason but the passions and
the suffering of their abused and credulous fellow-countrymen.”
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Taylor’s founding pledge to “warmly advocate the cause of Reform [and] endeavour to
assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy” was a restatement of the
concerns of the liberal bourgeoisie confronted by a politically active working class.
 The famous satirical illustration of the Peterloo Massacre by
George Cruikshank, entitled Victory of Peterloo

Contemporaries saw through the class interests expressed by the Guardian, with George
Condy, editor of the Manchester and Salford Advertiser, describing the newspaper in
1836 as the “foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners.”
Engels, who made a close study of the mill-owners, was blunt: “I have never seen a class
so deeply demoralized, so incurably debased by selfishness, so corroded within, so
incapable of progress, as the English bourgeoisie; and I mean by this, especially the
bourgeoisie proper, particularly the Liberal, Corn Law repealing bourgeoisie.” (The
Condition of the Working Class in England, 1845).
It is revealing of the Guardian’s contemporary political role that its former northern editor,
Martin Wainwright, observed in a March 16, 2001 article that Taylor would have been little
troubled by the condemnation of Condy. He notes that the Manchester Guardian marked
his death in 1844 with an obituary boasting, “The reforms which Taylor considered
absolutely essential to the good government and well-being of his fellow countrymen
have all been effected almost precisely in the form in which they have been advocated in
the columns of this journal.”

Wainwright claims of Taylor, “The absence of red banners and a downtrodden youth
mean that his achievement will never rank as romantically revolutionary, but the motive
and independence behind it are as deadly to unjust authority as orators and the mob.”

Much of the celebration of Peterloo has centred on the idea that its culmination was the
election of Labour governments to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism by reform.
In comments at last year’s Labour Party conference, for example, Jeremy Corbyn
pledged to “honour the heroes of Peterloo by being true to their cause,” with Labour
“fighting for democracy and social justice against poverty, inequality and discrimination.”

He cited Peterloo victims John Ashworth and Sarah Jones, saying, “In the next Labour
government, our very own Jon Ashworth, as Health Secretary, and Sarah Jones, as
Housing Minister, will be carrying forward the struggle to protect and extend democratic
rights. Hopefully without becoming martyrs in the process.”

This, under conditions where leading military figures have talked about mounting a
mutiny against any incoming Corbyn government, is terrifying in its complacency.
Writing in 1846 of the significance of Chartism, Engels explained why at the time of
Peterloo the “essentially democratic movement of the working classes was more or less
made subservient to the liberal movement of the bourgeoisie.”
The working class, “though more advanced than the middle classes, could not yet see
the total difference between liberalism and democracy—emancipation of the middle
classes and the emancipation of the working classes; they could not see the difference
between liberty of money and liberty of man, until money had been made politically free,
until the middle class had been made the exclusively ruling class. Therefore, the
democrats of Peterloo were going to petition, not only for Universal Suffrage, but for Corn
Law repeal at the same time… But from that very day when the middle classes obtain full
political power—from the day on which all feudal and aristocratic interests are annihilated
by the power of money—from the day on which the middle classes cease to be
progressive and revolutionary, and become stationary themselves, from that very day the
working-class movement takes the lead.” (Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 6, p.29,
Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1976)

Labour has long played its essential political role in propping up the stagnant rule of the
bourgeoisie, while conditions are increasingly desperate for the working class. The true
nature of the capitalist state is revealed time after time. Labour has ruled Manchester for
decades and did everything possible to bury the memory of Peterloo. Until this year there
was no memorial to Peterloo in the city. A sole plaque, in place for decades until 2007,
lyingly declared that what took place was a “dispersal” not a massacre and did not even
state that anyone died.

Celebrations of Peterloo are tempered by a recognition within the ruling elite that this can
provoke a powerful response from the working class. When the artist Jeremy Deller’s
new memorial for the massacre was criticised for being inaccessible to wheelchair users,
Manchester City Council decided to open it to the public without any formal ceremony.

Campaigners who have fought for years for a memorial described this move as a “kick in
the teeth.” Denise Southworth, a descendant of Peterloo victim Mary Heys, said the
council “will have all these dinners—20 years since Manchester United won the treble—
but for something like this they don’t want to know.”
 Eleven
veterans of Peterloo photographed at a parliamentary reform demonstration in Failsworth near
the town of Oldham in 1884

Fifty years after Peterloo, loom worker John Wrigley told a journalist that he had marched
that day: “Peterloo, lad! I know. I were theer as a young mon. We were howdin’ a meetin’
i’ Manchester—on Peter’s Field, —a meetin’ for eawr reets—for reets o’ mon, for liberty to
vote, an’ speak, an’ write, an’ be eawrselves—honest, hard-workin’ folk. We wanted to
live eawr own lives, an’ th’ upper classes wouldn’t let us…. [The poet Robert] Burns says
as ‘Liberty’s a glorious feast.’ But th’ upper classes wouldn’t let us poor folk get a tast on
it. When we cried… freedom o’ action they gav’ us t’ point of a sword. Never forget, lad!
Let it sink i’ thi blood. Ston up an’ feight for t’ reets o’ mon—t’ reets o’ poor folk!”*
This is the spirit in which Peterloo should be remembered. It was a milestone in the
struggle of the British and international working class to liberate itself from capitalist
oppression.

*[Peterloo, lad! I know. I was there as a young man. We were holding a meeting in
Manchester—on Peter’s Field, —a meeting for our rights—for the rights of man, for
liberty to vote, and speak, and write, and be ourselves—honest, hard-working folk. We
wanted to live our own lives, and the upper classes wouldn’t let us…. [The poet Robert]
Burns says that ‘Liberty’s a glorious feast.’ But the upper classes wouldn’t let us poor folk
get a taste of it. When we cried… freedom of action they gave us the point of a sword.
Never forget, lad! Let it sink in your blood. Stand up and fight for the rights of man–the
rights of poor folk!”
A Party supporter some years ago gave me this poem/song by Ernest
Jones, the Chartist leader. It is on a wall in my home.
It describes a Chartist Picnic on a high hill, Blackstone Ridge,
overlooking the Mills and factories of Manchester and other towns.
Much of the landscape is shrouded in fog and smog.
I have copied this from Manchester's Radical History.
It some ways follows on from Peterloo.

O’er plains and cities far away

All lorn and lost the morning lay
When sank the sun at break of day
In smoke of mill and factory.

But waved the wind on Blackstone Height

A standard of the broad sunlight
And sung that morn with trumpet might
sounding song of liberty!

And grew the glorious music higher

When pouring, with his heart on fire
Old Yorkshire came with Lancashire
and all its noblest chivalry:
The men who give – not those who take!
The hands that bless – yet hearts that break –
Those toilers for their foeman’s sake
Our England’s true nobility.
So brave a host hath never met
For truth shall be their bayonet
Whose bloodless thrusts shall scatter yet
The force of false finality.

Though hunger stamped each forehead spare

And eyes were dim with factory glare
Loud swelled the nation’s battle prayer
Of – death to class monopoly!
Then every eye grew keen and bright
and every pulse was dancing light
For every heart had felt its might
The might of labour’s chivalry.

And up to Heaven the descant ran

with no cold roof twixt God and man
To dash back from its frowning span
A church prayer’s listless blasphemy.
How distant cities quaked to hear
When rolled from that high hill the cheer
Of hope to slaves! to tyrants fear!
And God and man for liberty!
It was Marx and Engels that put socialism on a scientific footing just
two years later with the publication of The Communist Manifesto.
Recognition of classes is clearly expressed in these poetic words.

With no scientific scientific program to guide them the movement was

dissipated. The English working class then built trade unions and had
their representatives elected to parliament.
The English working class have yet to embrace the "Continental" way
of struggle.

Germany: Ex-intelligence chief campaigns for

Christian Democrats and far-right AfD
By Ulrich Rippert
19 August 2019

On September 1, state elections take place in Saxony and Brandenburg; the election in
Thuringia follows at the end of October. The former head of the secret service Hans-
Georg Maassen is extremely active politically in all three state election campaigns.

Together with the right-wing conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) association
WerteUnion, Maassen is organizing election meetings in which there are often more
supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) than CDU voters. He has given a
whole series of interviews in which he calls for a right-wing conservative awakening in
German politics and includes himself in the discussion as a future interior minister.

News weekly reported on one of his election assemblies in the small town of Radebeul,
not far from Dresden in Saxony. “The Dresden AfD federal member of parliament Jens
Maier stood next to the podium, the microphone in his hand. On the platform before him
sit former secret service chief Hans-Georg Maassen and the Saxony CDU state
parliament president Matthias Rösler, surveying the audience. He was very surprised as
to who will be presented here as the star guest of the CDU, said Maier. And anyway, ‘with
Mr. Maassen, you can see what happens in your party if you tell the truth.’ The audience
applauds intensely. Maassen grins.”
The former head of the secret service then repeated his well-known demands more
consistent deportations, increased border security, fewer asylum seekers, more powers
for the security authorities, etc. Then Maassen received tributes and statements by his
fans among the AfD/CDU members present. Many expressed their “high esteem” and
“great sympathy.” One thanked him for the “clear words,” another asked could not
Maassen replace Merkel as chancellor, reported Der Spiegel.

Jens Maier, who appeared at this event with Maassen, advocates extreme-right-wing,
racist and fascist positions. As a judge in the Dresden district court, he had issued an
injunction in favour of the neo-Nazi German National Party (NPD). He demands that the
“cult of German guilt” be finally ended and warns against mixing the races and the
“creation of [people of] mixed races.” He has expressed understanding for the Norwegian
right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011. Breivik had “become a
mass murderer out of desperation.” The reason was the immigration of those from
“foreign cultures,” it says in the entry about Jens Maier on Wikipedia.
Last week, Maassen gave a full-page interview to the right-wing extremist rag in which he
intoned the well-known chestnut of all right-wing demagogues, because right-wing and
far-right extremist positions met with opposition, democracy was under threat. Facts were
being ignored, “just because they come from the right.” At meetings of concerned
citizens, he continually heard the complaint, “the bounds of what it is allowed to say
without being portrayed as an extremist are becoming ever narrower.” That should no
longer be tolerated.

Asked how a political change could be implemented, Maassen responded that three
important state elections and the review of the federal coalition agreement were
imminent, and that Germany faced major “economic and fiscal challenges” and was ill
prepared for this. That could very quickly lead to new elections and a change of
government. Previously, in an interview with newspaper, he had answered the question
of whether he aspired to high government office by referring to it as hypothetical and
deliberately left it open.

Maassen’s election and media campaign make clear how correct the Sozialistische
Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) was when it stated that its inclusion as a
“left-wing extremist” organisation in the 2017 and 2018 official reports by the Office for
the Protection of the Constitution, as the secret service is known, was part of a right-wing
conspiracy within the state apparatus aimed at building up a right-wing extremist and
fascist movement.

Now it becomes clear that Maassen has been pursuing such a political agenda for quite
some time. He plays a key role in the far-right networks that are rooted in the intelligence
services, the police and the Bundeswehr (armed forces) and which function like a right-
wing conspiracy throughout the political system.

Maassen has held right-wing, racist positions throughout his career as a top political
official. Nearly 30 years ago, the then Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily (Social
Democratic Party, SPD) had brought him into the interior ministry, where he quickly rose
to be head of section for aliens law. At that time, he wrote his doctoral dissertation on
“The Legal Status of Asylum Seekers in International Law” and in doing so outed himself
as a political right-winger. His doctoral thesis warned against “uncontrolled mass
immigration” and used right-wing populist concepts such as “asylum tourism.”

In 2002, as head of the section for aliens law, Maassen compiled a case study on Murat
Kurnaz, who grew up in Bremen and was illegally imprisoned in the US Guantanamo
detention camp. It should be clarified whether the federal government [of Germany] was
obliged to bring back Kurnaz or whether it could refuse him entry, he wrote.

Maassen’s document was hard to beat for cynicism. He ruled that Kurnaz’s right of
residence in Germany was extinguished because he had been out of the country for
more than six months and had not registered with the competent authorities. Despite
fierce criticism, Maassen adhered to his then decision. Only later did a court decide that
Kurnaz had not voluntarily left the country, was being held in a torture camp, therefore
could not report to the authorities and therefore his right of residence was not
extinguished.
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Seven years ago, in August 2012, Maassen was appointed resident of the Federal Office
for the Protection of the Constitution by the then Christian Social Union (CSU) Interior
Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich. A short time later, he attacked Edward Snowden as a
“betrayer of state secrets” and demanded closer cooperation from the media to
strengthen state security. In 2015, through several criminal charges, Maassen triggered
the investigation of two bloggers from netzpolik.org, allegedly suspected of treason,
thereby launching a massive attack on the freedom of the press.

Above all, Maassen used his position as head of the domestic intelligence service to
support the establishment of the AfD. He met top politicians from the right-wing party
several times for confidential political talks. He always refuted the accusation that he had
advised the AfD leadership how it could escape being monitored by the intelligence
services. But the facts are clear.

Maassen had always opposed the surveillance of the AfD, although the extreme right-
wing, nationalist and Nazi positions of its leading member Björn Höcke have long been
known and shared by other AfD leaders. Höcke’s speech against the “culture of
remembrance” of the crimes of the Nazis is still applauded in the AfD. In it, he calls the
Berlin Holocaust Memorial a “monument of shame” and accuses the Allies of wanting to
“rob [us of] our collective identity” and “destroy us root and branch” with their bombing of
German cities.

In spring 2016, Maassen was quoted in saying, “the AfD is not a right-wing extremist
party.” According to the article, Maassen spoke “surprisingly clearly” against monitoring
the AfD. The conditions for this were not met. He stuck to this position until his removal
from office and early retirement.

This defence of the AfD is no coincidence. The party sets the tone in federal politics and
serves as an instrument to drive all parties, the media and the entire political milieu to the
right. The AfD is the political arm of a far-right conspiracy within the state apparatus that
is building a new fascist movement against the resistance of large sections of the
population.

The paramilitary arm of the new fascists is formed by a network of Nazi terrorists ranging
from the NSU (National Socialist Underground) to groups such as “Combat 18”—with
which the suspected murderer of CDU politician Walter Lübcke was connected—to
survivalist groups in the police and Bundeswehr and is protected by the secret service
and financed by the state through a network of informants and agents.

When the Socialist Equality Party opposed this right-wing conspiracy and made it clear
that the creation of the AfD and the return of Nazi terror are directly related to the return
of German great power politics and militarism, the right-wing cliques in the secret service
decided, under the direction of Maassen, to take action against the SGP. For the first
time, the party was listed in the secret service annual report as a “left-wing extremist”
organisation and “object for surveillance.”
When the SGP lodged a legal complaint in the Berlin administrative court, the secret
service responded with a long diatribe against Marxism and every form of socialist, left
and progressive thinking.

Maassen’s present election campaign makes the direct connection between his defence
of the AfD, the construction of a new fascist movement and the attack on the Socialist
Equality Party unmistakable. Thus it is clear, the fight against the right-wing cabal
requires the defence of the SGP against the secret service
Trump administration calls for permanent
restoration of bulk phone communications
surveillance
By Kevin Reed
19 August 2019

In a declassified letter to congressional leaders, the outgoing Director of National

Intelligence Daniel R. Coats called for the “permanent reauthorization of the provisions of
the USA Freedom Act of 2015 that are currently set to expire in December.” The top
Trump administration intelligence official wrote that among these provisions are the
National Security Agency’s (NSA) officially suspended bulk collection of “telephone
records from US telecommunications providers.”

Coats’ letter was addressed to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, Richard Burr (Republican, North Carolina) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner
(Democrat, Virginia) and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Lindsey
Graham (Republican, South Carolina) and Ranking Committee Member Dianne Feinstein
(Democrat, California). The day after his letter was declassified on August 14, Coats
departed the White House following his formal resignation as Director of National
Intelligence on July 29.

Writing on behalf of the Intelligence Community (IC) and the White House, Coats said—
in addition to requesting restoration of bulk phone data collection—there are three key
“long-standing national security authorities” contained in the USA Freedom Act that are
“common sense” and “have no history of abuse after more than 18 years, and should be
reauthorized without sunset.”

These three authorizations are: the “business records” provision that permits federal law
enforcement to seize tangible items like business papers and documents in a FISA court-
approved foreign intelligence investigation; the “roving wiretap” provision that permits
national security agencies to tap calls from telephone numbers not specifically authorized
by the FISA court; and the “lone wolf” provision that permits national security agencies to
identify someone as a terrorist without having to show that they are an “agent of a foreign
power” as required by other laws.

The USA Freedom Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack
Obama on June 2, 2015. The act restored several provisions of the USA Patriot Act such
as the roving wiretap and lone wolf authorizations that had expired. At that time, the act
was fraudulently packaged by the Obama administration and the corporate media as a
“reform” of intelligence practices following the revelations by former NSA contractor
Edward Snowden that the government was carrying out secret bulk collection of
telephone records of the entire population.
As explained at the time on the World Socialist Web Site, the 2015 USA Freedom Act is
a fig leaf behind which the vast electronic illegal surveillance activities of the NSA were
continued and expanded with explicit Congressional approval. The passage of the act is
an object lesson in the complicity of the entire American government and its two-party
system in ever-deepening attacks on democratic rights.

A phony debate between congressional Democrats and Republicans, along with

bromides from Obama about the importance of “the safety of the American people” were
played up in the media as an effort to “strike a balance” between national security and
privacy rights. In the end, the legislation was signed into law and it enabled the
resumption of the NSA’s bulk data operations contained in the expired USA Patriot Act by
adding a step whereby the telecom companies had to collect and hold the data.

Coats wrote in his letter that the NSA “has suspended the call detail records program”
that was authorized by the USA Freedom Act and deleted all of the data that was
gathered under its authorization.

This decision was widely reported in June when it was revealed that the NSA had been
“improperly” collecting phone records as far back as October 2018 outside the provisions
of the 2015 law. Basically, what had been revealed was that the NSA had not modified its
practice and, after this fact came to light, the agency said it was deleting three years of
data going back to 2015, some 685 million phone call records.
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In the typically convoluted language of American intelligence, Coats wrote that the
decision to suspended the program “was made after balancing the program’s relative
intelligence value, associated costs, and compliance and data integrity concerns caused
by the unique complexities of using these company-generated business records for
intelligence purposes.”

To translate, Coats is explaining that even the bogus requirements of the USA Freedom
Act were too cumbersome and restrictive for the NSA to follow—in addition to the fact
that the exposure of NSA phone records “violations” were the result of a data breach—
so it was much easier to publicly claim the program was ended and the files deleted.

Now, with the USA Freedom Act set to expire in December, the NSA and White House
are issuing a full-blown request to Congress that the convoluted requirement that call
data be collected by the telecom companies be dispensed with entirely and the
unconstitutional spying on the public go back to what was being done before the
Snowden revelations.
This is needed, according to Coats, because “our adversaries’ tradecraft and
communications habits will continue to evolve and adapt.” According to the New York
Times, the House Judiciary Committee is already drafting a bill to extend the three other
provisions requested by Coats while the bulk telephone surveillance provision has yet to
be addressed.

As was the case with the events of September 11, 2001 and others like the Boston
marathon bombing of April 15, 2013, any number of events can trigger a “national
emergency” in which all parties and political figures of the ruling establishment will come
together to abrogate the fundamental rights of the people in the name of “protecting
public safety.”

Developments are currently underway following the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas
and Dayton, Ohio two weeks ago with bipartisan calls for the imposition of censorship
measures on social media platforms and the creation of an FBI “early warning system”
that includes 24/7 monitoring of keywords and phrases across every account on social
media platforms.

Whatever the outcome of the replacement or update to the misnamed USA Freedom Act,
all claims from Congress, the White House or the national intelligence state that
individual privacy or constitutionally protected democratic rights will be upheld should be
rejected as false. Every worker and youth should assume that the US government has
continued and expanded its tapping into the undersea trunk lines and satellites of the
international telecommunications system as exposed by Snowden in 2013.

It should also be kept in mind that—although the public has increasingly adopted the use
of end-to-end data encryption since 2013—the Trump administration and Justice
Department have made it clear they intend through court rulings to force software
developers and hardware manufacturers of smartphones and personal computer devices
such as Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google to build encryption back door access for
law enforcement into their products. Under these conditions, regaining legal access to
unencrypted electronic communications would give the US government the unfettered
ability to read every email and text message of the entire population

American media shuts down the Epstein story

By Patrick Martin
19 August 2019

The corporate-controlled media in the United States has effectively shut down all
reporting on the death of the politically connected multi-millionaire sex-trafficker Jeffrey
Epstein, only one week after his body was discovered in a prison cell in the Metropolitan
Correctional Center in Manhattan.
Epstein’s death was the most widely reported American event in the first few days of the
week, with hours of coverage on cable television, the lead story on nightly network news
programs, and pages upon pages of reporting in the New York Times, Washington Post
and other leading daily newspapers.

There was ample reason for such attention, particularly by the standards of the
sensation-obsessed American media. Epstein was, at least by reputation, both fabulously
wealthy and dangerously predatory. He travelled in the highest circles of bourgeois
society, hobnobbing with ex-presidents, future presidents, British royalty and numerous
billionaires, some of whom he claimed to have enriched enormously.

And his crimes against teenage girls and young women had already resulted in a 2008
felony conviction that led to a slap on the wrist in jail time, in keeping with his status as a
member of the class of super-rich “money managers.” Only hours before his death,
moreover, 2,000 pages of new documents were released linking many prominent world
figures, including Prince Andrew and several top Democrats, to Epstein’s sex-trafficking
activities.

As to the death itself, that was sensational as well, with questions aplenty: How did it
happen that after an alleged suicide attempt on July 23 Epstein was taken off suicide
watch only six days later and returned to the cell where he died? Why was his cellmate
removed, in violation of the normal protocol for a high-risk prisoner, only a few hours
before his death? Why did the guards fail to do their rounds during the night of Epstein’s
death, when they should have been checking on him every half an hour? Why was
Epstein’s hyoid bone broken in several places, a medical finding more typical of homicide
by strangulation than suicide by hanging, according to numerous experts?

The previous “suicide” attempt, if that was what it was, deserves greater scrutiny as well.
Epstein was sharing a cell with a former New York policeman, Nicholas Tartaglione, who
was facing four counts of murder as well as narcotics charges. The pairing would seem
quite unusual, even provocative, given the disparity between the two in physical size and
the likelihood that a former cop might be inclined to mete out punishment to a presumed
pedophile and child rapist.

As it was, on July 23 Tartaglione summoned prison guards to find Epstein semi-

conscious with “marks” on his neck. Epstein was resuscitated and placed on suicide
watch. He later claimed to be afraid of Tartaglione and accused him of assault, which the
ex-cop denied. After six days, Epstein was taken off suicide watch and put back in a
regular cell, but with a different cellmate.
After Epstein’s death, social media was filled with speculation about the unusual
circumstances in which he died and the possible motives of highly placed and political
powerful individuals for doing away with him. The corporate media went into overdrive,
led by the New York Times, to denounce such questions as “conspiracy theories,” without
foundation in evidence—although the lack of evidence was due to the silence of the
police and prison authorities as they sought to come up with a plausible explanation.
On Thursday came the revelation that Epstein’s hyoid bone had been broken in several
places, which experts suggested was more typical in homicides than suicides. The Times
again sought to tamp down speculation. Finally, on Friday, the chief medical examiner,
who had delayed for several days drawing a conclusion, issued a formal finding that
Epstein died a suicide. The corporate media immediately rubber-stamped this finding and
sought to shut down any public questioning of it.
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This was done so thoroughly that on Sunday, August 18, there was not a single reference
to Epstein’s death on any of the five television interview programs. Over five hours of
broadcast time, accounting, according to the transcripts, for 45,000 spoken words, the
name Epstein was never mentioned.

This media silence is itself perhaps the most suspicious development in the entire
Epstein case. Why was there no reference to the story which riveted public attention for
several days last week? It had occasioned tweets by President Trump accusing various
Democrats of collusion in his death, and statements by Democrats, such as New York
Mayor Bill de Blasio, a candidate for president, that the timing of Epstein’s death was “too
convenient.”

If this had become a non-story only eight days after Epstein’s lifeless body was found,
the question must be asked: what is the American media seeking to hide?
Again, the New York Times has taken the lead in the cover-up. It published a lengthy
front-page story in its Sunday edition under the headline, “Epstein Feared Misery of Jail
in His Final Days,” which has only one purpose: further shoring up the suicide verdict by
painting a picture of Epstein as so desperate to avoid spending time in his cell that he
brought his lawyers in for hours of consultation where he could sit in a conference room.

The circumstances detailed by no less than seven reporters can be read quite differently
from the conclusion drawn in the article. Perhaps Epstein was desperate to avoid his cell
because he feared what was going to happen to him there. After all, he had barely
escaped with his life on July 23.
Moreover, the Times reports: “Outside the meeting room, Mr. Epstein mounted a strategy
to avoid being preyed upon by other inmates: He deposited money in their commissary
accounts, according to a consultant who is often in the jail and speaks regularly with
inmates there.” This again suggests fear on Epstein’s part of what others might do to him
in prison.
Epstein’s own lawyers have indicated they do not accept the finding of suicide. “The
defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation
into the circumstances and cause of Mr. Epstein’s death,” they said in a statement. “We
are not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner.”

There are also reports that some jail staff members are not cooperating with the ongoing
investigation into Epstein’s death.

Guardian columnist Owen Jones attacked by

fascist thugs in London
By Robert Stevens
19 August 2019
The Socialist Equality Party condemns the vicious attack on Owen Jones, the Guardian
columnist and prominent Labour Party activist, by fascist thugs in the early hours of
Saturday morning.
The attack is the latest in a series on prominent left-wing figures and political
organisations. On his twitter account Jones describes himself as “Socialist, antifascist,
Guardian columnist, author…” He has over 1 million followers between his Twitter and
Facebook pages.

Jones was attacked by a group of four men after coming out of a pub in Islington, London
at around 2am. He had been celebrating his birthday with his partner and five friends.
Jones sustained injuries to the head and back in the attack. A photo showed scrapes on
Jones’ back.
Describing the events after his party, Jones told the Guardian, “We were about 30 metres
away, saying goodbye to each other, when four men charged directly towards me: one of
them karate kicked my back, threw me to the ground, started kicking me in the head and
back, while my friends tried to drag them off, and were punched trying to defend me.

“It was clearly a premeditated attack and I was their target. They all attacked me and only
assaulted my friends when they tried to defend me.”

On twitter he added, “The group then scarpered: I don’t know if they said anything in the
melee. I’m fine other than a big bump on my head and a cut back.”
Jones said the assault was bound up with “the rise of an emboldened far right, which is
increasingly violent, and targeting minorities and people on the left.” He told the
Guardian, “In the past year I’ve been repeatedly targeted in the street by far right
activists, including attempts to use physical assault, and homophobic abuse. I’ve had a
far-right activist taking pictures of me, and posting threatening messages and a video.”

“Because of this, and escalating threats of violence and death, I’ve had the police
involved. My friends felt it was a matter of time until this happened. Give the context, it
seems unthinkable that I was singled out for anything other than a politically motivated
premeditated attack.”
Jones has posted videos of various attacks, one of which can be viewed here. Jones is
followed down the street and verbally abused by a fascist mob, including the far-right
provocateur James Goddard. One shouts, “Why are you doing the dirty work for
Corbyn?”

Goddard asks Jones, in relation to Corbyn, “Why do you support a communist?”

Jones is gay and the abuse dished out includes homophobic slurs.
The journalist posted a tweet Saturday reproducing a photo taken previously by a far-
right activist of Jones in a pub, with a threatening message. The photo is captioned,
“Picture today Islington London Owen Jones.”

Above the post, a message read, “It gets worse hope not hate [the name of an anti-racist
group] I can get that close to your like minded people its [sic] scary. Do not underestimate
my talents of my past and present I even know your address [sic] of all you radicals.” It
was signed, “Scott Timothy Veteran and I’ve had enough.” Timothy Scott was a co-
founder of the far right group, Pegida UK and now co-ordinates activities of another far-
right group with Goddard, the Liberty Defenders.

On Sunday afternoon, Jones told the BBC, after being asked if his attackers said
anything to him, “It is very difficult when you’re suddenly on the floor being kicked in the
head.” He added that “I’ve had evidence since, which I can’t discuss … which suggests
political motivations.”

He added, “What happened—to be clear—is they spotted me in the pub, waited for us to
leave, and then launched their attack when we were away from the pub—it was planned,
not a random attack.”

In the last three years, four leading figures on the left in the UK have been brutally
attacked by far-right forces, along with other incidents in which left-wing groups have
been targeted in violent assaults. During the last week of the 2016 referedum campaign
on EU membership, Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a fascist who screamed "Britain
First" as he killed her with a knife and gun.

In the last year, these attacks have intensified. In July 2017, Steve Hedley, the Rail,
Maritime and Transport union assistant general secretary was savagely assaulted in a
pub by fascists after he spoke at a Stand Up to Racism demonstration in London. Hedley
was left bleeding heavily from a head wound. His partner was also assaulted, including
being hit by a chair, and ended up in hospital. No charges were laid by the police over the
attack.

In March, Labour leader Corbyn himself was subject to an attack by a far-right thug at the
Finsbury Park Mosque’s Muslim Welfare House. John Murphy approached Corbyn and
smashed an egg in his clenched fist into the side of the Labour leader’s head while he
was sitting down eating with his wife, Laura. Murphy was only given a 28-day sentence
for “common assault” despite previously threatening to kill opponents of Brexit as well as
Muslims in online posts.
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It emerged during the 2018 trial of Darren Osborne—who killed a Muslim worshipper and
injured 12 others when he ploughed a hired van into a crowd outside Finsbury Park
Mosque in 2017—that he had planned to murder Corbyn and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Last August, fascists attacked the Bookmarks bookshop in central London, run by the
Socialist Workers Party. Again, no charges were brought by the police.

In January this year, far-right activists surrounded a Rail, Maritime and Transport union
picket line at Victoria Station in Manchester, verbally abusing striking guards.

Only weeks ago, more than 100 supporters of fascist Tommy Robinson marched through
Manchester city centre, holding an unprecedented demonstration inside the privately
owned Arndale shopping centre. As part of their rampage, they smashed up the stall of a
left-wing organisation, the Revolutionary Communist Group.

The police have said they will be look at CCTV footage relating to the attack on Jones,
but as is demonstrated by the incidents listed above, they have done little or nothing to
arrest and charge any perpetrators.

It is beyond doubt that if anyone from the wider left had committed such crimes as the
attack on Jones, they would have been immediately rounded up, arrested and charged.

The SEP warned after Corbyn’s attacker received a paltry prison sentence that the attack
on the Labour leader must be taken as “a serious warning of the dangerous right-wing
political climate being whipped up by Britain’s ruling elite and its media outlets.”

The attack on Britain’s most prominent left journalist underscores these warnings and
raises the necessity for heightened political vigilance and security regarding fascist
provocateurs, combined with a determined political counteroffensive for socialism based
on a mobilisation of the working class.

Among the tens of thousands who tweeted their support for Jones after the attack was
Corbyn who said, “Owen believes it was politically motivated, and we know the far right is
on the march in our country. An attack on a journalist is an attack on free speech and our
fundamental values.”

While Corbyn identifies the rise of the far right as a great danger, he will do nothing to
mobilise the working class—the only social force that can defeat the fascist threat.
Among the leading forces giving succour to the far right are the Blairites—who speak in
similar terms as the fascists about the danger of a “hard left,” “communist” government if
Corbyn were ever to take power. While the party’s rank and file have made many moves
to remove and expel the Blairites, Corbyn has insisting on them staying put as a valued
part of the “Labour family.

India, Pakistan exchange artillery-fire, threats

over Kashmir
By Keith Jones
19 August 2019

Tensions between South Asia’s rival nuclear-armed states have escalated in recent days,
with India and Pakistan accusing each other of preparing to attack, and their military
forces exchanging lethal artillery fire across the Line of Control (LoC) that separates the
Indian and Pakistani-controlled portions of Kashmir.

On Saturday, New Delhi said one of its soldiers had been killed in what it called an
unprovoked Pakistan-initiated, cross-border artillery exchange.

Two days earlier, Islamabad had reported that three of its soldiers and two civilians had
been killed by Indian artillery-fire in two different sectors along the LoC. The Pakistani
military also said that its forces had killed five Indian soldiers during Thursday’s cross-
border exchanges. New Delhi conceded that there had been heavy fire, but dismissed
any claim of Indian fatalities that day as baseless.

In the two weeks since India’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
government illegally amended the country’s constitution to assert its unbridled dominance
over Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir and placed the region under an unprecedented
state of siege, government and military leaders from both countries have made a spate of
bellicose statements.

The Indian military has repeatedly charged that Pakistan is seeking to infiltrate anti-Indian
Islamist insurgents across the LoC to carry out terrorist strikes. And in what was widely
touted by the Indian press as an explicit warning to Pakistan, Defence Minister Rajnath
Singh said Friday that changed “circumstances” could cause India to abandon its “No
First Use” nuclear-weapons pledge. So as to ensure that this comment, made at
Pokhran, site of India’s 1998 nuclear weapons test, got maximum media attention, Singh
also tweeted it.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a speech Wednesday in Muzaffarabad, the

capital of Pakistan-held Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), accused India of planning to
invade the area, then threatened a massive military response. “The Pakistani army,” said
Khan, “has solid information that they [India] are planning to do something in Pakistani
Kashmir. We have decided that if India commits any violation we will fight until the end.. ..
The time has arrived to teach [India] a lesson.”

Speaking alongside Khan, AJK state Prime Minister Farooq Haider said the LoC should
be renamed the “ceasefire line” to emphasize the ongoing, unresolved character of the
Kashmir dispute.

In February, India and Pakistan came to the brink of all-out war after New Delhi, with
Washington’s support, “punished” Pakistan for a terrorist attack in J&K by mounting
illegal air strikes deep inside Pakistan. Islamabad responded by ordering a retaliatory
strike that ended in a dogfight over Indian-held J&K and the downing of at least one
Indian fighter.

Six months on, the situation is even more combustible, as the Narendra Modi-led BJP
government seeks to assert New Delhi’s untrammeled domination over J&K and to
“change the rules of the game” with India’s arch-rival Pakistan.

A fourth Indo-Pakistani war would have catastrophic consequences for the people of
South Asia and potentially the world. Seeking to offset the power of an adversary with a
population more than six times larger, an economy eight times bigger, and a military
budget five times greater, Pakistan has publicly threatened to counter any major Indian
thrust across its border with tactical nuclear weapons. India’s military, seeking to draw the
lessons of its failed 2001-2002 “war crisis” mobilization against Pakistan, has developed
a “cold start” strategy with the aim of being able to launch a sudden, massive attack on
its western neighbour.

War would rapidly involve the great powers. South Asia and the Indian Ocean region
have been sucked into the maelstrom of great-power conflict over the past decade and a
half, with India playing an ever-greater role in Washington’s plans to militarily confront
China, and Beijing and Islamabad responding to the Indo-US “global strategic alliance”
by strengthening their own military-security partnership.

China, acting on Pakistan’s request, pressed for a “closed consultation” meeting of the
UN Security Council Friday to discuss Islamabad’s charges that New Delhi’s actions in
J&K contravene international law, by unilaterally changing the status of a disputed
territory, and threaten regional peace.
The meeting broke up after 75 minutes. While closed sessions don’t adopt resolutions,
the meeting did not even reach a consensus about agreed upon “press elements.”

The Indian press is gloating that Beijing was isolated on the Security Council, with all the
other members accepting that India’s assault on Kashmir is an “internal affair.” Some
reports went so far as to trumpet it as “14-1” against China and Pakistan.

This is not simply Indian propaganda. Led by the US, the western powers are
aggressively promoting India as a military-strategic counterweight to China, and toward
that end are ready to give it a free hand in J&K. Modi and his government, backed by the
dominant faction of India’s ruling elite, have for their part integrated India ever more fully
into Washington’s strategic offensive against China.
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The day after the UN Security Council meeting, the second-most senior US diplomat,
Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, met in New Delhi with Indian External Affairs
Minster S. Jaishankar. According to the US State Department, they discussed the shared
Indo-US “vision” for a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” that is, continued US domination of
Asia. Sullivan also briefed Jaishankar on his recent trip to tiny Bhutan, which like Kashmir
borders China.

Russia, albeit for very different reasons, has also thrown its support behind India in
Kashmir. For decades, stretching back to the early stages of the Cold War, New Delhi
has been a key economic and military-security partner of Russia, and Moscow is
determined to maintain and expand that partnership as it confronts escalating US-NATO
military pressure and economic sanctions.

Buoyed by Pakistan’s international isolation, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh

reiterated Sunday New Delhi’s provocative stance that there can be no substantive talks
with Islamabad until it demonstratively bows to India’s demand that it prevent all logistical
support from Pakistan for the anti-Indian insurgency in J&K. Singh went on to declare
that the only talks New Delhi will have with Islamabad over Kashmir “will be on the issue
of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir”—i.e., India’s claim that it is rightfully hers—“and no other
issue.”

Inside Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir the situation remains dire.

To suppress popular opposition to its abrogation of J&K’s semi-autonomous constitutional

status and effective imposition of permanent central government trusteeship over what
was hitherto India’s only Muslim-majority state, New Delhi has imposed an
unprecedented security lockdown and communication blackout on the region since Aug.
5.

Two weeks after this state of siege began, cell phone service remains cut off across J&K,
and landline and internet service remain suspended in much of the Kashmir Valley. Over
the weekend, the authorities relaxed some of the sweeping restrictions on people’s
movements, but ordered them re-imposed, including in the largest city, Srinagar, after
protest demonstrations erupted.

State-owned All-India Radio reported last week that more than 500 people have been
detained since August 5. But yesterday AFP (Agence France-Presse), based on multiple
Indian government sources, said that New Delhi has in fact taken at least 4,000 people
into custody.
The arrested comprise a wide array of BJP government opponents. They include
students and others whom New Delhi derides as “potential stone-pelters,” academics,
two former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers—Omar Abdullah, the head of the J&K
National Conference, and People’s Democratic Party President Mehbooha Mufti—and
hundreds of other leaders and cadre of the non-BJP pro-Indian political parties in J&K.

They are being detained under the notorious Public Safety Act, which allows the state to
hold persons deemed a threat to “public safety” for up to two years without charge.

AFP said the 4,000 figure was tabulated by a J&K based-magistrate who had been able
to get round New Delhi’s information blackout and contact colleagues using a cellphone
given him because of his senior government position.

Most of the 4,000 “were flown out of Kashmir because prisons here have run out of
capacity,” said the magistrate. The claims of thousands of arrests have been supported
by other Indian officials, speaking, like the magistrate, on condition of anonymity. A police
official told AFP that “around 6,000 people were medically examined at a couple of places
in Srinagar after they were detained.”

“They are first sent to” Srinagar’s main jail, he explained, “and later flown out of here in
military aircraft.”

In keeping with its draconian blackout, Indian authorities have refused to provide relatives
with any information as to where their loved ones are being detained

Mass layoffs for workers; millions for GM, Ford

and Chrysler CEOs
19 August 2019

Next month, with the expiration of the labor contract for 155,000 US autoworkers at Ford,
GM, and Chrysler, auto executives will once again demand that workers sacrifice their
own livelihoods for the “good of the company.”

Tough economic times are around the corner, the companies will say. The automakers
are strapped for cash and need a war chest to confront a turbulent world economy,
stiffening global competition, and the disruption caused by driverless cars and electric
vehicles.

If workers do not want to see more layoffs—like the thousands already fired at GM this
year—they had better work longer, harder, and for less money. The United Auto Workers
(UAW) —whose executives took kickbacks from the auto companies—will say that
workers have no choice but to accept the companies’ demands.

But the fact is that every dollar taken from workers through pay cuts goes to pay for stock
buybacks, financial speculation and the yachts and mansions of the corporate executives
and the billionaire capitalists whose interests they represent.
 Gehälter von
CEOs steigen um 1000 Prozent

This was made clear in a new report on executive pay by the Economic Policy Institute,
which showed that CEO pay at the top 350 companies grew by 1,000 percent over the
past four decades, while workers’ wages stagnated.

The average CEO got $17.2 million in pay, according to the report, meaning he or she
makes in a day what the average worker makes in a year.

GM CEO Mary Barra typifies the social inequality that pervades American society. Last
year, Barra received $21.87 million in executive pay, 281 times the pay of the median GM
employee, and nearly 600 times the pay of an entry-level employee.

CM CEO
Mary Barra - Credit - GM Promotional Photo

In November, Barra announced that GM would close five plants in the United States and
Canada, leading to over 6,000 layoffs, including the closure of the Detroit Hamtramck
and Warren Transmission auto plants in the Metro Detroit area.

This was followed by a massive “downsizing” among white-collar employees, leading to

the loss of 8,000 jobs.
The company’s profits last year amounted to $10.8 billion, enough to pay the annual
wages of some 300,000 new-hire employees. But instead, as the company carried out
mass layoffs, the money sweated out of workers was funneled to executives and
shareholders.

Ford CEO Jim Hackett got $17.8 million in compensation last year, while FCA CEO Mike
Manley stands to make as much as $14 million in the coming year. Matthew Simoncini,
the CEO of auto parts maker Lear, was paid over $32.4 million, up by 14 percent over the
past year.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was paid a staggering $2.2 billion last year, in order, as Tesla’s
board put it, to “motivate Mr. Musk to continue to…lead Tesla over the long term.”

Last year, Tesla announced that it would cut its workforce by 9 percent, followed by
another 7 percent this year, in an ongoing jobs bloodbath.

Across the economy, chief executives are being paid millions for overseeing mass
layoffs. US Steel CEO David B. Burritt, who was paid over $11 million last year, has just
announced hundreds of layoffs with the idling of U.S. Steel’s blast furnace in Ecorse,
Michigan.

Overall, CEOs at the 350 largest US companies received 278 times more than a typical
employee, according to the EPI report. By comparison, a typical CEO was paid 20 times
more than a typical employee in 1965.
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Between 1978 and 2018, CEO pay grew by over 1,000 percent, or more than tenfold.
Workers’ wages grew by just 11.9 percent over the same period.

Verhältnis
der Gehälter von CEOs und Arbeitern: 278:1

Amidst a roaring stock market fueled by money printing from the Federal Reserve, CEO
pay has grown by 50 percent during the economic “recovery” after the 2008 financial
crash. Over the same period, workers’ wages grew by only five percent. According to the
EPI, wages actually fell between 2017 and 2018.

Social inequality has been soaring for decades as the capitalist class succeeded in
driving down wages, destroying workers’ health care benefits, and making working
conditions worse.
This is a global phenomenon. This year, to cite one example, French fashion billionaire
Bernard Arnault became the third person with a net worth of over $100 billion, having
made some $25 billion over the past year alone. Arnault’s fortune now equals 3 percent
of the economic output of the entire country in one year.

The response of the American ruling class in particular to the erosion of the economic
domination of American capitalism in the late 1960s and 1970s was to launch a policy of
class war, deindustrialization and financialization. The role of the “celebrity CEO,”
epitomized by Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, was to spearhead this assault and serve as
the representatives of Wall Street in the corporate boardroom—for which they were, and
are, handsomely paid.

The unions have been the partners of the capitalists in their fight against the workers.
The UAW and other unions approved countless plant closings, mass layoffs, and benefit
cuts, all in the name of making the companies more “competitive,” and defending
“American jobs.” They long ago transformed themselves into agents of the companies
and the state.

The biggest exposure of what the unions have become is the United Auto Workers,
whose leaders have been charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes from the auto
companies to make sure contracts favorable to the corporations were passed despite
opposition from workers.

Whatever their tactical differences, the Democrats and the Republicans are equally
committed to policies that increase social inequality and defend the capitalist system that
is responsible for it. As the Trump administration had dedicated itself above all to the
continual rise of the stock markets, the Democrats are terrified more than anything else
of the explosion of social opposition in the working class.

United Auto
Workers President Gary Jones, and General Motors CEO Mary Barra shake hands to open the
2019 contract negotiation - Credit - GM promotional photo.jpg

The same conditions that have created unprecedented social inequality are also
producing mass protests and strikes all over the world, from Hong Kong and Puerto Rico,
to France and Africa. In Puerto Rico, days of mass protests forced the resignation of the
governor, a corrupt stooge for Wall Street.

And in January, as autoworkers were fighting mass layoffs in Detroit, tens of thousands of
workers went on strike in Mexico’s auto parts factories, with class-conscious Mexican
workers sending greetings to American autoworkers and calling for them to join their
fight.

With a critical battle looming for American autoworkers, workers must understand that
they are fighting not just for themselves and their own families, but for all workers: in the
United States, in North America, and around the world.

The antidote to social inequality is the class struggle. But the coming struggles can only
be successful if they are waged with a new strategy: against the nationalism and
capitalist apologetics of the unions, and for the international unity of the working class
against capitalism.

The fight against social inequality requires the building of a new political leadership, the
Socialist Equality Party, to organize and unify the struggles of workers on the basis of a
revolutionary program. The capitalist profit system must be replaced with a socialist
society based on equality, international planning and democratic control of production.

Andre Damon

Hundreds of thousands again take to Hong

Kong’s streets
By Peter Symonds
19 August 2019

Hundreds of thousands of people took part in a mass rally and march in Hong Kong
yesterday in defiance of a police ban and despite driving rain. The protest movement
sparked by attempts by the city’s administration to pass legislation allowing extradition to
China has now entered its 11th week, with no sign of subsiding.

According to the organisers, at least 1.7 million people or approximating a quarter of the
city’s population took part in the protests. While the majority were young people, many
other layers of the Hong Kong population took part. On Saturday, thousands of teachers
held a demonstration in the city’s downtown to oppose police violence and to show their
support for their students.

The protests are being driven by widespread fears that the Beijing regime is seeking to
undermine the limited democratic rights that exist in Hong Kong and to intimidate critics
and dissidents that use the city as a base amid a mounting social and economic crisis
throughout China. Underlying the protests is mounting frustration and hostility to the city’s
glaring social inequality and the absence of welfare services, affordable housing and job
opportunities, especially for youth.
Yesterday’s rally in Victoria Park and subsequent march was called by the Civil Human
Rights Front as a protest against the increasing use of police violence against
demonstrators. It was titled “Stop the Police and Organised Crime from Plunging Hong
Kong into Chaos.” “Organised crime” is a reference to the attacks on protesters by thugs
allegedly belonging to triad gangs connected to pro-Beijing figures.

A statement issued by the Front declared: “From frontline activists, to the elderly in
nursing homes, to public housing residents, Hong Kongers have faced police brutality in
the forms of tear gas, bean bag rounds, and rubber bullets, which they used to disperse
and arrest us. We’ve also endured non-discriminate attacks by the triads. Hong Kongers
are deeply outraged and abhor the actions of the Hong Kong government and the Hong
Kong police.”

The Civil Human Rights Front is closely connected to various non-government

organisations (NGOs) and political parties and groups associated with the so-called pan-
democrat grouping in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The opposition pan-democrats
broadly represent layers of the ruling elite concerned at the encroachment of Beijing on
their business interests.

In calling for the protest, the Front reiterated the demands for the complete withdrawal of
the extradition legislation, the resignation of Carrie Lam, an independent investigation
into police violence, the retraction of the designation of some protests as “riots,” and the
withdrawal of all charges against protesters. More than 700 arrests have been made
since early June.

The protesters are also demanding elections based on universal suffrage. The election
for the Legislative Council is based on restricted electorates and reflects the methods
used under British colonial rule. The “election” of the chief executive is determined by a
committee dominated by Beijing appointees. Its anti-democratic character prompted the
mass protests in 2014 that became known as the umbrella movement.

Yesterday’s mass protest also took place despite implicit threats from Beijing to use
military force to suppress the demonstrations. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
regime has seized on the alleged violence of protesters to denounce them as a radical
fringe and to claim that their actions verge on terrorism. Last week the state-owned
media features a video of paramilitary police equipped with armoured personnel carriers
massing in the neighbouring city of Shenzhen.
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Beijing has been pressuring Hong Kong businesses to take action against employees
taking part in the protests. It also used the disruption to business and its claims of
protester “violence” to promote a pro-Beijing rally on Saturday which, according to its
organisers, drew in 100,000 people carrying Chinese flags and giving thumbs-up to the
police.

Rallies in support of the Hong Kong protest movement also took place last weekend in a
number of cities world-wide including Paris, Berlin, Toronto, Sydney and Melbourne. In
some cities, pro-Beijing counter-protesters also held their own demonstrations.

The response in the Western media to yesterday’s protest in Hong Kong could be
described as an audible sigh of relief, with the universal theme being praise for its non-
violent character. The concern, however, is not over “violence,” the vast majority of which
was the responsibility of the police. The primary fear in ruling circles internationally is that
the protracted protests in Hong Kong are part of a resurgence of the working class
around the world.

Two weeks ago, tens of thousands of workers, including in rail, the airport, finance and
banking, and services, stopped work in the first general strike in Hong Kong for decades.
The very size of the largest protests also signals widespread support among workers for
the defence of basic democratic rights and hostility to police violence.

The weakness of the protest movement lies in the lack of working-class leadership and
thus any fight for the political independence of the working class. The protests remain
dominated by the perspective of the pan-democrats, which is seeking to limit the
demands and is willing to cut a deal with the pro-Beijing administration. The general
strike was not organised by the trade unions. The Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU),
which is aligned with the pan-democrats, gave nominal support to the strike but did not
call out the nearly 200,000 members of its affiliated unions.

The absence of a genuinely socialist leadership has also allowed anti-communist, anti-
Chinese chauvinist groups, such as Hong Kong Indigenous and Civic Passion, to parade
as defenders of jobs, wages and services, blaming “mainlanders” for the deterioration of
living conditions. The root cause of the attacks on democratic and social rights in Hong
Kong, China and internationally is the capitalist system and its abolition requires a unified
fight by the working class around the world.

The building of a revolutionary party in China, including Hong Kong, requires an

assimilation of the lessons of the protracted struggle of the Trotskyist movement against
Stalinism in all its forms, including Maoism, which paved the way for capitalist restoration
in China. That underscores the necessity of establishing a section of the International
Committee of the Fourth International in Hong Kong and China.
Trump blinks again as
the world economy
stutters
 Print

Niklas Albin Svensson

16 August 2019
China Economy Featured USA

Image: Michael Vadon

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Stock markets have experienced a roller-coaster ride over the
past two months, as Trump’s erratic trade policy has brought
the world economy to the brink of recession. In the latest
move, Trump yet again partially postponed the introduction of
new tariffs, which he announced two weeks ago. This
temporary reprieve will do little to solve the conflict.

An escalating conflict
The thaw in US-Chinese relations in June turned out to be
very temporary. Stock markets fell and economic indicators
are pointing downwards as tensions escalated between the two
countries during the first two weeks of August.
After failing to extract significant concessions from the
Chinese negotiators, Trump slapped an additional set of tariffs
on imports from China on 1 August. A 10 percent tariff would
be introduced on an additional $300bn worth of Chinese
exports. It would have meant that practically all Chinese goods
now face a minimum of 10 percent tariffs. Trump was all
bluster and claimed to want to “tax the hell out of China” until
such a time as they reach a deal.
Beijing retaliated by suspending government agricultural
imports from the US, dealing another blow to US farmers, in
particular soybean farmers, who have been badly hit by
Chinese retaliation. The Chinese central bank also devalued
the currency, thus mitigating the impact of the new tariffs, at
the risk of stoking inflation and capital flight at home.
Whatever Trump’s latest move, the conflict is gradually
escalating. The Wall Street Journal and its panel of
economists now consider it to have reached the point where it
should be labelled a “trade war”, because of the severity of
disagreement. A deal seems far away, as both the Chinese and
the US government are preparing for a drawn-out conflict. The
US is hoping to inflict sufficient damage on the Chinese
economy to force them to the negotiating table, and the
Chinese appear to be hoping for a new president in the US
after the elections next year.
Neither Trump nor Xi can afford to appear weak at this
moment, as they face serious political challenges at home, and,
as we have explained a year ago, the ruling classes of the two
countries are on a collision course:
“Some kind of agreement is not excluded in the short run. Apparently, President
Trump is hoping to discuss with President Xi in November at the G20 summit.
This agreement would have a temporary character. The conflict between China
and the US will only intensify over the coming period, particularly when the next
recession comes.”
A formal agreement now seems unlikely, but both sides fear
the economic consequences of further conflict. This is what
once again caused Trump to blink. He was clearly worried
about the impact on US consumers resulting from his latest
tariff proposals in the lead-up to Christmas, as well as the
impact on the economy as a whole. A drastic cut in purchasing
power would not bode well for his re-election next year. The
Chinese, for their part, seem to be attempting to avoid, as far
as possible, any escalation, whilst at the same time not making
any significant concessions in the negotiations.

The economic headwinds

Stock markets, which were hoping that the G20 summit in
June would be followed by an agreement, fell rapidly. The
S&P, the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones are all down around 5
percent since their July peak. Their fall was only limited by the
expectation that central banks will move to further monetary
easing. Economists are expecting another rate cut by the
Federal Reserve in September, and the data suggest markets
expect one will come by the end of the year, with 100 percent
certainty.
The Wall Street Journal now considers the conflict between China and the USA to have
reached the point where it should be labelled a “trade war”, one with serious
consequences for the world economy / Image: Flickr, WEC
The inverted yield curve, which indicates an impending
recession, is now at its lowest level since 2007, the year before
the last serious recession.
In China, the economic data is worsening. Figures released on
Tuesday show that unemployment is rising in the urban
centres. The figure, 5.3 percent, is low by European standards,
but it is worrying for a country that has depended on
migration to the cities to alleviate poverty in the countryside.
Growth has fallen to 6.2 percent, which is the lowest rate of
growth since 1992. The rate of increase in retail sales and
industrial production is also falling. The figure for industrial
production was only 4.8 percent higher in July compared to
the year before. For June, the figure was 6.3 percent.
This slowdown in China comes in spite of the stimulus
measures taken by the Chinese government. The central bank
is now likely to cut interest rates, and further stimulus
measures are expected from the government.
It’s not just the Chinese and the US economies that are
affected. The uncertainty generated by the trade war is causing
a fall in investment, which has caused the German economy to
contract in the second quarter of this year. In general,
uncertainty over trade conditions and international relations
is souring cross-border investments. Companies are investing
less and they are much less likely to invest abroad. This
seriously undermines the capitalist economy.
Whatever the bluster of the two governments, it is clear that
the conflict is causing economic strain.

Intensifying global conflicts

It’s not just the US and China who are at loggerheads over
trade. It’s gradually dawning on the bourgeois that the period
of globalisation has come to an end. In an article on
Wednesday, Greg Ip, Chief Economics Commentator of
the Wall Street Journal, pointed this out in a rather downbeat
column:
“Globalization has suffered temporary setbacks in past decades. This time feels
different. The U.S., which led in creating global institutions such as the World
Trade Organization, now leads in crippling them.” (‘As Global Order Crumbles,
Risks of Recession Grow’, Wall Street Journal, 14 August)
Rather than attempting to ease tensions between allies, Trump is fanning conflict, for
example by cheerleading Brexit / Image: Flickr, White House
Rather than attempting to ease tensions between allies, Trump
is fanning conflict, for example by cheerleading Brexit.
Two close US allies, South Korea and Japan, are causing
ripples with a conflict of their own. Tensions between the two
countries are escalating as a result of a court case in South
Korea, where Japanese companies are being sued for damages
because of atrocities committed during the Japanese
occupation of Korea.
The conflict has now led to both countries removing favoured
trading partner status from each other. This threatens to
disrupt supply chains for companies on both sides with delays
to import of key components. Although not as serious as the
China-US trade war, this causes further strain on the economy
of the region.
The whole Brexit saga is another source of instability. Boris
Johnson’s attempts to prepare for no deal are referred to by
one FT columnist as buying a fire blanket before setting
oneself alight. The disruption that Brexit is likely to cause will
have serious consequences for the European economy, already
on the brink of recession.
The FT comments:
“Layered on top are geopolitical tensions and political discourse in the UK and
elsewhere that stand in the way of coherent economic policies. Rising
protectionism means past US-led co-ordinated policy action to restore global
economic order will not be repeated. Central banks will have no option but to
come to the rescue. One quarter of the world’s entire bond stock is already in
negative territory. More will follow. In the absence of a sturdy anchor, a very
bumpy ride lies ahead.”

The period of relative free trade and relatively harmonious

international relations is over. As class conflict rises, the
bourgeoisie is increasingly attempting to export their social
problems. Or, at least one wing of the bourgeois is. The other
wing is desperately attempting to cling on to the old world
order, for fear of the consequences. The move to protectionism
will intensify the economic contradictions, and the class
struggle. Yet, under the pressure of the crisis, maintaining the
status quo is impossible.

The Peterloo Massacre

at 200: the barbaric
legacy of British
capitalism
 Print

Steve Jones
16 August 2019
Britain Featured History
 Image: public domain

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Today is the 200th anniversary of what has gone down in
history as the Peterloo Massacre. This is one date that the
ruling class has little desire to remember. Even now, two
centuries on, a reminder of the bloodshed and violence
associated with the history of British capitalism will be
uncomfortable for the establishment.
“The established school of history” (as historian E.P.
Thompson called it) has always sought to belittle what
happened on 16 August 1819. They describe Peterloo as being
just a minor accident; a mishap at worst. For example,
Dominic Sandbrook, writing in the Daily Mail, happily
describes this “accident” as being “no big deal”; “barely a
massacre at all”.
For workers today, however, this event remains important –
not least because it shows the real, ugly face of capital:
ruthless and brutal. Peterloo is part of our history – the real
history – and should not be forgotten.

Dark Satanic Mills

The Industrial Revolution – which occurred between the
middle of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th
century – represented one of the fastest and most violent
transformations of society ever seen. Countries like Britain
had been heavily industrialised within a process of decades,
ripping apart traditions, customs, and institutions that had
endured for centuries.
Marx and Engels summed up this rapid development of
capitalism as follows in 1848, writing in the Communist
Manifesto:
“Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted
disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty
and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier
ones…
“The bourgeoisie has created more massive and more colossal
productive forces than have all preceding generations
together. Subjection of nature’s forces to man, machinery,
application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam
navigation, railways…clearing of whole continents for
cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured
out of the ground…”
Manchester was at the heart of this process in England. Such
was the transformation of the city into an industrial hothouse
that its population rose from 41,000 in 1774 to over 200,000
by 1816.
Manchester was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution in England - embodying all its
horrors / Image: public domain
Just a few decades later, whilst working in his father’s
business in the city, Friedrich Engels used Manchester as a
case study for his book on The Condition of the Working Class
in England (1844). Elsewhere, Sir Charles Napier said of the
city: “Manchester is the chimney of the world…The entrance to
hell realised!” (Quoted in The Peterloo Massacre, Robert Reid
1989)
Huge profits were being generated for the capitalists. But the
working masses, torn from their farms and villages to work in
the huge factories that soon dominated the Manchester
skyline, saw little of this. Hours were long and hard.
Protections for the workforce were non-existent.
The introduction of steam-driven machinery – not least in the
massive weaving factories – meant that equipment could be
operated not only by men, but also by women – and even
children. Needless to say, these layers were paid less and
exploited more. As a result, the struggles of 1819 saw the
growing involvement of women, politicised by the terrible
conditions they endured.
Capitalism likes to present itself as progressive. But those who
lived through this period could only see the progressive
movement of money from the poor to the rich.

Radicalisation and repression

The revolutionary transformation in industry and production
at this time, was accompanied by an equally dramatic rise in
radicalism and protest.
The capitalist class, having grabbed the state machinery from
their feudal predecessors, was determined to ensure that
wealth and power now remained in their greedy hands. Far
from establishing new freedoms and rights, they set about
imposing new and evermore ruthless laws to maintain and
protect the rule of the rich and the ‘rights’ of private property.
This included a sharp rise in the number of offences deemed to
be punishable by death. Hanging or transportation were
common penalties for even minor offences.
The working class began to fight back – first in the
countryside, but soon in the towns and cities also. England
was closer to revolution than at any point since the Civil War.
Revolutionary France was an inspiring example for all to see.
The summer of 1795 saw a collapse of wages in the weaving
industry. This quickly resulted in a rise in revolts and
rebellions, including disorder in Birmingham and a mutiny of
the Oxford militia.
The ruling class were terrified of this angry mood. Officials
therefore passed a series of public order acts to make
assemblies of 50 or more illegal. More seriously, they declared
that anything deemed to be an ‘attack on the constitution’ was
a hangable offence.
Despite these repressive measures, there were further
economic crises in 1797,1799,1801,1803 and 1808. In the
major crisis of 1812, over 12,000 troops were garrisoned to
deal with revolts. By the 1830s this number was over 30,000.
The response of the ruling elite was always the same:
repression. The Luddite rebellions were typical of this.
Hangings and transportations were carried out in vast
numbers to break the revolt and send a harsh message to all
those who would rebel in the future. At one trial, 17 were
sentenced to hanging – including 14 on just one day.
This repression did not only apply to radicals and those
attacking the system. Workers organising and fighting for
better pay and conditions who also subject to harsh reprisals.
In order to better exploit the masses, the government
abolished many of the traditional rights and protections. Some
of these dated back to Elizabethan times. The Combination
Acts of 1799 and 1800, for example, made trade union
organisation illegal.
Yet the state encountered great difficulty in enforcing these
laws. For example, only seven convictions under the Acts were
recorded in Lancashire (excluding Liverpool and Wigan)
between 1818 and 1822. One coal merchant and magistrate in
Bolton, Mr Fletcher, complained in September 1818:
“About Oldham the colliers are universally out…the masters
have not the courage to proceed against them for combination
or neglect – although the workmen’s committee sits on stated
days at a public house in Manchester as if on legal business.”
(quoted in Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution. John
Foster, 1974)

‘Old Corruption’
 PM Lord
Liverpool represented the "Old Corruption" / Image: public domain
Still, conditions only got worse. The end of the Napoleonic
Wars had thrown 300,000 men back onto the labour market,
at a time when the economy was suffering from falling trade
and the loss of lucrative wartime contracts. By 1816, for
example, Britain’s export levels had fallen to 66 percent of
what they had been just two years earlier.
Unemployment and under-employment rose – at a time when
there was little-to-no social support or benefits. A sharp rise in
the price of bread also piled on the agony for the masses.
Workers came to realise that the government simply couldn't
care less and were not going to take any remedial action
whatsoever. Instead, as the anger from below grew, the ruling
class increasingly looked upon the masses with fear.
Governments of this period reflected the interests of “Old
Corruption”: the landed gentry; wealthy merchants; and
newly-enriched capitalists. They were reactionary to the core.
The establishment was convinced that revolution was looming
and that all their privileges, amassed over the centuries, were
under threat. “I am sorry to say that what I have seen and
heard today convinces me that the country is ripe for
rebellion,” wrote one Bury magistrate in a panic in 1801 after
witnessing a rally. “A revolution will be the consequence.”
Such fears were reflected at the highest levels – not least in the
government.
The administration that presided over the Peterloo Massacre
was typical of its time. The Tory government in 1819 was
headed by PM Lord Liverpool – the “Arch Mediocrity” as
Disraeli called him.
The key figure, however, was the Home Secretary, Lord
Sidmouth. It was Sidmouth who manoeuvred to suppress
revolt and dissent using all available means. Writing about
this government, historian Robert Reid later noted that:
“[The attitude] these men held towards home affairs was that
the art of good government lay solely in the maintenance of
discipline. The law of the land existed for few purposes other
than the control by punishment of the working classes.”
In 1817, the Blanketeers set out to walk from Manchester to
London with a petition demanding parliamentary reform.
Despite being suppressed, this march fuelled the fears of the
government, who saw revolution everywhere.
The throwing of a potato at the coach of the unpopular Prince
Regent provided further excuse for even more repressive
measures to be rushed through parliament, under the urgings
of Sidmouth. These included the suspension of Habeas Corpus
and the passing of the Seditious Meetings Act. According to
Robert Reid, England came “closer in spirit to that of the early
years of the Third Reich that at any other time in history”.

Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, brutally repressed any dissent, and was the key figure in
the Peterloo Massacre / Image: public domain
Rotten boroughs
As a result, protests took on an increasingly political edge.
Central to this was the growing demand for parliamentary
reform. The ‘rotten boroughs’ system meant that old rural
areas returned the bulk of MPs to parliament. These
‘representatives’ were often elected by just a handful of trusted
cronies. The new industrial conurbations (including
Manchester), by contrast, elected nobody. As a result,
demands for equal representation, and for the
enfranchisement of all men (though not women, at this time)
began to take root.
The government was having none of this, however. Lord
Sidmouth therefore set about increasing the army of spies
around the country to uncover and snuff out any evidence of
dissent.
In Manchester, behind the government and its forces, lurked
the local magistrates: wealthy and corrupt businessmen who
ruled the city with an iron fist.
“As well as dominating Manchester’s ramshackle institutions
of local government they associated in a secretive network of
orange and masonic lodges,” noted Robert Poole. “Some had a
high-Tory and even Jacobite political background that
encouraged them to see themselves as an inner governing elite
responsible to no-one.”(Manchester Region History Review,
Vol. 23, 2014).
These gentlemen even had enough funds to run their own
network of spies on top of the ones employed by the national
government. They would play a key – and bloody – role in
what happened at Peterloo.
Military power in the Lancashire region lay under the
command of Sir John Byng. In 1817, Byng suppressed a rally
at St Peter’s Field – the eventual site of the Peterloo Massacre
– with considerable efficiency. However, with a limited
number of troops in England, the raising of citizens’ regiments
– the yeomanry – became a priority for Sidmouth. These
would be under the control of the local authorities, i.e. the
magistrates.

Authorities alarmed
Although a weavers’ strike had been harshly repressed, and
conflict on the industrial plain seemed to have abated, the
political unrest continued to rise during 1819. Both Sidmouth
in Westminster and the local magistrates in Manchester
viewed this with alarm, pressing their spies for information.
So it was that a mass meeting to demand political reform was
announced for the start of August 1819. The magistrates
quickly declared this to be illegal. However, their declaration
was badly drafted and seemed to imply the opposite, saying:
“We…do hereby Caution all persons to abstain AT THEIR
PERIL from attending such an illegal meeting.”
Oddly enough, Sidmouth now urged caution over dealing with
any such meetings. He was a stickler for procedure, noting the
problems arising from the botched legal notice. However, he
was also ill for most of that summer, and so it was left to his
ruthless underlings to act in his name.
In any case, the magistrates knew that they could “rely on
Parliament for an indemnity”, as Sidmouth had privately
hinted earlier. The state was more than happy to let the local
authorities do their dirty work for them, and maybe take the
blame. And the magistrates were more than happy to oblige.
Since the first meeting was banned, the organisers set about
announcing an even larger one. This was set to take place on
16 August, with Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt as the main speaker.
With such a draw, a huge attendance was expected.
Although Hunt was keen to avoid the threat of violence, trying
to placate the local authorities, others were taking steps to
ensure that they would be ready to defend themselves. After
the event, much mention was made by state spies of the
drilling and marching taking place in the fields around
Manchester. Nevertheless, the organisers made it clear: no
weapons were to be carried on the day.
As hysterical reports flowed into the hands of the local and
national authorities, calls were issued for firm action to be
taken against the ‘insurrectionary’ rally. The Magistrates
fuelled the fears of violence, mobilising both the Cheshire and
Manchester yeomanry. Sir John Byng was alerted, as
commander of the military forces, and told to take any action
deemed necessary.
On the day itself, however, Sir John Byng was not in
Manchester, but at York for the August races. He was eager
not to miss this high point of the social calendar, and he
informed the authorities of as much. The magistrates, aware of
Byng’s complaints, wrote him a letter excusing him from
having to travel back.
Matters were duly left in the hands of Lt. Col L’Estrange. All
the various forces were under his control bar one: the
Manchester yeomanry cavalry, which was under the
immediate command of the local magistrates. So too were a
force of around 400-500 special constables – i.e. hired thugs
in uniform.
On the morning of the 16th, thousands streamed into the
centre of Manchester from the various parts of the city and
beyond to attend the great meeting. They came by foot (there
was no public transport, of course), often starting off early in
the morning to arrive in time for the speakers. Bosses arrived
at their factories to find them deserted. This was a mass strike
in all but name.
Banners with slogans such as ‘Liberty and fraternity’, ‘Annual
Parliaments and Universal Suffrage’, and ‘Union is strength –
Unite and be free’ were commonplace as the people marched
through the streets towards St. Peter’s Field. Again, the large
contingent of women on the various marches should be noted.
By lunchtime, the square at St Peter’s Field was hot and
packed, with between 50,000 and 60,000 waiting for the
meeting to begin. The magistrates, overlooking the crowd,
hollered for action. The yeomanry – many already drunk –
were itching to advance. All that was needed was for the legal
formalities to be concluded.
Carnage and chaos
The Riot Act was speedily read, in accordance with the law.
But no one could actually hear it. The Act was passed in 1715
after a spate of disturbances. It had the advantage for the state
that, once read, it upgraded the offence from a misdemeanour
to a felony. And it ensured that the local authorities were now
protected from any legal fallout.
Hunt had arrived at about 1.00pm to loud cheers. He was in
full flow when the Manchester yeomanry moved towards the
crowd at 1.40pm, intending to arrest the organisers. Sabres
drawn, they ploughed into the people.
L’Estrange, meanwhile, was leading his forces around the back
streets, but was still too far away to take command of those
already in the square. Ironically, when the special constables
raised their truncheons to identify themselves to the
yeomanry, they were attacked as well.
At least 650 men, women and children were injured by the various thugs of the state in
the Peterloo Massacre. 18 were left dead or dying, including four women and one young
child / Image: public domain
Two years earlier, Byng’s forces had broken up a rally in the
same square using the flats of their swords. But this time the
Yeomanry just hacked and stabbed indiscriminately. When
L’Estrange finally arrived a few minutes later, the situation
was already out of control. Some of the Hussars began trying
to restrain the yeomanry, but with little success. In fact, given
the cramped and chaotic conditions, their forces only added to
the violence inflicted on the people as horses and men crashed
into each other.
In any case, L’Estrange saw his duty as protecting those
yeomanry who were encountering resistance from the crowd,
and completing the ordered dispersal at whatever cost.
The Manchester Guardian later wrote that “the carnage
seemed to be indiscriminate”.
And so it was. By the time the violence ended and the area had
been cleared (at about 2.00pm), at least 650 men, women and
children had been injured. 18 were dead or dying, including
four women and one young child.
The Yeomanry still sought revenge against those protestors
who resisted their attacks, as did the local people in turn
against them. Riots continued in some outlying towns into the
next day, as the marchers expressed their anger at what had
happened.

The legacy of Peterloo

Some of the press who were present faithfully reported on
what they had seen. They quickly coined the phrase ‘Peterloo’,
providing an ironic comparison to the recent conflict at
Waterloo.
Any hope of justice for those killed or injured by the mad
violence of the authorities would soon be shattered. Those
arrested were subjected to the full force of the law, although
many were later released without publicity.
No one was ever made to pay for what had happened, despite
several attempts to seek justice. The government, far from
realising that they had gone too far, congratulated themselves
over the firm response in ‘dealing’ with the threat to their
positions and power. In fact, they moved to round up any
radicals they could lay their hands on, imposing yet more
repressive laws to curtail the anger of the people.
The spirit of the working classes was not broken, however.
Indeed, in the previous year, Manchester workers from 14
different trades had met to form the General Union of Trades.
This trade unionism continued to develop. And by 1824, the
state felt it necessary to repeal the Combinations Acts, rather
than risk further opposition – although they quickly drew up
new repressive laws to take their place. The old ‘rotten
boroughs’ were also reformed, mainly to provide seats in
parliament for the industrial capitalist class, but also to hold
off the continuing pressure from below.
The people would not stay quiet. Within a few years, the
countryside erupted with the ‘Captain Swing’ revolts. And the
political struggle began to coalesce into the Chartist
movement.
In Manchester today – and throughout this weekend – trade
unionists, socialists and activists are gathering to mark
Peterloo’s 200th anniversary. On this occasion, we should
note that the struggle that led to so much bloodshed on this
date in 1819 has not been settled. We are the descendants of
those who marched to St. Peter’s Field – just as today’s bosses
and their political representatives are the reincarnations of the
likes of Sidmouth and Lord Liverpool.
The class struggles of Peterloo and the Chartists are part of our
history. It is vital that we remember these events, as we
continue the fight for workers’ rights – and above all for
socialism.

Mass shootings, the far

right, and political
incitement
 Print

Joel Bergman
15 August 2019
Canada Right-Wing Nationalism Featured USA Fascism
 Image: fair use

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People around the world have once again been shocked by a
wave of shootings perpetrated by far-right extremists. The
shootings in Gilroy, California and El Paso, Texas, were
carried out by individuals who shared fascist manifestos,
detailing their beliefs prior to the attacks, which claimed the
lives of 25 people. You would have to be blind not to see that
right-wing politicians like U.S. President Donald Trump are
complicit in the increase in fascist attacks.
Trump consistently downplays the threat of white supremacist
terrorism, claiming that it is just “a small group of people.” But
right-wing terrorists in the U.S. killed more people last year
than any year since 1995, the year when Timothy McVeigh
bombed a government building, killing 168 people. On top of
this, a January 2019 report showed that all of the extremist
killings in the U.S. in 2018 had links to right-wing extremism.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of
hate groups in the U.S. has been on the rise for four straight
years and has recently reached an all-time high.

Trump complicit
Against all odds, Trump has continued to downplay this threat
and instead tweeted that he was considering declaring antifa
“a major Organization of Terror.” This followed a resolution,
put forward by Texas senators Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy,
aiming to have “antifa” identified as “domestic terrorists.” Just
a day after Trump’s tweet, the Gilroy shooter carried out his
attack.

Trump's inflammatory rhetoric has clearly emboldened the violent far right / Image:
Gage Skidmore
Faced with criticism from all sides, Trump has doubled down
and refuses to recognise any responsibility for inciting these
attacks. This is in spite of the fact that the killers quite often
invoke Trump’s name, as was discovered by an ABC news
investigation. The El Paso shooter mentions Trump in his
four-page manifesto where he draws affinity with the
Christchurch shooter. He also states that “this attack is a
response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” repeating one of
Trump’s common talking points. This is exactly the same
argument used by Robert Gregory Bowers, the perpetrator of
the Pittsburgh attack that occurred last October immediately
after Trump had labelled the migrant caravan which was
travelling up from Central America “an invasion.” Bowers
attacked the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue because
according to him, the HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
“likes to bring invaders that kill our people.”
And of course, this is all taking place during the increasingly
incendiary debate on Trump’s border wall and the mass
detention of people at the southern border. It is no secret that
Trump’s rallies have become gatherings for violent, racist
elements, as was seen at a rally in Panama City Beach Florida
this past May when Trump asked “How do you stop these
people?” One rally attendee shouted, “Shoot them.” Instead of
countering this, Trump seemed amused and then responded,
“That’s only in the panhandle you can get away with that
statement.”
Following these attacks, which were clearly incited by Trump’s
inflammatory rhetoric, Trump laid low for two days. When he
finally surfaced, he made a statement in which he, for the first
time, denounced “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” and
called for the death penalty to deal with perpetrators of hate
crimes. At the same time, he once again refused to assume any
blame and instead blamed mental illness and video games,
stating that “Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger.”

Canada not immune

While many people in Canada watch these gruesome events in
the United States with horror, one would be naive to think that
Canada is immune from the scourge of fascist violence. The
same social processes underway in the U.S. are developing
under the surface in Canada and we can see the effects
piercing through the surface. At the same time as these attacks
were occurring in the U.S., there was an ongoing manhunt for
two young Canadian men, Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam
McLeod, in connection with the murder of three people in
northern British Columbia. It was revealed that the suspects
are neo-Nazi supporters who have shown approval of Hitler.
Canada is not immune. The Quebec city mosque shooting in 2017 claimed the lives of six
and injured a further eight / Image: fair use
And we can’t forget the van attack last year in Toronto where
Alek Minassian, a self-described incel (short for involuntarily
celibate) drove into pedestrians, killing eight women, two
men, and injuring 16 others. The incel movement is a
movement of men who express hatred of women for not
having sex with them. This misogynist movement has become
increasingly violent and associated with the alt-right.
The clearest act of far-right terrorism on Canadian soil was the
Quebec city mosque shooting in 2017, which claimed the lives
of six and injured a further eight. This shooting was
committed by Alexandre Bissonnette, a Trump supporter who
stated that he did it because refugees were “going to kill my
parents, my family.” He also stated that he was directly
inspired by Trump’s Muslim ban which was put forward just
two days before the shooting.
The number of extreme-right hate groups in Canada is also on
the rise. According to Barbara Perry, a professor and expert on
hate crime, there are 130 active far-right extremist groups in
Canada, a 30 percent increase from 2015.

The capitalist state exposed

While government officials act surprised each time a far-right
extremist attacks, this is willful ignorance. The United States
government is well aware of the rise in right-wing extremism,
they have just chosen to turn a blind eye. In fact, none other
than the United States Department of Homeland Security
published a report all the way back in 2009 detailing how the
main terrorist threat was from domestic far-right extremists.
This report was dismissed and ignored.

In the USA, ICE's powers have been expanded under the Trump administration, and it
frequently launches raids against families and workplaces, intended to terrorise and
intimidate migrants / Image: ICE
The United States government has continued to devote
astronomical amounts of money into fighting “international
terrorism” while very little goes to combat domestic terrorist
threats. This year, both houses of the U.S. government
introduced the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, but this
ironically stops short of designating domestic terrorism as a
crime. Up to now, domestic terrorists have been charged with
hate crimes or conspiracy laws. This means that the massive
anti-terrorism infrastructure in the United States cannot be
used to combat domestic terror.
Ironically, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
was created after 9/11 as part of an anti-terrorism initiative,
but is now targeting almost exclusively Latin American
immigrants who have never actually carried out any terrorist
attacks on U.S. soil—unlike white supremacists who are
increasingly emboldened to commit such acts. This
discrepancy hasn’t stopped the FBI’s counter-terrorism unit
from claiming that black activists fighting against police
brutality are a “threat to national security.” The brutal irony is
that this report was prepared just nine days before white
supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia for the
“Unite the Right” rally in 2017. This demonstration saw the far
right terrorise the town for a weekend and resulted in one
fascist ploughing his car into a demonstration, killing left-wing
activist Heather Heyer.
In Canada, things are not that different. A recent study
revealed that no terrorism prosecutions have been brought
against the far right. This was the case with the Quebec city
shooter, Alexandre Bissonnette, where the six murders he
committed were not considered terrorism.
While 44 percent of Canadians now see the far right as the
biggest threat to national security, almost all counter-terrorist
funding is directed towards combating jihadism. Only this
year has Canada added far-right groups to the terror watch list
—but this is just window dressing. CSIS agents spend their
time harassing Muslims and environmental activists while
doing next to nothing about white supremacist terrorist
groups, which have multiplied and become emboldened as of
late.
Liberal hypocrisy and the socialist
solution
It is easy to simply point the finger at conservatives and right-
wing demagogues like Trump, as many liberals do. However,
in reality, liberals and conservatives are just two sides of the
same bankrupt system.
The entire debate around deportations, “illegal” immigrants,
the border wall and the ICE raids is only a reaction to a
problem manufactured by U.S. imperialism. Both the
Republicans and Democrats have pursued policies that have
destabilised the Middle East and Central America, leading to
the displacement of millions of people fleeing horrible
situations. Regardless of who sits in the White House, the U.S.
government still backs dictatorships, funds terrorists abroad,
and carries out wars either directly (as they did in Iraq and
Afghanistan) or through their proxies. It was the United States
government, headed by Obama in 2009, which orchestrated a
coup against the democratically elected government of Manuel
Zelaya in Honduras. Hillary Clinton, the then-secretary of
state, admitted that the U.S. government used its power to
ensure that Zelaya would not return to power. This completely
destabilised the nation and led to a situation in which the
country descended into violence, with targeted assassinations
of journalists and anyone who criticised the government.
Thousands of Central Americans have fled this horrible
situation, seeking a better life. They are met with walls,
detainment, and bullets in the USA.
While Democratic party politicians are critical of Trump’s
border wall, the fact of the matter is that they don’t
fundamentally disagree. The first sections of the border wall
went up in San Diego and Tijuana under Democratic President
Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and Democrats like Obama
supported George W. Bush’s border wall in 2006.
While many people have recently become aware of ICE and
the horrors that they perpetrate, it was under Obama that ICE
was massively expanded. Obama said at the time that: “We
now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border
than at any time in our history. The Border Patrol has 20,000
agents—more than twice as many as there were in 2004, a
build-up that began under President Bush and that we have
continued.” And contrary to what many people think, Obama
actually deported more people per year than Trump.

We must confront the crisis in society with a bold revolutionary socialist programme,
exposing this rotten system which only brings violence, misery and oppression / Image:
Paul Sableman
While Trump did not create ICE, he has radicalised the
agency, giving them a much broader direction. In the words of
the ex-director of ICE, Thomas Homan, Trump took “the
handcuffs off,” allowing ICE to more indiscriminately go after
the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
Indeed, mass raids have begun all over the country, terrorising
immigrant families and arresting immigrant workers while at
work. This is in spite of the fact that two thirds of these 11
million people have lived in the US for more than 10 years.
The point, however, isn’t actually to deport 11 million people, a
monumental task which the U.S. clearly does not have the
resources to do. The point is to spread fear. “The main design
is to send a message that the current administration is willing
to enforce the existing immigration laws, and the raids also act
as a deterrent,” said Matthew Kolken, an immigration attorney
in Buffalo, New York.
It is in this heightened atmosphere that more and more
fascists are taking matters into their own hands, spreading
terror among immigrant communities. This is a desperate
situation and people demand answers. What is to be done?
In order to counter far-right violence, the liberals take a
completely hypocritical approach. They ignore the link
between far-right violence, imperialist immigration policy, and
the capitalist crisis. They peddle an unscientific horseshoe
theory, that the anti-fascists are the same as the fascists. They
talk about violence in the abstract and propose giving the state
forces more control over guns. But the police are not neutral
arbiters and it has been proven on many occasions that they
actually work hand in hand with the far right.
In reality, gun control is not going to solve the violence of the
far right. What we need is mass working-class opposition and
working-class self defence. We saw a fantastic example of this
just a week after the Charlottesville attack in Boston, where a
mass demonstration shut down a far-right rally and sent them
crawling back into their holes.
As capitalist society continues to decay, the famous slogan
“socialism or barbarism” maintains all of its relevance today.
The rise in fascist violence, the refugee crisis and imperialist
wars are just the most pressing examples of this. The crisis of
capitalism is exacerbating all of the ills of society and people
are being radicalised, to the right and to the left. We cannot
fight the far right with status-quo liberalism which
perpetuates all of the same wars, inequality and austerity. We
must confront the crisis in society with a bold revolutionary
socialist programme, exposing this rotten system which only
brings violence, misery and oppression.
Hong Kong: “path of no
return” – either class
struggle or defeat
 Print

Parson Young
14 August 2019
Workers' Struggles China Featured Hong Kong

Image: Studio Incendo

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Hong Kong’s earthshaking protest movement is entering its
second month. Despite increasing pressure from Beijing and
the Carrie Lam government, the movement still grows in
militancy. It is graduating from bourgeois liberal methods
towards the method of class struggle. In many ways, when
Carrie Lam emerged from days of obscurity to respond to the
general strike, she was right to say that the Hong Kong
movement is heading towards a “path of no return.”
The Hong Kong masses are pressing ahead to overcome the
acute social contradictions created by the capitalist system,
despite the myriad of confusion introduced by all sorts of
nefarious elements. Yet, without a Marxist political leadership,
a class struggle perspective, and a socialist programme, the
reactionary fetters introduced by bourgeois liberal and
reformist leaders will become an absolute fetter to the
advancement of the working-class interests of the Hong Kong
masses as a whole.
On Monday, 5 August, the Hong Kong masses strived to make
history, as a general strike was attempted. The last, fully
realised general strike in the city took place in 1925 against the
iron heel of British imperialism.
Historical developments and material circumstances, along
with Stalinist and reformist betrayals, deprived generations of
the Hong Kong working class from a fighting experience and
organisation for a long period. In this early stage of grasping
for a method and strategy, the current movement,
unfortunately, found themselves in a dangerous and
disorientating confluence with pro-western imperialist public
figures’ slogans, perspectives, and interests.
The course of the struggle up to this point highlights the
urgent necessity for a sharp class differentiation to take place.

The historical circumstances that

surrounded the 5 August general strike
Western imperialist powers’ historical pace of development
afforded their ruling classes the time, vitality, and foresight to
craft a system of bourgeois dictatorship, that gave them a wide
range of tools to safeguard their status. This accumulated into
the system of bourgeois democracy, with many slight
variations, but all ultimately ensuring the absolute sanctity of
private property, the nation-state and “rule of law” in order to
maintain the free market and capitalist accumulation, based
on the exploitation of the working class.
The institutions of bourgeois democracy provide the ruling
class with a useful barometer of the mood of the masses,
allowing them to gauge their room for manoeuvre. As Engels
explained in the Origins of Family, Private Property, and the
State:
“As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the
proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will
it, in its majority, recognize the existing order of society as the
only possible one and remain politically the tail of the
capitalist class, its extreme left-wing. But in the measure in
which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same
measure, it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its
own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal
suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class.”

On Monday, 5 August, the Hong Kong masses strived to make history, as a general strike
was attempted. The masses must continue down the road of class struggle or face defeat /
Image: Flickr, Studio Incendo
Democratic rights are exactly what the Beijing regime opts to
avoid. The regime is desperately trying to clamp down on any
attempt at independent, working-class organisation. For the
CCP bureaucracy as a whole, in order to prevent a Chinese
working-class revolution, or its own evisceration by
adversarial western imperialist forces, it can only ensure its
own survival by instituting capitalist counterrevolution on its
own terms, without providing any bourgeois-democratic rights
to the working class.
This is the basis of not only the CCP regime’s rule over Hong
Kong, but more importantly that of the local capitalist class.
The latter plays a significant role in China’s overall capitalist
economy and provided the initial injection of capital into
China that led to the dismantling of the planned economy and
restoration of capitalism. The “One Country, Two Systems”
regime in Hong Kong is chiefly concerned with maintaining
the Hong Kong capitalist class’ dictatorship over the city, as
well as the Chinese market’s access to western finance capital.
For the Beijing bureaucracy, granting any further democratic
concessions to Hong Kong’s masses was never in question, as
it would harm its necessary dictatorship over the Chinese
working class as a whole.
Understanding the above perspectives is of life-and-death
importance for the Hong Kong working class as they enter into
any form of struggle. Any fight for genuinely democratic and
economic gains necessarily raises the need for class-based
methods, and to spread the fight into mainland China.

The winding road to the 5 August strike

The liberal public figures of the present movement have no
such understanding, but they enjoy a great deal of attention
and coverage in the bourgeois media. Even worse, the
reformist labour leadership, purportedly “anti-establishment”
(in Hong Kong this means “anti-Beijing”) sought to negotiate a
tactic that satisfies both the rule of law set by Beijing and the
Hong Kong capitalist class, and the interests of western
imperialism. They reflect the fact that the Hong Kong
bourgeois have common interests with the Chinese bourgeois
in maintaining the ruthless exploitation of the workers of
Hong Kong and the mainland.
In the initial eruption of the present movement in early June,
which necessarily had a spontaneous nature, the call for a
general strike was already present. It was strengthened in
influence by Carrie Lam’s outright refusal to back down in the
face of millions-strong peaceful demonstrations in June. To
date, even prior to the 5 August strikes, the Hong Kong masses
already dealt tangible blows to the bosses. According to
the Financial Times, private sector business activities of the
city already dropped to their lowest point since the last global
financial crisis.
In the face of such a strong call for class struggle, rather than
seriously organising a general strike, the liberal Civil Human
Rights Front twice endorsed and later repealed the call for
one. The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions
(HKCTU), under the leadership of Carol Ng, priding
themselves as the “genuine union leadership” against the
Beijing-controlled Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions
(HKFTU), chose to repeatedly characterise the general strike
as a “mass day-off”, i.e. the workers needed permission from
their employers in order to strike. This is the same explanation
that the HKCTU offered the working class in the run-up to the
5 August attempt at a general strike.
At the end of the 5 August strike, Carol Ng said that 35,000
workers joined the strike, which she claimed was one-third of
her members. Yet the HKCTU’s membership, as of 2017,
appears to be 140,000. While not insignificant, the HKCTU
failed to mobilise the great majority of its forces. To turn this
around, it needs to not only convince more unionised and
unorganised workers to join, but go on to form a mass party of
the working class with a fighting socialist programme, clearly
opposed to capitalism and the bosses, and willing to struggle
outside of the bounds of laws set by the CCP and Hong Kong
capitalists.

Suicidal perspectives of the liberals

The more liberal, petty-bourgeois student figures such as
Joshua Wong, the Demosisto party’s most famous cofounder,
have been playing an even more destructive role, repeatedly
calling for US, European, and Japanese intervention. This is in
spite of Trump openly characterising the Hong Kong
movement as “riots,” likely to momentarily placate China in
the present trade war. Wong furthermore openly thanked
Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her statement
endorsing the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy
Act” sponsored by Chris Smith (R-NJ), who is an anti-
abortion, anti-LGBTQ, imperialist reactionary.
In the June storming of the Legislative Council building,
where the British colonial flag was flown, Wong claimed that it
was a desperate measure because “we’ve tried everything.”
How flying the colonial flag would help is anyone’s guess. Did
they expect the British imperialists to send in the navy to
protect democratic rights in Hong Kong? As Trump’s
statements show, the rights of the people of Hong Kong are
only small change in the struggle between imperialist powers.
In addition, they had not “tried everything”. They had made
no serious attempt to mobilise the working class. It was before
the general strike was even attempted.

The experience of the 5 August strike

The Hong Kong international airport has become a battlefield in the present struggle.
Since the mass work stoppage there on 5 August, many protesters have staged
occupations / Image: Wpcpey
The 5 August general strike was finally realised through the
distorted prism of the liberal leadership. The most valiant
efforts should be attributed to the airport workers. 3,000 flight
attendants, ground logistic workers and more took a mass sick
day to paralyse Hong Kong International airport. This is the
most significant achievement of the day, and should be
nurtured well beyond observing a sick day. It should be
escalated to an active strike that disregards the interests of
employers, culminating in workers’ occupation and control of
the facilities.
An attempt was made to close down the subways, but with
mixed results. It was true that several MTR workers shut down
the stations they worked in, and there were also individual
protestors who don’t work in the stations, who halted the
closing of trains in order to stall them. To the credit of these
protestors, hours of preparatory propaganda work was held in
the stations, but they failed to win a majority of the subway
workers. This was needed in order to completely shut down
the MTR and lend the strike a necessary legitimacy to all
commuting working people. The failure to do so again falls
upon the union leadership’s lack of effort towards discussion
and preparation for a workplace strike vote.
The labour leadership’s failure to consistently take charge in
class-conscious, militant and organised action meant the role
of militant action fell to youths, who lacked familiarity with
class struggle methods and slogans. In the face of brutal police
repression, enduring rubber bullets and teargas, the slogan of
“Reclaim Hong Kong, Revolution of our time” became
popularised. This ambiguous slogan nevertheless has some
history. It was first raised by far-right, anti-Chinese “localist”
Edward Leung during his bid for a Legislative Council seat in
2016. The use of the slogan provided ammunition for the CCP
regime. In the second press conference held by the State
Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office, spokesperson
Yang Guang took advantage of this ambiguity and asked “who
are these people ‘reclaiming’ Hong Kong for?” He was
implying that the movement sought to submit Hong Kong to
western imperialism once again. This, along with some
individuals spray painting hateful words like “Chinks” and
“locusts” only deepen the Chinese working class’s perception
that this entire movement is antagonistic to Chinese people as
a whole, playing into the hands of Beijing.
If this perception is allowed to continue, and reactionary
figures are ceaselessly condoned in speaking on behalf of the
movement, then the precious organisational lessons and
experiences that the Hong Kong masses have obtained from
their day-to-day struggle against state power (i.e. how to
handle teargas, how to evade facial recognition using lasers,
and such), will not spread beyond the borders of the city and
benefit the world’s working class in their future struggles.
They will simply go to waste.
It is precisely through these developments that Beijing
launched its ban on reporting on Hong Kong inside the
mainland. It serves to enhance their propaganda that the
Hong Kong movement as a Chinese-hating, western
imperialist-sponsored movement, completely antagonistic to
the interests of the Chinese working class.

A path to victory, or a road to defeat

The Chinese government is attempting to avoid direct
intervention by the PLA for now. This would risk spreading
the movement to the mainland, which is precisely what Beijing
wants to avoid. Yet, it is unlikely that Beijing will opt to grant
any concessions to the movement, economic or political.
During the second HKMAO press conference, a CCP state
spokesperson attributed the large presence of youths in Hong
Kong’s protest, not to dire economic contradictions, but due to
“poor patriotic education” or Hong Kong youths’ “lack of
interaction with the rest of China and the world.” This is
necessary because the fiction that ”One Country, Two
Systems” has brought prosperity to Hong Kong’s masses needs
to be maintained. China also cannot afford to set an example
of granting large-scale welfare or democratic reforms to Hong
Kong when capitalism is also plunging the rest of the country
into the very same social contradictions happening in Hong
Kong.
The Hong Kong police will likely be used to crush the movement when it shows any sign
of decline / Image: Studio Incendo
The Hong Kong police will likely be the mailed fist against the
movement when it shows any sign of decline. Hong Kong’s
government already purchased riot trucks from France,
equipped with water cannon. The Hong Kong police, co-led by
British-born Chief superintendent Rupert Dover, is openly
advertising a staining technology on its official facebook to
warn that any protester would be stained with ink that would
help the police identify them for days afterwards.
Thus, Beijing and the Hong Kong government will bide their
time, continually increasing pressure via the Hong Kong
police, and counting on liberal public figures and the lack of
class struggle leadership to steer the movement into confusion
and demoralisation. After which, fierce political repression
will be unleashed.
The only way out of this scenario is to broaden the movement
into mainland China. Marxists welcome the calls for more
strike and the masses’ willingness to continue the fight, but
the struggle needs to not only elevate to a higher
organisational level, with the formation of a strike committee
from representatives elected by all Hong Kong workers and
youths who are participating in the struggle, but also actively
broaden the struggle itself beyond Hong Kong.
Any honest, consistent democrats, youths and socialists in
Hong Kong must immediately begin propaganda towards the
broader Chinese masses to counter the government’s slander
in Mandarin Chinese, and clearly include the daily economic
needs of mainland Chinese workers into their own programme
and demands. They also need to openly criticise and
marginalise their current liberal and reformist leadership, to
steer the movement into a consistent class struggle with a
socialist programme that provides a solution to housing,
income and all economic crises that afflict working people
across East Asia. Any anti-Chinese, anti-Communist, or pro-
Western imperialist sentiments must be immediately
repudiated and jettisoned, for they will only bring the
movement towards destruction.

Hong Kong: “path of no

return” – either class
struggle or defeat
 Print

Parson Young
14 August 2019
Workers' Struggles China Featured Hong Kong
 Image: Studio Incendo

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Hong Kong’s earthshaking protest movement is entering its
second month. Despite increasing pressure from Beijing and
the Carrie Lam government, the movement still grows in
militancy. It is graduating from bourgeois liberal methods
towards the method of class struggle. In many ways, when
Carrie Lam emerged from days of obscurity to respond to the
general strike, she was right to say that the Hong Kong
movement is heading towards a “path of no return.”
The Hong Kong masses are pressing ahead to overcome the
acute social contradictions created by the capitalist system,
despite the myriad of confusion introduced by all sorts of
nefarious elements. Yet, without a Marxist political leadership,
a class struggle perspective, and a socialist programme, the
reactionary fetters introduced by bourgeois liberal and
reformist leaders will become an absolute fetter to the
advancement of the working-class interests of the Hong Kong
masses as a whole.
On Monday, 5 August, the Hong Kong masses strived to make
history, as a general strike was attempted. The last, fully
realised general strike in the city took place in 1925 against the
iron heel of British imperialism.
Historical developments and material circumstances, along
with Stalinist and reformist betrayals, deprived generations of
the Hong Kong working class from a fighting experience and
organisation for a long period. In this early stage of grasping
for a method and strategy, the current movement,
unfortunately, found themselves in a dangerous and
disorientating confluence with pro-western imperialist public
figures’ slogans, perspectives, and interests.
The course of the struggle up to this point highlights the
urgent necessity for a sharp class differentiation to take place.

The historical circumstances that

surrounded the 5 August general strike
Western imperialist powers’ historical pace of development
afforded their ruling classes the time, vitality, and foresight to
craft a system of bourgeois dictatorship, that gave them a wide
range of tools to safeguard their status. This accumulated into
the system of bourgeois democracy, with many slight
variations, but all ultimately ensuring the absolute sanctity of
private property, the nation-state and “rule of law” in order to
maintain the free market and capitalist accumulation, based
on the exploitation of the working class.
The institutions of bourgeois democracy provide the ruling
class with a useful barometer of the mood of the masses,
allowing them to gauge their room for manoeuvre. As Engels
explained in the Origins of Family, Private Property, and the
State:
“As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the
proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will
it, in its majority, recognize the existing order of society as the
only possible one and remain politically the tail of the
capitalist class, its extreme left-wing. But in the measure in
which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same
measure, it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its
own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal
suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class.”
On Monday, 5 August, the Hong Kong masses strived to make history, as a general strike
was attempted. The masses must continue down the road of class struggle or face defeat /
Image: Flickr, Studio Incendo
Democratic rights are exactly what the Beijing regime opts to
avoid. The regime is desperately trying to clamp down on any
attempt at independent, working-class organisation. For the
CCP bureaucracy as a whole, in order to prevent a Chinese
working-class revolution, or its own evisceration by
adversarial western imperialist forces, it can only ensure its
own survival by instituting capitalist counterrevolution on its
own terms, without providing any bourgeois-democratic rights
to the working class.
This is the basis of not only the CCP regime’s rule over Hong
Kong, but more importantly that of the local capitalist class.
The latter plays a significant role in China’s overall capitalist
economy and provided the initial injection of capital into
China that led to the dismantling of the planned economy and
restoration of capitalism. The “One Country, Two Systems”
regime in Hong Kong is chiefly concerned with maintaining
the Hong Kong capitalist class’ dictatorship over the city, as
well as the Chinese market’s access to western finance capital.
For the Beijing bureaucracy, granting any further democratic
concessions to Hong Kong’s masses was never in question, as
it would harm its necessary dictatorship over the Chinese
working class as a whole.
Understanding the above perspectives is of life-and-death
importance for the Hong Kong working class as they enter into
any form of struggle. Any fight for genuinely democratic and
economic gains necessarily raises the need for class-based
methods, and to spread the fight into mainland China.

The winding road to the 5 August strike

The liberal public figures of the present movement have no
such understanding, but they enjoy a great deal of attention
and coverage in the bourgeois media. Even worse, the
reformist labour leadership, purportedly “anti-establishment”
(in Hong Kong this means “anti-Beijing”) sought to negotiate a
tactic that satisfies both the rule of law set by Beijing and the
Hong Kong capitalist class, and the interests of western
imperialism. They reflect the fact that the Hong Kong
bourgeois have common interests with the Chinese bourgeois
in maintaining the ruthless exploitation of the workers of
Hong Kong and the mainland.
In the initial eruption of the present movement in early June,
which necessarily had a spontaneous nature, the call for a
general strike was already present. It was strengthened in
influence by Carrie Lam’s outright refusal to back down in the
face of millions-strong peaceful demonstrations in June. To
date, even prior to the 5 August strikes, the Hong Kong masses
already dealt tangible blows to the bosses. According to
the Financial Times, private sector business activities of the
city already dropped to their lowest point since the last global
financial crisis.
In the face of such a strong call for class struggle, rather than
seriously organising a general strike, the liberal Civil Human
Rights Front twice endorsed and later repealed the call for
one. The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions
(HKCTU), under the leadership of Carol Ng, priding
themselves as the “genuine union leadership” against the
Beijing-controlled Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions
(HKFTU), chose to repeatedly characterise the general strike
as a “mass day-off”, i.e. the workers needed permission from
their employers in order to strike. This is the same explanation
that the HKCTU offered the working class in the run-up to the
5 August attempt at a general strike.
At the end of the 5 August strike, Carol Ng said that 35,000
workers joined the strike, which she claimed was one-third of
her members. Yet the HKCTU’s membership, as of 2017,
appears to be 140,000. While not insignificant, the HKCTU
failed to mobilise the great majority of its forces. To turn this
around, it needs to not only convince more unionised and
unorganised workers to join, but go on to form a mass party of
the working class with a fighting socialist programme, clearly
opposed to capitalism and the bosses, and willing to struggle
outside of the bounds of laws set by the CCP and Hong Kong
capitalists.

Suicidal perspectives of the liberals

The more liberal, petty-bourgeois student figures such as
Joshua Wong, the Demosisto party’s most famous cofounder,
have been playing an even more destructive role, repeatedly
calling for US, European, and Japanese intervention. This is in
spite of Trump openly characterising the Hong Kong
movement as “riots,” likely to momentarily placate China in
the present trade war. Wong furthermore openly thanked
Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her statement
endorsing the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy
Act” sponsored by Chris Smith (R-NJ), who is an anti-
abortion, anti-LGBTQ, imperialist reactionary.
In the June storming of the Legislative Council building,
where the British colonial flag was flown, Wong claimed that it
was a desperate measure because “we’ve tried everything.”
How flying the colonial flag would help is anyone’s guess. Did
they expect the British imperialists to send in the navy to
protect democratic rights in Hong Kong? As Trump’s
statements show, the rights of the people of Hong Kong are
only small change in the struggle between imperialist powers.
In addition, they had not “tried everything”. They had made
no serious attempt to mobilise the working class. It was before
the general strike was even attempted.

The experience of the 5 August strike

The Hong Kong international airport has become a battlefield in the present struggle.
Since the mass work stoppage there on 5 August, many protesters have staged
occupations / Image: Wpcpey
The 5 August general strike was finally realised through the
distorted prism of the liberal leadership. The most valiant
efforts should be attributed to the airport workers. 3,000 flight
attendants, ground logistic workers and more took a mass sick
day to paralyse Hong Kong International airport. This is the
most significant achievement of the day, and should be
nurtured well beyond observing a sick day. It should be
escalated to an active strike that disregards the interests of
employers, culminating in workers’ occupation and control of
the facilities.
An attempt was made to close down the subways, but with
mixed results. It was true that several MTR workers shut down
the stations they worked in, and there were also individual
protestors who don’t work in the stations, who halted the
closing of trains in order to stall them. To the credit of these
protestors, hours of preparatory propaganda work was held in
the stations, but they failed to win a majority of the subway
workers. This was needed in order to completely shut down
the MTR and lend the strike a necessary legitimacy to all
commuting working people. The failure to do so again falls
upon the union leadership’s lack of effort towards discussion
and preparation for a workplace strike vote.
The labour leadership’s failure to consistently take charge in
class-conscious, militant and organised action meant the role
of militant action fell to youths, who lacked familiarity with
class struggle methods and slogans. In the face of brutal police
repression, enduring rubber bullets and teargas, the slogan of
“Reclaim Hong Kong, Revolution of our time” became
popularised. This ambiguous slogan nevertheless has some
history. It was first raised by far-right, anti-Chinese “localist”
Edward Leung during his bid for a Legislative Council seat in
2016. The use of the slogan provided ammunition for the CCP
regime. In the second press conference held by the State
Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office, spokesperson
Yang Guang took advantage of this ambiguity and asked “who
are these people ‘reclaiming’ Hong Kong for?” He was
implying that the movement sought to submit Hong Kong to
western imperialism once again. This, along with some
individuals spray painting hateful words like “Chinks” and
“locusts” only deepen the Chinese working class’s perception
that this entire movement is antagonistic to Chinese people as
a whole, playing into the hands of Beijing.
If this perception is allowed to continue, and reactionary
figures are ceaselessly condoned in speaking on behalf of the
movement, then the precious organisational lessons and
experiences that the Hong Kong masses have obtained from
their day-to-day struggle against state power (i.e. how to
handle teargas, how to evade facial recognition using lasers,
and such), will not spread beyond the borders of the city and
benefit the world’s working class in their future struggles.
They will simply go to waste.
It is precisely through these developments that Beijing
launched its ban on reporting on Hong Kong inside the
mainland. It serves to enhance their propaganda that the
Hong Kong movement as a Chinese-hating, western
imperialist-sponsored movement, completely antagonistic to
the interests of the Chinese working class.

A path to victory, or a road to defeat

The Chinese government is attempting to avoid direct
intervention by the PLA for now. This would risk spreading
the movement to the mainland, which is precisely what Beijing
wants to avoid. Yet, it is unlikely that Beijing will opt to grant
any concessions to the movement, economic or political.
During the second HKMAO press conference, a CCP state
spokesperson attributed the large presence of youths in Hong
Kong’s protest, not to dire economic contradictions, but due to
“poor patriotic education” or Hong Kong youths’ “lack of
interaction with the rest of China and the world.” This is
necessary because the fiction that ”One Country, Two
Systems” has brought prosperity to Hong Kong’s masses needs
to be maintained. China also cannot afford to set an example
of granting large-scale welfare or democratic reforms to Hong
Kong when capitalism is also plunging the rest of the country
into the very same social contradictions happening in Hong
Kong.
The Hong Kong police will likely be used to crush the movement when it shows any sign
of decline / Image: Studio Incendo
The Hong Kong police will likely be the mailed fist against the
movement when it shows any sign of decline. Hong Kong’s
government already purchased riot trucks from France,
equipped with water cannon. The Hong Kong police, co-led by
British-born Chief superintendent Rupert Dover, is openly
advertising a staining technology on its official facebook to
warn that any protester would be stained with ink that would
help the police identify them for days afterwards.
Thus, Beijing and the Hong Kong government will bide their
time, continually increasing pressure via the Hong Kong
police, and counting on liberal public figures and the lack of
class struggle leadership to steer the movement into confusion
and demoralisation. After which, fierce political repression
will be unleashed.
The only way out of this scenario is to broaden the movement
into mainland China. Marxists welcome the calls for more
strike and the masses’ willingness to continue the fight, but
the struggle needs to not only elevate to a higher
organisational level, with the formation of a strike committee
from representatives elected by all Hong Kong workers and
youths who are participating in the struggle, but also actively
broaden the struggle itself beyond Hong Kong.
Any honest, consistent democrats, youths and socialists in
Hong Kong must immediately begin propaganda towards the
broader Chinese masses to counter the government’s slander
in Mandarin Chinese, and clearly include the daily economic
needs of mainland Chinese workers into their own programme
and demands. They also need to openly criticise and
marginalise their current liberal and reformist leadership, to
steer the movement into a consistent class struggle with a
socialist programme that provides a solution to housing,
income and all economic crises that afflict working people
across East Asia. Any anti-Chinese, anti-Communist, or pro-
Western imperialist sentiments must be immediately
repudiated and jettisoned, for they will only bring the
movement towards destruction.

Reflections on El Paso
By: Steve LeighAugust 15, 2019

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The intense revulsion over the

horrific slaughter in El Paso has shifted politics. But beware of ruling
class solutions to crises caused by the ruling class.
The revulsion at white supremacy has even forced a temporary
change in Trump’s rhetoric. On August 5, he denounced both racism
and “white supremacy,” a marked contrast to his response to
Chalottesville in August 2017 when he praised the “fine people” on
both sides.

The likely response of fascists is to see it as a wink and a nod,

something he was politically required to do and doesn’t mean. A TV
clip from a rally in the Florida panhandle shows Trump nodding and
laughing as an audience member calls for shooting people who
cross the border. But the liberal response, to create a new crime of
“domestic terrorism,” will likely ramp up repression of the Left and
people of color. Senator Ted Cruz has already called for naming
Antifa a terrorist “organization.” And Trump’s willingness to take
guns away from particular people would no doubt take weapons
from his political opponents and scapegoats – blacks, other people
of color, and victimized groups.

Though the movement against gun violence especially by young

people is a positive sign, each measure of gun control needs to be
assessed on its merits. Removing the ban on health and safety
research on gun violence would be a step forward. So would
allowing law suits against gun manufacturers and banning the
production of assault rifles. Background checks are quite popular but
in today’s climate would be applied in a racist way and against poor
people.

The U.S. government, as said by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is the
“greatest purveyor of violence” in the world. With an average of
over 1,000 civilians killed by police in the U.S. every year, guns in
the hands of police are a major source of the gun death problem.
Gun control advocates should take up disarmament of the police
and military as a major priority. Not only would this cut the number
of gun deaths but it would also reduce the fetishization of guns in
society. (For more discussion of a socialist view on gun control see
Danny Katch’s excellent piece in Socialist Worker.)

Trump’s identification of mental illness as a source of mass killing is

much debated, and it is important to oppose attempts to further
victimize the mentally ill, as Trump intends – for instance by
increasing the use of involuntary commitment. Obviously, quality
mental health services aimed at creating loving, empathetic,
socially engaged, egalitarian, humane people would be a step
forward. Many practitioners try to do this. But funding for such
mental health services are limited.

What is considered mentally ill is based on the prevailing ideology.

Obviously no fully mentally well person walks into a public place and
slaughters multiple strangers. But the mental state of individuals is
reflective of the societies they live in. The issue of mental illness is
not generally raised about other horrific acts. Were the government
officials who decided to drop the first A-bomb on Hiroshima mentally
ill? How about the drone pilots who sit in trailers in Las Vegas and
slaughter civilians from afar?

Is the idea of using nuclear weapons in war mass insanity? Could it

be cured by enough psychiatrist couches and proper meds?

Politicians who express horror at the events of El Paso and Dayton

vote without apology to spend trillions of dollars on a military
budget and foreign policies that kill tens of thousands of civilians.
They shed tears over the children of El Paso killed by a violent racist,
but shed few tears over Palestinian children killed by Israel, the
largest recipient of U.S. aid. They say it is wrong to kill 20+ innocent
victims on U.S. soil, but they don’t notice it when the same number
of innocent Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis are slaughtered via U.S. bombs,
dollars and political support.
The individual mental status of mass murders has to been seen in
light of the values and operation of our sick social system,
capitalism, that prioritizes profit over human needs. It
institutionalizes and justifies racism, misogyny, war, environmental
destruction. The problem is not aberrant mental illness but sick
capitalist normalcy.

The level of alienation that capitalism produces is so great that the

wonder is that there are not more episodes of mass slaughter.
Human compassion, solidarity, and sociability are constantly at war
with the nasty, individualistic, patriarchal training of capitalism. We
can only marvel at the examples of heroic self-sacrifice reported in
every situation like El Paso. There is a constant war for the soul of
humanity and capitalism is doing all it can to win the war against
human decency.

Finally, we need to look at how politicians are using this tragedy.

Obviously, politicians who criticize Trump are correct to do so.
However, the Democratic Party politicians are responsible for the
conditions that cause El Paso as well. The Democrats continue to
preside over a system that spends trillions on warfare but cannot fix
crumbling roads and bridges, provide affordable education, ensure
access to decent health care that won’t end in medical bankruptcy,
or provide enough jobs that pay a living wage.

Democratic politicians are quite willing to oppose Trump’s open

racism. However, they are not willing to do anything about the racist
conditions that are the basis of racist attitudes.

For example, they oppose Trump’s new border wall, but they have
voted for border fences and walls in the past. More fundamentally,
they are mostly for “comprehensive immigration reform.” This is
founded on a racist premise: that people should be granted and
denied rights based on where they were born. It legitimates
deportation and the breakup of families – whether in the “kind”
Democratic way or the nasty Republican way. Any form of border
control legitimates discrimination against people based on national
origin. In U.S. conditions, this discrimination will always be exercised
in a racist way. Hispanics and Blacks are much more likely to be
arrested and deported than white Europeans. Obama deported more
people than any previous president.

Confronting the conditions that cause racism would require a direct

confrontation with capitalism. Democrats are unwilling to do this
since their party is funded and run by big business.

Those who really oppose future slaughters like the one in El Paso
cannot rely on politicians to alleviate the problem. We need to
directly confront white supremacist movements but also the
conditions that encourage racism and misogyny. We need to provide
a positive alternative to the misery that people face. We need to
focus the anger people feel on the capitalist system and those who
benefit from it – rather than on other oppressed members of the
working class.

Posted Race & Race Relations, Social Policy

The rising in 1820 was a challenge to

the state
The Radical War in Scotland two centuries ago saw a mass strike movement, plans
for armed rebellion—and then bitter government repression, writes Charlie
McKinnon
A mural remembering the later movement for parliamentary reform

On 24 July 1820 the Lord President of the High Court in Glasgow sentenced the radical
activist James Wilson to be hung, drawn and quartered.

Wilson who had been found guilty of high treason, then stood up and defiantly addressed
the court.

“I have neither expected justice nor mercy here,” he said. “I have done my duty to my
country. I have grappled with her oppressors.

“I am ready to lay down my life in support of these principles which must ultimately
triumph.”
The brutal history of Peterloo
Read More
Wilson was later executed in front of a crowd of over 20,000. A few weeks later his fellow
radicals John Baird and Andrew Hardie were also executed for high treason.

So ended the Scottish insurrection of 1820. Variously known as the Radical War of 1820,
the Radical Rising or Scotland’s Peterloo, it has not attracted the coverage that one
might have expected of a major upheaval that shook the British state.

The rebellion was a revolutionary insurrection against the government by a radical

movement for political reform that had grown frustrated by the government’s
contemptuous and repeated dismissal of its demands. The radicals wanted universal
suffrage, annual Parliaments and payment of MPs.

The rising began on 1 April 1820 when a proclamation signed by The Committee of
Organisation for forming a Provisional Government was displayed across Glasgow and
other areas of central Scotland.

It called for a strike but also urged soldiers to rebel.

Around 60,000 workers obeyed the strike call—a remarkable number at a time when the
working class was very small.

In a letter to the Home Office, Glasgow’s Lord Provost Henry Monteith noted with alarm,
“Almost the whole population of the working classes have obeyed the orders contained in
the treasonable proclamation.”

The strike and the rebellion that followed were supposed to be coordinated with a rising
by English radicals.
The Scottish radicals had been stockpiling weapons and were drilling in preparation for
revolt. But the rising in England did not materialise.

Nonetheless a small group of 35 radicals led by Hardie and Baird marched on the Carron
Iron works in Falkirk in an attempt to seize arms and munitions.

They were intercepted near Kilsyth by troops of the 10th Hussars and the Stirlingshire
Yeomanry.

After a brief skirmish, in which both soldiers and radicals were wounded, 20 of the
radicals including Baird and Hardie were taken prisoner.

Another group of radicals led by James Wilson marched from Strathaven 15 miles
outside of Glasgow to link up with radicals thought to be planning an attack on Glasgow.

At a meeting before they set out John Stevenson, one of the leaders, said, “If we
succeed it will not be a rebellion, it will be a revolution and we shall receive the gratitude
and thanks of a free and happy nation.”

However, hearing news that the insurrection had failed they disbanded and tried to return
home. Twelve were arrested including Wilson.

Escorting

A further disturbance took place at Greenock, outside Glasgow, when soldiers escorting
radical prisoners came under attack from an angry crowd determined to free them. Ten
people were killed by the soldiers.

The catalyst for the radical rising was the Peterloo massacre at Saint Peter’s Field
Manchester on 16 August 1819. Then cavalry and yeomanry charged unarmed
demonstrators calling for parliamentary reform.

The bloody repression at Peterloo triggered a wave of solidarity protest meetings across
Scotland. A memorial rally of about 5,000 radicals in Paisley resulted in clashes between
protesters and cavalry which provoked a week of rioting. However, the causes of the
radical rising ran deeper than Peterloo.

Widespread economic distress fuelled political discontent. It was made worse after 1815
by the huge increase in unemployment at the end of the Napoleonic wars.

Returning soldiers sought employment and workers in the armaments industry were laid
off.

Increased competition for jobs encouraged ruthless employers to cut wages.

The Tory government’s shift to taxation on the products people bought led to big
increases in the prices of staple goods.

This meant widespread poverty and near-famine conditions in some parts of Scotland.

The number of trade unions had also grown in the first decade of the 19th century,
formalising divisions between workers and bosses.

This led to a number of bitter strikes which helped radicalise workers.

In 1812 over 40,000 weavers, regarded as the vanguard of Scotland’s radical reform
movement, struck for higher wages.

After eight weeks they were starved back to work.

In the years leading up to Peterloo and the Radical Rising of 1820 the radical reform
movement in Scotland put its energies into petitioning Parliament for reform.

In October 1816 a meeting of over 40,000 radicals at Thrushgrove just outside Glasgow
agreed to petition Parliament for reform.

The government contemptuously dismissed the petition.

Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth said the radicals “had Parliamentary reform in their
mouths but rebellion and revolution in their hearts”.

The failure of the petitioning movement convinced many radicals that “moral force” would
not shift the government and that “physical force”—armed rebellion—was necessary.

This was reinforced by the memory of the brutal suppression of the radical reform group
the Friends of the People and its successor the United Scotsmen in the 1790s.

There is debate surrounding aspects of the 1820 rising.

Some nationalist historians argue that the rebellion failed because government agents
provoked the rising before the radicals were fully prepared.

They also argue that the rising was a nationalist uprising which aimed to set up an
independent Scottish parliament.

But there is no real evidence for either claim.

The failure of the Radical Rising convinced many radicals of the need to continue
establishing trade unions as a means of securing gains for working class people.

It also inspired the movement for reform which culminated in the Great Reform Act of
1832 and the Chartist agitation across Britain in the 1830s and 40s.

The rising showed an emerging, militant and combative working class engaging in a
revolutionary struggle against the British state.

Central to its strategy was a mass general strike and an attempt at a general insurrection.

The Radical Rising of 1820 was a hugely significant event and should be celebrated as
an important part of our shared radical history.

Rise Like Lions: the story behind

Peterloo massacre
by Emma Martin

Manchester councillor Pat Karney called the recent riots “one of the worst days in
Manchester’s history”.
Perhaps he forgot about the horror unleashed by the authorities in a vital and violent
episode of the city’s past that became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

On 16 August 1819 Manchester’s Yeomanry Cavalry rode into thousands of unarmed

protesters with sabres drawn, killing 18 and injuring 650.

The protesters had courageously demonstrated for political representation despite the
virtual military occupation of Manchester.

Mark Krantz explores the history and the lessons of this event in his pamphlet Rise Like
Lions.

The title comes from a line in Percy Shelley’s poem The Masque of Anarchy, written in
response to the massacre.

Mark explains the appalling conditions and exploitation faced by workers in the Industrial
Revolution that led to this resistance.

He plots the revolts, politicisation and development of the first organised working class
movement, under banners such as “Unite and be free” and “Equal representation or
death”.

And the continued fightback that Peterloo inspired and informed are explored with clarity
and warmth.

Rise Like Lions analyses a crucial chapter in the rich history of a city once described as
“the most seditious part of the country”.

Let’s hope it can live up to that reputation on 2 October when we protest at the Tory party
conference in Manchester.

Rise Like Lions by Mark Krantz

Pamphlet out now (£2)

The real story of Peterloo

The Peterloo massacre exposed our rulers’ brutality. But a new history also shows
how the workers’ movement was militant and inclusive from its birth, writes Judy
Cox
A scene from Mike Leigh’s 2018 film Peterloo, showing crowds rallying before the massacre

There was no “Battle of Peterloo”—there was an atrocity. It took place 200 years ago but
still inspires an anger that is expressed brilliantly in a new history by Robert Poole.

There was a riot at Peterloo but it was not the crowd that rioted—it was the forces of
order.

On 16 August 1819 a crowd of tens of thousands of peaceful, if defiant, men, women and
children, was mown down without warning or provocation.

The perpetrators were the Salford and Manchester Yeomanry, special constables armed
with truncheons and hussars who used their horses as weapons.

The Yeomanry sharpened their sabres specially for the occasion.

Within a few minutes at least 17 people were killed and 700 seriously injured, among
them many women and children.

The casualties were inflicted face to face with the “forces of order” attacking the injured
and chasing their victims through streets as they tried to escape.

Peterloo was, Poole rightly insists, an atrocity committed to silence a militant working
class movement, sanctioned at the highest level of the British government.

The massacre was not only the bloodiest political event in 19th century Britain, it was
also the only one witnessed by national and regional newspapers.

Poole has placed moving eyewitness accounts within a wider explanation of the -
formation of the blood-spattered British state.

Just four years before Peterloo, the British army emerged victorious from 22 years of war
against France.
Tories’ last big split denied them a majority for 30 years
Read More
Some 800,000 men, a fifth of the adult male population, were mobilised from Britain.

The war left a country wracked by hunger and grief, and a British establishment, as Poole
says, “at its most established”.

The “Old Corruption” as reformer William Cobbett named it was an iron-fisted imperial
power.

Reform leader Henry Hunt declared, “The war was carried on, not to preserve this
country from the horrors of the French Revolution.

“It has been from the beginning a war against the principles of liberty.”

The experience of war fuelled demands for reform and for the vote for all taxpayers.

Living conditions in post-war Manchester, the cradle of industrialisation, shocked visitors.

Falling wages, rising prices and insecure work left families on the brink of starvation. The
hated Corn Laws, introduced in 1815, banned the import of cheap grain.

Food rioters’ common slogan, “Better to be hanged than starved,” added legitimacy to
demands for political reform.

The reform movement demonstrated great ingenuity in negotiating repressive laws and
police spy networks. Petitioning was legal and helped create organisation. In March 1817
a teenage weaver, John Bagguley, organised the Blanketeers’ March to London to
petition the king for reform.
He declared to the 10,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field, “I am a Republican, a
Leveller, and will never give it up till we have established a republican government.”
Hundreds of marchers were arrested.

The spring of 1818 saw a wave of strikes across Lancashire. Poole pays tribute to the
workers who staged processions and collections that maintained solidarity between very
different groups of workers.

Reformers united their campaign with the strikes, welcoming male and many female
spinners and weavers into the reform movement.

The strikes won important concessions, but many strike leaders and reformers were
arrested. Free market economics were exposed as dependent on political
authoritarianism, as Poole points out.

Home secretary Lord Sidmouth rejected attempts by Lancashire reformers to petition the
king, in a violation of an ancient right.

Reformers responded by launching a hugely effective mass platform campaign, moving

from the politics of petitioning to the politics of confrontation.

Mass meetings attracted around 25,000 people in Birmingham and 50,000 in London’s
Smithfield, where Henry Hunt made common cause with the Irish campaign for
independence from Britain.

Female reform societies grew in confidence and militancy.

In June, a meeting of delegates from local reform societies in Oldham issued a statement
that Poole described as a “potent fusion of economic and political demands”.

It proclaimed, “The labouring part of the people of this country cannot long preserve their
existence: and if they must die either by starvation or in defence of their rights, they
cannot hesitate to prefer the latter.”

Gathering

This was the build-up to a plan for a mass gathering in Manchester’s St Peter’s Fields, to
be addressed by Hunt. This event would become known as the Peterloo Massacre.

August was the middle of the annual Wakes Holiday. People setting off for the long trek
into Manchester from surrounding villages and towns were in festive mood.

Many wore their Sunday best and carried olive branches to demonstrate their peaceful
intentions.

They marched in disciplined formation, carrying colourful banners embroidered with

slogans such as, “Unity and Strength” and “Liberty and Fraternity,” accompanied by pipes
and drums.

Large numbers of women joined the crowd, some in their own contingents.

The female reformers of Oldham carried a banner with the slogan, “Let us die like men,
and not be sold like slaves”. The women of Royston demanded “Annual Parliaments and
Universal Suffrage.”
Irish songs were played to greet the green flags born by contingents of Irish weavers.

By midday the huge crowd was anticipating speeches by radicals including Hunt and
Mary Fildes from the Manchester Committee of Female Reform.

When Hunt stood up to speak, the 40,000-50,000-strong crowd roared its approval. At
this moment magistrates issued a warrant for his arrest.

They were watching events from a first-floor window, aided by a pair of opera glasses.

From his vantage point on the hustings, Hunt could see what others in the crowd could
not. He paused in mid-flow as he saw a group of cavalry charging into the densely-
packed crowed.

Sliced

They sliced indiscriminately at men, women and children as they tried to get to the -
speakers’ platform.

Within minutes, people were sabred, trampled and crushed. Screams echoed across the
square.

The Manchester Guardian described how “the women seemed to be the special objects
of the rage of these bastard soldiers”.

Mary Fildes was slashed by a sabre after her dress caught on a nail as she tried to
escape.

The brutal history of Peterloo

Read More
Those returning to the square later found it strewn with shoes, shawls, hats and bonnets,
as well as bodies.

The injured were turned away by doctors unless they vowed to stop agitating for reform.
Those arrested described their cruel treatment in petitions later submitted to the courts.

Poole gives many moving examples. Heavily pregnant Elizabeth Gaunt was dragged
from a carriage and beaten by special constables before being thrown into jail and
suffering a miscarriage.

Yet people remained defiant. Samuel Bamford found his wife Jemima, who had seen a
woman crushed to death while she was hiding in a cellar.

Together they found their nine year old daughter Anne and set off to march home to
Middleton.

Bamford recalled, “I rejoined my comrades, and forming about a thousand of them into
file, we marched off to the sound of fife and drum, with our only banner waving, we re-
entered the town of Middleton.”

Riots broke out in working class areas of Manchester and protesters tried to reclaim flags
captured by the Yeomanry. The turn to lethal violence occurred in the context of
establishment fear of a rising reform movement. The authorities organised a cover-up.

At official inquests, the dead were found to have wantonly put themselves in harm’s way.

There was no official death toll, and many died slowly, out of sight and unrecorded.

Workers responded with a wave of huge solidarity protests.

The government responded with the repressive Six Acts, but only succeeded in pushing
the movement underground.

It erupted again in the reform riots of 1832, in Chartism and in the women’s suffrage
campaign.

At its birth, the English working class movement was creative, militant and inclusive.

Poole’s history is the book those who protested at Peterloo—and those who continue to
oppose the same vicious ruling class today—deserve.

The brutal history of Peterloo

As director Mike Leigh’s film tells the story of the Peterloo massacre, Simon
Basketter argues the events show how the ruling class reacts when its position is
threatened
A depiction of the massacre at Peterloo

For days people prepared their banners, practised hymns and marched with bands. In
the summer of 1819, Lancashire was filled with excitement.

A campaign for parliamentary reform had called a mass meeting in St Peter’s Field in
Manchester, to be addressed by some of the foremost radical speakers of the time.

On Monday 16 August the field was packed with at least 60,000 men, women and
children.

As the radical speaker Henry Hunt took to the stage, the mood rapidly changed.
Watching from the edge of the field, local magistrates ordered mounted yeomanry to
clear the area.

They charged, followed by cavalry hussars. Their sabres flashed and the air became
thick with the noise of thundering hooves and the screams of the injured.

At least 18 died from their injuries, including a two year old child and a pregnant woman.
Over 600 were injured.

Within moments, recalled the radical Samuel Bamford, most of the crowd had fled.

But “several mounds of human beings still remained where they had fallen, crushed
down and smothered.

Some of these still groaning, others with staring eyes, were gasping for breath, and
others would never breathe more.
“All was silent save those low sounds, and the occasional snorting and pawing of
steeds.”

A cavalryman’s sabre came down on John Lees. Another came up behind the 22 year old
factory worker and slashed his right elbow to the bone.

He was then severely beaten by men wielding truncheons. Lees died from his wounds on
7 September.

Major Thomas Dyneley saw the deserted place strewn with the refuse of conflict. “In
short,” he said with relish, “the field was as complete as I had ever seen one after an
action.”

A poster warning that military exercises relating to 'sedition and treasonable purposes' are illegal

Lees and Dyneley had both fought at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 with the Royal Horse
Artillery.

Murder

A friend wrote that Lees said, “At Waterloo there was man to man; but at Manchester it
was downright murder.”

Major Dyneley wrote in his report that the “first action of the Battle of Manchester is over,
and has I am happy to say ended in the complete discomfiture of the enemy”.

On the day itself, a group of special constables taunted wounded protesters by shouting,

“This is Waterloo for you! This is Waterloo.”

Within days the Manchester Observer newspaper had started calling it Peterloo.

The massacre took place during the severe economic depression that followed two
decades of war. The government, spooked by the spectre of revolution, fretted that any
reform would bring insurrection.

Manchester was a city, The Times newspaper reported, where thousands of spinners and
weavers lived in “squalid wretchedness” and “repulsive depravity”.

Britain in the 1810s was haunted by the fear of Jacobinism from the revolution that had
overthrown the monarchy in France. Meanwhile only one in ten men—and no women—
could vote, while many towns had no MPs at all.

There was pressure for reforms from some of the middle class as well as workers.

The instincts of Lord Liverpool’s Tory government were always repressive.

In 1817, an attack on the Prince Regent’s carriage prompted the government to suspend
the right to appeal unlawful imprisonments. It also clamped down on “seditious”
meetings.

In response at one Stockport rally, a speaker wished for a “sword in my hand to cut off
the heads of all tyrants”.

Another told the crowd that they must “get all armed for nothing but sword in hand will do
at all—Liberty or death!”

But conspiratorial insurrectionism had generally been crushed by infiltration by

government spies.

That peaceful petitioning had proved ineffectual meant reformers for political change had
to look to mass mobilisation.

Demands

That meant that demands for political reform started to coincide and merge with broader
demands.

Henry Hunt insisted that a great deal of radical effort remained focused on the election of
MPs and the sponsorship of moderate reform bills.

But conflict over tactics between the reformers in London led Hunt and others to look to
the provinces, and to mass meetings, to build pressure for change.

A mass meeting held at Palace Yard, Westminster, in September 1818, denounced the
Prince Regent.

It asserted the sovereignty of the people and demanded their rightful share for workers in
the fruits of their labour.

Rallies were arranged in the Midlands and the north of England in the summer of 1819.
The final provincial meeting was set for Manchester.

On the morning of the meeting, the roads into Manchester from the villages and towns
were thick with men, women and children dressed in their best clothes and carrying
festive decorations.
A poster warns that the meeting in St Peter's Field is banned

Their banners bore inscriptions such as “Universal Suffrage” and “Taxation Without
Representation is Tyranny”. A few read, “Liberty or Death.”

Organisers took pains to ensure an orderly meeting. At first light, the area of St Peter’s
Fields had been cleared of as many objects as possible that could be used as potential
weapons.

Samuel Bamford had argued that there “could be no harm whatever in taking a score or
two of cudgels, just to keep the specials at a respectful distance from our line”.

But Hunt called people to bring no weapon other than that of a “self-approving
conscience”.

It mattered little. The Salford Yeomanry cavalry that first attacked the crowd was made up
of drunk volunteers recruited from innkeepers, tailors and butchers who saw themselves
as the guardians of order. “Damn you, I’ll reform you,” one of them shouted.

Hunt looked on from the hustings as the yeomanry “charged amongst the people, sabring
right and left, in all directions. Sparing neither age, sex, nor rank.”

Once they had cut their way through the crowd, the yeomanry and special constables
quickly set upon those on the platform. Women were singled out for particularly brutal
treatment. The violence meted out to female reformers had been encouraged before the
event.
Audacity

The New Times stated, “We cannot conceive that any but a hardened and shameless
prostitute would have the audacity to appear on the hustings on such an occasion and for
such a purpose.”

The full time cavalry of the Hussars, led by Colonel L’Estrange, formed into a line across
the eastern end of the field and then charged the crowd. They were joined by the
Cheshire Yeomanry, attacking from the south.

The fleeing people trapped between these advancing troops found their escape through
Peter Street blocked by the 88th Infantry with bayonets drawn. It took 15 minutes to clear
the field.

Peterloo was a deliberate attempt to crush an emerging movement. The organisers were
arrested and imprisoned.

The Prince Regent wrote from his yacht to thank the Manchester Magistrates for their
“prompt, decisive and efficient measure for the preservation of public tranquillity”.

Following the protests there were numerous mass protests with 100,000 in London and
40,000 in Newcastle. The government responded with six acts of parliament designed to
subdue the reform movement.

To some extent it worked. Peterloo entered the popular imagination as proof of our rulers’
violent resistance to challenges to their order.

That meant that the first fully working class movement, the Chartists, grew in the
following decades with the experience of Peterloo in its mind. It made significant sections
of the movement more radical.

The memory of the massacre was kept alive through radical stories, songs and verse.

The most famous today is Shelley’s Mask of Anarchy which, though written in the weeks
after the massacre, wasn’t published until 1830.

Its lines include the famous, “Ye are many, they are few”—one of the slogans of the left to
this day.

The poem is not just a recognition of the strength of numbers of multitude. It is a call to
arms, for revenge and for justice.

The legacy of Peterloo is not just heritage. As a moment when the emerging working
class came into the conflict with the ruling class, it’s a reminder of the depth of the
struggle ahead.