Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

Class Struggle 120 Autumn 2017

TOP passes Labour on left

For Workers control of Borders
How (not) to smash Fascism
Australia moves to the Right
1917-2017: Happy Bolshevik 100
Trotskyists and Terrorists in Syria
Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

TOP exposes Labour as Opportunist Party

As a Marxist I never thought I would say it, but Gareth Morgan, founder of The
Opportunities Party (TOP), is to the left of Labour and the Greens on most things.
Morgan wants to rescue falling profits by improving the management of capitalism.
Labour and the Greens are shamefaced about putting profits before people because
they claim they dont. They lie and most people know it. Thats why Morgan the
maverick capitalist is well to the left of Labour and the Greens, who are first and
foremost the paid political lackeys of capitalism.

Labour and the populist swamp
Labour is the rotting corpse of the First Labour
Government. Labour served a useful purpose for the
City of London by herding NZ workers and small
farmers away from mass rioting onto the
Parliamentary road
during the Depression. It
convinced the Bank of
England that it could run
the farm and deliver
cheap food to Britain by
adopting an economic
protectionist stance
decades before Muldoon
came along with Think
Big. The Bank agreed
because British finance
capital profited.
Figure 1 Gareth Morgan speaks at Ratana Hui
Every Labour Govt since
has accommodated to the demands of the dominant
fraction of capitalists at the time including the
Rogernomes. From the London Bankers to the Wall St.
Wankers, Labour has faithfully served finance
capital. Even Labour leader David Cunliffe before he
was stabbed in the back failed to renounce
Rogernomics. He has now gone back to a job serving
finance capital. Today Labour repudiates working
class politics for a classless middle ground of petty
bourgeois greed.
The Greens are a footnote to all this, arriving on the
scene when capitalism had already polluted the
planet. It advocates a timid utopia where capitalism
can be saved by turning it green. More like learning
to live with the brown sludge of rotting life. Brown is
the colour of populism, fusing bourgeois, petty
bourgeois and working classes into one reactionary
movement. If there is one classic example of a brown-
sludge party in parliament it is the return of Mana to
the Maori Party!
Mana/Maori populism is a disaster
Gareth Morgan at the Ratana celebrations attacked
the One Nation populism of Winston Peters as no
different to Don Brashs One Nation. But honouring
the Treaty so far has just led to the formation of iwi
capitalists exploiting iwi workers. So, Gareth
Morgans Maori namesake, Tuko Morgan, head of the
Iwi Leaders Forum and now President of the Maori
Party, takes the interests of Maori capitalism (beyond
fancy underpants) and
fuses it with Mana as the
voice of working class
Maori.
Not hard to see what is
happening there, the
Brown Table version of
trickle down where
working-class Maori get
pissed on. As if Maori as a
people can use capitalism
to advance the people
as a whole. This is the
begging letter approach to honouring the Treaty
which was, and will always be a fraud. Maori identity
politics are a petty bourgeois populist, nationalist
attempt to become shareholders in a failing NZ Inc.,
when global capitalism is tottering towards an
almighty crash.
Does this mark a shift to the right for Maori? Yes, as
Mana has conceded its minority status to the Iwi
capitalists Maori Party in all the seats except Te Tai
Tokerau which is reserved for Mana. Thats a win for
Iwi capitalists over Maori workers. Thats why we say
that all arguments that a Labour/Green/Mana/Maori
coalition can form a government to get rid of the
NACTs are bogged down in the parliamentary swamp.
Populist front governments are not progressive
rainbow coalitions. They mix red, green and blue into
the colour of mud and tie workers hands to the bosses
in parliament so they drown in the swamp. No
Opportunities for workers here!
Along comes TOP
Along comes the capitalist entrepreneur Gareth
Morgan who obviously sees an opportunity to breathe
life into a dying capitalism. He has learned the lesson
that to survive in Aotearoa, let alone the world,
Class Struggle 120 Autumn 2017
capitalism has to be sustainable. He is bright enough movement into the dead end of parliamentary
to know that we are all doomed by the rip, shit, bust democracy. Its political program was based on Fabian
frontier politics of the Keyites. We dont have the socialism, the British brand of parliamentary
time left to muck about with a political establishment socialism that conned workers into thinking that the
that serves up Pike Rivers, pollution, suicides, means of production, distribution and exchange could
poverty, homelessness, and the destruction of be nationalised by the capitalist state and the
nature. national income distributed fairly. It owed its
origins to that very same state using scabs, police,
Strategically, to implement his policies, it would be
army and Masseys Cossacks in 1913 to smash the
necessary to get rid of capitalism. Maybe Morgan
Red Fed the breakaway union movement that
doesnt believe it yet, so he will have to wake up too.
rejected compulsory arbitration between Labour and
I suspect he already knows that capitalism and human
Capital imposed by the Arbitration Court as labours
survival are incompatible. If he doesnt, he will soon
leg iron.
find out and its up to revolutionaries to rub his nose
in it. How to do this? Marxists dont endorse TOP but Ever since, Labour has managed capitalism in the
we challenge it to turn its program into one that belief that the working class and boss class can both
makes impossible demands on capitalism. That cant get a fair share of the national income. The Labour
happen unless the program activates mass working Party became the party of scabs and strike breakers,
class demands to expose the limits of capitalism and banning strikes, locking up strikers, imposing military
advance the transition to socialism. discipline on the labour movement during WW2, and
claiming responsibility for the welfare state when
Lets take the Universal Basic Income as one such a
in reality the boom that made it possible was the
demand. There are left, right and centre arguments
result of the massive defeats of labour during the
for the UBI. The right and centre like it because it
depression and WW2.
doesnt empower workers. Its basic limitation for the
left is that the UBI cannot be Then Labour proved it was the
turned into a transitional The transitional method can only work party that put profits before
demand because it is a top- when raised by a democratic centralist people in the 1980s when then
down state policy that does not revolutionary international that fuses end of the post war boom
require workers to self- theory and practice. We raise brought a new structural crisis
organise and fight for a living immediate and democratic demands as of global capitalism. The
wage. It is no more than a wage the basis for workers united fronts. unions that had become part of
subsidy to bosses paid for by United Fronts combine a common the state arbitration system
workers in the first place. action on such demands but where abandoned any militant actions
Revolutionaries point out that revolutionaries raise their program for in the expectation that the
the only UBI that is worth a Workers Government. Workers learn Labour Government would
defending is that which is during these struggles that to win the deliver labour reforms. They
under workers control so that most basic rights they have to organise were unprepared for
workers committees decide independently and break politically deregulation and the end of
what wage is liveable, and from both the bosses and union economic nationalism. Labour
not the bosses state. bureaucrats. Transitional Demands set about delivering a
therefore are those that cannot be compliant working class to it
As the state sends in the scabs won without overthrowing capitalism new imperialist master the US.
and police to break strikes and and building a socialist society. As a result, workers have never
occupations to impose their
been organised to fight against
demands, workers will become
the capitalist system itself and the gap between rich
conscious of the necessity for a workers government
and poor has widened dramatically. To revive itself
capable of implementing a democratic socialist plan
in the tradition of the old Red Fed a fighting,
ending capitalist exploitation and oppression, and
democratic movement the working class has to
empowered to take the revolutionary road to
break from the Labour Party and build a new, mass
communist society where income equality is defined
workers party based on a socialist program.
as: from each according to their ability, and to each
according to their need. Between the UBI and the We say break from all populist fronts with capitalist
living wage is the socialist revolution! parties, and break from the union bureaucracy that
serves capitalism by locking workers into labours leg
Fabians vs Red Fed iron. We reject any deals with capitalist parties and
Labour is NOT the mass workers party we need fight for the class interests of the working class on
because it no longer identifies with nor acts in the the basis of policies that will meet its needs. That
interests of workers and will do deals with capitalist calls for a struggle for a revolutionary Party and
parties (Greens and NZF) to form a popular front Program that can act as a guide to workers to fight
government. It is the party of the Union Bureaucracy for what we need now all the way to the formation of
formed in 1916 to steer the defeated labour a Workers Government and a socialist plan.
3
Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

For Workers Control of Migration

Both the Labour and National lead governments have run an immigration system for
the exclusive benefit of the capitalist class. NZ immigration policy attracts both
capitalists and workers through the categories of investor / entrepreneur and skilled
labour lists. It also allows an export education industry through student visas.
International students pay higher rates of fees than local students, making them an
attractive market for (underfunded) schools to improve their funding streams. As we
explain below, the immigration system benefits the capitalist class and fails the
working class in NZ and internationally. That is why we need a Workers Government
that enables workers control of migration!

Capital Aotearoa, questioned the actual investment of

capital from the migration schemes that brought
For an investment of $1-50 million a migrant can buy Thiel.
NZ residency and even citizenship. The theory behind
this is that capitalist will invest in new Skilled labour
plant/machinery/technology, or start a new Particular skills have been
business. This creates a identified as needed in NZ
constantly renewing and so are on a list of
immigrant capitalist preferred migrants. The
class. The current Labour party prefer to
government has relied on champion the skilled Labour
booming migration to class of migrants in contrast
hold up the otherwise to National, who outright
shrinking economy champion capitalist
without migration NZ migrants. However, in the
would be in recession skilled worker category,
(immigration minister workers (and employers)
Jonathon Coleman need to prove, reprove and
Figure 2Hospitality industry super-exploiting
admitted. reprove they are needed in
tourist labour: Working for free accommodation
Migrants do impact on the NZ before gaining
housing situation in Auckland in particular, since permanent residence, and jump through the hoops
Auckland is the city where the most land and settle again to gain citizenship.
in. This does drive demand for accommodation, and Lets pull this skilled labour category apart many
capital rich migrants are in the position where they workers in this category are seeking a better life for
can buy land and property in this area. Housing themselves. Internationally the flow of skilled
shortage within Auckland brought resentment to the workers is from the colonies to the imperialist
surface against people with Chinese sounding countries. This leaves colonies and semi-colonies with
surnames. Chinese may represent the latest layer of shortages of skilled workers, notably in the health
the capitalist class. Old capital with declining profits, sector doctors, nurses and other health workers, but
could well be put out by new capital. also in the education sectors and engineering etc. So,
The Chinese have significant capital to export, since the semi-colonies are undersupplied with skilled
China is the fastest growing economy in the world. It labour, the poor are under supplied with health care
is not surprising that this is reflected in the and education.
immigration dynamics of NZ. However European The semi-colonies continue to be underdeveloped.
origin settlers continue to arrive and the NZ Those who manage to obtain an education are likely
government has even been subsidising migrant to migrate to advance their opportunities in an
investors to super-profit from investments (e.g. advanced economy which perpetuates uneven
Trump supporter and billionaire Peter Thiel. Even the development. at home and internationally. The rich
NZ Herald, mouthpiece for the capitalist class in countries super-exploit migrant workers, egg. by not
Class Struggle 120
paying the true cost of labour, their education. By
increasing the skill level required (points) for entry to
NZ the bar is raised for only the best educated
migrants to enter the country.
All the restrictions of flow of migrations are barriers
to the development of a true international working
class. (Never mind the free market). The capitalist
migration market steals from the poor countries (top
skills) to give to the rich countries. For example, the
rich countries have the most doctors and the higher
life expectancies yet they continue to take doctors
from the poor countries where they are needed the
most. Any flow the other way, of doctors for charities
and emergencies is only short term, and not nearly
enough.
Students
International students on visas are permitted to work
only 16hrs per week.
This leaves them
vulnerable to
exploitation as low
wage workers. Their
employers may
demand longer hours of
work and pay them for
only 16hrs on the books
and other hours off the
books. Employers may
demand to hold Figure 3 Slaves at sea workers beaten, unpaid or
passports, thus paid slave wages on this ship the Oyang 77: But first - 8
restricting freedom of charges of illegal fish dumping were laid
movement for migrants. unemployed (and prisoners)
Tourists / visitors are permitted a limited amount of
work, however risk dodgy employers, and super-
exploitation at longer hours with part cash jobs
(under-the-table = black economy). Jobs with full
board & lodging but low pay. Academics have told us
the level of exploitation in NZ particularly in
construction, hospitality and horticulture.
Migrant workers fear speaking out for labour rights
as they fear it will jeopardise their migration status
and they may be deported. Migrants need full labour
rights and automatic full citizenship if there is any
breach of their labour rights. Employers who break
the law employing migrant workers should be
expropriated and all labour costs paid. Not just a deal
like that between Masala and Inland Revenue for $8
million leaving $26 million of assets that could go to
their workers.
History
Wakefield plan was to pre-sell land to migrants.
Wakefield was a convicted fraudster and he
reinvented himself with his plan for immigration to
5
Autumn 2017
NZ. The NZ migrants had to be rich enough to afford
passage by ship. Then the richer could also buy land
and become capitalists or farmers. But they ran into
problems having enough labourers to work the land,
because everyone wanted to work for themselves and
profit from their own labour not to sell their labour
to a capitalist.
Migration policy hasnt really changed. The capitalist
class in NZ sell citizenship to capitalists who have
capital to invest in NZ. So, the capitalist migrants
support the continuation of a capitalist state to
continue the protection of their privilege.
The skilled migrants scheme is to fill labour
shortages. However, this shows how capitalism
employs workers who sell their skills for a low wage
to get a job. NZ employers are only interested in
making profits not paying to train NZ workers.
The immigration policy
of New Zealand has a
class bias running
through it. It is made to
meet the needs of
capitalists. Unions have
been fighting for
migrant workers but
are limited to the
struggle for labour
rights. Migrants are
used by the capitalist
class as a reserve army
of labour of
to drive down wages
We demand:
Full labour rights for migrants, students and
tourists:
Expropriate any businesses that exploit
migrants under workers control (no
compensation to the capitalists).
For full democratic rights for all workers
including the right to vote from the first
pay.
For working class control of immigration!
Workers ban on fascists.
Ban business migrants and capitalist
investors.
Open the borders to political refugees.
In a socialist world planned migration would send
skilled migrants to develop the poor nations, to
educate and to build health services and
infrastructure to improve living standards. For this to
happen we need a new communist international and
a Transitional Program for socialism to unite the
worlds workers into one revolutionary force.
Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

Pike River and the Unions

Pike River was a failure of the unions to insist on health and safety conditions for the
miners under both Labour and National Governments. The deregulation of industry
was started by the 4th Labour Government under Lange. It was symptomatic that under
Labour the unions fell into line with its policies and failed to put up a serious fight
against the monetarist deregulation of the economy at the cost of many workers lives.
Today, state-owned Solid Energy which owns the mine refuses to re-open it to recover
the bodies. All the evidence that would condemn those who built and ran an unsafe
mine will remain buried with the dead. We say open the mine and rebuild the United
Mine Workers Union as part of a Red Federation of Labour!
Labours Failure quickly imposed the neo-liberal reforms of Finance
Minister Roger Douglas. The deregulation under
This failure was belatedly recognized by Bill Rogernomics shocked Labour supporters who still had
Anderson, secretary of the Northern Drivers, who illusions in parliamentary socialism. Yet Labours
regretted pulling industrial action at Marsden Point political existence was always that of responding to
in the months before the election in 1984 on the crises by making workers pay for them while at the
promise that a same time claiming
Labour to be defending the
Government unions and historic
would meet their gains in workers
demands. So rights and living
comfortable was standards.
the union
bureaucracy with If we go back to the
the Labour Party, golden age of
that the unions Labour, the
were completely depression and
unprepared for the onset of WW2, we
onslaught of can see clearly that
Rogernomics. The Labour was
outcome was the protecting the
return to a rip, shit and bust economy of follow the profitability of semi-colonial capitalism in the only
money all the way to the bank and bugger the way it could by increasing the rate of exploitation of
consequences. Rip, shit and bust means scavenging its working-class constituency. Economic nationalism
the resources of the semi-colonial frontier for the hides the interest of global capitalism and its national
'health and safety' of the rate of profit. One capitalist allies behind the fig-leaf of a non-class or
ventilation fan at the bottom of its shaft says it all. classless, equal opportunity society. Yet workers kept
Had this been in the days of the Ministry of Mines resorting to class struggle to which Labour responded
rescuers would have done what they are trained to do as the conditions dictated.
and assessed the situation without ringing an Depression welfare became workfare and emergency
insurance broker. So, what happened? Neo-liberal regulations. Wartime brought conscription and strike
Corporatization and privatization! breaking, which then became postwar attacks on
Labour had no answer to neo-liberalism. Having union militants. The Nordmeyer Government (1959-
emerged in the 1930s as a serious political force 62) taxed workers consumption. When the post-war
representing workers and working farmers and boom ended in stagflation the Kirk Government
implementing a policy of economic nationalism, the (1972-75) faced the oil crisis with attempts to halt
end of the post-war boom destroyed the conditions inflation. By the 1980s the crisis of NZ capitalism
for protectionism. This became obvious when the last demanded the end of economic nationalism and the
Muldoon Government resorted to think big to onset of economic rationalism. The 4th Lange
defend economic nationalism. The incoming Lange Government (1984-89) imposed the shock therapy of
Government faced an international capital strike and
Class Struggle 120 Autumn 2017
Rogernomics, and 5th Clark Government (1999-2008) by strikebreakers. Open-cast mining did not require
continued the neo-liberal policy settings. the traditional skills of underground mines. On the
West Coast during 51 it was only the Stockton
From Red Fed to Dead Fed opencast mine that could be worked by Navy
The history of the miners union on the West Coast strikebreakers. Clearly, the high point of miners
from the days of the Red Fed to today tells us what control of the work place was the workers
went wrong and what we need to do. The miners were inspections of mines which meant the union did not
the backbone of the Red Federation after 1908 the wait on the managers or the Mines Department to
same year as the Blackball Strike. And it was the shut down production for health and safety reasons.
miners alone that kept the tradition of the Red Fed It was the loss of this hard-won worker control over
alive well into the post WW2 period. The miners working conditions and health and safety that marked
alone, of all the industrial unions, were able to stay the end of the tradition of the Red Fed and the
out of the Arbitration Court because they could not reduction of miners to no more than drivers and
be replaced in the mines by unskilled scab labour. mechanics who could be easily replaced by scabs. In
They fought directly against the bosses and their the aftermath of 51 the Miners Union was no longer
state and won more workers control over the able to live up to the tradition of the Red Fed and
workplace than any other union. They opposed eventually amalgamated with the EPMU in the CTU
Conscription in both wars and won an exemption for (Council of Trades Unions) AKA the state-arbitration
miners. The UMW (United Mine Workers) was always Dead Fed.
led by strong leaders who worked through the Red
Fed days or the WW1 It was the Dead Fed
period and carried that led to the Pike
on the militant River Disaster. Had
traditions of the Union still been
syndicalism, in control of work
socialism and and health and
communism in the safety conditions,
mines. the Pike River mine
would have never
The UMW had a been built and the
fractious disaster could have
relationship with the never happened.
Labour Party until The MWU and the
WW2 when the whole union
leadership under movement after the
McLagan (Secretary defeat of 51 gave
of UMW and Figure 4 The original Miners Union Hall in Runanga North of away their
President of the FOL, Greymouth dates from 1908, it was burnt down in 1937 and independence when
and from 1942 the replacement still stands as a symbol of the UMW union. they affiliated to the
Minister of Manpower Labour Party conceding to Labour Governments the
and later Minister of Labour) collaborated with the authority to dictate conditions in the workplace.
Labour Government to impose economic stabilization
in the name of the war effort. The miners fought for Yet even under the neo-liberal repeal of the Mines
and won wage increases and the nationalization of Act in 1989 that allowed Pike River mine to be
mines during the war and then battled against the built, the EPMU could have taken a stand and
Holland National Government that came to power in challenged the many failings in design and
1949 determined to smash the militants and re- operation that would not have been allowed in
privatise the mines. The critical test came in 1951 Europe, the US or even China.
when it was the miners who held out longest against http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.co.nz/2014/1
the Wharfies Lockout and the state of emergency 2/how-andrew-little-failed-pike-river.html.
which saw militants locked up and open-cast miners Without workers control of the workplace Pike
used by the Labour Government to isolate the River was always a disaster waiting the happen.
militant miners and destroy their power. Forward to the reborn Red Fed
Right through this history of struggle the underground
If we isolate the conditions that led to workers
miners could assert their industrial power because of
control historically we find that it is based on unity,
their skilled work making it difficult to be replaced
organization, and international solidarity. The Red
7
Class Struggle 120
RIP, SHIT, BUST!
The Runanga Miners Hall has
emblazoned on its frontage:
1908 The Worlds Wealth for the
Worlds Workers.
And below it: United we Stand.
Divided we Fall;
But that was a century ago.
Now its the bosses banner, worlds
wealth to the worlds wealthy.
And the C21st global capitalist motto
Divided we Stand, United we Fall.
Today another missing headline 29 men
incinerated for bosses profit.
Yeah suck it up West Coasters, if you
hadnt had your big disaster every 20
or 30 years where would you be? Here
not eternity.
Here, just another dull wet mined out
wasteland with no fucking future.
Now son, you have made your future
dream of the worlds wealth for the
worlds workers by making it into the
heavenly market.
Pike River shares will rebound from
disaster and become your futures.
Death makes the man.
RIP, SHIT, BUST, boys to men in one
day.
PM Key says you have that special
quality of learning to live with disaster.
Disaster is the price of freedom going
forward. You are all heroes.
We make our choices and live by the
market outcomes and state bailouts.
Would the worlds workers could aspire
to heroism facing austerity together.
And as PM Im saying we feel your loss
because we can read balance sheets.
We have to cry together to prove that
this is not a National Party Disaster
and that we are not all carpet bagging
bosses putting a price on your life.
Fed united militant unions in which many members
were recent migrants from Europe or North America.
Influenced by anarchism the IWW (International
Workers of the World) their political perspective was
broadly syndicalist the belief that unions were a
sufficient basis for workers power against the
capitalist state. However, syndicalism falls short of
understanding the need to smash the capitalist state.
The defeat of the General Strike of 1913 showed that
Autumn 2017
workers had to build political organs such as workers
councils and militias to counter the state force used
to smash the militant unions.
The objectives of a Red Fed today would have to
embrace a revolutionary socialist program to fight for
a Workers Government that would implement a
socialist plan. This would shift the syndicalist concept
of workers control from control over the workplace
to socialist control over the state and economic
planning.
A MWU of the 21st century would demand the
nationalisation of energy under workers control (i.e.
socialization) to shut down unsustainable production
unsustainable energy sources such as coal and gas
(and nuclear!) and demand the redirection of
production towards sustainable sources of energy
such as Hydro, wind and solar.
To achieve this, it is necessary to mobilise the rank
and file through strikes and occupations, breaking
with the union bureaucracy and the capitalist
exploiters the bureaucracy serves. Capitalism cannot
survive without exploiting the labour of workers.
Workers have the power to withdraw their labour and
to occupy workplaces against the use of scabs and
strike breakers. Workers militias would defend the
occupations from state and para-military forces.
But to do this, we need a Workers Party that
represents the interests of workers independently of
the bosses and the union bureaucracy, and a
Transitional Program for the seizure of state power
and for building a socialist future.
https://situationsvacant.wordpress.com/2010/11/2
9/rip-shit-bust-29-pike-river-miners-find-their-
wealth-in-heaven/
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2011/01/v-
behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/pike-river-
mine-disaster-exposed.html
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/class-
struggle-107-rape-culture-dirty.html
Len Richardson. Coal, Class and Community: The
United Mineworkers of NZ. AUP, 1995.
Paul Maunder. Coal and the Coast: A Reflection on
the Pike River Disaster. Canterbury University Press,
2012.
Rebecca Macfie. Tragedy at Pike River Mine: How and
Why 29 Men Died. Awa Press, 2013.
Peter Ewen. Pike: Death by Parliament. Pit Pony
Press, 2014.
8
Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

Australia: Malcolm in the muddle!

Recently Malcolm Turnbull went on the offensive against Bill Shorten alleging that he
crawls to the rich. The Liberal faithful were impressed. Malcolm needed this lift in
support. Indeed, he is a man under siege. He is under siege not only from Bill Shorten
who leads him in the polls but from his fellow Liberals.

Liberal-Tory Government Who will Tax Profits?

The liberal-tory alliance on which the Liberal The Turnbull Liberal government plans to
Party is indeed falling apart. Malcolm may be the decrease the tax on companies. In doing so he is
parliamentary leader and prime minister but he opposed by Labor not out of any desire to tax the
faces a serious challenge from varying right wing rich more but
forces. These according to Labor
include hard line given the high
conservative hard deficit, this is not
line racist and the time to do it.
protectionist. They have
Turnbull replaced indicated that
Tony Abbott when they would cut tax
Abbotts hardline to bosses under
conservatism was other
clearly failing. It circumstances.
was a very clever The bosses though
coup led by Julie want even greater
Bishop and Scott tax cuts and so
Morrison and Figure 5 The return of Pauline Hanson and the racist they have
including the chauvinist One Nation has pushed Australian politics to the supported a right-
politically correct racist right and split the Liberals. wing split called
young Turks of the Australian conservative Movement led by Cory
party. Bernardi who has resigned from the Liberal
The strategy of Turnbull was that by having a Party. He is backed financially by mining
more conciliatory and collaborative approach magnate Gina Reinhardt Of course the
and by taking a relatively principled position on government receiving less tax money will mean
some issues such as gay marriage, progressive less money for social services. Poor people will
public opinion could be won over to the feel the squeeze. Money for schools and hospitals
economically rationalist agenda. He has failed in will also be significantly reduced.
this objective.
Trumpish Lessons
Turnbull cleverly maneuvered to win over a
The significant lesson from the Trump victory for
majority of Liberal MPs but he faced hostility
the bosses is the importance of racism in wedging
from the Liberal rank and file who are far more
former Democrat and in Australia Labor
chauvinist. This was particularly notable in
supporters. They were won over largely due to
Queensland where last election saw the rise of
Trumps hardline anti-Mexican and anti-Islam
One Nation. Opinion polls show an upsurge of
racism. The war against terror has fuelled
One Nation support. Turnbull has made
racism against those who believe in Islam.
concessions to the right and in doing so lost the
support of the middle ground he was hoping to No doubt Cory Bernardi plans to take advantage
win over. of this. Malcolm Turnbull wants to include the
mainstream Islamic movement in his broad
Class Struggle 120 Autumn 2017
coalition to fight terrorism. The racists want to Turnbull has himself gone to the right caving in
blame all Muslims. Cory Bernardi will no doubt to conservative pressure. When he was elected
hope to wedge Liberal support with his anti-Islam as leader defeating Tony Abbott many were
attack opposing halal food and wearing the euphoric at this new look progressive Liberal
Hijab. We dont know how successful he will be leader. However, he has caved-in and all the
but pressure will indeed be put on Malcolm. euphoria has gone. He also has been out-
maneuvered by Labor leader Bill Shorten. His
Racism and anti-Islamic chauvinism is a
liberalism has seemed to lack direction. Malcolm
key question. Turnbull had a perspective of winning support
The workers from progressive
movement must public opinion for
be unequivocal in a conservative
opposing racism economic agenda.
and support the In no way, do we
right of Muslims to mourn his failure.
practice their The most probable
faith winner of the next
unconditionally. election will be
Of course, the Labor Party
Bernardi has to led by Bill Shorten.
deal with the This will be
more consistent another
racist chauvinists conservative
namely Pauline government. It
Hansons One will be a Liberal
Nation.
Figure 6 The Labor Party is no alternative to the racist right as lite government. It
One Nation is it sucks up to big Coal. Labor needs a revolutionary party. will be countered
putting serious by a new look
pressure on the Liberals to become even more Liberal Party with hard line economic rationalist
racist. Cory Bernardi is an economic policies and hard line racism.
conservative. This will give him problems in Workers to Power!
south Australia where unions and others are on
their knees to the government to bail out local It is very important that the workers
manufacturing. movement fight this turn to the right. But
The most consistent supporters are the Nick it is important to do this not by propping
Xenophon Team who not only have Senate seats up the apparently nicer conservatives
but a seat in the House of Representatives. called Labor. We must build a
Liberals Split revolutionary alternative. We must fight
Malcolm Turnbull is indeed under serious
to bring down the Turnbull government.
pressure. His government only has a majority of But our alternative must not be a
one. No doubt his party will capitulate to these parliamentary Labor government to
pressures leaving his liberal dream in tatters. administer capitalism better, but a
The point of all this pressure is to win the revolutionary workers and small farmers
Liberals into becoming a conservative party
government.
seriously adapting to racism. To this end the
conservative wing are even prepared to sacrifice Reprinted from Communist Left of Australia.
the Turnbull government (though they will deny http://communistleftaustralia.yolasite.com/
this).

10
Class Struggle #120
How (not) to smash Fascism
There is a lot of crying out now about fascism with the ascension of Trump. Trump
may be a crypto-, neo-, semi-, proto-fascist leader, but as yet he is not the head of a
fascist movement nor in charge of a fascist regime. In order to fight and defeat fascism
it is necessary to know what it is.
Lets be clear, fascism
is the last resort of
finance capital fearing
its overthrow by a
revolutionary working
class. It is the last
resort because
everything else has
failed. It is not an
option taken lightly
because it risks a civil
war by unleashing the
angry middle class and
misguided workers Figure 7 Trump is preparing the ground for fascism in
into a paramilitary the USA. Workers must smash fascism in the embryo succeeded only when
movement that
become shock troops to smash the revolutionary
proletariat. And all wars the capitalists unleash
risk the working class winning.
So, it is only justified when angry workers are
rising up against the state that protects
capitalist property and power and no longer
accept the bullshit that the ruling class are their
class mates. At that point the workers become
class conscious and a force capable of
overthrowing the whole system. Moreover, they
can rally the angry petty bourgeois to the
revolution by proving that they are powerful
enough to overthrow capitalism.
The lesson of the successful Soviet revolution
proved that the unity of workers and petty
bourgeois against the bourgeoisie was necessary
and possible. Against that real threat, fascism is
all that is left to defeat the revolution. The
ruling class anticipates the danger, and rallies
the discontented petty bourgeoisie and
unemployed workers to defend the nation from
communism by appealing to a rabid racist
nationalism to wipe out the communist party.
That is why fascism first arose in 1920 in
Germany and Italy, long before the Nazi rise to
power. It was the last resort to smash
revolutionary uprisings coming out of WW1. In
1919, an armed workers and soldiers
Autumn 2017
revolution was
underway in
Germany. The ruling
class tried to pacify it
by deposing the Kaiser
and creating the
Weimar Republic in
which the Socialist
Party was a leading
party. But this failed
to head off armed
uprisings all over
Germany. The
counter-revolution
the Socialists handed
over Luxemburg and Liebknecht the leaders of
the Communist Party to the fascist gangs who
murdered them and dumped them into a canal.
In Italy in 1919/20 workers rose up in the North
and the threat of revolution sparked the
formation of a fascist movement. That
movement then systematically destroyed the
communist organisations and saw Mussolini take
power. Those who know Bertoluccis film 1900
saw these events graphically recounted.
While these revolutions were smashed by
fascism at its birth the proletariat remained a
threat to the ruling class, especially with the
failure of the imperialist powers to defeat the
Russian revolution in the brutal civil war.
Fascism was then the necessary resort of finance
capital in Europe to remove this threat. That is
why the Nazis came for the communists first.
In the US and in Britain there was a fascist
fraction of the ruling class ready to step forward
if the proletariat was not pacified by emergency
economic measures to deal with unemployment
such as the New Deal. Had workers refused to
submit to appeals to racism and national
chauvinism and overcome the divisions in the
labor movement, thrown out their rotten labour
lieutenants in the unions, and united to pose a
threat to state power, the bosses would have
Class Struggle 120
quickly resorted to mobilising their fascist shock
troops.
As it happened, in both Britain and the US, the
working class was incapable of rising to the
occasion for several reasons. Most important,
the Soviet state, now isolated and under siege,
was taken over by the Stalinist bureaucracy that
neutered the Communist Parties around the
world into agents of Stalins foreign policy of
appeasement. Without a revolutionary party, US
and British workers lacked the leadership and
program to unite and fight for socialism. So, the
threat of revolution
never arose to justify
a resort to fascism.
Such was the power of
the appeal to national
chauvinism against
any communist
threat that the
surviving
revolutionaries
succumbed to
national chauvinism
and actively Figure 8 Leon Trotsky: a summary of key writings forces including the
encouraged workers on fascism: What is Fascism and How to Fight It
to fight fascism as
the worst enemy, and let their imperialist ruling
classes off the hook.
In the US today, the conditions necessary for the
resort to fascism are yet to materialise. The
working class is divided, and misled by
politicians, media and union bosses into backing
rival boss parties. There is no independent Labor
party let alone a revolutionary communist party.
It is finance capital behind both boss parties,
Republicans and Democrats, that is setting the
agenda not a militant workers party. That is why
Trumps regime is as yet no more fascist than
the Bush or Clinton regimes.
Trump inherits a failing imperialist state that
can only survive by making the working class pay
for the crisis of falling profits by further job
losses and falling living standards. His promises
to deliver jobs and restore America to
greatness are futile as he faces an inevitable
world-wide slump and a drive to inter-
imperialist war with China and Russia for control
of the remaining global resources.
The working class is currently divided by
ethnicity, nationality and gender, and Trump is
feeding these antagonisms to prevent the class
uniting as one multi-ethnic and multi-gender
force for change. Only if he fails to impose the
Autumn 2017
program of finance capital driving workers into
more wars, so that workers overcome their
divisions, and form a mass workers party with a
program for socialist revolution, will Trump find
it necessary to resort to fascism. Only then will
he be forced to rally his shock troops to destroy
the leadership of the workers movement.
That is why it is necessary now to build workers
unity and reject pacifist appeals to non-violent
resistance. History proves it is necessary to
organise an armed defence against the rise of
fascist gangs. Because if fascism is allowed to
grow it is a mortal
threat to the
existence of a
revolutionary class,
and hence to the
existence to the
human race facing
climate catastrophe,
all attempts to mollify
or placate fascism, to
pass laws against it, or
to rely on the state
police to stop it, are
futile.
For workers as a class, democratic rights are
subordinated to advancing the struggle for
revolution. These and are not abstract rights
that must be accorded to all. Revolutionaries
advocate no platform for fascists because they
use their right to demand the death of militant
workers, especially the revolutionary leaders
who are always the first to be assassinated.
Revolutionaries confront fascism with
overwhelming force whenever it raises is filthy
head.
Not to do this, to attempt to reason with
fascism for fear that arming workers would
confirm the ruling class bogey of violent
revolution, only feeds fascism. The ruling class
is armed to the teeth and will use these arms
ruthlessly whether workers are armed or not. In
every situation where workers were not armed
or were not organised into defence militias,
fascism has destroyed them.
While it is true that fascism is the last resort to
smash proletarian revolution, submitting to
pacifism is to die on our knees. Armed resistance
is necessary to defeat fascism and to make that
revolution possible, freeing humanity from the
scourge not only of fascism but of the capitalist
sewer that gives it life.
12
Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

1917-2017: Happy Bolshevik New Century!

New Years celebrations are bitter sweet, reflecting past failures and future hopes.
Except New Year today has lost its significance. It is a cultural hangover alienated
from its origins as the celebration of mid-winter. While observing Matariki (literally
the 'eyes of god') in Aotearoa celebrates the mid-winter as recognition of the renewal
of life, it is as a cultural ritual detached from economic reality. We are no longer a
society of hunter gatherers or subsistence agriculture that has to ritually appease the
gods to get a good crop. Society today is based on capitalist cropping that destroys
rather than worships nature. Such is the harm done to nature, capitalism has
exhausted the limits of our species ability to live in harmony with nature at the cost
of our impending extinction.

If we are to return to by getting the state out

celebrating the essence of business. Liberals
of nature, why not claim that it is
make that a cause for necessary to use the
reflection on our state to correct for the
failures to overcome inequalities of
our alienation from individuals that
nature and ourselves dominate the market.
and on our plans for Bank bailouts should be
returning to nature? redirected to boost
Let's take the long view wages and stimulate a
of capitalism as the return to productive
most advanced society growth. Radicals have
ever but one that now no confidence in using
threatens mass the state to correct for
extinction including Figure 9 Lenin rallies factory workers to the capitalism's unequal
the human species. Bolshevik program of Peace, Land and Bread, and relations. Build
How do we overcome to win these, All Power to the Soviets. socialism from the grass
denial of this threat, roots based on direct
understand it, and democracy. Marxists
work out what is to be done? know capitalism is doomed to make more and
more wars and ultimately the destroy human
Four Standpoints society. Organise workers into armed soviets that
There are four broad standpoints on this can replace the capitalist state with a workers
question. Free market fundamentalists blame state, now!
the ills of capitalism (where they are not in In our New Year resolutions, how do we decide
denial) on state intervention in the market. which of these scenarios we should support. For
Liberals and social democrats blame the power myself, the decision is easy. Each standpoint can
elites that manipulate the markets to their be put to the test of practical experience. What
advantage. Radicals argue that there is no such better way to do this than by demonstrating that
thing as a free market and capitalism always the Marxist standpoint alone has any record of
used state power to plunder and accumulate success?
wealth. Marxists argue that capitalism is based
on the exploitation of labour-power by the The Bolshevik Centenary
owners of the means of production. 2017 is then centenary of the Bolshevik
What hopes spring from such standpoints? The Revolution. Why should we celebrate it?
marketeers proscribe more free market to free Because it was and continues to be the most
individuals to make rational economic decisions important event since 1917 and in embodying
Class Struggle 120
'living Marxism' has shaped the fate of
capitalism up to today. What are the lessons of
this living Marxism?
First, the revolution took place because global
capitalism in 1914 had exhausted its capacity to
grow and develop without major crises,
depressions and wars. This proved that the
market had failed not as a result of state
intervention but that imperialist states were
forced to go to war to defeat their rivals and
plunder the resources of the whole world.
Second, liberals and radicals sided with their
capitalist monopolies to send workers to fight
one another in the name of
profits. The German Marxists
(SDP) betrayed their working-
class supporters by voting to
finance the war and then
joined forces with the fascists
that killed Luxemburg and
Liebknecht. Those Marxists
who condemned this betrayal
created the Zimmerwald Left
and called on workers in every
country to turn their guns on
their own ruling class.
In Russia, the Bolsheviks
adopted this stand for the
defeat of the Tsar in the war
with Germany. The strike of
women textile workers in
February 1917 led the fall of
the Tsar and creation of a
liberal bourgeois government
that continued the war. The Bolshevik agitation
against war and campaign for 'peace, land, and
bread' rallied mass support for workers, poor
peasants and soldiers soviets that were able to
take power in October and build a workers' state.
This was proof that the time for socialist
revolution was ripe, and that the market, liberal
reforms, and radical betrayals were inevitable
when it came to a showdown between the
capitalist ruling class and the proletariat. So
damning was this proof that all the imperialist
countries rallied fascist gangs, and co-opted
liberal democrats and radicals, even some
anarchists, to go to war against Russia to defeat
the revolution. The result was the defeat of the
revolution in Germany, the invasion of Russia and
the 5-year civil war.
While all the capitalists and their hangers-on
ganged up on the Bolsheviks, workers
14
Autumn 2017
everywhere were inspired by the revolution. And
despite the counter-revolution the Soviet state
survived. The degeneration of the revolution into
a bureaucratic regime under Stalin had nothing
to do with the Bolsheviks and everything to do
with the fear and loathing of the imperialist
reactionaries facing the threat of the spread of
"Bolshevism".
The Legacy of Bolshevism in 2017
The capitalists were right to fear Bolshevism and
the spectre that hangs over them still today.
What they fear is the power of workers who are
conscious of their class
interests and what must be
done to defeat capitalism.
That is why the imperialist
powers ganged up on Russia in
1917 and after the Nazi threat
was stopped (mainly by
Russia) and Stalin had
renounced world revolution,
ganged up against it again
from 1948. Even after the
Soviet Union was destroyed in
1991, the ghost of Bolshevism
refused to go away.
The reason for this is that
Bolshevism was the
revolutionary expression of
the proletariat as the
gravedigger of capitalism
unable to overcome its
worsening crises. Capitalism can stagger on over
the corpses of billions of workers, but it cannot
survive a class conscious revolutionary
proletariat. Yet that proletariat does not become
revolutionary by passing New Year Resolutions.
The Resolutions that count are those of the
masses of workers organised into independent
organs of class struggle - workers councils or
soviets - as the basis for workers' power.
Bolshevism embodied the program for
revolution in the vanguard party. The essence
of the party is its program. And the key to
making sure the program is correct in any given
situation is democratic centralism - the means
by which the program for revolution is tested
in practice. The party program states what is
necessary for revolution and organises its
members to fight for it. It applies the program
Class Struggle 120
by passing resolutions in democratic
congresses to take action, and then organises
to fight as a disciplined single force to test that
program in action. If the program is found to
be wrong, it is changed by passing new
resolutions.
The legacy of Bolshevism is that it was the key
to the only successful socialist revolution in
history and remains the key to revolution
today. In 2017 we can begin the new year by
passing a resolution to become Bolsheviks. The
first step towards that end is to celebrate the
centenary of the Russian Revolution by
becoming conscious that the '10 Days that
Shook the World' has continued to shake it for
100 years, and will continue to do so until the
failing capitalist system is replaced by a world
socialist system.
Postscript: A Comment in
Response to a Question
To assist my understanding can you give
working examples of your second to last
paragraph being applied?
The Russian revolution happened because the
Bolsheviks practiced what they preached. The
application of democratic centralism as outlined
above is best shown in the big change in the party
program in April 1917. Up to that point the
Bolshevik program was based on the assumption
that in Russia first the Tsar must go and a popular
bourgeois government come to power. The
assumption was that the conditions were not
ready for a socialist revolution. This proved
unfounded.
The Bolsheviks were taken by surprise when in
February a strike wave led by women textile
workers spread to other industries forcing the
Tsar to abdicate in favour of a provisional
government that would then hold a Constituent
Assembly to establish a bourgeois government.
Lenin in exile in Switzerland, realised that the
weak Russian bourgeoisie would use the
provisional government to turn on the workers
and poor peasants. There was in fact a situation
of dual power where workers in the workplaces
and streets held power while the provisional
15
Autumn 2017
government attempted to placate their demands
because they feared the overthrow of capitalist
property and state power. Lenin rapidly returned
to Russia to correct the program and to call for
all power to the soviets, the organs of workers,
peasants and soldiers that had sprung up. These
were Lenins April Theses. The Party hierarchy
including big names such as Stalin, Kamenev and
Zinoviev argued for joining the provisional
government.
Figure 10 Lenin announces his April Theses at the
Finland Station on his return from exile.
To change this policy Lenin went to the party
members to win majority support for his theses
which would then be raised in the soviets. Here
reality challenged the program which was then
changed by the practice of democratic
centralism, so that workers and soldiers (mainly
poor peasants) were prepared to defeat the
attempted August coup of Tsarist general
Kornilov. Once the regime and the Tsarist
conspiracy was smashed, the Bolsheviks
continued to fight to win a majority for a workers
and peasants state and a socialist revolution.
Such was the popular support and organisation of
the insurrection in October it was almost
bloodless.
Of course, the Bolsheviks recognised that a
successful revolution in Russia depended on a
successful German revolution to survive let alone
build socialism. The failure of the German
Revolution is also a test of the Bolshevik Party
i.e. its absence. It led to the isolation,
bureaucratic degeneration, and ultimately the
totalitarian Stalinist regime in Russia.
Class Struggle 120 Autumn 2017

Trotskyists and Terrorists in Syria

Jacobin is a prominent US journal of the broad left. Its title is apposite since the
Jacobins were the revolutionary leaders of the French bourgeois revolution, so its use
signifies the retreat of Western Marxism or the broad left from Bolshevism to a defence
of bourgeois democracy. This may be a died-in-the-wool Stalinist stageism (first
democracy then socialism) or crypto Stalinism, having arrived at stageism via
liberal democracy. It is necessary to counter-pose a full-blooded Bolshevik-Leninism,
that is Trotskyism, to this jaded Jacobinism.
Jacobins or Trotskyists?
In a recent article Syrian activist Razan Ghazzawi So, for the social imperialists, the revolution by
interviews Ramah Kudaimi on the 6 years of definition has to come from a secular,
revolution and counter-revolution in Syria. democratic base, and it cannot meet these
Kudaimi defends the revolution but not in such a conditions if its agents are calling for theocracy,
way as to advance its victory. It critiques those Sharia Law and an Islamic State. Automatically,
on the left who support the the only fighting forces that can
Assadist regime on the grounds militarily defeat imperialism in
that the rebels are Islamic MENA are disqualified as
terrorists and not Syrian revolutionaries and labelled
revolutionaries. We have sectarians, reactionaries, and
critiqued this social imperialist terrorists if not fascists.
left as orientalist, Islamophobic,
This means that the Western left
or RT socialists, since the onset has to fall back on imperialist
of the Arab Spring (links). If this intervention a reactionary
were not bad enough, even those utopia. Reactionary, because it is
who do support the Syrian imperialism that has created the
revolution only give conditional conditions for Islamic radicalism,
support to the revolution because utopian, because imperialism is
they do not see the Islamic the No 1 terrorist, and its
militias as fighting for apologists are aiding and abetting
democracy, but for an Islamic State. terrorism. It is a contradiction in terms,
This is a convenient catch-22 that dismisses reflecting the social imperialist ideology of the
national revolutions unless they fulfil the dominant left currents who have never
conditions of being secular and democratic. After renounced the hypocrisy of supporting
all, how can a revolution for bourgeois imperialism abroad to pay for socialism at home.
democracy against the dictatorship, fascism So, the Jacobin article correctly critiques the
and imperialism succeed if led by reactionary, main US left demand for NFZs since 2011,
fascist and theocratic state advocates? The because of the absurdity of calling on US and
revolution is supposed to end with a new Russian imperialism that are already bombing
democratic regime in place. We call these Syria to impose NFZs! Yet, the author replaces
unconscious Assadists because they all imagine the NFZ with the demand to stop the bombing
that a democratic regime can be installed in which suffers from the same absurdity, that
Syria without an uninterrupted or Permanent national revolutions can succeed against
Revolution coming to fruition in the whole of imperialist states, but pressuring those same
MENA. Worse, even a democratic revolution is historic oppressor states to become
impossible in one country (with borders set and democratic!
re-set by imperialism!) without the defeat of
imperialism in the region as a whole.
16
Class Struggle 120
As a result, the liberal democratic social
imperialist left has refused to take the
necessary steps to arm the rebels because they
are not democratic enough. Yet a popular
revolution is the only way that NFZs can be
imposed. Without SAMS, the US, Putin and Assad
can bomb at will. Even the children of Aleppo
who burned tires to create a smokescreen
against the bombers was more effective than 6
years of begging imperialism to stop being
imperialism. As we have constantly pointed out
in the last 6 years, unless the Western Left arms
the revolutionaries with high tech SAMS there
can be no stopping the bombing. None of the
imperialist ceasefires has stopped the
bombing. None results from liberal pressure at
home but rather are designed to weaken the
revolution.
So, the root of the problem for the Western left
is that it is no longer revolutionary, and so
rejects the elementary internationalist duty of
unconditional military support for any and all
the enemies of imperialism. It resorts to calling
Jihadists fascist and democratic imperialism
becomes the lesser evil. This is much the same
as the rejection of unconditional defence of
the Soviet Union because the Stalinist regime
was fascist and so the war against fascism
became the greater evil to democratic
imperialism. To get out of this impasse the left
has to return to Bolshevik-Leninism and the
struggle to build a revolutionary Marxist party
and program.
Permanent Revolution and Military
Support
Those of us who claim to be Trotskyists have had
plenty of practice rehearsing Trotskys
arguments about anti-imperialist military blocs
in the period since 9/11. Trotsky fought to keep
alive the programmatic advances of the first four
Congresses of the 3rd Communist International, in
particular the Permanent Revolution and as part
of that the tactic of the anti-imperialist united
front, or AUF. Based on the concept of the united
front, communists have a duty to strike together
against the class enemy but at the same time a
duty to maintain their political independence
and raise the communist program to win
reformist workers and petty bourgeois elements
to revolution. The AUF developed out of the
17
Autumn 2017
Bolshevik Revolution which for the first time
proved that the bourgeois revolution (or the
national democratic revolution) cannot be
advanced as a united front with the bourgeoisie
against imperialism, feudalism or fascism, but
must be led by the revolutionary proletariat to
become permanent as the socialist revolution.
In the epoch of imperialism, the national
bourgeoisie is no longer a revolutionary class but
the agent of imperialism against the workers and
poor peasants. The Bolshevik Revolution
succeeded only because the revolutionary
proletariat took the leadership of the national
democratic revolution and was prepared to
overthrow the national bourgeoisie to stop it
joining the counter-revolutionary bloc with the
Tsarists and imperialist powers (i.e. the failed
Kornilov Coup in August 1917). This proved that
to succeed, the anti-imperialist struggle has to
be led by the revolutionary proletariat, allied to
the poor peasantry, against both the imperialists
and their national class allies, the national
bourgeoisie.
Trotsky developed the AUF to distinguish
political support from military support. Like all
united fronts, revolutionary workers bloc with
other oppressed class forces fighting imperialism
militarily without making political ultimatums
about revolution. Yet at the same time, they
argue for the class independence of the
proletariat as the only class capable of
completing the bourgeois revolution as the
socialist revolution.
The theory/program of Permanent Revolution
tested by the Bolsheviks in Russia was confirmed
negatively in Germany (1919-1923) and China
(1925-1927) where revolutionaries subordinated
themselves to reformist illusions in democratic
imperialism. The betrayal of the Chinese
Revolution in 1927 resulted from Stalins political
bloc with the Kuomintang which subordinated
the Communist Party leadership to Chiang Kai
Shek and led to its extermination. So even where
a military bloc with fascist national leaders (like
Chiang Kai Shek, Haile Selassie, or the
Argentinian Generals in the Malvinas War)
against imperialism were necessary, the
proletariat kept its armed independence at all
costs in preparation for the overthrow of the
national bourgeoisie.
Class Struggle 120
As we have argued before, applying the AUF to
Syria is a test of Bolshevism vs Menshevism. It
comes more than a decade after 9/11 and the US
invasion of Afghanistan during which period
revolutionaries formed military blocs with the
national bourgeois factions that were fighting
imperialism. We gave military
support to the Taliban, to Gaddafi,
to the Iraqi resistance, including
Daesh, and to the Islamic militias in
Syria, while they fight imperialism
and its local bourgeois agents, AND
DO NOT serve imperialism in
attacking the revolution.
But at all times we keep our
political independence and do not
subordinate our military
independence to any of these
bourgeois military leaderships. So
long as we form a military bloc
alongside those fighting the main enemy,
imperialism, we must raise the communist
program for permanent revolution. In this way,
the objective situation is transformed by our
military intervention as the political
consciousness of the revolutionaries is advanced
to fight for the Permanent Revolution.
From Al Qaeda to HTS
Six years of civil war in Syria vindicates the
Bolshevik program. We give military support to
Daesh but in the certain knowledge that Daesh
fights imperialism only to do a deal with it
against the Syrian and Iraqi revolution. So, in
practice, we cannot enter into a AUF with Daesh
without exposing the revolution to defeats.
Similarly, we give military support to the former
al Nusra before it dissociated with al Qaeda and
became JFS (Jabhat Fatah al Sham). We do not
put political conditions on this military bloc i.e.
demanding that JFS renounce an Islamic State.
But in the process, we expect that Trotskyist
militias like the Leon Sedov Brigade to be in the
position to raise their program for socialist
revolution and influence jihadists to reject the
Islamic state for a socialist republic.
As we predicted, the Syrian revolution is the
critical test for the theory/program of
Permanent Revolution. Those militias that are
led by bourgeois warlords have sold out to
imperialism and its local agents, Assad, Turkey
18
Autumn 2017
or Jordan. For example, FSA elements and Ahrar
al Sham joined Turkey to fight Daesh and the
Kurd PRG abandoning the defence of Aleppo.
They have betrayed the Syrian revolution to
scramble for the crumbs of power and territory
as the imperialists carve up Syria.
On the other hand, those militias
like JFS (now HTS) that remain true
to the anti-imperialist cause are
advancing their political program
away from the isolation of jihad
towards Permanent Revolution. JFS
(while al Nusra) met with popular
opposition to its program and
practices and transformed itself to
the point where it has now won
mass support to become the
strongest and most consistent force
of the revolution. Moreover, after
the fall of Aleppo the JFS liquidated
itself into the HTS (Hayat Tahrir al Sham)
merging its forces and leadership to form the
most effective fighting force for the revolution.
For Jacobins, the Syrian revolution is going
nowhere because the rebels are not
democratic and have to wait until oppressor
states can transmit democracy to the
oppressed states. As we know for imperialists the
only democracy they can transmit is from
warplanes or drones. For Trotskyists, what began
as an isolated Syrian franchisee of al Qaeda is
now fighting for basic democratic rights
(tolerance of political and religious differences
in the military bloc) and open to the program of
revolutionaries that the Syrian revolution cannot
win short of an Arab socialist federation.
Against the Jacobin (and Menshevik, Stalinist and
fake Trotskyist) social imperialism, this
transformation vindicates the Bolshevik program
of the AUF which creates military blocs to
advance political agreement to the point where
national, religious, gender, and other
differences become resolved into a single class
war against the imperialists and their
dictatorships.
For a military block with real anti-imperialists
against fake anti-imperialists!
Victory to the Syrian Revolution!
Forward to the socialist federation of MENA!
Class Struggle 120
What We Fight For
Overthrow Capitalism
Historically, capitalism expanded world-wide to free
much of humanity from the bonds of feudal or tribal
society, and developed the economy, society and
culture to a new higher level. But it could only do this
by exploiting the labour of the productive classes to
make its profits. To survive, capitalism became
increasingly destructive of "nature" and humanity. In
the early 20th century it entered the epoch of
imperialism in which successive crises unleashed
wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions. Today we
fight to end capitalisms wars, famine, oppression
and injustice, by mobilising workers to overthrow
their own ruling classes and bring to an end the
rotten, exploitative and oppressive society that has
exceeded its use-by date.
Fight for Socialism
By the 20th century, capitalism had created the pre-
conditions for socialism a world-wide working class
and modern industry capable of meeting all our basic
needs. The potential to eliminate poverty,
starvation, disease and war has long existed. The
October Revolution proved this to be true, bringing
peace, bread and land to millions. But it became the
victim of the combined assault of imperialism and
Stalinism. After 1924 the USSR, along with its
deformed offspring in Europe, degenerated back
towards capitalism. In the absence of a workers
political revolution, capitalism was restored between
1990 and 1992. Vietnam, China and Cuba then
followed. Today only North Korea (DPRK) survives as
a degenerate workers state. We unconditionally
defend the DPRK against capitalism and fight for
political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy as
part of world socialism.
Defend Marxism
While the economic conditions for socialism exist
today, standing between the working class and
socialism are political, social and cultural barriers.
They are the capitalist state and bourgeois ideology
and its agents. These agents claim that Marxism is
dead and capitalism need not be exploitative. We say
that Marxism is a living science that explains both
capitalisms continued exploitation and its attempts
to hide class exploitation behind the appearance of
19
Autumn 2017
individual "freedom" and "equality". It reveals how
and why the reformist, Stalinist and centrist mis-
leaders of the working-class tie workers to bourgeois
ideas of nationalism, racism, sexism and equality.
Such false beliefs will be exploded when the struggle
against the inequality, injustice, anarchy and
barbarism of capitalism in crisis, led by a
revolutionary Marxist party, produces a revolutionary
class-consciousness.
For a Revolutionary Party
The bourgeois and its agents condemn the Marxist
party as totalitarian. We say that without a
democratic and a centrally organised party there can
be no revolution. We base our beliefs on the
revolutionary tradition of Bolshevism and Trotskyism.
Such a party, armed with a transitional program,
forms a bridge that joins the daily fight to defend all
the past and present gains won from capitalism, to
the victorious socialist revolution. Defensive
struggles for bourgeois rights and freedoms, for
decent wages and conditions, will link up the
struggles of workers of all nationalities, genders,
ethnicities and sexual orientations, bringing about
movements for workers control, political strikes and
the arming of the working class, as necessary steps to
workers' power and the smashing of the bourgeois
state. Along the way, workers will learn that each
new step is one of many in a long march to
revolutionise every barrier put in the path to the
victorious revolution.
Fight for Communism
Communism stands for the creation of a classless,
stateless society beyond socialism that is capable of
meeting all human needs. Against the ruling class lies
that capitalism can be made "fair" for all; that nature
can be "conserved"; that socialism and communism
are "dead"; we raise the red flag of communism to
keep alive the revolutionary tradition of the'
Communist Manifesto of 1848, the Bolshevik-led
October Revolution; the Third Communist
International until 1924, the revolutionary Fourth
International up to 1940 before its collapse into
centrism. We fight to build a new, Fifth, Communist
International, as a world party of socialism capable
of leading workers to a victorious struggle for
socialism.
Class Struggle #120 Autumn 2017

For a New World Party of Socialism!

Liaison Committee of Communists (LCC) Integrating the RWG

(Zimbabwe), CWG (Aotearoa/NZ), RWG (Brazil), CWG (USA)
Revolutionary Workers Group of Zimbabwe (RWG-ZIM)
Email: rwg.zimbabwe@gmail.com
Website: www.rwgzimbabwe.wordpress.com
Revolutionary Worker (Paper of RWG-Zimbabwe)

Communist Workers Group- New Zealand/Aotearoa (CWG-NZ)

Email: cwg006@yahoo.com
Websites: http://redrave.blogspot.com
http://livingmarxism.wordpress.com
Class Struggle (Paper of the CWG-NZ)

Revolutionary Workers Group of Brazil (RWG-BR)

Email: gtrevolucionarios1@gmail.com
Site: https://grupodetrabalhadoresrevolucionrios.wordpress.com
Guerreiro da classe Trabalhadora (Paper of the RWG-BR)

Communist Workers Group USA (CWG-US):

Email: cwgclasswar@gmail.com
Website: www.cwgusa.wordpress.com
U

Class War (Paper of the CWG-US)

Class Struggle is online at https://www.redrave.blogspot.com

Phone +64272800080 cwg2007anz@hotmail.com
Archive of publications before 2006 http://communistworker.blogspot.com/