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Class Struggle No 104 February-March 2013

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BRIEFS

Dotcom Saga

Kim Dotcom has so faravoided extradition to

the US on a charge ofcopyright infringementby his Megauploadoperation. Monopolymedia interests such asHollywood want tomake an example ofhim to smashcompetition andprotect their mediamonopoly. NZ is a pawn in this game, already provenlackeys of Warner Brothers over the Hobbit films,attacking workers rights and offering a big bribe to get

the studio to film in NZ. The NACT Government is apathetic lackey to the US corporate giants, contractingNZ spies and cops to the FBI to illegally raid and arrestDotcom and his associates.

While they are busy smashing all democratic barriers totheir rip, shit and bust policies on behalf of internationalmonopoly capital, they havent yet bought the Courtscompliance. The Appeal Court ignored NZ law whichstates that evidence of the charge must be presented andthat charge be recognised by NZ law. It rejectedDotcoms request to view the US evidence against him onthe grounds that it wasnt trying the case here. Dotcom

has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court and that islikely to run since the Appeal Court ignored NZ law onthe basis that the US authorities could be trusted.

Meanwhile the Dotcom saga reveals much about thecurrent global capitalist crisis winding up the rivalrybetween imperialist powers and forcing the US rulingclass to resort to open abuse of democratic rights andabolishing the separation of the branches of state byfusing bank, corporate, and state power. The USmonopoly capitalist system uses military and spymachine to sign up its allies in the mounting showdownwith rapidly rising Chinese imperialism.

As Gordon Campbell inWerewolfpoints out, this case isthe first where copyright infringement has been made acriminal charge anywhere including the US itself. Thepower of Hollywood is evident in bringing this case.Campbell found that the senior Justice Dept prosecutorof Dotcom, Neil MacBride was formerly the BusinessSoftware Alliances top antipiracy enforcer and generalcounsel, and had been ordered to take Mega[upload]down by Vice-President Joe Biden, best mates withMPAA boss Chris Dodd.

The NZ courts are small fry facing this barrage of US

pressure at all levels. Lets see how far the SupremeCourt will go in standing up to this pressure. One thing issure though, the case has opened many peoples eyes to

the role of monopoly capital in running the US state, andits client states like NZ. Dotcoms own lawyers found thatMike Ellis boss of MPA of Asiaand a former extraditionexpert and former superintendent of the Hong Kongpolice,was the contact between Biden, Dodd andMacBride, and the NZ Justice Minister Simon Power.

We say that its time NZ workers woke up to the fact thatNZ is being fought over by the twobig imperialist rivals,the US and China and that to avoid being dragging into awar on the side of either the US or China we have tobuild common cause with US and Chinese workers tobuild a working class movement to stop the war at home.

Who was Red Rosa?Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Die Linke) openedin New York

The opening eventfeatured a keynote

address by Gregor Gysi,one of Europes mostwell-known socialistpoliticians, known forbarbs of wit and force ofcharacter. Gysi recountedhis partys struggles inmaking up the trust-deficit from the taint ofthe East German legacy.I am a democraticsocialist; I dont likeconcentrated authority,

said Gysi. Statesocialism has failed, but this does not mean thatcapitalism is the only game in town. Capitalism thoughtit won, but it didntits just what remained.

Oh the irony; taking the name of Rosa Luxemburg invain against concentrated authority. Yes Rosa wasagainst centralism and criticised the Bolsheviks. Yet thefailure to build a mass Bolshevik-type party in Germanybefore 1919 was the main reason for the defeat of theGerman Revolution. So the Rosa thatDie Linke wants toown was not the real Rosa who condemned the GermanSocial Democratsbetrayal of the German Revolution. Wehave to rescue the real Red Rosa from the modern dayheirs of the SPD who were the real centralists whocollaborated with the Freikorps in her politicalassassination in 1919! We say stop former Stalinistsdragging Red Rosas memory through the mud! LongLive Rosa Luxemburg!

New Left Party

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the otherformer workers states, and the decline of socialdemocracy, Euro-communism, anarchism andTrotskyism, new generations of youth looked for a new

basis on which to renew the revolutionary left . Thefailure of the old left was put down to the bad habits of

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hierarchy, patriarchy, and bureaucracy among otherthings. Those who remained loyal to Lenin, Trotsky andthe Bolsheviks had a hard time getting a hearing if theydidnt change. The result has been a loose coalition ofanti-capitalistcurrents looking for a social movement.This New Left has turned its back on 20th centurysocialism and looked forward to 21st century socialism.Various candidates have emerged in an attempt to find amodel for a revolutionary party suited for todaysconditions. The most important examples are thePSUVin Venezuela,Die Linke in Germany,Left PartyinFrance, and most recentlySyriza in Greece.

However there is nothing new or 21st century about theseparties. They are a rerun of the broad working classparties of the 19th and 20th century combining reformist,centrist (preach revolution but practice reform) andrevolutionary currents. They are no more immune fromhierarchy, patriarchy and bureaucracy than their earlierprototypes. This is because they are parliamentaryparties that tie workers to bourgeois state institutionswhich are designed to reproduce capitalism and all of its

class exploitation and oppression. Even if therevolutionary wing is strong, it cannot jump overparliament while attached to the dead weights ofMembers of Parliament. The testimony is in thebetrayals of such parties in the face of revolutionarycrises yesterday, and today.

The German SPD gave support to the German rulingclass in WW1 though a small number of its revolutionaryMPs voted against supporting the war. Today the PSUVincludes the Bolibourgeoisie who limit the party toreforms despite its strong Chavista working class base.The GermanDie Linke (Left Party) is a democratic

socialist party proposing Keynesian reforms, while theFrenchLeft Party cobbles together social democrats andGreens and is a popular front party propping up theFrench state. NowSyriza enters a popular front with thenationalist Independent Greeks.

Unless the revolutionaries break free of the reformistsand centrists in these parties, they cannot fight tomobilise working class forces to overthrow the state. Theresult is that the anti-capitalism class party is draggeddown to the lowest common denominator parliamentary reforms. The first duty of revolutionariesis to build a strong, independent, internationalist, and

revolutionary party. To do this it is necessary to winreformist workers by entering into united fronts withthem to expose their rotten leaders and win them to arevolutionary program.

Such united fronts also apply to voting for and evenentering broad parties, to split the members fromreformist and centrist leaders. Such a tactic would applyfor example to Syriza to get it into office to expose it anddestroy workers illusions in its reformist program. Thepurpose of such united fronts is to destroy these rottenleaders as agents of the bourgeoisie and traitors to theworking class.

We say beware the New Left, it is neither new,nor left!

Review: Marx at 193

Marx would be 193 if hewas alive today.Reflecting the fact thatMarxs reputation is stillalive and kicking, the

reviewer says that Marxtoday got most thingsright, but that society itmuch more complextoday than Marx couldhave envisaged.

Yet the reviewersexamples of complexityare such as a morecomplex class systemwith lots of mixed identities rather than fixed in any oneclass position. He claims that workers can also be

bourgeois by virtue of being in pension funds. Tell that tothe so-called middle class in the US whose PensionFunds have been stolen by owners who go bankrupt! Thisis perhaps the basis of his claim that in the West thebourgeoisie are the majority class!!

Second, that the working class is fragmentedbetweenand within countries rather than being internationallyunited force. He cites the case of the massive Foxconnworkforce in China which won a big wage increase not bystriking but through a NYT article exposing the rash ofsuicides. Somehow the writer doesnt make theconnection between Apple being forced to respond to

global public opinion of a world working class (ofconsumers yes) that condemned its super-exploitationdriving young workers to suicide! Working class unity isalso expressed in the power of a global consumptionstrike. Chinese workers are creative in their struggles.

His third example is Marx failure to predict thedestruction of nature. This is utterly wrong. Marx sawcapitalism becoming increasingly destructive of theforces of production which are in the main nature, bothas the source of raw materials, and human labour power.Global warming etc is the working out of this predictionin the deep structures of nature, just as is the rising

global movement of humanity as workers to stop thedestruction of capitalism. (See article in this issue)

The relevant point here is that writer says that what letMarx down was his rejection of empiricism as apreoccupation with surface forms rather than deepstructures. I would say that empiricism is the writersproblem. It leads him to say that the nature of capitalismhas qualitatively changed as it surface complexity hasincreased. Yet the deeper dynamics that are driving thesurface changes in capitalism continue to deepen theclass contradictions and I would suggest make Marx evenmore relevant at age 193. We say, today, 130 years after

Marx death, class struggle is still the motor of history.

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Fight Asset sales!The NZ power network is a natural monopoly. The NZ state planned the development and effectivelysubsidised the capitalist farming & industry by providing access to use of cheap electricity. No individualcapitalist in NZs history could have built this. NZs electricity system was built by the working class aninternational working class at that, with migrant labour a central part of the construction workforce.

Power utilities were paid for by the taxes of the working class - as well as producing the profits,(including the bosses taxes). The working class built these utilities and financed the Research &Development of two areas where NZ has special expertise, Geothermal and Hydro-Electrical power.There is massive social capital expropriated from the working class invested in infrastructure andintellectual property in the power SOEs. This is the stake that NZ workers have in state assets. We areagainst these assets being privatised and the monopoly profits going NZ or foreign capitalist ownership.

Capitalist asset grab

Capitalism rules NZ and the NACT government(National, Act, Maori Party and Peter Dunne) representsthe interests of the capitalist class unashamedly. Already

they have part-privatisated by increasing the debt levelsof the power companies and solid energy (35% of theirvalue is owed financecapitalism), and takenthat bank debt as agovernment dividend(profit). The furthertransfer of ownershipfrom the capitalist stateto the capitalist class (theclass of owners) takesplace with these sales.This is the theft from the

poor of the pretence ofownership (held by thestate). This will be thecontinued exploitation ofthe working andunemployed poor, andpower prices that extract profit margins well above andbeyond the costs of power production.

Geoff Bertrand has researched the price gauging of theSOE's who have acted as a cartel and put up the price ofpower at least 50% above real cost. That is monopolyrent which currently goes to the state as dividends.

Monopoly rent equals super profits from naturalresources, so it amounts to a transfer of profits fromother capitalists to monopoly capitalists. The othercapitalists have tried to offload this loss of profits withprices concessions and higher prices for privateconsumers. This is just screwing workers at both ends.

Why is the capitalist class stealing the power companiesfrom the NZ state? When power services are sold thecapitalist class will be able to take profits from theirinvestment (that investment money is coming from theprofits of the production of the working class in the firstplace). The capitalist system is so weak that capitalism is

in search of good investments because their profitmargins are falling. An electricity supplier is a

guaranteed monopoly profit, because everyone useselectricity so the capitalist is keen to get privateownership of the profits, a loss for all of us since it is amove away from the state dividends that can bereinvested in other infrastructure such as schools

hospitals etc.

Their crisis not ours!

The global financialcrisis was just the latestsymptom of the failure ofcapitalism. Profits werelow in productive sectorand financialcapitalism waspromising bigger profits however finance

capital was unable todeliver on these as themany financial companyfailures proved.Capitalism is a stuffed

system and their profits will continue to fall - MarxCapital). The capitalist class is in such crisis nowseeking a reliable profit from exploiting the workingclass. The sale of power services will drive up the costs ofelectricity (which even a capitalist state can build and runmore efficiently than a capitalist owner).

The capitalist crisis means that the bosses want to milk

that monopoly rent directly and not see it spent onschools, houses, welfare etc. It is total cynical bullshit tosay that the proceeds of the sale of 49% will be spent onthese social amenities. 49% will go straight into thehands of shareholders, while the states shares of rent willgo to subsidising big capital and farmers as the plans forroading, irrigation and Public Private Partnerships(PPPs) that guarantee private profit.

NZ workers have an historic stake in these assets. Theyare essential services to meet our need for cheap, reliableelectric power to maintain our households. Take backcontrol of power services and put them under the controlof the working class and the power service workers.

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Reclaim our power!

The language of the asset sale hides the fact that theseare power services which provide an essential service tothe whole NZ population. (99%+/ - anyone left off thegrid?) It serves the working class by providing what hasbecome a basic necessity for our living; keeping our food,water, clothing & ourselves clean and healthy, and

communicating with each other. Electricity is now a basicneed. Reclaim electricity as a need and a service!

The market is by definition not designed to meet needs:it is all about profits. The description of power providersas assets hides the fact that they were built to providean electricity supply throughout the whole country,including delivering electricity to the milking sheds, anintegral part of NZs efficient milking production.Electricity services are best planned to meet the needs ofthe population and of industry (an argument for socialistplanning) and the NZ state has done that planning anddevelopment. The creation of an electricity market has

only lead to price increases and profit taking by the state a burden on the working class through householdelectricity prices. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)and current tools of imperialism will make it easy forimperialism rip off power super-profits, to concentratecapital in the crisis, e.g. Chinese dairying, and we will seethese energy monopolies pass into imperialist hands.

Appeals to Parliamentary Parties a dead end

Labour in the 1980s set up these State OwnedEnterprises (SOEs) the power companies, coal, and ranthe first programme of privatisations / sell offs; BNZ, NZ

Rail, Air NZ, etc. Labour MPs say they have learnt theirlesson: but they did nothing in their 2000-2009 years ingovernment to reclaim state control of the SOEs andreign in power prices. Labours failure to put the SOEsout of reach of sale is just an example of the Labourpartys commitment to capitalism. The marketcontinued to price gouge from the working class asresidential customers and subsidise big industrial userssuch as the bluff aluminium smelter.

Labour party continues to fail the working class becauseit includes both working people and a pro-capitalistprogram and leadership. The bureaucracy within Labourcontrols the party programme and so will never reallychallenge the capitalist class. Labour is so weakened bythe bureaucracy within its own ranks that it cannot putup a real fight against the asset sales. They are all talkand no action. Most state assets were sold by the LangeLabour Government in the 80s. Shearer will not committo buying assets back even until he sees if hes got themoney. The Greens will not commit to buying assets backeither. The only parliamentary parties that havecommitted to buying back state assets are NZ First acentre right nationalist party, and Mana.

The Aotearoa is not for Sale Coalition is also weakenedby its strategy of directing is protests at parliament.Parliamentary parties following capitalist programs take

the resistance off the street and into petitions and votesfor parliament. So long as Mana and Socialist Aotearoaput their energy into begging parliament to stop assetsales their opposition to sales will not win mass supportfor direct action. This type of coalition politics is apopular front that ties workers to pro-capitalist partieslike Labour and the Greens instead of mobilising a massmovement to occupy the SOEs under workers control.

Occupy the SOEs and put them under WorkersControl

The key demand that should be taken up by all groupsopposed to assets sales is Occupy! This is the onlylanguage that the bosses state understands. They provedthis by breaking the law to violently evict Occupy form itssites in Auckland in 2012. The NACTs are so determinedto sell the SOEs that they are prepared to subsidise RioTintos Pacific Aluminium to stay at Tiwai Point underthe pretext of saving jobs. This is because if Rio Tintopull out of NZ the 12% of electricity it currently uses will

be diverted to all other consumers creating anoversupply, falling profits and prospect for privatisationnil! This sort of total sellout of NZ workers to foreignmonopolies cannot be answered unless by occupationsand pickets to defend the stake of generations of NZworkers in state assets.

To protect the occupations workers will need to buildsolidarity the local community, call on sympathy strikes,mass pickets and self-defence squads. Then they need toput them under workers control. The workers whomaintain and run our power services are in the bestposition to continue to run them. Maori who labour on

the power services need to be represented in thisleadership and by the right to caucus. The local workingclass and all workers who consume power services wouldform in alliance with the power service workers to planproduction and service provision. Representation can bebased in workplace democracy electing and recallingdelegates to a workers council. The local workers councilis the forum for making democratic decisions aboutplanning to meet the needs of all. Local Maori from boththe end user and production end of power services needto be represented on workers councils.

No compensation to the Capitalist Class

Buyers beware! Dont line up to buy stolen property these assets belong to working people. We will take themback with no compensation to the capitalist class. Nocompensation to the bankers, financiers, or grandma andgrandpa investors who have a spare $1000. Nocompensation to the institutional investors orretirement funds. No compensation to any investorssince they all gambled to make a profit from thecongealed sweat of the generations of workers in the firstplace. No compensation whatsoever in anycircumstances!

No compensation flies in the face of capitalism andimperialism through treaties such as the TPPA (Trans

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Pacific Partnership Agreement) would try to forcecompensation through international law. The TPPA willtry to block renationalisation. So taking back the assetsmeans breaking the free trade agreements. Socialisingthe assets is getting them back; it is expropriating back tothe workers who built and paid for the SOEs in the firstplace. They are our assets and we will take them back tomeet our needs.

Socialise our power services!

We are for the overthrow of the capitalist system, whichhides the fact that workers are the creative force incapitalist society. Socialism means the end of thiscapitalist model of ownership and a move to socialownership - by all. State ownership is still capitalistownership. This is shown by the fact that they are run tomeet the needs of all capitalists by subsidising the cost ofpower as Bertrams research proves. Rio Tinto is a classiccase. Nationalised assets are easier to socialise underworkers control than expropriating individual

shareholders. We need to start now to win support for

socialising all former state assets as well as the strategicassets of large NZ and foreign corporations.

We can do better than state ownership; we can throwcapitalism out altogether and plan the whole economy tomeet the needs of all. The meeting of the electricity needsof just part of one basic economic plan that needs to beimplemented at a national level: Smash the capitalist

electricity market. Plan to meet the electricity needs of alland for industry that meets our needs.

Stop the asset sales! Occupy our SOEs! Smashthe TPPA!

Socialise all former state assets and all major NZand foreign corporations!

For a Workers State to implement a nationalplanned socialist economy!

Online http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/fight-asset-sales.html

Zimbabawe after the Boycott,

Organise to defeat the Popular Front!The referendum on the new constitution was held on the16th of March 2013 with only around 40% of eligiblevoters voting on the acceptability or otherwise of the

draft written by the three parties in government togetherwith their imperialist masters through UNDP. Over halfof the eligible voters boycotted the referenda in a clearsign of protest to the GNU and the policies of the threeparties that have wrecked the lives of the ordinary poorand were using the referendum to create the politicalbasis for further attacks on the poor masses throughbrutal austerity measures demanded by imperialism.

Of those who voted 92% were in support of the documentwith only about 5% rejecting it and the remainder filledby protest votes and/or spoiled papers. Even on thisbasis the draft cannot be regarded as legitimate given thenumber of people who one way or the other saw throughthe tricks of the inclusive dictatorship and rejected thereferendum farce. All the parties in the GNU havewelcomed the results as historic and now calling for theentrenchment of constitutionalism, i.e. acceptance of theculture of capitalist domination. Those calling for a Novote have rejected the outcome and vow to continue tooppose the constitution until a democratic and peopledriven one is in place.

For us the number of people who boycotted the processrepresents a latent political force in Zimbabwe ofworkers and the ordinary poor who are opposed to thepolicies of the current regime but with no clear answer as

to the real solution given the historical domination of

reformism and centrism. The popular front regime hasbrought untold suffering to the people and this must endthrough smashing the regime and its social basis in order

to conquer the interests of the ordinary poor. Workers,students, poor farmers, poor resident, unemployed andthe informally employed must mobilise now for aUNITED FRONT to oppose the popular front regimethat is now preparing to launch another round of attackson the living conditions of the poor.

In our campaign for a boycott and the meetings we heldwith workers, students and the ordinary poor wereiterated the need to launch the UNITED FRONT tospearhead the responses of the poor and exploitedmasses with the two meetings endorsing the call. To thatend theRWG (Zim) will be agitating for the creation oflocal struggle committees in unions and struggleorganisations to call for the convening of the UNITEDFRONT of struggle organisations and individualsdedicated to the defeat of the policies being championedby the regime and those being proffered by thoseintending to replace the regime without replacing thecapitalist basis. We congratulate the ordinary people ofZimbabwe for boycotting the referendum and now callupon them to organise to smash the capitalism and itsagents.

Revolutionary Workers Group-Zimbabwe 21March 2013 This article is online at redravehttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/zimbabwe-after-

boycott-organise-to_22.html

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After Chavez: The Revolutionary Way Forward

After the death of Chavez the left around the world is making a balance sheet of Chavez and theBolivarian movement, looking for the way ahead. We add our voice to this discussion.

With the following observation from the thespec.com we

hope we can dispense with the illusions of whatBolivarianism and 21st Century Socialism are presentedas and identify the actual class character of the state thatthe Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV)administers, what road-blocks still exist for workers onthe path to socialism, and what defending and advancingthe social gains already made in the anti-imperialiststruggle means and how it can be done.

Venezuela today has the fairest distribution of wealthin the Americas, with the obvious exception of Canada.

Venezuelas Ginicoefficient, [see graph]which measures the wealthgap between the rich andthe poor, is 0.39, whereasthe United States is 0.45 andBrazil, even after 10 years ofreforming left-winggovernments, is still 0.52. (Alower score means lessinequality of income.)

For all of Chavezs ranting

about class struggle and hisadmiration for Fidel Castro,this was not achieved in Venezuela by taking moneyfrom the rich and giving it to the poor. It wasaccomplished by spending the oil revenue differently.He changed the political psychology of the country, andit now has the potential to be a Saudi Arabia withdemocracy.

Despite liberating their oil, through compensatednationalization, Venezuela has not escaped the clutchesof imperialism. World capitalism in the imperialist epochdominates and must super-exploit the semi-colonies to

survive. Even the most self-sufficient workers collectivesare dominated and exploited via the imposition andfinancialization of markets, the commodification oflabor, overt military threat of intervention and covertsubterfuge and counter-revolutionary instigation.Venezuela has been subject to all these obstacles toliberation and socialism.

To overcome these obstacles, nationalization withoutcompensation of imperialist and big national capital isparamount: the establishment of workers control ofproduction, the establishment of a social-economic planunder workers control and the imposition of a monopoly

of foreign trade are all required to hold off theexploitative consequences of the internationaldominance of the law-of-value (which commodifies labor

power making profit and capitalism possible) on any

nation seeking to escape imperialist control. In additiona conscious policy to spread these transformativemeasures across borders is essential because such asystem, as was proved with the USSR and China, cannotlong have a peaceful coexistence with imperialism. On aworld scale either the working class takes ascendancyand abolishes the capitalist mode of production or thecapitalist reaction acts in every way possible to crush therise of the working class, ideologically, economically,militarily, and subordinate it to the barbarism of thedomination of the law-of-value.

Between two Imperialist

Blocs

Today the same forces thatcall Obama socialist pegVenezuela as such, but by anyscientific or Marxist measurewe must conclude Venezuelaremains a semi-colony ofimperialism looking for thebest deal between its twomajor trading partners, thecompeting imperialist powersUS and China.

While Chavez hand-in-hand with Hu JinTao in April2009 cut oil deals while trumpeting the New 5thInternational and the building of 21st CenturySocialism the Chinese Development Bank (CDB) hadsomething else altogether in mind. The Financial Timesbloggers comment:

State-owned CDB has agreed to lend Venezuela$42.5bn since 2008, or around half the loans thecountry received during that period. Almost all of thoseloans are backed by sales contracts for crude oil,

Shipments of oil to China by Venezuelas state energygiant PDVSA have increased nearly ten times since2006 and the country now sells around 19 per cent of itsoil output to China, Venezuelas second biggesttrading partner after the US.

But a glance at the terms of the loans extended by CDBso far show that the Chinese lender has been thinkingfor a long time about how it would get its money backwhen Chvez eventually left the stage.

As well as securing most of the loans with oil contracts,CDB has insisted that most of the loans are spent on

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projects that directly benefit the Venezuelan people,particularly housing and public infrastructure projects.

Part of CDBs stated mandate is to supportChinese businesses to expand overseas and solarge chunks of the loans it gives to Venezuelaand other countries are also conditional onChinese companies getting the contracts to

build that housing and infrastructure. (emphasisours)

Sources close to CDB have told the FT that the banksthinking in Venezuela was that as long as the moneywas spent on projects that obviously benefit the nationthen whoever comes after Chvez will not be able toeasily default on the loans.

Rather than building socialist internationalism theChinese foreign investment/trade model is relativelyindistinguishable from that of the IMF loan-to-buildmodel except that it is wrapped in Red Flags, easily

embraced by the populist and eclectic leader, yetrendering long term and disastrous effects for the peopleof Venezuela whose wealth it is that will be paying off theChinese contracts. This weeks Latin America HeraldTimes reports:

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Thursday thatVenezuela is sending 640,000 barrels a day of oil toChina, of which 270,000 barrels a day are used to repaythe loans, according to Ramirez. A confidential US cablefrom the US embassy in Caracas to the StateDepartment in Washington revealed by WikiLeaks in2010 documented that a PDVSA director had revealed

that the state oil company had analyzed itscrude sales to China and determined that Chinahad only paid $5 a barrel of crude on a couple ofdeals.(emphasis ours)

According to the Venezuela Central Bank, in Decemberthere was a 78.1% shortage of sugar; 76.8% of wheatflour; 86.1 shortage of sunflower seed oil; 56.8%shortage of corn oil; 67.1% shortage of mixed vegetableoil; and a 43.3% shortage of pre-cooked corn flour.Shortages worsened in January.

Defend and Extend the Gains of the VenezuelanRevolution

While joining in the worldwide mourning among theworkers and oppressed, the major gains made duringChavezs term have been highlighted and celebrated bymuch of the left. One Mike P., on a San Francisco BayArea chat threads sentiments exemplify the views ofmuch of the left:

The past 13 years of President Chavez rule has seenVenezuela improve by all economic indicators educationindicators, health care indicators, housing indicators

and especially the building from the bottom, a truedemocracy. The latter is in danger today as USA is

currently spending tens of millions of dollars insideVenezuela to defeat the Bolivarian Revolution andreinstate the old oligarchy

Many of us will miss Chavez greatly, but we take solacein knowing he did all he could to prepare his country forthis momentthe people of Venezuela will defend thegains against our governments coming assault. we

can stand shoulder to shoulder with the people inVenezuela to protect their gains, while learning form thegood people of Venezuela what it means to build a 21stcentury socialism

We salute the enthusiasm of comrade Mike and join hisdefense of the gains accomplished in Venezuela andagree that Obama (Chavezs choice in the last USelection) will mobilize the might of imperialism to

undermine those gains. Our duty as internationalists isto defeat imperialisms interventions against the peopleof Venezuela; be they overt military, covert, diplomatic,economic, ideological, propagandistic etc. To support thepeople of Venezuela we advocate a united front ofworkers organizations to educate American workers andtheir allies about imperialist interventionism and setnetworks in place to launch the types of mass actions,political and general strikes needed to stop theimperialist intervention. To put an end once and for all toimperialist intervention workers must put an end toimperialism and this requires the socialist revolution inthe imperialist homelands.

A Sober Assessment: Limits on the BourgeoisNationalist Revolution

We disagree with Mikes assessment however thatChavez did all he could to prepare his country for thismoment. A sober assessment of Chavismo, theBolivarian Revolution and 21st c. Socialism isrequired if workers in Venezuela or here at home can bemobilized to defend and advance its gains describedabove.

Chavez came to power as a radical populist democrat, aVenezuelan nationalist. And as is the history of radicaldemocracy in Latin America, populists who come to

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power quickly run up against the limits imperialism setsfor the semi-colonies. Seemingly democratic andnationalist tasks such as purchasing the wealth of thenation back from imperialism exposes the limits whichthe worlds billionaires will allow radicalnationalist/democrats in semi-colonies to go beforeattempting to destabilize and replace them. From Arbenzto Pinochet to Zalaya, from Mosaddegh to Lumumba toAristide imperialism has shown over and again it hasonly so much patience. The aspirations of the liberalnational bourgeois in the semi-colonies for moderndemocracy, freedom and opportunity are limited byimperialisms insatiable thirst for profit and the numericand material weakness of their class. Modern revolutionsagainst imperialism in these nations depend on populistmobilizations of the masses which can be eitherconstrained by a populist leader committed to defendingcapitalist property for the national bourgeoisie butwilling to make concession to the populace, or becomeunleashed (think Fidel Castro) resolving thecontradiction of the semi-colonial bourgeois revolutionby making the revolution against imperialism permanentby seizing the power and wealth of the nationalbourgeoisie and spreading the revolution beyond itsborders.

Had Bush/Cheney not gotten US imperialism boggeddown in Afghanistan, which served as a jumping offpoint to invade Iraq, and had the masses not beenmobilized, the 2002 coup-dtat against Chavez mighthave been successful. Despite the media blackout of theanti-war movement building internationally withmillions out on the streets in February 2003, theimperialists knew they were pushing the patience of the

masses and as dim-witted as Bush was, there were somereal calculating bastards running the show whounderstood how far they could push our patience andthat military intervention in Venezuela, at least for atime, would not be an option.

Chavez survived the failed 2002 coup, came back re-invigorated with anti-imperialist sentiment andcommitted to building his version of BolivarianSocialism. For this he created a popular front/cross classparty, the PSUV, which rejected Marxism andestablished its version of socialism based on the statesconquest of the nations oil wealth. Chavez rejected the

lessons of revolutionary Marxism and under the guise ofdeveloping a new road to socialism contained theproletariats revolutionary movement, confined therevolution to capitalism with welfare and minimaldistributional gains of the oil rent. Today much of the leftembraces this without saying directly, it is the best wecan do under the current conditions. Some long-timesocialists even praise Bolivarianism as a socialistrevolution and Chavez as the first great Socialist leader ofthe 21st century.

The US Communist Party (CP-USA) which long agoabandoned the revolutionary road to socialism states:

we were delighted with the progress that Venezuelamade, under Chavez wise and firm leadership, ineliminating poverty and illiteracy, in providing for thehealth care and housing needs of the Venezuelan people,and in rechanneling the countrys oil wealth away fromcorporate greed and toward meeting the needs of thepeople.

We were no less enthusiastic about President Chavezsrole in international affairs. His work in creating ALBA)(the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America),PETROCARIBE and CELAC (Community of LatinAmerican and Caribbean States), as well as hisgovernments activities to develop MERCOSUR andUNASUR, have had a revolutionary impact incorrecting the imbalance of power between the LatinAmerican and Caribbean countries on the one hand,and the United States, Canada and Europe on theother.

Thus, like the Bolivarians the CP sees these new

capitalist trade alliances, rather than socialist revolution(the expropriation of the capitalists and the constructionof a planned economy,) as the road to liberating themasses from imperialism. Alongside the Bolivarians theyignore or willfully hide from the masses the fact that eventhese liberated trade zones are mediated by theconstraints of the capitalist production cycle and thattheir reliance on an alliance with their own weakcomprador bourgeoisie, traps the workers as wage slavesin a multi-class party and popular front governmentwhich enforces the capitalist property relations at thepoint of production through the vehicle of the state.

Revolutionary Socialist or BourgeoisBonapartist?

Chavez, is quoted in Aporrea (7/29/07) as stating thatthe PSUV will not be Marxist-Leninist, as Marxism is adogmatic thesis that is now over and is not in accord withtodays reality. He went on to say the working class is notthe motor of socialism. The following day JorgeGiordani, Minister of Peoples Power and Planningstated, There does not exist any contradiction betweenprivate enterprise and Venezuelan socialism.

To which Earl Gilman, long time revolutionary workerand editor ofEl Nuevo Topo, commented:

If the working class is not the motor of the revolution,then apparently the officer corps are that motor.Though he may make justified criticisms of Marx, byrejecting the Marxist method he is following thefootsteps of such figures as General Velasco of Peru andGeneral Juan Peron of Argentina.

Contrary to common view of most socialists theRevolutionary Communist Internationalist Tendency(RCIT) pointed out in their obituary for Chavez:

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The truth is that Chavez was no socialist. He wasrather a bourgeois-Bonapartist politician who usedsocialist rhetoric but led a capitalist regime for 14 years.Under his government, between 1998 and 2008 theprivate sectors share of the economy grew from 64.7%to 70.9% at the expense of the public sector. Inparticular, the parasitic sector of finance andinsurance, i.e. money capital, grew rapidly in thisperiod, by 258.4%. According to United NationsUNCTAD and other sources, the share of workerswages in national income is today below the level whenChavez took power.

In addition, militant workers who organized strikes orfactory occupations faced reprisal, dismissal, jail oreven murder. A well known example for this is the unionleader Ruben Gonzalez, a member of the Chavezs partyPSUV, who was sentenced to 7 years in prison, whichaccused him of violence during a strike at the state-owned Ferrominera Orinoco. While he was freed afterone year in prison because of mass protests, at least 125

worker militants remain in prison for being involved invarious strike actions or occupations and more than2,500 activists have faced criminalization.

The RCIT goes on to answer the question that if he wasnot a socialist why was he despised by the rich andpowerful?:

They hated him because Chavez stood at the top of aregime which had the support of only a minority of theVenezuelan capitalists and which had to rest on thelower grades of the army and the millions of workersand poor. It was a regime similar to those which

Trotsky analyzed in Mexico in the late 1930s and whichhe characterized as Bonapartist sui generis of adistinctive character.

Therefore the Chavez regimes was forced given themassive pressure from the workers and urban poor tosubsidize certain social reforms (misiones) which werebeneficial for the poorest strata of the population andwhich have contributed at least according to officialstatistics to a certain reduction of the extremeinequality of income in the country. The regime could doso because Venezuela is the fifth largest oil producer ofthe OPEC member states and its oil production and

trade accounts for roughly 30% of GDP, 94% of exportearnings, and more than 50% of the centralgovernments budget revenues. This gave the regime thematerial basis to finance certain social reforms.

In their rejection of Marxism not only does the PSUVabandon the centrality of the working class in making itsown revolution, they reject the need to end capitalistexploitation at the point of production, to expropriate thebig bourgeoisie and foreign capital-withoutcompensation. They reject the Marxist theory of the stateas they ignore the lessons of the Paris Commune-that theworking class cannot just lay its hands on the bourgeoisstate and administer it for its own historic interests andthat instead, the capitalist state apparatus (the military,

the legislature, the judiciary, the executive, thebureaucracy, the police and the prisons) must besmashed and replaced by the armed workers assemblies,guiding the task of social and economic reorganization toadvance and protect the process of the expropriation ofthe bourgeoisie and the socialization/negation of capital.Chavez rejected building up the workers assemblies toreplace bourgeois legislative and executive institutions.The popular assemblies in Venezuela were not organizedto replace the rule of the bourgeois state but rather tobuttress it.

In the Pantheon of Socialist Leaders

Taking his place alongside the defunct socialism of theKautskyian Social Democrats, the Mensheviks, Stalinistsand Maoists, Chavez rejected the revolutionary Marxistinsistence upon the political independence of theworking class. In his theory and practice he opposed theworkers organizing their own party and forming theirown working class dictatorship. His populist democratic

credentials were exposed as mere rhetoric as he rejectedthe best traditions of workers democracy (the right toform political factions) inside the PSUV while drawing toit layers of the national bourgeoisie including formercoup plotters.

Indeed embryonic stirrings of the new proletarian state(emergent whenever class independence, selforganization, and self armament takes place, such as incordones industriales and workers councils) inside theold state run counter to Chavezs project and needed tobe manipulated and declawed. The theoreticalfoundation upon which Chavismo is based is flawed and

will have to be defeated theoretically andorganizationally replaced with a revolutionary socialistworkers party in order to fight back the counter-revolution and make the socialist revolution possible.

It follows, like the cart follows the horse, that ifthe task of expropriating the big capitalists istaken off the table and foreign capital iscompensated for properties nationalized, thereis no need for the workers to have their ownclass independent party, or their own massassemblies, or their own armed brigades. Thebourgeois legislature, the bourgeois courts, the

professional army are, in the Chavez theory andpractice, the agency of Bolivarian Socialism;the entire history of class struggle undercapitalism teaches us this is a formula for thedefeat not the triumph of the working class.

The second time as farce

Instead of basing the Bolivarian Revolution firmly onmaterialist footing as Lenin had in 1917, Chavez, amoralist and idealist used his charisma, his moralcertitude (in himself-a strength of will) based upon his

roots from among the impoverished. His democraticcredentials became heroic when he led the failed coupagainst the oligarchy in 1992, winning to himself a

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following among a small layer of the capitalist class, theBolibourgeoisie. This layer was fed up with the powerof the oligarchy and the subservience of the economy toimperialism, yet was too weak itself to fight forindependence from imperialism and to establishsufficient national democracy to meet their needs anddesires. Today in the power vacuum following Chavezsdeath, it will aim to drive the PSUV further to the right.

This alliance that formed around Chavez of a sector ofthe capitalist class on one side, the strong populistBolivarian revolutionary leader mediating the state andthe unfulfilled masses striving for socialism on the otheris not an original historical drama. Chavez ignoredMarxs analysis of the French Revolution whereinBonapartism was identified. Therein Chavez may haveglimpsed a mirror image of himself bridging the gulfbetween irreconcilable social classes, limiting the drive ofthe most downtrodden toward socialism by sharing someof the wealth recouped from the oil rent bought backfrom imperialism, yet maintaining the social relations

inherent in the capitalist mode of production, throughwhich the workers exploitation is perpetuated.

The Populist Alliance buries the WorkersProgram turning Marxist theory inside out!

In Chavezs theory and practice he drew around him allthe forces of the left who traditionally join or give leftcover to popular fronts and cross-class alliances. Amongthose who have abandoned the fight for classindependence there is a coalescence of anti-Leninism,neo-Kautskyianism, World Social Forum (WSF) andlayers of fake Trotskyists (like Alan Woods whose IMT

drops its programmatic independence to join the PSUV,)and those who argue that underconsumption ratherthan overproduction is the explanation for the causeof the capitalist crisis replacing the need for socialplanning with Keynesian pump priming on theconsumption side

This intersection of Bolivarian Revolution-21st CenturySocialism and the Market Socialist example of China isheld up by both the Bolivarians and the InternationalCommunist League (ICL/Spartacist) as a model of a postcapitalist state, albeit one which is market-driven andfully integrated into the world of capitalist system of

finance, production for profit and market-drivendistribution.

If preparing the masses for the task of socialistconstruction is what Mike P. was referring to, thendespite the gains made by the masses during the era ofChavismo, el Commandante did not prepare the peoplefor the task ahead. Not unless his intention was toreplicate the super-exploitation for capitalistaccumulation which, for a strange confluence of theBolivarians, Marcyites, Robersonites, Castroites, andeven the Chinese Stalinist-capitalists themselves, ispassed off to the international workers as varied andsundry forms of a post-capitalist Workers Statethat isChina today (21st C. Socialism for the Bolivarians, Market

Socialism for the CCP, and Deformed Workers State forthe ICL.)

To build socialism the workers need their ownrevolutionary socialist party which must build arevolutionary international which refuses to compromisewith exploiters and oppressors. How can the exploitedVenezuelan workers make common cause with and

expect the support of the workers revolution inColombia, for example, when the PSUV collaboratesagainst the FARC; or solidarity with the super exploiteddiamond miners of Zimbabwe when Chavez embracestheir exploiter-Mugabe; otherwise the internationalproletarian unity needed to overthrow imperialism andall their lackeys will not be assembled.

Strange Bedfellows

As a leftist icon Chavez and his movement became amagnet for professed anti-capitalist, progressives, the

WSF, leftists, self-styled socialists, and even theHollywood set. From Oliver Stone, Danny Glover, andSean Penn, to Tariq Ali (one time leader of the USEC-Fourth International and current editor of New LeftReview,) Madea Benjamin (Code Pink,) Cindy Sheehan(the Peace mom,) Alan Woods (leader of the fakeTrotskyist IMT) and the Castro brothers (capitalistrestorationist leaders of the beleaguered Cuban people);progressives of all stripes found something in Chavez tocelebrate, encourage and support-a spark of hope in adark world.

And as could be expected, Chavez sought allies among

the enemies or supposed enemies of imperialism. Hefamously gave out copies of Simon Bolivars sword toheads of state whose anti-imperialism and nationbuilding he likened to Bolivars. Befriendingimperialisms list of bad boys, Ahmadinejad, Gaddafi,al-Assad, Castro, Mugabe, Morales as well as themoderates Lula, Zalaya, Kirchner and others, Chavezsought protection for Venezuela building alliances withother semi-colonial states. Yet, aside from Cuba, all thesenations were capitalist, in the worst of them cronycapitalism elevated the leaders families, clan and tribeswhile the masses and/or migrant labor were exploitedand oppressed. In an advanced semi-colony like Brazil

the Workers Partys (PTs) socialism had been reduced to

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la bolsa de familia, (a minimum grocery package forthe poor.)

In socialist Cuba a privileged bureaucracy, rather thanthe masses, ruled and were finding the maintenance oftheir privileges threatened by the isolation of the Cubandeformed workers state, so they were busily restoringcapitalism, turning beachfront property over to

imperialist hoteliers, inviting Spain, Canada and China toreap profit at the expense of the Cuban people who, inthe name of liberalization and reform, found themselvesthrown out of work by the tens of thousands! It was inCastro that Chavez found his special friend, mentorand trading partner. Indeed it was the oil for doctors andeducators trade that resulted in the most progressiveadvances for Venezuela and helped alleviate some of theeconomic (read oil) isolation Cuba had felt since thecounter-revolution in the USSR.

Of course you cant blame the President of a nation withone of the worlds largest oil reserves for being feted and

photographed with every imperialist thug and practicallyevery comprador bourgeois tin pot dictator on the planet.When you are in the oil business and the social programsyou promised to the people depend on your selling andburning every drop of fossil fuel rather thanexpropriating big capital and negating the exploitativerelations of production, you have to be very friendly; sofriendly in fact that this unsustainable aspect ofBolivarian Socialism and its inherent threat to theenvironment is ignored by the Greens and Green/Redalliance.

As the unfolding events in the Middle East and North

Africa have shown, imperialism will tolerate, many a tinpot dictator if they provide a service and are able tocontain the national revolution by keeping the workingclass in check. Mubarak contained the Egyptian massesand kept a lid on the Palestinian Revolution, Gaddafi, athorn in the side of imperialism for decades made niceand was accepted back into the fold in 2003 and Syriasal Assad, like Mubarak was a contract torturer for theCIA and both kept the Palestinian revolution in check forZionism. The imperialists stand by these thugs until itbecomes clear they could no longer contain the masses,sending imperialism to look for a new strongman, orcomprador layer, who while posing as democrats, step

into the leadership vacuum over the top of unfoldingrevolutions and contain them and restore capitaliststability for imperialist exploitation.

So it should have come as no surprise to the supportersof Gaddafi who place the responsibly for his downfall anddeath on imperialism rather than on the righteousuprising of the Libyan masses, or to Cindy Sheehan,whom Chavez dubbed Senora Esperanza, that ratherthan supporting her campaign for vice president in whichshe presented herself as a revolutionary socialist, anti-imperialist and a friend/supporter of Chavez, He choseto support Wall Streets pick for the CEO of US

imperialism, calling Obama a good guy and stating

that, If I were American, Id vote for Obama. Ironic? GoFigure!

The Revolutionary Socialist Road Forward

While socialists oppose the interventions andexploitation by imperialism of the semi- colonies we donot for a moment abandon the masses there who, in

order to survive find themselves in revolutionary struggleagainst capitalism as it is brutally maintained by the likesof Ahmadinejad, Gaddafi, al-Assad, Mugabe, Morales aswell as Dilma, Kirchner and others. Yet there are manyfake socialists who fawn obsequiously and abandon thesocialist revolution wherever a national liberationmovement arises that forms a bloc of classes, makessome progressive gains against direct imperialistdomination and exploitation, even when these regimessupport and maintain the power of the local bourgeoisieand cut new deals with imperialism at the expense ofsocialist revolution.

These self-styled Marxists from Alan Woods to Tariq Aliand Cindy Sheehan, make common cause, through theiruncritical alliance with Chavez, with the criminalexploiters of the masses in Syria, Libya, Zimbabwe, Iran,Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Nicaragua, Cuba and China.

Overcoming the legacy of Chavez the internationalworking class that of Latin America and of Venezuela inparticular must come to a clear theoreticalunderstanding of the role of a Bonaparte. A Bonaparte isa strongman who mediates between social classes butallows the dominant mode of production to remainintact. Out of such a theoretical re-evaluation an

international revolutionary Marxist workers party mustbe built to re-establish the working class program.

Comrade Earl Gilman warns that today following thepassing of Chavez a period of dual power is opening asthe Bolibourgeoisie in the PSUV and the governmentseek to appease the counter-revolution. We do not seethis as dual power in the classical sense. For dual powerto emerge the workers need to break from the popularfront and assert class independence. To defend the gainsof the workers movement, revolutionary workers inVenezuela need to advocate for the formation of workers,farmers and soldiers councils and militias and for seizingall power by a workers council government. That demandwill split the working class base of the PSUV and theregime away from the Bolibourgeoisie and statebureaucracy. Then we would have dual power. Whichwill open the road to socialism? To advocate for andmake this real the workers need their vanguard to beorganized as a combat party of professionalrevolutionaries.

March 10, 2013LiaisonCommittee of Communists.Online http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/hugo-

chavezs-death-and-way-forward-for.html

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Zimbabwe: Boycott the Referendum!

Smash the Popular Front!Zimbabwe is still reeling under the effects and impact ofthe more than a decade long socio- economic crisis that

has impoverished the working people and the ordinarypoor. Most workers were thrown out of employment withthose few in employment facing starvation wages andincreased attacks on their conditions. Students havewitnessed the erosion of the right to education whilst thepoor residents face the wrath of expensive andunavailable social services. Inspite of the so called landreform poor peasants continue to suffer with nomeaningful provision of inputs. Those in the informalsector are being harassedon a regular basis by thepolice and authorities forexercising the right to earn

an income.

With the global economiccrisis showing no sign ofabating, the hope that theGNU will provide respite toworkers and the poor hasbeen shattered as the civilservants and workers in theprivate sector are stillearning way below theliving wage and faceintensification in the

attacks on their workingconditions and livelihood. Instead all the parties in theGNU have shown their true colours and intentions tointensify the attacks in order to stabilise the capitalistsystem and semi colonial dictatorship on behalf of theirimperialist masters through putting the burden of payingfor the crisis on the shoulders of workers and theordinary poor. The draft constitution finally agreed uponby the three parties together with their imperialistmasters as well as the coming elections will act as thepolitical basis to further entrench exploitation andbrutality on the masses.

The draft Constitution, a result of a long imperialistscheme, was finally agreed upon in January this yearpaving the way for a referendum on the 16th of March2013. It is clear to everyone that the final document is aresult of negotiations and compromises by the parties onsecondary political aspects after having agreed on thebasic capitalist nature of our society and their mission tomanage the capitalist state through oppression of themasses and outright lies reflected by the initial July 2012draft. Both parties are claiming that the constitution is aproduct of the peoples views but at the same timepromise their supporters to change it once elected intooffice. So the three political parties in the GNU and anarray of civic organisations in tow are calling for a Yesvote on the draft as the best way forward in terms ofresolving the challenges facing the country.

This is not surprising, the civic groups aligned to ZANU(PF) who have benefitted from the patronage system and

those aligned to the MDC receiving funds from the sameimperialist donors are clamouring that the people acceptthe charter so that they protect their privileges and alsocontinue to receive donor funds. That the imperialistmasters have agreed to raise funds for the referendumand the elections testifies as to whom the draft seeks toprotect and the capitalist nature of the political regimethat is a popular front of the national bourgeoisie andpetit bourgeoisie.

On the other hand the NCA,ISO, PTUZ, ZINASU, ZCTUand other civic

organisations are calling forthe rejection of the draftthrough a No vote at thereferendum and they haveformed a United Front forthe purpose. Their maincontentions are that thedraft is a result of an elitistdriven process and besidesthis the draft itself is not areflection of what thepeople said as well that thedraft is not democratic and

further does not protect theinterests of the workers and the masses. Instead they arecalling for the government to facilitate the convening ofan independent commission to spearhead the drafting ofa people driven constitution. On top of that the NCA ischallenging the referendum date saying it does not offerthe people enough time to look at the draft and make aninformed decision.

As the Revolutionary Workers Group(RWG) we stronglyreject both the call for a Yes or No vote meant tohoodwink the workers, poor peasants, students andyouth, informal workers and the poor masses intobelieving that a good constitution can ,in a capitalistsociety , advance or even protect their interests. A Novote simply suggests that proposed draft is not good forthe ordinary poor and therefore must be rejected so thatpressure is put on the government to incorporate thewishes of the people or that a new so called people drivenprocess is instituted. This is utterly wrong andmisleading to the working people and the poor massesthat have to be told that a constitution will not offer thema living wage or a decent life but only an independentstruggle by the workers and the poor can conquer theirinterests.

Our position from the inception of the constitutional

reform process has been to urge for a boycott of thewhole process calling for the setting up of independent

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working class action organs to fight for jobs, land, freeeducation and real democracy. The reform process hasbeen used by both the national bourgeoisie and theirimperialist backers to stabilise the capitalist regime usingthe popular front government supported by various civicgroups and pseudo leftist groups who have been exposedby their participation in the process and now are callingfor a Vote No and thereby seeking to protect the basis ofthe popular front and capitalist oppressions. We call onall struggle organisations to meet as soon as possible andconstitute a United Front to spearhead the demand foran active Boycott of the referendum.

The RWG calls for these demands:

1) Active BOYCOTT against this referendum!

2) Break with the MDC and ZANU (PF) popularfront that serves in Zimbabwe the plans of theimperialist super exploiters!

3) Build an independent organisation of

workers, students, poor peasants and urban

poor based struggle committees coordinatednationally to prepare for a National Congress ofDelegates of all organisations in struggle.

4) Forward to a national General Strike andWorkers and Poor Farmers government basedon struggle committees.

5) Forward to the expropriation without

compensation and under workers control of allthe assets of imperialism and the nationalbourgeoisie.

6) Forward to a Federation of Socialist Republicsof all Africa.

REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS GROUP (RWG)Zimbabwe 25 February 2013Online http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/boycott-referendum-smash-popular-front.html

Socialism vs Climate CatastropheThe standard social democratic view of eco-socialism isthat we can reform capitalism to avoid ClimateCatastrophe (CC). For example:

Ecosocialism is at thejunction of anti-capitalistenvironmentalism andsocialism free fromproductivism, in a projectthat proposes analternative society of hope.This is no utopia withwhich reality shouldcomply, but a rationalhuman response to thedouble impasse ofcapitalism and theobsession withproductivity. Our thoughts and political actions areradical: they go to the root causes. We therefore fight

what drives the system: consumerism geared towardsmaterial accumulation thus widening socialinequalities, the productivity-oriented system whichexhausts our ecosystems resources, the globalisation ofthe economy that allows for social and environmentaldumping. We point to the real culprits: the financialoligarchy and the ideologists who advocate "free andfair" competition and trade.

Yet if we continue to use fossil fuels in this way for thenext 20 years while re reform capitalism this willguarantee we have no future. Why, because 2 degreesbecomes 6 degrees and with catastrophic consequences.The most recent scenario from Guy McPherson showsthat we are headed for near-term human extinction

whatever we do. He says that we can prolong the term ofthe extinction by collapsing industrial society now. But ofcourse as a non-Marxist he does not say it is capitalismrather than industrialism as such that is the problem.

While McPherson talks ofstopping Arctic drilling asthe one positive feedbackthat we could control, hedoes not envisage the linkbetween this and a widersocial revolution globallythat can make a differenceon how long we have got.The point is we need asocialist revolution to takeadvantage of the advancesin green technology. For

example mining Lithium in Bolivia is open to technicalimprovements in method of production while the

Morales populist government is in power. A leftGovernment in NZ could enter into a progressive tradeswap, but obviously this has to take place on a globalscale to have any effect on climate change.

We dont think that China is a socialist regime but itsworking class can demand major changes if mobilised.China is actually leading in green technology purely inorder to avoid the increasing costs of extracting fossilfiuels. Of course to catch up and pass its rivals China hasbecome the the biggest emitter. Thats why who rulesChina is decisive. The biggest factor that we should bepushing hard is the capacity of the Chinese working classto overthrow the CCP and implement a socialist plan forsurvival.

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When science tells us what is necessary to survive, then itbecomes clear that this requires collective action toremove the barriers to survival. The problem with eventhe most radical CC position (eg McPherson) is that itseconomic assumptions are still based on the market andbourgeois individualism. They may be top climatescientists but they are still no more than bourgeoisindividuals appealing to other individuals to refuse toparticipate in capitalism rather than organising to smashcapitalism

The biggest barrier is the capitalist system, its stateapparatus and its corporate media that treats CC as atechnical or market problem. Anypolitical partythat stillthinks that bourgeois parliament is a means of escapingor limiting CC is part of the problem. It is invested in apolitical institution that is the sum of its individualcitizens. Its designed to facilitate and defend the market,not eliminate it as the agent of human extinction!

How to stop human extinction

How to stop human extinction? Its obvious that thisrequires a social revolution and who is going to do thatother than revolutionaries? Revolution as the alternativeto human extinction doesnt get the usual leftwingnutter response today except from right wing nutters.Nothing is worse than extinction. Nothing concentratesthe mind like the fear of losing everything. We need asocialist plan now to work out how to collectively get ridof capitalism and implement the necessary survivalmeasures. Here is a proposed plan for discussion:

First: Energy. All production based on fossil fuels

needs to stop and be replaced by renewable fuels. Theenergy sources will need to be those which dont putcarbon into the atmosphere. We need to renationaliseunder workers control the power companies, and thenational grid and plan renewable energy use. Solar powerand electric technology can be developed more rapidly ifthey dont depend on the profit motive

Second: Industry. Most capitalist owners of industrywill never agree to immediate conversion to non-carbonburning fuels so will have to be nationalised underworkers control and management. Those that do useHEP can be converted such as the Tiwai Pt AluminiumSmelter to produce aluminium for solar panels andvehicles etc. NZ Steel would be renationalised andupgraded to the latest electric smelters based on localiron sand.

Third: Land-use. Intensive dairying and othermonocrop production needs to be diversified andconverted to organic to stop chemical pollution anddespoliation of land and water. This will mean a statepolicy of nationalising land and allocating resources likewater, and replacing capitalist production with collectiveproduction, while compensating small producers.

Fourth: Work. We need a state run policy of PublicWorks that creates full employment. All work would be

divided among those who want to work and hoursreduced until there was full employment. There would bea guaranteed living wage based on the average wage, andno worker would earn more than double the living wage.

Fifth: Social Security. State provided seculareducation, comprehensive health and housing wouldmeet the need for fit, healthy and skilled workers.Technical education and Research would be directed atnew technologies. For those who cannot work there willbe a social wage at set at the level of the living wage. Allprivate provision of health, education and other socialservices will be phased out without compensation.

Sixth: Transport. Transport would be converted toelectricity and public transport expanded. Convertingcars and short range trucks to electricity is feasible.Biodiesel would be a stopgap measure. NZR workshopscould produce aluminium rolling stock, buses andcontainers.. Reviving coastal shipping using biodiesel isanother option.

Seventh: Finance. All banks would be nationalisedand turned into a single State Bank. Farmers who choseto lease nationalised land collectively or individuallywould get bank loans to convert their production. AllACC, EQC and insurance would be nationalised underworkers control.

Eighth: Trade. Planning the economy cannot be donein isolation of the global economy. Nobody wants to goback to pre-industrial self-reliance based on outdatedtechnology. NZ can develop its economy to produce whatis most efficient and sustainable, and trade with other

countries for their products. For example lets trade ourdairy products for Bolivias lithium for batteries and forChinas rare earths.

A state-managed plan capable of the above would clearlybe based on a socialist plan. All of this is possible if wehave the will to survive. None of this is compatible withcapitalism which is hell bent on destruction. It wouldtake a socialist revolution backed by the majorityworking class to put a Government of Workers Councilsin power to conceive, plan and implement this survivalstrategy.

To achieve this plan would require a process ofdemocratic planning able to assess and prioritisepeoples needs and resource use to meet those needs.This would include the use of human labour and the howmuch of the product went to workers for their labourcompared to collective savings for a social developmentfund to increase productivity and reduce work hours. Theonly thing between us and extinction is socialism.

Onlinehttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/socialism-vs-climate-catastrophe.html

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What We Fight For

Overthrow Capitalism

Historically, capitalism expanded world-wide to freemuch of humanity from the bonds of feudal or tribal

society, and developed the economy, society and cultureto a new higher level. But it could only do this byexploiting the labour of the productive classes to make itsprofits. To survive, capitalism became increasinglydestructive of "nature" and humanity. In the early 20thcentury it entered the epoch of imperialism in whichsuccessive crises unleashed wars, revolutions andcounter-revolutions. Today we fight to end capitalismswars, famine, oppression and injustice, by mobilisingworkers to overthrow their own ruling classes and bringto an end the rotten, exploitative and oppressive societythat 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 andmodern industry capable of meeting all our basic needs.The potential to eliminate poverty, starvation, diseaseand war has long existed. The October Revolution provedthis to be true, bringing peace, bread and land tomillions. But it became the victim of the combinedassault of imperialism and Stalinism. After 1924 theUSSR, along with its deformed offspring in Europe,degenerated back towards capitalism. In the absence of aworkers political revolution, capitalism was restored

between 1990 and 1992. Vietnam and China thenfollowed. In the 21sst century only Cuba and North Koreasurvive as degenerate workers states. We unconditionallydefend these states against capitalism and fight forpolitical revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy as partof world socialism.

Defend Marxism

While the economic conditions for socialism exist today,standing between the working class and socialism arepolitical, social and cultural barriers. They are the

capitalist state and bourgeois ideology and its agents.These agents claim that Marxism is dead and capitalismneed not be exploitative. We say that Marxism is a livingscience that explains both capitalisms continuedexploitation and its attempts to hide class exploitationbehind the appearance of individual "freedom" and"equality". It reveals how and why the reformist, Stalinistand centrist misleaders of the working class tie workersto bourgeois ideas of nationalism, racism, sexism andequality. Such false beliefs will be exploded when thestruggle against the inequality, injustice, anarchy andbarbarism of capitalism in crisis, led by a revolutionaryMarxist party, produces a revolutionary class-

consciousness.

For a Revolutionary Party

The bourgeois and its agents condemn the Marxist partyas totalitarian. We say that without a democratic and a

centrally organised party there can be no revolution. Webase our beliefs on the revolutionary tradition ofBolshevism and Trotskyism. Such a party, armed with atransitional program, forms a bridge that joins the dailyfight to defend all the past and present gains won fromcapitalism, to the victorious socialist revolution.Defensive struggles for bourgeois rights and freedoms,for decent wages and conditions, will link up thestruggles of workers of all nationalities, genders,ethnicities and sexual orientations, bringing aboutmovements for workers control, political strikes and thearming of the working class, as necessary steps toworkers' power and the smashing of the bourgeois state.

Along the way, workers will learn that each new step isone of many in a long march to revolutionise everybarrier 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 ofmeeting all human needs. Against the ruling class liesthat capitalism can be made "fair" for all; that nature canbe "conserved"; that socialism and communism are"dead"; we raise the red flag of communism to keep alivethe revolutionary tradition of the' Communist Manifesto

of 1848, the Bolshevik-led October Revolution; the ThirdCommunist International until 1924, the revolutionaryFourth International up to 1940 before its collapse intocentrism. We fight to build a new, Fifth, CommunistInternational, as a world party of socialism capable ofleading workers to a victorious struggle for socialism.

Class Struggle is the bi-Monthly paper of

the Communist Workers Group ofNew Zealand/Aotearoa, in aLiaison Committee of Communists

with Communist Workers Group(USA) andRevolutionaryWorkers Group (Zimbabwe)

Online at http://redrave.blogspot.comPhone +64 0272800080Email [email protected]

Archivehttp://communistworker.blogspot.com/

CS 104

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Transcript of CS 104