Brazil on Edge

Story of October 3
Lorde/Zionism
Suicide virus?
Class Struggle No 124
Briefs
Lorde and Zionism
It seems that Lorde has educated herself about the
Zionist state, and now supports BDS, good on her.
Perhaps she needs to educate herself about the
Syrian fascist state that is killing its own people.
We don’t know her position on Syria but it would be
likely to be consistent with those who recognise
oppression when they see it whether in the form of
Zionism or the Assad regime. Unlike the cynical
Zionists who paint Assad black in order to paint
themselves white.
The difference is that the Zionist state is an imposter
that only exists because it occupies Palestine. No
state can be free when it occupies another. For that
reason, BDS is a useful tactic to expose this fact,
rather than performing in Israel to convey the same
message.
In the case of Syria, would boycotting all those
countries such as the US, EU, and Russia that are
intervening in the Syrian civil war to smash the
popular revolution, achieve anything? No. Unless she
is banned or otherwise put in danger. Far better to
visit these countries and use her music to reach all
those who are opposed to their regime’s military
invasions and occupations of Syria. For the freedom
of Palestine and Syria cannot be won without the
active support of those who living in the imperialist
powers act to stop their military being used to smash
these liberation struggles.
Logan Paul & Suicide
Calling out the ‘maverick’ Logan Paul for his coverage
of a Japanese suicide below Mt Fuji is hypocrisy. Yes,
he is a self-promoter and he should have edited the
jokey stuff off his video. He needed to mea culpa for
that. But he wasn’t recording the brutal deaths of
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thousands of babies in Syria on Youtube, he wasn’t
shocking youth raised on war games and the TV
coverage of the never-ending war on terror. Or
ghoulishly replaying those who fell from the twin
towers continuously.
He wasn’t recording the epidemic of GIs who suicide
because they are abandoned to PTSD. What he was
doing was unintentionally busting the hypocrisy of
those who don’t want youth to talk about suicide
because they might do it. Logan Paul is no maverick.
He allowed himself to be trolled, rounded up and hog
tied by the moral sheriffs of the West and tarred and
feathered in Main Street while Wall Street couldn’t
give a damn.
The Japanese have dealt with this shocking situation
with resignation. Many people go to the forest below
Mt Fuji to kill themselves. A famous novel “Norwegian
Wood” by brilliant author Haruki Murakami features
it. Did the family of the suicide make any effort to
find him? Are they shocked or insulted? Should we be
shocked on their behalf? Suicide is almost a ritual in
Japan where alienated youth end their lives in their
thousands every year. Just like more GIs kill
themselves in the US than in actual wars. And who
gives a damn? Who did Logan Paul cause offence
other that the sanctimonious self-appointed moral
guardians of US cultural imperialism and its
profiteering movie and internet empires?
So instead of groveling before the moral police, let’s
talk about suicide, record it, rub the noses in it of
those who ignore, personalize it, treat it as an
offence against private ownership of bodies, as part
of their celebration of or submission to a dying
economic system that sacrifices its youth in the
millions with impunity. Let’s show youth that
capitalism kills in all of its gory detail for its sacred
profits. Kill capitalism, save yourself, and save
humanity.
Class Struggle No 124 Autumn 2018

Labour’s fails 100 Days in Government Test

We take a look at the promises from the Labour party when campaigning and on taking office –
what will these really deliver for working including under-employed people? As we argued in
previous issues of Class Struggle, Labour forming a Coalition with openly capitalist parties means
it cannot claim anymore to be a party that represents workers. It has an excuse to betray its
working-class voters by trading any real gains for workers in exchange for becoming the
government. That is why our balance sheet of wins and losses for workers in the first 100 days
is boringly predictable. Once Labour signed the fiscal responsibility deal with the Greens it
meant it can’t even adopt Keynesian spending to stimulate economic growth (boost profits) let
alone spend on what workers need (living wages). And to win Peters to form a government,
Labour and Greens had to trade away some of its promises to appease his populist, conservative
supporters. The result is that Labour now openly betrays workers on behalf of predatory,
parasitic, international finance capital - most dramatically by signing the TPPA11! Labour is fully
exposed as a open bourgeois party. We need an independent mass workers party!
deliver? Nothing substantial. Subsidising private
Cash trickle downs to profits landlords instead of taxing capital gains means that
Tertiary fees will be dropped a year at a time. But the cause of the crisis is left untouched. The market
fees themselves are less of a barrier to poorer cannot solve the problem. This just perpetuates
families accessing tertiary education than living property speculators parasitic on workers’ wages. We
costs. Raising student allowances by $50 a week will are for minimum standards for all houses, homes,
be pocket money for some students able to access a apartments, accommodation (boarding houses,
student allowance, the rest will have to increase motels, lodges, etc) to be set by working people.
their student loans, or continue to work part time to Increase secure tenancy for tenants to have longer
survive. The rent subsidy has gone directly into rent term guarantees.
rises. Only a free, universal education from pre-
Banning overseas ‘speculators’ from buying existing
school to tertiary paid for by taxing profits and
houses will reduce demand but it won’t stop
rents can deliver the education we need!
speculation in new builds whether the landlords are
Increasing the minimum wage to $16.50 an hour is an Chinese or Kiwis. We are stuck with workers making
insult to low paid workers. We need a living wage for speculators rich. Why not tax the speculators? The
all workers. And even $20 is not enough! Only tax working group cannot address this as their terms
workers and students organising union-based of reference exclude it. Too many MPs owning
wages and prices committees can decide what multiple rentals to allow Labour to entertain this
wage, allowance or benefit they need to live on! radical solution. We say a 100% capital gain tax on
all speculative rental profits to drive the parasites
Tinkering with Workplace Law out of business!
Labour’s tinkering with the workplace law doesn’t
State Houses for all who need them!
even undo the worst of the last National
government’s attacks in favour of employers. And Gov’t will stop the state house sell-off. Should we be
doesn’t help most workers employed by small happy? Not when there is no serious attempt to
businesses with 20 or fewer workers. They still face replace those sold off by previous Governments. We
the 90-day fire at will scenario. Labour’s workplace are against “social housing” as a thinly veiled return
policy is based on the ideology of fair shares between to capitalist philanthropy and a quasi-market
labour and capital. Yet global capitalism’s terminal substitute for state housing. A state house with rent
crisis can only be solved by capital at the expense of pegged to 20% of income should be a right for all
cutting wages. To defend wages and conditions we those who need it!
advocate strikes and occupations. Ultimately
The “KiwiBuild” programme cannot produce
putting people before profits means expropriating
affordable homes when the building industry is beset
the means of production under workers control!
by profiteering monopolies like Fletchers,
Fiddling with the Housing Crisis exploitation of subcontractors, terrible health and
safety records, poor employment records (including
Labour proclaimed a housing crisis when attacking super-exploitation of illegal migrants, cash jobs –tax
the National government, but what do they actually
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Class Struggle No 124
free) which have driven up the costs and made
housing unaffordable to most workers. So, Labour
dodges the issue and sets up another committee - the
“Affordable Housing Authority”.
Obviously Labour refuses to put working people
before profits. It won’t challenge the property-
owning democracy where land grabbing and
speculation has always been a shortcut to wealth.
Driven by the banks, property speculation will remain
a fact of life enriching landlords and banks. We say
we need a massive public works scheme to provide
jobs for unemployed youth in the building trades
and a crash program in state house building until
the demand for rental houses is met.
Fiddling with Family Incomes
Working families get a few crumbs. Paid parental
leave, and $60 per week for the following year is too
little, and if it has to be applied for, then it won’t
reach those who need it. A winter energy bonus is
welcome relief to some, but a stopgap in the absence
of warm and healthy homes. So, in effect it is a bonus
to (privatised) energy companies.
Child poverty. Labour expresses liberal concern. Sets
a child poverty reduction target and budget reports
on child poverty statistics. Goals are good but where
is the action? We can’t solve child poverty without
full employment, a living wage, and decent,
affordable, healthy housing. So, we are back to the
spending constraints of fiscal responsibility!
Mental Health, Prisons and Cannabis
Mental ill-health is a symptom of capitalist society
that is broken and is alienating of the majority of the
people. We know that most of the prison population
have mental health problems or are in for drug
offenses. Labour wants to cut the numbers in jails but
won’t look at the obvious measures to achieve this.
So far it plans to build the Mega prison at Waikeria.
We say No Mega Prison! One alternative to new
prisons is legalising cannabis. That would cut the
prison population by half at least. But the deal done
with NZ First will put decriminalisation or legalisation
to a binding referendum only in 2000. We say legalise
cannabis now! Close the prisons! Rehabilitate
offenders in socially useful work or training on
union pay rates!
Climate catastrophe
The “nuclear issue of our age”? Oh please. Zero net
carbon emissions goal by 2050. We will all be dead or
dying by then. Capitalism is the cause of climate
change. We say the alternative facing us is survival
socialism or human extinction!
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Autumn 2018
Global capitalism is in its terminal crisis and all
Labour can do in its first 100 days is tinker and fiddle.
We get more committees, reports and talk shops: a
Ministerial Inquiry to fix our mental health crisis, an
inquiry into the abuse of children in state care, a Tax
Working Group, a Clean Waters Summit, an
independent Climate Commission, an Affordable
Housing Authority.
But talk shops don’t create change especially when
they fiddle with symptoms and don’t touch the real
causes of these problems. For example, tax evasion
by the rich, profiteering at the cost of substandard
housing and damaging the environment are all
symptoms of capitalism in its terminal decline. We
say Destroy capitalism before it destroys us!
TPPA11 cancels all the 100 days hype
The signing of the TPPA11 (Trans Pacific Partnership
Agreement) is a sell-out of NZ workers to the global
monopolies like Google, Microsoft or Apple who have
the power to sue governments that tax or regulate
their profits. What to do? We say national sovereignty
means nothing if the working people do not control
the economy. The profits from the TPPA11 will go
into the pockets of the foreign and NZ capitalist class,
the losses will empty the pockets of the workers.
Therefore, against the power of Big Pharma or Big
Tech to monopolise patents and supply we say:
• Socialise the health and communications
industries under workers control to provide
full access and free health and
communications for all!
Against the power of monopolies to dictate
economic, social and environmental policy by
refusing to pay taxes on capital gains and profits we
say:
• Repeal the Fiscal Responsibility Act and tax
profits and capital gains to pay for free
comprehensive health, education and
welfare!
• Organise workers committees and councils
to determine economic, social and
environmental policy to meet our needs!
• Nationalise without compensation the big
four private banks and turn Kiwi Bank into a
single State Bank under workers’ control!
• Nationalise without compensation all
foreign and NZ corporates that sack workers
or close down!
We are for an independent workers party with a
program for a Workers Government to expropriate
capitalist property, socialise the economy and plan
production for need and not profit!
Class Struggle No 124 Autumn 2018

Busting the Cannabis Madness Myth

The Green's Bill to extend access to Medical Cannabis came up for a vote to send it to Select
Committee on 31st January. It was voted down 73 to 47. A majority for the Bill would have sent
it to Select Committee - a relatively democratic forum to challenge the myths surrounding
cannabis without the debate being dominated by the hysteria of the corporate media and the
lobbyists for Big Pharma. It would have forced the health bureaucracy to defend their 'scientific
evidence' about the 'harm' of cannabis against serious criticism. Its defeat proves that there is
entrenched opposition in parliament to liberalising Medical Cannabis, especially the right to grow
and supply outside of the control of Big Pharma.

Clearly the 'refer madness' myth hyped for decades

remains the main barrier to reform. Our target has to
be the pseudo-scientific and bureaucratic devotion to
the myths underlying prohibition that has stymied all
genuine cannabis reform in NZ. The biggest lie is that
cannabis causes psychosis. Progress with cannabis
law reform is cripplingly slow. Why? A century of
stigmatisation and prohibition has embedded a
reactionary ‘harm’ mythology from the days of
‘reefer madness’ to today’s ‘cannabis psychosis’ in
the popular culture, health science and medical
practice. The mythology claims that cannabis is
addictive, leads to ‘harder’ drugs, makes you anti-
social, dumbs you down, makes you fail in education,
perform poorly at work, and in the end, it makes you
mad. These are myths that conveniently blame
individuals as ‘dope fiends’ rather than the victims of
the alienating capitalist society into which they are
born.
We won’t make any headway towards the
liberalisation of cannabis and other drugs until we
debunk these ‘harm’ myths, and understand the
nature of capitalism and its effects, inequality,
poverty, social breakdown etc, as the real cause of
drug use, and that drug abuse is a consequence of a
policy of prohibition. But let's skip the historical
lecture and go straight to the misuse of science to
bolster a hysterical prohibition culture.
NZ Misuse of Drugs Act and the myth of ‘harm’
The NZ Misuse of Drugs Act makes cannabis use a
crime (unless waived by Ministerial approval) rather
than a health need, on the grounds that it causes
harm to health and can lead to death. Even if
Cannabis were ‘decriminalised’ the assumption of
‘harm’ requires a ‘least harm’ approach to law
reform by the Ministry of Health (MOH) which
considers that cannabis ‘contributes’ to 32 deaths per
year in NZ.
The NZ Drug Foundation (NZDF) rejects the MOH
method of arriving at 32 deaths. It adopts a more
moderate approach; that harm does not arise from
“toxic overdoses”, but the “long-term effects” of
use. “Cannabis does cause harm, but the harm comes
from heavy long-term use and is mostly linked to
mental health – lasting physical harm is unlikely,
while poisoning or death is unheard of.”
So, the NZDF proposes ‘decriminalisation’ of cannabis
use by 2020 combined with heavy state regulation
and licensing to minimise ‘harm’. It seems that the
Drug Foundation is trying to steer the public debate
for law reform down the path of least resistance. Yet
that resistance seems to be coming mainly from the
Government and Health bureaucracy rather than in
the general population.
This conflict between ‘harm’ and ‘health’ is evident
in the Drug Foundation itself. On the one hand, the
NZDF Executive Director Ross Bell argues that the
District of Columbia (US) legalisation of use, but not
trade, might be best for NZ: “Mr Bell looks to the
District of Columbia which changed its approach
towards marijuana as recently as last year. It
legalised its use, but not the trade in it, so under a

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Class Struggle No 124
new law, people can grow it, use it and give it away,
but they can't sell it. This is most closely in line with
how Kiwis use it, Mr Bell said, suggesting it could be
a starting point for discussion here.“If you think of
the way Kiwis use cannabis, often they're not getting
it from the tinny house. It might be the first thing
we allow is for people to grow and give.””
However, the Drug Foundation’s official new reform
proposal repeats the ‘cannabis causes harm’ mantra.
“We know that the majority of people use cannabis
without serious harm. However, a small proportion
experience negative impacts such as anxiety,
depression, memory loss and mood swings. Those
who use cannabis long term may face health risks
such as respiratory disease (if smoked) and mental
illnesses such as schizophrenia, at least for those
who may be predisposed. Cannabis impairs driving,
especially when combined with alcohol. It also
carries the risk of dependency in around one in 10
users. Heavy use by young people has been linked to
poorer outcomes in education and employment as
well as a reduction in IQ points, though the research
on this is mixed. Our verdict? Cannabis can be
harmful, so our law should focus on minimising
harm, especially to young people. The best way to
minimise harm is to tightly regulate use.”
[Our emphasis]
The evidence for and against ‘harm’
The evidence contests the ‘harm’ myth. It shows that
the “negative effects” attributed to cannabis such as
anxiety and depression, mood swings and even
memory loss are widely experienced in society by
many who don’t use cannabis, and when they occur
among the few users who 'overdose', this like any drug
overdose, is largely the result of prohibition which
works against safe and controlled conditions for drug
use.
Dependency is another word for addiction and this
claim is widely disputed, notably by Carl Hart, not
only for cannabis, but for other ‘hard’ drugs as well
(to his own surprise). He finds that when offered
choices between drugs and money his experimental
subjects will often reject drugs and take the money
proving that drug addiction is learned behaviour in
situations where you don’t get to choose money.
And the familiar story that cannabis ‘abuse’ by youth
harms their schooling, college prospects and can lead
to suicide, and so on, is probably the effect of
prohibition. When kids who are expelled from school,
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denied financial support and criminalised explains
much of the risk of suicide.
But the biggest driver of the 'minimal harm' orthodoxy
in the NZDF model reform relies on the Canterbury
Study led by David Fergusson. Take the link between
smoking cannabis and the risk of lung cancer. A US
study using a large sample, done by Tashkin, showed
that the 'normal, moderate’ level of cannabis
smoking had no measurable link to lung cancer. Not
only that, cannabis smoking was better than non-
smoking for some people! This study, however, was
contradicted by the NZ study which did find a
‘correlation’ between heavy smoking and lung
damage. Tashkin says: “The largest epidemiologic
(case-control) study of the association between
marijuana use and lung cancer failed to demonstrate
that marijuana increases the risk of developing lung
(or, for that matter, upper airway) cancer.” He notes
that a much smaller, recent study from New Zealand
did claim to find a link, but only in very heavy users.
He says, “The authors’ interpretation of their data
can be faulted because of the small numbers of
their subjects exhibiting such heavy use, which
rendered their estimates of risk imprecise."
[Our emphasis]
The Scientific American, however, is more precise:
“… looking at residents of Los Angeles County, the
scientists found that even those who smoked more
than 20,000 joints in their life did not have an
increased risk of lung cancer.” [Our emphasis]
Tashkin is saying that the Canterbury study cannot
claim to have found that heavy smoking of cannabis
causes lung damage. His Los Angeles sample of heavy
users found no significant correlation. The NZ sample
of heavy smokers was too small to exclude all other
factors that may explain the correlation between
cannabis and lung damage. Therefore, the positive
correlation in the NZ study between cannabis use and
lung damage may be a consequence of lung damage
caused by some other unmeasured cause.
While very heavy smoking of cannabis causing lung
damage may be ‘common sense’, Tashkin's large
study was able to control for confounding factors and
did not find any correlation, or causal link. If there
are doubts about the Canterbury project’s results on
lung damage, perhaps the NZDF concern about
studies 'suggesting' a causal link between cannabis
use and ‘psychosis’ in adolescents should be also be
re-examined.
Class Struggle No 124
Cannabis and Psychosis: Search for a causal link
One of the reviews of studies (7, one of which was
the Christchurch study) into this link by Le Bec PY et.
al. (2009) found that “cannabis may be an
independent risk factor” for psychosis:
“Together, the seven studies were all prospective
cohorts and represented 50,275 human subjects.
There were three European studies (from Sweden,
Holland and Germany), one from New Zealand and
one from Australia. Only one study of the seven did
not show a significant association between cannabis
consumption and increase of the risk of developing a
psychosis. However, this study had some bias, such
as low level of cannabis use and the lack of
evaluation of cannabis use after inclusion. For the
six other studies, data show the existence of a
significant association between cannabis use and
psychotic disorders (with an increased risk between
1.2 and 2.8 in Zammit et al.'s study), particularly
among vulnerable individuals (that is with a pre-
psychotic state at the time of inclusion). Therefore,
all the studies that assessed a dose-effect
relationship showed this link between cannabis use
and the emergence of psychosis or psychotic
symptoms. The fact that all causal criteria were
present in the studies suggests that cannabis use
may be an independent risk factor for the
development of psychosis. Results seem to be more
consistent for vulnerable individuals with the
hypothesis that cannabis use may precipitate
psychosis, notably among vulnerable subjects. In
particular, early onset of cannabis use during
adolescence should be an environmental stressor
that interacts with a genetic predisposition to induce
a psychotic disorder.” [Our emphasis]
Note that the closest that this review comes to
finding that cannabis may be a cause of psychosis, is
that, “…cannabis use may be an independent risk
factor for the development of psychosis.” The
strength of that suggestion comes down to what are
referred to as “all causal criteria” being controlled
as potential confounders, that is, alternative causes.
So, what is the strength of this claim in the
Christchurch study? In their 2004 paper Fergusson et.
al. addressed the problem of testing ‘causal linkages’
to eliminate other explanations.
Fergusson et. al. (2004) describe how their statistical
method allowed them to control for ‘confounders”
(i.e. other possible causes) both, “fixed” influences,
such as age, gender etc that did not change over the
time-frame of the data, and “time-dynamic”
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influences, such as education, employment etc., that
did change over the time-frame and could ‘confound’
the association between cannabis use and psychosis.
By testing the association among all confounders,
against cannabis use, and against psychiatric
symptoms, the study concludes that there is still a
residual association between cannabis use and
psychosis, ‘independent’ (with its own causal effect)
of the influence of all confounders, that justifies
treating cannabis as a contributory cause.The second
important conclusion was that the study was able to
compare the subjects scores on all the relevant
variables over a time frame between 18, 21 and 25
years of age, and data collected at those three points
showed that the “direction of cause” was from
cannabis to psychosis, rather than the reverse.
How does one include all possible alternative causes
in a longitudinal cohort study with a relatively small
sample size, so that cannabis stands out as the
‘independent’ cause? Note that for the sake of the
argument about 'cause' I am not challenging the
validity and reliability of the data such as 'psychiatric
symptoms' at this point. Nor am I competent to assess
the statistical methods used to perform these ‘tests’
in the Christchurch study. However, an assessment of
such statistical methods was included in the review
of the field by Ksir and Hart in 2016. They reviewed
the evidence in support of two competing theories
(hypotheses) between cannabis and psychosis; the
“contributing cause” view held by the Christchurch
study, and the “shared vulnerability” view held by
the review authors.
Cannabis and Psychosis: A Critical Overview
According to Ksir and Hart (2016):
“Interest in the relationship between cannabis use
and psychosis has increased dramatically in recent
years, in part because of concerns related to the
growing availability of cannabis and potential risks
to health and human functioning. There now exists a
plethora of scientific articles addressing this issue,
but few provide a clear verdict about the causal
nature of the cannabis-psychosis association. Here,
we review recent research reports on cannabis and
psychosis, giving particular attention to how each
report provides evidence relating to two hypotheses:
(1) cannabis as a contributing cause and (2) shared
vulnerability. Two primary kinds of data are brought
to bear on this issue: studies done with schizophrenic
patients and studies of first-episode psychosis.
Evidence reviewed here suggests that cannabis
does not in itself cause a psychosis disorder.
Class Struggle No 124
Rather, the evidence leads us to conclude that
both early use and heavy use of cannabis are more
likely in individuals with a vulnerability to
psychosis. The role of early and heavy cannabis use
as a prodromal [symptomatic of an attack or disease]
sign merits further examination, along with a variety
of other problem behaviors (e.g., early or heavy use
of cigarettes or alcohol and poor school
performance). Future research studies that focus
exclusively on the cannabis-psychosis association will
therefore be of little value in our quest to better
understand psychosis and how and why it occurs.”
[Our emphasis]
In other words, the authors conclude that cannabis
cannot be shown to be a cause of psychosis, and the
best interpretation of the limited evidence is that it
suggests that cannabis may be part of a “shared
vulnerability” where those ‘vulnerable’ to psychosis
may use cannabis along with other substances as a
means of self-medication. The policy conclusions
that flow from this review article are to reject
cannabis as a cause of psychosis on the basis of a
weak claim of “contributory causation”, and to
address the common social and genetic factors that
cause this ‘shared vulnerability’ associated with
cannabis use. This shifts the focus away from the
prevailing model of “harm” towards a model of
“preventative health”.
That this is a highly politicized area is attested to by
the debate between Ksir and Hart and the authors of
one of the studies they reviewed, over why a
correlation cannot as a rule be a cause, and whether
the appropriate policy response is the legalization of
cannabis and other drugs or continued prohibition.
The significance of these policy options is clear if the
most obvious cause of ‘harm’ is prohibition itself
rather than the ‘harm’ attributed to cannabis. For
example, the US study referred to above claiming
that cannabis use led to school dropouts, failure to
attend college, and more suicide attempts, could
easily be explained as the effects of prohibition. The
author advocates that prohibition should be replaced
by prevention.
Prohibition causes the harm attributed to cannabis
The reform debate therefore comes down to one of
two approaches. First the ‘harm’ model. Modest and
incremental change via decriminalisation leaves the
growth, sale and consumption, regulated and
licensed, redirecting drug policy from prohibition
towards state control and regulation. This is the
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moderate road which makes the assumption of
‘harm’ an excuse to protect individuals from harming
themselves. The question of what constitutes ‘harm’
is reviewed, and the myths that cannabis is a
'gateway drug', that overdoses are 'toxic' and can
even cause death, are rejected. Nevertheless,
cannabis is still held to cause ‘harm’ among youth,
long-term heavy users and those genetically or
socially at risk of mental illness. For that reason law
reform must be gradual, based on ‘best science’ and
guided by the medical model of ‘least harm’.
The second approach is that cannabis is a harmless
natural plant, used as a preventative and palliative
medicine over millennia. Cannabis and our
endocannabinoid system have co-adapted over our
history of evolution. It is not only ‘harmless’ it is
‘harm-killing’ with many (including as yet
undiscovered) health benefits. These include pain
relief replacing opioids, stopping spasms in MS, and
seizures in epileptics and pain in advanced cancer
etc. And coming over the horizon is the prevention
and elimination of diseases including cancer,
Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, etc. In assessing these
health benefits, we should combine all sources of
evidence: anecdotal, medical, laboratory research,
epidemiological, as well as the ‘gold standard’
clinical trials, to understand fully the important role
of cannabis in our lives.
We conclude that the ‘harm’ associated with
cannabis is mainly caused by the policy of prohibition
that reflects the objectives of powerful groups and
class interests in society and is reproduced in
research assumptions and media sensationalism. It is
not an attribute of cannabis itself but of politically
loaded economic and social policies. We can see this
clearly in the benefits that have accrued in many
nations such as Portugal and Paraguay, and in those
US states where decriminalisation or legalisation has
occurred. Medical Cannabis has now been approved
by WHO. But we still have to overcome the fear of
THC as the cause of ‘reefer madness’ and prove that
in a safe, legal environment, CDB cannot be
separated from THC and the other components of
cannabis without losing the full health benefits of the
herb.
We can make a start as capitalism goes into its
terminal decline and fall, but only fully reap the
benefits of cannabis as part of the socialisation of
production for need and not profit in a socialist
society that has returned to nature in time to avoid
human extinction.
Class Struggle No 124
Iran; For Permanent Revolution in Iran and MENA!
1) The new uprising in Iran is of world-historic
significance. It proves that the masses are ready and
willing to fight to overthrow capitalism in its death
throes. The Iranian workers and poor farmers refuse
to pay for the terminal crisis of global capitalism with
their lives and their living standards. Marxists
understand that this uprising is overdue and can only
end in socialist revolution or barbaric counter-
revolution. But we are not alone in this historic
perspective. An Iranian man, aged 111 years, speaks
of being born at the time of Iran’s (then Persia) first
step toward bourgeois revolution that took place in
1906. He said “I knew this day would come, I stayed
alive for it”. He lived through the whole epoch of
imperialism in Iran during which its national
development was held back by the rivalry of the
Great Powers, aided by their national bourgeois
agents, and the treacherous petty bourgeois
‘democratic’ left, in the contest for control over
Eurasia as the key to world domination.
(2) When Lenin wrote “Imperialism; The highest
stage of Capitalism” in 1915, Iran’s place in global
capitalism was already subordinated to imperialism.
Lenin defined imperialism as a system in which
imperialist oppressor countries dominated colonial
oppressed countries. However, a handful of countries
were ‘transitional’ or in between which included
Persia, China and Turkey. He called these semi-
colonies: "..,countries which, formally, are
politically independent, but which are, in fact,
9
Autumn 2018
enmeshed in the net of financial and diplomatic
dependence.”
Just as the Russian revolution proved the
theory/program of Permanent Revolution correct, so
did Iran’s future development. The constitutional
reform of 1906 limited the powers of the Shah but
could not escape the “net of financial and diplomatic
dependence” without breaking free from British,
German and Russian imperialist rivalry for control of
Persian oil. Iran’s national revolution was never
completed because it was caught in the post WW1
grip of imperialism’s attempts at re-division of the
world in the face of international revolutionary
upsurge. The Russo-Persian treaty of 1921 protected
the Soviet revolution from White incursions from the
south while granting shipping rights in the Caspian
Sea to Persia. Such was the re-division of the world
which removed Russian imperialism from the scene
replacing it with the power of the Soviet Union up
until Stalin’s deal with the Anglo-American bloc
during WW2.
(3) Iran took advantage of the post WW2 re-division
and the wave of decolonisation, but like most of the
colonies fell short of completing the national
democratic (bourgeois) revolution. That succeeded
only in China where the capitalists refused the offer
to share power with the Maoist CCP and fled to
Taiwan, and belatedly in Cuba where the US refused
to share power forcing the Castroites into the arms
of the Stalinist USSR. In 1951 Mossadegh’s National
Class Struggle No 124
Front, committed to oil nationalisation, won a
parliamentary majority and overturned the absolute
power of the constitutional monarchy but failed to go
all the way to throw out the national bourgeoisie in a
socialist revolution. The result was a hugely popular
anti-imperialist bourgeois government that
nationalised the oil industry. However, the popular
workers and poor farmers movement lacked a
revolutionary Bolshevik-Leninist Party capable of
breaking the popular front. Mossadegh attempted to
negotiate with the imperialists while they imposed
production and trade sanctions as well as a naval
blockade. US and British agents created divisions in
Mossadegh’s support and in 1953 they conspired to
stage a coup to restore their ownership and control
of Iranian oil and to restore Reza Shah Pahlavi as
Constitutional monarch.
The coup attempt failed initially, as the National
Front and the Tudeh (Communist Party) took to the
streets and the Shah fled to the US. The US and
Britain planned a second attempt. This time the coup
succeeded mainly because Mossadegh demobilized
his mass support and the Stalinist Tudeh party lulled
into the complacency by the apparently victorious
popular front which included its rival Islamic
movement presaging its reactionary role in 1979.
Losing support in parliament, Mossadegh then staged
a referendum to dissolve parliament and strip the
Shah of his remaining powers; a left constitutional
coup which lost him more support. Foreshadowing
Allende in Chile in 1973, Mossadegh did not mobilise
his support nor call for their resort to arms. All that
was needed then was to neutralise Tudeh by
infiltrating provocateurs into the party to provoke a
‘communist insurrection’ losing Mossadegh more
support, and finally instigating pro-Shah officers
under General Zahidi to arrest him and take control
of the government.
(4) We summarize our position on the 1979 anti-
imperialist revolution and the counter-revolution by
the Islamic bourgeoisie of the bazaar:
“The tragedy of the 1979 revolution showed that Iran
was ripe for revolution but lacked a revolutionary
leadership. The workers and poor peasants were the
force behind the anti-Shah revolution but were led
by liberals and Stalinists who allied with the Islamic
national bourgeoisie who by 1981 had turned on the
most advanced workers and exterminated many
thousands of the best militants. The failure of the
socialist revolution can be clearly blamed on the role
10
Autumn 2018
of the Stalinist Tudeh party which followed the
fatalist Stalinist line of making a democratic
revolution in alliance with the ‘progressive’
bourgeoisie to kick out the imperialists. The
Stalinists refused to learn from their betrayal of the
revolution in China in 1927 when their ‘ally” and
honorary member of the Comintern, Chiang Kai Shek,
turned on the Communist Party and massacred its
leadership.”
Again, this serves to demonstrate that unless the
workers lead the poor peasants to revolution then the
reactionary national bourgeoisie will use its
leadership of the anti-imperialist popular front to
turn on the workers and oppressed and smash the
socialist revolution. The lessons of October have still
not been learned. The Stalinists, Guevaristas,
renegade Trotskyists and Mujahedeen (Maoists) put
their trust in bourgeois democracy rather than the
revolutionary workers and poor peasants. Again and
again, the workers and poor peasants rise up but
lacking a revolutionary Marxist party they are
defeated by the reactionary bourgeoisie, serving
directly or indirectly the interests of one or other
imperialist power.
(5) The Islamic Republic and its near-40-year
dictatorship and episodic resistance to it has, up to
its present situation as part of the Russia-China bloc,
gone to war in the Middle East to re-partition it from
Iraq to Lebanon. It is trying to solve its semi-colonial
crisis at the expense of lesser semi-colonies and the
working peoples of the Middle East and Iran. At least
twice now, after the Astana parley and after Sochi,
the world has been spun a tale of a Syrian settlement.
All that has been settled, from the point of view of
the Iranian rulers, is that Syria will have to pay for
the intervention in support of Assad! And meanwhile,
the continuous expansionary policy has introduced
Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni masses to the behaviors of
“volunteers” from the dreaded Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps. These not only mete out repressions and
steal everything in sight in “liberated” areas but have
their fingers in every sort of economic enterprise
wherever they are, all with the blessing of the
theocrats.
As a result Iran is pumping capital and mercenaries
into Iraq and Syria and Yemen in a subordinate role
to Russia and China, mending its bridges with Turkey
and Qatar, and starving its own workers and
peasants. So the determinants of the uprising are a
history of semi-colonial uneven and combined
Class Struggle No 124
development and facing a global crisis which creates
all the objective conditions for revolution but which
still lacks the vital subjective condition of a
revolutionary Bolshevik-Leninist Party. With only two
alternatives, ultimately, the Iranian masses must find
the road to Leninism to be able to carry their
revolution through, because the only other
alternative is worse reaction than they have
experienced to date.
How the struggle is developing and the two
imperialist blocs
(6) We read that ninety percent of Iranians are
feeding themselves with the equivalent of food
stamps, and that these are slated to be further cut.
Where 27% of the Gross Domestic Product was
devoted to social welfare and a basic floor akin to the
Brazilian Bolsa de Familia for all in 2008, a World
Bank study now crows how this has been “reformed”
down to 3% today. Youth unemployment is massive,
double digit inflation has become a permanent
fixture and the government minimum wage is ⅓ of
the official ‘minimum necessary income’ for a family
of three. This condition prevails as a result of the
costs of the theocrats’ wars taking place during a
global crisis of capitalism, and especially since Iran
has been backing Assad’s counterrevolution with both
blood and treasure. An uptick in international
investment was supposed to result in improved
standard of living conditions, as was the re-election
of Rouhani, whom the western press calls a
“moderate.” But while the shares of stocks have been
sold, nothing got better on the street. In the last
month, gasoline prices have doubled. Where
Germany and Spain were the big investors after the
2009 protests (over the fake election results), today
the money floods in from China:
“China is financing billions of dollars’ worth of
Chinese-led projects in Iran, making deep inroads
into the economy while European competitors
struggle to find banks willing to fund their
ambitions, Iranian government and industry officials
said….The Chinese funding, by far the largest
statement of investment intent of any country in
Iran, is in stark contrast with the drought facing
Western investors since U.S. President Donald Trump
disavowed the 2015 pact agreed on by major powers,
raising the threat sanctions could be re-imposed.
Iranian officials say the deals are part of Beijing’s
$124 billion Belt and Road initiative, which aims to
build new infrastructure — from highways and
Autumn 2018
railways to ports and power plants — between China
and Europe to pave the way for an expansion of
trade.”
The masses revolt is general and not limited to the
largest cities. The Government claim made to the
U.K. “Guardian” that the demonstrations have faded
is spurious. The revolt combines economic and
political demands and calls for the ouster of the
theocrats and Grand Ayatollah Khamenei have been
taken up across the country. Zamaneh Media reports
that the second half of 2017 has seen a spike in labor
walkouts over non-payment of wages and mass
layoffs. The protests are not limited to the industrial
workers, who have suffered the worst of it, but have
spread to all wage labor sectors. Zamaneh reports the
state repressions have hit national minorities harder,
also, such as the many Kurds who are miners.
Our orientalist “left” assures us of either (a) there is
no working class there, or (b) that this is just the
latest in a string of C.I.A. put-up jobs on the Middle
Eastern and North African masses. We’re here to tell
you there exists a ‘pre-revolutionary situation’ in the
language of Bolshevism. We condemn in advance any
attempt to foist a popular front on the Iranian
masses. They are rightly sick of the leaders who bring
them nothing but wars, poverty and union-busting
repressions. When once they realize that these
conditions are dumped onto them by an enemy social
class, they too will recognize and reject any “half-
way” schemes, whether popular fronts or Constituent
Assemblies, and the state those support.
(7) Left reformist factions and fake Trotskyists,
necessarily are exposed and defeated by dialectics.
If the protest movement sustains and grows over into
permanent revolution by forming workers councils,
occupying factories etc., and it actually begins to
challenge for power, we can expect the pro-Assad
left to jump to the defense of the regime as they did
in Syria. These faux leftists are so fixated on their
unipolar world view and blinded by their western
orientalist-chauvinism that all they can see,
whenever an angry populous in the semi-colonies rise
up against despotic capitalist regimes, is the
nefarious hand of the CIA. The faux left, (actually
much like the Voice of America, which suggests
hardline clerics are behind the protests!), believes
the regime can be reformed/ improved. Or this
“left”, the people themselves are not capable of
revolution--so they must be the tools of Wall St. Thus,
when Trump lauds the uprising, at no political cost to

11
Class Struggle No 124
himself or his brand, the fake left sees an army of
spies and provocateurs at work.
The regime has launched an offensive to stop the
protests. This may drive them underground as in Syria
where armed militias emerged to defend the uprising
from violent repression. It will be difficult (not
impossible) for the fake left to present the protests
in Iran as the work of the CIA and/or Islamic radicals.
Of course, they will try to say it is a “color
revolution,” i.e., an anti-corruption, pro-capitalist
one, but not many will buy this for long. They cannot
defend the regime in their more usual way, claiming
that the regime is secular and democratic, being fully
backed by Erdogan and Putin (albeit with caution,
Putin’s plans rely on keeping an alliance with Iran
irrespective of leadership)! Naturally the Iranian
masses have little time for these western petty-
bourgeois. Color this revolution RED! We call on
workers everywhere to down tools and engage in
labor actions in solidarity with the Iranian uprising!
(8) Following the government-sponsored pep rally RT
news declared the uprisings to be over and "like any
violent protests" unacceptable. Shades of Marikana!
The faux left gave the ANC a free pass and for the
last 6 years they have given backhanded if not
outright support to Assad. This is the nexus of the
SCO/BRICS (Shanghai Cooperation Organization and
Brazil Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc which
rallied to the emergent Russia/China imperialist bloc
the various capitalist semi-colonies trying to break
free or remain viable while free from US/EU
imperialism. So alongside cheers from the World
Social Forum/LINKS assemblage, from Chavez gifting
Assad the Bolivarian sword to Iran supporting Assad
against the Syrian Revolution, the semi-colonial
comprador capitalist classes (Bolivarian, Southern
African, and Iranian...) act to stop the wave of
proletarian revolutionary aspiration seeking to make
the national democratic revolution permanent-- that
is, socialist. The Stalinist left alongside LINKS, the
Castroists and the faux Trotskyists of the PSL and
WWP, have chosen to support one imperialist bloc
over the other. A hundred years after October and
they repeat the social-imperialist treachery of
August, 1914.
The common determinant of the current wave of
protests is the austerity due to the global economic
crisis being downloaded onto the semi-colonies by
the imperialist powers. As in every uprising since the
Tunisian eruption at the beginning of the “Arab
12
Autumn 2018
Spring,” we see spontaneous uncoordinated revolts
not organised by any bourgeois faction or outside
influence. In Iran, blame is directed at the regime,
not sanctions, etc., hence slogans opposing
intervention in Syria and Gaza represent a proletarian
internationalism, not a CIA plot. This is evident in the
demand of the head of teachers union who calls for
an end to the regime (he was jailed by the regime for
5 years so cannot be a CIA stooge). So, the regime is
unlikely to be able to bury this uprising by taking the
line that US/Israel etc., are to blame. Hence the
imperialist left defence of the regime is already
exposed as bankrupt! We do not disdain to make our
view of what needs to be done known:
• For international labor solidarity with the
Iranian masses!
• For labor actions and labor political strikes
to defend Iranian trade unionists and
workers!
• Down with the clampdown on social media!
Drop all charges and free all arrested
protesters!
• For Permanent Revolution in Iran! End the
regime! Smash the bourgeois/clerical state!
• Set up workers councils and militias, split
the army, no return to the Shah, unite the
revolution with the resistance in Syria and
Palestine!
• Down with imperialism including both the
U.S./E.U. bloc and the SCO with Russia and
China! Down with the bourgeois/clerical
lackeys!
• International workers' support for
reopening of the Iranian revolution joined
with the Arab Revolution!
• For the right to self-determination for the
Kurdish People! For a socialist Kurdistan!
• For a Bolshevik Leninist Party that does not
cede the leadership to Stalinists, Maoists,
Bolivarians and Guevarists!
• For a workers and poor farmers state!
• For a federation of socialist republics of the
Middle and Near East!
• For a new, revolutionary Workers’
International, based on the method and
Trotsky’s 1938 Transitional Program:
“Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of
the Fourth International”!
Liaison Committee of Communists. 8th Feb 2018
Class Struggle No 124 Autumn 2018

Brazil 2018 elections: Break with the Popular Front!

For an Independent and Revolutionary Alternative!

December 12, 2017 Sao Bernardo do Campo homeless workers encampment

The following is translated and reprinted from our comrades of the Revolutionary Workers
Group of Brazil (RWG-BR).
The 2018 presidential election in Brazil is set to take orchestrated by the allies of the PT in the
place in the greatest period of instability in the government, especially the current president Michel
country since re-democratization in the 1980s. Temer’s PMDB, her erstwhile allies fomented the
The global crisis of capitalism with the fall in the rate impeachment of Dilma.
of profits that broke out in 2008 — which has
But the crisis, corruption and the offensive of the
provoked great instability around the world — did not
“Car-Wash” did not stop with the PT. After the fall of
spare Brazil. In 2011 the crisis hit the country hard
Dilma, the bourgeoisie that ruled in alliance with the
and in 2015 and 2016 Brazil had the biggest recession
PT in its 14 years of government and maneuvered to
in its history. Dilma and the PT re-elected themselves
overthrow it, are now also targets of the “Car-Wash”.
in 2014 denying the existence of the crisis and
Even the PSDB, which was not part of the Lula/Dilma
promising that the country would “grow again.” The
governments, and is the largest right-wing party in
fall of GDP, high inflation and unemployment,
opposition to the PT, and that before the PT
increased misery and reports of corruption,
administration was itself in power for 8 years, is
increasingly amplified dissatisfaction among workers
reached by the scandal. All those who have governed
and poor people.
the country in the last decades are under the eyeball
The bourgeoisie and the media, who did not mention of the “Car-Wash”.
the depth of the world capitalist crisis, started an
In spite of the political crisis, with moments when his
offensive against the PT (The “Workers Party”), with
government seemed to be coming to an end like the
the main weapon being the Lava-Jato (“Car-Wash”)
leak of the recording of the conversation between
operation, saying that the problem of the crisis in the
Temer and the owner of the JBS (the meat
country was the PT and corruption. With a
manufacturer under investigation for corruption-bad
parliamentary manoeuvre, supported and
13
Class Struggle No 124
meat transl. note–see ref. link below), the revelation
of the president’s involvement in corruption keeps on
spreading. Temer has managed to approve
“reforms,” such as labour austerity measures, the
spending ceiling PEC (a “PEC” is a proposal of
constitutional amendment–ed.), High School Reform
and to conduct pre-salt oil auctions.
However, the Social Security Reform, the main
proposal of “A bridge to the future” program that
spells out Temer’s actions as president after the
impeachment of Dilma, is very difficult to carry out
for the current government. Temer has also
maintained the Lula/PT’s “progressive” policy of
approaching Russian and Chinese imperialism and the
BRICS. He visited China a few months ago and came
back “impressed” with the country’s interest in
investing in Brazil. Temer also proposes the
“reconstruction” of Syria, putting Brazil in support of
the dictator Assad who massacres the Syrian people
and tries to end the revolution.
The media and the bourgeoisie, who support “Car-
Wash” and attack the government, say that the
continuation of the political crisis and corruption is
what makes it impossible for the government to
approve the economic measures they support. They
are not against the economic measures that the
government wants to implement, especially the
Pension Reform, which is considered the great villain
of the public accounts deficit. But they think the
Temer government is not able to approve them. The
PSDB, which at its December conference decided to
leave the government, made a point of reassuring its
commitment to the Pension Reform.
Faced with the greatest economic crisis and political
instability the Brazilian institutions are already
discussing the electoral process that will choose the
new president and national congress in October,
2018. PT and PSDB have been in power for the last 23
years and PMDB was in all the governments since the
re-democratization, and each are in crisis, worn out
with reports of corruption, the austerity measures
they apply and with very low popularity. The
bourgeoisie is divided. Small parties try to present
themselves as alternatives, many are parasites
seeking gains from office or in search for celebrity,
but also the extreme right ideology sees a possibility
of advancing, in addition to interventionists who call
for a military dictatorship.
In the re-election of Dilma, the PT denied the crisis
and promised the “return of growth”. Now the PT
says that the crisis has been caused by the current
government and promises to return to investments
and economic growth if Lula is elected in 2018.
During Lula’s campaigns across the country in recent
14
Autumn 2018
months, he maintains that his government “did more
for the workers”, that his government “invested”,
that it is necessary to “make Brazil grow again” and
that for these feats he is now persecuted by the
media and “Car-Wash”.
Many workers are hopeful that with the return of Lula
to the presidency of Brazil, the pre-crisis conditions
may return, that is: “investments” and full credits.
But we know that this is not possible. Withdrawal of
rights and attacks on living conditions of the
working class are the only way out for the
bourgeoisie and imperialism. What could happen
to an eventual new Popular Front government that
will have to approve measures to attack the
working class, who have survived Dilma and now
Michel Temer?
However, Lula’s candidacy is one of the great, and
many, unknowns for the 2018 elections. Lula is
threatened by the “Car-Wash”, which promises to
condemn him making his candidacy impossible. What
can happen if Lula is prevented from contesting the
elections? The PSDB elected the current Sao Paulo
governor, Geraldo Alckmim, as party chairman and
everything is headed for him to be the legendary
candidate next year, with a divided and rather worn
party. But a strong bid, which will have lots of money.
Alckmin has so far been free from corruption and
certainly the candidate of greater stability for the
bourgeoisie.
In polls for the 2018 elections appearing in second
place, behind Lula, is the far-right candidate,
Bolsonaro. A federal deputy for the PSC (the Christian
Social Party), he is known for his extremist
statements and defense of the military dictatorship.
However, he is now leaving his current party and is
having difficulties closing agreements with the
parties he is in unity discussions with. All these are
“nanny” parties.
But beyond the traditional right and the reformist
left, in the electoral debate for “an exit to Brazil”,
reactionary sectors appear to be saying that they
have the best “exit,” like the declaration, months
ago, of an army officer saying that in case of “chaos”
the military must “act”.
The PT is the largest leftist party in the country. It
was built in the workers’ struggles against the
military dictatorship in the 1980s and generated
great expectations among the entire working class of
Brazil. The PT’s alliance with the bourgeoisie and a
popular front government that ruled for the
bourgeoisie, big banks and corporations and
imperialism, show that we should not put our hopes
in bourgeois elections. In these elections the workers
need an alternative to any popular front.
Class Struggle No 124
It is necessary to stand against alliances of the PT
with the bourgeoisie; this is the main reason for
the PT’s betrayal of the workers. For the PT to be
on the workers’ side, it is necessary to break with
the bourgeoisie.
However, the PT has never left its alliances with the
bourgeoisie and nothing indicates that it will leave
them in the 2018 elections. On the contrary, it is
increasingly linked to the bourgeoisie, especially to
the “coupists” who also try to defend themselves
against “Car-Wash” prosecutions. During Lula’s
travels across the Brazilian northeast, he joined on
the platform with figures connected to the “colonel”
of Alagoas, Renan Calheiros (PMDB), a well-known
corrupt oligarch who was in the PT government and
is also accused in the “Car-Wash” investigation. Lula
also publicly stated that it is possible for the PT to
make alliances with the parties that defended
Dilma’s impeachment.
PSOL and PSTU, the largest parties on the left that
opposed the popular front government, say that a
leftist alternative is needed in the elections.
Everyone claims to defend a “Left Front” in the
elections. PSOL defends a slate as an “alternative” to
Lula/PT and is already discussing who to nominate.
However, the major currents of the PSOL are not
against alliance with the bourgeoisie and many cases
have already occurred in past elections and occur in
the workers ‘and students’ movement, such as the
PSOL alliance with the PPL (Partido Patria Libre) in
the elections to the Poa prefecture in 2016.
The PSTU in the last elections rejected the Left front
and launched its own candidacies, but in the union
movement it makes alliances through bureaucratic
blocs with the union bureaucracy linked to bourgeois
parties like the PDT, Solidarity, PPL, etc.
15
Autumn 2018
In fact, whether opportunistic or sectarian, PSOL
and PSTU propose an alternative to the PT, but
not an alternative to the Popular Front.
Among private sector workers, especially the
metallurgists, the workers are blinded by the PT/CUT
and the union bureaucracies, with the help of the
PSOL/PSTU, through the “Brazil Metalworking Front.”
Just as PSTU/PSOL support the bureaucratic bloc with
the union bureaucracy in the workers’ movement
against “labor reform” and social security cuts, they
support the same bureaucracy in the organization of
metallurgists. In the factories of the San Jose dos
Campos (SJC), controlled by the PSTU, workers of
several factories made a move and went on strike.
The union leadership kept all the strikes isolated by
factory, with economist guidelines and left the so-
proclaimed “unity” and “fight against Temer and the
reforms” for the Bloc it has with the bureaucracies
and the “National Days of Mobilization”.
Recently it has been proved
once again that diverting the
struggle into bureaucratic
blocs with the trade union
bureaucracy serves to
demobilize and demoralize the
workers’ struggle. This was on
top of the betrayal where the
CUT and other central
bureaucracies disregarded the
general strike of 5/12, which
had been agreed among
themselves against the Pension
Reform. The same had already
occurred in the General Strike
on June 30th, which was
boycotted by most of the
plants, and by the CUT.
Another sector of the left that is quite numerous and
has great influence is the MTST (Movement of the
Homeless Workers), and its leader Guilherme Boulos
(GB), and the sectors around him. Even the
mainstream of the PSOL prevented its party congress
in early December from deciding on a presidential
candidate, because they want to persuade the leader
of the homeless workers to be the candidate for the
party. The MTST is the largest housing movement in
the country. The occupation “People without Fear”
in Sao Bernardo do Campo(SBC), started on a large
plot occupied by a few hundred people in December.
In a week, the occupation expanded to 8 thousand
families! The “People without Fear” occupation of
SBC is a great expression of the social crisis we are
experiencing. What is the outcome for the homeless
movement?
Class Struggle No 124
The main housing policy of PT governments was the
Minha Casa Minha Vida program. This program was
part of the PAC (Program for the Advancement of
Children), which included other sectors of the
economy, was based on the public financing of works
of large contractors, through PPPs (Public Private
Partnership law projects) and concessions. Big
construction contractors have never made so much
money. They are the same ones who won a lot in the
contracts with Petrobras and in the cartels that
negotiated with the government, today denounced in
the “Car-Wash”. The boom in the sale of commodities
and the large inflow of revenue enabled the PT to
apply neoliberal policies in the country with some
concessions. For MTST and its leader GB, demanding
from the government My House My Life is the solution
to the housing issue and is the solution for the more
than 8,000 families in SBC and the millions of
homeless in Brazil. GB, on several occasions, has
appeared on the platforms with Lula and the PT.
In the big cities of Brazil, with millions of
unemployed, homeless, and workers losing rights and
living conditions –in the interior and small cities the
indignation of the poor people is increasing with an
unbearable condition of life– it is not difficult to hear
of the revolts of those who set fire to prefectures and
burn politicians’ effigies. In the countryside there is
a real civil war. Landowners and their paramilitary
groups decimate indigenous populations and
massacre rural workers and small farmers.
Recently, in OESTE BAIANO, the people of a city
invaded a farm and destroyed the entire
hydraulic/electric system for irrigation, which left
the river without water to supply the population. The
end of public services, as one of the government’s
key measures to cut spending, has hit heavily the
municipal, state and federal civil servants, who have
initiated several strike movements across the
country.
Last October we saw the left holding events to
commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Russian
Revolution. The uncertainties and instabilities that
permeate the debate over the 2018 elections should
bring to the fore debates such as the 100 years of the
Russian revolution, the need for the Brazilian
revolution and a Bolshevik party, and for an
independent and revolutionary response from the
workers to this crisis. This is not happening; the
examples and teachings of the Russian Revolution
have remained only for “feast days.” On the
contrary, the “revolutionary” left says that the
socialist revolution in Brazil is not possible!
Capitalism cannot solve the crisis without fascism and
barbarism. The Popular Front is not capable of
16
Autumn 2018
fighting fascism. On the contrary, it creates illusions
in bourgeois democracy, demobilizes and
demoralizes the workers and opens the way to
fascism.
Workers need to break with the bureaucracy that
drives trade unions and union centrals. Workers who
have made great movements and strikes in recent
years need to move forward to the formation of
committees of workers and oppressed who can take
in their hands the course of the movement itself and
strike, resuming their traditional methods of struggle
such as pickets and general strike.
Without this we will get more of; for example, in the
teachers’ strike in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) that for
years the union leadership has kept workers on strike
away from the workplace, preventing and/or
discouraging picketing at school doors. This happened
during the 94-day strike of this year (2017) and even
in 2016, when the students formed a true united front
and occupied the schools! Or what has happened in
the mobilization and construction of the General
Strike, in which the summits of the union centrals
decided to carry out the general strike in meetings
between four walls–in the same way that they
regularly ‘go-through-the-motions’!
MTST and its leaders must break with the
bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie!
Advance the construction of committees of
workers and oppressed people and self-defense
organized to fight against the bourgeoisie and
imperialism.
For a Congress of Workers elected on grassroots
committees to discuss and decide the course of the
fight!
For a government of Workers’ Committees!
In the 2018 election, support for workers’
committees to launch their candidates as tribunes
against the Popular Front!
For a revolutionary workers party that organize
the vanguard workers to fight for workers power!
For a new Revolutionary Workers International
based on the method of Trotsky’s 1938
Transitional Program!
Sources:
http://fortune.com/2017/09/14/jbs-batista-brazil-
temer-corruption-insider-trading/
Video of general strike action:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-
protests/brazil-protesters-police-clash-in-first-
general-strike-in-decades-idUSKBN17U0EX
Mieville: The Story of October.
Part 3. Epilogue: After October
The October insurrection was not the end of the story but the beginning. For Lenin the
insurrection was the easy part; building socialism was the hard task. At the victorious Second
Congress, late on the 26th, Lenin declares: “We shall now proceed to construct the socialist
order.” The first steps are to nationalize the land and stop the war.
“But” says Mieville:
“the war is not ended, and the order that will be
constructed is anything but socialist. Instead the
months and years that follow will see the revolution
embattled, assailed, isolated, ossified, broken. We
know where this is going: purges, gulags, starvation,
mass murder. October is still ground zero for
arguments about fundamental, radical social change.
Its degradation was not a given, was not written in
the stars.”
Mieville doesn’t go far beyond October to assess the
historic impact of the revolution and its fate, other
than to rehearse the main reservations about its
success.
“The story of the hopes, struggles, strains and
defeats that follow 1917 has been told begore and
will be again. That story, and above all the questions
arising from it – the urgencies of change, or how
change is possible, of the dangers that will beset it –
stretch vastly beyond us. These last pages can only
offer a fleeting glance.”
Here Mieville’s strength as a story teller comes
undone as he rehearses a familiar list of arguments
but without a full balance sheet of all the forces that
determined the outcome of the revolution. True,
‘lessons’ are beyond the brief of the ‘story’ of
October, but since it ventures forth in that direction,
we need to critique its shortcomings, to re-affirm the
‘lessons’ we take from October for today.
Did the Bolsheviks hijack the revolution to
create a one-party state?
Mieville is concerned about the ‘hardline’ that the
Bolsheviks should form a ‘one-party’ state.
“The pro-coalition All-Russian Executive Committee
of the Union of Railway Workers demands a
government of all socialist groups. Neither Lenin nor
Trotsky, both hardline on the question, attend the
resulting conference: those Bolsheviks who do –
Kamenev, Zinoviev and Milyutin – agree that a
socialist coalition is the best chance for survival.”
Why are Lenin and Trotsky “hardline” on this
question? ‘Socialism’ since Marx’s time is not unique
to the proletariat. Bourgeois and petty bourgeois
‘socialism’ is not the same as proletarian ‘socialism’.
It depends which class benefits from that ‘socialism’.
The Bolsheviks were the only party representing the
vanguard of the proletariat. The Mensheviks
represented moderate workers and petty bourgeois
whose internationalism fell well short of a proletarian
revolution to overthrow the Provisional Government
and stop the war.
Mieville chides the Left Mensheviks for walking out of
the Soviets and handing the majority to the
Bolsheviks and Left SRs. He says:
“The Left Mensheviks, committed anti-war
internationalists, have a case to answer, with their
walkout in October 1917. Coming straight after the
congress voted for coalition, this decision shocked
and upset even some of those who went along with
it. ‘I was thunderstruck,’ said Sukhanov, of an action
he never ceased to regret. ‘No one contested the
legality of the congress… [This action] meant a
formal break with the masses and the revolution.”
Mieville is misleading himself and his readers if he
thinks that the Left Mensheviks who stood for a
‘socialist coalition’ in the Constituent Assembly could
complete the bourgeois revolution and win peace,
land and bread in the face of imperialist war and
threat of invasion. At the first test, they could not
even fight to defend their majority in the Soviet, and
walked out at the critical point, “isolating
themselves from the masses and the Revolution”.
They wrote themselves off as a revolutionary force.
Their better members became Bolsheviks. Their
worst became enemies of the revolution.
The closest the Soviet Government came to being a
‘socialist coalition’ was in early 1918. In January the
Left SRs (who had split with the Right SRs) joined with
the Bolsheviks in the new Soviet Government. This
was a socialist coalition of poor peasants, soldiers and
workers. Together they closed down the CA
dominated by the SRs representing petty bourgeois
peasants who opposed the revolution. That is why
Lenin asked the Cossacks to close down the CA to test
their support for the revolution. Then in March the
Left SRs resigned from the government because they
opposed signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. They
Class Struggle No 124 Autumn 2018
wanted to continue the ‘revolutionary war’ to defend revolution. Was deserting the revolution rather than
the new workers and peasants state. feeding it justified? In July the Left SRs assassinate
several leading Bolsheviks and in August make an
Why did the Left SRs and the Bolsheviks fall out of
attempt on the life of Lenin. There was no prospect
this treaty? Representing poor peasants and soldiers,
of restoring a ‘socialist coalition’ across the clear
the Left SRs were exposed to the reactionary position
class line now drawn between those who fought to
of the peasantry in general whose world view was
defend the revolution and those who sided with the
limited to private land ownership. The Left SRs saw
counter-revolutionary attack on the Bolsheviks.
fighting Germany as the necessary defence of their
national class interests. ‘Peace’, land and bread At every point where the fate of the revolution is in
could only be defended by victory over the the balance the Bolsheviks prove themselves able to
imperialist invader. On the other hand, the mobilise the masses to defend the revolution. Those
proletariat (workers who are active in class struggle) who claim to represent workers but who turn their
and the vanguard Party which represents its universal backs on the revolution cannot then whine that they
and historic class interests (a la Marx and Engels in were ‘hijacked’ by a one-party Bolshevik state.
The Communist Manifesto) do not see the revolution
The question of whether an isolated, backward,
in national isolation. The defence of the new workers
soviet Russia could have avoided ‘state capitalism’ is
state had to be subordinated to the interests of the
answered by Lenin well before the revolution.
international proletariat.
Replying to the charges in the Left Communist journal
“For until the world socialist revolution breaks out,
Kommunist in May, 1918, that the Bolsheviks are
until it embraces several countries and is strong
betraying the revolution by going back to ‘state
enough to overcome international imperialism, it is
capitalism’, Lenin writes:
the direct duty of the socialists who have conquered
“It has not occurred to them [Left Communists] that
in one country (especially a backward one) not to
state capitalism would be a step forward as
accept battle against the giants of imperialism.
compared with the present state of affairs in our
Their duty is to try to avoid battle, to wait until the
Soviet Republic … It is not state capitalism that is at
conflicts between the imperialists weaken them
war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus
even more, and bring the revolution in other
private capitalism fighting together against both
countries even nearer.” Lenin in “Left-wing”
state capitalism and socialism. The petty bourgeoisie
Childishness, May, 1918.
oppose every kind of state interference, accounting
The Bolsheviks were divided (what’s new?) with some and control, whether it be state capitalist or state
siding with the Left SRs. Lenin and Trotsky argued for socialist.” “Left-Wing” Childishness”
a negotiated peace to stop the destruction of Russia’s
In order to make the ‘transition’ from capitalism and
resources needed to build socialism. The
socialism Russia needs state capitalism to develop
‘revolutionary war’ would lead to the destruction of
the forces of production to prepare for socialism. This
the revolution. Trotsky argued for peace negotiations
requires state ‘interference’ – hiring capitalist
to gain time to allow workers and soldiers in the
owners, appointing ‘one-man’ managers etc to direct
warring imperialist countries to strike and mutiny and
production in industry. Then after the failure of the
make their own revolutions. Critical time was needed
German revolution, it was necessary to ‘retreat’ to
to build Bolshevik parties in these countries to win
the NEP. The peasants dream of becoming rich had to
workers from the treacherous social democrats and
be harnessed to increase productivity on the land to
Kautsky’s centrist United Socialists. Ultimately, the
feed the industrial workers who were building
Bolshevik leadership approached the question of
socialism. Without ‘peace’ there was no possibility of
peace as reducing the impact of the war on the ability
developing the land – nationalised by the revolution –
of Soviet Russia to extend the revolution
and providing ‘bread’. Hence ‘war communism’ was
internationally. But in the event this effort fell short
part of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ necessary
of the end of the war by some months and the
to mobilise the forces of production to defend the
German invasion of the Ukraine forced the Soviet
revolution. Without it, the new workers and
Government to sign the Treaty on March 3rd.
peasants’ state would have been further decimated
The civil war followed immediately in May and the by war and starved into submission.
Left SRs then turned on the Bolsheviks over peasant
Part 4 continued next issue:
resistance to state requisitions to feed the
Was Russia Ready for Revolution?

18
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 capitalism’s 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
capitalism’s continued exploitation and its attempts
to hide class exploitation behind the appearance of
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 No 124 Autumn 2018

For a World Party of Socialist Revolution!

Liaison Committee of Communists

Class Warrior: Theoretical Journal of LCC http://www.cwgusa.org/?page_id=594
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
http://redrave.blogspot.com )
Websites: Class Struggle
http://livingmarxism.wordpress.com
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: Class War http://www.cwgusa.org/?page_id=16

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

Phone +64272800080 cwg2007anz@hotmail.com Archive of publications before 2006
http://communistworker.blogspot.com/
20